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Author, Historian, Storyteller

Archives for May 2017

Humor, LifeLeave a comment

Anybody who knows me, or frequents my Instagram page, knows that my dogs are my babies. I’ve had them for a little over a decade now, and I don’t care how low or crappy I’m feeling, they can always make me feel better. Whether it’s their crazy antics or both of them climbing into my lap for snuggles, they lift my spirits. So a couple of years ago when their nervous energy got out of control – they would scream and cry EVERY TIME I left the house – I talked to their vet and we put them on Prozac. In retrospect, I wish that I had put them on it years earlier, it made everyone happier. What made it even better, was that I was able to fill their prescriptions at my local Target pharmacy. So I registered both of them as pets and all was well.

Puggles

Then CVS took over the Target pharmacies, which was even better for me, since I get my own prescriptions at CVS. Why not Target you ask? Because I spend a hell of a lot less money when I walk into CVS, then when I walk into Target! So I transferred the prescriptions over to my normal CVS and all was well . . . or so I thought. The last time I went in, I asked for my prescriptions, then I asked for the prescriptions of Zoey and Malcolm Michels, both born on 6-26-06. To which the guy helping me said something about twins and I agreed. Technically they’re littermates, not twins. I personally know that they at least had another sister, so they are two from a set of triplets, or quadruplets, or quintuplets . . . much easier to say littermates. However, as I got tired of giving this explanation to people several years ago, I just smiled at the attendant and agreed that Zoey and Malcolm are indeed twins.

He smiled back, and then went to fetch the prescriptions. When he came back, the smile was gone, replaced by a rather troubled look. He set my prescriptions down, and then proceeded to almost say something, then he stopped. It was at this point that I guessed what was going on. I figured he saw that they were labeled as dogs and was afraid of offending me in case my darling twin children had been labeled as animals. I was only half right. Zoey had been labeled as a pet, and Malcolm had been labeled as a little boy. This poor guy was trying to find the most politic way of asking if I indeed had twins composed of a dog and a boy.

Laughing

He finally asked me if Malcolm was a boy, to which I said yes. Then he hesitantly pointed out that Zoey was listed as a K-9 and was that correct? To which I also said yes. I let him hang awkwardly for a couple of moments – because I’m evil – before repeating back to him that yes, Zoey is a dog and Malcolm is a boy . . . dog. At this point he burst out laughing and I could see the tension release from his shoulders, as he assured me that, you know, this is LA, somebody might have dog/boy twins, and he wasn’t judging or anything – he was totally judging – but he was glad that it was much simpler than that. He then fixed Malcolm’s classification in the system, I made a smart ass remark about being really into Twilight back then, and we were both tearing up from laughing so hard by the time I paid and left.

So for a brief moment, in the eyes of CVS, I had a dog and a little boy. Now I just have dogs, and they’re still my babies.

Live and Learn, OCDLeave a comment

I am no stranger to sleeping problems. I first developed insomnia when I was 16, and a couple of years ago I found out that my cortisol levels are backwards. They’re high when they should be low and low when they should be high which is why I’m exhausted in the morning and get one hell of a second wind at 10 pm. If I had complete control over my schedule, I would go to sleep at 3 am and wake up at 11 am. As I do not have complete control over my schedule, and we’re getting closer but haven’t yet fixed the cortisol problem, I do not take a good night’s sleep for granted. But of all of the issues I have with sleeping, I’ve always been grateful of the fact, that my problem is never a racing a mind. I’m either wide-ass awake with brain functioning normally, or I’m asleep. Being wide awake when you’re trying to sleep is bad enough, so I can’t imagine the hell of being exhausted but unable to get your brain to wind down.

Portrait of an insomniac man trying to sleep in his bed

But as they say, all good things must come to an end. I got a taste of this last night. Not the full-on anxiety brain, I had OCD brain. On Sunday, my laptop decided that it wanted to freeze up, never to work again. Yesterday it got sent out, likely for a new hard drive, which meant that I had lost all of the work that I’d done on Sunday. Argh!!!!! I need to finish my novel, and to do that I need my laptop, and I need to keep work that I’ve done, not lose it! Talk about feeling helpless and having zero control over something . . . cue my OCD. I couldn’t control what was happening with my laptop, so my brain decided to control everything else around me.

I immediately mapped out the rest of my evening in order to complete an extensive list of things on my to-do list.

