The trouble with diary gaps is that you feel like you need to fill them.   You can't.

I tutor math for 12 hours a week.  Somehow the thought of offering my services outside of a school setting didn't occur to me until just now.  Anyways, I really enjoy the mother fucking hell out of it.  I think it may be a little like being an adrenaline junkie- you only have one student, and you make up problems and show examples in this massive effort to get the kiddo to have an Aha! moment.  Watching things make sense to someone and then having them go on to getting problems right is an amazing high.

Which is not to say that's what always happens, but the search for the next fix is nicely satisfying in its own right.

Been doing the dairy/wheat free thing for about a month now.  The difference is incredible.  Yesterday and today I didn't even think about taking a nap- life was happening and I was doing things and I got to the end of the day and realized I hadn't spent any effort at all trying not to nap.  Since I'm rolling with the addiction metaphors today, this change of events is akin to a heroin addict not thinking of the lovely glow at all for an entire day.  I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to test whether it's the wheat or the dairy.  I'd like one of them back, but not enough to go back to feeling as poorly as I did.

I put together a clothes rack for the girls yesterday.  Whenever I put their clothes in their dresser they end up pulling them all out to see what they have.  I HATE (!!!!11!1!) washing clothes that haven't been worn since their last washing.  I'm hoping that if the clothes are on hangers then they'll be able to decide what to wear without casting everything to the four corners of their room.

The Boy has cleaned his room! On his own! Of his own volition! Which is not to say I hadn't asked him to, but he decided enough was enough without me delivering an ultimatum.  Also, this may be the very first time he cleaned the entire room without any help from me.  Which is not to say I clean his room.  Usually he requires some sort of encouragement or assistance when he realizes what a Large Chore he has made for himself, but htis time he got himself over the hump.  I finally feel like he might have absorbed some of the things I've been trying for 16 years to teach him :)

Alright then.  Lots to do.  I'm off to do it!
ephelba

Poppy and I tell the girls at every available opportunity that smart people are the kind of people who make mistakes and then learn from them.

This Christmas I made a great mistake.  The children were all going to be home every day, and I had a ton of Christmas things to do, so I thought I would take one of my magic pills (Nuvigil) every day for a week, then crash on Christmas.  I didn't even make it three days.  If you don't have it to give, no amount of uppers will create it.  The result was that I crashed in a very real way on the Thursday before Christmas.  I threw a fit, I think it was on Friday, which involved me feeling more than a little suicidal, because, really, what's the fucking point of sleeping through your life?  This is a Stage.  I go through this Stage, then typically I pull my bootstraps up and Consult the Oracle.  Not that it has ever really helped my symptoms, but if you're looking for the latest research then you're Doing Something to try to fix things, and that means Hope.  Also, you can research on the couch.

This time the latest research mentioned they thing mast cells are involved.  I also read an interesting paper that suggested Quercetin and Chondroitin could be used to sort of muffle the mast cells, but quercetin is difficult to absorb.

Armed with this info, I slept as much as I could for, like, four days.  Then I bought some new goods. And now, after week of trying my new regimen, I can say that it's made a measurable huge difference.  I'm not cured.  Things are still off and weird, but I can truly say that I feel like I might be healing, and that next week I might feel better than I do this week.

Nothing very witty or insightful to say.  I just wanted to mark the point at which Thing Got Better, in case  it turns out to be true.

Love,
ephelba

PS
If you have chronic fatigue syndrome and wonder what my regimen is, I'll share:) Just email me.

In which I consider apologizing in advance, then don't.

Wow. So I've been stewing hard on this for some days now, and I think I'm ready to serve it up.

I have a unique view of xianity, having been raised in that camp and made to study the bible hard. I've been listening to some xians have their say in their own space for a while now, and I've decided that this, being my space, is an appropriate place to have my say.

