Why is it so much harder at 60 than it was at 30?

  Aging has its ups and down. There are good days and bad days, both physical and mental. It can be a time to slow down and reflect, or a time of non-stop social interaction. The one thing that no one told me is that being an Aspie and trying to find friends at this age sucks. Maybe it is because people are no longer accepting as they age of anyone who  is different.  Maybe it's just me.

 I have finally started to come out of a several years long depression and illness which was compounded by the Plague. I have been getting out more and trying to be social. It has not been going well. I have reached out to several people I have knows for years, and the responses have been nil. Back when I moved to Austin, new friends were everywhere, it was easy to meet people. As the years went by I realized that the majority of them were only 'party friends', people you only see when there is a social gathering. Don't expect them to stick around when the going gets rough, they aren't interested in sick sad you, or even you as a person, they are only interested in what they can get out of you, and when you longer provide those things, they are away to the next person who can.

  When my sister died, I got 'thoughts and prayers'. My world had been destroyed, and not one single person here bothered to even come by to see how I was doing. They felt like waving some thoughts and prayers my way online was enough, and then they went about their day. I get it. This wasn't their tragedy, and they had zero interest in what I was going through, so why waste the energy? Not one single 'friend' bothered to even check on me in person. 

 Then I got sick and was hospitalized. Nothing contagious, I had lost vision in one eye and I was stuck in a hospital bed being pumped full of steroids. I regained my sight mostly. It was excruciatingly painful, and pretty terrifying. My husband would come for 30 minutes or so after work, but he had the household and all the animals to deal with. I spent 3 days alone, and exactly two people came to visit me, and they were a couple, so one visit. They even drove from the next town over to do it, and I can not express how much I enjoyed their visit and the comfort that they gave me. Radio silence from everyone else I knew in town. Then the plague struck and everyone was isolated. 

 Fast forward to now, and after a year of lifestyle change, I have finally started to regain some health, both physical and mental, and wanting to return to the world of the living. So I tried reaching out to people who I thought were friends. Boy, was I wrong. People aren't even bothering to return messages. It's not like I'm asking for money or anything, all I wanted to do is say hi, maybe hang out a little and catch up on with what's been going on. 

 Maybe it's where I live. I'm ready to switch gears in my life, live a bit slower, quieter pace than the hectic big city noise and constant hustle.  

Or maybe it's just me. Aspies can be a lot to handle, I get that. We're very Hobbit-like, we don't like crowds and loud venues, we tend to obsess and geek out over weird things, and it is hard to find someone who has the same interests to geek out over. Knowing that doesn't make it suck any less though. 

Life, Food and Arting

 Hideyho neighborinos! 

 It's been a minute since I have posted anything here, and it has been a wild couple of years. The plague years were rough. We didn't lose any friends or family, but a lot of people did. Both myself and my partner contracted it in the early days, and mine segued into long form. Luckily our adult son escaped it, although his biofather and biofather's wife wife contracted it. Due to health and lifestyle issues they both had very severe effects, which caused my ex to have a massive stoke he will not recover from and is in steady decline, and eventually took the life of his wife after she was sick for a year.  

 2023 was a sucktacular year for me. We had been on the cusp of moving for a while, with the partner's job jerking him back and forth about it. The stress as well as other things was causing my own decade long health issues to get worse, and I started trying to go through the medical community to find out just wtf was wrong. I finally gave up on doctors when I was met with a runaround of multiple different specialists claiming I didn't have MS/thyroid issues/rheumatoid arthritis/cortisol issues/whatever their specialty was. GPs are worthless unless you have basic sniffles, a sprain or need a cut stitched up. After having one not even examine me (He rested two fingertips on the back of my forearm for less than 10 seconds, I have wondered if that was some sort of state requirement that he actually had to touch me to get paid.) stared at his computer in silence for 5 minutes then threw two pill scripts at and told me I would be taking them for the rest of my life.) and another tell me I needed a battery of expensive tests not covered by insurance, I fired them and began my own search to fix myself. 

 Putting my college training in research methods to use, I started researching. And did more research. And even more research, wading through medical papers, videos, podcasts, webpages, anything I could find related to the issues I was having. Totally by accident I stumbled across a video by a Dr. Ken Berry, and that's when I began to find some answers. From there I went to Dr. Cywes, Dr. Saladino, and a host of other medical professions who have grown sick and tired of the gaslighting and patient abuse-for-cash of their field, and embarked on their own journeys to return to actually healing people instead of creating lifelong shills for Big Pharma. 

