Peachy Fuzz

I am super fuzzy out of it today. I am not in pain or anything, and I've had an extremely productive morning all things considered, but I am a total space cadet. I actually finished my crystal chandelier and did absolutely everything I physically possibly could without a second, taller person around and/or a ladder to install it in my hallway. Then I took apart the chandelier destined for my dining room as much as I could, but I can't get into the center where all the wiring comes together. I think I'm not strong enough and it's just too old and rusty crusty from spending 50+ years untouched, but I got all the other pieces apart and took pictures at every step so I won't have problems remembering how it goes back together. Then I went looking for the sockets I bought, thinking I'd at least make the sockets and the socket covers the same size and get that done, but as I looked through my container of hardware stuff my brain fizzed and bubbled as it tried to make sense of the mass of objects. Sometimes, I can very quickly glance at a group of things and then look away and tell you how many there were, what colors they were, things like that; this was the exact opposite. I stared and stared and instead of "wrench" and "socket" and "hammer" I saw mushmushmushmushmush. So no driving for me today. I'd planned on going to sell some lamps, but Man plans and God laughs. I need to find another micro-concentration project. That's what I'm good at today. Small tasks with one thing at a time. I could polish a huge box of silver if I had such a thing. Maybe I can take more photographs or make more envelopes. That feels useful and takes the right kind of functioning.

It's hard for me to express my fuzzies in writing. Writing seems to be one of those micro tasks that I can do amidst the fuzz. I will space out for who knows how long in the middle of a sentence, but that doesn't come across if I'm able to pick up the sentence and you read it all at once later without the five minute lost-inside-my-head-following-some-random-train-of-thought pause.

I fear the crazy in me.

Ok, I may be going to The Mall and Target with Aural Girl. Get me out of the house, and with a baby sitter so I don't walk into walls. I need Draino and a few other things, so this is good. Last night I finally got her and Possible Boy to watch Dr. Horrible. I'm not sure how much they actually liked it, but I probably over-hyped it and then we had to watch it on my tiny little computer and Possible Boy and I were both in odd (not bad, but odd) moods and I ate half the olives my parents left after Sunday's dinner.

Speaking of olives, I need to eat again.

Biofeedback, Blerg, and Boys

This morning began with my second session of biofeedback. Biofeedback is friggin' cool. I go to St. Joseph's Hospital, where valet parking costs the same as regular parking for patients ($4) and everybody is nice, and the Diamond Headache Clinic has an outpost on the 9th floor.
[my computer sounds like it's sizzling. that can't be good. dog hair in the fan?]
For biofeedback, they hook up various muscles in my head and neck to a monitor that shows how tight or relaxed they are, and my finger up to a thermometer. I've already mastered making my hand temperature rise just by thinking about it within minutes, which is pretty friggin' cool. Plus, it feels like some of the internal glurping stuff I used to describe during acupuncture, but now there's machines hooked up that show a difference in my body. Today's muscles were in my temples and jaw. I thought jaw would be the big clenched culprit, but I figured out how to relax it pretty quickly. Temples not so much, so we're working on that again next week.

I left in a hypnotic fuzz, but I needed to stop at Target. I didn't get a rolly cart, just a hand basket, thinking I was only picking up a few things and none of them were heavy. Except milk, and I'd get that last. I wanted more Epsom salts for my own baths, but they only had a huge container. Then I realized this particular Target had full grocery so I had to get a bazillion other heavy things and waddle like a dork to the cash register, weighed down by my gazillion pound basket. When I got home, I realized I'd made it there without the bag that contained one of the major items for which I went to Target in the first place.

Then I broke one of the bobeche of my chandelier just as I finally got everything I needed to finish fixing it up and actually figured out how to fix it with all the wiring and everything (nevermind attaching it to the ceiling, but getting its own sockets and lightbulbs all wired and happy, I'm set).

Dog joined me for Target Run 2 followed by Epic Naps 1 and 2 since I just couldn't stay awake. Lame. Extra lame because...

Neighbor Guy called me yesterday to say that Possible Boy was talking about me again and hoping I wasn't jealous of the other girl and saying how pretty I looked and blah blah blah and that Possible Boy was probably going to call me, but then I was ouchy-dead and not really able to talk to Neighbor Guy and the thing about Neighbor Guy is that you never know if what he's saying happened in reality or in his head. I'm a little worried he's (non-consciously) trying to pull me into his Pining for Possible Boy Club. But I also refuse to contribute to Neighbor Guy as messenger for the torrid love triangle (SO TORRID) for both the sake of Neighbor Guy's emotions and the sake of the message. I explained to Birdie, Neighbor Guy is like a little kid-you tell him something, and he might relate back what you said, but he also might warp it so it means something completely different or just talk about firetrucks. So I really wanted to call him back today with my wits about me. No such luck. And tomorrow is the Museum of Science and Industry's Members' Night and I want to go and if Possible Boy had called me I would have invited him but he didn't and I don't want to do all the pursuing since I already get a sense he's a boy who likes being pursued and I don't want to be a pursuant for the sake of pursuit and I already called him once. So if I can stay awake tomorrow, we'll see what the day brings.

I still haven't contacted Another Boy. What are the formulas? How long am I "supposed to" wait? Do I have to rent Swingers again?

