Published by

Low-stakes escapism

Everything feels so high-stakes. Doesn’t help that the general election is a little over 24 hours away. 😐

Escapism helps lower the bar a bit, knocks you off the daily life tightrope, but sometimes even books and movies can feel like too much. If I’m already wound tight, then I’m not sure that filling 100% of my free time with James Bridle or Adam Curtis is going to do wonders for my mental health. I know, I *promise* I’ll get round to them eventually!

These are some options for low-stakes, low-cost escapism that have worked, or could work, for me:

I’ll try to add to this over time.

Important note: Consider turning off all pop-up notifications on your devices and removing the count badge from your email if you have a Mac or an iPhone. You don’t need any of that gunk, I promise.

Published by

One of the earliest gluten free cookbooks

The turquoise cover of “Good Food, Gluten Free”, a cookbook by Hilda Cherry Hills published in the 70s

Good Food, Gluten Free by Hilda Cherry Hills arrived on my cookbook shelf around 2012 when I was struggling with some related health issues. I seem to remember that SB picked it up from a secondhand bookshop when we were living up north. The author’s mission was to arm the public with more knowledge about celiac disease and gluten intolerance and how to deal with it, partly spurred on by her husband’s troubles.

The cover states that it was published by Roberts Publications and originally sold for £2 or “$6 US post free”, but there’s no publish date. There is a review on the back cover from the 24 May 1974 edition of the Nursing Mirror, so I would guess it was published right around that time. Based on the first chapter, “Why this Book has been Written”, it looks like this might be one of the first gluten free cookbooks published in the UK.

The book is packed with research, personal anecdotes, meal planning suggestions, travel tips, and recipes. In the second chapter, she outlines the history of the disease including Samuel Gee’s 1888 report forming the first modern-day description and Dutch researcher Willem Karel Dicke’s doctoral thesis which was the culmination of years of dietary research before, during, and after the Hongerwinter.

It’s hard to imagine how difficult it must have been to navigate all of this early on before the million GF-friendly blogs, countless cookbooks, and dedicated GF shelves in grocery stores. It must have been such a relief for someone suffering from celiac disease in the 70s to stumble across this slim paperback. HB came across this sincere message from the author when leafing through the book:

Just a reminder

Although these things are a nuisance to do, the reward in renewed health and vigour is boundless, and will be an inspiration to not only yourself but to those around you, who will quite rightly admire your determination and applaud your results.

So go to it, and good luck to you whoever you are, and wherever you may be. You will get no medal, be sure, but you will have earned one.

Published by

“A chemistry is performed so that a chemical reaction occurs…”

A chemistry is performed so that a chemical reaction occurs and generates a signal from the chemical interaction with the sample, which is translated into a result, which is then reviewed by certified laboratory personnel.

Elizabeth Holmes’s “comically vague” and high-school-esque description of Theranos’s blood testing “technology”.

Just finished Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by Wall Street Journal investigative reporter John Carryrou. Carryrou traces the rise and fall of Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes from the company’s beginnings at Stanford, to Holmes becoming the young female darling of Silicon Valley, to his own exposé and followup articles in the Journal.

Read more

Published by

get that sun vitamin

Turns out vitamin D is pretty important for your immune system. I knew this in a sort of back-of-the-mind way, but I didn’t realise quite how important until a recent doctor visit and blood test. I seem to be deficient by nearly every standard out there. I’ve battled three separate health issues since moving to the UK from California in 2010, all of them nonexistent before the move. I’m now taking quite a lot of vitamin D3 as advised and am thrilled to see real improvement for the first time. Fingers-crossed that the improvement continues.

If vitamin D deficiency is a potential contributor to a wide range of health issues, as a lot of studies seem to show, why isn’t routine screening a thing? Couldn’t it reduce strain on the healthcare system as a whole?

Basically, I’m pretty salty about not finding out sooner. I’ve had so many tests done over the past nine years to try and figure this out, but vitamin D levels were never one of the components. I suspected vitamin D might be a problem early on (seems like a no-brainer, there’s a big difference in sunlight between CA and LDN). But I asked a doctor about it in 2012 and he dismissed my concern. I didn’t press it until recently when everything took a nosedive and I finally saw a doctor that gets it.

So much stress and discomfort potentially caused by something so simple. Time will tell, should take about 7 weeks to get levels near normal. Onward and upward!

And time to go on some sunny holidays. ☀️

Published by

TIL about reef-safe sunscreen

TIL certain sunscreens are likely harmful to coral reefs. Wish I’d known this a month ago… Go for a physical sunscreen instead of a chemical one. Physical sunscreens can be less cosmetically preferable, need to be reapplied often, and can leave a white-ish cast, but they are usually gentler on skin and – here’s the kicker – are much less likely to kill oceanic critters.

Published by

TL;DR almost all oils make seb derm worse

Simpleskincarescience.com on what/why certain ingredients exacerbate malassezia-caused skin conditions. This is the most comprehensive collection of information and research on the topic I’ve found online thus far.

TL;DR
Almost all oils, and many oil-based compounds such as fatty acids and esters, can feed malassezia. Many are common skincare ingredients. Read ingredient labels and when in doubt, go for things with fewer ingredients.

There are ingredient checkers online (skincarisma.com, sezia.co, etc.) that can help you weed out products with problematic ingredients. Note that if it’s labelled as bad for fungal acne, it’s also bad for seborrheic dermatitis.

Published by

Britney Spears on her shaved head

bloodblistersisters:

britneyjustin:

britsanity:

Witnesses say they asked Britney why she shaved her head and her response was, “I’m tired of plugging things into it. I’m tired of people touching me.”

T-Pain: “That was the most beautiful thing in the world. Do you know why she was shaving her head? Because it was so important to other people. She is like, “Listen. Don’t touch my hair anymore. Stop touching my hair.” People were like, “We’ve got to make your hair before you go outside. You can’t leave.” She went … “Now I don’t have hair. What you going to do?”

Our Diva Britney Jean Spears

BODILY AUTONOMY

Edit 2 July 2021:

I was revisiting this recently in light of Britney Spears’ infuriating and terrifically sad conservatorship hearing.

The post above was originally a Tumblr reblog, from back when this site was on Tumblr. I was curious about the origins of these quotes so did a little digging.

The witness response quote source is unclear. According to some sources, something along these lines was said by Emily Wynne-Hughes who was present (As a tattoo artist? As a customer? Uncertain) when Britney got tattooed after shaving her head. All of these sources point to one another though and some are… questionable. Hence why I’m not linking to them. Go ahead and search “Emily Wynne-Hughes Britney Spears” if you’re curious.

The origins of the T-Pain quote are clearer, it’s from a 2007 Associated Press interview. He supposedly recorded three songs with her right after she shaved her head (source).

When I was looking for the quote sources, I came across the 2008 TV documentary “Britney Spears: For The Record”. This is the exchange around 16min 25sec in during an interview at The Mondrian Hotel in LA:

Interviewer When you look back at the whole shaving of the head thing, and all the rest of it. What provoked you to do that?

Britney Spears I was going through so much artificial stuff with my kids and with Kevin and all that stuff at the time, and he’d just left me. And I was devastated, you know? People thought it was me going crazy and stuff like that, but people shave their heads all the time. I was going through a lot, but it was just kind of me just feeling a form of a little bit of rebellion or feeling free, or shedding stuff that had happened.

Interviewer Why did you not tell anyone that’s what you were doing?

Britney Spears I didn’t think it was anyone’s business, really.

She’s right.