 I started cutting carbs, then eased into keto, then finally carnivore over the course of a year. I was losing weight at first, then when I transitioned to carnivore, my weight shot up by 24 pounds (I was in the 240s when I started.) and refused to budge. All the carnivore 'experts' claimed this was normal, natural and I should just let it happen. Body fat, however, was shrinking at an exponential rate. So I continued with carnivore, eating 95% animals products, all the things the doctor influencers claimed I needed. I was seeing a huge reduction in inflammation, stomach issues, moods, lots of things. The carnivore diet was working great.....until it didn't. 

 A week before Thanksgiving I started to feel not so good. I developed a lower backache that only seemed to be getting worse by the hour. Then hours of nausea, finally throwing up while my lower insides were on fire with pain. I went to the urgent care clinic, thinking I had developed a massive kidney/bladder infection. They took a sample and sent me home with antibiotics. After 2 days they called to tell me it was not an infection, I was clear. The discolored urine said different, and then it suddenly occurred to me that I had passed a sizeable kidney stone. I had one 25 years ago, and stopped drinking sodas which the doc claimed was the cause, and never had another one until now. 

 So back into the research, as I continued to have kidney pain and pass small stones every few days. While many of the carnivore influencers claimed carnivore healed their kidney disease, I started to run across stories of people having the same issues as me. After suffering for weeks, I made the decision to add some carbs back into my diet by way of berries. The pain started to ease after just a few days, so I added organic honey to my fruit and homemade yogurt, watching my blood sugar since I had started this journey due to upwards creeping blood sugar numbers. 

 As I continued to improve, I delved into deeper research on proper diet for our species. We are developed biologically to eat and thrive on a range of materials, plant and animal. For me personally I seem to do the best on animal products, low oxalate veg and fruit. ('Fruit' includes anything with seeds, like squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.) We've been on this way of eating for a few weeks, and I am seeing weight finally dropping, kidney finally healing, and I'm no longer constantly tired.  

 Now, to the arting section. I did get a third book published in the Salvage series, a collaboration with my partner. I have been working on the house again since we are staying, adding artistic touches here and there as we remodel, as well as working on some sculptures and other things. I am also in the process of editing and doing the cover art for my partner's latest novel in his supernatural series. While I am not at a point to write another book, I decided to return to blogging for a bit to scratch the writing itch.

Things are slowly getting better from the clusterfuck it has been the last few years, and I can only hope it will continue. 

Turning Breakfast on its Head

 With the slight chill this morning I am sitting here having a big bowl of soup with a piece of homemade bread crumbed into it. During the unrelenting heat of this past summer (52 days of 100 plus heat.) cooking became a dirty word. Our kitchen faces west with zero shade and even with the air blasting the house would still be in the mid-eighties, the kitchen being in the nineties due to the sun beating on the wall. The food I was buying was sitting uneaten because it was too miserable to add any heat to the house. Breakfast was the only meal I really cooked so I started cooking the evening meal in the early mornings and eating it later. After several weeks of this I was making stir fry one morning, and it looked so appealing I had a bit.  At that moment it occurred to me that I am a grown ass adult and if I wanted to cook and eat 'supper' foods first thing in the morning I could. So I started cooking and eating whatever I wanted for first meal. Even with cooler weather I am still eating 'supper' foods for breakfast, and it is glorious. 

 Overturning family traditions has always been something I have done. Some things I still do because they invoke pleasant memories, like making pancakes for supper on Shrove Tuesday even though I was never a Catholic. (My mother was but no longer practicing by the time I was born.) Other than Shrove Tuesday, pancakes were strictly a weekend thing because my mother worked full time and was heavily involved in the American Legion and VFW and weekend mornings were her only free time. I was in my 20s when I decided to make pancakes on a weekday, and I still remember how decadent I felt, like I was on vacation or something. Next up was cooking holiday foods on non holidays, like turkey in June. One reason foods were eaten at certain times of the year is because back when I was young food was still mostly seasonal, so you ate what was available locally. October became pork month because fall is when pigs were slaughtered and processed. Produce was only in the stores at the time of their harvests. We got oranges in our Xmas stockings and were excited, oranges were very expensive in the winter. 

 Now that we have been eating non traditional breakfast foods for several years, we have decided we like it and will be continuing. Sometimes I want a plate of eggs and bacon, but that might be in the evening after we had pasta for breakfast. Eating what we want when we want it is awesome and I don't think I will return to adhering to societal tradition dictating my mealtimes. 

Finally some cool weather!

  The first real cold front of the year has finally come to Texas. We had a bit of rain, not near enough to really ease the years long drought, but a nice change from baking heat. That will make working around the place a little more pleasant. 

