First of all, for any and all of the rest of you who are running into a spate of things going, well, not well - I am here to tell you that flipping Mercury is in retrograde. It happens three times a year and can wreak havoc on all sorts of things. It is, at any rate, that which will take the blame for the last few days.
Next week is my dreaded annual stress test. It is a test that I do not want to fail 'cause the last time I failed, I was not all that thrilled about spending Christmas Eve day receiving three more stents from Santa. (No biggie though - checked in at 8:30am out at 1:30pm. Went out to dinner that night but still... Christmas Eve).
None of us can control that which stresses us or when and how many of these things will happen simultaneously - that part is just called Life. The trick is trying to figure out ways to mitigate the effects, if at all possible, before it ends in tears.
The stress test is, of course, aptly named and not helping my current situation. I will also say that doctors make me so anxious that my blood pressure goes through the roof. My other doctor had a vaguely alarmed look on his face a couple of months ago, after they'd checked it three times. I am aware that it is not really practical for medical personnel to try to sneak up on patients in their natural habitat in order to get a more typical reading so I took my own for a few days, sent it off to the doc and got the A-OK.
I have been doing my best to try to chill a bit more, let things go, understand that I do not have to say yes to every bloody thing - especially when there is a lady in my head screaming "Nooooo!". You know, we all do what we can. In the past six days I have been rewarded with:
- A panic attack
- A cell phone that seemed to be auditioning for a Stephen King movie.
- A bee sting
- My car deciding to die in the Used-to-be-Buttrey's car park earlier today.
Now - the good news: the feeling that a truck is being parked on my chest is no longer part of the panic attack - making me hopeful that my heart is working just fine, thanks. Also, a handful of valium helped me knocked that mother out in two hours instead of 12. Piece of cake.
I now have a new phone that looks as though it will work when it is supposed to. In the interest of full disclosure, my old one had gotten a little wet but I dried all the bits off immediately and it seemed to eventually do everything that it used to for a while but then the seizures began and it had to be put down. This new one has a much better keyboard for texting anyway.
Owing to my extensive collection of ice packs, my earlobe, though still swollen, no longer resembles that of Joseph Merrick. Hadn't been stung in years and just prayed for no big allergic reaction - mostly because one of my few allergies is to the stuff that people take for allergies: Benadryl. That's just how I roll.
As for my car - yeah, got nothing on the upside of that yet.
And so, onward and sideways:
Pump Up The Jam
Pump Up Your Kicks
Pump Up The Valium
Just as many of my body parts seem to be aging at a more rapid pace than seems necessary (I mean, Jesus just wept, Keith Richards and Ginger Baker still walk this earth and yet I am the one with six stents in my heart? Compared to them I treated my body like a temple. OK, maybe a hookah bar but whatevs), it is my fondest hope that my maturity level (or lack thereof) will somehow, in an act of inverse functionality, one day even things out.
Perhaps my arrested development stems from the fact that I grew up the eldest child in a dysfunctional family of functional alcoholics (but a lot of us did - that was our parents' drug - our generation was so much more creative) and was deemed the voice of reason at about the age of 12 or so. By the time I had reached my majority I realised that responsibility, in any sort of responsible way, was probably not what I wanted to do when I grew up. House plants required rather more care than I was willing to put up with so I knew early on that pets and/or children were better left to people who would remember to feed and water them. Just as an aside, the upside to charming alcoholic parents is that I learned to make the perfect martini at four. Now, that's a skill that will serve one well the rest of one's life.
I grew up wearing a uniform through 13 years of school and over the ensuing years and owing to a complete disinterest in and disregard for fashion, I have developed a uniform of sorts that works for me but that my housemate, John, calls "14 year old boy at Prep School". Long khaki cargo shorts (oh, but in the rainbow of colours that fall under the khaki umbrella: sand, pebble, putty, beige - well, no need to bore but I have also added a pair of light gray cargos of which I am quite fond), a polo and/or button down shirt and sneakers. I don't own winter clothes and summer clothes - I just have clothes. In the winter, I simply wear more of them simultaneously and add a sweater and denim jacket. Voilà! One can tell when I am "dressed up" because I switch out the Stan Smiths or Sauconys for topsiders, clogs or my beloved Blundstone boots. Also, I am usually wearing one of my least frayed, faded and safety-pinned shirts.
I discovered over 30 years ago, that for me, music is a great tool in pain management. While I held out getting one until a couple of years ago, I now think the iPod is fucking magic. As a consequence of having hundreds of songs at my constant disposal, I now dance in the grocery store aisles (not the major aisles - the smaller side ones). Why not? I'm actually light on my feet (which along with "jolly" came in the original fat girl package. All other attributes have been purchased separately.) and have great rhythm. The singing is probably mildly irritating so I have to watch out for that.
A few weeks ago, in the middle of a crazy day, I needed to eat something so I zoomed by the house, grabbed and nuked a turkey hot dog and then proceeded to eat it over the sink. As all well-bred Convent girls were brought up to do. It made me think that I was glad we had cremated mummy because of all of the spinning that would've been going on in that grave. Probably enough to change the gravitational pull of the earth. I'm pretty sure. Seriously.
I find that sticking my fingers in my ears, closing my eyes and singing "la, la, la" either literally or figuratively (and you'd be shocked at how often it is literally) is a perfectly acceptable way to deal with things with which I do not wish to deal.
I spent this afternoon swimming with two of my bffs who happen to be three and a half and one and a half. How can you not want to hang with small people who scream your name and then fly into your arms? And why do we, for the most part, stop greeting the people we love in that very same fashion?
I do, in fact, utter "D'oh!" when necessary (or not using many of the other swear words I have perfected over a lifetime).
On the rare occasions anymore that I have cake or pie - I cannot stop myself, I must say, "Mmm...pie" or "Mmm...cake"
I'm pretty sure Homer Simpson is my Reiki Master.
