Gluten Free Recommendation: More Maybelline Products, and a Cover Girl Product

Wow!  SS surprised me, in the care package I received yesterday, with some lip liners and eyeliners!  After finding out that the Maybelline mascara I always liked is gluten free, she did some more checking when I said the only thing I had left to find, now, was lip liners and eyeliners.  And guess what.  Maybelline COLORsenstaional lip liners, Define-A-Line eyeliner, and Line Express eyeliner are all gluten free!  I’m so happy about being able to go into a drug store and buy makeup products I can use.

Sister calls SS the Gluten Nazi.  She means it as a compliment, of course.  They know each other; we do conference calls where we all three talk to each other.  That always makes me laugh, when she says that, because SS does go above and beyond.  She makes me feel so cared for and so loved.  She’s in the process of going completely gluten free herself, so that I won’t ever have to worry about cross-contamination being with her or in her house.

And for anyone who is looking for gluten free mascara who would like more choice, SS also found out that her favorite kind, Cover Girl Volume Exact, is gluten free as well (but not the waterproof type; be careful).

I really hope that companies who produce not only food but also items like cosmetics, toiletries, household cleaners, etc., will begin adding “gluten free” to their labels when it applies.  That would not only be very helpful for those of us who are gluten intolerant, but it would also reduce their incoming phone calls, inquiring, and would help them to gain a larger part of the market among people like me (and celiacs are a loyal bunch if you make a product that doesn’t make us sick; we’ll tell everyone we know!)

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More About Structure, And Another Gluten Warning

As hesitant as I was to attempt to add structure to my life, it’s turning out to not be as difficult as I feared it would be.  I think the key is to add new things one at a time, with some time in between to adjust.  Well, there seem to be several keys, but that’s a big one.

Someone recently gave me a Palm Pilot.  I resisted initially, thinking that if I can’t seem to make a paper organizer or an online task list work, I wouldn’t be any more likely to make proper use of a Palm.  I was wrong!  It’s amazing.  It fits right into the way my mind works, somehow.  It syncs with the software on my computer and fits right into my purse.  I keep my task list on it (a very long end ever-growing list of every little thing I would otherwise forget to do).  I look at the “Today” view of my task list so that it isn’t overwhelming, seeing all those things I have to do, and it feels like those things I have to do in the day in question are in more manageable chunks.  I’ve been learning how easily overwhelmed I am, and now that I realize that about myself, I can structure (there’s that word again) things so that I don’t shut down when contemplating the enormity of everything.

I keep my shopping list on the Palm, too, with items divided by store, and I just delete them from the list as I go, and then add new items as I think of them.  No little scraps of paper in my purse, and no need to carry a little spiral notebook or start new lists as the old ones get all scratched out, anymore.  I have items in my Office Documents like my list of the supplements I take, which includes brand names, dosages, and prices, so that when I need to buy more I remember which ones to buy; and various gluten-free product, company, and ingredient lists.

I have the little folding keyboard that goes with it, too, and I can use that to work on my NaNoWriMo novel if my laptop doesn’t work and I’m at a write-in.  I won’t be able to write on it in the program I usually use (though I did message the software’s author to ask if he would write a version for Palm for next year), but I could write in Word and then transfer it when I get home.  (My laptop is very old and cantankerous and I’m not sure how much I can count on it to work on any given day.)  The Palm has wifi, and that is awesome, since the wifi on my laptop hasn’t worked for a long time.  I’ll be able to update my NaNo word counts even if I’m not home.

End of commercial for Palm.  For now. 

And other news in the Tampalama Adds Structure To Her Life Saga:

When trying to figure out a glutening not long ago, SS said maybe I should keep a food diary.  I groaned.  I hate keeping food diaries.  But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how it could have come in handy, had I been keeping one during the last few glutenings.

Yesterday morning, we were talking about the last time I was glutened and neither of us could remember what had caused it, even though I’d figured it out at the time it happened.  I finally remembered.  It was the WalMart Great Value brand corn tortillas I’d bought a few months ago.  The package says “gluten free” on it, but I noticed the day I bought it that it was the last of the old packaging design, and all the packages with the new design had a shared equipment warning.  I debated about buying it, wondering if they changed the gluten info when they switched to the new packaging because they had discovered it was mislabeled earlier due to the shared equipment situation or if they actually had changed where and  how they were made at the same time they changed the labels.  I took the chance and bought them and used them a few times.  That was during a time when I was being glutened in more than one way (also, a store brand acidophilus I was using at the time seems to not be gluten free).  I hung onto the tortillas, though, and gave them a try again Sunday night, just to test, and I reacted.  That was the glutening we couldn’t remember the source of, yesterday.  And that was what convinced me to start a food log.

