7ToF: changing my demographic, headaches, and my favorite Kind bar

The color of spring

1. Years ago, I realized one day that one of my best friends was the same age as my younger sister (i.e., less than two years younger than me). When my sister and I were young, twenty months seemed like a huge difference. But with my adult friends, I never think about age differences. It's always seemed like all women between mid-thirties and some unspecified older age were my peers.

2. But it has been gradually and then suddenly dawning on me that this is no longer the case. Finally at some point last week the whole idea burst into bloom in my head all at once: I'm in a different age bracket now. I think it's been evident to my younger friends for years now-- no, you are waaaay older than me, not just a little bit-- but it was news to me. After the initial shock of realization, I'm totally OK with this. I am embracing my inner crone. I envision rocking on the front porch with friends and a pitcher of vodka tonics and cackling over inappropriate jokes. I think it took me so long to figure this out because I was still a mom with a kid at home until I was 55. That's my excuse, anyway.

As you can imagine, there will be more on this topic in the future. Can this still be a blog about mid-life? Am I a senior citizen now? The AARP has been sending me stuff for years, so they certainly think so.

3. Since I may be offline for a couple of weeks, here is the headache update. I am way better, and same as the last time I tried an elimination diet, there weren't any foods that made a difference. Stretching and working with my neck and shoulders seems to be the key-- which means I need to avoid spending all day hunched over the computer or curled up with a book. DAMMIT. So I've been getting out more and reading less, and reminding myself to get up and stretch, etc etc.

4. Elimination diets are interesting. Since I've never done one unless I was desperate--three weeks of headaches will do that to you--I never do it in an organized enough way. There are so many variables, and unless you can go live in a convent somewhere, it's just impossible to shut everything down. Or at least, it is if you're me and you don't really care about it that much. I ended up going about two and a half weeks with no alcohol, sugar, or artificial sweeteners, and about one and a half weeks with no dairy and no grains (gluten or otherwise). I've slowly been adding stuff back over the past ten days or so, and since at the moment I've only been headache free for five or six days, I don't think it's any of the food items.

5. Over the last few days, I've added back corn-- I waited on that one since I was a little suspicious about it. The worst migraine I've had in a couple of years was after I had tamales for dinner the previous night. But I've had corn every day for the past three days, and I feel great, so I think that's ok. I still haven't had any peanuts or peanut butter, so that's the only thing left to add back in. But I think it's going to be fine.

6. The "no dairy" and "no gluten" evangelists, I think, would say I didn't give it long enough. And yeah, maybe they're right. But I know people who are gluten sensitive or lactose intolerant, and they can tell within hours if they've eaten something they shouldn't have. If that were me, I would totally get on board. It wouldn't take five minutes for me to sign on to that program if it made that big a difference. But if you have to avoid something for weeks, and then three days after you add it back in you still can't tell any difference, I'm not convinced it's a problem. The stretching and the activity level seem to make a much bigger, more noticeable difference for me.

The color of spring #2

7. But there are headaches, and then there's how I feel in general. And doing this did remind me how much better I feel (headaches aside) when I avoid sugar. I feel no need to become a zero sugar person, but I do feel better if I limit sugar, and if you want specifics, at the moment that means that I'm avoiding anything that has more than 6g of sugar, which I somewhat arbitrarily picked because my favorite Kind bar has 6g of sugar. I feel noticeably better when I'm not eating a sugary snack two or three times a day-- and that can happen if I'm not paying attention, because I have a definite sweet tooth.

On an entirely different topic: I've been learning a lot recently, and we've had a couple of significant life changes--like MadMax moving back home after college-- but it's not stuff I'm ready to type about yet. And also, we're headed out to our favorite lake for the holiday weekend, so I'll be out of range for at least a few days. And since I'm supposed to be spending less time at the computer, I thought I'd take advantage of the opportunity to be offline for awhile. So, not sure when I'll be back-- probably soon, I don't seem to be able to stay away-- but I hope you have a great weekend and a good start to your summer.

