one of those quick updates

1. If you feel you need this, I apologize for the last post, the rambling, whiny nature of it, the endless blahblahblah.
2. If you feel you needed number 1, perhaps you are not really one of my dear readers.
3. I almost entitled this post, "Will blog for sympathy".
4. But I didn't. Because I don't.
5. I am delighted that this month is nearly ended and I will chalk it up to another one of those slippery spots, rough patches, necessary evils, as well as one of those delightful, event-filled, monumentally lovely Junes.

my beautiful mind

sometimes i am shocked at how messed up my mind is. i wonder how many more days, months, years will pass before it will stop playing tricks on me. i wonder if it's taken fifty years to get to this state of mind, will it take fifty more to get it straightened out?

what, you may be thinking, is she talking about now? it's my old buddy, my lifelong companion, that friend i don't recognize even when it slaps me in the face--anxiety. i suppose a more acceptable name is stress, but it's more than that. and in the last few years, it has become, at times, overwhelming, while my inability to talk about it has stayed as a constant, which, if i were a math whiz, would look something like this formula:

anxiety x 50 years = some really weird stuff going on

for example. i think i've mentioned in previous posts my propensity to count. no? okay, well, for as long as i can remember, i've been a counter. i count my steps, count seconds while waiting for time to pass, but i'm not usually consciously counting. the counting is simply going on in my mind while other thoughts come and go and life goes on. however, during times of high anxiety, the counting is replaced by other weirdness. for example. certain anxieties are apparently best dealt with by a heightened awareness of vertical lines all around me--telephone poles, street signs, fence posts, siding on buildings, and on and on. another example. my response to certain other anxieties is an increase in my awareness of church steeples and a compulsion that demands that i count those steeples. did you know there are at least 74 steeples on the east side of I-15 from payson north to the salt lake county line? and another example. sometimes, the only color of car i can see, are the white cars. did you ever notice how many cars are white and how many of them can be in a group at an intersection before you finally see a blue or green or red car? and if you include the off-white or silver cars, it can be overwhelming.

yeh, weird. i know. even though i know it's weird, it still happens during certain anxious times.

but even weirder is the effect that anxiety can have on me physically. four years ago, during a particularly stressful time, i experienced severe pain in my left side, both in my back and around to the front, and was diagnosed with shingles, although the required rash that is the confirmation of a diagnoses of shingles never appeared and the pain lasted for months. and then two years ago, after my stay at uni (which, duh, was another extremely stressful period of time), i felt severe pain in my right side and was diagnosed with kidney stones. i never passed any noticeable kidney stones, endured countless tests, and eventually the pain subsided.

this past week, the pain returned to my left side. it was every bit as intense as it had been during the 'shingles' and the 'kidney stones', and the combination of the pain and the realization that it would last for three months, led me to the emergency room in tears this morning. the er doc and nurse were incredibly sensitive and showed great empathy. because it was an emergency room and because i had just completed a cross-country flight, which could have caused blood clots to form in my legs that could have broken free and traveled to my lungs, the doc ordered a scan, which was, of course, negative for clots. after i explained that the shingles, kidney stones and blood clots all felt the same and did not respond in the normal way to the treatments and tests, i asked the doc if anxiety could be the cause of the pain. could my mind be so pained and my normal method of behavior so unwilling to deal with the anxieties that the best my mind could do was to order my brain to tell my body to hurt? the doc indicated that the mind is a powerful thing and agreed with my theory. then he ordered pain medication to help with the intense pain, an anti-inflammatory to help with the pain in my ribs, and my anti-anxiety medication as needed until my next appointment with my therapist.

if i were a cursing woman or at least a woman who curses in print, i would definitely be asking wtf? how messed up can this get? on the bright side, this bit of insanity only happens during certain anxiety-producing situations. and until this week's physical pain, the anxiety seemed to be diminishing. but holy cow, how looney must i be to have a mind that creates physical pain to represent emotional pain? how pathetic. however, if i can learn to deal with the counting and vertical lines and steeples and white cars anxieties, how hard could it be to deal with this pain in the side crap? seriously.

lest anyone reading this post think that anyone but me is somehow responsible for this madness, please, lose that thought immediately. this crazy is mine. all mine. don't even try to take it from me or i will never be able to work it out.

one last thing. let me say that i am so glad for this forum where i can write, and in writing, heal.

your opinion, please

if merriam-webster wants me to read the the economist so much that every time, every day, when i open the word games link, i receive a popup offering me a great deal, don't you think i should definitely click yes?

two, make that three bits of interest perhaps

Jack and I are in DC this week. Well, actually we're staying across the river from DC. But let me just say that the weather is lovely, the class I'm attending is informative and interesting (not lively, but hey, it's a contracts class), and Jack and I have had a delightful time together.

