Pre-freak-out

This morning I woke up with a feeling of relative calm I haven't had lately. Then I thought oh yeah, I always do this. When there's a stressful upcoming event, I always seriously freak out ahead of time, so I can be unnaturally calm when the thing actually rolls around. I do it every time I get on a plane -- assuming I'm going to die, settling final scores and chores in advance of a flight.

So, things are relatively ok. Tomorrow may be a different story, when I get actual training on how to build and admin our actual site. I've taken a few peaks at the site and seen lots of bugs and typos that need to be corrected. I got the feeling I always used to get when receiving a print piece. It's a sense of fear and revulsion, of not wanting to find the errors set in permanent ink and also of being SICK of the project so it doesn't even look good any more.

That's why I like the web. But, when you get a huge chunk of a site and have limited time to tweak AND build another 800 pages, maybe you don't want to savor the moment.

Oh well. I just can't seem to get worked up about it today. Maybe it's the crushing heat, or the fact that I had a really delicious, soothing lunch of Thai green curry with a wonderful friend. My friend is kind of a mother figure, albeit one who curses a lot. She's a good one to have.

Well, the truth is I'm procrastinating. I should be writing documentation, but instead I spent half an hour talking to colleagues and student employees about little people and veganism vs. huge chunks of meat from a Brazilian steakhouse. The two topics (little people and meat) were not related, if you're wondering.

Solstice insomnia

One of my most common stress reactions is to sleep poorly or not at all. All that light and heat that come along with summertime just compound the issue, so I've been averaging 5 of my required 8 hours a night this week. Something about this time of year just makes my mind race when I should be sleeping. I could get new agey and talk about how summer is the time of highest energy for the body. Actually, I don't think it's all that far-fetched--again with all the light and heat. It just makes me all funny. (But not funny ha-ha.)

Well, the work week is almost over. I get a tiny mental break before all hell starts breaking loose next week. My plans to become a healthy-living machine haven't failed entirely, but I'd have to admit I've only been about 65% on that goal.

Probably the best thing about this week is that I got to hang out a good bit with my boss who I don't usually see that much (I'm unofficially split between two departments--it's complicated). He never fails to crack my shit up. It's a good thing when your employers are not lunatics.

Again, pleasing words

atoll
juxtapose

Sweating and phones

We had our first 95+ degree weekend, right on schedule. I'm still barely even processing that the students are gone for the summer, so it was a bit of a surprise that suddenly June is here. Bring it on, I say. The sooner this summer is over, the better.

In case I haven't mentioned, my summer plans consist of supervising nine students while they build about 800 pages of a web site, and then launching said web site in mid-August. This is the tail-end (and yet the most important part) of a process that started in the dark ages of November 2004.

So, that's my summer. In contrast to everyone else, I'm dreaming about the vacations I'll be taking this fall. Details are still being worked out, but they will be lengthy and take me far.

But back to the 95+ degrees. The funny thing is, when you're soaked to the bone with sweat, as long as you're not standing in direct sun you don't even feel hot. At least, I don't. That's the threshold I reached this weekend, and it felt like I had superpowers. Now all I need is some of those fuzzy wristbands to wipe off the rivers of sweat running down my nose. The human body truly is amazing.

In unrelated news, I bought a finally bought a black rotary-style phone (it has cleverly disguised push buttons) for the phone niche in my hallway. The best thing about it is that it's shiny. The other best thing is that it has an authentic bell ring instead of an anemic electrical chirp, which I somehow hadn't expected. I thought that was too much to ask for.

The final best thing about it is that it's really heavy and could be used as a weapon. My dad was disturbed when I suggested I could smash someone's head with it, but Jo confirmed that yes, this is what people do in movies. So it's not like I came up with that myself.

The return of pleasing words

bellwether

Call me morbid, call me pale

My ex-not-boyfriend has informed me by voice mail (because apparently he's too afraid or fragile to actually TALK to me. Go figure--and he's the one with the fun, new relationship) that he wants me to become a "good, whole person."

Which must lead me to the conclusion that currently I'm Half a Person. Or maybe just a bad person. The suggested solution was therapy so I can deal with the "pain of life" and be happy for him, as he would be happy for me if I found someone I wanted to be with.

I don't think I need to comment at length about the facile relativism of the last statement. Too easy a target.

But because I do at least try to consider criticism offered by friends, no matter the spirit of defensiveness with which it's offered, I thought maybe I should get a therapist. The thing is, I pretty much know my weaknesses and the ways I try to deceive myself. Maybe having a therapist would hold me a little more accountable, which would be a good thing. Because everyone lets themselves slide a bit. We're our own worst keepers.

The thing is, I believe the best way to deal with the "pain of life" is to feel it intensely in the moment--not to shy away or distract myself and put it off until later. Sometimes you just have to feel like total shit for a while--a day, a few weeks or months. Eventually the frequency of feeling like shit decreases.

And even when you feel completely lost and maybe like running away, you remind yourself that your center is nearby. It's just out of pocket for a bit, soon to return. Being a whole person means you can endure be destroyed for a little while.