Things worth reading/listening to:
- This older post about writing and storytelling from Jenny Crusie
- Modern Mrs. Darcy's Summer Reading Guide (you have to sign up with your email address)
- Book rec: Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (heavy on the profanity but sharply observed)
- Fascinating podcast episode of the week: An interview with Ezra Klein on the Ten Percent Happier podcast, episode #248. Klein dissects our polarization and what can (and can't) be done about it. I'll be thinking about this one for weeks.

Don't Make Me Come In There

So much has happened in the last two weeks. So much. But that's not why I'm typing today. Today I just want to say that I am so disgusted with our leaders for not being able to negotiate a middle way. It doesn't have to be shutdown vs. party in the USA, you know.

It would be so simple to do this in a way that isn't divisive-- to recognize that different regions of the country are at different places; that the need to reopen the economy and restore people's paychecks can go hand in hand with cautious practices like social distancing, wearing a mask, washing your hands, avoiding large public gatherings-- and being prepared to shutdown again if the virus starts to surge.

But we are so in love with being angry at each other. Apparently, we can't give it up. Of course, I blame this on our current president, who can't even be bothered to wear a mask while he's in a hospital. If you like him, you blame it on the Democrats. Whatever.

Could we just get over it already? For awhile, at the beginning of the shutdown, it looked like we had finally found something that would unite us. But now, at least around here, it's just been turned into another thing that polarizes us. The people who wear masks feel persecuted by the people that don't. The people who don't wear a mask feel bullied by the people that do. I've heard friends of mine on both sides of this issue say that they've been approached in public by someone criticizing them for their choice, and each side is convinced that they are the victim here.

*deep cleansing breath* I'm getting wound up, because I'm just so damned tired of it. I'm tired of us letting a TV news station control our minds and opinions. I'm tired of feeling bitter, angry resentment everywhere, among people I know and love on both sides. I want someone to be the mom and shout sternly go to your rooms until you can come out and be civil to each other. NOW.

Be smart, people, and be kind. And to those who say we never needed a shutdown in the first place (which is quite common around here where the virus has never really gained a foothold), I'd like to say this: our hospital is prepared now. If we'd had a surge in cases two months ago, they wouldn't have been. The shutdown did its job. Now it's up to us to make sure we don't undo it.

7ToF: we're reopening around here

This got long. Save it for when you have time.

1. The governor of Montana has started a three-phase plan for reopening the state, starting with allowing non-essential businesses to reopen, but keeping in place all of the social distancing guidelines, limiting groups to no more than 10, etc. Montana has the lowest incidence of COVID-19 of any state (per population), and most of the cases have been in Bozeman and a senior care facility in Shelby County.

2. Montanans as a group are nothing if not stubbornly opposed to anyone telling them what to do, and some have taken the lack of virus as a sign that the whole thing was just an over-reaction by the liberals who are trying to take control of our country. And, you know what? If we follow the rules of social distancing and cautious public gathering, maybe we will be able to avoid an outbreak long enough for a vaccine to be developed, and they will be able to believe that they were right.

3. Which is a really strange thing about this whole situation (among about a million other strange things). There are all these people, one is tempted to say all these idiots, who in spite of the mounting numbers of cases and deaths, are determined to believe that it's not really a crisis. That this is just another in a long string of examples of liberals over-reacting and getting hysterical about something that's really not a big deal, and that if we'd just treated it like the flu, it would have gone away-- and I wouldn't have lost my job/had to home school my kids/had to cancel my wedding/etc.

As, one is tempted to say, a more reasonable person, you're left in the strange situation of almost wanting things to get bad so that you can prove to these people that see, it really is a real thing. We're not exaggerating. It's like the classic lose-lose situation: either you're right, and hundreds of thousands more people are going to get sick and some of them die (lose); or you're wrong (lose), and those idiots are going to say they were right all along.

