Deja Voodoo

Today, I met with an orthopedic surgeon.

(Lots of fun.)

Ten and a half years ago, I had an ACL repair from surgeon at the University of Washington Sports Medicine Clinic based in the basement of Husky Stadium. (Sidebar: I've been in stadium basement more then fifty times for physical therapy, but I have never seen one football game there.)

Walking in the UW Sports Medicine clinic was surreal. The clinic looks pretty much the same -- even the promotional poster of a woman running is still there.

Dr Greene did my first knee surgery ten years ago, but a few weeks after my procedure, he moved to Austin, Texas. Some of my follow-up appointments were with another doctor, Doctor K. I met with him today. He called it out that we had met before years ago. 

Not only have I been to this clinic before, but Pedro and Jack have been as well. We should have gotten a family discount.

As I sat in the same examination room I had been in before, I was transported emotionally back ten years. I felt like when I left the place, I should head back to Ravenna, make dinner and then drive Pedro to soccer practice. 

It was weird.

Then I wondered what would have happened if I showed up a Jack's house and acted as if nothing had changed in the past ten years, if I walked in, asked where the kids were and where we should go for dinner, as if the year was 2016, not 2026. What would he say? What would he do? Would he call the loony bin and book me a place?

I didn't go back to my old home, fortunately. I went back to my new home, my condo. I texted my new friends. Sanity prevailed.

The Sun & The Son

My son Pedro has more or less lived in Montana since 2019, give or take a bit of time back in Seattle. He currently lives in the Flathead Valley reasonably close to Glacier National Park, one of the crown jewels in the system. People all over the world travel to Glacier. The highlight of Glacier is the "Going to the Sun Road."

In all of the years my son has lived in Montana, I have visited him there at least a dozen times. I have never gone on the "Going to the Sun Road."

Last Friday when I was in Montana, I did it. I made a dream that I didn't even really know I had come true. I drove the "Going to the Sun Road." 

It was awesome.

It was so awesome, I wondered why I had never done it before. A few reasons:

• Sometimes when you have family that lives in a cool place, you visit them and skip the fun stuff.
• "Going to the Sun Road" is only open a few months a year. It is mountain road in a park called Glacier. As such, it can be covered with snow almost all of the year. In 2026, the road opened on June 23. It closes on October 3, which means it is open for a little more than three months.
• We did other cool stuff besides go to the National Park. Pedro is a magnificent fishing guide, and he knows lots of cool spots. It is hard to refuse a jaunt to hidden fly fishing river spot in Montana. 
• Lack of will? I dunno.

I did the drive, and I felt so much joy. If I hadn't taken the drive, I could have spent the day noodling around the cute shops (see: The Toggery where I have previously bought multiple pairs of shoes, including hiking boots, water shoes, and dress boots) on Main Street, which I have done a dozen times before. But do I really need another pair of shoes?

No.

I needed to see "Going to the Sun."

The Tik Tok, Brain Rot, and the New Opium War

The New York Times recently had an article about brain rot, the phenomena of young people (and not so young people) scrolling through social media watching videos of nonsense, and how this contributes to lower cognitive function. Brain rotters are not watching "how-to" videos to learn to cook, do yoga or fly fish. They are watching stuff with little to no content value. They are living their lives online, not IRL.

As I was pondering brain rot, I remembered Babel by R.F. Kuang, a speculative fiction novel that takes place it 1830 at Oxford University. A small group of international students are part of a special group that can translate many languages. The main purpose of this group was to facilitate international relations and trade during the time of the Opium War. The Opium War was when England dropped opium from India on China to make the Chinese addicted and therefore more docile and feeble and whatnot so they were easier to control. (Even though I was a history major, I learned more about the Opium War in this book than I did in college.)

Is brain rot the new Opium War, but a problem we are inflicting upon ourselves? 

My ex is a physician and he talked about the narcotic effects screen time has on children. The "pings" we get from likes and winning games and whatnot hit the same part of our brain as cocaine. Years ago, he had a burn patient -- a young child -- who was not allowed screen time. In the hospital, they gave the kid an iPad to play with when the health care team changed the burn dressings. To be clear, having burn dressings changed are one of the most painful things a person can experience. The kid with the iPad was able to get the burn dressings changed without painkillers, which is both cool and terrifying. It is cool that the kid didn't need narcotics to get the burn dressing changed, but terrifying that kids are zoning on screens with the power of cocaine after school.

As history often repeats itself, is this where we are today?

Best Medicine

I am binge watching a regular tv show called "Best Medicine." It is an American knock-off the British "Doc Martin," a show about a grumpy/autistic surgeon whose fear of blood sends him to be a GP in a small town. 

I watched a few episodes of the British version back when it was on Netflix years ago. It was a cute show in a quaint town, but I was at the time living with my own person Doc Martin, and I lost interest. I didn't realize at the time it was a show about an automaton evolving into a regular human.

The American version with Josh Charles has snagged my attention. I have friends who also watch, just because it is a sweet show and couldn't we all use a little sweetness?

I am on episode 6 or 7, and I don't think I'd want to live in a cozy town where the big city doctor moves in. I am feeling sorry for the cast, especially this guy who plays Mark, the town cop and the ex of the doc's love interest. In just a few episodes, all kinds of crazy shit happens to him. He had a dramatic allergic reaction to Red Dye 40, then he was impaled by a rod at a school party. In the first episode, the love interest has had a rare eye problem. A few episodes later, she had a rare blood disorder where she has too much iron and needs blood letting once a week. One character has marfan syndrome. The town needs to be in the Guiness Book of World Records of the most number of people per capita with odd diseases. Half the population has rare conditions, and statistically, that isn't possible.

I imagine being a writer on the show, where their main job is to look up obscure illnesses and inflict them on the poor cast members. It is also odd that no one on the show is overweight. They are all thin and fit. No one has garden variety diabetes, or bad knees. How much can these otherwise healthy characters endure?