When in doubt, follow the lead of Mimi Smartypants--she who can assemble odd, unrelated bits and deliver a blog casserole par excellence.

(I?m not promising any excellence here, dear readers, simply the odd, unrelated bits).

ANXIETY of the it?s not you it?s me variety

My sister came up for a visit over Labor Day weekend. (Have I already told you this *anxiety rising that I am a repeater-freak* -- let me go check the archives?okay, I?m back, no I haven?t already relayed this particular bit of navel lint).

So, one of my two older sisters is here and we have a conversation that goes like this:

SIS: How?re you doing? How?s the new job?

ME: Everything is great. So good. I just seem to have this one weensy little issue.

SIS: *listening*

ME: Yeah, I?m having these weird sensations of like agitation and feeling really edgy and kind of a little scared sort of like a prelude to depression, but it?s totally not depression, I know me some depression and this ain?t it. It?s, god, I don?t know how to describe it. I have trouble falling asleep. I have trouble concentrating. I just feel edgy and agitated and I can?t for the life of me figure out what?s going on. But it is not, repeat not, depression.

SIS: Sounds like anxiety.

ME: *dumbstruck* Huh. *rolling this idea across my mind*

SIS: Wake up, Beth. You just changed jobs. It?s all brand-new and probably overwhelming. This is pretty standard stuff.

ME: Anxiety! I have anxiety.

And you know the strangest part? Once I?d received my sister?s diagnosis, I started to feel better. It was a relief to give it a name and to understand it was almost a natural response to my current situation.

Still, how big an idiot do I feel for not being aware of this on my own? Big, like the heads on Mount Rushmore big.

I?m not sure why I have always been so clueless when it comes to things other people always seem to know. Really. As a teenager, I was the one who never got sex jokes. In corporate life I was always the one shocked (shocked, I say) to learn of the office affairs happening RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. And people would look at me like I was from another planet and say, ?how could you NOT know??

And all I can say is, my brain, she is not easily understood. I have absolutely no sense of geography and my time warps are legendary. If it weren?t so perjorative, I believe the proper term to describe my thought patterning is ?space cadette-esque.?

I?m thinking now, as I write this, that there is somehow a large gap (think Grand Canyon) between how I process what I read in books and how I live in the physical world. Maybe I am an alien! Hey?I?ve never thought of that before. That could be cool.

Do you know when I had my colossal breakdown as a 22 year old* it was yet another example of incomprehensible innocence, (er, once I regained some semblance of rational thought of course) in that I had NO IDEA about mental illness. Like I probably had some concept of its existence from reading books in the same way I was aware of gout, tuberculosis, goiters and kidney stones (obviously I was reading a lot of Swift, Tolstoy and Montaigne as a young thing), but I had no concept at all of what it means to lose your mind.

For the record, it sucks.

And, when you do get it back? It's like assembling a toy at Christmas, there seems to be a few parts missing.

So! Bit number one: anxiety, my new friend. But I knew going into the month of October that it was going to kick my ass and yesterday was the last big threshold of events and it went so beautifully I almost cried. (Is crying a sign of anxiety or relief?)

So, now I can breathe.

There are no artists scheduled for the entire month of November. I have a full month to get caught up on all the stuff I have pushed to the back burner plus now is the time I figure out the schedule of who we are going to bring in for the 2007-2008 season.

I?m feeling better.

A new puppy: good idea, or is my insanity of the clinical variety?

I had been having this desire to get another puppy now that I work from home. And, I actually have one I?m supposed to go and see next week. But I?m having all kinds of second thoughts. ANXIETY, she is fucking with me.

~ I think I am nuts to mix up our routine with our two dogs that runs so smoothly and so comfortably.
~ I think I am not capable of taking good care of a new puppy and I will fuck her up.
~ I am feeling guilty and kind of like the boy who cried wolf because I?ve been talking to this breeder since last Spring when I said I wanted a puppy and then backed out and now if I back out again he?s going to say, those women up north are PSYCHO but then making a decision based on some stranger?s response to me is not the reason to get or not get a new puppy.

One of the reasons I really wanted to get a puppy soon is that Henry loves to play. Loves to play. But Ollie will not play with him. Ollie is a loner who likes to chase chipmunks and figments of his imagination through the woods. So Henry often sits, forlornly (it seems to me) wishing for a playmate.

But, what if I?m wrong? What if Henry doesn?t want a puppy to play with and both dogs start acting weird with a third dog in the house?

Enough with the exhausting mind loops. On to socially acceptable topics.

WEATHER REPORT:

Yesterday was a most glorious blue sky sunshine incredible light kind of day. THANK THE HOLY ROLLERS as I had 650+ school children arriving by bus and the weather was my friend. Driving to work, the red brick buildings of campus glowed in the early morning light and I was filled with absolute pleasure and profound happiness that this is my new job.

Today is windy and wet. A so thickly gray day you can?t see the trees for the fog. Rain lashes at the windows. But, due to work related evening events last night (me in a little black dress that sparkled and fabulous shoes I bought last year in Paris), we got in very late?T got up first and told me to stay in bed. He let the dogs out. Built a fire in the woodstove. I lolled in the comfort of our flannel sheets and watched the miserable weather outside the window. And I was filled with absolute pleasure and profound happiness that this is my life.

*Have I not mentioned this? Surely I have. Six weeks on the psych ward. Four of those in intensive care. And still I graduated from college that Spring which will stand as the greatest achievement of my life. Nothing, nothing, not winning a Nobel Prize, nothing will ever possibly touch my pride in the fact that I was able to climb out of hell long enough to read three books by Margaret Mead and write two five-page papers while loaded on tranquilizers that would kill an elephant and finish my fucking degree.

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