SOPA and PIPA

I will be updating soon, I promise, but I wanted to share this video today because it’s important right now, and, well, because if this gets passed, there may not be any more sharing of YouTube videos . . .

I agree that there needs to be something in place to protect intellectual property, and I’m completely in favor of enforcing (and respecting) copyright laws.  This isn’t the way to do it, though.  In my opinion, it’s like canceling recess for the entire class because Little Johnny misbehaved, or taking away everyone’s cars because there are people out there who drive while intoxicated.

Or, more aptly, by making search engines, internet service providers, payment facilitators, and online advertising networks responsible for barring sites that enable or facilitate copyright infringement, SOPA would be like . . . if a person has a restraining order against them or is on probation and is not allowed out of their state, and law enforcement were to hold the bus driver or cab driver accountable for dropping them off in a place they weren’t supposed to go, or made the owner of a gas station responsible, for allowing them to fill up so they could drive to a forbidden location.  If bus lines and cab companies and gas stations, etc., had to run a background check on each of their passengers or customers, which would be time-consuming and expensive, not to mention a huge privacy infringement, they would eventually go out of business and nobody would have public transportation or fuel for their own vehicles.  Just as an example.

The “solution” can cause more problems than the problem it’s supposed to fix, even though I agree that the problem does need to be fixed.  Just not this way.

Will be back soon. Going to write my representatives now.

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#NHBPM – Ekphrasis Post for Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge

So, November is National Health Blog Post Month.  I didn’t actually know about this until today (and wouldn’t have been able to fully participate anyway, because of everything else that has been happening this month), but what a neat idea.  (I did receive emails about it, but didn’t have a chance to look into it until now.)  I would like to participate in future years, even though the fact that it is in November will make it difficult, along with NaNoWriMo.

But anyway.  I followed the link and decided to sign up when I read, “Even if you’re not sure if you want to post every day and simply want to check out all the fun prompts (that cover a range of topics from being a patient, to being a blogger, to simply pondering your existence – you can sign up here!”  I received the list of prompts and will attempt to post as much as possible during the remainder of November, though it likely won’t even be every day from here forward.

The prompt for today is:

Ekphrasis post. Ekphrasis (writing about another art form) – Find a Flickr Image in Creative Commons that inspires you in some way (positively or negatively) and free write about it. Give yourself exactly 15 minutes to write without stopping. Don’t think! Brave bonus: Publish to your blog without editing! (You can include a disclaimer)

So, here goes.  (And please consider this my disclaimer.)

I chose this photo by Marco Bernardini because of his translation of the message on the sign: “In the most wonderful places someone leaves a bit of himself… imbeciles leave trash”.

At first, the obvious comes to mind (or at least it was obvious to me), and the sign seems to be a creative way to say “Please do not litter”, but I also saw a deeper meaning that can be applied to life.  Throughout our lives, in our relationships and even in brief encounters with others, we leave something of ourselves, even when we aren’t aware we do.  I’ve always been strangely surprised when someone tells me that something I did or said had a profound effect on them.  I guess for most of my life, I just didn’t believe I left that much of an impression, so when I find out I have, it surprises me.  It shouldn’t surprise me, though, because I’ve always been kind of fascinated by the concept.  It was a big part of the reason I decided, when I was just a kid, that I wanted to write as an adult.  I was fascinated by the concept that I could write a story that could touch a complete stranger, somewhere, and cause them to feel.  Whatever they would feel – happy, sad, amused, angry – would be something they felt as a direct result of what I wrote, what came from my own mind and heart.

But we leave other things, as well, in life.  Not just creations of fiction or art or music, or whatever.  We affect others by our actions, by listening, by being there for a friend or a family member, and even sometimes with nothing more complicated than a smile or kind word to a stranger in passing.  We may go on about our day and not even remember passing that stranger, but that person may always remember us.  The little boy whose smile changed my day a few years ago won’t remember me, but I think I will always remember him, and the lesson he taught me.

I used to love the TV show Joan of Arcadia.  I remember an episode about the ripples we send out, and the importance of being mindful to send out good ripples rather than bad ones.  That concept was actually carried out in other episodes as well.

Bad ripples are like littering.  Leaving trash lying around without regard for who will have to clean it up.

I had a hard time choosing a photo to blog about.  I originally did a search for “balance”, thinking about the topics of my most recent health-related posts and how interesting the results of that search word would be in photos.  It was.  I found this photo by pearlbear first:

Next, I found this one by KTDEE:

I didn’t know that the back of a fly looks like an eye, complete with lashes!  How cool is that?

Then, I found this one by Marco Bernardini.  I’ve always loved paintings and photos that make me want to walk into them, and I wanted to be able to walk around in this place and explore.