4. Anyway. I hate wearing a mask, I hate having anything on my face, and always have. But I'm wearing one, because Dean is one of the faces of our medical community, and I'm trying to be as supportive as I can. Sometimes I forget, but for the most part, when I'm in a building besides our house, I wear a mask. I have a bunch of oversized bandanas that I bought to use as napkins last year when I was trying to cut down on our use of paper products, so usually I wear one of those, quadruple folded. But as it is becoming more apparent that we are going to have to stay masked at least in certain situations for a long time, I finally got on Etsy and ordered half a dozen homemade masks. Yet another time I've wished I could sew.

5. I don't think I've talked all that much about my never-ending sickness, which I've had for a couple of months now. There is a fair amount of evidence that it's not COVID-- I'm pretty sure I did tell you about Mel's negative test when she went back to work after spring break, and it hasn't behaved like COVID seems to behave. But still, once antibody testing becomes widespread enough that I can justify getting tested, I am looking forward to finding out.

What I'm getting around to here is that I have had a lot more headaches than usual. In a good month, I have maybe 10-12 headache days, and about half of them will be bad enough to take migraine drugs. But recently, I've just had a headache all the time. I've had to not take migraine drugs, because I'm worried about running out. In the past month, I had maybe three or four days of feeling healthy and headache-free.

6. So I've finally decided I have to do something to make a change. And the only thing I can really try right now is changing the food I eat. I'm somewhat skeptical about this. Believe me, I tried all the things back when I was having a similar headache-intensive stretch in my 40s. I tried dairy-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, caffeine-free. Sugar and caffeine made a difference, although not a huge one--my headaches decreased in frequency, but were not "cured." Dairy and gluten made no difference at all.

7. But my metabolism has changed. It changed for the first time in my late 40s/early 50s as I was dealing with pre- and post-menopause. And now it seems to be changing again. For example: I've been drinking black tea with unsweetened soymilk first thing in the morning for more than a dozen years now, but more and more often, I come downstairs in the morning and the idea of tea is not appealing. Or coffee, but that's less surprising since my stomach dictated that I quit drinking coffee long ago. I've switched to green tea for the moment, but maybe it's time to get off caffeine again.

ALL THAT LONG RAMBLING MESS was just to tell you that I'm on an elimination diet at the moment. If it was for weight loss, my inner rebel would come out with flags flying and refuse to participate, but since it is to see if I can freaking feel better for a change, I seem to have sucked it up and gotten on board with the plan. I read about Whole30, but the logical inconsistencies in their theories made me nuts (don't get me started), so I just made up my own plan. No alcohol, which is easy because I don't drink much alcohol anyway, no dairy (not too hard since my only dairy is yogurt and cheese), no gluten (harder), and low sugar (which also comes under the heading of "don't get me started" but I'll save that for another post).

Who knows how long I'll be doing it. My initial commitment to myself was to try it for a week and see how I feel and re-evaluate. I'm five days in right now and although I do feel a bit better in terms of energy and general well-being, as I'm sitting here typing this I'm trying to decide whether or not this headache is bad enough to warrant migraine drugs. Ugh.

So in spite of that downer of an ending, other than physically not feeling well, I'm actually doing fine. I seem to have figured out a rhythm for sheltering at home, and my mental status is pretty good. Headaches are status quo for me, so having them isn't necessarily a sign that things are bad.

Have a great weekend. Sorry this got so long. It's about twenty things instead of seven.

Day 25: has it really only been 25 days?

I was in a zoom meeting where the topic of the different phases of home quarantine came up, with amusement. The first week was the week of fear and hiding under a blanket. The second week was the week of being determined not to set a foot out the door. The third week was the week of boredom and insanity. And now we've moved on to the fourth week.

(Of course, none of the people in the meeting are sheltering at home with kids, so insert additional cycles of crazy if you are.)

