Anxiety

I've been having a lot of it lately. There's no real reason for it, and I know that, so why does it continue? The past week-plus has been riddled with it.

I used to get nervous, but that wasn't quite the same thing. This anxiety brings with it a whole new inability to make sense when I talk. A new sense of everything I've ever said being stupid descends upon me.

Life is strange right now, because at the same time, I'm feeling more connected to everything. More interested in taking pictures and recording things than I have in a long time. I want to share. None of this has been coming across in my conversations, though. It's like the more I'm opening up, the less I'm capable of expressing what's on my mind. It's all very frustrating. I can't take me anywhere anymore. I may have been on the brink of crying tonight.

There may have been a few tears shed, actually. How embarrassing.

The walks have been going nicely. Huck is learning how to walk at my side instead of pulling at the leash, and he (shockingly) only needed two demonstrations to realize what I meant when I said, "Heel."

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm making green bean casserole as I type. It smells like Thanksgiving.

I'm also sitting in my office listening to songs that I shouldn't be, songs that shouldn't be sad, really, and yet they are.

I saw an old neighbor at the bar last night, and it's possible I made him sad. I feel bad about that. I'd say I can't be held responsible for how I was last night, but I can. And I feel it. Damn.

Happy Turkey Day!

Contents Under Pressure

Lately I've noticed that I put a whole lot of pressure on myself that is completely unnecessary. I spend so much time worrying about shit that couldn't possibly matter to anyone but myself, it's ridiculous. And if no one else is going to worry about it, why the hell do I care? So I'm trying to lighten up a bit.

I can remember a few years ago, right around the time that I met Bruce, I concentrated really hard and let myself let go of the things that really don't matter, and I was so incredibly happy and that's when it seemed like everything came together in my life. I lost about forty (doesn't forty always seem like it should have a 'U'?) pounds, I was constantly in a good mood, I was nice to everyone around me, always, and I was totally only seeing the good in people all the time. Plus, everyone loved me. Of course they did, it's so stupid to be surprised by that, but I am. Of course everyone loved me when I was always happy and bubbly and nice to everyone.

For some reason my mind always wants to tell me that it's because I was skinny then that everyone liked me, and for Pete's sake! God, get a grip! People don't like people because they're skinny. They like people because they're nice and fun and happy, that's why they like them. I want to be that nice, fun, happy girl again.

I figure it's only a matter of taking the time to convince myself not to freak out about the tiny things that only matter to me and to just plain act happy and fun and nice, because if I act like I'm all of those things eventually I'll forget that it's all an act and it'll be second nature.

I need to start seeing the everyday humor in the stuff around me, too. Example: Earlier in the evening I had to look on the internet to see if we should take Huck to the vet for his diarrhea, and I came across a really cool website that helped me stop freaking out about it. Here's the website. Anyway, I just came back to the computer to write this entry, and I noticed that the search term I used was "diahhrea dog". Come on, that's pretty funny. Nobody wants to pet that dog. I picture a poor little sickly animal all dripping in poop. Poop is funny. (I was going to lie and claim that I typed in "diarrhea" - correctly spelt - but I figure no one would believe me. I don't believe anyone knows how to spell that word.

I'm also going to start indulging myself in things more often. I'm a hoarder - when I find something I really like, I treasure it and barely use it because I don't want to waste it. I don't know what sense that makes, especially in the case of nice smelling lotions or body wash or something. I love Bath and Body Works' Moonlit Path, but I never ever wear it because I don't want it to go to waste. It's hardly going to waste if I'm smelling nice and I feel better about myself because I know I smell awesome, is it?

My other neurosis about using stuff like that is somehow I think that if I smell great all the time that it'll stop being special, or that if I forget then Bruce will be upset or something. That's so ridiculous I don't even need to dignify it with a response. (Did you notice how I'm totally having a strange sort of agruement with myself here?) I'm so weird about stuff like that, and it's time to stop. I need to just let myself enjoy things. I'm going to try to do that.

Queen B_ _ _ _

I've mentioned this before, but I want to say it again for emphasis: quitting smoking is hard work. It makes you a little bit crazy.