When I realized (on the way to the airport) that I'd left my makeup bag at home, I thought about telling Jack we needed to turn around and go get it, but instead told him I'd just buy new makeup when we got here. But then, after we got here, I decided that since I was never going to see my classmates again, I'd wear just the new hot coral shade of lipstick I purchased recently (and my clothes of course) and call it good. No one has looked terrified or concerned so far, and I think I like wearing grownup girl lipstick. Especially with my cool shades. I may try this at home.

Also, on the school front, I think I've figured out my humanities class journal assignments. So far, I've received scores of 15 out of 15, followed by 13.5, 12.5, and just today (prepare for fanfare) another 15! Probably doesn't sound all that tremendous to you dear readers, but believe me, I've been putting my whole self into these little bits of writing, and noticed a disconcerting trend by entry number three. So, I looked back on all of the comments from my teacher, both on my entries and in her emails to the whole online class, and apparently, I've got it? (That's it? She wants us to question everything? So I am? Are you? Can you? I love question marks?)

that nightmare

Did you ever have that nightmare where you are in a hole and you keep trying to climb out but you're really digging the hole deeper and deeper and the more you try to climb out the deeper you dig yourself in?

And then you realize that you're not dreaming at all, you're wide awake?

i'm telling you, chivalry is not dead

Tonight Jack and I stopped at the Costco to pick up a few things--lettuce and enough toothpaste, soap, and tissue paper to last for a year (or so we like to think), and a couple of loaves of the best eight-grain bread I've ever tasted (Innkeeper's bed and breakfast 8-grain, in case you'd like to try some and need to go to Costco and can't stop in at the gardens for some tea and yummy bread with me).

On the way out, I noticed those big posters that entice shoppers to come eat a hotdog or a jumbo slice of pizza or a frozen nonfat yogurt in a cup...and I was hungry, and after all, it is nonfat yogurt and chocolate, right? So we bought one to share.

Of course, it was pouring down rain as we walked out of Costco. And well, I'm just not one to carry an umbrella. First, because I kind of like feeling the rain on me, and second, because I can't keep an umbrella with Jr around. He has always loved umbrellas.

As we walked to the truck, me trying to cover the yogurt with my hand so it didn't get rain in it and Jack pushing the cart, a man came toward us, staying dry under his umbrella. He looked at me and my hand and my cup of frozen yogurt and then stopped beside me and started walking with me to our truck, with the umbrella over my head and my yogurt, saying that he simply couldn't stand to see me get rain in my ice cream.

Such a small thing but such a thoughtful gesture.

It takes so little effort to be kind, you know?

more from mr. webster

I meant to post this the other day, but thinking about it now, it seems somehow more appropriate to post today:

kibitzer • \KIB-it-ser\ • noun : one who looks on and often offers unwanted advice or comment; broadly : one who offers opinions

data you may need

I think you may need the following updates and bits of this and that. Or, at least, I'm going to share with you.

1. Hockey is in the final round of the playoffs--aka, The Stanley Cup. Detroit Red Wings (the team that beat Khabibulan's team) vs. Pittsburgh Penguins. Presently Detroit is leading the series 3-2, so Tuesday night's game could end it for this season. Which is why we all have to root for the Penguins--so we'll get more hockey. Right, eh?

2. Jr and Brandie have called off the wedding. Quite simply, they decided they are not a good couple but they are best friends, so if you have to choose one, the best friends option is good. But can I just say that I think they would have made adorable grandbabies?

3. JoJo has become addicted to playing fetch. Well, not really fetch. More like keep away. Only she doesn't like to be the keepee, she likes to be the keeper. Check out the intense focus. I think I snapped this photo just before she made the ball rise up to meet her open, drooling mouth.

Isn't she beautiful?

4. I have finished my Astronomy [read: PHYSICS] class. All but the last two tests and submitting my last eight assignments online. However, the school removed the class from the online classes site on the last official day of class, even though the professor gave us until Tuesday to submit work. His email to the class said he was on it. And you may all tell me good job for getting through the last three weeks of class and for the A I should receive. And by the way, it was really an interesting class. I learned a lot of stuff I didn't know before and I realized that I learn visually, which is a valuable thing to know, it appears. (get it? visually, it appears?) My professor was close to my age and wore all black and had dyed black hair and black fingernails and was a very good and entertaining teacher.

5. Last weekend, for the first time at this house, and for the first time in over ten years, I planted vegetables. Not a lot--three tomatoes, two squashes, and two pumpkins--and I don't know if they will get enough sunshine to actually produce any produce--what do you think?

til the cows come home

i see them in the spring--
a bit slower than their usual plodding pace
and then, when it can't possibly be warm enough,
i see them, birthing, red, squishy, steam rising off little calves.

after the first few hours of much licking and nuzzling and hesitant steps
they begin to feel more sure on their feet and before too many days
they are frolicking, running, kicking up their heels like kindergartners.

when next i see them they have become teenagers, some still entranced
with the newness of life, but mostly they huddle, hang around each other but not one
too far from its mother's side in case it needs her warmth or milk.

always though, i see them headed together in the same direction, and i wonder
is it time now? are they coming home?