Godcoffeepillsbananas

Back in the USSR…

nwsbelle — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:18:32 +0000

Not really…I just have that song in my head. Anyhow, so I am back in Washington and it’s really weird…part of me is happy to be back in my bed, hanging with the cats, walking to get coffee, my usual routine…and part of me is ripped up at leaving Z and then his imminent departure to Afghanistan. It comes in waves…this weird nervousness–partly from knowing he’s going and going somewhere dangerous and far…and partly because I want the countdown to start. I want him to do this and come back. I need it to be August. I need to go back to work. I have plenty to do, really—thank you notes to write, paperwork for the Army, a yard to weed, laundry, etc but I want to just sit and figure shit out, wait for his remaining phone calls and let everything settle in my head. If it ever does…I am so happy to be married to him, but the year seems scary sometimes. I know there’s nothing I can do. I know this is in God’s hands. I know that. Part of it is I just miss him. I went to the shrink…she thinks I am doing okay but I am fucking exhausted mentally. I told her that and she was like, well you are 40 years old…true…and I guess the “shock absorbers” aren’t as absorbent as they used to be but what can ya do.

catapults, cupcakes, coughing

nwsbelle — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:43:04 +0000

So, it’s a super weird week and I had to break down and refill the xanax yesterday so I could get some sleep…part of it is anticipation about seeing Z, then dread at him leaving, excitement at seeing friends, then anxiety about being in a town that has ghosts sometimes. Then there’s the “weird end-of-year” feeling as the schedule gets out of whack for senior boards, assemblies, exams…and the day loses its sense of regularity and sameness. Which always messes with my OCD and makes me want routine and I know that the weird school schedules are just a prelude to the lack of routine in the summer and the sort of “what the fuck do I do” feeling that eventually happens. So I’ve got that going on and some general job oddness…yesterday, I sat on a board for a senior presentation. It was for a senior who was in my program briefly, couldn’t handle the high school and moved to the transitions program to learn job skills. He is an odd bird–high functioning autism with possible emerging paranoid schizophrenia…medicated but it has to be adjusted frequently. Now, keep in mind the point of the senior project is to have the senior explore career options/job-shadow, do some community/environmental services, that sort of thing…so this particular student has chosen “siege warfare–the catapult” as his project…because of his disabilities, this is approved but wow…so I learned that there are about 5 types of catapults–all with exotic names I can’t now spell or pronounce–that they used to pluck the feathers off of chickens and put the chicken on boils when people had the Plague—and that torsion is a real word. So he built a to-scale catapult that was probably about 2 feet long and 2 feet wide and he had sewed tiny bean bags and colored them to look like rocks. So he launched several of these as part of his demonstration and I was actually quite entertained. And oh but it gets stranger…so then today, I am in a meeting with another student who was kicked out of the Bridges academy/Skills Center for truancy and not attending school –so he has to come back to my school–so I ask the kid…what have you been doing while not going to school? What do you do all day? And his mom answers, oh he built a trebuchet in our garage…and thanks to the boards I sat on yesterday, I fucking knew what that was and said, What? Are you kidding me? You built a catapult? How big? And he says, oh like 5-6 feet long..and I sit there, kind of stunned, like what is up with all the catapults? Seriously?

So then another perk of the senior boards is I always seem to sit on one where a student shadows a chef or some such cooking situation and sure enough, this one kid job-shadowed a pastry chef and I got a fancy buttercream vanilla cupcake! And then since the whole “highly qualified” bullshit in math…I have essentially quit teaching that crap and am doing math “real life” activities…which involves cooking! So yesterday, we made cupcakes! Not exactly helping the diet situation, but dammit it I have been to every one of the “circuit of death” classes and am even considering an extra class this Sat so I think a couple of cupcakes isn’t going to kill me.

