It's about having a discussion, not building a missile.
In which Angelina admits to being pissed off, discovers mice in the garage, cleans a bunch of shit out, and appreciates how much her mother loves her.Yesterday my mom came to help me clean up the garage. I still had shelves full of stuff from the Dustpan Alley brick and mortar store. Stuff no one would buy full price. Stuff no one would buy during my 40% sale. Stuff that has been sitting there, taunting me, reminding me of so much money spent trying to run a store. Store fixtures too. And displays. All of it languishing in the garage and attracting mice. Mice! My pantry is also in the garage and the shelves were chaos and there weren't enough of them and I can't put things from the kitchen away in the pantry so then my kitchen remains a maelstrom of bulk goods not properly stored, of empty canning jars collecting on counter tops because the shelf space is all full in the garage. Plus, there are the boxes that never got emptied from the move that I'd grown afraid of.
My mom has offered to help me go through everything and organize for two years running. I kept saying no because I couldn't face it, even with her expert help. My mom is the purge queen. She is fantastic at organizing things and clearing out the inessentials and you want her on your team when it comes to making sense of household chaos which takes a ruthless and unemotional hand. I was finally ready to do it. I've been feeling for quite some time now that that dead stock from the store was holding me back, weighing me down, preventing the future from flowing outward in a natural reach for the ocean and was instead continually getting caught up in eddies my crap has created.
We went through mouse soiled boxes of depressing stuff. Boxes and boxes of really depressing dirty crap that no one needs. Plastics that polluted the earth for nothing. For zero gain. It makes me think hard about buying new things, about considering how necessary a plastic toothbrush container is for travel. I threw out several gross ones and have traveled without any special holders while those ones were moldering in "storage". It is shameful how much plastic trash and nasty bottles of personal care products I never used got thrown out because I actually use a very small number of personal care items and they are always the same ones. Vaseline, which I abhor, how did I manage to end up with two creepy dusty containers of it? I only recall buying vaseline once in my life for use on my pressure canner seal.
We're not done yet but we cleared three shelves completely, made two donations to charities and one donation to Goodwill. My recycling bin is overflowing and my regular trash which we generally can't even completely fill in two weeks is nearly full of those things that can't be recycled. My compost pile received lots of old dusty herbs and some dead bulbs and shriveled potatoes.
DAMN THAT FELT GOOD!!!!
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There was a whole thing here written in response to a comment I received about lambasting everyone for suggesting a gluten intolerance. The comment pissed me off and my subsequent response pissed the commenter off. So I have removed the offending part of this post. The title makes a lot less sense now but who the fuck cares anyway?
I am merely explaining this for those who had the apparent misfortune of hearing what I had to say. Which, of course, you could all avoid by simply not coming here. That is always an acceptable choice.
Update: I do want to say that my friend and I have forgiven each other and I'm very relieved because it was so upsetting to think of losing her over a discussion. I am not always the smoothest handler of discussions* once I get nettled and have a facility for making things worse. I'm not going to put the rest of this post back because even if I think the things I said had merit, the way I said them was confrontational. If I think I need to say them again I'll do it in a better way.
*Serious understatement.
I am merely explaining this for those who had the apparent misfortune of hearing what I had to say. Which, of course, you could all avoid by simply not coming here. That is always an acceptable choice.
Update: I do want to say that my friend and I have forgiven each other and I'm very relieved because it was so upsetting to think of losing her over a discussion. I am not always the smoothest handler of discussions* once I get nettled and have a facility for making things worse. I'm not going to put the rest of this post back because even if I think the things I said had merit, the way I said them was confrontational. If I think I need to say them again I'll do it in a better way.
*Serious understatement.
Comments (9)
Howdy! One thing to note: I went off gluten (and am definitively, genetically celiac) and didn't feel any different until they did a full vitamin panel and noticed that I had freakishly low levels of iron. Like, almost-need-to-be-hospitalized levels. Evidently, gluten attacked the area of my intestine that absorbed iron.
Just one more thing to keep in mind as you move forward! And I hope for your sake that it's NOT gluten.
