The latest OS update fried my HDD- or rather a little background update it needed. I found the changelog and all files, and I used event viewer and device manager and it all points to power settings- oh and it lost the driver for the PCI controller. The specific change I noticed was a bit weird. On my laptop the changes were more annoying than catastrophic- the app window for the cloud sits underneath the taskbar.

But the power settings for the HDD gets complicated, the noise it makes now trying to spin up could be head parking. And that does seem to be triggered by the wrong power settings especially sleep. And it looks like it’s bad to have them spin down for this exact reason. And yes, turns out my OS did indeed do this.

You know it’s kind of bad when you read these drives aggressively manage power.

I tried a system restore as well and. Well the system completely broke. So I’m using my itty bitty 250G drive to go through my backups. I did make them. They’re just very messy.

I’m pretty shattered by all of this. I have all the updates files but I had finally worked out how to use the Melvil system on my files. I had a little mope wrapped up in the pink and yellow throws Sweet Boo and Little Dude loved, so that helped me draw a line under this.

But, yes, I needed an actual library system that’s how extensive it is. However. All of that work is in my noodle even if I feel like Brutha after memorising the entire library of Ephebe- I keep expecting the Librarian to reach through L-SPace to pat me on the hand, offer me a banana, and ook gently in empathy.

While editing down my files, and double checking full text for inventory numbers and citations, I have settled on the headdress projects I have been really transfixed by. An extant textile a few centuries too early still explains two examples in North Rhine portraits which in turn are a few decades apart. So far so good. But I’ve missed really obvious example outside the North Rhine but which supports what I think is the flow of influence.

Luckily the North Rhine was pretty stubborn and certainly the classic style of dress and accessories as depicted by Bruyn the elder sticks around to about 1600. This would be the style that feels so very Dutch. But you also get this wave of influence that spans Europe which is the ropa/surcoat over doublet and skirt or over a kirtle.

I’ve got so many portraits that show a connection, or indeed a really fragile connection, but this one was quite unexpected given I already had it to begin with!

I set the experimentation aside in order to preserve my research but this is too cool. Far too cool. I will need another frame. I can’t perfectly work out dimensions because there is a really heavy reliance on stretch here. But I managed it with some crinkly metal tissue so that’s probably my best bet.

But even that is exciting! Because how did people in 16thC North Rhine develop patterns to then make pieces within a commercial level time frame? That is a series of posts to think about I just wanted to share a bit of good news even if cryptic. But I can absolutely fold this into my ICMS paper because of course new information pops up now.

Why yes, yes this has happened. Many, many, years ago on at least one e-list people were being actively discouraged from recreating the gear Anne of Cleves wore for her portrait by Holbein. And the reason was the Rule of Three. Well, an incorrect application of it. That because there weren’t three examples of the same style it wasn’t to be trusted.

At the time there only a handful of readily accessible portraits by Bruyn. But I did have some and made a page for my Frazzled Frau site but that wasn’t good enough because they didn’t include all the elements of her clothing and accessories.

Then through a wonderful exchange with Katherine Barich (yes of Drei Schnittbucher fame) the language of the region was made available and I made a “good enough” document and thought I was done.

In editing my printed out copy with a red pen of doom I realised I was relying on interpretations. So I traced my way back through cited references and realised that so was everyone in that chain.

At least though I was able to follow that chain back as each author used a footnote per term. Where everyone went back to though was a single footnote for multiple terms.

Thus began the scope creep.

I used the manuscript reference numbers to hunt and peck through online archives, through digitised books, and just kept coming up to the same wall.

I also had to keep asking myself if my narrow focus meant I missed more obvious links and shared influences.

Thus the scope creep became entrenched.

But I’ve had to. Because I keep winding up with the same assumptions about sources and I keep wondering what I’ve missed because I don’t think it’s that complicated and more complicated at the same time.

And obviously in that time the quality of digitised records has increased so I have to keep checking in on what’s been digitised, and that’s why I have 1T of files just for the North Rhine.

