Kate Violette

Time to read: 12 minutes.

In this week’s newsletter:
The Timbit Times
Kate Film Club, 24 of 52: “Song of Love”
Kate Film Club, 25 of 52: “State of the Union”
French Study
We Can Have Nice Things

This past week was dominated by medical admin things, the biggest of which was looping back to finish my notes on proposed dosing for the “Born Free” protocol. (I had first attempted this in April.) This is a protocol being developed by some independent researchers in Australia, focused on ME/CFS and similar complex illnesses, that proposes these illnesses are a combination of insufficiently-addressed chronic infection and nutrient deficiencies (including micronutrients that you wouldn’t normally see on nutritional labels, like germanium). The nutritional dosing is highly individual and complex, and the overall protocol document is over 50 pages. I began my note-taking adventure in April, and just finished it this past week and got my proposed dosing formula (all 62 lines of it) to my doctor. Altogether, it took me about 8 hours, and I suspect there will still be some time spent discussing with my doctor to nail down some of the finer details.

In other medical news, it appears we could maybe scrap the idea of using itraconazole to round out my pre-antibiotic preparation and use oral amphotericin B instead. (If you recall from prior weeks–itraconazole 200mg daily was causing QT interval prolongation for me.) I’m also in the early days of trialing horse chestnut extract for the increase in hypermobility I’ve been experiencing since on the nystatin.

I really didn’t get to do much this past week other than medical stuff, and fully catching up on my Katharine Hepburn movie watching schedule! I’ve got another double header movie review for you this week, a mini educational piece on managing air quality in tiny homes (or any home!), and notes on how I’ve hacked my nightly face care routine into something I can do entirely lying down in bed. It’s a very nice way to end the day and get ready for sleep, in a POTS-friendly way!

The Timbit Times

Due to the pandemic, indoor air quality is starting to get the attention it rightfully deserves as an important factor in human health. Earlier in the pandemic, I bought an Aranet so that I could be better aware of the level of outdoor air ventilation in a space. Aranet devices tell you how much CO₂ is in the air, which can be interpreted as a proxy for how much exhaled human breath is in the air. There are some exceptions to this with materials that are known to “off-gas”, as I found out one time I left a paper plate of wet acrylic paint sitting right next to my Aranet device for several hours and my CO₂ measurement climbed to the three-thousands. But largely you can understand the readings as: higher CO₂ means more human breath in the air because less outdoor air is being brought in to replenish the overall air composition of the room you’re in. In the context of COVID, this means that if any of those humans are exhaling virus, you’re going to be exposed to a higher concentration of such in the air at higher CO₂ levels than you would be in a room with a lower CO₂ reading.

But even beyond COVID, there are studies showing that high CO₂ levels can have a deleterious effect on our brains. There has been repeated research showing that lower CO₂ levels in classroom air correlate with better academic performance and higher test scores. So!, even in the absence of a pandemic, it behooves us to get hip to indoor CO₂ levels. I’ve kept my Aranet on my window sill since moving into Timbit, and recently my helper person installed it on the top of my window frame for even better visibility. You’d be surprised how quickly the CO₂ level can rise even with just one person inside a tiny home!

Luckily, I opted for an HRV system for my home, which is recommended in new builds (both tiny and regular foundation homes) to help the home “breathe” like older homes, but in a more energy efficient fashion. The main intent is to control humidity, but it also improves CO₂ levels since you’re pulling in outdoor air. I usually keep the HRV system on maximum flow, and that does a good job of managing CO₂ and humidity, but every once in a while I’ll need to open a window, especially if other people are over, too. Anyway, I’m happy my Aranet, which I frequently keep an eye on throughout the day, now has a permanent little fixture in an easily-viewable place.

(I can discuss more about HRV & ERV systems next time if people are interested!)

Kate Film Club, 24 of 52:
“Song of Love” (1947)

This is more or less a true story about the composers Clara and Robert Schumann (of the German early Romantic period), although a fair amount of liberty was taken with how other real life characters featured in the story, notably Johannes Brahms. In real life, Brahms just happened to visit a lot as a friend of the family; in the movie, Brahms actually moves in. I quite like the story portrayed in the movie, even if it wasn’t exactly the truth. The friendship among the three of them provided fun “Jules et Jim” vibes, with the bonus of a less tragic ending. (“Jules et Jim” is a big-time classic of French cinema, I highly recommend watching it even if just to catch up on the many cultural references to it. There’s a spoof on a famous scene in the Netflix show “Emily in Paris”, even!) I digress. The point is I love movies about the messy, swirling eddies between platonic and romantic love among more than two people. I love mess!

But ultimately, “Song of Love” is mostly about the challenges Robert faced in composing (namely his health), and the extent to which Clara—a noted concert pianist who was more famous than her husband in their lifetimes—was determined to make sure his music was heard by the public the way she believed it should be. These are earnest characters who believe in and suffer for their art. The music is also excellent, and used to expert effect within the narrative itself and larger cinematic atmosphere. Liszt makes several appearances, all of them fun, and there was something about the actor that quite reminded me of Alan Rickman, which I found incredibly charming. Rickman would have made an amazing Liszt himself, I’d wager.