I created a new blog and made it private (the whole world doesn’t care or need to know what I eat).  I’m keeping the entries simple, with a list of what I eat each day.  I don’t bother with measurements and such because it isn’t a weight loss food diary.  I make notes about things that might or might not be pertinent later, like which Dunkin Donuts location I got my coffee from the last two mornings.  I made categories for the two major reactions I have to gluten (abdominal pain/gas, and bleeding, usually two to three days later).  I made categories for the types of foods I’m eating, as well, just in case that might spotlight any other trends (i.e. I’ve suspected for some time that I also have a problem with dairy, but I’m not ready to come completely out of denial about it.  Many gluten intolerant people also cannot digest casein, a protein in milk.  I generally only react with digestive symptoms to dairy products when I’ve been glutened, but I always seem to become congested and sinusy after I eat cheese.)  I had to laugh this morning when, just beginning today’s entry, my category cloud showed “coffee” in huge letters.  At that point, it was the only category that had more than one entry in it.

I’m including a section in each day’s entry for soaps, lotions, detergents, etc., which I’ll just paste in from the day before and only change when I change brands.  I’ll make notes of anything unusual that happens, like the times I have opened a file folder of paperwork from Boss and had a half-cup of bread crumbs fall out onto me (I spoke with him about it, explaining what crumbs can do and asking for his help since I was trying to rule out as much as possible in my attempt to figure out how I was being glutened, and he said he will be more careful about eating lunch near the paperwork he is working on).  I have a section in every entry where I’ll go back in and make a note if I have any reaction, and I’ll put it into the appropriate reaction category.  Eventually, I should be able to pin down what causes the mystery reactions I have sometimes.

Speaking of mystery glutenings, I have another entry in my drafts folder that will be published soon . . .

And speaking of WalMart (as in the mention of the Great Value brand corn tortillas, above), I was looking at their gluten free products on their web site (a search feature I had touted in a previous entry) and was still very impressed with it . . . until I got several pages into the list and saw Goldfish crackers, fudge brownie ice cream, and bread.  Wheat bread, yes.  In the gluten free search results.  So, I have to add a warning here, to anyone who took my advice and went to look at the list: Be careful!  Take nothing for granted!  And always read labels before you buy, because even if something was gluten free last time  you bought it, it may not be anymore.

More soon.

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Long Distance Relationships

Someone Special lives 1060 miles away from me.  I don’t think I mentioned that before, here.

A long-distance relationship isn’t something that is all that new to me.  I’ve done it twice before, although I wasn’t looking specifically for a long-distance relationship in any of the three cases (wasn’t looking for a relationship at all when I began having feelings for SS or the person my prior relationship was with).  It just seems I tend to meet people that way (twice online and once through a mutual friend who gave us each other’s phone numbers).

Because it feels more natural to me to live in my head than in the physical world, it stands to reason that I would find it easy to feel drawn to a person by connecting mentally first.  (Of my four closest local friends, one is my sister and the other three I met online, on varying types of message boards or networking web sites.)

For a romantic relationship to develop, some people’s brains are wired to need that face-to-face initial contact, and some people need a physical attraction to happen before emotional feelings can develop, but I’ve never been either way.  For me, the connection always begins at an intellectual place and then goes from there.  I really don’t feel physically attracted to someone until some level of mental connection or feeling has already begun.  This time was no different in that respect, but is very different in many other respects.

I’ve been happy to find that the reactions of others, with regard to the whole long-distance aspect, are much more positive now than in years past.  I suppose, rather than “more positive”, I should say that people seem “less baffled”.  It’s so much more common now to meet a significant other online than it was ten years ago, and it was 19 years ago when I met someone through a mutual friend and carried on a long-distance telephone relationship before finally meeting face-to-face.  People seemed to find that really weird, back then.

I don’t think people are as baffled after the initial meeting has taken place, but when there are strong feelings and even future plans being discussed before that point, that’s what seems to throw those who aren’t inclined themselves to connect with someone that way.

My parents met in a long-distance relationship sort of way, back in the mid-1950’s.  My dad was in the Air Force and mutual friends introduced them through the mail and they became pen-pals.  I hadn’t consciously realized, however, until just recently, that they met face-to-face a total of three times before their wedding day.  That blows even me away.  They just celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary and they are still the very best of friends.

But, in spite of my parents’ obvious success and the acceptance and encouragement of others around me, one of the biggest hurdles for me to get over in the early stages of this relationship has been the long-distance thing and what I’ve done with it in my head.

This is the healthiest relationship I have ever had.  Some might argue it’s the first healthy relationship I’ve had.  The communication is amazing, as is the ease with which we can talk about anything.  Seriously.  Anything.  I so often hear myself saying something and mentally acknowledge that in X or Y relationship, I could never have said that, or if I had, I’d have been criticized.  I’m sure that over time I won’t compare this relationship with past ones so much.  I have already begun to not do that as much as I did earlier, and I’m completely enjoying it for what it is, and for who we are, individually and as “us”.  But the fact that two of the three most serious relationships I had before SS began as long-distance relationships, even though the reasons those relationships didn’t work had nothing to do with the distance and they wouldn’t have worked no matter how we’d met, doesn’t escape my notice.  Illogical as it may be, I have that connection in my head, and I’ve been working hard to overcome it.

