The replacement MacBook arrived today. It's definitely an improvement over the previous model I'd ordered. Turns out doubling the RAM and adding nearly 10 extra cores to the GPU makes Stable Diffusion run much smoother. Who would have thought?! I'm excited to get started with the graphic novel. Sadly that won't happen until tomorrow. Tonight time ran away from me as I spoke with my mom. She's got Covid again. She's doing okay and is through the worst of it. She had it six months ago. Honestly I'm a bit surprised to hear she's got it again so soon. After that I spoke to the Profuser. He's doing well. He's become a gym rat. He works out in the gym for two hours each day trying to add more girth and bulk to his penis and balls. It's important to do this, he tells me, because as men age we produce less testosterone. If you don't work to beef up your meat, apparently it just withers away. Later I spoke to my sister who told me stories of what it's like to be a new dog owner. Dogs, when they are puppies, are notoriously non-compliant if treats are not involved. This surprises my sister for some reason. Tomorrow a dog trainer will visit her and offer some guidance, tips and tricks for treat giving.
Over the weekend Asia and I spent time with a mutual friend. He had two friends visiting, a couple from Hamburg. Lovely people. The guy was born in New York but has lived away from there for a decade now - the same as me. Coincidentally both of us now live in Germany and have European partners. Obviously this encourages a kind of kindred sensibility. Usually I tend to avoid other Americans while living abroad. Something about socializing with my own countrymen seems to defeat the purpose of moving across the ocean. This time was different though. We had much in common and it was pleasant to speak with someone with access to the same cultural iconography, history and base references. Two kids from New York. He was from Westchester, which technically isn't New York City, but it's close enough for me. I have a friend from Buffalo and I always give her shit that she's from the state of New York, not the city. I love her and miss her and hope she isn't reading this.
We spent much of the weekend together, the five of us. All, miraculously, without drugs or alcohol. Well, that's not entirely true - there was some nibbling of cannabis containing cookies. But just a bit. The weather was spectacular, too warm for even a hoody. Spring seemed to have sprung as we paraded ourselves around Friedrichshain, ultimately terminating on the canal at the East Side Gallery. It was short-lived though, because Sunday brought with it grey skies, cooler temperatures, and rain. Meeting new people is nice, particularly when they come pre-vetted. Of course this isn't always the case. Sometimes you meet friends of friends and you just don't click, or worse, you loathe them. Luckily this wasn't the case. In fact, I've been lucky on several occasions this year meeting friends of friends. A few months back we met another couple, this time a Canadian and a German, who we also dabbled in the dark edible arts with. Maybe one day the whole big bunch of us can get together, like The Bradys.
Tomorrow morning I'll wake up early to get to the doctor's office before they open. I need a referral for a gastroenterologist. Back in December I was having some digestive problems. I probably mentioned that here. They've never completely cleared up so I want to get scoped. As someone with GERD, it's important to get checked out every so often, to make sure the stomach acids don't cause cell mutations in the esophagus. Not just that though, it's good to check out the lower GI tract too, where downstream issues may arise. It's been 5 years since I was last violated. It's time to celebrate that anniversary with another insertion. Part of me would like to forego the examination because it introduces new opportunity for tragedy. Even if the news is good and they find no suspicious polyps, no growths, no signs of warning, there's still the possibility of an adverse reaction, an error during the administration of anesthesia, an accidental perforation of the colon, a freak accident. While rare, these things do happen. We have to undergo these procedures and assure ourselves everything will be fine while simultaneously holding in our minds the knowledge that everything isn't always fine. Complications happen. Probability and statistics are things which cannot be reasoned with. Someone wins that lottery. You never want it to be you, but it is beyond your control. The same with riding planes. Yes, most planes don't crash. Driving in a car is more dangerous than flying, they say. But planes do sometimes crash. Anybody who ever got in a plane did so under the assumption that the plan would not crash - assuming of course they weren't planning on crashing it themselves. It is a gamble, one where the odds are stacked very much in your favor, but a gamble is still a gamble.
In a sense a colonoscopy adds unnecessary risk to your life. In another sense preventative testing allows for the early detection of a disease which would otherwise be fatal. It's a balancing act. All of life is. I just wonder. If I had to guess I'd say the survival rate for colorectal cancer is low. How much of a difference does catching it early make? How early must it be caught for that difference to be meaningful? Are there less intrusive tests with similar accuracy which could be used to make a diagnosis?
I just wish it all weren't such a pain in the ass.
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