I mean yes, that’s also because of my damaged harddrives but even that has contributed to scope creep. Take for example a corrupted jpg. It might be the image is corrupted or the file name, rarely both, so I wind up searching by file name for one and reverse image searching for the other. And in doing so I might wind up finding similar files. I can’t pretend they don’t exist. And it’s not just adding another folder of references, sometimes they totally change my curation.

I have a few programs to help with this- automated filename shortening, filename pattern matching, even image comparisons- but oh boy do I wish I could automate so much more of this.

It’s still utterly exhausting playing the Red Queen* game. But also- wow. In doing so I finally have two more direct links between the visual and extant record. Even if they are 100 years apart. The archives are in much the same state or I’d be more hesitant to use them.

* Running ever faster just to stay in the same place.

I’ve managed a lot in the last few months- but I’m spending as much time on trying to get file and folder handlers fixed so I can actually do. And it looks like it’s down to what the back up/migration software did as much as the hard drive issues.

Issue 1- the O attribute. So that could be from a time when my download folder was being synced. It’s applied when a file isn’t available on a local machine but the information about the file is. So obviously the O stands for offline and not online. Okay. So then I ran a tiny script to remove that attribute. In explorer? I’ve chosen “Offline Status” for a column. And that shows nothing, but in Dopus the attribute remained on the folder itself and not the files. So weird. My work around has been to go up a few folders and create a new one with no attributes and copy the files and folders choosing to not preserve some attributes and lo. It worked. So the folders with the O attribute go back into my archived section.

Issue 2- file and folder permissions. Now this one is also weird. And these too seem to date to the same month that the O attribute was used on some folders. But I can use Dopus to delete some folders but not rename them. Because rename requires delete permissions… so far so what?? but it also affects the parent folder structure.

Apparently. Even though rename is less destructive than delete. But that’s how explorer is built. To chose/allow the most destructive option. It’s why I’m using Dopus in the first place- explorer will automatically highlight the “replace these files” option with file conflicts. This means that if you accidentally touch any key, have a little twitch on the mouse and they’d be gone. Not even diverted to the recycle bin, gone.

But apparently that’s what ever so many people want even now- when so much of the records of our life are digital. But at least Dopus let me change the actions dragging and dropping a file/folder does to keep all copies renaming the “new” one. Have I wound up with more than 20 copies of some files this way? Yes. But they’re now easy to compare.

Anyway. Yes I’ve done more stuff. It’s just so frustrating as a time waster and frankly stressful. Really stressful.

I need to post about some of the scope creep that has also drawn out and made everything complicated but for now- at least I know and have workarounds. For now.

Having stabilised my PC I’ve managed to delve back into my timeline of women of the North Rhine to stabilise and bring together every copy of each file together- to make sure I have the best copies. It’s been so inspiring. But I’m in a mixed state right now and it means I’ve just hit the wall and my brain is saying nope. Take my mouse hand. It’s hot from inflammation to the point I’m now having to rest it.

My infusions and chemDMARDs means I’m susceptible to infections from bog standard bugs in the air. The tiniest nick next to my thumbnail has resulted in hypergranulation and it’s a real risk for infections. I think I’ve managed to knock it back but it’s still drawing a lot of inflammatory and anti-inflammatory molecules to the site and the associated molecules to break down and rebuild. So on the way they’re possibly latching on to markers in my hand.

So taken together when I hit that wall it means I can’t go over it. It’s been popping up quite fast. But on the flip side my tendons and petichiae (capillaritis?) have settled. These had such a profound impact on my health from the obvious (tearing both Achilles meant it took much longer to recover and I kept feeling the same ping from neighbouring fibres breaking under the strain) to the secondary (I needed fairly high doses of steroids for both and while we followed best practice it still messed with cortisol and blood pressure.)

But I’m finally able to walk properly. My hypermobility is back like ridiculously so. Sitting in second on the floor and I can get my head to the floor easy- but I’m back to almost getting my chest to the floor. I can lie down the outside of each leg too- which means my right side is now balanced with my left more.

