The Unignorable Minutiae of Dysfunction

I spent the last few days getting clobbered by some GI issue. I'm not even sure what it was.

Then the asthma started up again. I am hoping I can beat it back with just inhalers. I took the Pulmicort for a full 15 days just to be safe after the last flare. I'd just stopped using it. I thought I was finally better. And here I am regressing to where I started.

I've started marking the asthma on my calendar so I can show the pulmo and get a better sense of the chaos pattern.

Why are the lungs and GI working in tandem???

I don't like having such finicky health. I can't ever rely on myself. I never know what I'm going to get from day to day. Ever since I had covid, it's just been complete chaos.

It does remind me a little bit of the dynamics I experienced with adrenal insufficiency, which caused me to start this blog. With AI, things can radically change from moment to moment. Especially when you're tapering and purposely creating a gap to force the body to fill it. That can be an intense ride.

But obviously this isn't AI...

And on top of all that, I've reached the point where, because of my foot, I'm trying to figure out how to maintain some degree of muscle mass and strength and fitness without standing. Like, I've entered the chair aerobics era of this mess. Fantastic.

But I can't do anything anyway because my energy is just really low from the GI stuff and the asthma. 

On a more positive note...I'm waiting for my dress for the wedding to arrive. Excited for that. Even though we switched to flying, we are going to do one sightseeing stop from our original road trip plans and have arranged for it to be little to no walking. 

This whole thing is hideously expensive so since we're in for a pretty penny, we're going for a pound and doing it all while the doing is good.

(Did you know you essentially buy a full price ticket for your luggage now too? On all the airlines? You're lucky if they include a carry-on. And a wedding is never light on the luggage so this is costing us a small fortune. It's doubtful we'll be going back anytime soon, if ever.

So. Fuck it. Let's party.)

I've started ordering the next round of fruit and nut bushes to plant. Hopefully, my skeleton and sundry body systems will be up for digging some holes so hubby doesn't have to do it all. If I can manage it, I'm going to try and get outside to get some pots ready for growing cold hardy stuff to take advantage of the increasing sunlight as spring approaches. 

We'll see how far I can go subsisting on seltzer and inhalers.

And, lastly, no one asked, but geopolitics is a bug up my ass.

I think we're missing the forest for the trees at this point.

First, geopolitical degree here.

Second, US and Western foreign policy has been a mess for at least 20-30 years and we are reaping what we sowed now. None of this started recently. It's been brewing a long time and several leaders have made mistakes that are compounding now.

So now we have headlines saying China is planning to send lethal aid to Russia. If that's true that means their calculations say Russia will win.

But if we'd done our job, they wouldn't be able to generate an analysis that leads to that conclusion. The fact they can suggests someone is fooling themselves and it might be us.

And while we like to think China needs the West, that they can't live without us, that's not as true as it as twenty years ago. World population and consumer patterns are changing and China, Russia, India, and various nations of Africa have enough people and resources to keep on rolling just fine without the West, and that appears to be the coalition they're trying to built.

Yes, the West has the advanced technology, but that's not insurmountable. Especially if it's already been stolen. (I have seen nations steal US military tech back in my corporate days. It happens. China is particularly famous for it.)

I'm watching the West and wondering if they have the leadership to get this done.

And I'll add...even if Russia loses the war, a China, India, Russia axis with heavy influence into all of Africa is still a possibility. Between demographics, technology, AI, and ecology we were going to see massive changes in the world over the next 5-20 years anyway. There's no escaping change, it's just a question of how many people and how much environment we want it to kill.

The West thinks it's awake because it's supporting Ukraine, but we're actually still lightly dozing. The fact China is even considering sending lethal aid to Russia is proof of that.

Side Bar: War is a regressive approach to modern geopolitics, at least when it comes to the world's super powers, but that's what happens when autocrats are in charge. If we threw Putin and Xi into a time machine and dumped them back into the 1600s...they'd fit right in. Might makes right has been the driving force of geopolitics for centuries.

I find it fascinating that Russia and China are obsessed with land when, in reality, in this era, power comes from demographics and technology more so than mileage. They aren't microstates at risk of being swallowed by the sea, they have enough land and the technology to overcome topographic limitations. What they need are more people and better technology. Right now they can wreak havoc, but they'll be subsumed next as their populations start to fall. Any victory now won't last.

If I were the West...I'd be hauling ass on a lot more weapons to Ukraine yesterday and then immigration, but clearly I'm no one and not in charge.