i bet sputnik v would last longer in orbit than the previous iv, if given a chance.

then again, let's hope sputnik v isn't like rocky v - old and weak and past it's prime.

it's very silly, but it gets the point across - the russians are back to not wanting to be our friends anymore.

your cat's gonna get it from sleeping in your box of dirty clothes.

your dog's gonna get it from sniffing your crotch.

your bird is gonna get it, then call you an asshole for it.

*sqwawk*. shoulda social distanced. asshole got everyone sick. *squawk*.

your fish is gonna get it from being sneezed on, your gerbil is gonna get it from overexhaustion and your mom is gonna get it from coming over and feeding all of the animals, and, btw, you left the door open again.

i don't think it's so crazy to think the virus has gotten into the food supply, and fish seem particularly easily infected because we dump untreated sewage in waterways all around the world.

we know it gets in the sewage, and we know there's fish swimming nearby. therefore....

with chickens (who should really be called chickii in context), it seems easy enough that they'd get it from feed, or maybe somebody handling them. that's not a difficult thought; that's obvious, and you have the burden of proof to demonstrate why it can't happen, if you're convinced.

further, if the thing gets frozen quickly, it could easily, if a number of unlikely things align, thaw out on your hands, thereby getting you sick. chances are higher that the virus will actually survive the freezing process, but will dissolve as it melts.

it's another thing to think you can catch the virus by eating infected but cooked flesh, which is probably wrong.

you should be wearing gloves and taking proper precautions with uncooked chicken, regardless.

but, is it possible? i'd say it's highly likely, at this stage.

so, am i something close to normalcy?

i've eaten, cleaned and showered. i have a few loads of laundry left...

there's a background skunk odour, but i can't order the source, yet. it does not smell much like what i was smoking over the last few weeks, so i'll have to keep an eye on that.

we'll have to see if i get anything done tonight or if i just fall asleep, but i'm back in my normal naked sitting position in bed, ready to rocket through what's left of this stuff.

normal, recreational marijuana use actually increases anxiety, though, by increasing cortisol levels. that's right - smoking pot boosts the amount of stress hormones that your body produces.

look it up.

so, as i'm feeling less anxious even after smoking pot, it just demonstrates that the testosterone suppression is working quite well.

i'll get a blood test to measure it, soon.

to recap, or for those tuning in.

i was taking 100 mg of cyproterone (2x50, daily), and my testosterone levels were almost immeasurable. but, i started watching the levels tick up a little, until it got to 0.8 in the spring. now, this is still very low (your mom probably has way more testosterone than that), but i've seem it come up over the last few years from 0.1 to 0.2 to 0.4 to 0.8, so i got scared that it was wearing off.

i would not survive very long if i ever had to deal with a full return of testosterone.

my doctor tried to prescribe me a different drug, but i looked into it and realized it was less effective at suppressing testosterone, and came with increased heart complications. so, i cancelled that different drug and doubled my dosage of cyproterone instead. the doctor pushed back on this, but i did it anyways, and i'm happy about it. i could still increase the t-blockers by a good bit, but i want to see a drug test, first.

so, i'll need to get a blood test soon, bring it to the doctor and say "look, it went down, and i feel 1000x better, so i did the right thing in ignoring you. please update the rx."

what about the t-blockers?

i am indeed due to go wander out to chatham-kent to find some more estrogen fairly soon, but i've now been on double the dosage of cyproterone for two months, and how do i feel?

i have, indeed, been experiencing some of the more positive effects of testosterone suppression, including softer skin and reduced anxiety. however, marijuana tends to have a negative effect on my hygiene decisions (like many people, it tends to make me dirty and lazy), so it won't be until i clean myself up a little that i'll be able to make a more informed analysis.

i got my funding from the ministry for the orchiectomy, finally, at least. now, all i have to do is find a doctor willing to actually take them out, so i can burn them in a ritual sacrifice to demeter....

i admit that i'm susceptible to ether-like theories about some kind of medium in space, even if that structure is in the form of multiple dimensions. so, these strings might actually be intersection points. even watching the discrete number of options develop indicates some kind of underlying structure...

