I keep getting these email ads from Imaginarium, the little so-nerdy-it’s-cool creative conference in Louisville each summer. Up until recently I read them with interest, looking at the session list and planning my 2-3 days there. But Imaginarium is eight days from now, so I won’t be able to go. Thanks, bacteria. Last year Imaginarium rekindled my desire to finish a novel or two, but it’s not to be so this year. Maybe I’ll just spend some time with Masterclass during that same weekend.

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I’ve gotten the daily Wordle in two guesses a few times lately, so I’m pretty sure the bacteria didn’t reach my brain. Or if it did, the little bastards did something good.

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A shoutout to the Kaiser Permanente health system. I love the Kaiser system (other than the ER); it just makes so much sense. They are both the insurer and care provider, and they 100% understand that keeping you healthy is the best thing for you and for their profits. Win-win. And it shows. When you get into their acute care process, you get soooo much attention. They’re as desperate to get you out of health crisis as you are – not by rationing care, but by piling it on when you need it. I think KP is the perfect blueprint for a nationalized health system. They currently cover 12.7 million people in the US, only about 3.8% of our population. But they are a force in CA, with over 9 million people in their system. I’m happy to be one of them.

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There’s a lot of shit happening with major social media platforms lately. Noteworthy, but I’m having a hard time caring. Musk continues to destroy his $44B Twitter investment, so it looks like that platform is going down. Zuck/Meta just released Threads, with a lot of Twitter functionality and built on the nontrivial Instagram base of users. That may be where Musk’s traumatized Twitter users and advertisers eventually land. And now a Trump judge has ruled that Congress can’t communicate with social media companies (?!), and therefore can’t engage in coordinated regulation of them. It’s all a mess, but as someone who has no social media footprint other than LinkedIn and this blog…I don’t care. Neither my professional life nor my personal life depend on my saying or re-stating clever things to vast online audiences. I’m not an “influencer” (we should all be thankful for that). So this kerfuffle, while entertaining, doesn’t hit my give-a-fuck threshold.

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I talked to both of my remaining close friends from high school yesterday. We agreed that it shouldn’t take a serious illness to trigger a phone call or a get-together. (And yes, I have lots of old high school friends still alive, but only a couple I’ve stayed in touch with for 50 years.)