Fighting Demons

I somehow stumbled upon this book, I’m not even sure how or where I found it, to be honest. I sometimes will hear about a book, or see a description somewhere or someone mentions some book on a message board some place and I’ll order it, where it will sit amongst the piles of books sitting in queue around my house. And then, based upon my mood, I eventually get around to reading it, usually by then having long forgotten how the book came to be in my possession in the first place.

Anyway, I picked this book out of the pile a few days ago and I have to say that it immediately spoke to me (as many books do) but deeply, on an actual physical and psychological level, much as this book spoke to me on a spiritual level. You see, this story could easily have been a chronicle of my own life, or at least part of it anyway. Maybe not exactly or literally, and certainly I have not reached the levels of resolution (nor do I have the talents or the incredible insights and understanding) that the author has. Not yet at least, but her journey deeply moved me, it hit home for me on an intense gut level that I find hard to even describe. Even now, here late, late on a “school night” I find myself awake and weeping with the raw feelings that these writings have exposed in me. Awake with thoughts and ideas and frustrations and hopes and hurts and self-loathing as well as an anguish for the person I should have been and hope for the person that I could be, with my mind spinning with the regrets of lost opportunities, and feelings of worthlessness, unworthiness, uselessness and, yes, even the anger of the past & present and hopes for what could be in the future. Maybe.

You can say that people over-eat, or drink or take drugs or gamble or compulsively spend or whatever because of unhappiness or bad childhoods or abuse, but I think the reasons are far more complicated and myriad than those stale explanations. Unhappiness is just a trite and easy answer, a label or category that people want to slap on to explain something they really don’t understand. This chronicle is not all happy endings and pat answers and resolutions but a window into the deep and complex feelings of a person who went through the lows & highs of trying to conquer her demons.

Driving Me CRAZY!

My ears are ringing and it won't stop and I'm about to go. Stark. Raving. MAD! GAH!

I'm just saying ...

'Tis the time of year

for trying to fend off opportunistic viruses. Ugh. I've been feeling something coming on all week, I don't really feel horrible, but I've had this sore throat, general achiness, head achy and with an overwhelming fatigue and just this sense of a bug trying to take hold. I worked from home yesterday with the hope that I could head it off, but no such luck. I just hate this feeling, it's so hard to keep a clear head and concentrate on anything when all I want to do is just lay down for a while. And I suspect I'm not the only one around the office who feels this way. I've been hearing a lot of hacking and sneezing coming from neighboring cubicles.

Déjà vu

Wow. I heard a car alarm today in a parking lot for about three seconds and I suddenly realized that I hadn't heard one in a very long time. I very quickly had a flashback to living in NYC and being held hostage by that kind of noise pretty much on a constant basis. It's amazing how much lower my levels of stress and anxiety are these days. The funny thing is, I don't even think I realized how stressed and anxious I was all the time back then. But the constrast to how I feel now is astounding. And it's not just the way I feel either. The last time I had my blood pressure checked, it was on the low-end of normal. Back in NYC it was approaching "high". It's amazing what stress can do to you.

Sunday Night Dread

Used to be, with my job at Old Company, the dread for the coming Monday morning would always start setting in sometime around late afternoon on Sunday and just continue to grow throughout the night. Of course, Monday was never as bad as anticipated, but I think it was just this general dissatisfaction with my job that colored this feeling. I didn’t hate my job, not really, in fact I quite often rather liked it. But there came a time when things in my old group became political, there were some morale issues and along with some micro-managing that all coalesced to create a strong feeling for me of unease for any coming work week.

Well, it’s been so long since I’ve felt the Sunday Night Dreads that I was rather taken unaware by that old feeling today. But feel it I did, but for a different reason this time. It is nothing to do with my job in particular, but with the fact that I have to drive to Boston tomorrow morning for a two-day class. I’ve become so spoiled by my 12-minute commute here that the thought of a significant commute fills me with an almost horror. I occasionally have to drive down to Boston for a meeting or something, but I can generally avoid the major traffic hours on those occasions, so it’s usually not a big deal. But this is going to be a major pain in the ASS. I’m just saying (and venting).

Anyway, I sure am happy that the Sunday Night Dreads are history for me. For the most part.

On a note related to the subject of Old Company: I received a SPAM email from a former colleague the other day. I was a little shocked. It said something like, “Good News from < insert former colleague’s name > “ and then the body of the email went on to describe some great pre-paid legal BS that I could buy. I opened the email excited to hear some news from my former colleague, who left the company last Summer to (supposedly) get involved in real estate, only to be SPAMED. I was a little shocked, to say the least. I wonder if that real estate isn’t working out after all.

