The List of Horrible

My sister was having a very boring day at work the other day and asked me to post something for her to read. I wish I could say this was the anecdote for a boring work day, but i think it might be the exact opposite. Um, sister? If you are reading and are having a bad day, this might make you feel even worse. I don't have anything really exciting to report, except that the past few days I have been feeling really out of sorts and horribly unproductive. Parts of my week have been downright stupid.

A List of Unfortunate Things That Have Happened to Me In The Past 24 Hours:

-Made a pot of black beans, but put too much water in the pot, so wound up making a very watered down, flavorless pot of what looked like, at the end of 3 hours, sewer sludge.

-While making pot of black beans, was not careful while de-seeding the chili peppers, so my hands burned with radiant atomic heat for HOURS after the mediocre dinner of sewer sludge over rice.

-Earlier in the day, while tallying up my mileage for 2009 on an adding machine, did not notice until too late that the end of my very long tape was resting in my coffee cup. Which was full of coffee.

-Tallied up nearly three month's worth of mileage before I realized that I had already done the work MONTHS AGO (in a different mileage log)... and so wasted hours of my life with an adding machine and Google maps.

-Thought about going to the gym (to work out... to feel better about myself) but then realized my hip is still injured (from working out at the gym) and wondered which would be worse: the pain from working out my hip, or acknowledging that I ate my dinner of potstickers and corn chips in front of the TV in my pajamas.

...

Today CLH came home to find me in an oversized, stained sweatshirt and heavy pants with my fuzzy scarf wrapped around my head, turban style. Which means that even though "spring is here", and even though my apartment is heated, it's still mothereffing cold outside. Sure, the sun is out here and there, and, at the right angle, from inside a heated room on the 6th floor of a building, it might even look nice outside. But, the second you get out there, you realize that nature has pulled a fast one on ya. It's not warm, as the presence of the sun might suggest. No, it's just slightly above cold. That doesn't stop the optimistic native-born Northwesterners I live with from making chipper comments about the weather. No, sir. To them, this time of year is downright delightful. My friend Victoria (who, like me, grew up in climes much warmer) and I have a bet going: whoever hears "Sure is nice out there today!" uttered in line in the supermarket next gets to go King Kong on everyone's ass.

This is about the time of year when I get a major case of the blahs. Or the mehs. Whatever. It's this limbo time between winter and spring and the daffodils are blooming, but we all still have to wear heavy coats outside. The time of year when if I miss even ONE day of not cramming handfuls of Vitamin D down my throat, I run the risk of kicking puppies and yelling furiously at babies.

Not that I came anywhere close to kicking puppies today. Quite the opposite, in fact. I have this magical... um... let's call it a "gift" with dogs. They like to be around me. They flock to me like I'm freaking Saint Francis of Assisi. They curl up on my feet. Same with babies. They just like me. Maybe it's because I'm usually smiling like a clown and I smell like flowers. I don't know. But the dogs today? Right underneath my fucking task chair. More than once today, in TWO DIFFERENT OFFICES, I had to yell at FOUR DIFFERENT dogs to move the hell out from behind me or they'd lose a paw. I know, you're thinking: Wow. Sweet life ya got there. You get to work in an office with dogs in it? How laid back. How relaxed. And you're complaining?

YES. YES I AM. DO YOU SEE HOW DIFFICULT TO PLEASE I HAVE BECOME? Now, where was I?

Ah, yes, the pity parade was stopped just at the Giant Bottle of Vitamin D float. Well, what a beaut, eh, Bob? This one is being led by the good people at Nature's Pharmacy. This is a special float, Bob, as it's half-filled with cotton. I don't know how they make it float with all that cotton in it, but they do! What a magnificent sight. This baby is made up of about 5000 yards of green Lycra and made its first appearance in the parade back in 2001. Oh! I think I see the next float and I think the kiddies are going to be very excited!

I don't even know where I'm going with this post. This was supposed to be a quasi-serious discourse about how different people treat the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I don't think I have it in me tonight. I just made myself a salad with black eyed peas and lemon zest just to feel all springy, but CLEARLY it isn't helping.

