Wready To Wrimo

I am Wready to Wrimo!

I have a murder (both method and motive), a person living under an assumed identity, a love story, a breakup, a child with questionable paternity, and a lot of other exciting stuff.

I have my yWriter file set up with chapters and scenes ready to write, as well as notes and character bios created.

I have my NaNoWriMo 2009 t-shirt, my NaNoWriMo mugs, and my hat that says, “Oh, this is SO going into my next novel.”

I have lots of Dunkin Donuts coffee (the kind you make at home), and my this-year’s-writing-snack (I’m having Johnsonville Beddar with Cheddar this year (gluten free – SS checked them out online the other night when I was in the grocery store and we were on the phone).

I’m inspired, I’m excited, I’m as prepared as I’m going to be, and I’ll be well-rested after the nap I’m going to take tonight, waking up at about 11:30 to make coffee and get prepared to start writing at midnight.  (I like to get my first couple hours in right after midnight.  Just a fun tradition, especially when November 1st falls on a weekend.)

When I was looking for a file on the computer earlier, I came across some NaNo-related graphics I made in 2005 and 2006 for my old diary.

The web site I used for my old diary was set up so users could make banner ads and run them on the user’s section of the site so that other users could click them and read each other’s diaries.  I made some ads for my NaNoWriMo entries, including some that I ran in the days leading up to the start of NaNo.

P.S. I’m adding NaNoWriMo to my Bliss List.

Counting down . . .

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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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Rambling Thoughts About Climbing Back On The IF Wagon

I’m working back toward the anti-inflammation diet again.  I’d gotten away from it, after the two or three weeks or so in June and July that I did really well (I don’t actually remember when I let it go by the wayside; I just stopped writing about it at some point, just as I did in January when I was trying to lose weight).  Money was an issue the week I gave up, and I couldn’t afford the right foods to continue properly.  By that time, though, I’d already begun the process of letting go of it gradually, first eating some of the inflammatory foods I’d been craving, justifying it to myself by thinking the anti-inflammatory foods I was still eating would make up for it.  I knew about that tendency in myself, to justify, yet the Inner Enabler (I don’t know if that’s an actual psychological term or not, but it seems to fit) can effectively wipe that knowledge from accessible memory and make it seem like it makes sense in the moment.

“I’ll just have one.”

“I’ll just have a few.”

“Well, half the package is already gone.  I’ll just finish it so I won’t have any more left to tempt me and I’ll start again tomorrow.”

“It could be worse.  I could have eaten (fill in the blank with something worse).”

My sister and I once developed an entire diet plan called the It Could Be Worse Diet.  It works like this: Whatever you want to eat, just think of something worse that you could be eating but aren’t.  (“I want a big bowl of ice cream, but I won’t eat the whole container!”, “I want a second donut, but it could be worse; I could eat the whole dozen.”  ”This burger and fries has to be better than eating an entire pizza.”)  Bingo.  Your Inner Enabler is happy, you get your comfort food, and all feels right with the world.  Granted, you won’t lose much weight,  but it kept us amused for a while.

My food addiction is making it so difficult to eat the way I know I need to.  The other day, while walking through the grocery store and picking out healthy items, I fought tears, facing that I would be giving up my comfort foods again.  It felt something like walking a tight rope without a net, a comparison I have made to the fighting of fears in a few areas of my life.

In the last month or two, I’ve been feeling the effects of the inflammation growing steadily worse again.  The knees, the hip, the back pain (especially after sleeping for any length of time over about five hours).  Then, last week, my left shoulder started to hurt again and got worse every day, and finally my jaw started hurting again by about Thursday.  I was afraid the stabbing headache pains would be next, so that was why I went to the store and bought a supply of some of the easier anti-inflammatory foods to incorporate back into my diet: tuna, sardines, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, salad greens, avocado, V-8 juice, baby carrots.  I still had frozen strawberries, which, along with cantaloupe, I hadn’t actually stopped eating regularly since doing this in June and July.  I still have some frozen Brussels sprouts and some frozen spinach.  I’ll pick up almonds the next time I go to the store, and olive oil for cooking.  Maybe a jar of olives.  According to the book I have, one jumbo green olive is worth 8 IF (Inflammation Factor) points.  Two tablespoons of chopped raw onion is worth 52.  A quarter cup chopped red bell pepper is 45.  So, adding those things (and counting out maybe five jumbo olives) to a salad would add 137 points to a salad eaten with dinner, and will add a whole lot of flavor, as well.  If I include raw kale in the salad, that can really boost the IF ratings even more.  (A quarter cup is worth 128 points, according to nutritiondata.com [the book doesn't list raw kale, only cooked].)

