Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Love Me Tinder, Love Me Sweet...

"When in doubt, risk it." ~ Holbrook Jackson

So, I got the Tinder app (free to download) about two months ago. Tinder is... crazy!

I'm sure in bigger cities it isn't as crazy as it is in smaller, more niche towns, like the one I live in. But as crazy as I think it is, it's also kind of addictive! Which means I pretty much love it!

If you're not familiar with Tinder here's a pretty thorough article on exactly how it works. When I first got on Tinder I just decided to leave the age range open from 18 - 50+, and I let the distance surrounding me be as far as I could... I mean, my feeling is, who knows where romance lies!

But nothing could have prepared me for how shocking Tinder was going to be! I think I've said in blog posts before that I'm fairly naive, and I've always been kinda "youngish" for my age. As an example, my sister, who was a freshman in high school, had to explain to me - a freshman in COLLEGE!!! - what a certain two-digit number meant in sex! I was always so clueless... at least when it came to the sexual realm, and although I'm a little less so now, I'm still not completely clued in. A lot of that, by now, at least, has to do with just not ever being in a long-term relationship, i.e., barely ever having a boyfriend!

But what shocked me on Tinder is what happened when I started "playing" it. As I said, I didn't "discriminate" on the basis of age, only on whether or not they were a.) cute and b.) seemingly interesting. So, I would just "like" any guy that met both my "a" and "b" criteria - and those guys were few and far between - I might "swipe left" - meaning you aren't interested in the guy and Tinder gets rid of him and pulls up the next guy - fifty times before I found what I was looking for. But most of the time the guys that met my "criteria" were 19-23!!! But, like I said, because I wasn't discriminating on age I'd "swipe right" on them - meaning you "liked" them - and I was sure that Tinder would just move me along to the next guy, but, nooooooo, almost every guy would come up and Tinder would say, "You're a Macth!"

What? I thought, the guy's 19! But not only would I "match" with these cute, young, seemingly interesting, guys, but they would write to me which was even more shocking, as in they wanted to text back and forth with me - which I did! And low, and behold, I found out within a few days of being on Tinder, young guys - and I mean A LOT of young guys! - have older woman fantasies!!! Hahaha! I swear, I was like, I can't believe this... but it's true! And now when I "like" a young, cute, seemingly interesting, guy I'm more surprised if he doesn't "match" with me! That's how crazy Tinder is!

Nevertheless, talk about an ego-booster, Tinder, at least for me, is it! And, who knows, maybe I'll find a young, awesome Tinder guy who wants to make a baby with me! As I've learned on Tinder... you never know what will surprise you!

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Secret

"Throw back the shoulders, let the heart sing, let the eyes flash, let the mind be lifted up, look upward and say to yourself... Nothing is impossible!" ~ Norman Vincent Peale

How did I not know about Laura Linney having her first baby at age 49? What rock was I living under in January? OMG, I'm so happy to hear this news (even months later!)!

I have always loved Laura Linney. I've never been too enamored of any Hollywood actors or actresses - I've seen plenty of them up close and personal - I once helped Robert Downey Jr. spend $1500 on twenty different items in fifteen minutes (and, yes, this was during his druggy days!) - and I couldn't have cared less who he was.

But Laura Linney has always been, in my mind, in a different category... she's always seemed so down-to-earth and likable (I loved her in, Love Actually!), so non-Hollywood, but in a, I'm-still-perfectly-styled way, and so naturally beautiful. So, when I just found out she had her first baby at 49 it was with a great feeling of joy for her.

And then I read different news sites and website accounts of her pregnancy and after they state how thrilled they are for her, they go right into all the negative crap about women having babies so much later in life; they left no stone unturned on any negative angle you could possibly think of and I was just like, whatevs!

I refuse to let anyone tell me anything about what can or can not be achieved in the realm of getting pregnant later in life... REFUSE! And it's not sticking my head in the sand, so much as it is saying, you f@ckers (have I ever mentioned I can swear like a sailor?) don't know what is beyond the realm of what is your reality, but there is a thing called, my reality, and in my reality, as I've said before, the word, impossible, has within it the words, I'm possible!

And in that world, the world of, I'm possible, all I know how to do is dream, and dream and dream, until I finally wake up and realize I'm not dreaming anymore: my dreams have become my possible; my dreams have become my reality.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Game

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one." ~ Albert Einstein

Yay! After three months I finally had a period.

So, the last blood work done showed just what my doctor had said, that I had ovulated just prior to that blood draw, and I was going to have a period.

It's been proven that stressors on the body can cause significant hormonal changes, and those changes can have adverse affects on your menstrual cycle. So, I have no doubt traveling to New Zealand, my month there, and the 48 hours getting back home definitely got my body out of whack. I was so behind in my sleep that month that when I look back on that time, I'm like, how the hell did I do that?

Anyway, it feels great to have my period and of course now I can use my OV Watch and be clued in as to exactly when I'm going into the ovulation phase of my cycle. Which, at this point, at least until I find a freak'n guy, is pretty much just keeping me upbeat about how my body is working for me. When I do finally find, "the guy" knowing exactly when I'm ovulating will, of course, be crucial.