Tomorrow I hope to post something with a little more topical-ness. Something related. About the healthcare bill. And taking medication. In general, I hope to have at least one day a week of getting all soap-boxy on this blog. And I hope to make it prettier some day. With pictures and stuff. And buttons that do things. For right now, though, it's battling a major case of the Blahs.

Dermabrasion: The Hallmark of Alien Visitation

A few days ago, I woke up with a scar on my forearm. I didn't notice it until I was showering. I was running the soap over my arm and suddenly I was all Huh. My arm burns. That's weird. My other arm doesn't burn. Let me turn my arm around and have a look at th----WHA??? OH. MY. GOD. THEY'VE BEEN HERE. THE ALIENS. THEY CAME IN THE NIGHT. THEY'VE SCARRED WITH THEIR HORRIBLE MEDICAL EXAMS.

And I wonder why I've been suffering from adrenal exhaustion.

It's in my nature to worry. I worry about everything. I get worked up about things that normal people don't even think about. Like whether or not all the knife blades are facing the same way when we set the dinner table for guests. Or whether or not my riding gloves are next to my bike helmet in the garage. Or that there is one lone sock without a mate in CLH's sock drawer. It literally keeps me up at night.

The height of my pent-up anxiety usually hits me just as I am getting ready for bed. The time when most people are thinking things like, Oh boy, I sure am excited to sleep in that big ol' bed. I can't wait to get under the covers and dream abou----zzzzzzz. You see? That's how most people fall asleep: mid-thought, probably with their mouths open, with little pools of drool threatening to soak their pillowcases, their fists all curled tightly around their heads, their bodies nestled between billowy folds of down comforter and an array of pillows.

Not me. My thoughts as I lay down to sleep in the dark sound more like OMIGOD. OH. MY. GOD. WHAT WAS THAT NOISE? IS THE NEIGHBOR'S CAT IN THE DRYER? SHIT. DID I LET THAT CAT INTO THE LAUNDRY ROOM? IS SOMEONE KICKING IN THE FRONT DOOR? SHIIIIIIIIIT. FUCK. WHERE ARE MY PHOTO ALBUMS? BECAUSE IF THAT'S NOT A CAT IN THE DRYER OR A PREDATOR AT THE DOOR, THEN WE'RE HAVING AN EARTHQUAKE, AND I REALLY NEED TO BE ABLE TO GET AT MY PHOTO ALBUMS. SHIIIIIT. FUCK. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RUN FOR THE OREGON BORDER. ON FOOT. IN OUR PAJAMAS. IN THE DARK. IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER. AND I WILL NOT GO WITHOUT MY PHOTO ALBUMS. AND MY JOURNALS FROM THE FIFTH GRADE. AND, OH SHIIIIT. A NEWS CREW IS GOING TO WANT TO INTERVIEW ME ABOUT HOW I KNEW TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE SO SOON AND I'M PROBABLY GOING TO SOUND LIKE AN IDIOT ON FILM AND HAVE SEAWEED STUCK BETWEEN MY TEETH BECAUSE THAT'S THE LAST THING I ATE BEFORE BED- AGAIN! BECAUSE I WAS HUNGRY! AND I LIKE SEAWEED, OKAY!?- AND I'M GOING TO WEIGH LIKE 500 POUNDS ONE DAY BECAUSE I SNACK BEFORE BED AND OPRAH SAYS THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR WEIGHT GAIN IS EATING AFTER 7 PM, AND -

I'm going to cut it off right there because I could go on forever and there's only so many lines of capital letters one should have to read before one is convinced that I should be injected with horse tranquilizer after 10 pm.

The night before I acquired this mystery scar, I asked CLH about aliens. I asked him because, well, I wondered if the things that kept him awake at night were the same things that kept me awake at night. Not that I spend nights thinking about aliens, per se, or that they are the only things keeping me awake at night (no, what keeps me awake at night most of the time are all sorts of apocalyptic scenes in which we have to run for our lives because the bomb's just been dropped and somehow just he and I have escaped total annihilation and now we have to decide what to pack as we paddle across the newly liquefied landscape to start our lives over on another continent: my memory box from third grade or a jar of dried mung beans.)