I obsessed for a week about cigarettes and smoking and my place in the world without either of them. Smoking is almost a battle cry - or it was when I was in college. We had to join others of our kind and rally around for warmth and protection. (I went to college in Minnesota. There is warmth in numbers.) There is power in numbers, and fewer people gave us dirty looks when there were more than three of us. So who's side am I on now? I don't really care about this point anymore - it took a long time to get it out of my system, but it's finally gone.

For the past few weeks, I've been wound tighter than... the only thing I can think of that's wound is a yo-yo, and I'm sure they're not wound very tight, so you'll have to take my word for it. I've been snapping at people, getting unspeakably mad for very minor reasons, generally being a total bitch. It sucked to live with me lately, and I know it. Hell, I knew it while it was happening, but there was all of that rage that kept bubbling up, and it was either let it out or explode.

I figured out where my rage was coming from. You see, smoking does do at least one good thing for people. It gives them the opportunity to sit back and think about things. For about five minutes at a time, and several times a day. It's a mental quiet time (or it was, for me), to collect my thoughts and take some deep breaths, and you know what I used that time for most of all? Realizing that the whole world didn't have to run the way I felt it should run. These past few weeks, I've been trying to run the entire world the way I think it should happen and it wasn't working out the way I'd planned. And that, in turn, made me angry.

I promise I won't be angry forever.

Congratulations, Wisconsin!

If the results don't change, you've voted yourselves the right to kill people! You rock! After all, who better to decide who lives and dies than people from Wisconsin, right? We rock!

My state is pissing me off right now. Not only do we think we can decide who lives and dies, but the polls are showing (as of now, which is 10:21, although Marinette county apparently has had some trouble with rogue candidates for sheriff) that we voted FOR legally defining marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman.

Sorry, all of you people who have lived together for twenty years or more! You're insignificant!

Sorry, little brother, you're forever banned from being legally wed in Wisconsin, because the old fucks in our state who will most likely be dead by the time you want to get married can't stand the thought of anal sex!

But hey, we know best! If we can decide to kill people, for sure we deserve to decide who can love each other!

Last Hurrah!

We sent the puppy away to live out his last "free" weekend with my parents. They will probably be gorging him senseless, and bring home a dog we no longer recognize, a dog who more resembles a bowling ball than a Snausage, which is totally the look we've been after.

Actually, we are way more into his physical health than we are into our own, and our beloved pup has grown himself to be quite the fashionably slim teenager, and I'm very proud of that. You could bounce a quarter off his ass, people. You can feel it when he lays his seventy-pound head on your face when you're trying to breathe, and reach around to extract him. I dare you not to say, "Wow, that ass is TIGHT!" while you do it. You might just think it. That's OK.

I know that some of you are curious, and so I inform you: I am doing alright with the non-smoking thing. I have taken up The Patch (or at least the Kmart equivalent to it) and it's going quite well. I feel like it's a loser's way out, sometimes, but I don't let that get to me (too much). The fact of the matter is that I know I need help in quitting, and there is statistical evidence that I quit better with help than without. (See all the years of trying to quit and failing immediately without help vs. the almost successful quitting with the patch.)

I totally miss my little man. I asked my dad to take him with him up north before I went to work this afternoon, and yet I was still shocked and very very sad not to have him greet me at the door when I got home. Still, I hope he enjoys it.

Because after next week he will no longer be consulting his balls in major decisions. This is like his bachelor party.

Socktoberfest! A Few Days Late!

On Friday night, in the midst of a jam session of my new favorite band, Third Leg, and also in the midst of a good old nostalgic beer-fest on my part, I found an old friend of mine. Actually I found his blog. We spent oodles of time way back when convincing each other that german class was to be avoided in favor of coffee. I owe all of my german knowlege to the fact that some of the boys in that class were too cute to miss.

He just signed on for Socktoberfest, and after looking at my sock collection:

Can't imagine what's wrong with this pair, can you? Um, I need to fix the long one.

This was my first sock, completed in January. I think it's time for a mate, don't you?

This one is probably going to be frogged until later - the needles have crappy joins, and I spend more time pushing the stitches around the needles than I spend actually "knitting".