I began to look at several other photos in Marco’s stream before seeing the sign, and then I knew that was what I had to write about.

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Fun With Bronchitis

Well, no, Bronchitis itself isn’t fun . . . but the crazy things it does to our voices can be amusing.  For a time.  Ok, a short time, and only because it gets kind of boring being sick.

So, yesterday, I was talking with SS about something and it suddenly occurred to me that the breathy quality in my voice kind of reminded me of Stefon, a character on Saturday Night Live, played by Bill Hader.  Stefon consistently brings SS and me to tears with laughter every time we see him.  He cracks Bill Hader up, too.

For a little background, here is Bill Hader talking about his character:

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There are some great clips of Stefon here (Click on the title of each one to read about it and see the video clip).  This one is one of my favorites.  This is another favorite.  Here are a whole bunch.  And here are some quotes.

This became part of a ringtone I added to my phone:

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Seriously.  I really did make a ringtone.  I’m not sure just yet when I’ll use it, though.

And, I made a sound file, made up of several sound files of me attempting to imitate Stefon.  I guess, on second thought, I don’t sound as much like him as I thought I did, but I had a lot of fun, and cracked myself up, and it turned out to be some self-soothing entertainment to help make the whole being-sick thing a  little easier.

Last night and this morning, I’ve attempted to narrate many of SS’s and my ordinary daily activities – making dinner, watching TV, getting ready for work – in as close as I could to a “Stefon” voice.  It’s been fun, and it’s kept us laughing.  And, well, it’s sent me into a few coughing fits, too, but it’s worth it.

And so, before I even post my first vlog and before you ever hear my real voice, I will share with you (drumroll) . . . my Bronchitis Voice Stefon Impressions!  (Does that make this audio-blogging?)

(Can I blame this post on fever-induced delirium?)

(Oh, and did you know that being sick makes ADD symptoms worse?)

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Guest Post: The Link Between Anxiety and Balance

Many thanks to Ryan Rivera for writing my first guest post, The Link Between Anxiety and Balance:

When most people discuss their anxiety symptoms, they usually point to the general physical effects associated with nervousness.  They describe mild nausea and feeling weak, trouble concentrating and other physical symptoms that occur when someone is anxious, in addition to the mental symptoms. But there is a fairly large subsection of those that suffer from anxiety that also experience something else – balance issues.

Problems with balance have not yet been widely addressed in the research, particularly because for years doctors assumed that the two must be separate disorders, or they must be linked in a way that is unrelated – for example, if someone is suffering from a panic attack, their quick breathing may cause them to feel light headed, ultimately leading to a mild loss of balance.

Anxiety itself is also a constant form of the “fight or flight” response. That response floods your body with adrenaline, and one of the symptoms of excessive adrenaline is dizziness. Those that are experiencing this type of anxiety/balance link probably also experience dizziness after intense exercise, or other activities that raise adrenaline.

But recently, research has shown that the two may be even more linked, and that for some people the anxiety itself may actually cause balance problems and vice versa.

Psychogenic Dizziness – Anxiety Causing Balance Problems

Psychologists have found that there are those that are completely physically healthy that still suffer from balance problems. It’s been found that the balance problems may be caused by nothing more than general anxiety and anxiety attacks. When anxiety causes balance issues, the balance problems are caused by the person’s mental health only. The term that psychologists use to describe this condition is “psychogenic dizziness” which means “dizziness caused by the mind.” Unfortunately, very little is known about the cause of this condition. Research has found that the link may be in a part of the brain called the “parabrachial nucleus” and while they have found what looks like a connection between the two, they have been unable to pinpoint the exact location or the exact processes.

But most researchers believe that the anxiety is not causing an inner ear issue. Rather, anxiety is causing your brain to be overwhelmed by the experience of an anxiety attack/panic, and once it is overwhelmed it “forgets,” in a way, how to keep your balance. Anxiety and anxiety attacks can be very powerful, and the sudden surge of adrenaline that is triggered by your “fight or flight” response may easily be affecting how well your brain is able to handle other processes.

Otogenic Anxiety – Balance Problems Causing Anxiety

Otogenic anxiety is the opposite. It was borne from the theory that you may have a problem with balance, and that balance is causing the anxiety. Research has found that an additional 33% of all those with both conditions have this type of anxiety – as soon as they start to experience a balance issue, their anxiety attack is triggered immediately.

This would imply that the balance problems have an underlying cause, and that underlying cause may affect treatment. Also, diagnosis with these conditions is often difficult. For example, when someone is experiencing balance issues, it is perfectly natural to have an anxious reaction, and left untreated that can become an anxiety disorder. On the other hand, many people report their anxiety came first, which would negate the idea that there is an underlying physical cause.

Similarly, research found that an additional 33% of all those with both anxiety and balance issues did originally have the issues separately, but once they started to occur together, both became exacerbated to the point where they often appear linked.