The only reason I asked him about aliens was because there was something about the way the streetlight was shining in through the slats of the venetian blinds in our bedroom. The light looked all fuzzy and oval-shaped, and, well, a lot like a flying saucer. And I hadn't thought about flying saucers in a real long time. Not since that PBS special in December of 1987 that gave me nightmares for weeks and convinced me that I could see a little gray man with huge ovoid eyes standing RIGHT behind me in the reflection of the glass ornaments hanging on our Christmas tree.

Anywho, I decided to ask CLH about what he thought about the idea of aliens.

The conversation went a little like this:

Me: Do you ever think about aliens?

CLH: Do I ever think about aliens?

Me: Yeah, aliens.

CLH: Um, no, sweets. I don't think about aliens. Not the way you do, anyway.

Me: What's that supposed to mean?

CLH: (Looks at me the one might look at a child who has just said something supremely naive, but in a cute way) Your imagination. You let it get the better of you. I don't believe in aliens because (insert boring, logical reasons why reasonable adults do not believe in gray beings from another planet while I drift off into a reverie about what it would be like to be inside an alien spaceship. Cut to scene of blinking wall of important looking dials backlit with blue light. An operating table sits center stage. I am shackled to a gurney and wearing a flimsy paper gown. Two gray beings in lab coats exchange telepathic messages and then one flicks a 12 inch hypodermic needle and walks slowly toward the gurney). And that's why I don't believe in aliens.

Me: Wait. What?

CLH:... (pats me on the thigh, sighs heavily, and rolls over on his side.)

Me: (Snuggling down next to CLH and staring up at the venetian blinds) That's why I love you. Because you're not afraid of aliens. You're like the rock in this relationship. You talk me down out of every tree I climb into. I really appreciate you. You know that?

CLH: Zzzzzzzzzzzz.


I've been doing a lot of reading lately about guilt and perfectionism (the roots, I believe, of my anxiety and depression) and the things that plague women that don't seem to bother men. And I've been thinking about how much worrying I do about things I cannot control (like being probed by fictional creatures in the night). I've been thinking (this is new only to me, not to the world) that I can actually control the nutball things I lay in bed worrying over, writhing in agony, awake for hours on end. I've also been thinking about the guilt I carry around for REALLY DUMB THINGS. Like not posting to this blog. I beat myself up quite a bit for not posting. And for not writing more in general. The guilt makes me ashamed to show my face (on my own blog, for chrissakes). So I don't post. And then I feel guilty about not posting, so I stay away even longer. And as we all know, that cycle of inaction, guilt over inaction, and more inaction is a hard one to break. Just ask my deflated adrenal glands.

But, I'm working on it. I'm working on being a touch more forgiving of myself. I mean, I AM RUNNING A BUSINESS and all. And I do most of the cooking and meal planning in our house. And some of the laundry. And I have an active social life. The point is that I have other things to attend to, things like a full time job on the weekdays, a luxury that allows me to sit around unshowered in a Snuggie all Sunday afternoon and tell you about bizarre scars that form in the middle of the night on my forearms. So, I'm going to go easy on myself from now on.

And I'm definitely going to close the venetian blinds ALL the way before I go to bed.

Coincidences In The Blogisphere

It's healthy to start calling bloggers I've never met by their first names, right? And to refer to them in casual conversation as if they live down the block? Whew. Good. I knew I wasn't the only one doing it.

I follow a couple of blogs and I can't help it. I read about their pets and their kids and their asinine coworkers and I feel like I actually KNOW these people. And I talk about them to my real-life friends like they're ALSO real-life friends. Lately I've been noticing that their lives parallel mine in these really weird, really uncanny ways (which makes me feel even more weirdo kinship with them). I've never said anything about it before because I've always just chalked it up to coincidence. Also? It's weird to pretend that strangers are your friends.