And, yes, I am still looking for "the guy" and I still expect to find, "the guy." Maybe not the "whole enchilada guy" but at least the one to make a baby with.

My Chinese doctor and my General Practice doctor are close to panic mode for me, but I just try to let them feel the panic, while I keep focused on the faith.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

My Ami or Your Ami?

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~ Mark Twain

I got back from my trip to Miami and the Ultra Music Festival, one of the biggest EDM (Electronic Dance Music) events in the world. The part of Miami I mostly saw was gorgeous; a really beautiful city.

I got to Miami on Thursday evening and went to two different events. The first was outside at the old R.C. Cola Plant and of course I got lost trying to find it. I stopped in this sketchy-seeming area on Miami Ave., I parked my car, and walked hurriedly across the street into a small, corner bar with graffiti painted all over the outside of it, to inquire about directions.

When I walked in, and mind you this was about 10:30 at night, there were only three guys in there: the bartender on one side of the bar serving drinks and two guys on the other side of the bar receiving them. All three of the guys were Latino and all three looked at me in my bright, blood-orange, top and pale green, gingham skinny jeans, with red kicks as I walked toward them, and I just thought, I hope they're cool with me.

In my mind it coulda gone either way: they would go out of their way to help me, or they wouldn't. And it all had to do with territory. 

Every place in America, the world for that matter, depending on where you might go, there are pockets where you can be discriminated against... and it doesn't necessarily have to do with race... it can be gender, rich/poor, small town/big city, gay/straight, whatever. It's one of those cases where, you're like a fish-out-of-water, and the feeling you get from the rest of the people in the bar is, what are you doing in our pond? I had the same feeling at different times while I was in New Zealand; I walked into a place where the initial feeling I got was, what are you doing here, and why are you here? Hell, I sometimes get that same vibe from my best friend's husband and/or twelve year old daughter when I hang out at her house!

Anyway, I think my point is, it felt like foreign territory to me: in the sense that it was a hole-in-the-wall, graffiti-covered, bar in a sketchy part of Miami and I certainly wasn't looking like I "fit" in with that scene.

But, I ordered a beer like I was meant to be right where I was, introduced myself to the guys and then pronounced I was lost... which garnered a good laugh from them. So, I asked the guys if they knew where the old R.C. Cola Plant was 'cause I was going to an event there and one of the guys said he did. At that point I pulled up a seat to the bar, and got the guy to write the directions down for me. When he did, and assured me it would be easy to find, I ordered another beer for good measure and chatted with the guys some more. I told them that I was going to this club called, Space, after the first event and asked if they thought I should just leave my car at the R.C. Cola Plant event and take a taxi to Space. They said if I left my car at the old R.C. Cola Plant that would probably be the last time I ever saw my car!

Then, one of the guys, who I later found out was the owner, told me to come back to the bar after the first event and he would let me park my car in the back lot of the bar. He told me that by the time I got back from Club Space the gate to the small lot would be closed but I could just pull open the door and get my car.

So that's what I did. After the first event, which ended at 12:30 AM I went back to the bar - and at that point there were about ten more people in there, all guys, but for one girl, but the door was locked - they came and unlocked the door and let me in.

It turned out that all of the guys in the bar at that time were prolific and infamous Miami graffiti artist and so the talk going on was all about graffiti and artistic expression, etc. It was pretty interesting to find myself randomly in the middle of this group of people, learning their culture... the culture of being talented (but illegally "defacing" property!) graffiti artist.

And the discussion of making money at something they started off doing just for expression purposes and then, also, about the artist that they thought weren't the "real deal" who were making money at it, but only because they knew the business side of it, not because they were particularly talented. And, even though these guys' artistic medium was something I couldn't really fully fathom, I did understand completely the point about artistic talent versus business talent. And most artist have the one, but don't have the other, mostly because the business part takes too much time away from the love of doing the art. So, it was a good conversation, one, that in a million years, I wouldn't have been expecting to be in the middle of, in some small bar, in a "sketchy" Miami neighborhood, with its most talented and famous graffiti artist.

But I needed to be at my next event, Club Space, by 2:00 AM so I pulled a Superman. However, instead of the telephone booth, I went into the bathroom and totally changed my outfit into a little black dress, wearing my grandma's sixty year old hat from the '50's, and put on some blood red lipstick. I was ready to go clubbing... something I literally can not remember when I did last!

And the guys at the bar couldn't have been nicer when I was ready to leave, two of the beefier guys went out and hailed a cab for me and told the taxi driver, straight-up, to take me to Club Space... kinda making sure to let the cabbie know not to screw around with me. 

So, that's kinda how my whole time in Miami went with everything outside of Ultra. Because everything outside of the actual Ultra event didn't necessarily go too well, but I always seemed to have an "angel" type of person come into my life and make it all better. 

