The symptom is a lot of neck and shoulder pain, but the result is that I have been getting only pathetic amounts of sleep...
Creatine might help with both your pain and sleep deprivation. Some health pundits claim almost everyone over 50 should be taking it anyway. "Creatine is primarily known for enhancing muscle performance and recovery by increasing energy availability in cells, particularly in muscles and the brain. Its role in sleep deprivation is less direct but has been explored in some research. Here's a breakdown based on available evidence:" Creatine Benefits for Sleep Deprivation
And then, and continuing to now, intense myalgia.
Taking a Creatine dietary supplement might be helpful. It's been around for a long time and is considered safe for most people. But you may want to check with your doctor first. Look for Creatine Monohydrate in the dietary supplement section of stores. "Emerging evidence suggests that creatine supplementation may benefit individuals experiencing myalgia (muscle pain) after COVID-19, particularly in the context of post-COVID-19 fatigue syndrome or long COVID. Here's a summary of the relevant findings:" Creatine Benefits for Post-COVID Myalgia
russell @01.08: definitely not too much info. It's one thing to understand something intellectually, and another to understand it viscerally.
Funnily enough, I have been grappling with a version of this for several weeks, not as a result of covid, but because of something that recurs every several years and is usually solved fast with a new and different orthopaedic pillow. The symptom is a lot of neck and shoulder pain, but the result is that I have been getting only pathetic amounts of sleep, usually only a few (3-4) hours in total a night, in several increments. I am continually exhausted, my brain is increasingly sluggish, and I'm now waiting in desperate hope for new pillow number 2. As I lie in bed, juggling three different orthopaedic pillows and trying a different position every few minutes (but never my preferred, natural sleeping position), I think about how a condition so apparently unserious can cause so much misery, and I think a lot about those people who have to live for years in constant pain from serious, intractable conditions, and how on earth they manage it. In my own judgement, I do not come out well from the comparison.
So I feel for you, russell, even more than I would normally. I didn't know that the new strains of covid could still have such effects. I only hope they end soon, and that afterwards your accustomed good health and fitness reasserts itself, and lasts for many more years.
Also, too: Do you morons not know?
Yes, they definitely know. But for some reason, or collection of reasons, a remarkable number of people and institutions are amazingly reluctant to name things for what they are. At least, when it comes to Trump.
What we're seeing is the failure of the institutions that are meant to preserve constitutional governance and the rule of law. Not just failure, they seem to be actively running away from the responsibilities of their role in our grand experiment.
Everybody is afraid of the bully. Nobody wants to upset the apple cart, even though the apple cart has already been smashed to bits and the apples rolled into the gutter.
One way or another, the reign of DJT will end. I really don't know what we will be left with.
One thing that does seem to be clear is that everybody else on the planet is figuring out that a MAGA United States is a fickle and utterly self-interested actor, and are taking steps to deal with that. Among other things, some of them are discovering that they don't really need us all that badly. We can be worked around.
Another 3 1/2 years to go.
At the risk of stepping on wj's comment, I'll take another hard turn in a different direction.
We mostly talk about politics and related stuff here, but sometimes share from our personal lives as well. Apologies in advance if this is inappropriate or unwelcome.
Back in early June, I came down with COVID. After five years of somehow avoiding the stupid virus, it finally caught up with me. The week or so of having the active virus was definitely no fun, but was really (in my fortunate case) only incrementally worse than a bad case of the flu. Fever, headache, body ache. I drank a lot of fluids, took a lot of ibuprophen, ate a lot of Indica gummies, and basically slept it off.
A few days after all of that, the post-COVID stuff kicked in. Profound fatigue - like, I would brush my teeth and need a rest afterwards - for about a week.
And then, and continuing to now, intense myalgia. And weirdly specific - shoulders (can't raise my arms), hamstrings, calves and shins. SImple things are painful. Sleeping through the night is out of the question, I have to get up every hour or two and walk around the house to shake off the cramping pain in my legs.
None of this is meant as a complaint, really. A lot of folks get this much worse than what I'm experiencing. What it is, for me, is a wake up call.
I'm within shouting distance of 70, and I've been remarkably lucky, health-wise. Never had a serious illness, never broken a bone, never had surgery, never had a joint replaced. Still have all my original teeth, for crying out loud. A very lucky guy.
This experience has been my introduction to the world of chronic illness, and specifically the world of chronic pain. It's been eye-opening.