i don't want to exactly say that they'll prove einstein right in the end, because he clearly admitted that he was baffled and he didn't ultimately provide a pluggable answer. but, i think that einstein was right to be skeptical about what he was hearing, at least, and that the process to really understanding this properly likely lies in retracing his steps around the issue.

so, what is the deal with entanglement?

i'm going to wait to see what he says, but my fundamental position is as follows.

currently, the theory around entanglement is that distance is irrelevant. that's not quite an assumption; it's built on observation. but, it remains a giant leap to go from "we've never observed a distance great enough to break the entanglement" to "the particles are forever entangled, regardless of how far apart they end up.".

my intuition, my basic position, is that we will eventually observe a distance so great that the entanglement breaks, and we won't really understand what's happening until we get there. this could end up being a very large distance, granted, but we have to find a time lag before we can make sense of it.

it can't just happen simultaneously, that's incoherent.

bell's inequality allows for non-local solutions, and it's probably the only actual way out of this. if we've learned anything at all from the quantum physics fiasco, it's that you have to do the fucking experiment, so i'm not going to predict a breakdown in locality.

but, it's the only way out.

so, the drugs are gone and we'll be back to normalcy for a few weeks, at least. i don't see any reason to leave the house until the end of the month. and, we'll try this again when i've eradicated all of this disgusting tolerance, and with a better medium than nicotine/tobacco. let's hope it works out better on the second try.

in the end, it was the low quality of the pot that established itself, which served to clarify the point - the store has a fairly wide selection (they're selling hash now, too), but it's hard to find high dosage strains and the price doesn't seem to have much of an effect on what you actually get. i kind of got used to it, and i enjoyed the summer for what it was, but the pot is garbage, and i'm trying to mix it up like tea for a reason.

the example i used before was lettuce or peppers at the store. when you walk into a grocery store, you at least have a choice between the pre-shrink-wrapped peppers in the plastic wrapping, or the fresh peppers on the shelf. you know that the fresh pepper is better, but maybe you're cheap or lazy, which is what the shrink-wrapped pepper is for.

some people, like me, will walk out of a store if there's no fresh produce, if you're stuck with the shrink wrap. that's what this feels like.....

i want to be able to walk into a store and pick out fresh product off the shelf, and this won't survive in the long run if that isn't allowed for.

what it's done, for me, is drive me to edibles as a first option. i mean, that's at least standardized, right? there's actually 2 mg in the piece of chocolate, and you have a good idea of what you're getting and how to adjust to it.

i've been working over the summer, i don't want to claim i haven't been. but, it's been dry, and i've retraced my steps repeatedly. as mentioned, i have final final updates being worked through right now; that has been stagnant this weekend, i'll admit. so, i'll be back to that soon, and i want to push through it very quickly.

for today, i'm going to be doing laundry, tidying up loose garbage that's been building up and working on cleaning myself up substantively. which means i'm watching the quantum entanglement lecture for the first time in a while....

i just didn't eat at all for days over the summer, but i've got a bowl of pasta in front of me just right now :)

(one more left after that before the switch to a total eggs diet)

of course, the real fake leftists that are out there pushing for market liberalization in sex work are in truth always fat old men. that's the real benefactor, here.

and, they don't see anything wrong with it.

"well, what's wrong if i make a proposal? i put the money down. what's wrong with that?"

in an actual socialist society, that woman would call you a worthless piece of shit for asking, and rip you a new asshole for tarnishing her dignity as a free individual, in the process.

for, she would know that she does not need to survive by selling her labour - that she is free from that oppressive social relation.

and, freedom from that social relation is the entire point, it is why socialists struggle, why they are what they are, why they fight for what they fight for.

so, when you hear people call themselves communists or socialists, or leftists (i'll accept "progressive", because it's a fundamentally conservative and fundamentally capitalist label), and then argue for market liberalization around prostitution...

i wouldn't suggest doubting their commitment to the marketization of sexual intercourse. they seem to be making that point crystal clear.