How to Treat Balance/Anxiety Disorders

Unfortunately, because research is so clearly lacking in this area, and most people are still struggling to understand how to diagnose these very similar conditions, very few treatment options have been explored. At Tel Aviv University, they found that children with both conditions often improved their anxiety simply by working on their balance, but it is assumed that those children were also experiencing greater levels of anxiety solely because they were struggling with balance.

SSRIs have also shown promising benefits, however they may not be useful for those that have severe anxiety that occurred long before the balance problems arose. They’re also a fairly strong medication, and not necessarily ideal for mild to moderate anxiety, nor are they necessarily a good idea for those without an obvious diagnosis.

Non-Specific Treatments and the Future of Research

It’s clear that there is a link between anxiety and balance, but until that link is fully discovered it is difficult to find a direct treatment. That is why experts recommend treating your anxiety symptoms as you would any other underlying cause of anxiety, and working on your balance issues over time to try to mitigate their long term consequences.

About the Author: Ryan Rivera experienced a degree of anxiety that caused a number of psychosomatic problems. He has information on how to relieve anxiety that can be found at www.calmclinic.com.

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Anxiety and Balance

This is a post I began in late October and didn’t finish until now because I was buried in wedding plans.  Now that we are home I’m getting back to where I left off . . .

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So, I’ve realized that my balance, gait, and spatial issues seem to be markedly worse after a period of high anxiety.

In the last several months, I’ve wondered if these balance, gait, and spatial issues could be caused by gluten ataxia, but I haven’t had any testing or seen a neurologist about it.  I also found out that I don’t have Celiac Disease, but I still believe I do have a gluten intolerance.  I’ve also wondered if these issues are part of the sensory processing / sensory integration issues that I seem to have, but haven’t found out yet what type of specialist I should go to in order to find out.  There is also the possibility that some or all of the balance/gait/spatial stuff (I should start referring to it as the BGS, for ease of typing) may be due to the Fibromyalgia.  So at the moment, it’s still something that I am learning to understand as far as the symptoms and what to expect and how best to prepare for and manage them, but I still don’t know the actual cause or causes for certain.

I can see, now, though, that anxiety is having a big effect on it.

The moment, I think, that I actually realized there was a connection between anxiety and the BGS symptoms, was in early October, when SS and I went shopping right after a visit to the retina clinic.  It was a follow up after my laser surgery in March, for the torn retina.  The numbing drops always seem to lead to anxiety for me.  I’m not sure why.  I had the numbing drops that day, and sure enough, try as I may not to, I had an anxiety reaction.  It wasn’t as bad as they used to be, but it was still pretty classic.  Afterward, when we went shopping, I noticed I was having a lot of trouble with balance and frequently feeling as if I were falling.

I added the word “spatial” to my description of balance/gait problems when I realized, in late July, that my perception of the space and objects around me, in relation to myself, is sometimes very off.  I was at a conference at a college out of state, and I walked into a lecture hall that had tiered stadium seating.  For some reason, I was expecting the room to be like the one I had been in prior to that (all one level inside the room, and it was also a smaller room), and for several seconds after walking in, I was very disoriented and had the feeling, perception wise, that I was falling.  I reached out and grabbed the door frame for support, which I am sure looked pretty weird to any one in the room who  happened to notice, because even though I felt like I was falling, I wasn’t.  Later in that same trip, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch, and I got up to go to the ladies’ room.  Someone told me it was around the other side of the wall behind the bar, and when I went around the wall, I saw a hallway that led to a staircase, which led to rest rooms down stairs.  Because I’d turned that corner expecting to see a door or a short hallway with doors to rest rooms, I was thrown and again felt that feeling of falling.  I was able to cover my reaction, that time, though, and just held the railing as I went down the stairs.

Another time, more recently, I joined SS’s gym and went with her, planning to walk on the treadmill.  I’d belonged to a gym in Florida and walked on the treadmill a few times a week for several months, back in late 2007, and I had days when it was more difficult to keep my balance, but I never had the extreme reaction I had this time.  I looked back at the calendar to find out what else was going on at the time, and it was on a Monday during the height of what was probably the most busy-busy-busy time this year.  I was on a work deadline, we’d had our Civil Union the Friday before, followed by wine-making all day Saturday and Vendemmia on Sunday.  I do remember, also, that I was having a bit of Fibro flare at the time, as well.

