Renaming New Year’s Eve

Conversation between Kathy and me this week:

Me: Dude, this year has sucked some major balls.

Kathy: Um, yes.

Me: I mean, really. Think about all the shitty stuff that’s happened. I am SO over 2009. I should make a list.

Kathy: I don’t think we need a list to remember all the bad stuff.

Me: Maybe not. But that’s not the point. The point is, 2009 needs to be done.

Kathy: Yeah, I am with you on telling 2009 to peace the fuck out already.

And so this, Internet, is my new mission. Get through the end of the year, get through the messy holidays, the impending bad stuff, the doctor’s appointments, the final exams, the WHATEVER, and get to New Year’s Eve. This year, New Year’s Eve will be known as “Peace the fuck out already, 2009″ Night.

You think if I sent out invitations to a party celebrating “Peace the fuck out already, 2009″ people would come?

Wherefore art thou, readers?

This little spot on the Interwebs has suffered in the last month, thanks in no small part to my lack of posting some decent content. I blame this on many things, but mostly on illness, anxiety and distractions. There are so many things that have gone on that I haven’t posted about (the Peanut Festival! the All-Stars reunion! the Demise of Tonya on RW/RR Challenge!) because . . . well, I don’t really know why. In my head, the creative juices are flowing, sort of, but somewhere deep in the confines of my brain, the things I want to say are getting stuck – bottlenecked, if you will – in the traffic of my anxiety.

A couple of months ago one of my blog posts was submitted to Creative Nonfiction for consideration in its “Favorite Blog” contest. The winner will be published in the premiere issue of their redesigned magazine. Friday morning they released the 15 finalists, and Half Baked, Twice as Good was not among them. Surprised? Yeah, me neither. But that’s okay, because the blogs they did select as finalists are some really, really great ones. Anyway, all of this is to point out that there are far better places you could spend your time online, but I specifically want to thank the 8 of you that come here – you are my 8 favorite people in the whole wide world.

Also, Monday listing has been on hiatus for the month of October as my head has been too far up my ass to write anything. I was going to try to overcome that today, but instead I thought I’d wait for next Monday. It might take me a whole week to come up with a list. This is sad.

I will, however, treat you to some pictures from the 39th Annual Power Tool Pumpkin Carving party at my brother’s on Friday night. There was Funkin’ Punkin’ Ale, power tools galore, lots of Jello shots in spooky shapes, and one very rambunctious kitten. We left at a decent hour in order for BB to get up at 5am the next morning, but apparently just as he was getting ready for work, the party was winding down. Who, I ask you, can still party until 5am at 30 years old? Not I, friends.

Mmmm, jello shots in bat, ghost and pumpkin shapes

That's me with K. Cat, except that I'm not wearing a pumpkin on my head. It just looks that way.

That's my mother, the skinny movie star. She's holding Gravy, a rescue kitten whose brother is Biscuit (formerly known as Big Rig).

It’s like that Wilson Phillips song. You know, the one about the chains.

You know, on any other ordinary Wednesday afternoon, I’d be looking out this window behind my computer and thinking that it’s kind of a shitty, rainy day. I’d be thinking that I’m tired after being gone for three days at a sort-of-useless conference, that I haven’t posted to my discussion board in three weeks and that I don’t know what’s for dinner, nor do I really care.

But today is no ordinary Wednesday afternoon; today is the day I met the woman who plans to fix me.

As you know, my well-documented struggle with panic and anxiety has been rapidly spiraling into deeper, darker waters that also are starting to include symptoms of major depression. I’ve been so wrought with overwhelming terror and fear that I haven’t been able to leave my house for days – until, thankfully, Monday morning, when my boss literally carted my ass to a different city. She watched over me and took good care of me and made sure I medicated myself thoroughly, and then she brought me home today so I could meet my new drug dealer psychiatrist who – are you ready for this, Internet? – is going to MAKE IT ALL BETTER.

I should note here that I have placed an inordinate amount of confidence and trust in this woman, and if she disappoints me then I might just have to key her car. But for the first time in my life – EVER – someone sat down with me today, asked me relevant questions about my disorder, gave me a tour of my brain and it’s innermost faults and laid out what Brian likes to call a “battle plan” for my recovery.

It turns out that I am neither fruitbat nor nutbucket crazy. I am not weird, strange or otherwise odd. (Shut up, people.) I merely have some faulty circuits rattling around in my noodle and with the proper medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy, I might be able to rejoin society as a productive citizen.

THIS IS HUGE.

Well, it is. Granted, most everything to me is HUGE because I like to USE CAPS LIKE THIS and GENERALLY EXAGGERATE things and MAKE THEM DRAMATIC and GO APESHIT over the mundane. But today I’d like to think that HUGE is deserved.

There is a bright bare yellow bulb hanging from the ceiling in my tunnel. The graffiti along the walls has changed from words that cause me terror to words that give me hope. There is someone walking with me in that tunnel, offering me a hand – a hand with a whole lot of degrees and years of experience – and today for the first time I can see my way out.

Thank you for sticking with me, for standing by me and for reading to find out what happens to me. It is with your support that I get through each day, which is why I feel like GOING APESHIT RIGHT NOW WITH THE CAPS LOCK BECAUSE HOLY HELL someone is going to fix me and THIS IS HUGE.

I’m off to do the hokey-pokey now. It’s that kind of day.

You make me crazy when…

…You have your annual fall conference, which I am obligated to attend, right in the middle of the week where I have trouble existing in normal society. Also, when you charge $12.95 for your Internet access which I will not pay which is why I will not be blogging until after my appointment with the shrink on Wednesday which is after I get back from your stupid conference, unless I have to call BB to come get me in the middle of the night because I went crazy because your stupid conference made me that way.

Possibly.

How do you explain THIS five years later?

Um, Internet . . . I’m in deep doo-doo. I’m up a creek without a paddle, in more than just a little pickle.

I found something today, buried in a drawer behind boxes and boxes of stationery and envelopes and pens and address labels. I’m so embarrassed I just don’t know if I can tell anyone . . . but fine, I’ll tell you.

I found – are you ready? – thank you notes.

Dozens and dozens AND DOZENS of thank you notes, written in May of 2004 right after we got married. Written, sealed, addressed, return-addressed . . . AND SITTING IN A DRAWER. I remembered as soon as I saw them what happened. I put them in my stationery box, next to the empty notecards, and I was going to the post office for more stamps. IN 2004.

And now, five years later, I have still forgotten the stamps. What makes this so very embarrassing is that the people who didn’t receive notes from me are either a) people I see all the time and therefore they are judging me every time they see me in the grocery store line, b) people I haven’t seen since the wedding and this is probably why, and c) people who don’t fall into either A or B but who gave us some REALLY good stuff.

I want to crawl in a hole. I’m so serious. Because what do I do now? Mail them and be like, Damn, that post office is one SLOW piece of government work, I tell you or don’t mail them and continue to look like a jackass? I stuck them back in the drawer for now. I think I’ll wait until our 25th anniversary, mail them, and be like, Yeah, Emily Post’s great-great-granddaughter changed the rules and now WE’RE right and you’ve been wrong all along.

The really sad thing though is that some of these people have died since our wedding, and they died thinking that we are two ungrateful somebodies. Well, maybe they were probably thinking of other stuff, LIKE DYING, but it’s possible that they also were thinking that my parents tried really hard to teach me good manners and apparently it didn’t take, and so thank goodness they were leaving their own good-mannered children behind, to procreate and teach the rest of us a lesson.

Good grief.