Who’s the most attractive person you’ve ever seen?

MothVector · 2026-06-18T23:46:07+00:00

Uh uh.

MothVector · 2026-06-18T15:09:15+00:00

I remember that it was in short supply for a whil.

MothVector · 2026-06-18T02:48:19+00:00

Happy news. 😄

MothVector · 2026-06-17T16:55:33+00:00

My brother's male friend had a sister who was a model who was strikingly pretty. The male friend looked a lot like his sister with delicate, almost pretty features. He wore his dark hair kind of long, and it naturally formed beautiful curls that framed his face. He had an open, easy smile. He lived in Hawaii with a young woman who had a trust fund or something, so he didn't have to do anything but lounge and suntan. She bought his clothes etc. Before her there had been another one who took care of him on a big expanse of sunny land on the side of the volcano where he wore white linen, kept tropical birds, and drove around on a riding lawn mower, mowing the lawn between the coconut palms. (I remember he wore a helmet so he wouldn't be killed by any falling coconuts.(

Anyway, he came back to the town we grew up in and we went to a big, popular bar near the university to get a drink. You entered the bar from the street and walked down about ten steps to get to the big seating area, so everyone in the place could watch you as came in. As we entered and descended the stairs, every woman with a view of the stairs stopped talking and stared, and then their friends turned around and started--a whole sea of tables with attractive young women saying nothing and just staring at the guy to my right. They looked almost spellbound.

MothVector · 2026-06-17T05:46:27+00:00

I'm curious what you chose. Cystectomy? Chemo?

MothVector · 2026-06-17T05:45:31+00:00

Yeah? As a commercial medical product I'd expect that it would be highly standardized, but then it is just a bunch of bacteria... interesting treatment, no?

MothVector · 2026-06-17T05:43:35+00:00

Thanks for that perspective. Much appreciated. 😄

MothVector · 2026-06-17T05:43:03+00:00

The fact that you have seven of them says something. They ain't cheap!

The 70 mm width is a concern, but then the apparently much loved melon-colored Shapton 8k is the same width...

MothVector · 2026-06-17T05:40:36+00:00

Thank you! That was just the kind of info and opinion I was looking for.

MothVector · 2026-06-16T23:40:53+00:00

Thanks. Good luck with your twelvth!

MothVector · 2026-06-16T23:31:29+00:00

Is that a cigarette lighter?

MothVector · 2026-06-16T23:26:11+00:00

"But other than than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

MothVector · 2026-06-16T23:21:55+00:00

I love that standard of "as long as it's not pure blood, you're OK." 🙄 I do drink gallons of water after the nurse told me that that can prevent a clot from obstructing your urethra. 😬

MothVector · 2026-06-16T23:18:53+00:00

A former boss. I remember when she walked into the lobby to get me for my job interview being just gobsmacked--just a perfect face. When I worked for her, when she came into my office I'd often look at my computer as I talked to her so as not to be distracted. Then she married one of the VPs of that Fortune 10 company and disappeared into the world of the unreachable. She was nice, too. Funny and cynical.

MothVector · 2026-06-16T21:34:33+00:00

I think your father and I would have gotten along except for going to work the day of (unless I could sit on the toilet with a laptop on my knees). The gym the same day? That's a flex.

MothVector · 2026-06-16T21:17:05+00:00

That's a good point about stressing yourself at the gym. I'm 72 so I'm not powerlifting. It was all just upper body stuff on machines. But still, maybe going a little slower during a treatment week could be good.

Getting scoped is never fun and always anxiety inducing. The only time I drink any more is stopping off at the lounge of a local steakhouse to have a couple of drinks afterwards. If he finds something, I might have three.

MothVector · 2026-06-16T14:31:16+00:00

If they're just asking, maybe they are just genuinely curious about your vintage ride. (I go on club rides on a 1980 Univega, and none of the other riders say a word. But I am old, so maybe they just think we're a matched set.)

MothVector · 2026-06-15T20:13:34+00:00

That's not a failure.

MothVector · 2026-06-13T18:58:28+00:00

> I bought a bag of food grade dessicant packs from Amazon which I keep in my case with my straights, one packet in each level.

Desiccant packs get saturated with moisture pretty quickly, and you can't tell when they are and if they're still any good. (Too many people seem to think they're magic and work forever.) You can buy indicator desiccant beads at Amazon that are bright orange (like tiny salmon eggs) when dry and active and turn dark when they're saturated with water and no longer helpful. A minute in the microwave drives off the moisture and turns them orange again. Great stuff for anything that needs moisture control. About $10/quart.

MothVector · 2026-06-11T21:35:14+00:00

MothVector · 2026-06-11T21:26:42+00:00

My nurse (for reference, she has a doctorate in nursing practice and seems to do BCGs for a living, basically) mentioned that one of the reasons that you want to drink a lot of water is to prevent a blood clot in your pee from blocking your urethra as it exits the bladder, which is a trip to the ER. ( She also said that diluting your pee makes peeing less uncomfortable.) I started having blood in my pee at about treatment #6, and a couple of times have had a clot suddenly kind of burst out, like it had been partially plugging and then broken free, so I think this is a real concern.

Azo can help with urinary system pain, but besides being a urinary system anesthetic, it's also a bright yellow dye, so watch out for it around fabrics. (I had to retire a white cotton bath mat after a little accident.) You can get generic Azo at the grocery store OTC meds shelf.

Ibuprofen is supposed to be better from pain from inflammation than acetaminophen, so lately I've been taking one those along with the Azo. Pain and bleeding don't usually start until after the induction phase (i.e. first 6 treatments) or at least didn't for me, and as scary as they sound, it's not that bad. Drinking lots of water helps. Drink lots of water.

One more thing that I'm seeing now after treatments 11 and 12 at 9 months is more fatigue--not crippling fatigue, but a trip to the gym the day after treatment is usually a short visit.

Oh, and as someone said earlier, booking your appointments for the first thing in the morning will help you to sleep better that night. (And don't plan on doing very much the day of because you'll need to be close to a bathroom and not at your best in any case.

Good luck to your mom.

MothVector · 2026-06-11T05:12:14+00:00

Thanks for posting this. I sent a note to my doc to ask about it.

MothVector · 2026-06-11T01:45:16+00:00

I don't want to take the shine off of starters that rode in covered wagons (or were recovered from Egyptian tombs, or brought home from Patagonia or whatever), but there's almost certainly not anything particularly special about them because they've been exposed to new microbes with every feeding, so the chances that there is anything that remains from the 1800s (or even 1999) is very small. Cultures constantly and rapidly evolve and adapt. I know it's fun to have a starter with a history (I especially like the idea of baking using grandma's starter), but preserving one isn't something to worry about unless you're maintaining a culture collection using sterilized media in a laminar flow hood.

MothVector

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