Anyway, I have a few sock issues to work out, as you can see. Why not try and finish up a few things during Socktoberfest? Also, I have to get some of these off my plate so that I can feel good about starting the socks I've been salivating over for almost a year:

Embossed Leaves (and Fleece Artist sock yarn! Joy!) in the perfect shades of green.

There are a few other things on my mind. This plant has pretty much been left to die in my mom's room, and I want to revive it. Do any of you have green thumbs? Can you tell me how to save it? I've run out of ideas after giving it a)sunlight and b)water. (It was left in a dark room without attention for a few months.)

What do you think, is there still hope?

Hmm, I wonder why my pictures are cutting off at the bottoms?

Whippersnapper

My cousin, the cousin, the youngest, the twig off the branch of the family that we no longer get along with very well, for those of you wondering, is in our fair town for the night. He has a friend here, and came to town last year for Homecoming and is repeating himself. My mom arranged it, and I was all for it. After all, we spent all of our weekends together when we were little.

I was born in 1980, then came my brother along with our cousin in 1985 (one month apart), and I felt out-of-the-loop. Too young to enjoy looking after the babies, and too old to really enjoy their baby games. I was the odd one, until Punk Rock Boy was born, in 1989. I was nine, and it was wonderful to have a baby to tote around and dote on and pretend with. He was so smart, too smart. He talked in complete sentences before he said a single word. He was chattering away in full paragraphs before he could walk. He was special, and I love him.

It's different now, because we are older. He's in that weird phase, the one where you dress up in funny clothes and wear black eyeliner and dye your hair funny colors with strange shaved patches. He's very pretty. I'll show you a picture later, but for now you should just believe me. He's gorgeous. I didn't know what to say to him.

I remember being seventeen and around my relatives, and it was irritating. If they weren't asking me about my plans for the future or my classes, they were asking me about... well, that's pretty much all they asked me about. In particular, I remember PRB's mom grilling me about my choice of college. I would start to answer her only to have her turn her attention elsewhere. These are the questions to which we are bored by the answers. I don't want to be that older relative asking questions about the most boring, most paperworky part of his life, and yet I couldn't stop myself. It's a sign of getting old, I'm sure. Forgetting how to communicate with people only a few years removed from your age. I was faltering, flailing. I felt like the most boring person on earth.

And then I admitted it to him, and we laughed about it and he understood, and things got better. I want him to stay with us more often, I want to have the same connection with him that we had when I was fourteen and he was five. I want us to be normal. I want to shed this part of me that doesn't know what to do with a teenager, because that part of me makes me older than I am.

I've Been Better

My mind is working badly lately, keeping me from sleeping when I should be, reminding me to be really worried about stuff - without actually telling me what I should be worried about, generally being a big ol' pain in the ass.

I've been thinking about things to make myself feel better. While I appreciate all long-term suggestions (eating better, losing weight, etc.) and know they would be good for me, I'm in a funk right now, and need something to pull me out of it quicker than those things. I'm talking instant feel-betterers.

So far, I have a pretty short list:

• buy a bra that fits


• buy new underwear and don't walk around in the stuff I bought in high school


• buy new socks, so I have enough and don't have to grunge it some days (or any days, for that matter

That's about it. I'm only good for undergarment-centric ideas right now. Anyone have anything else that is bound to cheer me up? I'm open to ideas. Preferably quick-fixes.

Passing the Buck

Most of the time, I wish I could pass it off. What, you ask? Well, pretty much anything. Everything, even. I wish I could assign tasks to people around me (most notably, B. He's a good person to look to for tasks of the gathering-information-online sort, for example. Or the taking-out-the-trash nature. You know, the stuff I'm really not interested in.  

I look to various people for various things. Most of the mundane stuff at work I can laze my way out of - nobody works a full day, and there's always somebody there to pick up my slack.

I think this way of thinking is biting me in the ass, not to put too fine a point on things. I can't really expect to get the most out of life by sitting back and letting someone else do the dirty work. For one thing, I'm being a major pain in the ass. For another, no one is going to figure out what I want to do with my life for me. It sucks, but I can't just lay around and expect to reap the benefits of being self-sufficient.

So, long story short, I'm going to try to take an active role in, well, myself. The Buck Stops Here, as some politician or other might put it. Only I mean it. For reals.

