Learning That People Want You In Their Lives Is A Skill You Can Develop If It Does Not Come Naturally

Hey all, covid season is about to really ramp up - so here's a few things you might not be doing that can help

As an immunocompromised person, i'm begging you to consider doing one or three of these things. I've seen very few people talk about them because we want the pandemic to be over, so i'm trying to spread the word, especially as cases go up with winter+holidays.

#1 --- Nasal sprays/prophylactics.

There are several nasal sprays on the market that have been proven to reduce the risk of covid by up to 80%.

(That study was done on a nasal spray with Iota-carrageenan.)

The nasal spray Covixyl was proven to reduce covid infections in healthcare workers by 62%

Nasal sprays with xylitol in them also showed efficacy at lowering viral load, and also helping symtoms if you've contracted covid.

Xlear is one such brand. They were actually sued for saying they prevented covid, and then proved *in a federal court of law* that they were able to prevent covid and treat covid symptoms by 62% - (link here)

You can find similar nasal sprays with xylitol at your local pharmacy, which may be less effective (Studies may vary), but STILL helpful as a preventative.

These sprays last about four hours, and are used prior to engaging with people (and ideally while masking, but even sans mask these are very helpful!)

The sprays in the US range from about $12 to $35, and can be found on amazon and probably your local pharmacy or walmart. Seriously, just blow your nose, use a spray in each nostril, go about your day.

#2 - Mouthwashes with Cetylpyridinium chloride

The ingredient Cetylpyridinium chloride has been proven to lower viral load. Links: here, here, here

Mouthwashes with povidone-iodine, or chlorhexidine gluconate also proved effective but here's the thing: CPC is found in mouthwashes like Crest, Colgate, and Therabreath.

I can buy a mouthwash for $5 at my local grocery that helps reduce viral load just by rinsing my mouth out when I get home after an event.

Usually, the label will advertise active ingredients on the front or cap, so it's not hard to look for.

#3 -- nasal sanitizers.

These have been used in the hospital for a while - if you've had an "elective" procedure done since covid, you might have had your snoot cleaned out with an orange scented q-tip. This is to reduce nasal viral load. It's mostly for use with MRSA right now, but with how much people touch the nose area and how much covid is shed from the nasal passages before/after symptom onset, this can help with spread of covid. To be very clear, full double-blind studies have not been done yet, but it does show some promise.

Either iodine solutions or the brand NOZIN are good options.

These would be used when you got home/after spending time with people to cleanse your nose.

I bought my bottle on amazon for about $25, and it's still going strong ages later. (To be fair, I mostly use it for events where there's been little social distancing or ive felt exposed).

---

TL;DR - if you dont want to read all the studies, here's a good cheap prevention plan:

~Use XLEAR nasal spray before you leave or interact with people ($13.50 on cvs website)

~Come home and use a CPL mouthwash like Crest ($5 on amazon)

~Use a nasal sanitizer with iodine or like nazin - $18-25 after exposure

Combine this with your use of masks, social distancing, air filters, vaccines, and increasing air flow, and you can really reduce the spread of COVID.

While some of these studies are still ongoing, the risk of all of them is essentially nil. And honestly, I will pay $20 and do a few small things to reduce the risk of covid. Most of these are genuinely easier than masking - which I will still be doing. Additionally, they'll reduce risk of colds and flu!

Please signal boost if you can and don't mind ♥ I know this is largely US based brands, but I know there are similar in other places. If you know them please add below!

you have time!!!

Anyone can help!

(Real pen the last picture)

It is important for EVERYONE to know how to help ANYONE. Not everyone can give them selves their medicine under every circumstance. Be educated, help out.

In the last year, i have gotten about five new violent allergies from foods i used to be able to eat. Next time i eat a fruit, my throat could close. I may not be able to inject myself. My boyfriend and i played with my trainer pen for like 30 minutes. He knows how to inject it. I know how. This is important.

Google Docs

National Clean Your Home Month

Welcome to NATIONAL CLEAN YOUR HOME MONTH The Manifesto Our motto: “If you can’t do a great thing, do a something.” What is it? Sam creat

National Clean Your Home Month, aka NaClYoHo or "Salty Pirates" month, is soon to be upon us!

Each November, I "host" NaClYoHo, where participants work to make their living spaces more comfortable and pleasant. The full manifesto is at the link, but the basic premise is that each day in November you put on a podcast, tv show, playlist, or other media, and clean or organize some aspect of your home.