Speaking of killing me, I decide to do this budget bullshit and I hate it. And I am not using the card but cash only…which sucks…but I am getting my head around it. So, to get some extra coin, I sign up to tutor a kid who has been placed on homebound schooling–usually this happens for health reasons…so this kid apparently has leukemia but is in remission…but the parents want to keep her home and are apparently total germophobes–which I guess happens with leukemia/when your children are ill…so anyhow, I get that but these peeps take it to a new level and call one of the counselors at school to ask if I am “healthy”? And the counselor is like, um yeah…?? So she comes to my room and says” well you look fine to me” and I am like “why wouldn’t I be?” and she explains the parents’ phone call and I am like, oh great. So I go over to the house to tutor the kid and there is this other kid (younger sibling) hacking up all over the place on the couch and I felt like saying…am I healthy? what about your own goddamn house?…I will be PISSED if I get sick from the germophobes’ house.

On the Z front, things are going well…kind of nervous about it…excited, then wigged out…my normal overanalyzing flip out…the usual.

existential crisis, Atl angst, and too much testosterone….

nwsbelle — Sat, 29 May 2010 00:30:16 +0000

It’s been kind of a weird two weeks…last week, I almost quit my job, briefly considered moving back to the east coast, briefly considered going to count Komodo dragons in Indonesia and then all that calmed down. So then this week, much calmer on the work front. But then some of the fallout from the work mess included a realization that I will be doing this job for like 20 more years and what exactly am I doing? Then I had some sort of wake-up moment where I really have no idea why I moved to Oregon. I married L…we both talked about how we liked Oregon, he was frustrated in Atl, talked about eventually working for an Outward Bound organization and wanted to go back to school for environmental lit. I wanted to get away from my family mess (especially after mom passed away) and really, I wanted to get away from his family and maybe this would be a way to save the faltering marriage (already in the first 2 years, we had made many trips to marriage counselors–2 different ones-one of whom, the very wise Franklin, told me L would divorce me before he divorced his mom-oh so true). So I moved, thinking I would go to school at the U of O at some point maybe as they have one of the best spec ed depts. But somehow, and again, I really don’t know how ( and I normally consider myself an intelligent person but in this whole instance, I have no idea what went on or why–maybe I am not as intelligent as I think), neither one of us went back to school…instead, he made “Portland pants” and became a bike freak and I assimilated and went along with the biking, started wearing lots of drab colors, fleece and became a slob more or less. Oh and you can’t solve your problems geographically, by the way…and the marriage totally crashed. Done. So then I moved to Vancouver and reinvented shit all over again. And then at some point last year (and it really does take about 2 years to fully recover from a divorce, one chick told me 5 years and another one told me 2 and thank God it wasn’t 5), it was like I “woke up” and was like, what the fuck am I doing exactly? So I decided to get rid of the visa debt (really fucking hard to do) and do the natl boards business to make some coin. Normally I have some sort of plan…a goal. So I have to sort that out. So the plan was to get the boards, give myself two years to pay off the debt and figure out the next move. And I started paying more attention to makeup again, wearing skirts and pink (neither of which L liked on me) and developing some sense of myself again. And so that came to a head this week, when I realized that I still really don’t have any kind of plan, if I did I might have to figure Z into it and I am not sure about that and that for the past 2 decades, I really have based these sort of “life decisions” around NOT ME:

1. my 20′s: I spent the first half of my 20′s trying to fix my career. I figured out I really did not like advertising and actually wasn’t any good at it. So what could I do? I wanted to travel and be able to go anywhere–always, always, always have had the urge or instinct to “not be stuck”, be mobile, be able to move anywhere and I wanted to teach abroad. So I can teach–yeah, I can do that. So got that squared away. Then mom and dad TOTALLY IMPLODED and I stepped in and became the parent, had the nervous breakdown and got on the meds and had to crawl out of that hole.