(Did I just really use the word "weird" eighty times in that last paragraph?)

I suppose it's not exactly earth shattering news that any of us weird enough to tell the Internet about our flatulence issues, and our not-so-secret obsessions with pop stars, and our love for extruded corn-based snacks MIGHT share a few weird personality quirks in common. And I guess it's not that uncommon to be riddled with anxiety or paranoid about geese or spiders or annoyed by coworkers who can't form rudimentary sentences. This is all part of our shared human experience, no? The more I read, though, about this shared experience on the Internet, the more weirded out I get. It's so weird it makes me say things like "weirded out".

(Seriously. Stop it with the "weird" thing.)

So, coincidence #1: Burning hot things + plastic + us. Last month, CLH sent me another text that started with the words "Uh-oh" and ended with "I'll replace it soon". I had finally mastered the art of using an electric stove (see issue here regarding never-to-be-the-same popcorn pot). CLH, however, continued to pretend like he'd received his diploma in 1960's Appliances... and last month he left the kettle on the stove so long, the plastic lid MELTED, FELL INTO THE KETTLE, and was SCORCHED into a puddle of burning hot ooze. But not before filling the apartment with an acrid smoke that took WEEKS of Febreezing to get rid of. That and burning incense. And candles. And having the windows open all day long in the middle of winter.

Allie, it seems, has had a similar incident.

And Heather, too, is in the Almost Burn Down The House Club! Hooray for us!

Okay, then there's the leprechauns.

Last night I wrote about the leprechaun-y dude who always seems to be working out at the gym at the same time as me. And today, Heather wrote about her daughter's fear of leprechauns (and Leta, I'm with you 100%. Those dudes are creep-tastic. I don't blame you for being scared). Two uses of the word "leprechaun". Two different blogs. Same 24 hour period. Weird.

Oh sure, it's March, and the whole leprechaun thing was bound to come up soon enough, right? But, still. I was referring to a small man who insists on wearing mostly green clothing to work out in and who trims his beard in a really unflattering, elf-like way. (I know I'm going to get a hundred comments about how leprechauns are NOT elves but instead belong to some other realm of magical beings... and normally I would tell those people to get a life... except I'm the one who thinks she's friends with complete strangers who blog in other states.)

Anywho, the leprechaun dude was at the gym again tonight and I wasn't even going to mention him here (instead I was going to mention the guy who got on the elliptical machine next to mine, even though ALL THE OTHER MACHINES WERE NOT BEING USED, and who began to sweat ACTUAL sour milk). But then I jumped over to Dooce's blog... and there it was: a story about a leprechaun.

Sure, I could draw conclusions about how we're all either crazy or geniuses, or crazy geniuses, and how good story ideas just seem to hang out in the stratosphere until they find the perfect conduits... and that Ally and Heather and I... we're all perfect conduits coexisting so it's not really a coincidence that we're all writing about our melted kitchenware, but still. Leprechauns? Even the Department of Revenue couldn't make THAT shit up.

Why It Will Never Work Out Between CLH & Me: We're Both In Love With The Same Woman

This is what happens when my suburban friends invite me to their home with their giant flat screen TV and videos on demand: we wait for their kids to go to bed, we drink copious amounts of beer, and then we all heave yourselves onto a couch and watch music videos. Because MTV did something to us when we were kids and now it's not enough to just listen to music; we have to SEE it, too. And, for different reasons, each of us is riveted to the TV screen and pointing limply and asking each other, "Duuuuuude. Did you SEE that?" Because Shakira is moving in ways that humans shouldn't be allowed to move.

And then I go home and the next day, I download her songs onto my iPod and I take her to the gym with me. And I run on an elliptical machine like I OWN IT because I think I might be able to look like Shakira one day if I just listen to her song while having my arms pumped up and down by a giant fan with foot pedals. And I justify this repetitive, inane-looking exercise with the thought that, probably, before her singing career was launched, Shakira used to sit at a computer for 9 hours a day and she got that awesome body by using an elliptical machine for 20 minutes three times a week. Yup, probably.

