There are seventeen bullet points in this post.

Thursday night I had a lovely dinner out with my mom and brother.  There was much drama in the planning but none whatsoever in the execution.  (Unless you count the gi-normous blister on one of my toes, which I should have left the hell alone.)

Friday...I'm not sure how to characterize it.  I don't think it would meet the clinical definition of a panic attack, but it was way, way past an ordinary lousy mood.  I think it was basically a clusterfuck of self-loathing and decision-making:

• where to take the car for maintenance, since there is a very scary light on the dashboard and I need an oil change anyway
• have I voided various warranties by being slack about oil changes (almost certainly not, but still)
• should I reactivate my law license or not (running smack into an expensive continuing-ed obligation if I do)
• should I pay my church pledge all at once or stretch it out monthly, since it's due at the same time as bar fees
• do we really have to get new primary care doctors, or have the billing issues of the last month just  been a glitch (sure, the new doctor sounds great, but we adore current ones and have been with them for years; on the other hand, they don't seem to like our insurance anymore)
• what if new doctor says something critical about my age, weight, lack of babies, or all three
• should I get my Depo shot next time
• what if it takes 2-3 years for my periods to start up again
• what the hell do we use in the interim (waiting to have 3 regular periods), during which I'm still not supposed to get pregnant
• am I seriously thinking about futzing with my crazy meds?!
• should I go to the play tonight, technically by myself, even though I will definitely know people there
• should I go to Pride on Saturday, even though I might overheat, because it's important to me and I'll regret missing it
• will I ever like my hair again, because its texture has morphed into something one could sell for scrubbing pots, and the gray is back with reinforcements after 3 weeks
• am I going to end up bald instead, because I seem to have traded biting my nails and cuticles for yanking out hairs that I deem "weird" 
• should I address, with loppers, my hair the towering lavender bush that makes it difficult to see when backing out of the driveway and is fully occupied by loud, fuzzy bees
• this new squishy keyboard can go in the dishwasher if I spill something on it but my God, shifting is a nightmare, and I NEED my capitals and exclamation points!!!!!
• etc., etc. 

So, in retrospect, that is quite a lot of shit to put oneself through all in one fell swoop, and also, pelting my husband with most of it as soon as he walked in from work was not exactly the healthiest way to deal, either. On the other hand, bonus points should be awarded because I refrained from phoning him up.

I ended up staying home from both the play and Pride, which kind of sucks. But if I was flipping out that much about going, maybe not going was the better option. Walking the parade route with church is highly uplifting but both times has resulted in rushing myself home to Gatorade and a cold shower.  So I will take a shift tabling, under a tent, next year.  And the play is something that will probably be restaged soon.

Then I woke up before 8 this morning and realized, contrary to recollections of careful planning, that I threw out two empty prescription bottles, apparently without calling in or picking up the refills.  This is not a crisis and shoulding all over myself is not going to help, and if anything, the short pick-up trip has donuts on the way, and according to the manual, may even result in the stupid dashboard light righting itself.    

Visualize this!

So...for a while there I was trying to teach pre-K.  I ran away from that in January and am much the better for it. The long, sordid story will probably come out in bits and pieces here.  Meanwhile, I am basically a kept woman, the antithesis of what I was raised to be, which is probably why it bugs me so damn much.

I have no idea what to do next. The thought of getting back on the rejection hamster wheel that was applying to lawyer jobs is terrifying.  The thought of trying to write professionally--hopping onto another such wheel--is about equally scary.  I have had so damn much I've wanted to say that the idea of coming back here to type in this little box got overwhelming.  But one has to start somewhere.

I have been trying to make (readying finger quotes) a vision board--Lord knows I have mountains of magazines to mine.  Some of the little scraps of paper I've been hanging onto for years.  It is bound to be somewhat vague as far as certain Life Goals, because I really don't know what I want exactly. Of course there will be various enouragements re kicking butt and taking names, but nothing so specific as a picture of, say, a briefcase.  I'm not about to put a picture of a baby on there because of the harsh reality that it might not work out that way.  There will be cats, however. Of that I am certain.

So I've been going through my piles and piles of magazines.  As gifts from my mother and grandmother, I am subscribed to Southern Living, Better Homes & Gardens, Bon Appetit, and O[prah's mag].  Mom also passes along the occasional Real Simple, Garden & Gun (which can be great despite its frightening title), and Every Day with Rachael Ray, which is SO! very! busy!, and full of exclamation points!!!, but which also discusses food I might actually eat, as opposed to BA, which is full of things like fish sauce (not only no, but Hell No).  BA and O have both been full of pseudoscience lately (white sugar bad! juice fast good!), but BA recently redeemed itself partway, by putting Mel Brooks on its back page.

Anyway, one of the volumes advised checking the reliability of one's oven thermostat, because they are notoriously screwy, and since I had to bake for church today anyway, I put the oven thermometer in there and checked it after 6 minutes, which is when the oven beeps to tell me, ostensibly, that it is fully pre-heated and ready to accept cargo. In reality, it was over 200 degrees short of 350.  So if you are like me, and turn on the oven when you start baking, only to fret about wasted heat as your creation takes forever to come together:  I wouldn't fret quite so much.  Which is good advice for life, really, and just the kind of thing one might affix to a piece of posterboard.