Wanting to get strong

I had my first-ever personal training session yesterday. It went well! There's a gym one block from me that I've had my eye on ever since it quit being a Crossfit gym and went independent. I was dubious about exercising in an indoor space, but a friend pointed out that their big open warehouse door means that they have a lot better ventilation than most gyms.

I finally got in touch with them, and after some logistical hassles, I had my appointment with a tall, kind, strong young woman. She seemed easy in her body, and calmly gave me instructions and feedback in a way that felt welcoming and safe. I said I wanted it to be gentle and gradual because my body tends toward strains and injury, and she gave me exactly what I asked for. We focused on upper body, and did rows with hanging rings and bench presses with free weights and some pushups at a 45 degree angle because I can't quite do them lowering to bench height. It lasted an hour and I thought I would be sore today. I'm mildly achy, enough to tell me I did something, but not too bad.

I never thought I'd be the kind of person to lift weights or have a personal trainer. I liked being strong when I was moving house, and I'd like to get stronger again without having to pack up everything I own. And if I'm going to do that, I need some personal help to learn how to do it properly. They have some strength classes that I'm hoping to join once I understand the basic movements and how to do them safely for me. And I have some weights at home that I might be able to use in between.

I never had private lessons in anything as a kid. It was a big step for me to start taking singing lessons a few years back, and that has been wonderfully healing, as well as improving my singing over time. Getting some personal training sessions feels like self-love, permission to pay for the help I need instead of trying to tough it out on my own.

Links: Emotions, trauma, research

youfeellikeshit.com, a self-care game by Amanda Miklik, based on a twine site by Jace Harr. Step by step questions to help you feel better.

Using the Arousal-Valence Model to Better Your Emotional Intelligence by Dr. Megan Anna Neff. Some aids to naming emotions for people who find it difficult, including an Unpleasant/Pleasant, High/Low Arousal grid.

Finding the Middle Way in Black & White Thinking with Marbling by Cait Klein.

Black and white thinking is a trauma response that is important to break down for our overall happiness and wellbeing. When we are not feeling safe, it’s easy to slide into rigid thought patterns such as everything is either good or bad, friend or enemy, kind or mean, awesome or awful etc. The reality is things are rarely ever all one or the other, and as we break down binary ways of thinking we allow more space for connection and collaboration to move forward in our lives.

Self Compassion and How The Science of Kindness Changes Your Brain interview with Dr. Kristin Neff, audio with summary.

The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age by Thea Lim.

When I was twelve, I used to roller-skate in circles for hours. I was at another new school, the odd man out, bullied by my desk mate. My problems were too complex and modern to explain. So I skated across parking lots, breezeways, and sidewalks, I listened to the vibration of my wheels on brick, I learned the names of flowers, I put deserted paths to use. I decided for myself each curve I took, and by the time I rolled home, I felt lighter. One Saturday, a friend invited me to roller-skate in the park. I can still picture her in green protective knee pads, flying past. I couldn’t catch up, I had no technique. There existed another scale to evaluate roller skating, beyond joy, and as Rollerbladers and cyclists overtook me, it eclipsed my own. Soon after, I stopped skating.

“To See it All at Once”: Black Southern Placemaking Technologies with Zandria Robinson

It was amazing to me to get to graduate school and to discover that I was a Southerner, and to discover that there was this idea that once all the Black [Southern] people left for the Great Migration, apparently we just didn’t even exist anymore, despite the inconvenient fact of the whole civil rights movement. So I had a bone to pick, and I just continued picking it.

How our noisy world is seriously damaging our health by James Gallagher.

"You have an emotional response to sound," says Prof Clark. Sound is detected by the ear and passed onto the brain and one region – the amygdala – performs the emotional assessment. This is part of the body's fight-or-flight response that has evolved to help us react quickly to the sounds like a predator crashing through the bushes. "So your heart rate goes up, your nervous system starts to kick in and you release stress hormones," Prof Clark tells me.

Women are three times more likely than men to get severe long COVID by Gillian Rutherford.

Through analysis of immune cells, biomarkers in the blood and RNA sequencing, they identified a distinct immune signature in female versus male patients.

They found evidence of “gut leakiness” in the women patients, including elevated blood levels of intestinal fatty acid binding protein, lipopolysaccharide, and the soluble protein CD14 — all signs of gut inflammation that can then trigger further systemic inflammation once they reach the circulatory system.

Opinion | I’m just 16, and I already have too many memories of mass shootings by Lydia Ganser. "It’s easy to offer condolences from afar while doing nothing to stop the guns."

What I Need You To Understand, Notes from Chicago in Late October by Dan Sinker.

There's noise, so much noise, but there's also signal and the signal was that they were here that they were everywhere. Smash and grab jobs happening across the city nearly simultaneously. But the things being stolen aren't jewels, they're lives. Off streets, from yards. One roofer plucked off a ladder. A landscaper thrown to the ground, tackled by a half-dozen men in camo with weapons. Sixteen people on this day. Sixteen people disappeared, from just the northern side of the city and suburbs. More across the entire city.

Unofficial Pluslife FAQ (EN). Very detailed information on Pluslife Covid tests, which are as senstive as PCR tests. Sadly they are not available in the US.

Stories! Find your own way

The Crow’s Second Tale by Marissa Lingen, mrissa. A hopeful coming of age story about a very determined young person who finds her own way forward.

The Things You Know, The Things You Trust by Marissa Lingen, mrissa. Shifting and changing science fiction that is also about the present moment.

Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell. At the end, John Wiswell comments, "Off the top of my head I gave them the example that if I wrote a haunted house story, it wouldn’t be like Haunting of Hill House – it would be about a haunted house that was lonely and desperately wanted someone to live in it. One of my fellow authors reached across the table, grabbed me by the hand, and said, “Please write this.” On the train ride home, I did."