My wife suffered with PMR for about a year during 2023-2024, the symptoms of which are a lot like what I"m dealing with now. While I could sympathize with what she was going through, and picked up as much of the household stuff as I could so she could rest, I don't think I really understood what she was experiencing.
Now, I have a better idea.
It has been a sobering, even chastening, experience. So many people live with this, or similar, for years and years. All their lives, in some cases. The best information I've been able to find about my stuff is that it should pass in "weeks to months". Which sucks, but at least I know there is an endpoint to it. At some point, I'll be back to an acceptable version of normal.
I am, frankly, grateful for the almost-70 years of good fortune I've had, and oddly enough am grateful for the crap I'm dealing with now. I've had to cut some stuff out of my life because it's just too hard to do right now, and that has been the occasion for a lot of reflection and re-focusing. Mostly, I'm learing the hard lesson of accepting limitations with grace, which is not something I've really had to do much of before now.
It's an interesting adventure.
Anyway, I hope this isn't TMI. These thoughts have just been banging around in my head for the last couple of weeks, and I felt the need to share them somewhere. I consider all of you friends, even if in the weird Internet age way of connecting with people online. I appreciate the opportunity to spill all this tea here, it's actually helpful, and I appreciate your forbearance in putting up with the rambling.
Better days, y'all! Onward and upward.
Taking a hard turn in a different direction:
Headline in today's Washington Post: "House issues subpoena for Epstein files". Which is good to know. (And about time, considering how the Trump Justice Department has stonewalled.)
But what got me was the subhead: "It’s unclear how the Justice Department will respond to the request." Do you morons not know? It's not a request. It's an order! Not that the Trump administration recognizes the distinction.
I wish I could remember where this observation came from, which was that when you have (as many languages do) 'gender-indexed' speech, the mother, as care-giver, has to be fluent in both, in order to teach male children how to appropriately communicate. This would obviously have a great impact on a lot of other things that one could speculate on, but probably impossible to prove.
I tend to think that all languages have some sort of gender-indexed differences so these effects are going to exist in all cultures, but it is the accretion of cultural behavior/norms rather than something in the chromosones.
It seems like the lit there is suggesting that sexual selection *might* have a role in development of language, but given that the evidence shows that more intelligent mothers have lower infant mortality rates, it could be that it's actually natural selection having an effect that looks like it could be sexual selection - that is, it's not the selection of mates that is the mechanism for the trend, but rather the survival of the offspring that is the driving mechanism. I'd guess it could be kind of hard to tell if it is mate/mate communication or parent/child communication that is the dominant factor. Seems like a bit of a black box and a set of assumptions.
Well, the one who is best able to whisper sweet nothings in a potential mate's ear is likely to have better mating success...
Here are two articles and a book that make the case for sexual selection pressures having an impact on language development. "The article argues for a hybrid model where early language evolved through natural selection for collaboration, followed by sexual selection for displaying superior intelligence, leading to the development of modern, expressive language. It emphasizes sexual selection’s role in driving the "supercharged" nature of human language compared to other primates." The evolution of language by sexual selection "Miller discusses how language may have evolved as a sexually selected trait to display cognitive abilities and intelligence, serving as a courtship tool. This review article explores the idea that verbal creativity and eloquence signal genetic fitness." Sexual selection for indicators of intelligence "The book argues that many human cognitive traits, including language, evolved through sexual selection as displays of intelligence and creativity to attract mates. Miller posits that language’s complexity and expressiveness serve as fitness indicators in mate choice." The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature
The WH is now lobbying not only for the Nobel Peace prize but also the one for economics for teaching the world trade economics. The 'shooting the messenger' to deal with job numbers should bolster that claim even more.
But why rely on those commie Swedes (and worse: Norwegians) for prizes? The US should come up with their(!) own presti(di)gous awards that a POTUS approved committee could award to the worthy (in particular POTUS). https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/white-house-lobbying-nobel-prize-trump-takes-farcical-turn-rcna222492
The BLS has been struggling a lot as of late, most all of it caused by staffing shortages. They've stopped collecting inflation data in a number of places as well and are imputing (modeling) a lot of the data for those measures. This from June, but getting more play at the WSJ in the last few weeks: https://www.npr.org/2025/06/05/nx-s1-5424367/inflation-data-cpi-government-job-shortages
The vandalism of the federal government continues apace. It's not being shrunk and drowned, it's being given the Khashoggi treatment and leaving one bag at a time.
