Douglas Michael Massing
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michaelmassing.com
Douglas Michael Massing
@michaelmassing.com
2.3K followers 4.2K following 3.1K posts
Academic editor—impatient advocate eX: @T2DRemission—ADCES parapro cert—🌎's thinnest bimodal (science/humanities) pub📋. Queer hemidemi, political, old, tired. Undiagnosed ADH...?
2nd/3rd
linktr.ee/D.Michael.Massing
L.O.V.E. Chorus, 8 June 2025
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michaelmassing.com
@Apple: No. Just no. An average blood glucose level is not a blood glucose range. We need both. Fix this. #AppleHealth
A chart from Apple Health gives the “Daily Average” of blood glucose as a range of 39 mg/dL.
September 24, 2025 at 4:11 PM
michaelmassing.com
Tom Lehrer, who just died at age 97, outlived his New York Times obituary writer.
July 27, 2025 at 7:03 PM
michaelmassing.com
Over a picture of Donald Trump, fists clenched and face contorted with rage, headlines describing how his antics might be reported anywhere else in the world. Main head: Embattled US Ruler Deploys Armed Troops Against Citizens Amid Mass Protests Against Regime's Kidnapping Spree Subhead: Military deployment comes one day after former oligarch ally and richest man on Earth alleges links to late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
June 12, 2025 at 5:52 PM
michaelmassing.com
Cornered into having to catch a 6:30 bus, I am reminded how much I love being out and about at this hour of a spring morning. The problem is, the prerequisites kill me.
early morning sunlight streaming through trees
May 27, 2025 at 10:38 AM
michaelmassing.com
Show me a picture on your phone that has your energy that isn’t a selfie.
A small, finely detailed bronze sculpture in Center Memorial Park in Manchester, Connecticut: Two bears stand in a half embrace. From their relative stature and the expressions on their faces, they seem to be a parent comforting a distraught youngling.
May 4, 2025 at 1:44 AM
michaelmassing.com
Yesterday my primary care provider discontinued my ezetimibe, based on apparent sufficiency of dietary management of blood lipids. Hx below.
Also received 3-month confirmation of my endocrinologist's assessment of type 2 diabetes remission after tapering and discontinuing metformin in January 2025.
Lipid panel values (cholesterol, triglycerides) dating back to January 2015, trending from dangerous to solidly within reference/target range. Details in post texts.
May 3, 2025 at 7:42 PM
michaelmassing.com
Pity party over. Moving on.
text from a mood logger, under the rubric: MOMENTARY EMOTIONS time stamp: 18:38 (about two-and-a-half hours ago) feelings: Angry, Embarrassed, Frustrated, Disgusted, Annoyed, Jealous, Lonely, Irritated, Disappointed, Discouraged, Sad, Stressed overall mood ratng: Very Unpleasant factors: Community, Friends, Identity, Hobbies, Money, Travel comment: When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose.
April 24, 2025 at 1:20 AM
michaelmassing.com
A 4-pointed blue star signals Google's AI Overview over the text: To convert a men's shoe size from the US to the UK, you can [highlighted] add 1 to the US size to get the UK size. [end highlight] For example, a US men's size 13 is a UK men's size 12.
March 8, 2025 at 6:02 AM
michaelmassing.com
quote with you looking fancy

return to Hartford Gay Men’s Chorus, December 2023—was sick this year and missed performance, so no update to more conventional haircut
close up of me in a tux with a wing-tip collar and a red bow tie, wearing purple femme glasses and a focused/prim expression, sporting an artfully disheveled mop of (in this lighting) gray-blond hair, atop close-trimmed sides, in a style a friend called post-punk; behind me, a backstage dressing room
February 13, 2025 at 1:03 AM
michaelmassing.com
I’ve called out Pappy’s because there’s a friends connection with the former owners, and an older family history with another business at the site.
A map of St. Joseph, Missouri, with its breaded tenderloin sandwich venues highlighted, and a callout for Pappy’s Grill and Pub.
January 13, 2025 at 5:34 AM
michaelmassing.com
New glasses, who dis?
Close-up of an old white guy with a genial, tolerant expression, wearing a turquoise beanie, large-lensed rimless glasses, an open black leather jacket, and a button-down shirt in pale earthy colors, open at the throat. I am outside, and have a mask tucked under my chin. Over my right shoulder, in the middle distance, is a tracery of bare branches against a white sky that rises to a dull conventional blue.
December 31, 2024 at 4:13 AM
michaelmassing.com
"I would want my son to bear
An inheritance of righteousness, but not
By pretending to be the Maccabees again."