Still, I’ll feel better after we’ve had our first face-to-face.  It isn’t that I need that to prove anything to myself; it’s just that I think it will be easier to talk to others about it once they know that yes, we have met in person.  And of course, there is the fact that we miss each other and are just really looking forward to being in the same space.

This will happen in December.  We began acknowledging our feelings for each other back in August, but decided to set the date of our first visit in December for a few reasons, the biggest being that I need time to prepare.  My hoarding / clutter problem has been out of control since sometime in 2005, and even though I’ve been making some very good progress, it’s a time-consuming project and I have a lot of work yet to do.  I feel good about it, though.  That’s the coolest part.  At some point, I’m not sure exactly when, I relaxed from my tense-to-the-point-of-nausea state, panicking every time I looked around and thought, “I’ll never have this done in time,” to suddenly looking around calmly and knowing that, as I told my therapist, “I’ll be ready enough.”  I may not have every single thing perfect, but life isn’t perfect.  Life is a continually ongoing and evolving process, so nothing could be or remain perfect anyway.  The best we can hope to achieve, I believe, is a state that feels right to us.  This relationship feels right to me, and each weekend, I take another giant step toward my living space feeling right as well.

And this seems like a good time to share some Tips For Feeling Closer And Remaining Connected While Miles Apart.  These tips would be good for folks like us, who met and have been getting to know one another from a distance, as well as for couples who are temporarily separated physically due to work, military, or other obligations.

• Utilize every form of communication you have at your disposal, whether you use a telephone, email, postal mail, chat, texting, what-have-you.  SS and I talk every evening, sometimes engaged in active conversation and sometimes just hanging out and doing what we individually need to do in our homes while spending time together and talking about whatever.  (Bluetooth is our friend.)The connection we feel is so strong that we sometimes forget we haven’t been face-to-face yet.  Once in a while, I forget she isn’t local and hasn’t been here.  I’ll refer to a particular intersection or town and forget that she has no conceptual idea of it yet.  One day, she mentioned that she was going to go mow her lawn and I opened my mouth to say, “But it’s raining outside,” before I remembered that it was only raining here.It’s amazing, how, when you have spent hours at a time talking with someone, you reach a point where you learn their auditory cues and know how they are feeling based on vocal tones or how they sigh.  You can “hear” facial expressions, especially if you share photos often.
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• Share photos or video often.  As often as possible, anyway.  Even photos that may seem silly can make your partner feel closer and more included in what you are doing.  A pretty flower that you see while you’re out doing your errands, or a photo of something cute your pet did, or pictures of the progress you made organizing a particular room or section of your home . . . they all make it feel a little more like being there.  Make the virtual visual.  SS made some video clips of the rooms in her house this past weekend, and I enjoyed them immensely.  It gave me so much more of an idea what it might like to actually be there.  I’m planning to make some video also, but I’m still a bit hesitant to do it right now, before I’ve accomplished more in my de-cluttering, although SS has seen several photos I took in April, and she is the only person besides me who has seen that many of those pictures.  My therapist hasn’t even seen them yet.  She will.  In time.
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• Watch TV or movies together.  SS and I have movie night, usually one night a week unless we’re really busy with other stuff, as we have been lately.  We take turns choosing a movie and then both order it from Netflix, and watch it together over the phone.  It’s easy enough to sync up by saying, “One, two, three, go” and pressing Play at the same time.  We have regular TV shows that we record and watch every week, also.  It’s still a shared experience, even if we aren’t able to be sitting in the same room.
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• Send care packages whenever possible.  Surprise each other.  Pick out romantic greeting cards that describe how you feel and write a note inside.  The surprising-each-other thing keeps reminding me of All My Children, back when Ryan and Greenlee were married and they’d made a vow to surprise each other every day.  Of course, every day is most likely impossible, but it’s so much fun to surprise your partner with something you’ve put a lot of thought into, and it’s also a whole lot of fun to receive that surprise and to be reminded that your partner was thinking of you.  The care package before last that I opened from SS contained gluten free cookies and muffins that she had baked for me.  Talk about feeling loved!  That was awesome.  In my last care package to her, I sent some printed items I’d made up (hat, note paper, calendar) with a quote about wine (she makes wine) and some neat wine images.  I also sent some framed note cards that match the decor in one of her rooms.  I’d had the note cards for quite some time, in a drawer, because I loved them, and now they can be displayed on her wall.  She is always sending me practical items that I need, as well . . . I believe the next package is the one that will contain new guts for my toilet . . . should I explain that one in more detail?  If the definition of romantic is “thoughtful”, it actually does fit.

More in a future entry . . .

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Possible Gluten Warning

I previously mentioned OreIda Easy Fries in an entry from July, and although I didn’t specifically say in that entry that they were gluten free, I’m concerned that anyone who must eat gluten free may have read that entry and trusted me that they were gluten free, since I mentioned really liking them.  I’ve been eating them off and on (when I’m not being careful to watch my IF ratings; white potatoes are inflammatory) for a while now.  Well, it turns out, they may not be gluten free, and I didn’t know that.  I don’t know what to think, really, now.