As long as I can remember, when bad jobs numbers come out, the President reacts by talking about how he will act, or how he wants Congress to act, to get the economy back on track. Today, when a bad job reports came out, the Presidential response was to fire the (non-partisan) head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Shoot the Messenger at its finest.
Granddaughter #1 has a birthday this month. Her birthday doodle is done. http://mcain6925.com/obsidian/Charlie-birthday-12.pdf
She's getting the money indirectly. She inherited my narrow palate, which causes all sorts of teeth alignment problems when all the adult molars come in. I'm covering the orthodontics bill to spread her palate now, which has to be done before the upper jaw bones finish fusing.
Granddaughter #1 has a birthday this month. Her birthday doodle is done. http://mcain6925.com/obsidian/Charlie-birthday-12.pdf
She's getting the money indirectly. She inherited my narrow palate, which causes all sorts of teeth alignment problems when all the adult molars come in. I'm covering the orthodontics bill to spread her palate now, which has to be done before the upper jaw bones finish fusing.
So...a professional MIDIator?
I asked for that, didn't I? But yes, although when he was working on it was a few years before MIDI happened. Poking at Google, I see that people are still working to get woodwind attack transients right, now looking at the problem that what the player does with shaping their mouth and throat matters.
My only important personal experience with attack transients was when I was in junior high. The band director convinced me to switch from clarinet to oboe. Too late I learned that the reason he wanted an oboist was so he could include a "Themes From the Nutcracker Suite" piece in the Christmas concert, which had a little four- or eight-bar oboe-all-alone intro to one bit. There are so many things that can go wrong when you attack that first note on an oboe.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “An open thread”
Another 3 1/2 years to go.
Other than possibly improving your mood, Creatine isn't likely to help with 3 1/2 more years of Trump.
"
The symptom is a lot of neck and shoulder pain, but the result is that I have been getting only pathetic amounts of sleep...
Creatine might help with both your pain and sleep deprivation. Some health pundits claim almost everyone over 50 should be taking it anyway.
"Creatine is primarily known for enhancing muscle performance and recovery by increasing energy availability in cells, particularly in muscles and the brain. Its role in sleep deprivation is less direct but has been explored in some research. Here's a breakdown based on available evidence:"
Creatine Benefits for Sleep Deprivation
"
And then, and continuing to now, intense myalgia.
Taking a Creatine dietary supplement might be helpful. It's been around for a long time and is considered safe for most people. But you may want to check with your doctor first. Look for Creatine Monohydrate in the dietary supplement section of stores.
"Emerging evidence suggests that creatine supplementation may benefit individuals experiencing myalgia (muscle pain) after COVID-19, particularly in the context of post-COVID-19 fatigue syndrome or long COVID. Here's a summary of the relevant findings:"
Creatine Benefits for Post-COVID Myalgia
"
russell @01.08: definitely not too much info. It's one thing to understand something intellectually, and another to understand it viscerally.
Funnily enough, I have been grappling with a version of this for several weeks, not as a result of covid, but because of something that recurs every several years and is usually solved fast with a new and different orthopaedic pillow. The symptom is a lot of neck and shoulder pain, but the result is that I have been getting only pathetic amounts of sleep, usually only a few (3-4) hours in total a night, in several increments. I am continually exhausted, my brain is increasingly sluggish, and I'm now waiting in desperate hope for new pillow number 2. As I lie in bed, juggling three different orthopaedic pillows and trying a different position every few minutes (but never my preferred, natural sleeping position), I think about how a condition so apparently unserious can cause so much misery, and I think a lot about those people who have to live for years in constant pain from serious, intractable conditions, and how on earth they manage it. In my own judgement, I do not come out well from the comparison.
So I feel for you, russell, even more than I would normally. I didn't know that the new strains of covid could still have such effects. I only hope they end soon, and that afterwards your accustomed good health and fitness reasserts itself, and lasts for many more years.
"
Also, too:
Do you morons not know?
Yes, they definitely know. But for some reason, or collection of reasons, a remarkable number of people and institutions are amazingly reluctant to name things for what they are. At least, when it comes to Trump.
What we're seeing is the failure of the institutions that are meant to preserve constitutional governance and the rule of law. Not just failure, they seem to be actively running away from the responsibilities of their role in our grand experiment.
Everybody is afraid of the bully. Nobody wants to upset the apple cart, even though the apple cart has already been smashed to bits and the apples rolled into the gutter.
One way or another, the reign of DJT will end. I really don't know what we will be left with.