Right now I'm thinking about Jesus, and what he'd do. Methinks he'd go out and do what needed doing. If he didn't want mothers murdering babies, maybe he could ask his sweet omnipotent dadoo to quit imparting the spark of life to the wombs of mothers who aren't in a good place for child rearing. You know the type, those neer-do well floozies that get raped by their fathers, or the un-wed 14 year olds in favelas, or that most evil of beings, a woman who couldn't keep her knees together and has decided things are so bad that she'll accept the possible shame, the risk of the procedure and pay the not inconsiderable financial cost to murder a child she thinks she shouldn't have. At the very least, maybe his dad could use his grace to allow women's wombs to reabsorb their young in stressful times, like rabbits.

Since his dad seems prone to ignoring good sense*, I'm betting Jesus would go out and create safe environments for mothers to raise their children, complete with meaningful work and safe, supportive, nourishing environs to raise their kids in. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd even hand out condoms in high schools and city streets. I sincerely and utterly doubt that he would ever shoulder a sign that looked like (trigger warning - graphic images of murdered babies, complete with bloody severed limbs) these. He certainly wouldn't shoulder the burden of pointing out to other people (with penises, who already agreed with him) how much sense he made while real breathing women were deciding whether murdering their baby really wasn't the best option. And "I know that I know" that he'd certainly sit in utter silence while those who had already murdered told their story, whether they felt sweet relief or sadness or guilt or all three or none of the above, because he was cool like that.

In fact, when the bible mentions Jesus hanging out with the kinds of people who pontificate about god, he ends up kicking their asses. Like, physically and on the church steps.

Of course, I'm assuming he'd even give a damn. I mean, I find it interesting that although women have been sticking twigs up their hoohas since they figured out what was going on up there, Jesus didn't bother mentioning it. I mean, the bible gets pretty specific on what kind of sleeping with men is not cool, and whether it's ok to eat four legged insects** and how evil cheese burgers are, but murdering children, and (again, trigger warning, graphic coroner's photo of a n4ked w0man) frequently their moms, doesn't warrant a mention.

Maybe he just figured he ought to mind his own business.

Feeling much better now,

ephelba***

* Also, quite possibly, because he's imaginary. But that's just my certainty. Your milage may vary.

** You gotta love you some Leviticus.

*** Comments turned off. This is my space, and I don't feel like sharing with xians today, so I'm going to pull a Cartman and not share with anybody.

Huh.

It would seem that health things are still improving. I'm not sure if it's real or not. Sometimes when you want something very badly you can make yourself believe in things that aren't there.

I dreamed that Simon called a family meeting to tell me I was pudgy. I told Simon about this when I woke up, and he asked, "Was it a happy dream?".

Ummmm, that would be "No".

Yesterday was a marathon day. Simon and I are sharing a car, so I drove him into work at 4:30, then came home and took a little nap, and then got up and made lunches for everybody, breakfasts for everybody, got everybody up and into the car and drove to Baltimore. Dropped the Boy off, drove back, stopped at Trader Joe's on the way, stopped to let a friend's dogs out, stopped at home to let my dogs out, went to pick Wayne up, came home, showered, went to work, then came home to take care of chores and kill a bunny.

See, we've acquired a Jack Russel sometime between that post I didn't write about moving into our new house and that other post I did write about not posting posts. He's a hoot. He does all the Jack Russelly things, like hunt, dig, and chew things that squeek. This has enabled him to find a rabbit's nest in our neighbor's yard, dig under the fence to steal a bunny, then, umm, damage it. Damage it, but not kill it. You should know, baby bunnies are notoriously difficult to raise because you have to have a grown up rabbit available to provide poops to feed the baby so you can culture their stomachs with the bugs they need to digest grass. Gross, but true. So not having a grown rabbit, or a way of treating the damage that Bingo did to it, I decided a quick death would be better than a slow one.

It is remarkably difficult to dispatch a cute, helpless animal. I don't mean difficult as in tricky to manage, I mean heartbreaking. Disturbing. I'll spare you the details and hope that you never find yourself in the same situation. That said, I found myself in the throes of inappropriate humor last night, humming "Kill the rabbit" and imagining new nicknames for myself. A dear friend who moved away used to call me Amy the Atheist, but I suppose I can expand the moniker to Amy the Atheist Bunny Killer, which makes me seems fearsome.

The latest good news is that I seem to have found Simon a granny car. It's a 96 toyota with only 78000 miles on it. Woohoo! We'll see if that pans out.

