3 mg of melatonin no longer working.
Am back to getting very sleepy, but not able to take the one small step into oblivion.
I buy 1mg tablets and add 1 to my dosage.
Still not working.
Next night I add another.
Sleep comes effortlessly.
The way God intended it.
With the aid of 5mg of melatonin.
The scuttlebutt is that the required dosage for melatonn users keeps increasing.
The 3mg worked for a year, I think.
Will a year see another increased need?
And the next year?
To what?
5 grams?
Does it worry me? The possible increasing need?
It’s certainly got me thinking about it.

________________________________________
Tagging Today
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
My 204th consecutive posting.
Time is 12.01am
Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 59* with sometime cloudy skies.

Dinner is something from the grill. I’ll decide when I get to the market.

_________________________________
Quiz Question of Day:
Name some holistic health issues.

Hints:

Left:
sleep

Second from left:
A law-enforcement grade Breathalyzer, specifically an Alco-Sensor IV

Foto: Elza Fiúza/ABr - http://www.agenciabrasil.gov.br/media/imagens/2007/12/29/1300EF028.JPG/view

Second from Right:
Running in water

Cpl. Earnest J. Barnes - https://web.archive.org/web/20080202213511/http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/200572675630 Photo ID: 200572675630 Submitting Unit: Marine Barracks 8th & I

Right:
Good foods to eat.

_________________________________
Love your notes.
Contact me @ domcapossela@hotmail.com

Here’s a fun note from Howard Dinin concerning an incident in my son’s life at Microsoft Corporation:

Melissa and I have been watching, on Netflix, a CNN Original mini-series. It’s part of a continuing project of theirs covering the late decades (for a start) of the the 20th century. 

This was the first one we encountered, so we watched it first. Though Melissa tells me she thinks she’s seen the Seventies series already. 

We watched the eight episodes of the Nineties series. Each is anywhere from 40 to 50 minutes long, and mainly consists of archive footage from all over televsion (not just CNN) plus contemporaneous talking heads, both notable celebrities (Tom Hanks is one of the producers of the series, so he shows up occasionally, sporting a blonde crewcut) and respectable academics. It’s most interesting, in some respects, to see people talking in clips from what is now history, so you see a lot of  very young versions of people you’ve watched age gracefully (this includes not only, say, an Anderson Cooper, but a David Dinkins, former mayor of NYC, or then fat Al Sharpton and a now very thin and healthy looking senior spokesman Al Sharpton) and then you see them up close and personal as they are now, with their sharp observations of then vs. now. 

Anyway, one of the segments from the eight showcasing the Nineties is devoted to the growing hegemony of technology, especially information technology. So, being the Nineties, dominated till near the end of the decade by a company called Microsoft, it’s mainly about Bill Gates and Microsoft, and how they were brought down a few pegs as the Millennium approached because of a number of factors, not least of them the Federal government suit that ended in their being found to be a monopoly. Anyway, one of the last clips is, of course, of the infamous blue screen incident during the introduction of Windows 98; an extended clip featuring in a starring role none other than your son. You don’t appreciate how diminutive Bill Gates actually is until you see him next to Chris, who is not exactly a giant. I mean only in physical terms, of course. 

Anyway, the clip came on, and I started yelling and nudging Melissa, saying, “That’s Chris! Chris Capossela! Dom’s son... he’s never worked anywhere else... I used to know him before he was even born!” She indulged me. She’s never met Chris, of course, or any of your other boys. But she’s heard enough about them. 

I feel like an uncle.

xo

hhd

Dom responds: It’s a time, i remember oh so well!
And you are an uncle, of the spiritual variety, but nonetheless part of the Capossela fabric.

Left:
About two and a half.

Second from left:
About six. A handsome devil.

Second from right:
About six.

Right:
His brothers. Dom on left and Mino in the middle. All of them good fathers, good husbands, good sons, and best friends.

Answer to the Quiz Question of Today:
Name some holistic health issues.

Let me mention several important, nay, critical, health issues that we have within our own power to resolve.
Without physicians.
Without government.

Sleep. Most of us can discover a way to resolve this health issue.
In some few cases the need of medical help may be necessary.
Of course, unfortunately, just because we see a doctor or a psychiatrist doesn’t mean we’re getting medical help.
It means only that we’re seeing someone who purports to give medical help.
In my experience, while most medical people are competent, a too large percentage of medical personnel fail to solve tricky issues like sleeplessness.
.
I prolonged my own sleep issues by not scanning current general audience magazines for popular ideas; or by not pursuing the issue on the internet; or by not enlisting personal contacts or contacts of contacts, to offer ideas.
Had I gone out to public post boards I might have found some reasonable-sounding solutions and tried several of them.
Perhaps much earlier in my life I would have found melatonin which immediately and unequivocally solved my problem.