 Things are usually in flux around the Collective, we try to go with the flow of things as much as we can. Something that has been a major issue for me since the easing of Covid restrictions has been the massive increase in noise in our area. We are situated between two major north-south freeways and two railroads. Up until just a few years ago the noise was much less. There was some from rush hours, and the occasional train going by. Then the city blew up with West Coast transplants, and suddenly now we have light rail blaring horns every 30 minutes, traffic noise 24/7, massive multi floor apartment buildings going up blocks from our house, and oh yes, let's not forget the new entertainment district the city is busily developing a couple of miles away that includes a new stadium for the newly hatched Austin soccer team. Back up beepers from construction trucks start going off at 5 a.m. and don't stop until mid-evening.

 As an Aspie noise is an issue for me. Ie simply cannot deal with too much noise. I would love to move to the country, however we are tied to living in a major city due to the Husband's job, he's in IT and high speed Internet is a must have. We have looked into options, and there are none for the speeds we need, so please do not blow up the comment section trying to tout Starlink or whatever satellite system/mobile phone hotspot you have. It simply will not work for us. We also have a set of criteria, such as specialized medical services no more than 30 minutes away, access to decent grocery shopping, preferably mobile veterinarians for the animals, auto mechanics, you get the idea. 

 We are also interested in heading into retirement debt free or as close as we can get. We are unwilling to pay the redonculous amount of money it takes to get an edge of town place with acreage. The actual move would cost thousands of dollars not to mention the hassle of packing and transporting three people, four dogs (Two of which are well over a hundred pounds.) a cat and all our stuff . Our options now are to turn to noise deflecting landscaping and remodeling. Being trapped here in the house for the last two plus years has really taken a toll on my mental health as well. In a perfect world we would have a vacation house out of town. Too bad this isn't a perfect world. 

 Continuing to develop the Haven Collective is the upside to living inner city. Senior support is sparse in rural areas, and specialists non-existent. There are many adult orphans here (People with no family to help them in their later years.) and banding together Golden Girls style is the way for our group to have a better quality of life. For now the pros of staying outweigh the cons. Time for me to invest in some noise cancelling ear wear. 

Time For A Change

 I have enjoyed writing fiction, the worldbuilding is the most fun. You get to make up an entire universe just the way you want it. I will definitely finish out the Salvage series, I have put way too much work into that storyline to let it just fizzle off. But my true loves are and always have been history, anthropology, and food. 

 When I was young, there wasn't much on TV. We had a whole three stations, and a snowy PBS station that came in a bit more clear early mornings and late night when the local stations powered off for the night. I have always been an early riser, and my parents were not. So by the time I was 6, I was getting up and feeding myself in the mornings. I discovered on the snowy PBS station The French Chef followed by The Galloping Gourmet. These two shows plus the food traditions of my own family and culture cemented my interest in where food came from and why, at the ripe of age of 6 years old. 

 Since cable wasn't a thing at that time, I read everything I could get my hands on from the two local public libraries. Some of the books made such an impression on me I later bought copies for myself. Some of my favorite fiction works have food integrated into the storyline, both fantasy and historical fiction. It was these interests that nudged me towards a degree in anthropology. It wasn't until I moved to Austin and went to work at a museum that it hit me that food anthropology/archeology was such a huge part of human culture.  

 I have worked over the years at various food jobs, working as a private chef helped support me financially in other endeavors such as my foray into the music industry. When I would move to those things full time, I would find I was bored to tears, and I would invariably return to food and my interest in its history. As I have aged, my immune disorder I have had most of my life has rendered me unable to work in the food industry any more, which is why closed my bakery and tried my hand at writing. 

 In a review of my first novel Salvage, the reviewer commented on my detail to food and eating, almost as if it were a bad thing. We spend a good chunk of our time getting food and eating it, and I feel that it should be a pretty substantial part of the story, and not just in times of crisis. (As in 'Oh look, we've crashed on a desert island/the world has ended and we're starving' kind of way.) Food is entwined with history and culture and there would not be either history or culture without food. 

 Food is my passion. It always has been from an early age. I started cooking at 6, thanks to my grandmother. She gave the the basics, and my mother (who was a good plain cook0 and other people I met along my life journey continued my education. I still love learning about new foods and how they are worked into the culture of the region they come from. Writing, while not my passion, is something I am good at. 

 I am ready to put my college and lifelong education to work again but this time instead of trying to be a museum curator, which I had zero passion for, I am going to blend my loves of history, food and anthropology and see where the road takes me. I am considering videos as well as blog and Meta/FB posts as I wind my way through the world of food, history and culture. Come along for the ride, it should be fun as well as interesting, and you may learn something new. I'm sure hoping to!

 Cruise on over to the new blog, The Why of What We Eat. 

A Long Time Coming

 

I have had multiple people I know recently lose loved ones. I have made the calls, reached out like one is supposed to. The last one was a couple of days ago.