2. Then my 30′s came on board and with that and losing mom came MARRIAGE PANIC…met and married L, “Let’s move to Oregon!” “Oh, okay!”…

3. Now my 40′s have started and I, for the first time, can make a decision about what I want to do, based on no one else. Except that I have no idea what that is. The shrink asked me what I wanted. I don’t know. I couldn’t really answer. It’s cool I have options. Move back to the south, stay here, move somewhere else, count Komodo dragons, maybe I could finally teach abroad. And Z does figure into it…I want him too, I just don’t know what exactly that means. Part of me wants to marry him, all that…but then I am worried about how he will adjust to “normal” life when he comes back from Afghanistan. That might not be the best way to start off a marriage. And marriage is not super-appealing to me sometimes. I turn into a slob, move across country and I am not excited about having to share a bathroom again.

So that’s the existential crisis. It’s cool. I am not having to pop the xanax or anything…nope, saving that for Atl. Atlanta–in 3 weeks. Okay, still resolving the packing crisis…have figured out it’s Gail who doesn’t have the hair dryer. All good. Moving on. Working it out.

Then Z is on some sort of super testosterone high…he’s having like an overload of macho…macho pic on the fb profile, lots of deployment talk…which I guess is a normal reaction for preparing to go overseas with the Army to fight a war. So I read stuff on “Army life” and I honestly have no idea if I could really do that–deal with the Army, rules, bases, schedules, etiquette, uniforms, all that non-stop. Like it’s great as a long-distance relationship but in the actual day-to-day, I don’t know. Sooooo lots on my head. And normally, I can eat baked goods and that makes me feel good…not so much…go shopping–some retail therapy…not that either. I think, unfortunately, I have to sort some of this stuff out and actually be a grown-up, somewhat intelligent person. Yikes.

What I worry about when I worry about packing….

nwsbelle — Sun, 23 May 2010 04:28:21 +0000

It’s like 3 and half weeks away but I am already overthinking the packing:

1. ratio of underwear to bras –I never bring enough bras

2. shoes–I hate packing tennis shoes because they are bulky and take up too much room—so then I think about wearing them on the flight but quite honestly they are not the most comfortable shoes I own and I always think about my feet swelling on the flight and how tight the laces are and want to take them off.

3. HOT, HOT, HOT…it’s going to be hot. I have really nothing for hot weather…I mean, I do, but I am already bored with it.

3. Shorts–My legs are short and I look weird in shorts. I can’t tell you how many times someone (usually Gail) has looked at me in shorts and tried to roll the shorts up to make my legs look longer…which doesn’t work. at all. So I wear longer shorts or capris…or skirts. I bought a short skirt in Poland at the mall when my luggage didn’t show up and the only stores that were open were for teenagers and the skirt is short…I have been told it was cute but it still feels too short. I don’t know. I can sit in it but feel like my thighs are glaringly revealed.

4. cosmetics/products: as I am going for a lengthy amount of time, I will bring regular size products which means I will have to check my bag, which I was planning on doing anyway as I am going for a lengthy time…which is cool. I need all that space. And then I freak out like I should bring tampons except that there are tampons in Georgia and I can just buy them so why waste the space except do I really want to tell whoever I am hanging out with at the time that I need to go get tampons and then it’s like, “well, did you not know you were getting your period? Are you 12?” I don’t know…maybe I will just pack a few.

5. hair dryer–this is an issue all the time. One of my friends does not have a hair dryer and I can never remember who it is…for some reason I always think it’s Johnna or Mary Ellen…but then it could be Gail. But someone doesn’t have a hair dryer and I hate packing mine. But then I am hinky about using other people’s because what if it is not as effective as mine, which I am used to…So then I call everybody and ask them if they have a hair dryer and they ask me “where do you think you’re going? Africa? Of course we have hair dryers.” But it still nags at the back of my head that someone doesn’t have one and I should pack one in case.

