Time to read: 13 minutes
In this week’s newsletter:
The Timbit Times
Kate Film Club 28 of 52: “Pat & Mike” (1952)
Kate Film Club 29 of 52: “Summertime” (1955)
French Study
We Can Have Nice Things
It’s been four and a half months since my previous “Week in Review” dispatch. Things have been wacky around here, and some parts have been seriously scary. I started writing in detail about what happened, and it basically turned into its own blog post. I may publish it separately later, because I think accounts of serious illness flares are helpful to share—especially for a heavily-marginalized illness like ME/CFS. But today I just want to get back on the weekly newsletter horse to finish out 2024 with a habit that’s important to me, and to hopefully start 2025 afresh, and that means keeping the bar low.
When we last left our heroine…
Since August, I’ve: successfully dodged covid when one of my friends in the main house had it, got dangerously borked by a medication change plus two overlapping pharmacy fuck-ups, ended up in the ER, started a new and complex treatment plan in September to help my body pull out of the borking, which helped with some symptoms and caused entirely new ones, then was started on a different new and complex treatment plan in October and November, which did some good things and some bad things while I ended up in the ER yet again. I’ve developed a new onset citric acid intolerance and on/off shortness of breath issues seemingly out of nowhere. I also spent most of the past few months dealing with severe morning episodes of tachycardia, dangerously exacerbated POTS, and the worst sensations of doom I’ve ever experienced in my life. It’s like my usual MCAS doom but cranked up to a screeching 11 out of 10. I was having some days, some weeks, where I was experiencing it all day long, not just when my mast cells seemed to be acutely complaining about something.
It was hell. I don’t know how else to describe it. I think I have the nerves of like a special ops solider at this point. Or maybe an ER doctor—it’s really not an exaggeration to say I have to be my own ER triage nurse and treating physician, round the clock, no breaks. (This is no shade to my main treating doctor, who is amazing. There are just a lot of nitty-gritty treatment details that are necessarily left to me to figure out based on how my body responds to things in real-time.) The excess doom in particular has been traumatizing, it’s otherworldly. I imagine this must be what a bad acid trip feels like. This is, funnily enough, why I’ve never been interested in trying LSD. Yet here I am experiencing some of the worst psychological states available to the human brain anyway.
I’m not out of the woods yet—my baseline is still much worse than it was in August and there’s still the whole citric acid and shortness of breath issues we yet to figure out—but I’m at least beginning to stabilize. Also on the bright side, I finally got myself to my friend’s place in Michigan a couple weeks ago! I was originally supposed to be out here in September the same week that everything fell apart. As suspected, I’m already doing a bit better being out of the moldy Pacific Northwest rainy season. Also as suspected, my nervous system is much happier living with a good friend instead of facing very scary symptoms while isolated. I may be adding another couple consulting specialists to my case to guide some upcoming treatments that I see as a sort of boss level of my illness journey, and I hope to talk more about that next time.
Anyway, we’ll see. In the meantime, I am so incredibly grateful to the friends old and new who have been pulling me through this difficult time. And I’m excited that I at least have a bit of energy to get a fresh newsletter installment sent out.
This week I’ve got a Katherine Hepburn double-header for you, thoughts on the only downside of tiny home life, and a defense of doing homework in bed. C’est parti!
The Timbit Times
Usually I include a photo with this section, but I’m not this time around because the thing I want to talk about is how Timbit is such a mess right now. And the reason Timbit is a disorganized mess is not just because I’m too physically limited at the moment to be able to do my own housework, but rather—I have so, so many medications.
Before moving into a tiny house, I of course thought a lot about the prospect to make sure it was right for me, but I still worried there may be devils in the details that I would only discover once I’ve moved in. Well, I’ve been living in my tiny house for a bit over a year now, and I have to say: on the whole, it’s actually been nicer than I expected. Part of that, since I’m so sick, is that it’s really convenient to have everything—couch, bathroom, kitchen—so close together to minimize walking.