• According to the ingredients list (Potatoes, Vegetable Oils [Sunflower, Cottonseed, Soybean, Palm, Canola, and/Or Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil], Salt, Dextrose, Disodium Dihydrogen Pyrophosphate, Annatto [Vegetable Color]), there doesn’t seem to be anything in them that would raise any red flags for me.  It even contains a soybean warning, but no other allergen warnings.
• They show up in WalMart’s list of gluten free items.
• I can’t time my own consumption of them with the glutenings I’ve gone through.  The thing that further muddies my ability to figure it out is that I often buy and eat these fries when I’m going through a time of craving comfort food, and one of the things that happens when I’ve been glutened is that I crave comfort food because I feel so awful.  If they do contain gluten, I may not know, if I’m mostly eating them after I’ve already been glutened.  But I do recall eating them when I hadn’t been glutened, and I don’t remember ever making any sort of connection between them and any gluten reaction.

However, when trying to figure out a recent mystery glutening (twice over a period of weeks), I went back over everything I could remember having eaten, and when I checked the list of gluten free items on the OreIda web site, these fries weren’t on the list.  I called, and the girl I spoke with said they weren’t on her list either.

I’m going to contact OreIda and ask them to look at the ingredients and manufacturing process and either add them to the gluten free list if they are in fact gluten free, or put something on the label that explains why they aren’t, such as that maybe they are made in a shared facility that also produces products containing wheat, or something, if that is the case.  It could possibly be that they are produced in a facility that produces products containing barley, rather than wheat, and since US companies are not (yet?) legally bound to disclose barley on their labels, that could explain why it would not be on the gluten free list and also not have anything on the label that would cause concern to a gluten intolerant person.

It’s just very odd, though, because I am so hyper-sensitive to gluten, even in items that are simply made in shared facilities, even if they don’t contain gluten in their ingredients, and I can’t say I’ve ever reacted to the fries.

I will update when I know more, but I wanted to be sure and clarify this, just in case.

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The UPS Guy and Dick Clark

There are a few different regular UPS drivers who deliver to the office where I work.  One of them is a guy who used to be the regular UPS guy for the place I worked back in the mid-to-late-80’s.  I don’t think he remembers me from back then because I’m quite a bit older now, but I remember him because he hasn’t changed a bit.  Seriously.  Like the way Dick Clark didn’t change for so many years.  It’s almost creepy.

When he delivered a package yesterday, I got to thinking about just how many years ago it was that he used to deliver to the other office, and how much has changed.  Twenty years ago, in 1989, I was 25.

In 1989:

• My hair was still dark even without my dying it.
• I weighed (muffled, unintelligible word) pounds less than I do now.  I wasn’t “thin”, but I weighed a whole lot less.
• I had no arthritis and no symptoms of fibromyalgia (other than depression, which is related, but then again, is related to everything I deal with).
• I was able to sit with my foot under me in my chair at work.
• I still smoked.
• My migraines hadn’t started yet.
• I had a lot of sinus trouble.
• I wore aqua-colored contact lenses, which prompted a lot of compliments, but I always felt I was cheating, since the compliments weren’t for my real eye color, and I went back to clear lenses.
• I used to occasionally wear heels to work, but I never got the hang of walking in them, so I eventually blamed my height (I was about 5′11″ at the time) and quit trying to wear them.
• I wore makeup at least a few times a week then.
• I smoked pot.  A lot.
• I had been in love with my best friend for five years and finally admitted it.
• I came out.
• I still had my small, old, black and white TV from when I was a teenager, but it never bothered me that I couldn’t watch TV in color.  Even though it seemed to bother my friends.
• I was still years away from knowing what gluten was, let alone that I shouldn’t eat it.
• I ate a lot of Whoppers back then.
• Burger King Whoppers, not the malted milk balls, although those are also a no-no on a gluten free diet.
• I’d felt the loss of a pet, a year or so before that, when I had to have my beloved cat, Indigo, put to sleep.
• I didn’t know, yet, what it felt like to have a relationship, or a breakup.
• My parents were still young and the looming reality that I will have to say goodbye to them one day was not part of my daily ruminations yet.
• I had no idea that within a year, I would begin a relationship that would change the lives of everyone in my immediate family, in ways I would not have believed, had I been given a glimpse into the future.
• I’d been in counseling before (may have even been in counseling that year) but I’d never stuck around long enough to call it therapy, or to make the kind of progress I’ve made this last year.
• I did not know that I had Adult ADD.
• I thought I knew what fatigue was then.  I had no idea it could get so much worse.
• I thought I had a clutter problem then.  See second sentence of the point above.
• I’d heard of Microsoft Windows but had never seen a computer with it installed.
• My niece and nephews were all under seven.  They’re all grown up now, and have spouses or fiances; the boys both have either children or a child on the way.
• I didn’t know any of my three closest local friends yet.  I have been getting back in touch with some of my older friends on facebook lately, though, which is nice, but I’m not in touch with the two friends I was the closest with, back then.
• I thought I would never lose touch with many of the people who were in my life at the time.
• I had no idea that SS existed, or that my life wouldn’t begin to be lived with the depth of feeling that I’m seeing is possible until my hair turned silver.