6. books…I panic because I am afraid I’ll take the wrong book and not like it and have to dump it somewhere. So then I take like 3-4 and worry I’ll run out and have to buy one. Or decide at the last minute as I eye the mass media paperbacks and grab one in case I think I will hate all the books I brought. Like sometimes I think I’ll bring Russian Lit or some such weighty topic and then I am so brain-fried from the trip that I just need mind-candy so I buy a cheap true crime novel…

7. airborne or emer-gen-c for the flight: Sick people on a plane breathing my air, in my space, polluting my area. So I bring the airborne, emer-gen-c, etc and drink it constantly.

8. snacks & food–somehow I wind up in the shittiest airports for food…Of late, I wind up flying through Denver–where I can eat Burger King, Candy by the Pound or Russian Coffee…kid you not! So I have to pack a couple of bananas, clif bars, anything because of the crappy ass food and I not paying for the food on the plane because it’s always overpriced and gross anyway.

9. phone charger…have forgotten this before and had to shell out cash to buy another. totally sucks. always freaked out about this.

10. meds…I need to get on this immediately and make sure there are no crazy refills, running out, shortages, mislabeled bottles, oh the humanity.

Food fight 2010, an end to “highly qualified”, not tethered to earth….

nwsbelle — Sat, 22 May 2010 04:14:57 +0000

What a weird fucking week…it went way too quick, which always happens at the end of the year and ALWAYS makes me feel like I am not tethered to the earth, like shit is happening and I can’t stop or slow it down or anything. Weirds me out. So the week started off okay…the kids have settled down for the most part, some minor disruptions in class but that’s the name of the game in BD Land so oh well. Then I had the meeting with the MAN on Tuesday regarding the stupid highly qualified bullshit…so they had a “new form” that was better than the original one but still did not mention anywhere that this was a federal requirement and not a local school issue…also, it still looked like a PDP and still PISSED me off. So I said, “I am not signing that one either.”..my rep panicked and grabbed my arm and told me to calm down and the admin was like, “well, she got an award”…and I said, “I took my name out of that…I did not get an award.”…the rep grabbed my arm again and told me to “relax” and the admin was like scrambling around to get me to sign this damn thing. I was like…um, no. Then the rep was like, we’ll need some time to weigh options, including resignation…and I was like…I will decide by the end of the week. I then asked for a letter to accomany the stupid form, explaining it was HR’s fuckup and not any reflection on me or my teaching. So the MAN was like, I’d have to run that by the superindentent….Okay, the rep said, and what are the consequences if she doesn’t sign? The MAN said it would be a discipline letter and possible suspension. So I was PISSED AGAIN. But didn’t panic. At the end of the day, it’s just a job. And I wondered, is this God’s way of telling me to get back to the South now? Or just move to another district even though that would suck and I am already facing enough upheaval with the stupid landlord bullshit and possible move to another location in Aug. Whatever. So I was just like, fuck…went home, started looking at other districts, and started the online app process crap. It was tiring but I would be goddamned if I was going to get spanked by the district for something I didn’t mess up in the first place. So Wed am, I went to several of the admin and the school psych and asked for letters of recommendation. They balked, gave me some bullshit about how I coudn’t leave, the kids, blah blah and I felt like saying, really fuckers? Compared to some of the shit I have survived, changing jobs is nothing…one gave me some business about how we were like family and I wouldn’t find that anywhere else…um, really, because my concept of family is not a pleasant one so that doesn’t work with me. Anyhow, so then I putzed around on various school/district websites and remained calm. I had a few moments where I was like, what the fuck but again, it’s a job and I refused to pop a xanax or have a meltdown. So Thursday, I get an email from one of the admins and it’s a pat on the back letter that would go in my file. I emailed him back and was like, thank you but I don’t need any accolades, I need a letter from HR explaining that this is federal and not a statement on my certification. He emailed that he understood. I sent an email to my rep, admin and HR telling them I would consider signing the form if I got said letter. So literally, at like 2:38 pm today, I get the letter from HR and it’s bare bones but covers all the bases, so I sign the form, turn it in and will stay for another year. But I was still pissed that I had to sign, had to eventually go with the bullshit. But in the long run, it looks better to stay than bounce around from school to school. Especially if for whatever reasons, I don’t pass natl boards. that would suck. Anyhow, so the day was also interesting because there was a hilarious “Animal House” style food fight at school during 1st lunch. So thank God, I had the socially anxious & nervous kids and they eat lunch in my room because they usually can’t deal with the cafeteria. So, we hear an air horn and then someone yells “Food Fight” and then screaming and yelling. Then literally like 2 min later, the fire alarm goes off and we evacuate. So the whole school tooled around outside for like 30 min while the admin, custodians and leadership kids cleaned up what was apparently a disaster of eggs, ranch dressing, yogurt, baked potatoes, jello and milk all over the cafeteria, dripping off tables, columns and stairs. So they combine the last 2 lunches and all security, admin and teachers are out there staring down the kids and monitoring every move. Then there was an announcement by one of the admins about the display of “defiance and insubordination” that made me giggle. I love defiance and subordination. Anyhow so they cancelled this weekend’s dance as punishment and began interrogating kids all afternoon. So it was interesting because I had to put on the teacher face about how it was not funny and could have been dangerous, blah, blah but actually I thought it was pretty funny and gutsy. And thank God, it took the attention off me and the damned highly qualified crap. So, still not feeling tethered to earth…came home, napped, lounged around, wasn’t productive in the least, waiting for my brain to calm down. And it will be weird the last couple of weeks…but trying to write, calm down, not flip out.