© 1982 Lillian S. Robinson
MENORAH © Lillian S. Robinson You’ve got to be on the side of the Maccabees: Isn’t that what it means to be Jewish— Even if the Maccabees aren’t the Jews Anymore? Your son, says the Israeli- imports salesman (though it’s just a Menorah I’m buying, not some high-tech arsenal) Your son doesn’t have your memories. (Ghetto accent flicks this poem at me across a counter he’s covering with newsprint to protect the glass from candelabrum- scratches.) My son has never hear Amen at the end of rote blessings and imagined it was “our men” (their victory and safe return) we prayed for. He didn’t grow up in that overheated apartment, orange bank of candles reflecting in a window streaked with child-breath. That’s a San Francisco pagoda rising, incongruous, across the boulevard. He’s never watched the lengthening of rust and icicle on a back-neighbor’s fire escape for signs of the slow passage of seasons. Surely He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Divine Insomniac works overtime, in fact, preparing Chanukah-gold for His elect: the cluster bombs unfrozen (as thick branches, after an ice-storm open up a rigid, lethal flower, cold petal by petal) and the Palestinians’ new departure is called an exodus. I buy my son a bathrobe at Sears, [continued next image] [continued from previous image] Blue with red lapels. I wonder what’s become Of the deep-orange Chanukah candles Of my childhood, supplanted since, it seems, by this swift-burnt Israeli rainbow. Learn from this: the ghetto was not eternal as a place of refuge or confinement. All of us are in the diaspora now, Though only some of us know it. (If I forget That, O Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave To the roof of my mouth and my right hand Leave off letters.) I would want my son to bear An inheritance of righteousness, but not By pretending to be the Maccabees again. Behind the illuminated Peace Pagoda Outside my window, a string of colored Christmas bulbs. Within, I tell the story: brave guerilla-struggle against elephant- mounted invaders. I do not say a prayer. I light a candle; I curse the darkness anyway.
December 28, 2024 at 4:24 AM
michaelmassing.com
“unwittingly” 🙄
Photo from the New York Times: Foreground, a patch of dry cracked earth; background, scrubby, grassy growth, punctuated by stone walls. The Times caption: “A member of the Afghan Local Police, a militia organization formed to fight the Taliban, outside the unit's hilltop base in 2012 in Taloga, Kunduz Province, Afghanistan.” The male figure in the photo is dressed in a white shirt, loose white pants, and sandals, with a dark-patterned shawl-like garment draped loosely over his shoulders. He sits on a metal-frame chair with a missing back. He leans and gazes offscreen right. He has lifted his bare left foot to the chair seat, and seems to be holding, perhaps massaging, it. There is no weapon in view. Headline: Behind Afghanistan's Fall, U.S.-Backed Militias Worse Than the Taliban Teaser text: Trump blamed Biden. Biden blamed the Afghan military. Our investigation found that the U.S. unwittingly laid the groundwork for the Taliban's victory long ago.
December 27, 2024 at 8:39 PM
michaelmassing.com
Idk, if I worked at Apple and were charged with writing in a very limited space about sugar‘s relation to human health, I might not choose to devote a full sentence and 18% of the available text space to “Sugar cane was first cultivated in New Guinea about 10,000 years ago.”
Screenshot from Apple health: Under a monthly consumption graph and the heading “About Dietary Sugar”, a rather bland and generic discussion of sugar and its role in the human body is followed by the sentence quoted.
December 23, 2024 at 1:19 AM
michaelmassing.com
Small grace number one: bus ride number three.
Photo, POV: the backseat of an empty bus.
December 20, 2024 at 3:15 AM
michaelmassing.com
Show me you in a hat 🧑‍🌾
Close-up of a smiling white guy with a recently mowed, gray-white beard. I am looking directly at the camera with an expression that I hope is warm and friendly. I am wearing a pink T-shirt and a pair of cuff-style earbuds. Although indoors, in a mid 20th-century-decorated living room, I am wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat with a pinch-front crown and a wide, brightly colored band with an abstract, vaguely floral pattern. It is a new hat. I am showing it off. I am hoping you will like it.
December 14, 2024 at 1:13 AM
michaelmassing.com
Yes, I am amused that this is what in my context counts as a neutral day.
A pale, faintly glowing blue-white disc sits under the heading DAILY MOOD, and over a list of the components of that mood: Amused, Annoyed, Ashamed, Disappointed, Discouraged, Drained, Embarrassed, Frustrated, Guilty, Indifferent, Irritated, Lonely, Overwhelmed, Relieved, Scared, Stressed, Worried. The amusement comes from recognizing that the remaining elements add up to the overall rating of (returning to the text): A Neutral Day. I identified the factors in generating those feelings as Tasks, Work, Friends, Self-Care, Health, Community. Also amusingly, under the heading MOMENTARY EMOTIONS it reads: No Entries
December 12, 2024 at 4:57 AM
michaelmassing.com
Was all set to applaud this folksy rendition of Christmas traditions for its inclusiveness—then I read the 4th set of panels.
