still ugly:

what the Honda Element wants to be when it grows up.

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much exhaustion. i feel like i need a vacation from my vacation (if a three day weekend counts as a vacation).

quick recap of weekend:

friday – panic and peanut butter cookies.

saturday – lots of driving, plenty of play time, met the ex wife, more driving, working in the freezing cold down at the tent.

sunday – lots of driving, working on the boat (nearly done!), quick outing to hear a friend’s band, and dessert.

monday – baked dessert (Chocolate Eclipse from Molly Katzen), driving in the rain, cookout of sorts, saw The Matrix Reloaded (finally), and plenty of nightmares.

managed to fit a lot into this weekend, but still didn’t manage to find time for everything, like laundry and phone calls and sleep. and how was your weekend?

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unconscious mutterings :

Naked:: lunch

Singular:: destiny

Particle:: board

Unified:: theory

Lion:: winter

Capitulate:: catapult

Quantum:: electrodynamics

Celestial:: navigation

Motion:: sensor

Delight:: childlike

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‘what is it you’re afraid of?’

‘failure. always.’

the panic is always there, altho most times i can ignore it. lately, tho, it has become my constant companion, just below the surface. my heart starts racing in the middle of the night, enough to wake me up, in response to something my mind is worrying over (i picture a smallish little creature, caramel brown with pointy ears, hunched up in a corner, fussing something around and around in its hands). everything seems fraught with risk.

trying to buy a soda yesterday nearly reduced me to tears. all i wanted was a vanilla Coke. Chica and i had just finished up at the Home Improvement MegaMart, and she thought she’d seen a vending machine outside the store. there was one, with what must have once been an out of order sign, now just a puckered, faded paper plastered on the plastic. we tried a grocery store across the way; i went in and started scouting the coolers by the registers, feeling guilty that Chica was sitting out in the car (i’m taking too long she’s waiting to finish her errands why am i taking so long why is this store so big?). the last one had regular Coke, and as i was getting one, i glanced up to see a vending machine. regular Coke back in the cooler, around the corner to the vending machine. i plunk a single in the slot, look around, and look back to see my dollar sitting on the floor. three separate bills, tried eleventeen different ways, and no success. the panic is creeping up around me, and i dart over to the customer service counter to get change. as he’s getting the quarters, i make small talk to stave off the panic, mentioning that the machine doesn’t seem to like my bills.

‘oh, the change won’t help. the machine doesn’t work.’ *blink* ‘oh, it’s been broken for a while. there aren’t any sodas in it.’ did i miss a sign? ‘no.’

it took all i had to not wail out loud, to not feel as if i’d failed some sort of test, to buy a regular Coke, and to get back out to the car. retelling the story to Chica as we drove home made her laugh and took some of the sting away. but the panic is still there.

and the bitch of it is that it feeds in on itself, until it becomes all encompassing. every situation seems to have sharp, jagged edges, and my only goal is to avoid slicing myself up. i can’t seem to react normally to anything these days. we (Chica and i) between us managed to snap off a large part of the azalea bush we were moving, and i started babbling apologies. if you haven’t met her, Chica is one of the most laid back individuals going. it took a few minutes for me to realize that she really didn’t care that we’d halved the size of her azalea with a little inadvertent pruning. really didn’t care, didn’t think it was my fault. i’ve known her for a dozen years or so, and i should have known she really didn’t care, or at least accepted it when she said it. but all i could see was the poor little azalea branch, lying in the middle of the yard.

i don’t know how to tame this damn beast. i do know that i hate being like this, hate that i’ve let the panic spiral into a life of its own. i do know that this – timid, quiet, still, scared – is not who i am, is not how i am. i do know that i’ve beaten this before. i don’t know how to do it this time, but i do know that i will, that i will find my way back to myself again, to myself and my family and friends.

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how could i not link to this?

danish soundscapes. (courtesy of The Morning News.)

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sometimes, it pays to be a little behind. ;)

tea with the Boston Blogging Babes this past Saturday was quite lovely. and while i have been laggardly in posting about it, the rest of the women have not been.

Laura’s right: the chocolate mousse was divine. 😉 amazing how devious those little teeny weeny pastries can be, in appearing to be not quite enough when in fact there was more than enough for us all to try. (and i’m very excited that the trip will be far less arduous for you the next time around!) Shelley wrote about it, complete with pictures she took with her great new digitoy. (sorry the group shot wasn’t to your liking – because you really are lovely – and here’s proof. *wink*) and Jen snuck in some pictures, too. (thanks again for suggesting all of this! and if you haven’t checked out Jen’s Tea in Boston page, i highly recommend it.)

there was no proper hat – probably just as well. not sure i would have been able to manage that, and remember to use the indoor voice, *and* the indoor vocabulary. as it was, i was so excited about one of the pastries that i very nearly pitched my whole plate into my lap by accident. nothing like tossing silverware and china around to get the attention of everyone else in the room, eh? perhaps if i’d been a tad more discreet, we would have slipped under the radar and been able to pull off the Great Cheese Heist. oh, yes. the cheese really was that good, good enough to warrant a discussion of how best to distract the staff while we all made off with the triple milk Camembert and other delicious treats, extras of which were on a platter rightoutside the dining room door.

such a beautiful day, too. we meandered down Newbury Street after sating ourselves, and it was just perfect weather for walking. (this, of course, did not stop me from trying to hail a limo. why not travel in style, says i? and i thought we deserved it.) i did have to part ways when we got to the Boston Public Garden, as The Dane and i had plans for later in the evening (which, cooincidentally, turned out to be the same movie as all y’all saw), but did get to hang out for a few minutes in the garden, looking at pretty blooming things and people watching. there were two adorable little sisters who made me laugh out loud – one of them had apparently had it, up to here, with her pink flowered jumper dress. and ‘up to here’ translated to her armpits, which is where said dress was hiked up to. i’m right there with you, girl. quite nice to dress up, and quite nice to dress down when you’re done with it.

the rest of the weekend was taken up with driving, and getting to the boat shed, and cleaning, and sneezing a lot (enclosed spaces, mildew and cleaning products will do that), and cleaning some more, and driving some more. we (the Cap’n and The Dane and i) got a fair bit of work done (they more so than me), and there’s more to do, and soon the boat will be back in the water, and (providing the new seal on the head holds) Sailing Will Happen. as crazybusy as this summer will be, it will be good to get out on the water and do approximately nothing on the occasional day. stress relief. it’s all about stress relief.

yeah. that’s the new goal – stress relief. see, shifting things around and taking my life in a new direction is good, but i haven’t quite got the hang of it yet. i seem to miss on the basic things, too, like calling my mom on Mother’s Day. she didn’t get my card, and i didn’t remember to call her from the boat shed, and i came home to a ‘call me and tell me you’re okay, because i’m worried’ message, far too late for me to call. so balance, and lists, and remembering to call, and stress relief all become key. that, and the occasional outing with the Boston Blogging Babes, who always put a smile on my face.

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gah! peewhistle!

it would appear that my image host has gone cans up on me, wouldn’t it? no warning, no renewal notice, no nothing. apologies for the disastrous mess that this appears to be – will fix as soon as possible.

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nothing like Rob’s Amazing Poem Generator to cure a case of the Mondays.

dreaming in the JavaScript Source at

top it all seems very

Important than anyone. i said

there are so been a

bear with a right. now. with a bad example

Japanese wet towel art courtesy

of it thanks guys. life

some things i could give

you

try talking eye to make do something

about The absurd. ; />

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