just don't let them pull the wool over your eyes, and try to trick you into thinking this is a philosophy of the left.

look them in the eye and call them the ancaps and neo-liberals that they really are.

the whole point of socialism is to abolish prostitution, in the form it exists in wage slavery.

that's why it exists; that's why we invented it.

no, i...

i don't understand prostitution, and i don't pretend i do. i'm revolted by actual consensual sex; the idea that you could ever stimulate actual, real consent in me by waving money at me is....the idea that there are people like that out there in the world that actually live that way makes me want to vomit.

but, i understand socialism, and there's simply no room for prostitution in a socialist framework. why would anybody trade money for sex in a reality where needs are always met? it just wouldn't & couldn't exist, as there would be nobody selling. and, frankly, i'd actually lean towards the idea that people that engage in truly consensual prostitution with no need to sell their labour for necessities have mental health issues and belong in hospitals.

so, i'm not going to sit here and pretend i understand prostitution; i don't get it. i never have and i probably never will.

but, i understand socialism, i understand that facilitating prostitution is just about the literal opposite of socialism and i understand that a truly socialist reality, that is a truly free reality, would treat consensual prostitution as a mental health issue.

as a socialist, i'm consequently more concerned with how to ensure nobody is ever forced into prostitution than i am in ways to legalize it or profit from it - as a rights issue, a labour concern.

if you follow this space, i've done as best a job i can trying to separate between this fake left that exists in the american mainstream and what socialism actually is.

they can say what they want, but i remain convinced that it just wouldn't happen in a truly free society.

so, the posts are coming through, but i've been noticing weird typos that...

this is a segment of a post that i recently posted and am going to repost shortly:

so, i'm not going to sit here and pretend i understand prostitutes; i don't get it. i never have and i probably will.

that should actually say:

so, i'm not going to sit here and pretend i understand prostitutes; i don't get it. i never have and i probably never will.

these kinds of typos have been occurring frequently enough to make me wonder, but how can i prove that?

what i'm doing instead is deleting and reposting posts that look altered, rather than editing them.

the argument that prostitution is just work is fundamentally the same argument that ancaps use to argue it's fine to sell yourself into slavery.

it's the most extreme articulation of capitalism that exists.

the "sex work is work" group are not socialists, not libertarians, not anarchists, not leftists...

leftists violently oppose all forms of wage slavery.

rather, they are market fundamentalists, right-libertarians, anarcho-capitalists & neo-liberals.

this is one of those issues where the american "left" is rooted in a contradiction in terms; if you read marx or bakunin, they actually repeatedly attacked capitalism by comparing it to prostitution, in pretty much direct opposition to those arguing for increasing market liberalization, as championed by the contemporary bourgeoisie.

skepticism of prostitution is actually perhaps the one thing i can agree with Black Women about, and it's because i'm a leftist, rather than despite it. i really wish that people that would support normalizing sex work would identify on the libertarian right where they belong and stop pretending they come from leftist traditions, because they really don't.

that said, the smarter Black Women know that reducing participation in prostitution to cases where it is truly and sincerely consensual is not likely to be accomplished using authoritarian means. the most effective way to ensure that people do not become trapped in prostitution is not to criminalize it but to ensure that they are always offered realistic ways out.

so, i mean, it's fine to write an article like this, but it really isn't about the left or left-wing politics in any way, but is rather about a side of neo-liberalism, of market fundamentalism, of anarcho-capitalism & the libertarian right, that harris and Black Women, in general, tend to be a little skeptical of - which is something that i'm in some solidarity with, to be truthful.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kamala-harris-sex-workers-joe-biden-vice-president-1043941/

like so many other things, our concept of leadership has been so dismantled by capitalism that we barely even understand what it means anymore.

we tend to reserve this term, Leader, for people that try to control crowds by repeating what the crowd said back to them. but, such a person is really truly a follower of the crowd, just a follower that seeks to get out in front of the crowd, and let the crowd determine it's direction.