As for our recurring heroine Katharine Hepburn, I quite liked her in this role. She made a point to be able to actually play in most of the piano scenes, including many of the rather difficult passages, which was impressive. The actual sound was later played by a professional pianist and attached to the video, for all of the actors/actresses, but Hepburn came pretty close to playing all of her pieces herself while others largely spoofed it. Major props from me. Anyway, as with “Break of Hearts”, the fact that music itself features so prominently in this film makes it an instant favorite of mine. I can see myself watching this again in the future.

Rating: 4/5 – “Jules et Jim” vibes but a better ending!
Where to watch: I had to find this one on DVD. Try your local library!
Quote: “We could never buy a friend like you in any market.”

Kate Film Club, 25 of 52:
“State of the Union” (1948)

Ok so I know this 2024 movie goal is all about watching every one of Katharine Hepburn’s movies, but we’re gonna have to talk about Angela Lansbury in this movie also because she was excellent. “State of the Union” follows a few main characters. We’ve got Spencer Tracy as the sort of businessman-but-everyman that’s being talked into running for President of the United States, that’ll remind modern viewers of Jed Bartlett. We’ve got Katharine Hepburn as his wife, watching in dismay as he struggles with the pressures of political maneuvering reality. And we’ve got Lansbury as the tough-as-nails, woman in a man’s world owner of a set of influential newspapers, who is puppeteering Tracy’s character’s campaign from behind the scenes. Add in a couple of memorable campaign managers and it’s a cast prepared to show you an entirely good time.

I would categorize “State of the Union” as a dramedy, I think. It has a bit of satire, but it’s not entirely that. As my above reference to Jed Bartlett suggests, it certainly has “West Wing” vibes but in feature length movie form. There are some great monologues and even individual lines that had me cheering and/or rueing the state of American politics as they’ve evidently been for at least the past 80+ years. I deeply wish we could get our act together and be even a halfway decent country. This movie didn’t give me hope for that, and that’s even in spite of an ending that’s intended to be positive. But it at least made me feel a bit less disoriented, knowing that there are at least some other folks who see clearly the bullshit that is American politics, for what it really is.

Rating: 3.5/5 – For “West Wing” fans, fans of big scenes in old movies that must have taken a lot of work to put together, and anyone looking to familiarize themselves with early career Lansbury, who is evidently a total badass.
Where to watch: Streaming on Apple and Amazon.
Quote: “I don’t believe that. You can’t ‘deliver’ the votes of a free people.” “…the lazy people, ignorant people, and prejudiced people are not free.”

French Study

I’ve been increasingly watching French tv shows just because I can and because there are shows I’m interested in beyond simply being a vehicle for learning French. This past week I was watching my usual trivia game show “Questions pour un champion” and the clue was asking for the name of a tv show where they stick 10 comedians in a big room for 6 hours, and each person has to try to make the others laugh without laughing themselves. The French version is based on a Japanese show, evidently. Anyway, turns out it’s called “LOL: Qui rit, sort” (literally: “LOL: Who Laughs, Leaves”) and it’s a real hoot. Painfully funny. I binged the whole first season over two days, it’s that good.

The other show I watched this week beyond my usual trivia and morning talk show was a science documentary on the Khmer Empire (decidedly not to be confused with the Khmer Rogue). They were a civilization from roughly 800 to 1400 AD in SE Asia, responsible for, most notably, Angkor Wat, but they did a ton of building beyond that one site. Historians believe they were the first civilization to have a society-wide network of hospitals! I notice that when I’m consuming media concerning a specific domain, I pick up new vocabulary well, since there are usually some words that get repeated a lot within that subject. “Entailler” (to cut, score, nick) was used a lot during this show and I suspect that one will stick with me thanks to all the images of Khmer temples and explanations of their interesting building methods!

We Can Have Nice Things

One mission I continue to slog away on is how to make myself want to get to bed sooner, instead of it being like pulling teeth every night to get myself off the couch and trudge through my evening routine. In my defense, taking all the meds I need to take before bed is an hour-long runway at minimum: in addition to normal people things like flossing and brushing my teeth, I need to take pills, an electrolyte and cromolyn drink, sublingual tablets, do a nasal rinse, and then a nasal nebulizer, cleaning the nasal rinse and nebulizer devices, then an hour after I last put anything else in my stomach, I need to take more pills and another cromolyn drink. I also need to put an ice pack on my chest for 30 minutes before sleeping. It’s all A Bit Fucking Much.

One thing that used to be a part of my evening routine—that feels happy and relaxing instead of a chore—is cleaning my face and neck and putting nice moisturizers and treatments on them. But standing at the sink even more than my medications already require me to do is just not possible for me right now. So I recently decided to try to figure out if I could do a sink-less version of my skincare routine while lying down in bed! I use micellar water instead of standing at the sink with a cleanser that needs to be washed off. I then follow with my routine as normal: eye cream, a hydrating serum, a moisturizer, and lastly my favorite lip balm. Your mileage may vary of course since everyone’s face tolerates different things, but it’s been working really well for me so far. It’s also incredibly relaxing, and can be done during my ice pack half hour! Wins all around. Below is a list of what’s currently in my nighttime skincare line-up!