Home Improvement Fantasies

Lately I've been watching a lot of HGTV and I'm finding that, between all the home improvement TV and the work I'm currently having done in the hallways in my house (old, horrible-mustard-colored-textured-walls scraped down, new beautiful creamy-beigey paint going up, with crisp white trim) that I am becoming completely obsessed about things I want to do with here. Bathrooms to be renovated (and of course I keep changing my mind about what I want there), kitchen cabinets to be updated, new carpeting, new tile, doors and windows to be replaced, colors to be painted in this room or that, furniture to be bought, the list goes on & on and I just can't stop thinking about it all, I'm even dreaming about it now. And I have a very small, simple house! I can't even imagine how I would feel about this if I had a big and/or charming house with tons of potential. The mind boggles. I will say one thing though, I truly can see why people are so tempted to take out equity loans and Helocs and whatnot. Very tempting as I sit here trying to cash flow the bit of work that I'm having done. Must. Resist. Urge.

Of course, I'm also watching a lot of House Hunters as well, which makes the temptation to start real estate shopping also very tempting ... Someone, please save me from myself!

What?

I'm relaxing. So sue me.

Extreme Pug Close-Up

Things I Love

A Friday night, snow falling fast & furiously outside, fire going inside, dogs all cuddled up and piled on top of me. Nowhere I have to be for a couple of days, fridge is stocked, movies are queued ... ahhhhhh, life is good.

Lunar Eclipse

I was able to stand out on my deck at around 10 PM last night and witness the lunar eclipse. It was pretty amazing! I stood there in the dark (once that I determined that the view would be more effective if I turned off my outdoor lights) with my mouth agape just staring off into space for about 15 minutes. It was a crystal clear night too with all the constellations in attendance. Of course the dogs were a little weirded out by the silence and the dark and had to make some of their own noise as accompaniment.

That sure is something that you don't see everyday, I'm glad that I got the chance to.

All Apologies

So, I had a tech guy at my desk today to fix something on my computer and he was making fun of me for having a picture of a Pug (Fitz) as my wallpaper by saying, "nice kitty". So I start to talk about how I used to live in NYC and didn't want to have a big dog in a small apartment, blah blah blah. And then I stopped myself. I mean, WTF? Here I am defending my decision to own a certain kind of dog to some total stranger ASS (who was wearing far too much stinky cologne, by the way). Why do I feel the need to do that (about everything), why? And it's not just about the dog, I am forever apologizing about myself to people. I've got to stop that shit.

Tig the Obedience Star

Tonight was Tig's last night of his "basic" obedience course. He got a graduation certificate and everything! Anyway, from the start of the class he was a total star, completely enthusiastic and over the moon with happiness to be there each week. And he always seemed to have a lot of admirers. Kids who always seemed to want to touch him, other participants who complimented him. He even seemed to be a favorite of the instructor. I've signed him up for the next level of class, but that doesn't start until the end of April, so I spoke to the instructor after class about what I can be doing with him in the meantime and she suggested that we can perhaps sign up for some private lessons with her in the interim, which I think we'll do. Tig just loves going there so much and seems to get so much out of it and I actually enjoy it too. I've also signed Fitz up for the class that Tig just completed. So it looks like I'm going to pretty busy with dog stuff for the foreseeable future.

Things I Love

Trader Joe's. How many different ways do I love this store? I can't even count them. From the wonderful produce, to all the fancy cheeses, to the many and various prepared meals and other items, and all the ethnic selections and flash-frozen fish! It's a complete delight at every section. I went to my "local" Traders this morning and had to wonder to myself why I don't shop at this place more often, it's just such a wonderful store. Of course it's probably not the best idea to go there when you're hungry as I was, but I now have a fridge completely stocked with plenty of goodies. Too bad there isn't a blizzard in the forecast.