One thing that does seem to be clear is that everybody else on the planet is figuring out that a MAGA United States is a fickle and utterly self-interested actor, and are taking steps to deal with that. Among other things, some of them are discovering that they don't really need us all that badly. We can be worked around.
Another 3 1/2 years to go.
"
At the risk of stepping on wj's comment, I'll take another hard turn in a different direction.
We mostly talk about politics and related stuff here, but sometimes share from our personal lives as well. Apologies in advance if this is inappropriate or unwelcome.
Back in early June, I came down with COVID. After five years of somehow avoiding the stupid virus, it finally caught up with me. The week or so of having the active virus was definitely no fun, but was really (in my fortunate case) only incrementally worse than a bad case of the flu. Fever, headache, body ache. I drank a lot of fluids, took a lot of ibuprophen, ate a lot of Indica gummies, and basically slept it off.
A few days after all of that, the post-COVID stuff kicked in. Profound fatigue - like, I would brush my teeth and need a rest afterwards - for about a week.
And then, and continuing to now, intense myalgia. And weirdly specific - shoulders (can't raise my arms), hamstrings, calves and shins. SImple things are painful. Sleeping through the night is out of the question, I have to get up every hour or two and walk around the house to shake off the cramping pain in my legs.
None of this is meant as a complaint, really. A lot of folks get this much worse than what I'm experiencing. What it is, for me, is a wake up call.
I'm within shouting distance of 70, and I've been remarkably lucky, health-wise. Never had a serious illness, never broken a bone, never had surgery, never had a joint replaced. Still have all my original teeth, for crying out loud. A very lucky guy.
This experience has been my introduction to the world of chronic illness, and specifically the world of chronic pain. It's been eye-opening.
My wife suffered with PMR for about a year during 2023-2024, the symptoms of which are a lot like what I"m dealing with now. While I could sympathize with what she was going through, and picked up as much of the household stuff as I could so she could rest, I don't think I really understood what she was experiencing.
Now, I have a better idea.
It has been a sobering, even chastening, experience. So many people live with this, or similar, for years and years. All their lives, in some cases. The best information I've been able to find about my stuff is that it should pass in "weeks to months". Which sucks, but at least I know there is an endpoint to it. At some point, I'll be back to an acceptable version of normal.
I am, frankly, grateful for the almost-70 years of good fortune I've had, and oddly enough am grateful for the crap I'm dealing with now. I've had to cut some stuff out of my life because it's just too hard to do right now, and that has been the occasion for a lot of reflection and re-focusing. Mostly, I'm learing the hard lesson of accepting limitations with grace, which is not something I've really had to do much of before now.
It's an interesting adventure.
Anyway, I hope this isn't TMI. These thoughts have just been banging around in my head for the last couple of weeks, and I felt the need to share them somewhere. I consider all of you friends, even if in the weird Internet age way of connecting with people online. I appreciate the opportunity to spill all this tea here, it's actually helpful, and I appreciate your forbearance in putting up with the rambling.
Better days, y'all! Onward and upward.
"
Taking a hard turn in a different direction:
Headline in today's Washington Post: "House issues subpoena for Epstein files". Which is good to know. (And about time, considering how the Trump Justice Department has stonewalled.)
But what got me was the subhead: "It’s unclear how the Justice Department will respond to the request." Do you morons not know? It's not a request. It's an order! Not that the Trump administration recognizes the distinction.
"
I wish I could remember where this observation came from, which was that when you have (as many languages do) 'gender-indexed' speech, the mother, as care-giver, has to be fluent in both, in order to teach male children how to appropriately communicate. This would obviously have a great impact on a lot of other things that one could speculate on, but probably impossible to prove.
I tend to think that all languages have some sort of gender-indexed differences so these effects are going to exist in all cultures, but it is the accretion of cultural behavior/norms rather than something in the chromosones.
"
It seems like the lit there is suggesting that sexual selection *might* have a role in development of language, but given that the evidence shows that more intelligent mothers have lower infant mortality rates, it could be that it's actually natural selection having an effect that looks like it could be sexual selection - that is, it's not the selection of mates that is the mechanism for the trend, but rather the survival of the offspring that is the driving mechanism. I'd guess it could be kind of hard to tell if it is mate/mate communication or parent/child communication that is the dominant factor. Seems like a bit of a black box and a set of assumptions.
"
Sexual selection for musical capabilities too.
A process that is ongoing.
"
Well, the one who is best able to whisper sweet nothings in a potential mate's ear is likely to have better mating success...