In light of this new variety of thought, I've been thinking about going back to school. Someday. In the meantime, I think I'd better get a better idea of what I want to do. After twenty-odd years of trying to figure it out, I'm thinking Veterinary Technician might be a good prospect for me. So let the research begin.

Why Don't You Marry Her?

Along with Lisa, I've been working on my self-esteem over the past three years. I say three because although she's been helping me off and on for over ten (can you believe it Lease? Ten years?) we've only really been connected for good for about three of them. There were times in there, crazy exes and crazy stupid college mistakes and nasty guys neither one of us should have found attractive and yet we fought over them sometimes, etc... we've been very close for about three years now.

The past year-and-a-half when I was living in Hickstown, USA, I really noticed how much of my self-esteem rests on her shoulders. I'm sorry to burden her with this, but it's the truth - a lot of my self-worth comes from knowing someone that awesome thinks that I'm pretty funny and cool. There are a lot of things about our relationship that some people might find daunting, like the unspoken competition that sometimes gets the better of us, but I think a little competition really spurs us on to great things. Unless there's a Mike Price involved, and then it's just wrong. In all senses of the word.

So, on Sunday night Lisa commented on how alike her and Bruce are, and how alike I and Todd are, and it made me think. I'm thinking that it makes no sense really for us to be with people we're exactly the same as, and all sense for us to pick someone who compliments us in the ways that Lisa and I compliment each other. For example, if Lisa and Bruce were together, they would spend all their time worrying about various money situations, and rarely let loose and really have fun. If Todd and I were together, we'd be homeless and begging quarters off of people to drink with in order to be the life of the party all the time. No one wants to spend time with either of those couples. It makes perfect sense to me that I would find a guy like Lisa to marry, and that Lisa would find a guy like me to marry. Of course.

After all, we always were the best couple in town.

[I may have been drunk when I wrote this.]

Forums

I've been absorbed in the online forums the past month or two. It's a little riduculous, I'd forgotten how into themselves these people actually are, and how condescending they are to any and all new people. I let them get to me for a while, making me feel like crap for no good reason at all, but I've turned things around (and I've been there for more than a few weeks) and I like to think that I'm starting to prove my place in the (self-indulgent, holier-than-thou) world of forums.

I don't by any means suggest that you go there with a less-than-friendly or pitiful attitude for APBTs (American Pit Bull Terriers), or that you do anything but read and ask innocent questions unless you desire to be stomped out of your will to live, but if you're interested in some good advice from people who might not be the friendliest, I'd go to one of these places to read the archives.

There's one in particular I go to. Good luck, if you go too.

Constant

What did I used to do with my time?

My darling husband has taken off with our puppy for a jaunt to the neighbor's house to play a video game. The puppy is scheduled for some high-energy romping with the neighbor dog. They've been gone for less than an hour, and I'm so lost.

Sure, it's hard work keeping a constant ear out for sudden silence (a sure sign that someone is eating the cat poop or his Mama's knitting), being followed everywhere you go (having to be extra careful now, not to step on anyone), and venturing outside more times every day than I had previously been outside in two years. Sure, it's a little annoying to be constantly listening to the whine of the cat as they rough-house, it's irritating to clean up the little puddles that happen when you're just too worn out to remember that he probably has to go (AGAIN!). It's constant. There's nothing half-way about having a spanking-new puppy in the house. It's everything, it's everywhere, and it's 24/7 all the time, baby, no time for time off, cause it's about to shit all over the floor.

So, naturally, I suggested taking the pup down the street for a little dog-on-dog bonding so I could have the place to myself for a few blessed moments' respite from the... Well, from the constantness of it all.

And now I'm lonely.

Apology

You know what? I love you guys.

I'm sorry I'm so intermitanty with my posting as of late. Puppies are lots to deal with. I promise that as soon as I don't have to follow him around every waking second of his life worried that he will pee or poop or chew on something unacceptable, I will be so posting all the damn time.

Did I mention I love you guys?

Casualty

My theory is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Ok, so that's not my "actual" theory. In fact, many people would say that I tend to gallavant around, fixing things that have no business being messed with. In fact, I've gotten into trouble for fixing things that weren't in need of help. So I fix things. What's the big whoop?