However, everything about Ultra was fantastic, worth every penny, and I had an amazing time. I even had some young guy ask me if I wanted to get up on his shoulders. I told him, as I am 6' tall, that I was pretty heavy, and he was like, no worries, so he bends down, I wrap my legs around his head, and the next thing I know I'm sitting atop his shoulders above the crowd. And it became even crazier because it was just at that moment that a rain shower hit and everyone in this massive crowd of people were jubilant because we were all so hot and sweaty and the rain felt so good and cold hitting our skin. 

Ultra was definitely a young-persons "game," but I'm glad that I got to play it for at least that one time in my life. 

Oh, and it was really funny about that sixty-year-old hat of my grandmother's that I wore to this hip Miami Club (which I didn't leave until after 4:00 in the morning... after having traveled to Miami earlier in the day!) because the hat was like an event in itself! I had so many twenty-something, hipsters come up to me and tell me how awesome my hat was I felt like I could definitely hang in the, Hipsterville club scene, with no problem.

Here's a video that shows what Ultra's about. You can get a feel for how crazy (but for me, super fun!) this festival was... another video of one of the main headliners (just skip the ad) and a few photos from the event... 

Like I've said before, traveling solo is often hard because you go to a place you aren't familiar with, where you don't know anyone; there's no one to rely on but yourself... but as difficult as it sometimes can be, the rewards of setting out into the unknown and conquering, in triumph, whatever comes your way, is where I get to find out who I really am, and its mostly by way of the random people, I fatefully meet, that I do...












Bad News, Good News

"So, yeah, I think anything is possible. I know it because I’ve lived it. I know it because I have seen it. I have witnessed things the ancients would have called miracles, but they are not miracles. They are the products of someone’s dream..." ~ Whoopi Goldberg

I had my doctor's appointment yesterday. I was anxious to have it, and anxious about having it.

I was going to get the results back from both blood and urine samples that had been taken; the blood was going to let my doctor understand what was going on with my fertility; basically if I was still in the game or on the way to the bench, so to speak, and also find out how my thyroid was functioning - if the the meds I'm on for that were doing their job of keeping that hormone balanced. The urine sample was going to tell her about my brain functioning - neurotransmitter levels - and how that might be affecting me.

Because I had told her that it wasn't just my fertility that was on my mind, but I was constantly tired. I've been sleeping for 10 1/2 hours - at least - each night and still feel tired during the day. I mean I've always needed at least eight hours of sleep each night, nine being my optimum, but ten to twelve hours was not normal by even my need-for-sleep standards.

Also, my nausea had come back with a vengeance over the past month-and-a-half. The nausea has not left me these past four years, but there are varying degrees of it, and the degree I have been in of late is the one that does more than challenge me physically, it challenges me mentally. It's the kind of illness that makes me have to want to live... and if you've followed this blog, you will know, that sometimes, when it is at its worst, it has made me not want to...

Anyway, I had written in that previous post that though my OV watch had said I ovulated in late January, I never had a period. My last period, in fact, was January 5th. And when I never had my period in February, but felt like I had ovulated, Dr. M. did some blood work on me that was, as I said then when I got the results back, disheartening: my FSH had gone out of the normal range... it was high.

Well, the bad news I got yesterday when I went in for my doctor's appointment was that all of my brain neurotransmitters: serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, with the exception of my, norepinephrine, where so vastly depleted that Dr. M. was "baffled." I am taking both pharmaceutical medications and supplements which had gotten them to higher levels and she just was confounded at how drastically they had dropped.

So, on that front, I will have to go back to my neuropsychiatrist and have her do what she is trained to do: fix my neurotransmitters. I remember, years ago, where I used to live, I would drive a couple hours to the "big" city and see this integrative medical specialist and he had told me that serotonin was like the God of the body; if it was depleted its negative repercussions could go far and wide throughout the body... a trickle down effect, affecting everything.

The next bit of bad news was that my thyroid wasn't functioning well either. But the good news, as my doctor told me, was that all of those bad news problems were fixable.

But the very best news I got was that the blood work done to monitor my fertility hormones, FSH, included, were right back where they had been... really good. When I asked Dr. M. if she was surprised by the results, she said that her feeling seeing the levels being so good wasn't of surprise, but of relief... "extremely relieved" she told me.

She told me that according to the blood work I had probably just finished ovulating and she was/is sure that I will have a period coming up.

When I asked her why she thought I hadn't had a period since early January she said that probably, first and foremost, was that my going to the other side of the world, traveling there for a month, being so sleep-deprived, and then returning back to this side of the world could easily have caused my body to go haywire. And she said, once again, that older woman can tend towards ovulating twice in a month and when that happens the body just keeps producing the progesterone (I think that's the hormone) and so the communication is that there isn't any need to shed the uterine lining.

And, now that I know, not only has my thyroid been thrown off, but my neurotransmitters have been so drastically depleted, all of which is a major stressor on the body, I feel pretty sure that that is the source of why my body has felt like it has - tired - and why it hasn't worked like I wanted and needed it to.

Of course, my doctor wasn't the only one that was "extremely relieved" at finding out the good news regarding my continued healthy fertility... I was more than feeling that, I was, I am, feeling blessed.