Whoever vets these things for display in one of my hometown's most delightful parks was either asleep at the switch or in cahoots with someone grinding a very peculiar ax.
An accordion arrangement of (apparently) 13 8-foot by 4-foot sheets of hand-painted and hand-lettered plywood depicts, according to the title panel, CHRISTMAS IN MANY LANDS. The fourth set of paired panels depicts a Santa Claus dressed in a US-flag-based costume, white stars on blue above the waist and flowing red and white stripes below. Text reads as follows: U.S.A. CIVIL WAR As war raged in the 1860s, Santa was as popular in the North as Gen. Grant and as popular in the South as Gen. Lee. One can only speculate if the South would have won if Santa had worn the Rebel gray. The remaining 5 pairs of panels are transcribed for context. Each features an approximately life-size portrait and descriptive text. The last two panel pairs are devoted to St. Nicholas. BABOUSKA RUSSIA Babouska fed and sheltered the Three Wise Men but was too busy to join them in seeking the Christ Child. Since then, she searches for him in every house she visits, leaving sweets and small gifts behind. ST LUCIA SWEDEN St Lucia, Lady of Light, brought food to Sweden during a famine. She wore a wreath of candles to light her way. Each year, Lucia returns with her basket of gifts to share with those she encounters. HOTEIOFHO JAPAN Hoteiofho, the gift bearer in Japan, travels around looking for good children. He has eyes in the back of his head so he can tell if they behave after he passes. If you are good you get a gift. ST. NICHOLAS EUROPE Usually, his beard had been pictured as dark. It did not change to white until 1300 AD. He was visualized as a presence with a long white beard, riding a horse in the sky. The ability to fly took hold and remains today. MEDIEVAL ASIA MINOR Surviving a shipwreck, Nicholas gave thanks to God for his safety and was rewarded by being made Bishop of Myra (Turkey). He was a kind and caring Bishop who helped the needy and sick. Many tales are told of his good deeds. Photo cropped for legibility from the original by John Bachman, via Facebook.
December 2, 2024 at 5:35 AM
michaelmassing.com
There is a whole turkey still (by design) in the freezer. This chicken breast and Thanksgiving fixin’s casserole will provide the basis for twelve meals.
A broiler drip pan full of packaged bread stuffing augmented with chopped chicken breast, onion, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, and apple, whole baby-form carrots, and turkey gravy.
November 29, 2024 at 1:54 AM
michaelmassing.com
Guinea pigging again.
Yes, I am a hairy, wrinkly guy.
My naked left shoulder, sporting a black ovalish transmitter for a continuous glucose monitor, attached by a white adhesive patch. A Band-Aid underneath the transmitter covers the incision from insertion of the CGM sensor. The mirror behind me back lights my back hair. More hair is visible on my chest.
November 23, 2024 at 6:33 PM
michaelmassing.com
I knew my grandfather designed this aluminum coin commemorating the arrival of air mail to my hometown. World War I deployment records suggest his trade as an engraver from age 17 got him classified as a machinist, and in turn assigned to an AEF unit that built and repaired fighter planes in France.
Aluminum coin with an Art Deco 1926 at its center, below a more conventionally lettered “May 12”. Curving around the coin at the top: “Air Mail”; at the bottom: “St. Joseph, MO”. In tiny letters at the edge: top, “Pollock and Creviston”, my grandfather’s brother’s jewelry business; bottom, the initials WGP for my grandfather, William Grover Pollock.
November 15, 2024 at 4:11 AM
michaelmassing.com
I have many questions, and I hesitate to contact them.
From this morning’s email, a German text translated by DeepL as: We would like to ask you to send us photos of the mold in your bedroom. Preferably a photo of the whole wall and then close-ups of the mold. Thank you very much. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
November 11, 2024 at 6:01 PM
michaelmassing.com
Me realizing I’m a BlueSky elder
Close-up of The Princess Bride’s Miracle Max, as portrayed by Billy Crystal through heavy aging prosthetics, answering the door. He is not pleased to have visitors.
November 10, 2024 at 1:48 AM
michaelmassing.com
the energy i bring to bluesky
Gay liberation protest in a parklike setting, 1971. Some participants clothed, some not. Hippie-ish vibe to the hairstyles, whether male- or female-presenting. Photo by Grey Villet: https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=grey+villet
November 4, 2024 at 12:46 AM
michaelmassing.com
The microwave in the room.

There is an installation issue.
As described, the room being a kitchen and the microwave being half-unpacked on the floor, looking enormous.
October 30, 2024 at 7:28 PM