Yes.  A lot has changed.

I should ask the UPS Guy how many things have changed in his life.

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Like Dominoes

I truly didn’t believe there could be anyone out there who was this perfectly suited for me.  I mean, what were that chances of that?  In every relationship, there are compatibilities and there are differences.  There are the things that work out easily and the obstacles to overcome.  In each of my past relationships, there were those issues that I had to ask myself if I were willing to accept and work with, and I’m sure each of the people I had relationships with had to ask themselves similar questions about me.  In each case, the final answer was “no”.

Fast forward through several years of my being unwilling to trust again or allow myself to be vulnerable; my shutting down of so many parts of myself connected to the passion and joie de vivre that I’m rediscovering now; the unraveling, layer by layer, of the health issues I’ve been dealing with and what works to lessen the symptoms of each; two-plus years of therapy; and my beginning to pay attention to and appreciate those things that bring me bliss . . . and like dominoes, everything else fell into place.

One night, while having a great visit with my friend RB, I brought up the topic of asking the Universe for what one wants.  We talked about how some people make a list of all the qualities they would want in a mate and put it out there for the Universe to find that person.  I was actually joking when I said that if I were to want someone in my life (and I quickly qualified that I did not, although that may have been the moment I peeled the very tiniest tip off of the corner of my anti-relationship resolve), I would want someone like a physicist (because I figured a physicist would be willing to ponder with me about the sorts of things I like to ponder about; the things that cause most people to look at me with an amused or bemused or bored expression, like time travel and multiple universes and astral projection and energy fields).  I added that I would prefer a person with Celiacs as well, so that gluten and the sharing of a kitchen would not be an issue.  We then began to build (in a joking way) on what other qualities this Celiac Physicist Person would possess.

I went home and began to compose a list (complete with a disclaimer at the top, saying that I wasn’t actually ready to ask for this person, just in case the Universe was reading over my shoulder).  I wound up with 58 carefully thought-out items on my list.  Items such as “Is a good communicator”, “Is a night owl like me”, “Understands therapy”, “Appreciates compromise on both our parts”, “Understands ADD but does not have it”, “Understands fibromyalgia but does not have it”, “Respects boundaries”, “Is not controlling or manipulative”, “Level of mental health, self awareness, and personal growth is compatible with mine”, “Spiritual / religious views are compatible with mine”, “Moral values are compatible with mine”, “Political views are compatible with mine”, “Sense of humor is compatible with mine”, along with many items that were more personal.  Many of the items on my list came from what I learned was wrong for me in previous relationships, but many also came from what I learned had been right.  I used the phrase “compatible with mine” to indicate that I wouldn’t want to be with someone who was “just like me” in too many ways, but that it’s possible to hold differing but compatible views, opinions, and qualities, and often those things tend to allow one to enhance or balance the other.

Well, I wrote my list and then put it away.  I figured if I ever reached the point of really wanting someone in my life, I would get it back out and dust it off then, and polish it, before putting the request out there.

But the Universe was evidently reading over my shoulder.  And it turned out that I already knew this person, who is not a physicist and does not have Celiacs.  She does, however, ponder things the way I do (and even on similar or compatible topics as the ones I love to ponder), and she has decided to become completely gluten free, for me.  That touches me so deeply, the way she so matter-of-factly and willingly decided to do that.  For us.

I’ve always believed (with the exception of those times when I was too emotionally constricted and cut-off from my feelings to believe in anything) that things happen for a reason, and at the time they are supposed to happen.  This certainly feels destined or fated, and I would not have been ready for this six months, or three months, or even three weeks, before the time when it began to develop to beyond-friendship feelings.

Even though I’m not normally one to quote biblical verses, I keep hearing, in my mind, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, American Standard version).

Celiac City

It’s not a real place.  It’s just a concept, based on my assertion that I must live in a bubble to feel completely safe from gluten.

I wondered, last night, what it might be like if masses of people with Celiac’s / Coeliac’s and Gluten Intolerance (and our gluten free partners and family members, or anyone who avoids gluten due to ADD/ADHD, autism, or Parkinson’s Disease) were to move to a centralized place and start our own city.

This thought came to me while discussing how wonderful it would be if someone opened a completely gluten-free fast food restaurant, with some newly perfected soft-bread rolls for the hamburgers; rolls that tasted as good as the gluten ones that all the other fast food places have now.  This would be a place where the Gluten Intolerant could feel safe going through a drive-through and picking up a quick burger and fries when pressed for time or simply satisfying a craving.  The convenience of running through a drive-through is something I would never take for granted again, were I to have that option again in the future.  But I realized that the percentage of the general population who would frequent an all gluten-free fast food establishment, which would entail paying more for a meal than at a regular fast food place, since gluten free food is more expensive to produce, most likely wouldn’t be great enough to make the business profitable enough to pursue.