Here are two articles and a book that make the case for sexual selection pressures having an impact on language development.
"The article argues for a hybrid model where early language evolved through natural selection for collaboration, followed by sexual selection for displaying superior intelligence, leading to the development of modern, expressive language. It emphasizes sexual selection’s role in driving the "supercharged" nature of human language compared to other primates."
The evolution of language by sexual selection
"Miller discusses how language may have evolved as a sexually selected trait to display cognitive abilities and intelligence, serving as a courtship tool. This review article explores the idea that verbal creativity and eloquence signal genetic fitness."
Sexual selection for indicators of intelligence
"The book argues that many human cognitive traits, including language, evolved through sexual selection as displays of intelligence and creativity to attract mates. Miller posits that language’s complexity and expressiveness serve as fitness indicators in mate choice."
The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature
"
Care to elaborate on that, Charles?
Most likely something to do with the Chomsky-Westheimer theorem, but you know Charles....such a joker.
"
Care to elaborate on that, Charles?
"
The development of language likely had a significant sexual selection influence.
"
Open thread, so I found this (about and with an extract from Max Bennett's A Brief History of Intelligence) on the origins of human language, its relation to AI and other aspects, interesting. Also, it sent me down a rabbit hole about Kanzi, whom I had completely forgotten:
https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/the-one-weird-trick-that-gave-humans?utm_source=substack&publication_id=54748&post_id=169644176&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=false&r=w2vx&triedRedirect=true
"
The WH is now lobbying not only for the Nobel Peace prize but also the one for economics for teaching the world trade economics. The 'shooting the messenger' to deal with job numbers should bolster that claim even more.
But why rely on those commie Swedes (and worse: Norwegians) for prizes? The US should come up with their(!) own presti(di)gous awards that a POTUS approved committee could award to the worthy (in particular POTUS).
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/white-house-lobbying-nobel-prize-trump-takes-farcical-turn-rcna222492
"
The BLS has been struggling a lot as of late, most all of it caused by staffing shortages. They've stopped collecting inflation data in a number of places as well and are imputing (modeling) a lot of the data for those measures. This from June, but getting more play at the WSJ in the last few weeks:
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/05/nx-s1-5424367/inflation-data-cpi-government-job-shortages
The vandalism of the federal government continues apace. It's not being shrunk and drowned, it's being given the Khashoggi treatment and leaving one bag at a time.
"
The movie Idiocracy's premise is becoming all to real.
"
Also, ensures that in the future, reliable statistics and actual facts are harder, or impossible, to come by.
"
As long as I can remember, when bad jobs numbers come out, the President reacts by talking about how he will act, or how he wants Congress to act, to get the economy back on track. Today, when a bad job reports came out, the Presidential response was to fire the (non-partisan) head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Shoot the Messenger at its finest.
"
LOvely, Micheal. A gift I am sure she will appreciate when she is older.
"
Granddaughter #1 has a birthday this month. Her birthday doodle is done.
http://mcain6925.com/obsidian/Charlie-birthday-12.pdf
She's getting the money indirectly. She inherited my narrow palate, which causes all sorts of teeth alignment problems when all the adult molars come in. I'm covering the orthodontics bill to spread her palate now, which has to be done before the upper jaw bones finish fusing.
"
Granddaughter #1 has a birthday this month. Her birthday doodle is done.
http://mcain6925.com/obsidian/Charlie-birthday-12.pdf
She's getting the money indirectly. She inherited my narrow palate, which causes all sorts of teeth alignment problems when all the adult molars come in. I'm covering the orthodontics bill to spread her palate now, which has to be done before the upper jaw bones finish fusing.
On “Everyone is a hero in their own story”
This made me smile:
https://x.com/forresterbird/status/1950592868160090387
https://www.householddivision.org.uk/musicians-coldstream
"
So...a professional MIDIator?
I asked for that, didn't I? But yes, although when he was working on it was a few years before MIDI happened. Poking at Google, I see that people are still working to get woodwind attack transients right, now looking at the problem that what the player does with shaping their mouth and throat matters.
My only important personal experience with attack transients was when I was in junior high. The band director convinced me to switch from clarinet to oboe. Too late I learned that the reason he wanted an oboist was so he could include a "Themes From the Nutcracker Suite" piece in the Christmas concert, which had a little four- or eight-bar oboe-all-alone intro to one bit. There are so many things that can go wrong when you attack that first note on an oboe.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.