Friday 29 November 2013

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then...

The road to a new life is paved with the bricks that you poop out in the process of reinventing your new life! (I've offered a relative some bricks to line her garden. I figure if I poop them all out, they should match and look lovely edging her garden, no?)

Hi everyone. Jane here.  I'm going through every bit of my stuff- all my books, clothing, stuff, even shoes! and figuring out what stays, what goes to my new home, and what goes to the thrift store or gets sold.

And yes, it would be easier to go to an office and work all day long than stay home and do this!

In situations like this, though, you have to keep your eyes on the prize. There's only been a few other times in my life when I was able to move somewhere and leave the old life behind, as I'm doing now. It's extremely exciting.  I'm over the moon to have this opportunity to move to a totally new place and have new adventures. It goes without saying that my old life of poverty, before I sold my house, is a faint memory and a lot of lessons learned. I couldn't have anything close to the prosperity I have now with something like that weighing me down- and when I mention prosperity I mean both material and non-material.

For all the times that I've found myself stuck in life- due in part to my own and others' good intentions no doubt- there has been the payout that comes with getting unstuck and moving forward.

Many people I've met this year and last year, or whom I've lived with or worked with, have each been both a blessing and a person I may not see much of in the future. I hope this doesn't sound too callous; it's not that I don't care about them.  It's just that I'm in a transitional phase and these friendly faces will not follow me to my next destination in life; however, they may make cameo appearances every now and again.

I'm pondering all these concepts, although what I'm really doing is prolonging this period of time before I cook breakfast and organize all of the clothing in my wardrobe. Sigh!

Love, and happy Thanksgiving!

Jane Q. Phoenix

Sunday 3 November 2013

My friend got lost about a year ago

In all the flurry of getting engaged to Future Husband, sharing a really bad cold, and trying to keep up with all my daily demands- cooking, working, cleaning my clothes so that I have something to wear to work- I forgot to email a good friend of his whom I'm connected to on Face Book to warn her that I was going to drop the "FH and I are engaged!" bomb.

She didn't actually mind. She sent FH a pretty amusing text about it, actually. It started out with, "What the hell?" and ended with "Congratulations!"

I emailed her and apologized. She was cool about it, and didn't say much more about it, but she did ask me, "Have you heard from A?"

A is our friend from high school. I knew A in college and loved her. She was a bit like the cartoon Daria, full of acerbic wit and hilarious stories too. We hung out a few times in college but not much.

A moved up to the Northeast years ago. She's an extremely talented writer with, I think, a masters degree in something along that vein.

This recession has dragged on for years and affected her livelihood at least once (probably more than once). I know she had 90-day notice for losing her job last year, and that's when her blog posts ended. That's when she stopped logging in to Face Book, too. Her 40th birthday came and went without a comment from her, although many of her friends wished her well.

She is missing. In this age where everyone is online, I can understand the lure of avoiding it, but with her admitted problems with depression, it is worrisome.  Our friend has noticed, and asked me if I've heard from her, but I haven't. I did exchange emails with her for a while, and send her job search websites that I'd discovered in my recessionary journey that pertain to Florida only, where I've lived. I told her she could use my house and drive to wherever she needed to go to interview, back when I had a house.  She never took me up on my offer, which was fine because jobs were hard to come by in Florida and I wouldn't blame her for wanting to live somewhere with seasons and without oppressive heat.

Still, we worry.  And we hope that she is fine, wherever she is.  If we hear from her, I will let you know.

Love,
Jane



Saturday 2 November 2013

Those people back in Shakespeare's time were right about bile

I had some blood work done a few months ago, and my doctor's office actually called me afterwards to warn me about my liver functioning. The levels were off.  The lady I spoke with on the phone said, "Ms. Phoenix, you really need to stop drinking!" Well, I haven't had a drink in a long time, and maybe two or three all this year. It wasn't alcohol that was the problem. It was headache meds.

My illness left some residual issues- namely, headaches.  And while I am deprived of salt, alcohol, and anything with caffeine in it, including chocolate, I told myself that there were 3 things I could have as much as I wanted:
1) online shopping
2) desserts
3) headache meds

Unfortunately, a lot of headache medicines have acetomenaphen, which is the active ingredient in Tylenol. Stuff like Nyquil, Dayquil, Tylenol 3, etc. Little did I know it was shredding my liver, which I need for like 50 more years, so that day when I got the "stop drinking" phone call, I quit all that stuff cold turkey (not so much the desserts, though). I was nauseous for about 3 days straight without all the stuff that kept my system going, but on the other side of that, I could tell things were improving.

Then came the procession of Chinese herbs, supplements from the health food store, and special tea made with nettle and milk thistle leaves.  For two months, that's all I've done, in addition to drinking vast quantities of water. When I got some sort of cold virus (from my future husband- apparently we share everything now!) I bought some medicine that is free of the stuff that upset my liver so much.

One hilarious observation I made was that when you take the bad stuff out of the liver (the "bile" according to the Shakespearian set), you really do feel anger.  I had a major case of PMS a few weeks ago.  My boss did some stuff that was annoying and I just felt myself get furious, then self-conscious and laughing at myself for being so nuts about it.

A woman at work told me that liver toxicity in animals is linked to aggressive behavior. This made me think about some people I know and wonder how they are inside. Maybe if they could go through a liver detox, they would feel more peaceful and less P-O'd all the time.

I don't know where you are at in life, or how you feel physically, but if this issue ever plagues you, trust me, a liver detox is totally worth it! Worth all the crankiness and strange smelling urine. Truly.

I had a follow-up blood test today. Fingers are crossed that I'm back in the normal range after this detox...

Yours,
Jane