Darkoshi

After bad results with both a cake and a batch of brownies, I've discovered that I don't like the smell and taste of unrefined soybean oil. It tastes sickly sweet to me.

All I found on the subject is this statement on a few webpages: "Unrefined soy oil has a strong, distinctive flavor and aroma - some like it, some don't."

Next time, I should taste an oil before using it.

I do like the taste of extra virgin olive oil, but it doesn't seem like that flavor would go well in cakes and cookies. Have any of you tried baking with olive oil? Anyway, I now have some "naturally refined" safflower oil, which should be mild flavored. I used to buy Canola oil, but I began to notice it having an unpleasant stale smell and flavor, even when it wasn't particularly old.

.

After months of testing different deodorants, I finally found a suitable replacement for the one I used to use. (More details on that possibly forthcoming.) But last weekend, I found out that the store I bought it from no longer is selling it. I may have to buy it online (luckily it doesn't seem to be discontinued).

.

I ended up doing 2 saliva hormone tests (as referenced here and here). I took the saliva samples for both tests on the same day at the same times. Each test was processed by a different lab. I figured that using 2 different labs would give me an indication of how reliable the results were - if the results agreed with each other, that would give them more credibility than otherwise.

But the results did not at all agree with each other. So much for that. I suppose I'd need to get a blood test done somewhere for (possibly) more trustworthy results.

.

I had headaches every day for 2 weeks, and then they stopped, even without me taking any meds. They must have been after-effects of the stomach bug virus. Now I'm occasionally getting headaches again, but these are more like my usual ones, and not every day.

.

Qiao is now walking with only the aid of a cane. In fact, he is beginning to walk short distances even without a cane!

He recently bought himself a Sony Tap 20 portable PC. It's a giant tablet. It has a very nice screen.

.

You know what would be useful? A website along the lines of "These are various sounds your car may make, along with an explanation of what part of the car may be making the noise and why". Well, actually, sort of like this, this, and this, but with actual car sound samples rather than human reproductions of them.

For a while, I've been wanting to get some tests done to check my vitamin/mineral/amino acid levels, my hormone levels, and maybe even food sensitivities*.

I browsed various test kits that can be ordered online. Some only require saliva, urine, or blood-prick samples that you can collect yourself and mail in to a lab. Others require blood to be drawn. Some (for testing toxic metal and mineral levels) even use hair samples.

At first I wondered if the saliva tests would be as accurate as blood tests, in those cases where levels may be checked by either method (such as for hormones). It seems that they may be; but I'm a bit unclear as to the significance of levels of bound versus free hormones. Apparently, saliva tests only measure free hormones.

A person's hormone levels may fluctuate a lot. From what I read about testosterone in females, there are no agreed upon "low" or "normal" ranges. So even assuming I get back accurate measurements, I'm not sure what it can tell me. But I am curious whether my levels are on the low side or not.

Then I wondered how I could know whether the various labs were trustworthy. Maybe *none* of the ones offering do-it-yourself kits were really reliable... But then again, when you get tests done at a doctor's office, those samples get sent to labs too. Surely some of the labs must be trustworthy?

I did some web searching to find out whether various labs/tests were reliable, with mixed results. I decided not to use one particular lab, due to it having filed a defamation lawsuit against a website (QuackWatch.org) which had publicized potentially unscrupulous activity by the lab. (After reading the article in question, I would have given the lab the benefit of doubt, as it sounded to me that the medical practitioners involved were more to blame than the lab. But having the lab try to take down the article via a defamation lawsuit seems detestable to me.) Then I read something else which made me question how trustworthy the QuackWatch website was...

Sigh. Who to trust? What to trust?

Anyway, for the moment, I've decided to get a saliva hormone test done, and this nutritional test.


* - My mouth was sore for the last 3 days (a rather unusual occurrence), leading me to suspect I had eaten something that I was sensitive to. But after reading about the unreliability of some IgG tests, it's probably not worthwhile for me. I don't have any significant digestive issues anyway.

