Dry Run

To prepare for the estate sale in Ypsilanti, my sister and / or I moved almost everything not to be sold into one bathroom, the office, and my bedroom, which was once my mother’s library. What couldn’t be put into one of those rooms, I marked with blue tape. The basement, garage, another bedroom, another bathroom, the TV room, the living room, and the dining room feature things to be sold; this leaves the kitchen. Our estate sale lady said it is impossible to keep people from opening the kitchen cupboards, so she advised taking everything I don’t want sold out of there.

I took her advice, leaving the things to be sold inside various cupboards, so when I left last Thursday morning, the kitchen looked utterly abandoned (except for the photos and cartoons affixed to the front of the refrigerator with magnets), and so it was kind of a dry run for leaving the house for the last time if we sell it not to me.

I have dreaded saying goodbye to the house, and dreaded seeing my sister for what might well also be the last time, but maybe it’s not so smart basing a huge decision on the attempt to avoid one particular moment of emotion that may or may not even occur. Also, I have already been through the worst (I think). If I can say goodbye to my whole entire mother and father, I reckon I can say goodbye to a house.

When I got back to San Francisco, I noticed that I wasn’t having to be so extravagantly homesick for Michigan: I can move there any time I want. Knowing this also seemed to ease my hate affair with San Francisco: I am only here if I choose to be. I’m not trapped here.

I went to work at the hospital on Saturday and was full of zeal for about five hours. By two p.m., I was completely exhausted.

On Sunday, Tom and I went to a gathering of his family for the Memorial Day weekend. It was an utterly lovely day of overindulging in appetizers and watching the children splash in the pool in the dazzling sunshine. Our hostess gave us a tour of her yard, which is spectacular. Going there is one of my very favorite things to do.

On Monday I went to Rainbow, which is closed for Gay Pride Day but open on Memorial Day, and on Tuesday, it was back to work, where I again felt like I was dying by noon or so. I went to see my chiropractor for more treatment of my injured shoulder and to discuss various other problems. The clinic is located not far from work, so I just zipped up there during the day, with my boss’s permission. I asked my chiropractor if everyone feels like they’re dying by 2 p.m. on a workday, and it turns out that he, at least, doesn’t.

He suggested that maybe I’m eating too many carbs. I was startled. I eat an impeccable, in my opinion, Mediterranean diet and assume there is nothing better I could be doing, but maybe I’m wrong about that. My chiropractor said bread, even though whole grain, might be causing a problem and / or fruit might be. He said that either breakfast or lunch on work days should be only protein and fat: experiment. If that doesn’t help, he said he would suggest a supplement that helps to smooth out blood sugar, and after that, we could try herbs to address high cortisol: ashtanga was named.

I mentioned all of this to a co-worker whom I rely on for health advice at least as much as I rely on any MD. She recommended a book written by a doctor at the Institute for Health and Healing, which is where my chiropractor is. The book is The T.I.G.E.R. Protocol: An Integrative 5-Step Program to Treat and Heal Your Autoimmunity, by Akil Palanisamy, MD. I don’t have a diagnosis of autoimmune disease, but I ordered the book.

The last time I did laundry, I further injured my shoulder dragging my wheeled cart back up Guerrero St., and concluded I was going to have to start doing laundry every single week, so it doesn’t get to be so weighty. That is partly why I asked my boss if I could work one day a week instead of two. Lisa M. suggested having someone else do my laundry, but I told her I had tried that in the past and found it unsatisfactory, as I don’t want every last item folded.

But the idea stuck with me, not taking my laundry somewhere for wash and fold, in which case I might as well do it myself, but having someone come and fetch it. The problem is not hanging around the laundromat. I enjoy hanging around the laundromat. The problem is dragging the clothes to and fro and down and up the stairs, so I went looking for a laundry place with pickup and delivery. I found a couple of possibilities, and late last night, seizing the bull by the horns, put in a request to have my laundry picked up today.

It ended up being three giant plastic bags. I asked for some things to be returned damp so I can hang them to dry myself. The place said that when they bring my laundry back, they will include some reusable bags. It was a great feeling looking at that massive amount of laundry knowing someone else would be doing it. The pickup was perfectly smooth.

As if that weren’t enough, today I did something I have been trying to get to for a year and eight months, which was to go pick out new glasses. In September of 2024, I got a new prescription which didn’t differ much from the previous prescription, which has barely changed since the spring of 2017, nine years ago. In the course of that whole year, I could not find two hours to walk to the well-regarded eyewear and opticians place located two blocks from my apartment building. The reviews are stellar and they win award after award.

In September of 2025, I got another prescription which again itself barely warranted getting new glasses, but it seemed that several tiny changes over the years must surely be adding up to some sort of need, and also, just appearance wise, I have been wearing my current glasses for quite a while now. According to my projected schedule for the day, I didn’t have time to go over there, but I decided just to do it, anyway. A lovely young man, with no one else to tend to in the middle of a weekday afternoon, brought me about 20 pairs of glasses to try. After a while, I started to feel a little overwhelmed and began to wonder if maybe I’d had enough glasses shopping for one day when I put on a pair that immediately made me think: this is them. These will be my new frames for glasses for distance, and I am going to use some frames I already had for reading glasses, which are definitely needed at this point.

So I am feeling great! Someone else is doing the laundry possibly right at this moment, I do not need to go to the laundromat every single week and can therefore stick with working two days a week and maybe even finally sew some pants, and both needed pairs of glasses have been picked out! And maybe this book and / or the advice of my chiropractor will result in my feeling a little less lousy. It might not have anything to do with food: I eat the exact same way in Ypsilanti and feel perfectly fine there, it seems to me. I have been blaming the job and may be quite right to do so, but we shall see. As a mentor once said, I’m not tired of empathizing, I’m tired from empathizing. And yet, I find it profoundly meaningful to have those conversations, so maybe it is fine to feel tired from empathizing twice a week, or then again, maybe it isn’t.