  • Stop by CVS, use coupon to buy birthday card.
  • Stop by the store to pick up some forgotten groceries. Get exactly what I was missing, nothing less, nothing more.
  • Take dogs out.
  • Start my laundry.
  • Cook my dinner.
  • Prep potatoes while my dinner cooks.
  • Eat my dinner.
  • Cook potatoes while I eat my dinner.
  • Move my laundry over.
  • Pull out potatoes and let cool.
  • Cook scrambled eggs and add the rest of the breakfast burrito ingredients while the potatoes cool.
  • Assemble 8 breakfast burritos and wrap them up for the freezer.
  • Put burritos in freezer and put away leftover ingredients.
  • Fetch laundry from laundry room.
  • Grab ingredients and assemble two pepperoni pizzas, wrap them up for the freezer.
  • Put pizzas in the freezer and put away leftover ingredients.
  • Chat with roommate – this wasn’t on the original schedule.
  • Fold laundry.
  • Do a sink-full of dishes.
  • Realize that while the water is dirty, there’s still room in the drying rack for more dishes.
  • Run more water and do another sink-full of dishes.
  • Strip and remake bed.
  • Take dogs out.
  • Get ready for bed.
  • Lie in bed thinking about the fact that while I folded my laundry, I didn’t put my laundry away which needs to be done. Then think about the fact that the dishes I did earlier should be dry by now, and thus can be put away making room to do the remaining dishes. And the counters and oven really need to a good scrubbing, and hey I can use that new spray I got!
  • Start to get out of bed to do the aforementioned tasks.

It was at this point that I caught a glimpse of the time on my alarm clock, and realized my OCD had kicked in. I am not usually this productive after work. Especially when my evening starts out by spending an hour at the Apple Genius bar. But as I sat on the edge of my bed, taking deep breaths and trying to re-center myself, it occurred to me that I hadn’t wanted to do that second sink-full of dishes. I had simply been incapable of walking away until the precarious tower of Tetris-ed drying dishes was such that the addition of a single spoon would have sent the whole thing toppling down. I then reminded myself that while I always wash and fold my laundry on Monday, I generally put it away on Tuesday. So no, that didn’t need to be done at 2 in the frickin morning.

Go to bed

My entire evening had been driven by a NEED to clean, organize and plan the world around me. I had been working in such a frenzy, that my normally snuggle-tastic dogs were curled up on my bed against the wall so that they weren’t touching me. Honestly, I think they were afraid I was going to throw them in the bathtub and scrub them down if they made their presence conspicuous. Which I might have, so well played puggles. Even with the knowledge of what was going on in my head, it took another half an hour lying in bed wide awake to convince myself that I had done enough for the evening, and like the proverbial mouse with his cookie, if I got up to do just one more thing, I would literally be up all night. Ooof! So long story short, I feel for those of you with anxiety, because the racing thoughts thing sucks!

LifeView all 2 comments

If you compliment something I’m wearing, or my purse, or a piece of jewelry, I’m likely going to offer up an interesting fact about it. I’m just that person. I’ve come to embrace it. What kind of facts, you ask? Things like, “You can still get it at Target,” or “I got it on sale for $3!” or “My best friend gave it to me for my birthday.” I have no idea why I do this, I guess my brain likes to make associations. 99% of the time, I have no qualms with this little peccadillo. But the 1% drives me insane.

I have this fantastic skirt. It’s classy, hugs my curves in all the right places and flares out with a subdued, yet feminine ruffle at the knee. It’s dark gray with black specks and made of raw silk so you can dress it up or down. Best yet, it is comfortable! Really, the only flaw in its design is that it doesn’t have pockets. However, with all of its other attributes, I’m willing to let that slide. The thing is, I hardly ever wear it. Maybe once or twice a year, tops. I always see it hanging there, admire it for a moment and then move on to something else. Wanna know why? It is the 1% that drives me insane because I wore the damn thing to my mother’s funeral.

Charlie Brown

Any other interesting fact about that skirt gets trumped by the fact that I wore it to my mother’s funeral, so that’s the fact that pops into my head. It doesn’t make me sad or bring up the emotions from that day, it’s simply a factoid. You compliment my glasses, I tell you that I got them for free because Lenscrafters broke my other frames while trying to fix them. You compliment my cute brown loafers, I tell you that I got them for half off on Zulily. You compliment my gray skirt . . . you know how this ends. Now truth be told, nobody has ever complimented me on my cute brown loafers. Mostly because I don’t think anyone else thinks they’re cute. There’s no accounting for taste (you can decide whose in this scenario.)

So if I had worn the brown loafers to my mother’s funeral, I would have zero problems. However, the damn skirt is so cute that I inevitably get 2-3 compliments on it every time I wear it. Then I have to bite my tongue to keep from blurting out, “I wore it to my mom’s funeral.” Because let’s face it, that would be awkward. Nothing puts a damper on a conversation like playing the dead mother card. Especially when it’s a complete stranger in the bathroom! Nobody wants to hear where I wore the skirt, they just want to tell me that it is super cute.

Awkward

So I bite my tongue and move on with my day. Then somebody else says something and I bite my tongue again. This goes on all day until I get home and just to relieve the tension that has built up, I tell my dogs that I wore the stupid skirt to my mom’s funeral and I’m never wearing it again because it’s exhausting! And they wag their tails, give me kisses and don’t care that I said something macabre, because they’re dogs. Which just proves that dogs are easier than people.

Charlie and Snoopy

If you haven’t already guessed, I recently wore that skirt and have thus been traumatized once more by the experience. I would get rid of it instead of ranting here, but it’s just so damn cute! Life is hard.