I am not who I was. I am, and I am not. I do not do the things I used to do. I do not feel the things I used to feel. My memories are only memories of memories, not memories of real things.

A memory of a memory of a memory...
Here in the South as a child, in the evening walking into, or maybe it was out of, a movie theater with my dad and his girlfriend. The vivid contrast between the cool quiet interior, and the *alive* warm humid outside... the warm thick enveloping sweet-scented air and the gentle sounds of crickets; the magical world outside.

But even when I go outside, it's not there anymore, the magical world. I'm not sure it ever was.

Were things really more vivid back then? Is there some cloak over my brain? Or were things really always like *this*, and is it those rare memories which deceive?

something else, something...

what was it?... thoughts flicker in and out... dreams?... what was it?... brownies cupcakes shower tags flowers what what what... oh yes

It was in the 8th grade, when I first remember memories of feeling depressed. Of sitting on the steps outside the apartment, and crying. Playing raquetball by myself, hurling some of my anger against the bouncing rubber ball. But I also remember one time in the 7th grade, when I cried, alone in the hotel room in Cairo, during our school trip. But that memory doesn't have as much an aura of depression about it. It might have been hormones; puberty. It would have been around that age... menstruation started in the 5th or 6th grade and stopped in the 7th or 8th (amenorrhea), and started again in the 9th or 10th. I don't remember any great feelings of depression before the 8th grade, anyway. But was life still vivid, back then? Could it be that crying and feelings of depression brought some kind of chemical cloak down over my brain, which never retreated?

Sometimes when something does not make sense, I ponder it for a while, and then, not coming to a solution, I stop thinking about it and eventually forget about it. I wonder how often this happens.

Yesterday Q forwarded me an email, actually a joke written as if it were a real story, about an atheist. It was not a funny joke, and was basically implying that atheists are fools. I pondered for a while, as to why he would send me that email. He knows I am agnostic. Or at least, I was pretty sure he did... doesn't he know that agnostics aren't that different from atheists? Or did it really not occur to him that the email could seem offensive to a non-Christian? Anyway, after thinking about it for a few moments, I closed the email and, not having come to an explanation, stopped thinking about it.

Today though, after seeing it still in my inbox, I decided to reply to it, and so I did. I guess part of it, is that today I have time to do so, and yesterday, I did not. But it might also be related to hormones making me feel more argumentative, as it is pre-blood week.

Yesterday and today, I've also noticed myself being annoyingly indecisive. This seems related to hormones too. I can't say how long I spent in the pharmacy store yesterday, first browsing for an acceptable pseudo-ephedrine-containing decongestant, then browsing the cards, and then trying to decide which 2-for-$10 sweat-shirts I wanted to get for myself (which colors, which size, which style). I felt embarrassed at the thought of anyone watching me take so long to decide which things to get.

Today, it took me a long time to decide whether or not to wash the bed-sheets.

It seems odd how hormones could make me indecisive.... or is it not the indecision which is unusual, but my annoyance at the indecision? Perhaps I am always this slow, but it does not normally bother me?

.

While I had that cold, I determined that phenylephrine did not seem to clear up my congestion at all. That's why I was shopping for pseudo-ephedrine, so that I'll have it on hand next time. They no longer have the pseudo-ephedrine products out on the regular shelves, so I was browsing the little cards they have on the shelves instead. The cards show the same info as the actual product labels.

When I got to the check-out, I handed the cashier the 2 cards I had selected. It turns out one of them was out of stock. The other one, a children's cold syrup (I prefer sugar syrups to the artificial sweeteners which are in the adult syrups), was available, and the cashier held the bottle in his hands for several moments, turning it and seeming to study the label. That struck me as odd. I was embarrassed at how long it took me to choose my items, and then I felt uncomfortable too at the checkout, wondering if the cashier suspected me of buying the pseudo-ephedrine in order to make illegal drugs.