This part of the boy game is hard. I'm much better at melodrama and fooling around.

fat cat

I went shopping yesterday with my mom and got black pants from the Banana Republic outlet that make my butt look really good and a cute dress from BCBGMaxAzria. I need to get back to the gym. Lots of time trying things on in mirrors made me feel fat. Not that I'm actually fat fat, but I've acquired a belly and it needs to go away. My 54-year-old mother has a better body than I do.

onward and upward

Thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes via phone, email, text message, Facebook message, and any other method I'm forgetting. It was a very pleasant birthday. Fizzled out a little early, but splendid while I was being social. My cousin, cousin-in-law, NBF and I went to a late lunch at Bittersweet, which was amazingly not crowded for Mother's Day afternoon, ate wonderful things, wandered over to Uncle Fun, drove to the lakefront where we tried to fly kites but there was no wind so we played frisbee catch instead and shmoozed for a long time. Then my cousinses had to go (who the hell has work meetings on Sunday nights?) and I went to NBF's to watch the long awaited last disk in Samurai 7, a strange but surprisingly good Anime series based on Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Then I came home and futzed on the computer for hours on end and now I have some random music in my head that I'm trying to get down on paper but I don't have a keyboard or perfect pitch and it's hard to plunk it out on the violin, especially when it's a two part harmony thing.

Tomorrow, I go to the premium outlet mall with my mom to try to return the skirt that doesn't look great on me.

Lots of words without saying anything

I feel like whining. My body still hurts from yesterday's fall. The bruising on my knees is surprisingly minimal, but I seem to have pulled something in my back and my right arm and hand are distractingly sore.

Today I went laptop bag shopping with my mom and sister. I actually got them to come out to me, since I thought we'd have more luck at one of the many cute stores in my general area than we would out in the 'burbs. We went to over a dozen different places and saw many fabulous bags, but my stupid computer is too big. I was running around with a measuring tape and a sinking heart. I love my computer. That is why I want to bring her with me to school and around in general to do my writing. But with the wide screen, there is nothing that will accommodate her. In the end, I thought I found something that would be big enough, and it certainly was long enough, but I wasn't even thinking about the width. I'm going to try to return it tomorrow (assuming I get up before I have to leave for my improv class) and actually bring my computer with me this time and shove it in bags to see. Maybe I should just go online, but I like to try bags on because I am a small person and sometimes they look silly on me. My sister suggested I use the school's computers and just carry around a flash drive, but I tend to like to write in my own random found spaces and I write significantly faster (and frequently better) on a computer than I do by hand. It's kind of like my musical instrument or piece of sports equipment. Yes! It is my tennis racket and it needs a case. I am not going to leave my racket at home and use the ones at the club.

I'm making headway on my alcoholism. I've been keeping my fridge stocked with quality beer and drinking about one a night at home alone. Right now I'm enjoying The Poet oatmeal stout. If I am lucky, the alcohol content will be enough to counteract my deep dark nap I took around 7 PM. Not the smartest move on my part. Sunday I have to be at work by 8 AM. Giant piece of poop. I can't be on this weird schedule of half-sleeping through the night then crashing late evening. And then school on Monday. What are the odds I actually make it to all of my classes this time? I've been very good with my improv classes, so I'm hoping that will carry over. No more hiding in my room and refusing to shower or leave. That is not one of the seven habits of highly effective people; it is one of the habits of useless depressed people. I want to be effective, not useless.

I Georged one of the steaks from my freezer tonight. It sucked. I need to figure out the practicalities of snacking and shopping for Healthy Annabell, now that I am trying to be healthy. You know, aside from that whole alcoholism thing.

May I please go to sleep now?

some stress, some shopping

I'm in fight or flight mode. Some mixture of adrenaline and fear. Between finding out today if my friend has Cancer and spending last night figuring out that I may very well have more than two years of full-time school ahead of me, it's warranted. But no panicking. At this point, I really don't think it's cancer (does this mean I'm not emotionally prepared if it is?), and I may end up loving school once it's within my interests/life-passions/etc. And they have a science class that involves the aquarium as its lab component. I'm so taking that as soon as I can. It's the history requirements I'm dreading. That's the kind of class I hate most. Hopefully they will be significantly easy enough that I don't have to feel like I'm wasting too much of my time and energy because that makes me really cranky and shut down. But as for this semester, I kind of want to take one class in general fiction, one in playwriting, one in creative non-fiction, and one in journalism. It seems like a lot in the same vein, but if I end up going the magazine journalism path instead of the creative non-fiction path, I need to know that and start it ASAP as it's a program with a shit-ton of requirements I wouldn't otherwise take. They're useful classes for life (copy editing, trade magazine article writing, a grammar class), but if I'm being a more self-indulgent creative non-fiction person, I'm not likely to choose them. Thank goodness I'm being oriented next week so I don't have that long to stress over such decisions.

Yesterday was an extremely successful shopping day with my sister. I got: two sweaters, a pair of undies, a pair of brown boots I can wear with skirts (finally!), and a new grown-up winter coat. Today I will see how many of these things I can wear at once. Maybe not the two sweaters, but everything else is a maybe. Yee-haw.