That Wacky Pug

So the other night I was sleeping and I woke up at some point and couldn’t find Fitz. He had somehow completely disappeared. Sometimes he gets under the covers and may migrate more towards the foot of the bed, but he’ll usually pop his head out from under the covers if I call him. But, nope there was no response, he was no where to be found. But, oddly, I could feel him moving around. Delirious with sleep, I finally turned the light on, got out of bed and started digging through the covers trying to find him. It turns out that a snap or two of the duvet cover had come undone at the bottom and he had somehow managed to crawl inside of that opening and gotten himself disoriented and lost inside of the comforter bag. I think he heard me calling him, but couldn’t find his way out and ended up stuck and trapped in a corner. When I figured out what was happening, I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t even help him at first. But finally I unsnapped a few more of the buttons and reached in and was able to drag him out and rescue him. That silly, silly boy. Of course you have to also realize that this all happened at around 3:30 AM. 3:30 – 5:30 AM seems to be prime dog drama time, after all.

Things that Crack Me Up

There is this auto-parts store that I pass sometimes, I think it's a chain or something. Anyway, what makes me laugh is that they have these little white cars that I keep seeing on the road, all over the place, I'm forever passing them everywhere. So they have these little, white cars and each car has this little hat propped up on the roof (a hat!), and it just completely cracks me up every time I see one. I also have to wonder, what about this after-market auto-parts business necessitates the need for these weird little cars (with hats!) to be out and about everywhere? Like there is an auto-parts emergency somewhere and some guy has to jump into his tiny car and speed some parts out to the customer. Weird. But, funny.

Sleep is Good

Do you ever have those days where you feel just absolutely exhausted, and for no good reason? You haven’t been working out hard, you haven’t had a bout of lousy sleep. Work hasn’t been overwhelmingly aggravating or worrisome. You’re just bone tired, just because. That was the way I felt yesterday. Just exhausted and spacey all day long and feeling generally horrible. I came home and felt like a zombie, I didn’t even boot up the computer, never even took it out of my computer bag – that NEVER happens! Finally, I just went to bed early (9:00!)

Of course, the problem with going to bed early is that I tend to wake up a few times during the night and last night was no exception. And last night was of course also the night that a couple of the dogs decided to have a puke fest. Tig at 4:30 AM (what is it about 4:30 AM and dogs puking? I swear that is the Puking Hour) and then Fitz at 5:30 AM. Ugh. So between all that, waking up suddenly at 1:30 AM and thinking it was morning because I had been asleep for a good, long while, getting up for the bathroom multiple times (which happens every night, of course), I still feel much better today, so I must have managed some good sleep after all. Somehow.

Things I Hate

People who are so self-important that they think sitting on a conference call meeting on speaker in a cubicle is perfectly acceptable. You know, because the World revolves around them. And everything.

Note to Self

If you're drinking a glass of wine and you get up to go do something in the other room for a few minutes, you might want to put your glass up somewhere where that Pug (Fitz) can't get to. Otherwise you might come back to a glass full of Pug slobber. This is especially applicable when it happens to be last of the wine in the house. Dammit.

I suspect that my GPS thinks that I’m stupid.

So I bought myself a GPS about a month or so ago as a sort of combination birthday / Christmas gift to myself. I wasn’t sure how much use I would get out of it because I don’t tend to go anywhere, but on the occasions that I do, it sure is a pain in the butt to drive and try to read a map and directions, since I’m usually driving alone and the dogs aren’t much help in that regard. So I bought it and in a way, it’s kind of opened up a new world to me. I’ve had to make a couple of trips into Boston for work over the past couple of weeks and it’s been very relaxing to be able to just plug in the address and go. I’ve had a couple of appointments here and there too where it has been helpful to be able to just drive and not think about it. I finally found this riding stable out on the twisty roads a few miles from my house that I had been looking for (got lost a couple of times previously looking for it). It’s really a great gadget and one of those things that once you have one, you wonder how you ever functioned without it.

I like to try and confuse it though. Sometimes I will ask it to take me home and then I’ll choose another route. I swear the machine sounds exasperated by the second time it states, “re-calculating”. I imagine an intelligence behind the voice shaking head, rolling eyes and muttering, “what an idiot, what part of ‘turn now’ did you not understand”. It’s fun to drive down some country roads here and make an unexpected turn and wait for the GPS to direct me to an alternative route and see how confused and snarled it can get. So far it has always managed to direct me home though. Heh. It doesn’t take much to amuse me after all.

Ahhhhhh work, I love it!

Between the holidays, a whole bunch of vacation time, a number of days working from home ... it feels like forever since I've actually been at work. It was nice to have a true break, I really did forget all about work for a bit, but I have to say it sure is nice to be back now too. I'm feeling all fired up and ready to dig into anything that comes my way. I missed working! Hopefully this feeling will last for a good while (ideally until the end of 2008 when I can repeat the whole holiday process again and refresh).