Boy is now at his other family's house, playing with his other sisters and brother, getting to know another set of parents. I'll have to devote a post to this subject soon. In the meantime, we miss him already and can't wait to have him back.

Workin hard or hardly workin,

ephelba

Changes

I haven't even looked at how long it's been since I've written. It doesn't matter. I've spent what seems like a couple of years eeking out a life between naps and more naps. It has been rough.

I have seen Doctors. Very few abnormal lab results, and none of them really helpful. Most frustrating is Doctors telling you that most people who have chronic fatigue feel better within 5 years. In five years the Bean will be 10 and the Bug will be 8. This is not encouraging.

I have been trying to raise children. It is a hard job when you're in the best of health, and when you crave sleep like a hoople head craves whiskey, it's really hard. You do not do the best of jobs.

I have been trying to be a wife. I have not been doing enough of any of the wifely duties, and it breaks my heart to know I'm breaking Poppy's heart.

I have not had nearly enough energy to even try being myself. Do men experience this? I don't know. Maybe men just don't talk about it. I only ever hear women describe it.

I have always been trying to find relief. When we couldn't find a cause, I resorted to just finding relief and began using Nuvigil. It's the latest and greatest medical answer to amphetamines. It has been of limited use to me, because whatever resources I'm low on get used up when I take it, and I have to recover, but it did give me a day or two at a time of normalcy.

Lately I've been trying something new that seems to be working. This week I have gotten so much more done, so much easier than I have in ages. I have enjoyed the company of my children. Their cute-ittude and preciosity are completely overwhelming. I had no idea that teenagers were cute, but the Boy is every bit as cute in his own way.

It tears me up. I keep missing out on things because I'm sleeping. I watch the life I wish I was living pass me by.

I wish with all my heart that this is the end of this nightmare.

ephelba

Packing like a mad woman

or re-packing. Opening lots of boxes and getting rid of half the contents which means I have to fill it back up by opening another box and look! I haven't seen that book in ages and then I start reading my old journals and

Holy

Shit

Can I just say I have the most amazing mind ever? I mean, I'm reading events in these journals and saying to myself, Wow! That was a Big! Upsetting! Event! and I can't remember jack shit about any of it. Sometimes I might remember the feeling I had, but by and large I can't remember bubkiss in the way of details.

Which just goes to show you should update your blogs more often;) Except Z, who is amazing.

Signing off without really updating her own blog in a meaningful way,

ephelba

Sandals of Death

I would wander around barefoot all day everywhere if I had my druthers, and flip-flops are the closest thing to my ideal. However, there's something about wearing foam shoes that makes me feel trashy. Then one day I was in to the Salvation Army and found a pair of leather flip-flops. Ah ha! I thought, Here's the ideal shoe in a material that isn't trashy, and the pair costs less than $3! (For me- they're j-crew, so they cost more than that for the original owner, which made the sandals that much happier.)

Round 1- I win.

And then I discovered why they were un-loved. First off, the original owner had stretched them out, and they fell off at every step. No prob, I just cut and sewed the leather straps and Voila! Good as new!

Round 2- The Sandals Strike Back

And as I ran out the house and down the back stairs I discovered the second reason they'd been abandoned- leather soles are slick. I went ass over applecart, bruised my butt, bent my leg all funny and ripped the strap right out of the sole of one sandal.

Round 3 - Minor kerfuffles with no clear winner

So I glued the strap back in and wore them around the house for a while, slipping on the steps now and then when I forgot I was wearing assassin shoes, until the day the glue gave and I was back to square, ummm, two. At which point I left them on the floor in a corner in the kitchen where they prompted me to feel shame that I couldn't fix them. And more shame that I couldn't just throw them away. And sadness that my shoe-love was unrequited.

Round 4 - And then another fixing method dawned on me and I took them to the basement and poked some more holes and sewed some more and have the straps back on and the sole patched. Ready for round 5.

Which is a silly thing to write a whole post about, except that I felt inordinately proud that I had beaten the damn things, and had no one to tell at the moment.

Thanks for listening,

ephelba