Approaching summer angst

nwsbelle — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:28:56 +0000

So, in the final four weeks of school…kids are blowing out left and right…taking classic swan dives and nose dives with grades and behavior. Not unexpected at this time of year but disheartening. Especially a couple of kiddos–one who has stopped taking his meds and is self-destructing and another who takes his meds intermittently and hasn’t had a stable week yet. Then I get worked up because it’s the end of the year and I always hate the transition into summer and worry that next year won’t be as good with the kids. Which is stupid, because there will always be kids and different degrees of entertainment. But that fear is always there. And then the usual apprehension of going “home”…dad is getting “removed” from another personal care home. I got an email from the social worker with the details and assuring me that she has found another home in Covington that he should do well in…so, I type up the release letter, email it to her and get the details about the next home. So then I buck up and decide to call the hen and the goose, update them and get it over with…both conversations go well in that I give them the details, evade questions and get off the phone relatively (haha, get it) unscathed. The hen manages to ask a couple of personal questions which enforces some tap dances and then totally changing the subject when she asks if I am coming “home” this summer. So then I go to the gym, work out some angst and I get a call from dad…so I check the message and he’s all pissed off because he was given a copy of the release letter and went on and on about how he is not moving, he is going to move back to Decatur Towers (out of the question as he was kicked out out there) or he was going to get an apt (with no money, destroyed credit and no car) and that he was tired of me not acting in his “best interest” and he was going to revoke my power of attorney. Um, okay…DO IT. Seriously, okay…obviously, I have not called him back and will not…but part of me does still worry that he will wind up homeless or in a shelter or something along those lines. It’s a hard thin line between still caring and then being angry because he won’t take meds and has basically not taken care of anything since like 1994. He just fell apart…and I taken care of shit like the house, mom, etc. since then and I got a little burnt out. It’s a chicken and egg thing….I don’t know what came first, the chaos of my family making me have to take the meds or the horrific genetic combination of disorders that I inherited from both sides making me have to take the meds. I don’t know. It was kind of funny, the hen was commenting on how dad is obviously “sick” and I said, well, he can share a room with his cousin–who is in the state hospital in Milledgeville for schizophrenia–and the hen said, well please tell me this isn’t genetic, that this isn’t in the family. UM, OBVIOUSLY you are not familiar with how these things work and have not connected the dots and I am not explaining how this works to you. See a shrink, read an article, research it. Or pretend to not to realize what’s going on. And maybe it skipped her and went straight to my cousin, who died in a headon collision with a truck while hopped up on oxycontin, among other things. It’s not an easy thing to deal with…but it’s there. So I don’t think I am going to see any of them. I don’t think about them ever, really…except when shit with dad comes up. And the whole Atlanta angst is spun out of that and also the nightmare trips with the exhusband who totally called the shots as to where I stayed, who I saw, what I did…Every time I was in Atlanta it was either because we had to see his parents or because I had to fix some mess with dad. So I have like PTSD from that. So it kind of scares me a bit to go back, even though it would be relative-free, no dad, and seeing Z as the main focus of the first week or so. Then that brings up the next step I think Z and I will take which could be getting engaged this summer….his mom let it slip in an email that this past weekend he showed her “THE RING”… and then when I flipped reading that, I took in what that would mean. Obviously, it’s contingent on him coming back from Afghanistan, which is July 2011, a long way off…but in the back of my mind I knew I would be returning to the south at some point. I just wasn’t sure it would be to get married. And of course, when I emailed his mom back asking what the ring looked like, she totally clammed up and said she shouldn’t have said anything at all and wouldn’t divulge any more info. Not helpful at all.

