Caterwauling

There’s a scene at the end of the movie “Say Anything” in which Ione Skye’s character is on a plane with John Cusack (*sa-woon!*) and she’s basically not going to be fine until she hears the ding of the seatbelt sign. Once she hears it, you know they’re going to be OK.

Then you hear the ding and the movie ends, and we assume they lived happily ever after. Or at least that they made it to London or wherever they were heading.

That’s basically where I’m at right now. The “I can’t take another goddamned thing please seatbelt button ding before I hurt someone” place.

I’m caught in the undertow of a Suck Cyclone and I KNOW it’s going to be sunshine and puppies and roses after all is said and done. It’s just that the suck is so immense, I don’t know what will be left of me when I get to where I’m going.

Just had a record three doctor’s appointments in an hour. Yay having everything in the same building. The initial round of results led to more bloodwork. I apparently have Things Wrong that I wasn’t aware of. So, I’m assuming they’re fixable with medicine and time. I’m just pissed that it took three co-pays (so far) to get to this point.

Anyway, I’m shocked that my blood pressure is normal. I’m wondering if all the not-good stuff that’s happening is signaling that I should stay put and deal with here. But it’s too far gone to turn back now, and even though I’m so very miserably sad to be leaving the only family I’ve really ever known, I’m also aware that my propensity to burst into tears on a moment’s notice is just the grieving process. A slow death before a fast move, if you will.

Let this be a lesson to me to not wrap my whole life around one group of people. To some extent, sure. But my attachment to my work family is absolutely unhealthy. (Just take a look at my test results.) And it’s why I’m so sad to be leaving — it’s like, but what else is there? Where do I take comfort when I’m giving up my security blanket and it’s all I have?

Yes, I am painfully aware of how pitiful this all sounds. Which is why I’m leaving — to find out who I am. To explore new worlds and claim a place of my own. To find functional relationships with people whose paycheck doesn’t bear the same company name, although to bond with those who do, as well.

Here’s to hoping that sun and sand is just what the doctor ordered. I mean, when your realtor is calling you at 7 a.m. to coax you off the ledge after the panic e-mails you sent her between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., you know you need a change of scenery.

I have a stack of new prescriptions and more to come. I’ll fit in just fine with all the blue-hairs at whatever new pharmacy I adopt. See, I’ll be making new friends already!

I figured things were going too well.

I hate it when I’m right.

OK, so I’ve been struggling with money. Which is no shocker. But I just decided not to pay rent so I can go apartment-hunting this weekend. Whee! Great fun.

OK, so I also went to the doctor earlier this week. She said everything looked fine and if I don’t hear from her, then all is well.

I heard from her.

She is asking me to come in for an appointment.

Great. More money I don’t have.

To say I’m nervous is an understatement. Mostly because she was kind of giggling at me that I was so hyper-vigilant about preventive care — that I’m too young to be such a worrywart about it.

I just wonder what the hell came out of this. Hopefully my triglycerides are out of whack, although things should be better with the reduced amount of poundage I’ve been lugging around.

Hmm.

I’m overly emotional today, so this isn’t helping matters one bit. I finally got up the balls to talk to my favorite boss about my leaving. And I knew — I just KNEW — that I couldn’t talk to him without bursting straight into tears. And sure enough, I barely got out a “hello” and the waterworks started.

I’m sure you all have read my thinly veiled grumblings over the years about work. But it’s always been “outside” people who irritated me — outside of my department, outside the building, etc. And in fact, it’s rarely been people who have gotten my goat but instead situations. The people have always been the highlight. And this just made it real for me — I have been lucky to work with some of the finest minds in my business, and they were glad to help me along to rise toward their ranks of greatness.

Anyway, I’m sure I won’t be able to sleep till I get through now two doctor’s appointments tomorrow. It had to be something in the bloodwork. Because this is ALL I need right now, to add to the already IMMENSE load of stress that’s bursting from the seams.

Oh well. Any way it shakes out, I’m on a plane out of here Friday morning. Not that I can afford any of the properties I’m going to look at, but I am at capacity on worries I can deal with today. Those worries can wait another two days.

There once was a very sad post here about money and not having enough, and definitely not enough for my upcoming life adventure.

Instead of going postal in public, I’m going to just go pray on it or something. Or else I’m entirely too capable of making some very rash decisions and fucking up the whole works.

So, I am going to use this moment for good, even if it kills me. Since I’m congested and can’t just go blow off my aggression with a cigarette. 🙂

Anyway. …

May this be the last time in my life where I feel like absolute crap over something so freaking PETTY AND STUPID as money. Or the lack thereof. And all the panic attacks that ensue. Don’t forget the insomnia!

I was in a restaurant this weekend, absolutely having dry heaves over something on the menu. I don’t even remember what it was. It was “poor-people food.” You know what I mean — the crap our families fed us to keep us alive. The meals you had two or three times a week because the ingredients were cheap and plentiful. The shit you’d just DIE if your family served if you had a friend over for dinner.

For us, it was “shit on the shingles.” Ground meat in gravy over elbow macaroni. *shudder* For variation, throw in some stewed tomatoes and, voila — beefaroni. *barfaroni*

Ooh, and “city chicken.” *omg, no. just, no* It smelled vile. Was it pork? I dunno, it was just fake chicken fried up in a pan. “Shitty chicken,” I learned to call it.