Driving. For all of us.
So for driving, beyond what the state demands before issuing a license, we all know what it takes to drive safely.
But in our society text messaging while texting has become a serious health issue. This is something we each can stop. It’s ridiculous.
As is not using seat belts.
Snap them for goodness sake.
Drinking or using other mind-altering substances when we drive is not perhaps in everyone’s ability to solve without outside professional help.
But for some of us, we can abstain.
Let’s do that.

Exercise.
I am not going to get into the specifics of exercise.
But my goodness, the magazines, airwaves, and social media are filled with enjoinders to exercise.
Filled with anecdotal evidence of the positive changes exercising makes to our lives.
It’s really impossible to avoid the conclusion that we must get off our bums.

Daily, daily we must make a decision to sit it out.
To get older faster.
To watch our bodies deteriorate faster.
To shorten our lives.

Exercise comes in so many forms it’s impossible not to find programs that suit us perfectly; that will, over time, show improvements to our health.
How can we possibly say “No!” to better health? 

Finally, comes our eating habits; our diets.
The diet that I love, that I swear by, is the diet that we can stay with until we die; the diet that suits each of us best.
It’s the diet that we develop over time.
That we think about and tweak regularly.
That incorporates the rules of health.
That follows the rhythm of our days.
That we find delicious and appealing.
That we polish day after day like a fine sculpture.

Above all, it is a rejection of eating what is expedient.
Of eating mindlessly, without thinking.
Out of a rhythm.
In a manner replete with overindulgence.
Guiltily.

We are proud and strong people.
Take the reins of our health in hand.
Let’s go forward as well as we are able.

_________________________________
We also heard this from Howard, our Existential Flaneur: 

I read your draft of the bit about being “repelled” by migrants. 

I see what you’re trying to do and commend the attempt, but as my choice of verb (and noun) suggests, I don’t think it works. But that’s all I’ll say. The prospect of explaining is burdensome just to think about. You were too tired last night, you said, which I fully understand compadre, I assure you, to write any more than an acknowledgement of my last grousing. About this, I’m too oppressed by other things to want to summon the energy to express myself about this (among other things). 

I will say though, and use this as you like—which includes ignoring it, which I’m sure you’re wont to do with a great many things I say. As if all I’m ever doing is offering, to paraphrase the Dude, like, just my opinion man. And that’s OK too. I’ve been dismissed on similar grounds my whole life. 

In this case, I think a little fact check of what I’m telling you might persuade you to change one word (at least) and maybe add a few others. 

As I’ve been persuaded to understand it: 

The great migration you refer to from lands west of North America across an erstwhile land bridge it’s been theorized did occur, was with entry of the migrant wave over a long period into what is now, essentially, Alaska and the Yukon (which is actually part of Canada). The descendants, according to the theory, are what are now called native or indigenous populations, what used to be called, in what is now an invidious term, “Indians.” 

They didn’t come from Russia, as you state, however. According to the theory. 

They came from the many parts of what is called collectively Siberia. Russia is, and always has been, part of what is now Europe, that is, in the geopolitical terms that have been current for over 2000 years, Western. Siberia is officially and technically North Asia, and is populated by, among others, Mongol peoples, as well as a number of other ethnic tribes, largely Eastern (in our modern dichotomous political taxonomy), who also populated the part of modern China – also Asian, of course, though understood more readily that way by us Western white people – that is called Mongolia, cognate with the Mongol tribes. 

There are certain physiological differences, especially in terms of skin coloration, and facial characteristics: the nose, the eye sockets and eyelids, and the shape of the skeletal features that delineate the cheeks and jaw, of many of these Asian tribes and peoples, which lends them a distinctive appearance compared to Caucasian and related types, who inhabited the “West.” 

There is a similar appearance or physiognomy that has long since been noted in North American native peoples, which help give credence to the theory of the migration. 

I don’t know enough, and don’t care to devote the time required to pick up more knowledge, however briefly I were to motivate myself immediately to do so, to be able to say I believe there’s more or less credence to be given to this theory. For all I know, it’s been entirely debunked since I was first apprised of it. Some time ago. 

However, and perhaps arbitrarily, I’ll lend it enough of my own credence to send this email to you with some confidence that, at the very least, it’s even less likely to be true that the many tribes of the North American Western regions derive from “Russian” ancestors. 

If you’re tempted to point out that Siberia is part of Russia, that’s true, but that has only been true since the 16th or 17th centuries. And the migration to which we are now both referring would have occurred tens of thousands of years ago. 

That’s it. All I had to say. And imagine, all pivoting on that one word, “Russia.” 

Live and learn. 

Or not.
__________________
And so, Good Morning, this Wednesday, October 31.

We’ve talked about melatonin, holistic health issues, a television moment, Chris Capossela, and a theory on immigration to the US.
Looked at some images.

Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?

Have a good day, my friends.
See you soon.

Love

Dom