Top 5 things I have heard repeatedly in my 40 years of life

nwsbelle — Mon, 10 May 2010 01:48:54 +0000

1. are you crazy?

2. We never liked that guy….

3. you are the devil/souless/evil (from students or exhusband)

4. did you take your meds?

5. your dad/brother/mother/any relative is crazy

Strange things that calm me down….

nwsbelle — Mon, 10 May 2010 01:45:14 +0000

1. Law & Order SVU

2. The Starburst commercials with the Korean-Scottish guy

3. reading books about/looking at dinosaurs

4. cleaning out closets

5. jello

Mom…

nwsbelle — Tue, 04 May 2010 01:02:59 +0000

so I totally flipped myself out Sunday night…not intentionally…I am totally with Joey Pantaliano on the whole mental illness is the only illness you can be yelled at for…it’s funny because when I used to work myself up…get all OCD on something in high school or college…my mom would yell at me to “snap out of it”, “quit finding things to worry about”, or anything along those lines…so this weekend I tried keeping busy…but always in my head that Mother’s Day is coming and mom’s birthday as well. Sometimes that doesn’t bother me at all and sometimes it does. It does right now because there are a billion things I would like to talk to her about…like where am I going to live this fall since the landlords are dicking me around? Or I wish she could meet Z and use her magical powers of intuition to figure out if he’s a good guy (her track record is impressive–she was correct about L and F being assholes). I wish I could talk to her about all this highly qualified bullshit and help me focus on the job and not the stupid bullshit, admin and politics. I would like to know what she thinks about Obama…I mean I am pretty sure I know, since she taught me about Martin Luther King, took me to the church on Auburn Ave and made me read a book about Steven Biko. But I would like to hear her words. Speaking of words, that’s one thing I owe her…my love of books was passed on from her….when I was little, we would always go to the library or the bookstore and if I had been good, I could pick out any book I wanted…and then when I wanted to read “Romeo and Juliet” in 4th grade and the librarian at school wouldn’t let me check it out because it was in the “older students” section. The next day, my mother came marching in there, with a lecture peppered with references to banned books and free speech, and demanded I be allowed to check out any book I wanted and I did. When I was in 5th grade, I was sick on my birthday and mom put the candles on a piece of toast. She also gave me a fancy hardback copy of “Gone with the Wind”, which I still have and occasionally re-read. She knew I had a big brain for reading and encouraged it. I also got my love of cats and blunt sense of humor from her. But with the good, must come the bad…I inherited the insomnia, the ridiculously puffy face in the morning, the field mouse brown hair (mom started coloring her hair in high school as well), the “whiskers” on my chin (mom would pluck them, as do I as she always said to never wax any part of your face except your brows—and about that, she marched me to a salon when I was 12, presented me to the esthetician and announced that I had gotten my father’s eyebrows and no daughter of hers would look like Groucho Marx) and her flair for the dramatic.

