Been having these tiny dry patches of skin once again on random parts of my body, so I looked them up and it’s usually not a sign of a disease (though it could be connected to being hypo or diabetes). It’s probably mostly age. Read that if you apply moisture while the skin is still damp it locks in moisture better, so I’m going to try this and see if it helps.

I also read that harsh soaps and overly hot water can cause dry patches, which makes sense. They say you only really need soap on your face, underarms, groin, feet and hands. But I like to scrub my skin with the buffing gloves to scrape dead skin off which can also leave my skin feeling dry yet the gloves slide better over my skin if I soap them up.

The best news… I’m better! Not perfect but much better than these last 2 days. What a relief! I’m so sick of suffering. I just want nothing to complain about other than noise for one solid week. Why is that so much to ask for in my early 50s???

Doesn’t mean my sleep is any less cursed. When whatever is cursing my sleep isn’t using traffic against me, it’s using my own body. I woke up with horrible hunger pains because I stopped eating six or seven hours before bed instead of three or four. We both binged in the morning after running to Walgreens, but I didn’t end up having much. I was hungrier later on but didn’t want to overdo the sodium since all I really have right now are frozen dinners, fruit and crackers, the last two of which aren’t very filling. So I didn’t have anything and woke up so hungry my stomach almost hurt. I got up and had a banana which didn’t do much for me but it was something.

Today I’m going to stuff the shit out of myself and probably go closer to the standard 2000 calories when I’m usually closer to 1,500. If I’m not that hungry, though, then I won’t eat since I only eat when I’m hungry. Also, if I’m sick or overly depressed or anxious I won’t eat then either. The last couple of days I hadn’t been that hungry which I guess is maybe because the pressure of dieting was off me. I still have a good many days where I’m pretty hungry, like today, and I don’t know why. I don’t have any medical conditions causing it but I have heard that most of us do get hungrier with age and I know I sure seem to. I know there are certain conditions and medications, like in the case of my buddy, that can have the opposite effect, but damn am I hungry a lot of the time! I’ve already consumed 800 cals in the 5 hours I’ve been up and I’m still hungry.

Read up on some of the possible reasons as to why and found not only some obvious explanations but that shitty sleep could be a factor as well. One thing that struck me as odd was that it could mean you’re dehydrated and that a lot of people mistake thirst for hunger. How the hell can you mistake thirst for hunger? Wouldn’t that be like mistaking period cramps for a toothache? Either way, I just guzzled some water and it seems to help a bit. I admit I didn’t drink much in the last few hours before bed as I didn’t want to wake up having to pee.

Anyway, we think that part of what made me feel bad overall was the dieting itself. I just can’t handle diets like I used to in my twenties and thirties. I need to eat when I’m hungry and not let it get too bad because the hungrier I get, the harder it is to get rid of. I will definitely never diet again for sure. It’s one thing to go easy on certain ingredients and avoid sodium and cholesterol as best I can, but I’m not cutting my calories down to 1200 or less again. It just makes me feel too shitty. If I had my old metabolism, I might be able to lose a little on 1500 as long as I kept active, but there is still the fear of how my medication may react to significant weight loss anyway. Bodyweight influences dose as well as the life of the thyroid and I don’t want to risk inviting it to pummel my heart all over again. There is nothing more terrifying than feeling your heart start pounding and racing in your chest when you’re home alone and not doing anything strenuous. You totally believe you’re dying of a heart attack.

I also think that being woken up so often is also affecting my health and as I told Tom, if we don’t solve my inability to sleep through traffic more often, then we need to move. I have no idea where the hell we would go since loud traffic is everywhere, especially in cities with warmer climates. But something’s got to be figured out once and for all because my ear can’t take the earbuds. If I could get myself to always lie on my back or my left side, I could handle them. It’s when I shift onto the ear they’re in that I have a problem.

I used the headband speakers instead and they work great if I’m lying on my right ear, but if I’m on my back or left side, they’re worthless. They have to be pressed snugly against my ear in order to block sound but at least they don’t go inside the ear like the earbuds. Thinking of looking into pillow speakers, but again, unless my good year is lying right smack dab on top of it, it may not do me any good.

All I know is that this is just fucking ridiculous and I’m sick of it! Light sleeper or not, sleeping during the day half the time or not, nobody’s place should be this fucking noisy. But because so many people just have to put on a show with their loud attention-getting vehicles, I have to suffer. Maybe someday the lawmakers will actually make some sensible laws that we could use and not make the vehicles 100% silent but make them not sound like a fucking rocket is tearing down the street either. This can be done to all vehicles, including motorcycles. Don’t know about things like UPS, though, but there’s really no excuse for the insane number of loud vehicles on the road these days any more than there is for the boom car stereos.

Might take my Bluetooth speaker and add that to the white noise played on the stereo. If I play Alexa’s Sleep Sounds Brown Noise, it gives me a broader range of pitch which can help. The lower-pitched sounds are harder to drown out.

There’s something else that’s not great but it’s not at all surprising. I was a bit anxious yesterday so I skipped my meds today, placebo effect or not. Yeah, I knew being able to blame most of it on the Amberen was just a dream. I know this problem is mine for life and that it will always come and go. Drinking an extra wine cooler didn’t help, unfortunately. I have yet to find anything that stops it once it starts. After all these years it’s obvious I’m not meant to.

Another thing I’m still dealing with that’s annoying is this strange head pressure when I stand up, especially if I’ve been sitting for a while. That could be dehydration, too. Time to start making sure I drink at least 64 ounces of water a day!

For some reason, I hate it when people leave me long notes on Prosebox. I should have known my last entry would generate a lengthy note from Jinn. It was a fine note and she’s a nice lady, it’s just that she regularly goes overboard with her notes and it gets old. I guess I just don’t have the patience to sit there and read long notes any more than I have the patience to read long journal entries unless they’re super interesting.

Not much else going on this rainy night other than that I now have over 17k pins on Pinterest.

Meant to post this earlier but Tom got up early and we ended up chatting and playing with the animals. The rats were the most fun they’ve ever been, climbing all over me and running around. Only Fuzzy hung with me and came out today but at least he went home on his own. Woody doesn’t mind being petted and handled as much either. They sure love to hang out with the piggies, too.

We looked at pillow speakers but nah. I’m tired of fighting for something I’m obviously not meant to have. When they let me sleep, great. When they wake me up, oh well. So I’ll be tired and unable to work out or play with the animals as much on those days. It won’t kill me. Then maybe someday we’ll have a place 15’ from the road instead of 5’ and the bedroom won’t be right on it.

Actually, Google Maps says it’s about 38’ from the bed to where the closest cars drive by. Really? That’s hard to believe. It’s definitely a lot closer from the wall of the bedroom, which would be the closet, to the start of the street. Either way, they’re so insanely loud these days that I could really use at least 100’ even though I’ll never get that.