Anyway, we went to the gym and I had all the best of intentions, but as soon as I stepped onto the platform where the treadmills are located, I felt the vibration of the treadmills running and I felt that “falling” feeling.  It’s not actually a feeling of being “dizzy”, although I’ve used that term, as well as “light headed”, for lack of a better description.  It’s more that topsy-turvy feeling of not being sure which way is up that happens when I actually do fall, except that I’m not actually falling.  My brain just perceives that I am.  Because I knew logically that I wasn’t really falling, I went ahead and got on the treadmill, but even walking extremely slowly and holding on tightly (white-knuckle-tightly), I just wasn’t able to regain any sense of balance and I had to stop.  Or, to be more accurate, I went in the locker room and cried and SS talked me back to reality by reminding me to breathe, and convinced me that no, everyone else in the gym was not watching me and thinking I was a weirdo, and I went and waited in the car until she was done.

I decided to try using the stationary bikes instead of the treadmill, so I can get some exercise without pushing myself into another anxiety corner, and then hopefully I’ll be able to get back to using the treadmill once I learn how to fix the BGS problems.  I haven’t done that, yet, though, because everything went into higher gear in preparation for the wedding and there wasn’t time.  Soon, though.  Once I’m over the last of the bronchitis.

I was almost at the point of recognizing the apparent connection between the anxiety spikes and the BGS issues when I was contacted by Ryan Rivera of Calm Clinic, and he offered to write a guest post.  I gratefully accepted and his article will publish tomorrow!

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NaNoNoGo . . . and . . . We Do!

Well, I had intended to write something this November, even though I knew I wouldn’t be officially participating in NaNoWriMo, but as it turned out, I didn’t even do my modified not-really NaNo version.  I’m ok with that, though, and I realize now that it wasn’t a very realistic undertaking, with everything else that we’ve had going on.

We got back from Florida on Saturday.  Our commitment ceremony and reception Friday evening went really well!

We had a Fall color scheme with a Wine theme and a bit of a Grecian/Roman flavor in our dresses and in some of the decorations.  Part of our ceremony included a wine ceremony, which is similar to a Unity candle or sand ceremony but is the blending of two varieties of wine that symbolizes the blending-together of two lives into one. (The labels on the wine bottles say “Love blends two lives into one” at the top.)

We both wore ivory and carried bouquets in fall colors (we laid them down on the table for the wine ceremony, above).

Sister, who is a wedding planner and officiant as her profession, wrote and performed our ceremony and made our floral arrangements and bouquets, and decorated our cake and the tables in the dining room, as well as other accessories.

We also included a hand-fasting as part of our ceremony, and we used braided ribbon in orange, burgundy, and ivory.  The bold Fall colors were gorgeous!  We share a love for Fall as our favorite season, so choosing a color scheme was easy for us.  In fact, during all the years that I believed I would never want a wedding, long before I met SS, I seemed to always be drawn, anyway, to the Fall-color bouquets that Sister would make for clients.  When I mentioned that to SS in our early conversation around the idea of having a wedding, she had excitedly agreed that Fall colors would be striking, and would fit so well with the wine theme that we’d discussed.

I made the necklace that I wore, and Sister added some sparkly beads to my dress so that it would more closely coordinate with SS’s dress, which came with a lot of sparkle.  SS made an amazing arm band that she wore, with two bunches of bead-grapes.  It’s gorgeous.  I wore a barrette that began life as a hairband, and Sister added some crystal beads and some purple beads to look like grapes.  We then cut it off of the hairband and made it into a barrette so it would lay properly in my hair.

Our entire menu, including crackers at the cocktail hour, bread and rolls during dinner, cake, and drinks (except for a mistake made by the bartender, which fortunately turned out ok), was all gluten free.  Our baker did a wonderful job!  We had three cakes – one pumpkin spice, one red velvet, and one yellow.  The one we cut was the pumpkin spice, and the wait staff/servers at the venue were supposed to cut all three so that our guests could have their choice of flavor, but apparently there was a communication glitch around that and the other two cakes didn’t get cut.  It would have made a gorgeous photo, with the varying colors of cakes, from the orange/pumpkin to the red velvet to the yellow, all with the ivory frosting.  Several people said that they loved the pumpkin spice, though.  (It was delicious.)  We took the red velvet cake back to our hotel that night and had a couple slices and it was also excellent, and we froze the rest at Mom and Dad’s house, to have when we visit next time.  Our baker also made an extra “anniversary cake” for us in the red velvet, and we froze that at Mom and Dad’s.  It will be easier to transport home next time we visit because it will have been frozen for a few months.

We had a small group; it was between 30 and 35 people altogether.  We had originally anticipated around 50, but the fact that it was on a Friday at 5 pm and a lot of people couldn’t get out of work early enough, coupled with some medical emergencies and travel snafus, the number was reduced.  It was an intimate evening, though, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.  We sure did!