I can’t eat any of that crap today. Of course, I have all but stopped eating meat, save for special occasions, of which there is an alarming lack.

For one of my friends, her “poor-people food” was chicken and rice. To this day, you cannot present her with the combination — no matter how artfully or expensively prepared — without her going into the wayback machine.

For others, it’s spaghetti. (I came from an Italian grandmother — I didn’t exactly have a problem with the spaghetti because the homemade sauce rocked.)

What was your poor-people food? Or what other triggers do you have of a long-ago (or recent) past that throw you into a tailspin?

I was out recently and smelled someone wearing Bijou perfume. Someone gave it to me as a gift when I began my five-month non-employment journey. I cannot STAND the smell of it to this day. Reminds me of applying for thousands of jobs for which I never got a call. Reminds me of being hungry and having NOTHING to eat. Reminds me of being lonely and trapped in the house and not having a hope in the world.

All right, see, this isn’t going in the right direction. Sure, I want to hear about what your “yuck” triggers are. But tell me about your good ones too. Like when you find yourself in a viciously bad mood like the one I’m in and what you use for a pick-me-up. (O HAI obvious hint!) 🙂

Ocean Sunrise

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

“I can hear the ocean
When I look into her eyes
My heart is swept away
Like a paper boat on the tide
Destined to run aground
With her by my side
Together we’ll wake up
To a watercolor sunrise.”

— Willy Porter, “Watercolor”

My newfound insomnia comes in handy when I’m somewhere with picturesque sunrises. I still haven’t quite figured out how one can be absolutely exhausted and yet still be unable to fall asleep, but meh. Once I get settled in my new life, I figure sleep will once again find me.

I needed to see this photo today after cleaning a metric buttload of snow off my car this morning to make it to a 9 a.m. doctor’s appointment. Meanwhile, the federal government was operating on a 2-hour delay.

And for the hour that I was getting poked and prodded and sent upstairs for labwork, my car got COVERED with snow again. Joy of joys, especially since I had to clean the snowdrift off of my car to literally drive across the street to get to work (an hour before the building opened.)

My doctor (OK, nurse practitioner — I’ve gone to this office for almost four years and never once have I met my actual PCP) was looking back at my records and realized how much pudge I’ve dropped since I was last there. She was so complimentary — she said so many people mean well and say they want to lose weight; then there are the rest of us who just do it. I was kinda proud to be in that category. 🙂

She also gave me my referral to my specialist, although she said she knows him and he’s a dick and why would I WANT to go see him? I explained that I’m hightailing it out of town and just need a prescription refill, and she breathed a sigh of relief and said, “OK, I don’t blame you there. But if you want someone who actually knows how to interact with patients, I can give you a dozen other referrals before making you go to that moron.”

On hightailing it out of town, she applauded me and practically did a cheer for me. She said she also suspects that losing weight probably gave me the confidence to go after a new opportunity.

I said yeah, now that you mention it — I was starting to get too comfortable with where I fit in.

But now that I don’t fit in to much of anything these days, and because something that might fit was begging me to try it on, I’m actually way more impulsive about seeing what works on me. And more things fit me now than ever did before. So why not have a little variety, as it is the spice of life and all?

So the lyric goes in the song I’m humming today, “What am I afraid of?”

Ugh. Sick. Blah.

*hack* *wheeze* *snarf* *hork*

As “luck” should have it, I need to go see one of my doctors before I leave town. And I was told that thanks to the new HMO, I have to get a referral from the doctor who referred me there in the first place. So I have an appointment with said PCP first thing tomorrow, which I made when I was perfectly healthy. Irony. And joy.

Another weekend wasted. Sigh. I’ve packed a whopping four and a half boxes. I bought some boxes this week — woo. Need to buy a ton more. Also need to call the realtor lady — the third I’ve talked to — about, oh, finding somewhere to live when the moving van shows up later this month.

This month. Eeek. *hyperventilating*

Anyway, can’t call said realtor right now because, oh yeah, I have laryngitis. Whee! Why can’t these people just e-mail? And what am I going to tell her that I didn’t tell the first two who referred me to her?

I think the sickness is just stress setting in. I need to make a visit to my new homeland to look at condos (just to rent — my credit score and IQ are roughly equal) and, oh yeah, I need to move. And even though the roomie swears up and down that she’s not going with, I’ve sort of been panicking about that, too. I mean, I’ll get a place big enough for two. But I am hoping that I’ll be able to have guests from out-of-town (or overnight guests that are local!) instead of a full-time roomie.

And isn’t it sad that the only time I can get laid is when I’m out of town? Kee-rist. I know Virginia Woolf said a girl needs a room of one’s own. Fuck that noise — she needs a house of her own, plus a pool boy. And a good maid! Plus, someone to fetch her medicine when she’s too weak to get out of bed till 7 p.m.

I had my “last supper” in Alexandria yesterday, probably when I should have been resting. But alas, I was hellbent on getting to the Overwood one last time, and again as luck should have it, they had extended their restaurant-week specials through last night.

Mmm. O HAI steamed mussels, sweet-potato ravioli and Godiva chocolate bread pudding. Particularly with the dessert, served hot with ice cream and caramel (slurp), its restorative properties were a wonderful distraction from the munge.

Hell, since I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning, I can probably count on the fact that I shall awaken perfectly healthy. Which, isn’t a bad thing. Just gimme my damn referral and I’ll be on my merry little way. …