It's meant to be a low-stress way to both do a yearly cleaning and also participate in an intensive project like National Novel Writing Month without having to write a novel. I'll be posting about it again before November kicks off, but I thought I'd link to the manifesto well ahead of time, so people could brace themselves. :D

This year my big goals are to figure out how to keep my floors truly clean, replace at least one rug, and clear out the storage nook where I have a bunch of stuff that needs sorting through. I am also going to try to dedicate some time to researching those "bathroom refresh" companies that basically just put a shell over your existing shower/tub/walls and see if it's feasible for my bathroom, which desperately needs it.

I hate the “get out of your comfort zone” sentiment because firstly fuck you for assuming everyone has a comfort zone, it’s an idea created in comfortable and privileged environment and cannot apply to survival type lives, I am trying to keep myself in the zone of “discomfort I can survive” and only other zone I can go to is “discomfort that will make me suicidal in 10 seconds or less” and i’m not risking my life for that shit, secondly it’s implying that already overwhelmed people don’t have the right to feel comfortable, and if they work towards feeling comfortable they’re doing the wrong thing, and it’s been enough of that, all of you, every person on this planet has the right to feel comfortable, and should work towards that first, and god knows if i ever find a place i feel comfortable in i will never ever leave

for the past few years i’ve had a personal rule that i do not sign anything i haven’t read - mostly because i genuinely think it’s a good idea, but also as a kind of social experiment - and i wanna share some observations

when i worked at an amusement park, i was one of like two or three people in a group of around twenty young adults who read the employment contract

i gave up on reading every TOS and privacy policy early on - now i only read them if it’s a website or company i’ll be giving personal information to (and even then i only skim them) - but i’ve never found anything super suspect in one

i also have an exception for when i’m made to feel like i’d be an asshole for stopping to read something. notable examples of this going into effect include the patient-intake paperwork at the ER when i went in a few months ago. (i really wish i’d just gone ahead and been the asshole in that situation, even though i have no reason to think there was anything bad in it)

i think the only time i was the only one to read something that the people who gave it to us actually wanted us to read was the waiver at a cat café, which included a lot of safety information about how to interact with the cats

one time i was approached by a guy with a petition who told me it was an anti-fracking petition (which was a real petition that was going around at the time), but the paper he handed me was a petition to instate a “citizenship requirement” for voting. i pointed this out to him and he tried to convince me that even though that’s what it said, it’s not really what my signature meant, and then named the university he graduated from as though it gave him some level of extra credibility??

i have more than once been given a HIPPA form at a doctor’s office where my signature certifies that i’ve been offered a copy of their privacy practices, when i had not, in fact, been offered a copy of their privacy practices. the last time this happened, the receptionist didn’t actually have a copy of their privacy practices, and had to get me to me sign it several days later once she got a copy from her manager

99% of people are very accommodating when you tell them “i want to read this before i sign it,” but it’s never what they’re expecting

on a related note, if someone thinks it’s important that you know what’s in something they’re giving you to sign, they won’t wait for you to read it - they’ll go through, point to each section, and tell you what it says. this is what happened when i signed my lease, and it’s actually a pretty common instance of using my asshole exception, because then i feel like i’m calling the person a liar if i stop to read it myself

the moral of the story is… like… we treat a signature like it’s the absolute most surefire way of saying “yes i understand this and agree to it,” but in practice there’s not even a pretense that a signature means you’ve READ whatever you’re signing. in fact, handing someone a piece of paper and saying “sign here” is one of the LEAST effective ways to make sure they understand and agree to something, and PEOPLE KNOW THIS, and we do it ANYWAY because what else are we gonna do? notarize it??

i don’t have a solution but like. that’s kinda fucked up, you know?

alternatives to “i want to die”:

i want things to change

i want a different life

today was a shitty day/week

i don’t want to live like this

i want to be somewhere else in life

i’m not where i want to be yet

+ much more

I'm trying to figure out a good way to say "you really should actually learn the basics of small talk" with sounding like I'm biased against autistic people.

in case you haven't thought about switching to firefox yet, here's an extension that will...

Notify you if a website you're on has employees that are on strike

Bypass paywalls for major news outlets like the New York Times

Change the browser theme based on the time of day

Directly install third party non-extension scripts

Save individual browser sessions to be reopened at any time

Use the TV format of YouTube in-browser

Make all chrome extensions compatible with Firefox

Turn YouTube dislikes back on

Fix Twitter and make it way less fucked up

Automatically remove trackers from URLs

And many more!

Feel free to add any other firefox extensions you think are slept on.