We had a wonderful harpist who played for us during our ceremony, cocktail hour, and dinner, and a DJ who did our announcements and played for our first dance, dance with our dads, cake cutting, and open dancing after dinner.  We walked down the aisle to Pachelbel’s Canon in D, and back up the aisle to “A Whole New World” from Aladdin.  (If you follow those links, neither is actually our harpist; I just included them as a way to hear what the music sounded like.)  It was really beautiful.

In one of our early conversations, we discovered that our mothers both listened to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass when we were kids, and we thought it was funny that as kids, we both thought of it as more-or-less “old people” music, but as we grew, we both gained a real appreciation for it, and we both have a special fondness for the song, “A Taste of Honey“.  We surprised my mom and had the DJ play it when he announced us into the dining room.  We walked in just as the music got going (at about :22 or so, if you click the link) and I spun SS, and then we walked toward the dance floor and the DJ faded into our song, “Smile“.

A good friend’s son did the video recording for us, and we are excitedly waiting to see how it looks, as well as what the photographers’ photos look like.  We have some photos that guests took and shared with us, so far.

We got to visit with some good friends in the week before the ceremony, and we spent time with family.  My new father-in-law got to meet my parents and Sister, and my parents and Sister and I got to meet my new brother-in-law and sister-in-law, who live across the country, though I had met them on Skype last year.  Both families blended well and everyone seemed to enjoy everyone else.

We got home Saturday night.  I’ve been sick with bronchitis since we got home and SS has been fighting it, but I’m beginning to feel a bit more like myself today and it looks like she has been successful in her fight, and we’re so grateful that neither of us was sick on Friday!

Once I begin publishing some vlog posts here, I can also share some photos and/or video from the wedding, if anyone would like to see them.  Up to now, I’ve cropped faces out of photos and worked at maintaining anonymity, but I suppose once the cloak is off, I won’t need to do that anymore, right?

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My NotReallyNaNoWriMo 2011

I wrestled quite a bit about whether to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, because there is so much going on during the month of November.  SS and I will be in Florida for a week, for our Commitment Ceremony.  We’ve not only been planning the ceremony and reception for months, but now, of course, we are also planning a trip, and all the little details for both are more time-consuming than I realized they would be.

Then, when we are in Florida, I will want all of my attention to be on our vacation and visiting with family and friends, and of course, on our wedding day.  So, if I were to participate, I would have only 23 days available to do it, out of the 30 days in the month, which would mean writing an average of 2,174 words a day.  Not impossible, but quite a push, for me.

Ah, but then I remembered that I will be on a work-deadline for the last several days of November, and we’ll be cooking on Thanksgiving and having my father-in-law over, so I won’t want to be writing on that day.  (In the past, I lived alone and would spend part of Thanksgiving Day with the family at Sister’s, but I would write for a good part of the day, as well.)

That brings my available writing days to 16, meaning I would have to average over 3100 words each day, and that really is not realistic for me.  Not even if I didn’t have to work, too, and I do.  I’ve had days of writing that many words or more, but not consistently.

But.

While knowing, with the logical side of my brain, that it just isn’t feasible for this year, I still. want. to. write.

I’ve participated for the last seven years.  This would be my eighth.  It has become a part of my year, and a part of me.  As soon as the weather begins to turn (or, in Florida, when it would become less humid and a slight bit cooler) for Fall, my inner plotter starts to run on autopilot, thinking about what to write.

I considered participating with the knowledge that I wouldn’t hit the 50,000 word mark, but if I did that, I would have a blue (“participated”) circle for the year on my NaNo profile without a corresponding purple (“won”) circle, and I think that would bug me for years to come, especially since it took me five years before I started winning.

So.

I decided to be a supporter this year, which means I will donate to NaNoWriMo and will be here to cheer on everyone else who is participating, but I won’t be an official participant.

And to satisfy the part of me that really wants to write, I will spend a portion of each of the 16 days I have available working toward finishing one of my existing-but-unfinished novels.

My goal is to add 16,000 words in those 16 days.  I should be able to handle 1000 words a day.

Since I won’t be tracking my word count on the NaNoWriMo site, I made a speadsheet to track it:

Gotta love Google Docs.  Every time I update my spreadsheet, it will automatically republish here.

I put in the beginning word count based on the word count of the novel when I begin for November 1.  Each day, I’ll update the current word count, and if I did the formulas right, the spreadsheet will calculate how many words I wrote each day, how many words I have left to my goal, what percentage of my goal I have reached so far, and the average number of words it will take per day to reach the goal by the day before Thanksgiving, when I will stop writing.

Wish me luck!

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A Tough Little Apple . . . Or . . . A Weak Little Apple Slicer?

Last night, SS and I were in Whole Foods and we found Honey Crisp apples on display.  We’d never heard of a Honey Crisp apple before, but we were intrigued because they were described on the sign as having a “snap” type of crunchiness.  Or something like that.  I don’t remember the exact wording.

