I wonder where my old copy of Real Magic is.

My copy is between The Heliand, a Norse version of the Gospels which has Jesus as a noble chieftain and the Apostles as his loyal thanes (the writer didn't think the pagan Norsemen would be impressed by a guy who just wandered the country with his pack of hangers-on) and my collection of Bruce Edelman books on how the current New Testament is different from the oldest actual manuscripts.

Hey, Cincy-istas, check in please.

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Flea, Steph, and Hil all posted on FB.

Thanks so much, Tom.

Today is stressful. Still sick, got called for jury duty in a couple of weeks, the Supreme Court is a giant clusterfuck, and my brother's girlfriend got diagnosed with breast cancer a week ago.

And the juror questionnaire asks what your religion is.

I'm sorry, Dana. That is a lot of stress.

That's way too much stress, Dana.

Flea, Steph, and Hil all posted on FB.

I was in the waiting room at my therapist's office when I first read flea's post on FB (I seem to get most of my news from social media first), so I switched over to a news app. Just awful. Fucking guns, man.

And the juror questionnaire asks what your religion is.

TBD?

Speaking of painkillers, if one had happened to hang on to a couple of bottles of hardcore useful preparations, how long do they remain useful? Even a half-strength hardcore useful preparation would still be useful, unless it's going to give me unpleasantness.

My guess is that the official expiration date is probably a year after they were dispensed. That said -- with the caveat that I don't have a pharmacy or medical degree (yeah, I know that everyone knows that, but we're talking about hardcore painkillers, so I just want to emphasize that this is not backed up by a PharmD or an MD) -- with old/expired meds, generally the worst that would happen is that they lose their effectiveness. They won't turn into something that harms you.

If it were me, with the old meds, the first thing I would do is make sure they don't smell bad/look funky (like the tablet shouldn't be crumbling to powder or changed color or have mold spots or suddenly have eldritch runes appear on it). And then, honestly, I would probably take it. But I'm pretty fucking cavalier about meds.

And if you had never taken this particular preparation before, how small would you try to get the dose do you imagine? Or would you not risk it and just dispose of them? Asking for a friend.

I'm hoping I get the chance to be obnoxiously liberal. The time I was on the jury for a criminal case, I got selected because lots of people in front of me did or said things clearly designed to get out of serving. Fortunately (I guess), it was screamingly obvious that the guy was guilty.

But if they give me half a chance, I'm going to dig in about institutional racism.