The main downside though, is the minimal storage. I think my ideal tiny house set-up would include a full garage or at least a shed where I could store a lot of stuff. But even if I had that, the storage situation is further complicated for me because I have so many medications that need to be kept at a moderate temperature. So they really need to be stored indoors, in Timbit. And Timbit is a wee boy with only so much space.
This has been additionally exacerbated by the rapid treatment plan changes I’ve been navigating in the past few months: there’s been a lot of new stuff to buy, and a lot of things that weren’t working out so they needed to be ditched. So now I’ve also got this supplement graveyard that I need to manage somehow. I don’t like throwing things away, but I also don’t know what to do with open bottles. Unopened things I donate to a PDX Free Fridge. But for opened bottles, it’s almost like we need some sort of complex illness buddy forum where people can list things they’ve tried but haven’t worked out. Because even if it doesn’t work for you, it’s probably a key part of someone else’s treatment and they’d be happy for some discounted/free stuff!
Anyway, I’m still very much a proponent of tiny home living as a way to meet our collective housing and climate needs, however, if I were to decide to continue with it after my stay in Michigan, I would need to figure out some different storage solutions for my huge stash of medications and supplements.
Kate Film Club, 28 of 52:
“Pat and Mike” (1952)
We’ve got ourselves another Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn movie on our hands here; the internet tells me it’s the seventh of nine total. One thing that’s been interesting about watching the evolution of the two of them acting together, is how you can tell in these later movies that she’s really grown quite fond of him. I think you could tell in the very first movie they were in together (Woman of the Year), that Tracy was wildly in love with Hepburn from the beginning, whereas it seemed like acting together was still business as usual for her. But in these later movies, the inability to hide their fondness of the other is mutual.
This is a movie about a woman athlete finding her way in the world. (In the 1950s, no less!) The story starts off with us being shown how suffocating and overbearing Hepburn’s fiancé is. She works at a university as a woman’s basketball coach (she is exceptionally believable in such a role) but herself competes athletically on the side in a variety of events. She runs into Tracy, a seedy pro athletic manager, at a ladies’ golf tournament where he tries to convince her to take a bribe in exchange for letting someone else win. Hepburn refuses, and Tracy sees she’s an athlete determined to stick to principles.
After the tournament, an impulsive decision by Hepburn takes her to New York City to see if Tracy will take her on as a management client—anything to avoid returning home with her fiancé. He agrees, and the adventure begins. But in a way, she’s really just swapped out the man who has control of her life, without taking control of her life for herself. This is, ostensibly, a rom-com, but the story focuses on Hepburn’s character figuring out what she wants from life and how to take charge herself to get it.
The sports scenes were pretty fun, and the hallucination scene during a tennis match was quite funny. Unsurprisingly, this is another George Cukor movie; I’ve been generally enjoying his movies during this project so far!
Rating: 3/5 – The ending was a little rushed, but otherwise it was a fine film and a good time.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Apple or Amazon.
Quote: “I don’t think you’ve ever been properly handled.” “That’s right, not even by myself.”
Kate Film Club, 29 of 52:
“Summertime” (1955)
It’s just as well I had a few months to think about this movie before writing a review of it, because it’s been haunting my thoughts this whole time. It’s been interesting watching my impression of it evolve from the moment the movie ended (“that’s it?! that’s the ending?! I’m so disappointed!”), to thinking maybe that was the only sensible way to end such a movie, to further reflecting on my own solo travels and the experience of being 40 and single and eventually arriving at “this movie is brilliant!”.
It’s the only Katharine Hepburn movie that’s available on the Criterion Channel, perhaps the fact it takes a slow-burn mulling to really get to the heart of it is why. But first let me back up and tell you what this movie is about.