For me, the fourth week feels like I've kind of figured out how to manage this, for me with my own needs and mental health issues--and although I do have diagnosable mental health issues, I think all of us who are sheltering in place need to be careful of our mental health, even those who don't normally have issues.

I'm feeling like a more-or-less competent adult again, which I was not last week. In hindsight, I think part of what I was dealing with was the feeling of helplessness-- not so much being helpless with fear, but feeling like there is nothing I can do to help. So maybe it's not so much helpless as it is useless. Dean, Mel, and a host of other people I know are actively doing things to help, medically and socially, but I'm just here at home, making granola, reading, and doing my bit to stay home and keep our community safe.

And that's still what I'm doing. But I did get out and do a two-hour shift at the food bank today, for the first time in almost six weeks. Everyone is required to wear masks and gloves and maintain six foot boundaries, and clients are now having their food delivered curbside rather than coming in to the pantry.

So it's different than normal, but it felt so good to be doing something. And also to see my food bank friends. So I think maybe if I do that a couple of times a week in addition to the other things I know I need to do (exercise, meditate, spend some time outside, check in with friends and family, avoid stressful/depressing TV/movies/books), I should be good.

It's also possible that the entire reason I'm feeling better is because suddenly the weather is amazing. It hit seventy today, and the sun is bright. That's not unheard of around here for mid-April, but it is a change from the last couple of weeks and I'm grateful.

Day Whatever; getting better at balance

I decided a couple of days ago that I needed to stop being online so much, so I spent the last couple of days being offline. Mostly. But that didn't work either. I've been getting a little crazy.

Then I finished a zoom meeting with some of my friends a little while ago and listening to all the online resources they're using right now, I realized that what I need is to be more judicious about where I'm spending my time. Less news, more interactive socializing. Less helpless anger, more trust in the essential goodness of the universe.

I'm a little astonished at how much that zoom meeting cheered me up. Remember a few months ago when I told you that women in groups made me crazy? Well, apparently sometimes they don't. Picture me eating major crow. This was exactly what I needed, and I am feeling so grateful for my women friends right now. We've had each other's backs for a long time now-- this group has met in some form or another for at least a dozen years now.

So I'm sorting through and figuring out what works for me. For example, I've never been a big Twitter user, but I've checked it every ten or twelve days, and it has never failed (in the past) to cheer me up. People can be so creative and funny, and since I wasn't checking in very often, I only saw the highly rated tweets--which apparently in my feed means the funny, uplifting ones.

But every time I've checked in on Twitter over the past three weeks, I've come away angry and depressed and frustrated. I'm not sure what the difference is, but no more Twitter for me. Likewise, Instagram has not really been a source of support recently. But oddly, Facebook-- which I've barely tolerated for years now-- has been great. And zoom meetings with friends have been a lifesaver.

The Ten Percent Happier app, which I've talked about before, is hosting a daily free live meditation at 3pm Eastern during the coronavirus shutdown, and although I have yet to make it to the live version, I've listened to several of them the next morning (they're recorded) and they're helpful and uplifting. My friends talked about free classes they're taking and thoughtful resources they're reading, which I'm going to check out. I need to do better at staying sane, I think.

And if my rant from a couple of days ago came across as too much, apologies about that. I should have held off for 24 hours before posting it so I could tone down the wording a little. It's certainly not the fault of these women that they're pushing my buttons about aging. My problem, entirely. When we lived in North Carolina, they had an extremely useful phrase when someone was being obnoxious-- "she really showed her ass"-- and I think I've been doing that a fair amount over the past few months (occasionally here, more often irl). I may show my ass, but I'm learning.

Have a great weekend. If you want to watch a silly, funny, not-oscar-worthy movie, we enjoyed Spies in Disguise, which I barely even knew about since we're empty nesters now. It was a slow starter for me, but then I giggled all the way through.

