Update for Everyone VIII: He who laughs have the last laugh

[Hope For A New Era]

Got tested yesterday - negative. I guess that's good news.

[Hope For A New Era]

Currently drafting up my plan to get out of this country for grad school.

I might want to do that too.

[Hope For A New Era]

Pfizer dose 1 in.

Had to drive from Salt Lake City to Logan for it. It was the only place I could get an appointment.

I guess that's a good thing - it means vaccines are being given at the maximum possible speed right now.

[Hope For A New Era]

i need to calm down

[Hope For A New Era]

Every time I return to Missouri from Utah, I have a dream about The Big Earthquake (that's like 100 years overdue) hitting Salt Lake City. It is absolutely bizarre, especially since an earthquake (not The Big One though) actually did hit shortly after I left in March 2020.

After returning two days ago (the 6th), the dream hit last night. I was in the classroom of a high school English teacher I had (in Missouri), but somehow I knew we were actually in Utah, and despite the teacher being an English teacher, we were doing an art project (something about a cup that looked like a candle and was made of material that was cardboard but also was not...idk, dream-logic is happening here). Then it all started shaking, and then I woke up.


I need to figure out how to have more normal dreams.

[Hope For A New Era]

Finally got my BioNtech/Pfitzer vaccine shot today. As I was tested positive six months ago, there's just one shot recommended by the RKI (German CDC) after half a year has passed.

Interesting, have heard of that from a German friend as well. I'm not sure there's any other country where that is the case, but it seems like a logical thing to do to get maximal use of the doses available.

Hopefully having been infected (January) and double-vaccinated (March and April) makes me about as protected as a person can be. I'm not too worried about Delta, because even when I had the virus it was relatively mild (relatively mild - it was horrible, but did not feel dangerous) and would certainly be milder now, but I'm just exhausted. I want to not think about it ever again.

i am v mad at myself for getting so fat

i feel that

the pandemic diet is...not great

[Hope For A New Era]

Apparently this has nothing to so with saving doses. It's just not necessary from a medical standpoint, according to the RKI.

I have heard something (several months ago - April?) about infection + 1x Pfizer actually being slightly more protective than 2x Pfizer without infection, but I'm not sure what the source was.

[Hope For A New Era]

The last few months, I've been becoming a more spiritual person. This is a reversal of a steady trend that continued for over nine years.

Just spiritual, not religious or theistic. I still don't believe in a higher power, and I doubt I ever will (other than perhaps a vague Carl Sagan-style "maybe the Universe itself is in a way conscious" sort of thing). But my worldview has changed - it has become a lot more of an "all things are connected" sort of way of thinking.

For an example, I used to sum up my opinions about morality as "morals don't exist outside of human minds." Morals exist only as a result of the interaction between psychology and the environments organisms find themselves in, and psychology is shaped by evolution, which comes from chaos (as does the natural environment). The reason most humans believe murder is wrong is because all the humans who believed murder was right killed each other off millennia ago.

I've now "gone a step higher." Evolution is influenced by the nature of Earth, which is influenced by the nature of the Universe (which is, mostly, chaos). So actually, human morality is sort of universal, or at least descended from a universal thing. And if you think about it, human morality is for the most part pretty consistent - it generally directs people to try to increase order and decrease disorder, however the relevant society may view those things. Which makes sense, because the relative orderliness of Earth and of life compared to the vast incomprehensible chaos of the Universe is pretty remarkable, and so is worth preserving.


I'm going to be honest with you here, the whole generational theory thing was a not-insignificant part of this change. It really is a very spiritual thing, in a way that I didn't understand when I first got into it. It truly is a book that only could have been written by Boomers (well, a Silent could have written it, but wouldn't have).

There was also some LSD involved in this. Because of course there was.

[Hope For A New Era]

i could probably use a break

[Hope For A New Era]

After six years of resistance, I've finally given in and gotten Snapchat. I've come to the realization that my refusal to do so was a source of social isolation with no real benefit other than a vague feeling of superiority.

[Hope For A New Era]

In what constitutes a fairly unsurprising development, today I was diagnosed with ASD, specifically Asperger syndrome. This was oddly relieving I must say. Funnily I felt quite the opposite in the not-so-distant past, perhaps because of fear of stigma.

Welcome to the late-diagnosed club

[Hope For A New Era]

Said some of this on Discord a bit ago after this election night. I guess this is the better place to put it.

I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. Following politics this closely, I mean. I enjoy it a lot, of course, otherwise I wouldn't do it, but I don't know if I can handle the stress. It starts to occupy my thoughts constantly any time election days are near. I just spent the past week literally avoiding any mention of Virginia to avoid spiking my anxiety, only to obsessively refresh this site and many others all day the day of, riding an emotional rollercoaster the entire time. I feel like I'm slowly losing my mind.

I'm sure some of this will wear off as the dust settles from this election - it always does - but I have a lot to think about. I think I might try to do some restructuring and reevaluating in my life.