“However,” I thought, “In a completely gluten free city, everything would be safe!”

Just imagine:  No gluteny crumbs sticking to the grocery store’s checkout stand conveyor belt.  No worries about cross-contamination from babies eating zweiback toast while riding in the grocery cart and dribbling on the handle bar.  Being able to go to buffet restaurants, or eat at the salad bar.  Company picnics with coworkers!  Sharing lunch room or break room facilities with coworkers without fear!  Covered dish neighborhood parties!  Safe holiday dinners!

I know.  It would be extremely inconvenient if one’s extended family did not live gluten free and would have to travel very far to visit.  And what would the rules be about what visitors from Outside The Bubble could bring in with them?  Would there be a checkpoint at the entrance to the city?  X-ray machines, looking for smuggled-in contraband Oreos in an Outsider’s luggage, intended to be a covert bedtime snack when nobody was looking?  What about visitors traveling with pets and bringing in their pet’s food, which may not be gluten free?  Or Heaven forbid, what if they packed their favorite non-gf skin creams or cosmetics and then hugged and kissed residents Within The Bubble?

What would the penalty be for attempting to bring in banned items?  It could get nasty.

Well, it seemed like a good idea, before I thought it through . . .

Cleaning Up The Chaos

I started this entry back in January and it’s been sitting in my drafts since then.  I finally wrote another entry that touched on the topic, so I guess I’ve “broken the ice” of discussing this publicly, although this is still really, really hard to admit.  There are a lot of other things that most people would probably consider far more personal than this that I would be more comfortable writing about on the Internet (and actually have written about in the past, on my old online diary, though those entries are password-protected now).  I’m willing to write about this here for two reasons:  It might help someone else who has similar issues, and it will probably be healthy for me and may even help me to stop feeling so ashamed.

I’ve been feeling for years as if I’m really only capable of either holding down a job or handling the rest of my life.  The last time I was organized in my personal life was in 1994, when I was laid off from the job I had at the time and was out of work for a few months.  Since then, it seems that my energy (physical and mental) has been able to go into only one part of my life or the other, and in the last several years most of it has gone to trying to hold down my job and not screw up.  When my focus is on work, I tend to be clueless when I get home.  I look around me and see things that need to be done, but I just can’t seem to get from the point of recognizing it through the planning stage to the doing stage.  Likewise, if I focus on personal things that need done, they are still on my mind at work and all I can seem to think about at work is what I would be doing if I were at home.

But I’m learning.  One step at a time.

I wrote an entry in my old online diary, back in September of 2003:

One night, I was watching “Oprah After the Show” on Oxygen, and I missed the beginning but she was talking about “the papers” – these papers she has in a room in her house that I guess are all over the floor or something, and she was trying to figure out what was symbolized by her inability to deal with them (they were talking about people’s strange habits and quirks and the underlying reasons for why we do what we do).  She said she would go into the room, all ready to tackle it and take care of it, only to look around and then leave, closing the door behind her.  This made me laugh and also made me feel better.  See, as I was watching this show, I was sitting at my desk in my office at home, surrounded by a sea of papers, boxes, and assorted crap that is never where it’s supposed to be.  For the most part, I am not much of a self-starter.  In fact, the more I have to do, the harder it seems to be to get started.  Once I start, I’m ok (for a while), but I can sit and look around at everything that needs done and whatever synapses have to fire in my brain to make me get off my ass and get started just don’t fire.  The night before last, though, I found the office floor, and I had forgotten what a nice big room it is.  I separated some of the papers into separate boxes based on where they go and what they pertain to, with one box for stuff to shred. What was left, I put into another box to sort through this week.  If doing that removed the intimidation factor, I may actually get them sorted out AND maybe, just maybe, have my files reorganized by the end of September.  I wonder if Oprah ever figured out what the papers mean to her.  I don’t know what mine mean, but it doesn’t matter — I just want to get it together.

I actually never finished that project.  It snowballed into the one I’m dealing with now, six years later.  A few times during 2004 and 2005, I had things looking neater, but they still weren’t organized; I had simply scooped up everything that didn’t belong where it was and shoved it into boxes that I hid away somewhere, so that I could have company over without being ashamed.  Then came 2006 and I haven’t even done the “fake neat” thing since.

It must have been around the end of 2005 or the beginning of 2006 that I began to systematically shut down parts of myself.  2006 was a particularly rough year, during which most of what was wrong in my life reached its peak.  It was the year before I finally figured out my gluten intolerance and those symptoms were at a high point; I was a few years into premenipause; my antidepressants had stopped working after taking them for an extended number of years and not knowing that this could eventually happen over time, and I was still fumbling in my attempts at what to do about it; my PMDD had not yet been diagnosed or treated; I was not in therapy yet, so many older issues I’d been carrying with me for years were still problems I didn’t have clear understanding of or solutions for; and I didn’t know I had ADD.  My physical, emotional, and mental symptoms were all sort of jumbled together and it was impossible, at that time, to determine what was causing which symptoms, and everything I tried seemed to help for a short time and then stop helping, as I was not yet anywhere near close to seeing the full picture.  To top it off, in 2006, I got involved in a relationship I was not healthy enough to begin, and for other reasons, neither was he, but neither of us realized it.  The failure of that relationship felt like a “final straw” to me, and sealed my conviction to never again open myself up like that; to never make myself that vulnerable again or let anyone become that close to me again.

