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About This Author

Contact Me

Brandiwyn🎶

, also known as Michelle Tuesday, is a musician, educator and writer hailing from Columbus, Ohio.

La Bene Vita

You Are Welcome Here
Life is good. Let's share it.

New Year, New Strategy
For 2026, I launched a weekly topic rotation designed to help me stay d i s c i p l i n e d while ensuring that you, the reader, always know what to expect. Unfortunately, I have yet to acquire a million followers

and gain official WDC "influencer" status, and I often find myself seduced by whimsy. Thus, my blogging strategy continues to evolve.

So, What Can I Expect?
I'm glad you asked. For now, until whimsy strikes again, here's what you can expect (updated March 2026):

Weekly Topical Posts - Apply Generously to Affected Areas

Music & music education

The art and business of writing

Owning & managing a small business

Science & technology

Parkinson's disease, type 1 diabetes, and other medical topics

Personal News & Updates - May Be Boring! You've Been Warned

Health news

Family, work and leisure

Weekly goals & progress

The Occasional Rant
Although I try to post rants at "What the Fork?" (and you should, too!)

Comments · Tags ·

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Brandiwyn🎶

Mar 16, 2026 at 8:52pm
In response to "Meet the Instrument: Glass Harmonica"

Storm Machine

- both are acceptable. Or just armonica. All of the above.

1 Like

Storm Machine

Mar 16, 2026 at 8:49pm
In response to "Meet the Instrument: Glass Harmonica"

armonica or harmonica?
I think I do prefer glass kebob.

1 Like

Brandiwyn🎶

Mar 16, 2026 at 1:24pm
In response to "Meet the Instrument: Glass Harmonica"

Robert Waltz

- Awesome article, thanks for sharing. They did way more research than I was prepared for today.

You also managed to find an article that threw a bit of etymology in the mix. Well done.

Also,

@ "glass kebab"

Robert Waltz

Mar 16, 2026 at 1:03pm
In response to "Meet the Instrument: Glass Harmonica"

An Atlas Obscura take on the instrument.

2 Like

Storm Machine

Mar 14, 2026 at 6:26pm
In response to "A possible cause of the 'silent quitting' epidemic"

I can see both sides. Especially when you add that they're learning it and want to use what they learned.
However, creating extra deadlines without notice or even communication is really tough.

Always Humble Poet PNG- 📓

Mar 13, 2026 at 3:53pm
In response to "A possible cause of the 'silent quitting' epidemic"

I definitely see your point. When one hires someone to do a job, the employee should do the job as directed by the employer. Failing to do so satisfactorily for whatever reason, the employee should simply make any corrections the employer requests, and request (without drama or debate) a clarification to avoid similar issues in the future.
Many years ago, I hired a young man to neatly stack a jumbled pile of old lumber that had been dumped. I showed him exactly where and how to stack it. When I returned a little later to check his progress, I found that he had stacked about half of what should have been stacked in the elapsed time, and he had stacked it about ten feet from the place I'd shown him. He got agitated when I told him he would have to restack what he had stacked because it would be in the way where he had it. He asked if he couldn't just stack the rest on top of the mislocated stack he had started. He never seemed to understand that he had not done what I'd hired him to do. Even his proposed solutions would not accomplish the work as it needed to be done.

1 Like

Elisa the Bunny Stik

Mar 11, 2026 at 11:24am
In response to "Parkinson's Disease - Spring 2026"

Ah, DBS. I am well aware of it thanks to my employer. Even though I work in the IT world of med tech, there are still lots of opportunities to learn the basics if things like DBS. We'll see if I can get back to that kind of extracurricular activity anytime soon.

1 Like

Brandiwyn🎶

Mar 10, 2026 at 7:47pm
In response to "Parkinson's Disease - Spring 2026"

PD research is very well funded, so I'm sure opportunities are there. I have a piano student, Lily. She's 16, but she was 5 when her mom enrolled her, so I've been her teacher more than a decade. Her mom is a doctor, and Lily has decided she wants to study neurology. She knows about my diagnosis - all my kiddos do, so they understand why my voice doesn't work sometimes, why I can't play the instruments I used to, why I drop everything to take meds, etc. So she was super excited to tell me that when she went to Neurology Summer Camp (!!!!!!!!!!), she got to watch a DBS procedure on a Parkinson's patient, live. (!!!!!!!!) This was probably two years ago, so she was 14 or 15 at the time.

For those who don't know, DBS = Deep Brain Stimulation. Until very recently, the procedure could only be performed while the patient is awake. They screw your head into a halo that holds your head still, then implant an electrode in your brain. Some patients require two implants (one for each side, two separate surgeries), and either way, you have to have yet another surgery where they implant the battery in your chest. Sounds like fun, amiright?

In case you're wondering, my MDS said today that I'm the PERFECT CANDIDATE for DBS because I respond so well to levodopa. I'm like.......... thank you? The good news is, there's an option where they knock you out now.

2 Like

Ѧͷͷΐ

Mar 10, 2026 at 7:35pm
In response to "Parkinson's Disease - Spring 2026"

Brandiwyn🎶

Cool! Yeah, a PhD in Neurobiology. I'm a research scientist / data scientist, worked in a lab at a research institute. Very niche, I know. I'm actually trying (and failing) to break out of the academic research trap. Unless you're a tenured professor, it's a very poor career choice. And, turns out, not terribly useful in the real world. Who knew?

But yeah, I really did enjoy the subject and the research. I'd like to go in a more clinical direction so I can actually help people with diseases like Parkinson's. Especially when I read first hand accounts like yours and Carol St. Ann 20yrs (06-26)

2 Like

Brandiwyn🎶

Mar 10, 2026 at 7:14pm
In response to "Parkinson's Disease - Spring 2026"

Ѧͷͷΐ

- That's awesome, and I'm very interested in your project. I speak science and data analysis, lol. My degree was chemical engineering. Did you earn a degree in Neurobiology? What do you do professionally?

#1108779

What AI Is Good For (or, "Bottom Wiping")

February 20, 2026 at 9:58am

This post was generated by Google Gemini. It was also my first attempt at using "Columns" in the beta editor, and they're currently broken. I'm leaving them that way to file a bug report. I'm happy to report that SM fixed the columns. PROMPT: How did people wipe their bottoms before toilet paper was invented? It turns out that "the good old days" were many things, but "soft and quilted" was definitely not one of them. Before Joseph Gayetty... [Read more]