I'm tempted to try to just check out of politics completely, but I know I never could. Knowing me I'd probably end up fully resubmerging myself within a week. I'd rationalize myself into it, saying I'd just check Atlas once for a few minutes, before going on an hours-long binge trying to read every single thing posted since I left.

So I guess what's left is to attempt politics-in-moderation, which I don't exactly have a good track record with. I think I might just care too much. Sometimes I feel like I can singlehandedly save this country from itself (even though I know that that idea is beyond absurd), and I feel guilty if I'm not thinking about it and focusing on it. I'm not sure what to do now. Maybe I'll just try to leave the country in a few years. I haven't thought about that in a long time, but it might be what I need. Just go for a while and hopefully let things here work themselves out, or something.

I guess I'll stop now, I've already dumped a lot of my thoughts here. I guess I just have a lot of thinking to do. I'll probably be pretty quiet here for the next little while, but I'll still be around if anyone wants something from me or something.

[Hope For A New Era]

Yesterday, I walked across a flat parking lot at a slow speed yet was incredibly out-of-breath afterwards, and my heart rate refused to slow down. At first I thought it was just some kind of anxiety thing, but I tried a lot of things that usually reduce my anxiety and none worked.

So I went to a hospital, because it was 1AM and was the only place open and I am not messing around with potential cardiac problems. (For context, I have a family history of heart problems, and I am overweight, though not extremely so).


After running tests and doing x-rays, they decided that I was not in any serious danger and that my heart and lungs appear to be functioning fine, just fast. Their best guess is anxiety, some kind of weird viral infection, or both.

I assume it must be both, because otherwise the sedatives they gave me would have taken the heart rate back down to normal instead of just a little bit down.

Viral infections do do this to me sometimes, though not to this extreme. I remember when I had COVID in January 2021 my heart rate was fast the whole time I was sick, but it never felt weird like this.

As added strength to that, I'm often feeling very cold today or yesterday, which is usually a sign of a change in body temperature, and I did feel a little bit ill on Sunday, and I have absolutely no appetite currently, which seems to fit? I really hope it's just this. Scary either way.

I'm feeling mostly okay now, my heart rate is still fast but I'm keeping it as low as I can by just generally taking it easy today. Hopefully this will pass soon, whatever it is. I'm calmer now knowing that I at least appear to not be in danger.

[Hope For A New Era]

Update from my earlier post here. Still having weird unexplained health stuff. My heart rate is normal if I lay down and stay still, but shoots way up if I stand up, and goes up even while laying down if I move at all. It seemed to be improving, improving a lot on Friday and Saturday, but around 4AM Sunday morning (I had been up all night - my sleep schedule has always been chaotic, nothing to do with the current illness) my heart rate suddenly went up over 100 and stayed there for several hours despite my efforts to bring it down. It did go back down, but it seems like there's been quite a progress setback, and yesterday (Monday) was pretty rough. Today (Tuesday) still represents an improvement compared to Thursday (2/10) and days prior - the weird chest sensation I had from 2/7 to 2/10 is almost completely gone, and I vaguely and subjectively "feel more normal" now than I did then - but the movement-sensitivity is much higher than it was on Saturday, though it seems a little lower today than yesterday.

I'm not sure what's going on, and my two hospital visits (on the 7th and 10th) didn't reveal much either - blood tests and chest x-rays all came back looking normal and healthy, as did both EKGs (they showed an arrythmia, but not a dangerous one - that is to say, my heartbeat is irregular, but it's irregular in a regular way. It is consistently and predictably irregular, rather than chaotically irregular. Apparently it's actually pretty common and a lot of people live their entire lives without ever knowing they have such an arrythmia, a nurse told me that she has one and that it has never caused her any problems).

I'm still working on the assumption that this is some kind of weird virus (likely with symptoms exacerbated by anxiety), although since this is now day 9 of symptoms (symptoms began on February 7) it's quite the lengthy virus. The thing keeping me relatively confident in this is that my temperature is slightly elevated. The highest it's gotten is 99.1, which isn't high for most, but considering my "normal" is around 97.4 (my body/metabolism/etc tends to be "cold" or "slow" or "low-level" generally), it's a noticeable difference.

I'm not sure how I would have caught such a virus. The only real candidate is an ice-skating event I went to on Friday, the only recent time I was maskless in public (it was outdoors). But even then, it's weird. And I have some doubt it came from another person considering I have absolutely no respiratory symptoms whatsoever (if anything, I'm coughing less than I do when I'm healthy). So maybe it came from food or something?

At the very least, during both hospital stays they assured me that I did not appear to be in any immediate danger and sent me home, and symptoms have, in broad terms, improved since leaving the hospital in the early morning of the 12th. So at least it appears I'm not likely to suddenly drop dead from a cardiac arrest (knock on wood).

I have a general medical appointment a week from today and an appointment with a cardiologist in mid-March (it was the earliest I could get). So hopefully work on solving this will soon be ongoing.