Posted by Amy | April 25, 2010 3:54 PM
Posted on April 25, 2010 15:54
Amy- what symptoms were you having in the first place that made you seek answers? and if you were freakishly low on iron wouldn't there have been some dramatic health issues that you would have noticed? Were those the issues that sent you to the doctor? What were you experiencing that made you or the doctor suspect Celiac's in the first place? Obviously I need to come visit you and ask you a bunch of questions.
If I was really low on iron I would think that there would be some pretty serious indication that something was wrong with my health in a lot more ways than weight that won't come off.
However, this is one more thing to add to my list of things to have my doctor check. I think I'm going to have a very expensive bunch of tests to do. I think it will be worth the money to have a thorough health check-up. Even if I spend all that money to find out that I'm perfectly healthy, just freakishly hanging on to fat in spite of drastic calorie reductions and increased exercise.
Here's what's on my list so far:
complete hormone panel
including and especially cortisol levels
vitamin panel
food allergy tests
glucose levels
But once I cash in my NY ticket I should at least be able to cover one of them!
Posted by angelina | April 25, 2010 5:04 PM
Posted on April 25, 2010 17:04
Just here commenting so you know I'm here. xo
Posted by pam | April 25, 2010 7:37 PM
Posted on April 25, 2010 19:37
Thank you Pam. I suppose I didn't need to erase half my post. The damage was already done and I have been unfriended by the person on facebook and I suppose it was just bound to happen eventually.
What's done is done. I'm glad to hear from you and I haven't responded to your comment about all the work you've been doing with not a lot of results- I meant to have done that already. Obviously I know how hard that is for you since I'm in the same boat. Have you at least seen SOME results? It seems wrong that the body wouldn't respond at all. I keep seeing these ladies on the blogs I read for my work (You probably know some of them actually) who are getting exercise and watching their calories and losing weight, women who are at least 10 years older than me. So I'm wondering why it's working for them? These aren't women doing an hour and a half a day on the treadmill either. They're doing more down to earth quantities of treadmill work or jogging. Anyway- I guess in the end we need to be doing these things anyway, to care well for ourselves, right? Regardless of visible results.
Posted by angelina | April 25, 2010 7:48 PM
Posted on April 25, 2010 19:48
So, I'm not a doctor, and I don't know your medical history, and I can tell we are chemically very different people, so I won't be commenting on your medical concerns. I will just say that damn you look good in the picture holding Max. I hope you can acheive the totaly reasonable goal of getting back to that weight.
Posted by estes | April 26, 2010 6:43 AM
Posted on April 26, 2010 06:43
Hey, Angelina,
Unfriending you on facebook is definitely positively 100% a reflection on ME not you. I needed to not be able to see your wall, so that I wouldn't feel the need to give you my damn opinion, because I HAVE AN OPINION ABOUT EVERYTHING. Just hiding you from my homepage stream wasn't enough, because I would have still been able to see your wall, and thus bedeviled myself with the weight of my own damn opinions.
I hope that, in a month or so, you will be charitable enough to accept the facebook friend request I will undoubtedly send, once I have gotten over myself.
In other words, please forgive me.
Posted by Blaize | April 26, 2010 1:30 PM
Posted on April 26, 2010 13:30
I 100% forgive you. I was disappointed that we couldn't somehow put that behind us in some way and stop pissing each other off. I hate it when I am so clumsy with my treatment of such situations but I understand your need to get away from my wall. and I'm really happy that you're charitable enough to still want to know me! Take your time.
Posted by angelina | April 26, 2010 2:15 PM
Posted on April 26, 2010 14:15
It's not charity; you're WORTH knowing.
Posted by Blaize | April 26, 2010 2:27 PM
Posted on April 26, 2010 14:27
If a mouse scampered through spilled flour in an abandoned cupboard, would any of us wonder about this mouse? I think we would not, but that is no excuse for our ignorance, which might be feigned anyway. This, I think, is the whole question that is being asked on this blog, every day, in different ways. So why not simply answer the question? Why not just say yes? We would see the tracks. We would know that mouse was there on that day.
It is always this way.
But one swipe of a towel would erase any evidence that this mouse ever existed, but if the cupboard was never opened, the tracks would exist for eternity.
It is always this way.
Posted by Mickey | April 27, 2010 1:04 PM
Posted on April 27, 2010 13:04