Looking back, I can understand why I shut down.  I don’t actually think I had much choice.

I’m opening up again, though, bit by bit.  It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it started, this re-opening.  I suppose there was a lot of behind-the-scenes changing going on all along, since I started therapy, and since I began to find various answers to the various physical and mental symptoms that have been problematic for so long.  I’m sure it was all leading up to this, but it began to become aparent to me in the last few months.

. . . And it is allowing normal to want to return.

I remember feeling normal.  It feels like part of another lifetime, to me, but I remember it, and occasionally I get hits of it, out of the blue, when something reminds me what it felt like.  In fact, it has been happening more and more lately, as I have opened up in other ways.  I may suddenly remember a day when I had a friend over and I’ll feel how calm I was and how spacious the apartment felt because the clutter and chaos was not there.  Sometimes I get a sudden sensory memory of an unidentified fall day, when I would have had the windows open, and I can feel and smell the cool breeze as I aired out the apartment, and again, I can feel the spaciousness in the apartment.  Memory-moments like that make me want to feel normal again.  I want to feel as if I am in control of my environment.  I realize that in fact I have been all along; it’s just that I’ve been using inaction to control it and keep it small and fortress-like, rather than using action to control it and make it feel welcoming and pleasant and free, so that I can invite friends and family over for something as simple (to most people) as coffee and a visit.

In the last two-plus years of therapy, we’ve gone over this many times, and I’ve tried to figure out the psychological reason(s) for my chaos at home.  I’ve come up with so many plausible reasons, and I think that all of them play a part in it. ADD; ingrained resistance to structure and routine that began with perceptioins gleaned from having been bullied; paralyzing obsessive indecision; hermit-dom and the completely illogical but still strangely irresistible obsessive-type thought that, somehow, if I get everything in order, I’ll have no way to stop the throngs of people from inviting themselves in  (I don’t even think I know throngs of people).  One day a few months ago, I cleared my front hallway, allowing me to walk through without stepping over anything or feeling like I was running an obstacle course, and out of nowhere, I was hit with this halting “Wait a minute” kind of feeling that went with the thought, “What if I forget what it felt like?”  After I thought that, I realized I’d had that same thought a lot of times before, when I’ve made a little bit of progress. I didn’t (and still don’t) understand why it would be so important to me, at that point (just barely clearing one little spot) to worry that I might forget how it felt to have so much stuff in my way all the time.  I can understand feeling that way after cleaning the whole apartment and not wanting to slip back into old ways by forgetting how awful it feels.  But this felt like I was purposely keeping it that way, so I won’t forget what it feels like, and that doesn’t make any sense.  It feels horrible.  Why would I want to keep feeling that way?  And why wouldn’t I remember how it felt, when I’m still perfectly able to remember what “normal(-ish)” felt like, prior to 2006, in its absense?

I recently began to talk with my therapist about obsessive thoughts, and I’m beginning to see how many of the items in the previous paragraph fit into that category.  I’ll write more about that in a future entry.

For now, though, I’m just going to say that opening myself up again has led to the beginnings of a beautiful new relationship and a whole new reason to finally dig myself out of the chaos and allow myself to start feeling normal again . . . this is my project for September, and a good topic to blog about for NaBloPoMo.  It is even fitting that the theme for the month is “beautiful”.

Oh, Yeah. The Food.

So, Wednesday night, while I was sitting on the couch, squinching my eyes closed and holding my breath every time I had that stabbing-into-my-brain pain, and remembering that I forgot to mention in Wednesday’s post that my jaw has also been very sore and I can barely open my mouth when it gets bad like that, and the fact that my knees have been killing me for a couple months now, it dawned on me.  Duh.  Like being hit over the head with a board.  Literally.  A board with nails sticking out of it.

It’s the food, stupid.

I knew that.  I did.  But I seem to manage to forget it over and over again.  I suppose that may be part of the nature of food addiction.

What dawned on me, specifically, was the fact that when I went shopping last Friday, I bought some containers of Lays Stax (they look like Pringles but they’re gluten free [and cheap]) and a bunch of Ore-Ida Easy Fries (also gluten free, also cheap).  And I proceeded to eat french fries with dinner every night since Friday, and eat all the Stax chips as snacks or with lunch, and I went out for dinner last Thursday and again Saturday and had baked potatoes both times.  White potatoes are an inflammatory food.  I haven’t even mentioned yet that I eat a lot of egg sandwiches.  With cheese.  And, you know, bread.  (Gluten free bread, but still bread.)  Eggs, cheese, and bread are all inflammatory foods.  So is ice cream, which I’ve been buying more often lately.  And milk chocolate (although a plain milk chocolate bar is less-bad than M&M’s).