I’m weird about apples.  I love Gala apples and Fuji apples, but I don’t like several others that are very popular.  For me, it’s a texture thing, I think.  So, if I can get Gala or Fuji, I will eat apples as often as every day, but if not, I’ll pass.  When we saw the sign for the Honey Crisp apples, they looked so good and so inviting and I was intrigued by the description, so we bought two, to try them.

This morning, while SS was getting ready for work, I washed the apples and started to cut one for her, to take to work.  I got out my trusty apple-cutter, which used to look something like this:

Partway into the apple, the slicer got “stuck”.  I pushed harder.  The edges began to bend.

This is the part where it became an accident waiting to happen.  Against that voice in my head telling me not to, I swiveled the whole thing 90 degrees and pushed down on the sides.

And the cutter broke, leaving all the little cutter-pieces stuck in the apple:

I couldn’t believe it broke that way.

SS was downstairs by then and she saw the whole thing while it was happening.  She pulled out all the little cutter-pieces and I finished cutting the apple and tasted it.  I now have three favorite varieties of apples!  It was really good!

I also cut my hands.  The cuts aren’t really bad, but the one on the left hand took a while to stop bleeding.

The problem is, the cut on the left hand is in a part of my hand where it will keep opening as I use my hand.

That apple cutter was pretty old, and most likely was just weak and dull and getting ready to break.  The apple, while pleasantly crispy, wasn’t hard enough to break the cutter.

When SS decided to take the other apple to work, though, and I offered her a paring knife to take with it, and she said, “No, that’s ok; I’ll just bite it,” I did say, “Um, better take the knife so you don’t break your teeth,” and we got a chuckle out of it.

All in all, I was really lucky, I learned that the handles are there for a reason, and I discovered another variety of apples that I like!

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An Unexpected Gluten Challenge . . . and . . . Mascara Irony

I’m not sure where to start, to write this post. <— I wrote that line last night, and then saved it in my drafts folder because I couldn’t come up with the words to actually write the post.

But now it’s today, and I’m going to try again.

SS and I had a great weekend.  It was our fifth really-fun-and-busy weekend in a row.  We had two weekends of wine-making, the second including the Vendemmia festival on Sunday (and that was the weekend after our Friday Civil Union).  The following weekend, we went to a fundraiser for an animal shelter, and the weekend after that, we got in the car with the camera and went off in search of (1) gorgeous Fall scenery photos and video and (2) cranberry bogs that were being harvested.  We found both, took a four mile hike in the State Forest, and took lots of photos and videos (almost 1000 files, total, when I transferred them to the PC), and I began to put together what will be my first vlog post.  When it’s finished.  Which I hope will be soon.  (I also made a new header for the blog.)

Then, this past Saturday, we planted six trees in the back yard, and on Sunday, we went to the Cranberry Festival in Chatsworth, NJ.  We did a lot of walking and looking around, a little Christmas shopping, enjoyed some live music, and took more photos and video, to add to the aforementioned vlog video.

Then, we came home, changed shoes, went to Home Depot and bought mulch for the new trees in the back yard, and also bought three Knock Out Rose bushes.  We came home, planted the rose bushes, cut them back for the winter, put down mulch around them and around the trees, washed up and changed our shoes again, and went out for dinner.

And that was when it happened.

I won’t name the restaurant, because it was an extremely rare mistake and I think our server was new since we didn’t recognize the person, but after we’d each eaten about one and a half pieces of the Bruschetta, the owner came over to our table and quietly said, “This isn’t gluten free.”  He gave us the gluten free version and explained how to tell the difference visually (they have an excellent system, which is another reason I think the server was new and picked up the wrong plate by mistake).  He was very apologetic and felt awful.

I cried.  Not loud and not in an obvious way, but I felt like I just crumbled inside, from fear.  I had no idea what to expect, as far as how I would react physically.  We asked for our dinner to go, so that we could be safely at home and in our PJ’s, in case I did get sick, so that I would be as comfortable as possible.  The owner gave us the dinner at no charge, and threw in gluten free dessert, with more apologies, but I wasn’t angry; just terrified.  Humans make mistakes, and usually, when I either go to a new place or see a new face at a place I am familiar with, I am in the habit of saying, “That’s gluten free, right?” when they bring our food.  It’s a habit I got into a long time ago, just because it’s so easy to make a mistake.  But I didn’t ask.  I don’t know why.  It looked the same, to me, as the gluten free Bruschetta, and the funny thing is, as I commented to SS, the gluteny version didn’t taste any better than the gluten free version we are used to.  That’s a compliment to their gluten free version, because it’s that good.

I did add, though, in my conversation with SS, “Gee, if it had to happen that I would be eating that quantity of a gluteny food, why couldn’t it have been something that is really hard to find in gluten free where it tastes as good, like macaroni or something?”

