December 18, 2002

I totally love the new year, but I hate hate hate the end of the old one. Time speeds up and I'm always in a mad rush to finish, finish, and nothing ever gets finished and I end up feeling desperate and loserful instead of all holly jolly. I like to tidy up the old year before I open a new one, but right now both my house and my brain are so full of crap that I have to walk sideways through both of them.

I hate being one of those crazy old ladies with all the stuff stacked up to kingdom come. At least you can walk through the entire house, albeit sideways. So far no mine shaft cave-ins that knock out whole rooms. But once again, there's no room for my dreamy shiny Christmas trees. I hereby vow to clear my house enough to have all three trees up next December. In 2003, I'm moving the end of the year to November so I can freak out early and have December as a sparkly glowing bonus month.

Last Friday, I got punched with what I think was the onset of a panic attack. Over nothing, really, which is what made it all the more infuriating and difficult to suppress, like when you try to talk yourself down from visualizing all the disturbing images from the horror movie you just saw (The Ring) right before you fall asleep. Anyway, enter the panic attack or spaz attack or whatever you want to call it, and I was speeding into Freakoutsville when I remembered the lorazapam my nice doctor gave me before I went on my big road trip last spring. I lean into eye-crossing anxiety when I'm on vacation, so I got them as a safeguard, but didn't touch them (apparently my vacation anxiety doesn't apply to road trips). So lickety-split, before I had the chance to overanalyze why I was on the verge of unsolicited hysteria, I gulped down half a pill (I was right in the middle of TCB and didn't want to get all doped up, not that I'm opposed in principle) and I swear I was normal again in like 15 minutes. Magic! God bless the nice people at Wyeth (or Purepac, really, because it was generic).

No more cuckoo episodes since, hooray. Glad I'm not crazy like the rest of you.

Meanwhile, the rats are back, fatter than ever, and not even bothering to run (the last one I saw was downright obese; its waddling was so slow I could've hit it with my shoe if I wasn't so flabbergasted at its size). And I'm too stupid to set the newfangled traps. I got a huge blood blister, three cuts, and peanut butter in my hair trying. Finally I gave up and put them all in a box so Fatso couldn't get an undeadly feast.

Anyway, between the rats and the dog hair and the unfinished business and the teetering towers of whatnot, I feel like I'm in the middle of a Shel Silverstein poem. Only less playful.

Oh, well. At least I'm in my sexual prime.

11.13.02