Ireland won!…

Ireland won their first match comfortably. I knew they would. By now, you know I like sports. Cricket and rugby in particular, but not in that order. I love athletics, and most any sport except football. I only watch football in company and if it’s a final or something like that. Yes. I know the offside rule.

I’m doing ok, except that I wake up trembling. I don’t know why. It doesn’t bother me much. It goes away. I’m not going to see a doctor about it. It will pass, and if it doesn’t I don’t think I will die.

We are still in lockdown here, and my daughter is in lockdown in Oxford. What a shame that her shining talent has twice been curtailed. If I needed her, she would be able to come, it’s about an hour and 40 minutes away.

Meanwhile, a poem of mine was well received at Exeter. A zoom event. They are sucha great group. And a member of a nearer group complimented me on a poem he had not heard before. This small things mean a lot. I try to compliment other poets whenever I can.

Last week, while I was typing, I saw my daughter dancing in a navy blue cape. I know it was real, and now I have even more questions about being synesthete, having 10% more IQ, and this disease. In fact, I’ve just had an idea.

Male and female brain with the 5 stages of love…

Louann Brizendine, M.D., is an American scientist, a neuropsychiatrist who is both a researcher and a clinician and professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She’s written two books, The Male Brain and The Female Brain, and notes significant differences including the following:

• Medial Preoptic Area. This is the area of sexual pursuit and is 2.5 times larger in the male brain.
• Amygdala. The alarm system for threats, fears, and danger and larger in the male brain.
• Mirror-neuron system. The “I feel what you feel” emotional empathy system. Gets in sync with others’ emotions by reading facial expressions and interpreting tone of voice and other nonverbal emotional cues. It is smaller and less active in the male brain.
• Anterior cingulate cortex. It’s the worry-wart center, fear-of-punishment area and center of sexual performance anxiety. It is larger in the female brain.
• Hippocampus. The elephant that never forgets a fight, a romantic encounter, or a mistake, no matter how old it is — and won’t let you forget it either. It is larger and more active in the female brain.
• The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems.

1. Falling in Love.
2. Becoming a Couple.
3. Disillusionment.
4. Creating Real, Lasting Love.
5. Finding Your Calling as a Couple.

Like many people, I thought there were only two stages to have a great relationship. First, the magic moment where we meet that special someone and fall in love. Second, we become a couple and live happily ever after. Also, like many whose marriage hit the rocks and disillusionment overcame us, I got divorced, became depressed, decided I had chosen the wrong partner, and eventually tried again.

Stranger things…

• 

Ten weeks ago I remembered something that happened thirty years ago. It was seemingly insignificant, but is the reason one friendship never blossomed and a mutual friendship, though close and deep, has at times bewildered me because the other friendship never blossomed.

While we sleep, our spinal fluid washes our brain. It is necessary for our thinking. If this did not happen, we would go insane. So we dream. Mostly we don’t remember our dreams, but sometimes we do, or just a glimpse of it.

I was waking, still half asleep, when this memory came to my mind. Suddenly everything made sense. I felt the need to reach out to the person whose friendship never blossomed, bit I could not. There is no way. Then I thought to contact her brother, a friend. No, that would be inappropriate. So I shared my memory with the close friends. I have had ten weeks of silence from one, whilst there has been contact with the husband ‘half’. I have missed my friend, the ‘wife’ half. Both of them are much loved and treasured.

I wish I had not. I am told it is not true. My love for her has not changed. I don’t make things up, I don’t falter in my friendship. I don’t change when I find change.

Foods that heal…

I have always thought my diet was pretty healthy. I saw an article written by a colleague about the link between sugar and diabetes, and some nursing homes ban sugar, but I have never heard of Alzheimer’s being called Diabetes 3.

My attention was grabbed because I load up with simple carbohydrates to keep my weight healthy. Of course, carbohydrates are converted to sugar. The pancreas has too create insulin to break down the sugar, and a high insulin production damages brain cells.

So, I have decided to add more protein and fats. Fats heal the brain, and boy does my brain need healing. So I have stocked up with nuts, butter, cheese, Skiya, yogurts, and changed back to full fat milk.

I will have carbohydrates as treats: doughnuts, cake, etc and will continue to use sweet potatoes instead of regular ones.

I already use olive oil for cooking and dressings, and I always have black olives in the fridge.

Anchovies and sardines are on my shopping list. They re both great on toast or on toasted slices of sweet potatoes. You do know toasted sweet potato is a thing? You can put whatever you want on it. Avocado with something zingy, like a bit of sweet chilli sauce, or a peppered strip of chicken.

I will need to do this slowly as my stomach can no longer handle immediate changes, and foods I used to love no longer like me.