A science fiction novel won the Booker Prize for the first time yesterday.
I was fortunate enough to read it a few weeks, and I can confirm it's an entirely worthy winner. It's The End of Everything, by M. John Harrison, and it's haunting and beautiful.
I still think about it.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, my shoulder still $*#*# hurts. I haven't lost any of my new range of motion, though, and the pain will go away in another day or so.
Yeah, that hurt.
After the injection (where I could see my shoulder having a sudden relaxation reaction to the increasing pressure from the salt water), I went to physical therapy immediately. I'd already gained 15-20 degrees of additional movement right after the injection.
The physical therapist said she could get even more improvement but it was going to depend on my pain tolerance. Heh.
What followed was 20 minutes of relative hell.
The result? Another 30 degrees of motion in one movement and an additional 20 degrees in another. Incredible, really.
Now I have to do lots of stretches over the next week to lock all of this in.
I underestimated both the improvement and the (temporary) pain.
I thought it would take a few weeks to get scheduled for the brisement. Instead, it took a weekend.
I'm having it done at 1:30 this afternoon, and I should be back home by 3 or so. I'll let you know how it goes.
Leading off this week, an astonishing story: The Great Buenos Aires Bank Heist: They were an all-star crew. They cooked up the perfect plan. And when they pulled off the caper of the century, it made them more than a fortune—it made them folk heroes.
A sad story: The Dominican Baseball Factory.
This is a fantastic read: Uranium cubes reveal why the German nuclear project failed.
This is both painful and wonderfully written: ‘I perfected deception’: My secret life as a relapsed alcoholic.
Genuinely a top-five sports highlight of my entire life: Down 30-25 with 3.8 seconds to go. Whitesboro with the win to advance in the sectionals.
This is a tremendous read: Have I Befriended a Murderer? For five years, I’ve investigated a man convicted of bludgeoning his wife to death. Somewhere along the way, the line between journalism and friendship blurred.
This is riveting: Methodical/Mercurial: I need order and routine--just as much as I crave excitement and variety. What life like with both autism and ADHD?
From Wally, and it's and it's an interesting bit of New York City history: Restaurant Week: The city's favorite dining tradition started as a PR stunt for convention delegates, and thirty four years later every beneficiary still sits upstream of the plate.
I have a procedure on Monday.
The non-surgical orthopedist looked at my MRI and said there's quite a bit of inflammation in an area usually indicating some stage of frozen shoulder. She said it's highly unusual given my level of activity, but there you go.
What she recommended was a new procedure pioneered at the Cleveland Clinic called brisement (the link is to an NIH study published last year). Basically, after a nerve blocker, a small amount of steroid is injected into the shoulder, but it's done with a higher volume of salt water. This temporarily increases the pressure in the shoulder and creates space. After the injection, a physical therapist immediately manipulates the shoulder to permanently capture as much of the increased space as possible.
As it turns out, the orthopedist who pioneered the technique in Cleveland is now in NYC, and my orthopedist recommended him (he's a colleague).
Extremely low possibility of needing to do the injection more than once. Extremely low risk in general. General increase in range of motion of 15-20% almost immediately is to be expected.
It sounds too good to be true, but the study results are impressive and I'm very much looking forward to having it done.
From here:
The House had segregated gyms until 1985, when then-Rep. Barbara Boxer led a successful effort to integrate the far-superior men’s gym. There wasn’t a women’s restroom off the Senate floor until 1993, and it took another 18 years for House women to get a designated restroom off of the House floor, in 2011. A bipartisan but ultimately unsuccessful effort last year to allow new mothers in the House to vote by proxy showed how the Capitol is, in many ways, still not caught up to the realities of mothers in the workforce.
There will now be over 100 women in the Democratic Congressional Caucus. That's a gain of over 60% in the last decade.
Progress.
I was very happy to be able to call Mom 96.7 and give her this information today.
On a nervy day, here are two photos:
First, Eli 25.3 has been working on his running form, and here's a still from a video he took:
Very, very fast.
Second, DQ Story Advisor John Harwood send me this picture from Circuit of the Americas (where the F1 race was happening):
Please don't vote for a party that is actively attempting to reduce the ability of citizens to vote.
Even without going into detail on the wretched, remarkable cruelty of the last two years, that alone should be more than enough.
A basic principle of democracy is that all political parties should actively support that democracy.
Not assault it.
Leading off, a tremendous article: Life on a hair trigger: A world of violence sustains itself through guns, poverty and other social ills, but also through the minds it creates.
Tragic: The music legends who refuse to leave the stage, but probably should.
This is a fantastic read: The Lucrative World of Literary Scams: why writers are the perfect target.
This is wild: The Positively True Adventures of the Kilgore Rangerette–Kidnapping Mom.
From Eric H-F, and it's absolutely amazing (a way to find Wikipedia articles about things close to your location): Local Wikipedia.
From Wally, for grognards: Battle of Stonne, France 1940. And another (Revolutionary War battle): The Battle of Stony Point. This is quite interesting (but takes a while, and ignore the upsell): Palate Axes: React to statements about food and drink. Get your scores on the five basic tastes, the cuisines that match you, and a three-course meal built around your palate. Clever and entirely accurate: Things Parents Have to Watch Out for This Halloween.
Maria sits on her stoop every day in a tattered sweater with her hair tightly pulled back. Most of her teeth are missing, which I only know because of her smile. She smiles every time I walk past, talking with an accent so heavy I can barely understand her.
"What's your name?" she shouted one day as I walked past.
"Bill," I said. "What's your name?"
She said many things and I understand none of them. "What's your name?" I repeated.
"Maria," she said. "How old do you think I am?"
"Forty-five," I said.
She laughed. "No, no, no, What do you really think?"
"Serious guess," I said. "Eighty. Maybe eighty-five."
"In two months I'll be a hundred," she said. It pleased her to say so.
She proudly pointed to a small Virgin Mary statue in her yard (which is about 15'x15' for everyone in Astoria). She wanted me to appreciate it, so I did. I told her to have a good day and walked on.
Two days later, I walked past. "Hi Marie," I said.
"What's your name?" she asked.
Not a single person walks past without stopping to chat. She knows everyone and remembers no one. It doesn't matter.
I had the VIP MRI experience on Friday, much to my surprise.
Then I got the results, and I know why my shoulder hurts. Tendonitis everywhere, basically. Quite a bit of tendinosis. Bonus edema around the AC joint and other places. Partial rotator cuff tear (probably non-surgical, though).
I have a fantastic PT place, and they've helped me get back into a much better range of motion. I'm still going to need quite a bit more work, though, before I can swim again.
I have a video conference with the orthopedist next week and I'm hoping she'll recommend an injection to calm everything down in there. The inflammation is the first thing to tackle.