We have a first casualty in this puppy-verse. It may seem like a small thing, but to those of you with eyes that burn (BURN) with the rages of a thousand firey suns when the guy with the farm in your backyard decides that it's time to "make hay" thereby leavng you "helpless" and "blind" until you get your "allergy relief" eyedrops (which also BURN, and BURN MORE the worse they were BURNING to begin with, but also make things better in the long run), well, it won't seem like I'm exaggerating.

Seriously, dog, I'm sure they're not all that tasty. Perhaps that's why there's only one puncture?



Didn't see it? Let me make things more blurry for you.



Got it now? Well, I've spent many a sleepless night (hello, crying puppy!) thinking about ways to use this eyedropper. After all, it's very important! Eyedropper full of magical elixer that hurts (SO MUCH, IT BURNS IT BURNS) and then taketh away my blindness. I see the light! Obviously, this fluid is not to be wasted. So I sit up at night (I LOVE MY PUPPY NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES HE HAS TO PEE) and try to dream up ways to use the drops.

My first instinct was to take an empty eyedropper of the same fluid and try to magically become coordinated enough to slightly squeeze the drops out of the full bottle while un-squeezing (gently) the empty bottle, hoping that it would suck up the drops that fell as they were being squeezed from the wounded full bottle. People, this is HARD. And here I thought I was good because I could rub my tummy and pat my head. That is NOTHING compared to perfectly timed squeezing and unsqueezing. Let me tell you.

I mime my process for your pleasure:

No, I wasn't drinking when I came up with this idea. Although it might
have been wise to claim drunkeness. I was drinking when I took the picture, though.

Then there came the fantastic idea of taking a plastic baggie (stop me if you've heard this one), poking a needle into one of the corners, and then squeezing the contents of the eyedropper into the un-poked corner of the bag, and then squeezing the air out of the empty bottle and putting the hole next to it as I un-squeezed the dropper. Yeah. I know. I'm glad I didn't try that one either.

I don't have any pictures, it was that bad of an idea.

And then tonight, I finally had the answer! Eureeka!



If it ain't broke...

June Bugs

Remember last week, when I was talking about the June bug? My all-time least favorite bug? The bug that got in my shoe in the dark one time and it was gross and I touched it and almost died? It's May, and no one told the June bugs in Missouri.

I was outside reading earlier, and there was a flock of June bugs. A flock, I say! At first there was only one, and then he had idiotically maneuvered himself onto his back (as June bugs are idiotically apt to do), and so that was fine. I was fine with the June bug lying in his semi-prone position, because I knew exactly where he was. And then there were two, and eventually they were both (idiotically) on their backs, and then it was fine then, too. But then three more came by, and they all had a June bug party, mocking me at every turn, flying just close enough to me to make me almost freak out, and then buzzing their disgusting fat bodies back to the light bulb. Speaking of which, what is it that makes bugs fly into the light like that? I like to think it's like that scene in A Bug's Life.

[two mosquitoes fly near a bug zapper; one flies towards it, as if in a trance]
Mosquito #1: Larry, no! Don't look at the light!
Mosquito #2: [entranced] I-can't-help-it. It's-so-beautiful.
[Larry gets zapped, falls]

Anyway, I thought it would be wise from now on to read (read: smoke) in the garage with the door open from now on, at least when the puppy is already asleep. But when I went out there a few minutes ago, the June bug party decided to join me there, too! At least in the garage, there is more space for them to buzz around, and you'd think that would mean they would harass me less. Not so! They harass me equally as much out there. I swear, I'm their entertainment. This one June bug, he flew perilously close to my head, and I smacked him with my book. I didn't mean to smack him hard, I just wanted to re-direct him, maybe make him think about where he was flying and whether using me for his entertainment was really worth it. Imagine my horror when I appeared to have wounded the disgusting bug, and it sat on the cement floor of the garage with one wing askew.

I cry fairly easily, but I'm able to (barely) hold it back when it's a June bug.

I watched it for a few minutes. I warned it that it better get it's act together and stop faking it if it didn't want to be put out of it's misery. I even tapped his wing back into place because I wasn't sure if it was just, I don't know, out of joint or something. I gave him more chances than most people would have given a June bug, but in the end, he was too far gone.

So I smooshed him with the spine of my book.