a leader is not somebody that carefully follows public opinion in an attempt to exert influence or control (and, generally, this approach suggests a desire for control for the sake of it), but rather somebody that effectively articulates positions that are unpopular, and in the process successfully changes public opinion to better align with theirs. so, leaders are always going against the crowd, rather than with it. that's something i really look for in determining who i think is worth listening to - are they leading by advancing their own agenda, or following by letting the crowd determine one?

so, do raspberry leaves "increase your high"?

i would say they will increase your drowsiness, when smoked in the mixture i purchased. but, there's reason to think it might actually work as advertised, if the caffeine in the mix was stronger - or the test subject wasn't a 110 pound transwoman.

if your bmi is a bit higher, that mix (cost aside.) might actually be what you want. i need more caffeine in it, if i want to actually enjoy that particular drug cocktail.

i want to smoke a joint and actually get high for the night, not just fall asleep like a fucking retard.

i've read some other reviews of the raspberry as being overpowering, so it's not particularly surprising that it may be knocking me out. it's more how overpowering it is that is surprising me, but, as mentioned, i don't know how much that has to do with cutting out the nicotine after an accidental two-month relapse; these feel like normal "quitting smoking" feelings, so i don't know.

i know that it's less that the raspberry is unpleasant and more that i'm having difficulty taking control of it - it's just knocking me out. so, smoke with less raspberry? that doesn't make sense. if i smoke with less raspberry, i'm using more pot. like anything else, i'll need to experiment.

but, what i've decided is that any final decisions on mixtures are going to have a much higher caffeine content. that's the other option - forget about carefully dosing the raspberry leaves with the marijuana, and just overrun it all with the caffeine from the green tea, instead. that way, any increased potency brought on by the raspberry actually gets sustained.

the mixture i bought gets it's caffeine from gotu kola, and it's just not working. the green tea will at least be more powerful.

again: i want to move to edibles for normal, infrequent use. depending on how this goes, it could mean no more head caves - or no more smoking for head caves. the december head cave may involve eating chocolate in regular intervals for three weeks, instead.

but, any future spliffs are going to need more caffeine, one way or the other. tobacco is a stimulant, and the available strains seem designed mostly to encourage sleeping; it needs to be cut with an upper, or it's just going to turn you into a useless eater.

that's my lesson from the weekend, as difficult as the data currently is to interpret.

i am, overall, exhausted right now, and looking forward to a return to normality. that was not something i would normally do, and not something i really wanted to do. but, the other choice was an impossible summer for everybody, due to these unnecessary border restrictions.

the weekend has also been weird due to sitting right on a trough, making the forecast go up and down; we didn't get to 30 yesterday (it got yucky and cold at peak afternoon, instead), we might not get there today and the summer, overall, is winding down early, with sub-30 degree temperatures across the board for the rest of the month. the forecast for monday is a chilly 24 degree high. brrr.

so, windows are going to be closing as i try to find ways to generate heat in the cooler weather. and, i'm going to be getting very aggressive about getting the smoke out of here - or launching legal action to get out  - very quickly.

that was unusual, and i'm not normalizing myself to a reality of living in saturated carcinogenic poison. i am trying to lead by example in showing people where to smoke - away from residential spaces, and in parks and other places that people don't actually live, instead.

again: i was going to sleep all weekend anyways as i cut the nicotine out. how am i feeling?

that expensive mix i bought at the store is a little heavy all around. i am repeatedly falling asleep (which i don't like) and my throat is not feeling particularly good, either. there's too many factors here to try to draw any conclusions, other than that smoking every day for two months is something i am unlikely to ever do again.

what i will say is that i very quickly started smelling the smoke, but i don't know at this point if it's second hand from upstairs or third hand from myself.

regardless, i've got a very small amount left before i stop to let my thc levels come down to zero before i try the edibles. massive laundry and cleaning run down here is inevitable.

and, if i come out of this longer-than-normal, and maybe even last-ever, headcave and realize i'm dealing with second hand smoke in my unit, i'm going to get very pissed off, very fast.