And I become so convinced that all it's going to take for me to be able to wear a cut up bodysuit in public (or to work! I've earned it!) is a few more weeks of pumping cable weights while that weird Leprechaun looking dude with the black dress socks pulled halfway up his calves works out on the machine next to me.

And then I go shopping with CLH and I buy $145 worth of who knows what at Trader Joe's and I while updating my blog, from my laptop in bed, I shove handful after handful of (delicious, delicious) Sesame Seaweed Rice Balls into my mouth. And I decide that maybe the whole bodysuit in public thing is overrated.

Warning: Side Effects May Cause You To Vividly Recall The 5th Grade

I don't know if it was because of clairvoyance or pure dumb luck that I asked for an asymmetrical haircut this last round at the salon. Because guess what's good for hiding a forehead soon to be festooned with angry red pimples? Cute, sweeping bangs, that's what.

My doctor warned me that the drugs I would be taking to help out with my poor, exhausted adrenal glands *might* make me develop adult acne. The drugs are hormones, after all. And what makes your adrenal glands able to finally put their heads between their knees and take a breather from all that running they've been doing for the last five years so also makes your skin return to its former pubescent state. Hallelujah. The body is a magical thing.

So, the diagnosis is this: I've been experiencing what's called Adrenal Exhaustion. All that crankiness, that loss of libido, that tiredness, those panic attacks, the fainting, the insomnia... it's all because my adrenal glands are overworked. Why? Because I'm a stress case. Quite literally. Most people's adrenal glands are supposed to be used every once in a while when, you know, their child is about to be mauled by, say, a saber tooth tiger. (I think that's what they told us in science class). Anywho, when your adrenal glands release adrenaline into your bloodstream you're filled with an enormous, sudden, and temporary amount of strength and energy so you can punch that sonofabitch saber tooth tiger right in the snout, grab your baby, and then run 82 miles at top speed in the opposite direction.

MY adrenal glands, because I am prone to anxiety and because I can't manage my stress properly, are squirting adrenaline 24 hours a day. And those adrenal glands are tired. Like tiiiiiiiii-red. Like dog tired. And this causes me to feel both panicked and unable to move at the same time. MY adrenal glands are exhausted from making adrenaline around the clock. To boot, the adrenaline-producing part of my brain is actually STEALING hormone-building chemicals from OTHER hormone-producing areas of my brain so it can keep making that slow trickle of adrenaline constantly. So, the hormones (like serotonin) that make me feel all good and loosey-goosey? Not being made. And the sex hormones? Well, let's just say CLH has had a very rough year.

To illustrate: Your adrenal glands are probably being manned by two 1930's era circus strongmen who smash them occasionally with comically large mallets, thus releasing adrenaline when danger approaches. My adrenal glands are manned by Droopy Dog and probably look like two crusty dried up balloons.

And there's your science lesson for the day.

Thanks to my new doctor, though, I FINALLY feel restored and alive. Eh, so what's a few pimples? I mean, sure, getting ready for work in the morning is a bit of a joke. No amount of sophisticated black dress and chunky, modern jewelry hides the fact that my skin is blotchy and red like a 13 year old's. I've never been one to wear a ton of makeup, but these days I go through several ROUNDS of cover-up.

Given all the bizarre medical tests I've had to endure, the months and years of not knowing what the hell was wrong with me, the chronic ear pain, a few zits is a very small price to pay for feeling better. And I DO feel better. That "depleted" feeling I was experiencing is all but gone. My energy levels feel restored. I'm working out at the gym several days a week. I'm seeing a new chiropractor now, too, so maybe my neck bones (which currently look like a crushed soda can) will get straightened out. And then maybe my ear will get the hint that the REST of me is tired of being broken and it will step into line.

For now, I'm reducing (at my doctor's advice) my dosage of the hormones, and I'm styling my hair so that it hides a good chunk of my face in a melodramatic, angry punk rocker sort of way. If I'm going to be sporting the skin of a 5th grader, I think I should be able to sport a hairstyle from one, too.