Day 19: in which I revisit (of all things) skin care

I told you last fall how tired I was of listening to women I admire go on and on about skincare. As I said at the time, it's not that I'm opposed to taking care of my skin. In fact, in the very next paragraph, I undercut my entire complaint by telling you about a new favorite skincare product. I did that on purpose to confess that as bored as I am with the whole topic, it's still something I think about. The hypocrisy is right there.

But it keeps happening. Last night I finally figured out why it bugs me so much--hence, this post.

I am 58, which means (obviously) I am knocking on the door of 60. And when I hear these women, who are mostly in their 30s and 40s, going on and on about skincare, what I hear is an undercurrent of panic about aging. I am determined not to look old. I am not going to look like someone who doesn't take care of their skin. I am not going to be one of "those women" that people look at with pity and think, she sure hasn't aged well! 

And I get that. I can sink into that panic. I am almost sixty. But here's the thing: it's age shaming. What's wrong with looking old? What's wrong with looking your age? Is it so horrible to look like you're 58? I mean, if we're lucky, we're going to get old. Why are we looking at it with such deep-seated shame and dread?

Even if you haven't "aged well," it's not necessarily a horrible thing. If you've got wrinkles and lines and leathery skin, but the soul peering out of your eyes is vibrant and kind and compassionate, you're the woman I want to emulate.

There. I've said my piece. Apologies for the rant. I finally had to unfollow one of my all-time favorite podcasts (not one of the bookish ones), because they just couldn't leave it alone.

Day 18: in which I bore you because I am bored: Georgette Heyer, audiobooks, and free samples

After a quick scroll through bookstagram, it's obvious that almost universally, book lovers are having trouble reading anything but comfort reads. A few people are looking for thrillers or true crime to keep them sucked into a story, but most of us just want to read something that feels positive and leaves us feeling uplifted instead of despairing.

In the past few weeks, I've re-read a favorite series from childhood (Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula LeGuin), Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell, and a couple of romance novels (Red, White, and Royal Blue and Love Lettering) that worked for that. Also The Lager Queen of Minnesota, which isn't exactly a comfort read, but has lovable characters who have to deal with a variety of different (occasionally hilarious) life situations, and resolves in a thoroughly satisfying way.

But really, what I'm mainly doing is re-reading Georgette Heyer. You may remember my first obsession with her if you've been around for awhile. She's not a perfect writer-- you have to forgive her inordinate love of exclamation points, and you have to be able to skim over her sometimes excessive use of period slang. But once you get past those flaws, they're so much fun. Some of them I would say even qualify as romps.

Stack of books by Georgette Heyer

This time around, I started with Black Sheep, which wasn't one of my top favorites, but I remembered liking it. It worked so well that I moved on to Reluctant Widow. Now I'm reading Cotillion, which is one of my top faves of hers. Maybe my #1 favorite.

The problem with Cotillion is that there's vast cast of characters, and it takes awhile to figure out who's important and how they are related to each other. Kitty, an orphan who has lived for years with her miserly, wealthy guardian, is outraged when he more or less puts her up on the marriage auction block to his grand nephews. Since she is penniless on her own, she comes up with a plot to get at least a month in London, a last moment of freedom, before she has to accept the inevitable and figure out what she's going to do. Of course that gets more and more complicated, and then she meets other people and gets involved in their complications, and the whole thing is just a delight.

Spoiler alert: it ends happily for everyone; well, except for the people who deserve what they get.

And, bonus: the audiobooks are fabulous. The narrator of Cotillion, Phyllida Nash, is a genius. I made Dean listen to it the other night while we were working on a jigsaw puzzle, and he was so hooked that he ended up reading the whole thing. Just give it time, because it takes awhile to get oriented to all the characters, and Kitty's complicated plans.

And here is a clue for taking advantage of Amazon. Amazon has always allowed you download a free sample of a kindle ebook or an audiobook (through their subsidiary, Audible). The audiobook samples stream, and even if you don't have a kindle, you can download the kindle app and take advantage of the free samples. It usually amounts to about 20 pages of an ebook, or about five minutes of an audiobook. Why not use them?