This has brought up some major feelings for me. When my parents died, none of the people who I thought of as my friends called or offered help. I had help in the form of siblings and husband, so didn't need it. Several years later, I lost my oldest sister, who was a mother figure and my best friend as well as my sister. NO ONE locally reached out. Oh there were FB messages of condolence, but not one single person came to see if I were okay or needed anything. I was not okay. I spent two years so depressed I rarely left the house. My health began to worsen, and then I temporarily went blind in one eye due to it and got to spend 3 days alone in hospital hooked up to an IV. Exactly one couple reached out and even came to visit. Again, from everyone else, there was radio silence. When I did try recently to ask for help during a particularly bad stretch, I was ghosted so I stopped trying.

For all my life, I was the first person to be there in times of trouble with help, whether it be food, a ride, staying with someone in hospital, cleaning their house, taking care of their kids, pets and plants, holding their hand in times of trouble. I did it because I truly cared about the people and their well being. It had been made very clear to me that it was not reciprocated, I was nothing but a convenience to be taken advantage of and when I ceased to be one and began to say no and set boundaries, the 'friends' disappeared.

Because of the experiences of the last couple of years, I have stopped trying to make friends. I tried a local social group before the plague hit, but every event I went to I felt like I wasn't particularly welcome so I stopped trying to attend. Is it that I only have 'worth' when I allow people to use and abuse me? Or is this a sign that I am really a horrible person who doesn't deserve to have real friends? Maybe so. I don't think so, but then we don't see ourselves as others see us.

Being weird is paying off!

  I had an unusual childhood. My city bred, college educated mother taught me things like finance, how to shop to get the most for your money, and interestingly enough, how to drive a stick shift. My country bred, grew up too poor to be a dirt farmer father taught me about the outdoors, guns, hunting/fishing, boating, building, and gave me a love of reading. There were no children living anywhere near our home and my siblings were all much older than me, so I spent all my time alone, reading and acting out the things I read about. We had a large yard, and an abandoned pecan orchard behind the house where I built lean-to shelters with a rope and leafy branches, pretending to be a primitive person. Sometimes I was a Native American, sometimes a Celtic warrior, a space traveller on an alien planet, or a Cimmerian from the world of Conan, it all depended on what I was reading that week. 
  My parents would take me everywhere with them, and often the older people at the various gatherings would tell me stories to keep me entertained, usually about what they did when they were my age. I was fascinated hearing about life in the country, farming or ranching, growing a garden for food, wild gathering other foodstuffs. I paid attention, and often the older person would be happy to teach me the skills they knew.
 As I grew older, I became even more interested in primitive living. I was born in the early 60s, and the hippy culture was full steam by the time I was 10 or so. In Jr. High I met a classmate who had an actual hippy for a mother, and she introduced me to the good and the bad of living with less, or as my parents called it, dirt poor. I learned much at her knee, and she was happy to pass on her knowledge to anyone who was interested in learning. 
  Freshman year of college, I was rummaging around in the magazine bins at a local used bookstore, and stumbled across a magazine called Mother Earth News. I opened it, and became hooked immediately. I dug through the bins and found the entire first 5 years, all in good condition. I think I paid something like five or ten cents each, the bookstore owner was just glad to get rid of them. I took them home and devoured them. Some of the things I had already learned over the years, and some things were totally new, or things I had read about but never tried. As time went on, I found books in the library on homesteading and other things, and began teaching myself. I learned to spin and weave from a book, hand carving a spindle from scrap wood and picking up spilled cotton bolls on the side of the road around the cotton gin. I got hides from local hunters and learned to tan leather and fur, learned how to knap flint and make tools and weapons, how to wild gather food, how to build a solar still or oven, pretty much anything I took an interest in, I was able to teach myself or learn from the area older population. 
 I was always the weird kid that no one really wanted to play with. I did find a small group of other weird kids in Jr. High, but only a handful. Even in college I was fairly isolated because I had such different interests from everyone else. As I grew older I continued learning new things, and doing a lot of homesteading practices. Even after I moved to the city I continued to read, research and learn how to do 'old fashioned' things. I would buy large amounts of food and can/dehydrate it, grow some of my own food, and raise small livestock. As time went on I met a few more people with the same interests, but it wasn't until the Internet that I really found my tribe. While it is no longer feasible for me to live in the country, thanks to others like me who have learned to adapt and overcome, a new wave of urban homesteading has sprung up, fueled by the economic uncertainties and food insecurities of the last decade.  People have always laughed and joked that when the apocalypse hit, they were heading to my house. With the current state of affairs, they have stopped joking, and started asking how to do things. Sometimes it pays to be the weird one.