The point behind the Inflammation Free Diet is that foods are more or less likely, in varying degrees, to cause inflammation.  The book lists over 1500 foods with their IF (Inflammation Factor) ratings.  The negative numbers are more inflammatory and the positive numbers are more anti-inflammatory.  The idea is to eat foods in combinations so that the numbers balance out, and to stay at a total of +50 or more per day.  I explained this a little more thoroughly in my January 14th entry, when I was trying to incorporate this into a weight loss diet.  (I actually briefly forgot that I’d done this in January; I’d been thinking I hadn’t tried it since last fall.)

That last weight-loss attempt served to remind me that I probably need to deal with the issues that are the reasons I turn to food for comfort, and frankly, I’m just not ready to do that fully yet.  I do, however, think it’s remarkable that I’ve been able to stay gluten free for over two years when I can’t seem to stay on a weight loss diet for more than a week or two.  The main reason, of course, is that eating gluten causes an immediate and easily associatable reaction which is extremely unpleasant.  I can see that eating more positive-IF-rated foods and fewer negative-IF-rated foods will cause me to lose weight, because the more anti-inflammatory foods are also lower in calories, fats, and sugars.  But I can’t afford to let myself look at this as a weight loss diet.  I’ll have to associate the negative-rated foods as causing pain.

This is going to be hard.  But I’m working hard to find ways to make it easier.

For the first week or so, I’m going to just eat mostly positive-rated foods and avoid all negative-rated ones (except for coffee creamer, and butter on the sweet potato I’ll order when I go out for dinner with my parents tonight).  Then I’ll work on adding other stuff, knowing that I’ll have to make up for every negative-rated thing I eat.

And I’ll finish reading the book, so that I really understand how it works.

Falling off the diet wagon hasn’t all been due solely to my food addiction.  There is, of course, if I’m not extremely careful, the danger of failing as soon as I miss a beat in my planning and preparing-ahead of food to take to work, etc.  And, by far, the hardest obstacle to overcome is money.  I may get off to a good start, and start feeling better and/or losing weight, but the food budget is what always has to be cut when the money doesn’t stretch far enough, which is most (all) of the time, and let’s face it: hot dogs and egg sandwiches are cheaper and require buying fewer “ingredients” each week than cooking actual balanced meals.

So.

Yesterday, I was remembering the Deal A Meal system that Richard Simmons used to have.  It was a card system for an exchange diet.  You’d have so many cards representing servings from each food group for each day, and as you would eat throughout the day,  you’d move the corresponding cards from what you have available for the day.  I’m thinking of making a card system with a card for each of the positive-rated foods I’ll commonly eat, and a few for the negative-rated ones I’ll work into the mix, like chicken.  I’ll put the IF rating and serving size on each card and write prices on the backs of the cards.  Each week, I can make my shopping list by deciding what to have for meals that week, and I can estimate the costs and figure out what fits into that week’s budget and what doesn’t.  And then hope I can afford to keep it up week after week.

I’ve been taking selenium, ginger root, Vitamin C, and salmon oil daily for a while now, to combat inflammation, but I guess they just can’t make up for the way I’ve been eating.

Incidentally, ginger root capsules work well in place of ibuprofen for someone who can’t take NSAIDs.  Years ago, my doctor, who also deals with migraines, told me that on the onset of a migraine, I should take two Tylenol, two ibuprofen, and a caffeinated drink.  I’ve found that really works a good percentage of the time and I share that little tip with others anytime I can.  Since I had to stop taking NSAIDs because of the potential interaction with Yaz, which I take for PMDD, I take ginger root capsules in its place and it works as well.

That’s my helpful-information-sharing for today.  I’ll update on how this goes.

I’d Like To Buy A Vowel (If I Can Read The Label First)

Something just occurred to me that was amusing.  

To the Gluten Intolerant, oats are like the Y to the vowels.  You know, a-e-i-o-u, and sometimes Y?  Those who can’t have gluten must avoid all wheeat, rye, barley, and sometimes oats (unless they are absolutely certain they are gluten free).  As the site that link points to says,

Oats, in and of themselves, do not cause this (gluten) damage. They are naturally gluten free. They have been unsafe for people with celiac disease because they are normally grown in fields shared by gluten-containing grains and they become contaminated.

I have been using Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Rolled Oats for quite awhile, by the way, and have never had a reaction to them.  It’s such a treat, because I always loved oatmeal.  And oatmeal cookies.  Ohhh, yeah.

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I haven’t done so well at sticking to the theme for NaBloPoMo, but so far, so good, on posting every day.

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I’m getting ready to accompany a friend of my family, who is visiting from out of state, to a book signing today for a cookbook she had published.  That should be fun.  Plus of course, I love a chance to hang out in a book store.