But it was what it was, and as SS pointed out, “Well, we were talking about having you do a gluten challenge at some point.  We were just going to save it for after our trip in November.”

And so I did a gluten challenge.  Specifically, a wheat challenge; not a full-fledged gluten challenge.  But still.

And . . .

I barely reacted.

I think.

I kid you not.

I say “I think” because I have noticed that my muscles and joints are aching more than usual . . . a lot more than usual . . . but I am also experiencing a Fibromyalgia flare from all the physical activity.  A year ago, I would never have been able to even contemplate doing all the stuff I’ve been doing recently.  At least not in five weeks.  Maybe spread out over five months.  Even that is a big “maybe”, on some of the physical stuff.  So, it makes complete sense that my achiness is strictly from the Fibro.  Even SS is aching today, and she doesn’t have Fibro and is in very good physical condition.  I’m also feeling kind of emotionally fragile today, but that is often a part of a Fibro flare for me, and also often follows an anxiety reaction, which my fear last night clearly was.  So, also, probably not a gluten reaction.  I had a bit of nausea, followed by some mild cramping and gas, last night, but it wasn’t even as bad as the reaction I get to the Still-Unknown-Mystery-Other-Food-Sensitivity issue I have.

So.  I really am leaning toward the conclusion that I apparently do not have a problem with wheat.  Or not a serious problem.  Or not a serious problem with processed white flour made from wheat, which is probably the type of flour the bread was made with.

And of course, this brought up a torrent of emotions and questions, for me.  If I’m not gluten intolerant, then why did I feel so much better within a couple days after going gluten free four years ago?  It was such an amazing difference that other people around me commented and asked me what I was doing differently.  If I’m not gluten intolerant, then why, after being gluten free for about six months, did I have doubling-over pain after accidentally buying a multi vitamin with barley in it?  Could I be barley intolerant but not wheat intolerant?  If I am, how much barley is in the everyday foods I was eating before I went gluten free, to make the dramatic difference in how I felt that everyone around me noticed?  Could the barley intolerance be one that causes immediate reaction and might I still have a wheat intolerance as well, that reacts on a more cumulative basis?

I remember, before I went gluten free (and before I even knew what “gluten free” was), I tried a little “test” with my mother’s help.  A friend had told me about a test similar to the Delta test that her son had learned and their whole family had tried.  You extend one arm and ask someone to push down on it while you resist and try not to allow your arm to be pushed down.  At the same time, you hold a food item in your other hand.  The idea is that if that particular type of food isn’t good for your body, whether it’s due to an allergy or intolerance or just the specific needs of your own body, you will be less able to resist the downward pushing on your other arm.  Mom and I tried it with several foods, including a McDonald’s cheeseburger and fries, with which my arm remained strong.  When I held a bone from a pot of beef-barley soup that Mom was making, my arm went down like I had no muscles at all.  We repeated the test two or three times after that, just to make sure.  Banana: strong.  Soup bone: weak.  Apple: strong.  Soup bone: weak.  It was so weird.  I thought it was the beef, but I had a strong result with the McDonald’s burger.  I didn’t know what to think.

I also remember, over the years, that every time I tried to eat “healthy” (i.e. whole wheat breads as opposed to processed white, more vegetables, salads, etc.), I would feel worse than if I ate junk food.  People around me sometimes thought I was imagining it or making it up as an excuse to keep eating junk food, and I was seriously puzzled.  After the arm test, and before I knew what gluten was, I began to suspect that I had a problem with wheat that wasn’t so much of a problem with highly processed wheat flour, but more with whole wheat, explaining why the arm test was strong with the burger and fries, but still not explaining what was up with the soup bone.

Maybe that is the case, though.  I may be strongly barley intolerant and mildly wheat intolerant.  If that is the case, then of course I’ll remain gluten free.  Even if barley was my only problem, I would remain gluten free, due to the chance of barley growing in wheat fields due to wind and birds transporting seeds, or the barley being processed together with wheat.

I’ll hopefully know more soon.  My doctor is running a bunch of tests for various food sensitivities and I’m hoping to find out what my Still-Unknown-Mystery-Other-Food-Sensitivity is, and hopefully it will show the wheat and/or barley issues as well.  I don’t know what to think about rye, but at least it’s less common to show up in foods, I think.

At the same time that I’m doing the food sensitivity testing, I will also be doing testing of my neurotransmitter levels and vitamin/mineral levels and absorption, and my doctor can help me dial on on those things with my supplements and some amino acid therapies.  My hope is to have this all ironed out by the end of the year.