So I dreamt Sunday night that I was in some apartment in a warehouse area of some sort and was trying to sleep and I had an answering machine and mom had left a message and I needed to call her back…more tossing and turning and for like 2 seconds when I woke up this morning, I thought, ” I have to call mom.” and then I remembered I couldn’t call mom. And that sucked. Yes, she was crazy…yes, she was an alcoholic, and she made me crazy sometimes but she taught me to survive.

Moving, “highly qualified”, hair, end of year angst

nwsbelle — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:16:14 +0000

okay…so I talked to the landlords (again, kind of flaky and not liking my yardwork skills) and am much calmer about that whole situation. So the actual lease goes until Aug so I don’t have to deal with the move until I get back from the South and deal with all that. Which is cool, but the move situation did cause me to totally obsess and take a xanax on Monday night…so, it sucks in that it looks like I will have to move in Aug and then move again the following summer…especially if things continue to go well with Z…that’s a lot of moving and I am not a fan of moving. I mean, who is but it is especially disconcerting for me. I am like a cat and I get attached to places–the noises, the smells, etc. So I call on Friday because she (landlord) told me to call her on Friday because she wouldn’t remember to call me. Sigh. So I do, no answer, leave a message…still haven’t heard back so I am thinking that I am moving in August. And even more exciting! I am taking an online math class when I get back! What fun! I capitulated and decided to suck it up and tell the MAN/Human Resources that I will take the STUPID math class –I will take it online and when I get back from my trip and I WILL NOT SIGN ANY paperwork that makes it look like I fucked up because this is not my fuckup..it is the district’s. And because when I do look for another job, I do not want to have to explain why there is some “plan” in my file with some bullshit process for being “highly qualified” in math…which no matter what crap ass online class I take, I will NOT be highly qualified in math. NOPE. So, the admin I met with on Thurs said he would talk to HR about it and get back to me. So we’ll see how that goes. Fun. Also in the stress/OCD hopper this week is my hair…haven’t colored it in a while…it’s going back to dark mouse brown. I could color it myself and it would be okay I guess. It’s weird. Also, starting to develop end-of-school angst. This is because I don’t like change and i don’t like it when my routine changes especially. I can transition better from summer to fall because school keeps me and my overactive mind busy. School to summer transition does not go well sometimes. It’s funny, most people have to take more meds to go back to work…I have to up the meds when I go from work to downtime. And this summer is going to be weird. I am going to see Z, bond, all that…and then say bye as he goes overseas and in situations where we possibly can’t communicate for undetermined periods of time and then I won’t see him for like 6 more months. Weird. Then I come back, have to move…which echoes when I got divorced, went to Atlanta and then had to come back and move to Vancouver. URg. I hated that. Anyhow, so then I also have to take that stupid math class. Then continue to wait until November to see if I passed the natl boards stuff….so the OCD makes my stomach hurt when I think of what I can’t control and what I can’t control will be where I live, passing the test, where it goes with Z…all that. So it starts to feel surreal, like I don’t know what’s going on and then I have to think about packing…and sometimes that provokes angest because I am a horrible packer…I underpack, I over pack…I can’t think of a time when I have not had to purchase something that I forgot on a trip…I bring shit that I don’t need….the weather, dressy? casual? belts? alternate purses? I never bring the right purse. I feel like Goldilocks–too big, too small…never just right. I plan outfits and think I have all the possible situations covered and inevitably, I do not. Or I have like 3 perfectlycoordinated outfits and then nothing else and I am overdressed…or underdressed. Packing…you would think I would be like Jack Nicholson in “As Good as It Gets” and have it down to science and I think at one point, I had it down, but of late, I am just getting worse and worse at it. I have no idea why.