I've had it work both ways--sometimes the five minute sample of an audiobook helps me get into a print book I'm having trouble with (for example, Gods in Alabama). Sometimes the 25 page sample of the ebook helps me get a complicated cast of characters straight when the audiobook feels like chaos (for example, And Then There Were None, which is ably read by Dan Stevens, but introduces so many characters in the first chapter that I was bewildered until I was able to read the print version).

That's it for me today. Thank you for letting me go on and on, since I am now considerably less bored than I was yesterday. Did I tell you yet that MadMax came home on Friday? Our internet may not be up to the task of his online classes, but he had had enough of living alone in an apartment during shelter in place. It's nice to have some company.

Day 17: grumpiness sets in

I'm fine. I don't want to make this sound like I need sympathy. I have it so much easier than most-- no five-year-olds are following me around the house wanting to be entertained, I am not worried that we're going to run out of food or that our heat will be shut off. But good freaking lord am I bored with my house.

That is all.

day 13: essential or not essential, that is the question

The shelter-in-place order in Montana allows for "essential" activities like grocery shopping, trips to the pharmacy or post office, and outdoor activities, as long as social distancing is maintained.

It's interesting to me how widely this gets interpreted. I have friends who literally have not left their house in weeks. I've also seen people around town who don't seem to have modified their activities at all. My own thought was that I would go out once a week, and with one exception, I've stuck with that.

But by Tuesday, I just needed to get out of the house. I've decided not to count trips where I have no contact with other human beings. That afternoon, I drove through one of those unattended car washes and then sat in the (empty) parking lot at our church to borrow the wi-fi. Earlier this week, I had another exception: Lynne, my alternative health care practitioner, is still seeing clients if you don't have symptoms, and I've been to see her once.

So, why am I telling you this? I guess because I'm trying to figure it out. I bounce back and forth between feeling guilty for how "often" I've been out of the house (when I talk to one of my fully cloistered friends), and feeling like I'm absurdly restrictive, when a friend was shocked that I hadn't been out of our house for six days (other than walking the dog).

My sister sent me a meme that said "2020 is an unusual Leap Year: there are 29 days in February, 300 days in March, and 5 years in April." And although I don't really mind staying home, I get that. I completely forgot about a meeting I had yesterday until I got an email yesterday morning canceling it. I hadn't looked at my calendar in ages. Maybe I should do that. Or maybe I should go back to reading my book.

day 12: I had to count how many days it had been

When I was in third grade, I had a favorite dress. It was cotton and long sleeved, with patch pockets, and it zipped up the front, all the way to my collarbones. Also, it was brown, red, and gold skinny-striped. I am not making this up. It was the sixties. Oh, how I loved that dress.

My mom wouldn't let me wear it two days in a row, but I wore it every time it went through the laundry. Which sometimes meant I wore it two or three times a week.

I am right back there now. Nobody sees me, so I can just wear my favorite clothes every time they're clean. My favorite t-shirt with the graphic of Brooklyn Bridge, my favorite jeans which are probably indecent from behind but are comfy-plus, and my favorite sweatshirt. Wearing my favorite clothes is #1 on the list of things that are making me happy right now. Well, that and the sunshine, which is back again today after several days of absence.

I should know after blogging as long as I have that you never make big sweeping statements like I did in that last post about lighting a candle for coronoavrius solidarity, because I promptly forgot about it that night and last night. I didn't remember until 11:30 the first night, and 10:15 last night. But I still did it, and it is oddly meaningful to me to sit in the dark for ten or fifteen minutes with a lit candle.

I tried to add a picture from last night of the full moon, but my grossly inefficient yet tried-and-true method for adding pictures to a blog post didn't work today, and I have no idea why. Moon pictures never do justice to the real thing anyway.  Hope you're hanging in there.