Square 1.1

For those of you who don't know, I struggle with some health problems. The whole mess was originally touched off by an Epstein-Barr infection that didn't follow any of the usual patterns. I have never fully recovered from that experience.

I have managed to assemble an arsenal of techniques that allow me to function somewhat. Not enough to have a regular job, or even a less conventional job, but somewhat. Last weekend (just in time for my birthday!) that all came crashing down. I am currently experiencing symptoms that feel very similar to when I first got sick.

I do have some things going for me this time around. I feel awful, but now I know I'm probably not in any serious danger. That gives me a confidence to keep trying that I didn't have when I first got sick. Fear and uncertainty can be almost as debilitating as physical symptoms!

So, I'm going to work on getting healthier and stronger again, and I'll make another attempt at this blog thing at a later date. I have some ideas that I hope people will find very helpful.

Next post: Wednesday, 31 October, 2018 (ish)

Recipes for the soul

I took another opportunity to voice my displeasure with organized religion. As much as a part of my mind wants to inhabit the mystical world, I have yet to find an organized religion I don't have a problem with. Every one of them has, in one way or another, severely abused their power. I would trust none of them with any part of who I am, least of all my soul.

I'm sure there are some people reading this who are part of an organized religion. I'm sure most of you try not to abuse or oppress people, and I'm sure you have your reasons for living your life the way you do.

There are probably some people reading this whose paradigm does not include a spiritual world at all. I get what you're saying, but my mind stubbornly refuses to live in that world. And it becomes very distracting and unproductive when I try to make it.

My husband is familiar with my feelings, but it came up again in a conversation earlier this week. He asked me, if that's how I feel, how would one build a spiritual community without organized religion?

I think that's an important question, so I gave it some thought. I started thinking about food. Food preparation wasn't well understood at first. We had a few things that worked, and some aspects of it were heavily codified. Now we have millions of recipes that we exchange among ourselves. And I don't think the sense of community that cooking evokes has been diminished.

Perhaps we should start exchanging "recipes for spirituality." We could even throw pot-luck blessings for our family and friends.

Next post: Wednesday, 24 October, 2018 (ish)

Life and (programmed) death

I woke up yesterday feeling like I should try to get out of the house. Much to my disappointment, it stopped raining almost as soon as I stepped outside. It made me wish I had brought my umbrella, or at least one of my big hats. I saw a hawk diving for a squirrel. I rescued an earthworm. I was made aware of a music video that I was really excited about. Overall, I rejoiced at life.

The middle of my day was spent reading about death. Programmed cell death, to be specific. I had actually planned to make this a science post. It's still going to be, but my reading never crystallized into a focused topic, so this stream of consciousness shit is what you get this time.

I have been aware of a lot of the ins and outs of programmed cell death for over ten years now, starting when I took a course on the molecular biology of cancer. A major group of players in its regulation are a family of enzymes called caspases. I've known about these enzymes for years, and it wasn't until yesterday that I bothered to pay attention to why they're called "caspases."

Caspases are proteases. They break down proteins by transferring electrons to the protein's structural backbone. The caspases achieve this with cysteine, which is incorporated into their amino acid sequence. Cysteine is good at transferring electrons! But caspases are very specific about where in a protein's structure this reaction occurs. They cleave proteins specifically at the site of an aspartate amino acid. They utilize cysteine to catalyze a reaction at the site of an aspartic acid, and it acts as a protease - caspase!

I really should have picked that up years ago ... but then I might not be telling you about it right now, would I?

Here are my interesting and slightly dark thoughts for the day: 1) In the absence of a malfunction, our cells are always maintaining the infrastructure to bring about their own death. They rely on signals from their surroundings instructing them not to use it. 2) The reason interfacing with our world is bearable is because our outermost layer is dead.

That was my day yesterday. Much reading about death. One title even referred to the river Styx. Eventually my husband came home, and I took a break. He was feeling unusually adventurous, so we decided to go to a bar we've heard about but never visited before. When we got there, what do you think we found? A print of Persephone by Thomas Hart Benton on the wall!

I can't even go to a bar without it suddenly being about life and death.

Next post: Tuesday, 16 October, 2018

What I'm not offering

I have relied heavily on my science background to deal with some health problems. That has strongly influenced my choice of science reading, and I intend to share some of what I read here. I've been especially interested in nutritional biochemistry.

But, the human body is a complicated system, each individual system is unique, and there are a lot of practical and ethical constraints on studying that system. My handling of any given topic will attempt to include a healthy amount of respect for that complexity and for the limitations of a given method of investigation. There will be no statements like, "We should all be eating a pound of x a day," or "Doing y will make you lose weight," or "Doing z will cure your migraines." They will probably look much more like, "Doing w produced v results in u model organism. Here's why this is interesting ..."

There will also be no statements that begin along the lines of, "Why don't you just ..." or "Everyone should just ..." If I make a choice in my life, and it works out well for me, there is probably some kind of privilege at work. Some avenue open to me that probably isn't open to every single human or wouldn't necessarily work out the same way even if it is. I will do my best to be mindful of that.

Oops! My post is a day late from the goal I had set. I'll keep working on that, because setting goals seems to be constructive for me.

Next blog post: Tuesday, 9 October, 2018