These are all positives right now and for my future.

But I can’t go back in time to tell myself to not push through. Sadly the fibro Dx means I don’t get trusted that I can tell the difference between the various ways my nerves send incorrect messages and an injury. Oh you can tell. But it also can’t conjure the tell tale bruises. I had assumed the bruises on my calves were just Ye Olde Hypermobility Probably EDS making it easy to bruise from just interacting with the environment. Catching one appear after the last ping was quite the message I needed.

Basically I can’t risk surgery, especially the kind that drills into bone- very high risk of osteomylitis. But I can bounce back from deconditioning- already happening. I might have gone a few weeks over the point it was truly safe but that’s also the only way to make sure it is safe. So I would like to pat my past self on the back for at least sticking to my guns about not pushing my tendon recovery.

I’ve had a series of sad outcomes. But one of them almost takes a lot of pressure off me. You see this week I had to format my ssd and reinstall my OS and vital apps *twice.* There was a set of updates on the same day that I think triggered the straight up crash, but there was an earlier update that seemed to set up an incredibly slow and buggy system. I did the first format and install before a patch came out so that’s why I had to do it all over again just a day later. But. I found the actual drivers I need and have gone through integrity checks and yes. Also no memory leaks from the audio loop. Yep Apparently the creators of my OS decided it’s better for them to rank audio output options that us having to *checks notes* manually select our new device. Yep.

But that ranking means looping through each option them over and over again using up both memory and CPU. My graphics driver has taken that ranking out and now that’s chill. Freeing up memory for my main needs: research. I need to go online and I need to organise that research and I need to write.

Oh and I’m apparently a quadruple “power user” not because I can research errors and find actual fixes and can install programs and edit the back end. Nope. Because an average user is expected to have only 30,000 files to organise. A power user has 400,000. I have nearly 2,000,000.

Yeah. So it means I can’t build a proper index of my files. And for some reason even though I have the space my OS won’t default to three times my RAM (16G) for paging. I have to revisit that info as my brain is a bit itchy after winding up in an endless loop of victim blaming for software issues.

Anyway.

There have been other things to write about but this has been consuming all my enery and frankly time I’d like to use actually researching and making.

This would also be less of an issue had I not managed to buy back to bad drives back to back. My focus had to shift to preserving my archives. I have back ups in different media. But not being able to access them because of OS instability? Really difficult.

Anyway. All of this is context for when I do post about anything else.

So. I’m now on triple therapy for my RA. And it really brought home my reality. Best results for people with RA are the biologics. They not only work better on the A part of RA but more than that are the only treatments to save our lives. Oh yeah, prior to biologics our life expectancy plummets because RA attacks our hearts long before erosion of joints (heck that might even be true for me even though I had an acute onset.) But biologics by their nature (being biochemicals) wind up triggering our IS into getting rid of them. So we still rely on what amounts to low dose but continual chemotherapy to protect them.

But I’ve been getting so much break through inflammation and needing steroids that I’m now on two chemDARDs to support my biologic. One of which might contribute to neuropathy (but I asked my Rheumatologist and it seems unlikely- thank goodness) and the other will mean I have to have my eyes checked frequently.

My feet broke out in even more capillaritis/purpura and I thought it was worse.. but! I might be lucky that like the other two forms of skin involvement I’ve had that it seems to move in a wave- so new inflammation which is bad but previous injury seems to heal. The blood vessels near my toes do seem to have healed anyway.

And my wrists aren’t looking great. My ulnar has deviated further- I’m having a bit of a break from my embroidery because I know from- mumblty- years of living with this that injury or overuse will trigger inflammation. Yay for refractive disease.

Anyway. We’re not giving up is the point of this.

(Callback Lord Flashheart.) I’ve *finally* consolidated my edited files for my costumes. It was more difficult than it should have been. I have not yet folded back in all the resized photos I used for earlier versions of this site when data was so very expensive in hosting but also for visitors. But it’s finally paying off. It’s been so overwhelming at times that I’ve been not taking the time to really appreciate each photo for the record of my progress, or those I love, because it is just so very much. Going costume by costume though makes it easier for those moments of joy.