“Summertime” features Hepburn as a mid-40s spinster who’s taking a long-dreamed-about trip to Venice. She meets some other tourists, but everyone else seems to be in couples. So she ho-hums around Venice by herself, taking photos of beautiful things and sitting in the main plaza, sometimes accompanied by a fast-talking kid happy to earn a quick buck by being her guide. She catches the eye of a handsome local antiques shop dealer, and at first waffles about whether to engage in an affair with him. The moment she’s ready to be all-in, a twist arises, making the decision about whether to continue the affair a complex one. Another major decision comes at the end of the movie, when she’s struggling with what to do as her scheduled vacation comes to an end. (I won’t spoil it for you!)
“Summertime” was filmed on location in Venice and the cinematography does not disappoint. This is a movie I’m certain I’ll return to again in the future, if for no other reason than to visually escape to a different, beautiful part of the globe.
There’s an angle that I need to explore for a moment that isn’t just about this particular movie. One thing that’s been tricky to understand as a viewer watching 80 year old movies sometimes is the social politics around women not being allowed to express romantic or sexual desire forthrightly. I used to think the Christmas song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” was a bit rape-y—she’s saying she needs to leave while he’s talking her into another drink!—before reading an article many years ago that dissected how women weren’t supposed to straightforwardly express interest in sex, even when someone else was doing the initiation. (An expectation that, I might emphasize, serves literally no one.) The article defended “Baby It’s Cold Outside” as the only way women could engage in (desired!) sex, that is to simultaneously maintain a plausible deniability as to whether they really intended it to happen or not. (Ah well, it was just so cold outside, you see…) This is a movie that very much exists in that historical context. Hepburn’s character is portrayed as a rather puritanical American at the start, alarmed by the Italian forthrightness of her would-be suitor. But given that she’s not on home turf, is it possible she can allow herself to simply live and love openly?
There’s so much more I could say, other angles I could explore here, but I think I’ll sum it up by saying that this a movie about reconsidering the things you thought you knew. With gorgeous scenery. Definitely worth a watch!
Rating: 4.5/5 – The fact the city of Venice itself is a supporting character gives this rating an extra half point bump.
Where to watch: If you have a subscription to the Criterion Channel, it’s available there to stream. Apple TV also appears to have it by funneling you off to Plex, while Amazon will funnel you off to MAX if you have it, or you can rent it directly from Amazon.
Quote: “Relax and the world is beautiful. Take a deeper breath like for singing.”
French Study
Long time newsletter readers and/or social media followers will know: when I hit patches where I’m too sick to even take online group French classes, my mental health really suffers. I had hoped to take the B2-2 level through the Alliance Française Boston this fall but had to withdraw from that after my health’s spectacular unraveling.
In the meantime, I’ve developed a habit of doing French worksheets in bed. I’m not sure why it took me so long to realize there are plenty of workbooks out there, even at the B2 level, that you can just buy and work through at your own speed. And there’s something soothing about the structured environment of worksheets that lends itself well to a bedtime wind-down routine. (I mean, at least for this language nerd, your mileage may vary.) It also helps cut down on evening screen time!, using a paper workbook to study instead of being on one’s phone.
We Can Have Nice Things
Homebound (or quasi-homebound) and need a notary public? I gotchu! I set up a mail forwarding service for while I’m away from Oregon, and as part of the process I had to get a form notarized. I’d never gotten anything notarized in my life before, and was surprised at how formal the experience was—although it was also very brief!, so there’s that. Anyway, I had a good experience with NotaryCam, so FYI if anyone else is ever in a similar position, I can vouch that they were easy to work with, efficient, and professional.
As I look forward to 2025, I’m probably going to change up this section of my newsletter. I read a lot of articles online while spending my days mostly stuck in bed, and I’m thinking about making a curated selection of things I’ve read and would recommend each week. We really are living in the Information Age: there’s more stuff to read than ever but few tools to decide what’s worth our precious time reading. I think personally-curated lists have some role to play in helping each other find the worthwhile signal in the noise.
Anyway, I’ll have more to say about 2025 later this week. Happy New Year, everybody!
Kate Violette 