An interesting and ironic side note, though:

I found a gluten free waterproof mascara!  Long time readers may remember what an issue this was for me.  I had been looking, again, for waterproof mascara I could wear, after how teary-eyed I got during our Civil Union ceremony and knowing I will be twice as teary-eyed at our Florida ceremony, which includes a hand blessing that Sister performs a lot at the weddings where she officiates, and which I have never been able to hear without crying.  After some searching, I found Maybelline’s Turbo Volum’ Express in waterproof.  When I called the company and inquired, I was told it is gluten free.

The irony is that I was wearing it for the first time yesterday, and had the opportunity to test its waterproof-ness when I cried.  Over being glutened.  The mascara passed the crying test with flying colors, but now I may not necessarily need for it to be gluten free.

I am passing along the information, though, since I still get a lot of hits from people looking for gluten free mascara and other gluten free cosmetics.

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Catching Up

Oh, there have been SO many things I’ve wanted to blog about lately, but life is still kind of sped-up for me right now.  I’ll continue to be busy-busy-busy for at least the next couple months.  Not that busy-busy-busy is bad, mind you.  It’s just . . . well . . . very busy.

So, to do a quick catch-up (or maybe not so quick, depending on how you look at it), here is some of the “what’s new” in my life:

• SS and I got married last Friday.  Ok, in New Jersey, it’s called Civil Union (as if anyone would want to enter into a lawful Un-civil Union . . . ok, no, I know that the word “Civil” is used differently here . . . but still).  Anyway, it was a quiet little ceremony at the County Clerk’s office, followed by brunch with my new father-in-law and a friend of ours, and then later, we had dinner with six other friends at one of our favorite restaurants.  It was a great day, being married is great, and the bigger ceremony is coming up in Florida this Fall.
• I’m becoming a wine maker.  This past Spring, I got to help SS and her (now our) friends in the wine group bottle several cases of wine, and the last two weekends, I got to help with (first) the crush and then a week later, the press.  It’s a lot of fun, and the people are so much fun to be around.
• I attended my first Philadelphia Vendemmia this past Sunday.  What a fun day!  I really enjoyed the feeling of community.
• I didn’t win the essay contest for the Tempur-Pedic bed, but then SS found another blogger who was running a contest for the same bed.  This one was a video contest, and SS and I both entered.  Her video is one of the finalists, and now Tempur-Pedic will decide the winner.  It’s very exciting.  I’ll let you know if her video wins!
• The blogger running the video contest is also a vlogger, which is a term I hadn’t heard until All My Children had a story line where one of the characters became a vlogger.  I edited  both SS’s and my video entry, while learning how to edit a video for the first time.  It was so much fun, and even though I still have a whole lot to learn in order to do it well, I’ve been considering the idea of doing a little vlogging myself.  I’m still in the process of going back through some of my earlier posts and password protecting the ones that are very personal, so that I can feel more comfortable to more-or-less “come out” and blog/vlog with my real name.  I’ve given my blog link to a few people I’ve met in real life, to share some of the info and links I have on gluten free stuff and ADD, and it would be great, I think, to feel comfortable about continuing to do that.  So . . . opinions, please . . . would you be interested in seeing some short vlog videos included here occasionally?
• I’ve been contacted by two people in the last week, offering to share some helpful information with my readers.  One will be as a guest blogger (regarding gluten-free baking) and the other will be sharing an article (about anxiety).  I’m excited about this, and as I start to move from “busy-busy-busy” to simply “busy”, I really want to put more quality time into this blog.
• I have several saved drafts and links and notes for some reviews I want to write about restaurants we’ve tried (or regularly visit) with gluten-free menu items.  This is one of the many things I want to do with that quality blog-time.
• The beading thing has really taken off!  I’ve made several sets of jewelry now, and I am absolutely loving it.  I’ve shown my jewelry to a few people and have received some very encouraging reactions.  A jewelry store in Philadelphia has shown interest in maybe selling some of the sets for me, and I’ve been invited to show them at a party next Spring.  I’ve been planning to re-start an old gift business I used to have, and that will start falling into place in the next few months.  I’m going to sell my jewelry on the web site, also.
• I made a major decision . . . not to participate in NaNoWriMo this year.  I know, it sounds crazy, doesn’t it?  SS and I have the Florida trip and ceremony during that time, and I’ll have some work stuff happening that will require some extra focus during that month, also, and I just think it would be too much to take on.  NaNoWriMo has become such a part of my Fall, and it will feel weird to not be a part of it, but I will definitely participate again starting in 2012, and I’ll probably spend at least a little bit of time on the forums, encouraging others.  That’s something; I usually don’t spend much time on the forums when I’m busy writing.
• Work is keeping me busy, as is the planning for the Florida ceremony, and over the last several months, I’ve seen several new doctors and have learned a lot, which I will blog about in future posts.  It’s all good.
• And right now, I’m on a work deadline, so I must publish this and get back to work.  More soon . . .