I’ve been in the habit of looking up foods either on the Nutrition Data web site or in the book when certain ones are listed in one place but not the other.  Sometimes I look things up in both places, and sometimes I can’t find specific listings anywhere.  There are a few things I am finding extremely difficult and frustrating.  One is when the web site and the book contradict one another.  Another is when I can’t find something anywhere.  And yet another is not knowing how to figure out packaged foods or gluten-free foods that aren’t on either list or show the IF Rating as N/A on the web site.  So I do the best I can and hope I’m right, and that if I’m wrong, I’ve done well enough with the rest of my day to make up for it.  I’ll just continue to hope that the concept of IF Ratings catches on and becomes something that more people will want to pay attention to, and that that may mean more access to information about more foods in the future.

I think the most astounding thing I noticed last time I did this was that I was suddenly able to sleep through an entire night without waking up with back pain.  For years, I felt I had a choice: either get enough sleep to function on all cylinders or be able to stand upright and walk in the morning.  I’d had no idea that it was any longer an option, at my weight and age and without buying a new bed, to have both.  But eating anti-inflammatorily (I still like that phrase, even if I did make it up) made it possible.  And, of course, it went back to the way it was before, when I stopped.  Because a decent night’s sleep is imperative for so many things, including ADD, fibromyalgia, and depression, and because allowing those things to be any more out of control than they already are (especially the ADD) could very well cost me my job, I’ve come to the conclusion that avoiding inflammatory foods is something I’m going to have to do.  (I’ve decided to talk with my GP about trying ADD medication when I see him in October, but even if I  find a medication I like and it helps a lot, proper sleep is still vital.)

I read an article yesterday that said:

The fatty tissues of the body secrete hormones that regulate the immune system and inflammation, but in the case of an overweight individual this can become out of control. Three of the hormones that play a role in metabolism are leptin, resistin and adiponectin.

• Leptin is involved in appetite control.
• Resistin is a hormone that increases insulin resistance.
• Adiponectin lowers the blood sugar by making your body more insulin sensitive.

The fact that it is the fatty tissue that produces these hormones makes the fat self regulating, as the hormones should act to bring the increased fat under control. Bodies with more fat will produce more leptin bringing the appetite under control. However in cases where the body is inflamed there is often a problem with leptin resistance, and the self regulation of fat does not occur. Leptin resistance is where to body stops responding to the appetite controlling effects of the hormone.

In addition to these metabolism regulating hormones your fatty tissue also produces chemicals that cause inflammation and this can make the problem of leptin resistance worse. This is why obesity can cause an increase of these inflammatory chemicals which in turn inhibit the correct balancing function of the weight controlling hormones. This results in a vicious circle of weight gain causing inflammation which inhibits hormone function thereby causing further weight gain.

And this drives home the point that I not only need to avoid inflammatory foods; I need to lose weight as well.  I suppose that saying “I’m not doing this to lose weight, but to feel better, and the fact that I’ll end up losing weight anyway is just a bonus” is becoming less effective at distracting my fears.  Fooling myself into thinking I can skirt around the Inner Enabler unnoticed isn’t going to work anymore, either.

I suppose it’s wake-up time.

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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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Gluten Free Recommendation: Maybelline Great Lash Big Mascara

Someone Special found out some exciting information for me!  Although I never wore makeup very often, I really missed wearing it after going gluten free and throwing everything away to start over.  The task of searching out gluten free cosmetics seemed so daunting to me.  I was delighted to read about Everyday Minerals on a gluten free message board and sent away about a year ago for samples.  I quickly discovered which colors worked best for me and was delighted to be able to wear makeup again.

Except for two things: mascara and lip liner/lipstick.  Everyday Minerals doesn’t make either (or didn’t; it appears they have lipstick now, but I haven’t tried it yet).  When doing a web search for “gluten free mascara” or “gluten free lip liner” or “gluten free lipstick”, most of what I was finding was out of my price range and I didn’t see any well-known brands that could be purchased in a drugstore.  I can use a gluten free lip gloss I found a while ago, but I couldn’t think of any substitute for mascara.

Well, Someone Special has been researching, in her own transition to gluten-free, and called Maybelline last week.  Guess what.  (Ok, you guessed it, but you saw the picture already.)  They told SS that all of their Great Lash mascaras, except for waterproof, are gluten free!

And so yesterday, I walked into my local Walgreen’s and bought a tube of Great Lash Big right off of the display!  I never thought I would be able to buy cosmetics in a drugstore again.

And you know the funny part?  Great Lash mascara was my preferred mascara even before I knew what gluten was!

SS was extremely impressed with their customer service and obvious knowledge of their product and its ingredients.  So much so, that we both want to find out what else in their product lines might be gluten free as well.  I think I’d like to email them and suggest that they put the words “gluten free” on the packaging and on their web site, so that someone searching for “gluten free mascara” would easily find them.

I’m posting this entry in the wee hours of Saturday morning, before bed.  When I get up, I’ll be getting ready to go with Sister to take photos at a wedding she is officiating.  I’m looking forward to putting on makeup, complete with mascara!

Update 10/31/09: Check out this entry as well, for another gluten free mascara and more gluten free Maybeline products!

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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 . . .