.25mg of Xanax

So get this...sitting down, creating a name and signing up actually feels like taking .25mg of Xanax. No, really!

The act of DOING something, anything, rather than sitting up in bed with a robe wrapped around your legs, back tight against a wall and your nerves stretched tight as catgut on a tennis racket actually felt as stabilizing as taking a pill. Now I'm not thinking all of my efforts will be this rewarding and so quick but dammit I'm going to be a temporary optimist. Permanent things make me uptight, so temporary is soothing. And in spite of disliking putting down roots I'm married (4 years), have been at the same job (again for 4 years) and refuse to upgrade my cell phone (2 years, WHEW! I hate the number 4). I am a study in contradictions...Gemini, too. Go figure.

List of things making me tense today (it's okay to laugh to yourselves, really) :

1) Air-conditioning. Yup, I typed that. It's 87 and I loathe hot humid weather. Not such a good thing living on the eastern seaboard. The electric bill won't be as bad as August and September, but still.

2) Work on Monday. I'm sure I'm not alone in the "Sunday Blues"...you know what they are. Saturday = carefree buffer day stay up all night Friday it's okay to sleep in because wtf you can, right? Sunday is so far away. When Sunday rolls over and it's morning breathe wakes you up and your chest is all tight, teeth clenched and the only thought is a resounding "WHAT?!?!?!" then you know it's only a matter of hours before you have drag yourself back to work. Meh.

3) Going through my treasures and parting with them, in one fell swoop via TurboLister on [insert major online auction site here] and then regretting it before they've even sold.

4) Epilating. What woman does not have a love-hate relationship with her epilator? It feels like getting a full-body tattoo in the course of 30 minutes. OW. But the results are a dream. FYI, Mother Nature, we are NOT cavemen, we do NOT need to be covered in fur, Columbia brand jackets take care of windchill, thankyouverymuch.

5) Completing this list, this blog, this commitment to type as therapy.

6) Wondering if I can stretch a pound of hamburger, 1/3 jar of Prego (Traditional) and 2/3 pound of spaghetti noodles into dinner for 2. Money is pretty non-existent at this point. I made Dollar Store soft pretzels with cream cheese and yellow mustard as dips with 2 Cokes for lunch yesterday. Dinner last night for him was chicken flavored ramen, 2 packages. Mine was macaroni and cheese (the good kind, natch).

7) Dreaming. My dreams have been elaborate technicolor Gone with the Wind epics lately and it's wearing me down. Sleep used to be a haven but my mind is pushing me, kicking and screaming, towards acknowledging the reasons for the dreams. A friend is helping me piece them together and it's really frightening how much I've refused to acknowledge what's making my emotional well-being so fragile.

So yeah, this is good. I won't be devastated if no one reads my blog. Heck, I'm happy to have made it this far without shutting the laptop as if a spider were on the keyboard, shrieking and scuttling backwards until my butt hits the entertainment center.

More tomorrow...not sure how frequently I'll be posting (umm, yeah right) but it'll probably be every day. I don't have kids, pets, etc. Just a recovering addict husband and my anxiety. That's enough.