I have up to 20 copies of some files. Some of which were recovered so have errors, some of which were copied directly from corrupt drives- the very last action I’ve taken on them yes. And you’d think there would be some easy way to figure them out. But there isn’t. And this is yet another example of how I as a puny human with munched up hands, with fatigue an pain, can process these files faster than any software currently available.

No, I literally can scroll and sort and search so fast that my software can’t keep up. And my PC has a hard working graphics card, all memory slots.

I need to edit and publish a post on how bad it’s become trying to search for what I need to- but I’m not a fan of AI. I’ve seen it used to repeat tropes about Anne of Cleves- when you are very familiar with not just the sources but the quality of records of them? It’s painfully obvious. But that’s not the position of most of us. Also at least one of my images has had this treatment so it’s a handy easy way for me to reconstruct how it was altered. It’s so bad.

But I’ve also been tackling fibro grinding down on me- I do want to make a post about that as I’ve gone through quite a journey but found some tools again. Not perfect, but it’s giving me a bit more time and focus.

So this is a summary of what I’ve been trying to write about and just not having the spoons to do so. Spoon theory has had some really interesting expansions that work better for me than the original- which fair enough was very good to describe how rapidly fatigue sets in.

Anyway. I’m got my folders starting to be easier to navigate, uses fewer spoons, and so it means I’m able to really focus on what I really want to work on over the next few years. I need to restore some costumes, actually finish others. Tearing both Achilles tendons has been so disruptive. So disruptive, but now that I’m feeling real progress I want to write about that- now that the coda will end on a positive note.

And I keep going through working on my sites so I can do some major content updates/upgrades.

Trying to not feel sorry for myself! Opportunities are coming up but the utter shambles left behind from me losing earlier ones means I’m scared to pursue these new opportunities. If I’m honest though I just had one of the worst health crashes in recent years. By tearing both achilles tendons- and winding up having EDS finally in my record as a likely contributor- I wasn’t able to properly calculate how to recover ort plan. Injuring one was fairly easy- I could still walk but carefully. Both? My entire general health has just collapsed.

I can finally safely walk around the house. When I do heel raises I can feel two things at once. One is the obvious- loss of tone. That’s fine. That’s just being persistent. But I can also feel the same kind of sharp pulling that indicated pushing too hard and reinjuring myself. It’s also been a cold winter, so warming up muscles before stretching/moving has meant something else.

RA is a bit like having an an acute injury but also like disorganised healing all at once. For me ice makes my hands so much worse, but heat helps. I suspect it works because heat dilates small blood vessels and so inflammatory molecules get flushed out. Ice contracts those same vessels preventing inflammatory molecules getting in. And with the petechiae in my feet responding to oral prednisone and the high likelihood of having EDS that makes blood vessels fragile? I think that’s why for me heat helps even when my hands are hot.

Ice on my tendons whenever I retriggered the injuries did make a difference. So it may also be that whole disorganised healing issue: there aren’t just one set of inflammatory molecules. In RA it’s like an injury yes, but also like an infection. Either way I’m just glad I actually noticed the difference.

It’s hard to recover/maintain health with chronic processes, which is anything lasting more than 3m which is wild to me as someone with … well.. many years of both RA and fibro. But it’s made easier if you have a treatment plan.

I’m also missing Carlo so much. IG and my phone both remember the #SpottyCatsOfInstagram tag I used for him, and when I tag Fluffy and Missy it comes up. My heart breaks every time. I used a few tags for Boo that seem to no longer be recognised as frequently used. And that’s hard too.

I’m genuinely consolidating my research though. Which is where these opportunities come in. Three of my papers could fit in two conferences. But I’m scared. Both my tendons and petechiae rely on prednisone, actually my fibro does as well, and it messes with natural cortisol responses to stress.

And I can’t just avoid the stuff because what happens externally might also be internally.

It really messes with you when you fail other people. Failing myself pales in comparison.