One plus from all of this is that I've lost seven pounds so far because, with the exception of late on Saturday and yesterday evening, I've had almost no appetite throughout this, probably a result of a combination of the illness and the accompanying anxiety. So at least there's that (and don't worry, those pounds definitely needed to go - I'm pretty overweight still, though I'll definitely be taking the weight loss efforts up a notch after this - there's a family history of heart trouble, so one could say I've been "scared straight" by recent events).

Sorry for the random dump of everything in my brain. Just trying to keep the anxiety in check the best way I know how.

I'd like to thank all of you for being here. The secular blog is a really cool place, and it couldn't be that way without everyone, even the ones who are annoying sometimes. This is a really unique little corner of the internet and I'm just really glad to be here. I just wanted to say that. I'm feeling appreciative lately.

[Hope For A New Era]

With the health problems I've been experiencing lately, I've really been thinking a lot about what it must be like to suddenly develop a lifelong disability (an accident that leaves you paralyzed, or something).

Obviously my problem is not nearly so severe, and hopefully is temporary, but it's affected my life a lot. I've been ill for nearly two weeks now and it's very difficult for me to go to class because it seems that even when I sit down in a chair there, my heart rate doesn't want to go back down (after rising near 130 while walking there). So I've been attending online when I can, but that doesn't work for all my classes, so I've missed several of them. And I can barely do anything else. Last week I went four days without leaving my student accommodation except once to grab something from my car.

I often sleep with the window open at night despite the cold (I like the fresh air and the sounds of the world outside), and last night (Friday night) I kept hearing people walk by, talking and laughing. They're living so freely, and I just completely took it for granted until it was suddenly gone.

I can't imagine how horrible it must be to suddenly develop a permanent disability with no hope at all of getting your former life back. I've had only a small taste of what they must be experiencing and I am miserable.

On a happier note, my medical appointment is on Tuesday (the 22nd) and I have been very slowly and gradually feeling better over time. Hopefully we can get this resolved soon. I'm still working on the assumption that this is just some kind of really weird virus, but the heart stuff really scares me still (myocarditis? yikes).


Just some thoughts that I wanted to write down somewhere.

[Hope For A New Era]

Update on weird health stuff experienced since February 7:

I've been very, very, very slowly improving since around February 15. This continues at a constant rate, seemingly totally unaffected by literally anything.

I saw a cardiologist yesterday, and I now have a heart monitor on me for three days, so we'll see if that reveals anything.

I'm also having a heart ultrasound thing done on Thursday (3/24).

Hopefully one or both of these will reveal something. Regardless, the doctor didn't seem too worried, and agreed with the previous assessments of: "most likely a weird virus with long lingering aftereffects, probably not life-threatening, but the weirdness, dramaticness, and length of the symptoms definitely warrants a thorough investigation."


So we'll see what happens. But I am slowly getting better, one day at a time. I'm starting to be able to live my life almost-normally (though I do get very tired very quickly still, and my heart is still pretty fast whenever I'm vertical).

[Hope For A New Era]

This is really late, but thanks to an accidentally-perfectly-timed flight and a lucky assignment to a window seat on the correct side of the plane, I was able to get an amazing view of the lunar eclipse back in May, in its entirety from start to finish. So that was pretty cool, I would say.

[Hope For A New Era]

I have a new position that is based in Colorado and Utah and requires quite a bit of traveling.

I technically do not have to relocate as I do receive a travel expense  allowance. But if I do relocate to my work base essentially it would likely be Salt Lake City as I know it. Its kinda a home town for me. But I am excited .

Welcome back (possibly)

[Hope For A New Era]

I am lying in bed posting on Atlas while another Atlas poster sleeps next to me. AMA.

you are what

[Hope For A New Era]

Made it.

nmunln dmnmnudl udnmudmn udmn. Onumdlu dnmmlnm.

Did I just accidentally curse someone's family for ten thousand generations in Armenian? 😁

Seriously though, congrats.

gotta add some tutututututu tutu tutututu tutu tu tu tututu tutututu tutu tututututu to make it properly realistic

[Hope For A New Era]

Remember that series of posts I made this spring about sudden unexplained medical problems? Well, they're back. I'm struggling to get my heart rate down even while laying down and being very still.

I'm starting to wonder if it's somehow an autoimmune phenomenon. It started for the first time about a month after getting the COVID vaccine booster (with which I had pretty severe side effects), and now it has happened again after having a pretty severe cold and/or COVID (never got tested) in early to mid September.

I have appointments scheduled, so we'll see what happens. Will update.

[Hope For A New Era]

The microphone in my phone wasn't working - it could only hear me if I put it on speaker and held it right up to my face.

So yesterday I took it to get it fixed. They replaced the microphone, after which the phone started rebooting every few minutes. I took it back to have them look at it.

This afternoon, they inform me that it's probably a motherboard problem and they can't realistically fix it, so they just give me a new phone.


Task failed successfully?

[Hope For A New Era]

This is my last post of the year!

I'd like to thank you all for being such a great community to be a part of.

[Hope For A New Era]

Finally got a job