Saturday, February 21, 2009

What-Ifs and Whys

I must have woken up in a very philosophical frame of mind this morning because this was the first real conversation of the day with TLS.

Scene: TLS is in the kitchen making sure he has everything he needs before he heads out to run errands.

Me: (Walking in the kitchen, still in jammies. Smiling.)
TLS: Why are you so happy this morning? (Pause) Just happy to be alive?
Me: (hugging TLS) Just happy that you're here.
TLS: Where else would I be?
Me: I meant that in more of a what-if-we-hadn't-met kind of way.
TLS: Oh. That's a weird thought. Where would we be?
Me: It is weird. You'd probably be here...
TLS: (interrupting) In [our town]?
Me: Yes.
TLS: (laughing) Nah, I'd probably be in [names of high end suburbs] living with my doctor wife, playing golf every day.
Me: (also laughing) You wish!

It made me think that we never really know what kind of differences that the consequences of our choices make. What if I had married the jerky Air Force ex-boyfriend? What if I had gone to library school earlier? What if TLS had finished college earlier? It all makes my head spin a little bit, but I have to say that I'm glad things happened the way they did. I have a hard time believing that I could be any happier than I am right now.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Sitting and Watching the Cursor Blink

Look, I know I haven't been the best blogger of late. And I hate to trot out the old "I don't have anything to say" excuse. Been there. Done that. And how interesting is that for the blog reading public? Not very, I'd have to say.

I came out to Blogger.com today determined to write an entry and I must have sat watching the cursor blink for about five minutes. Literally. I was desperately waiting for the arrival of the blogging muse, but she must be keeping different hours and routes, 'cause I got nothin'.

In the spirit of giving it the old college try, here's all I could come up with. Enjoy.

Spring is starting to make itself known. The trees are just starting to bud out and we've planted some vegetable seeds in the little seed terrariums to be transplanted when the danger of the last freeze has finally passed. (The radishes have already sprouted and I can almost taste their zippy tang.) I'm betting that another month or so will bring another one of my bluebonnet posts. Maybe if you're lucky I'll feel led to write a bluebonnet haiku. (Try and keep yourselves under control!)

Thursday, February 19, 2009

One Way to Know That You're Turning 40

The only piece of real mail that came yesterday was my notification that it is time to schedule my first screening mammogram. Yippee.

In other unrelated news: work is a pain, school is a pain, but I'm surviving. Hopefully, more witty things to report soon.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Heroes, Librarians & Class

This article regarding the pilot, Sully Sullenberger, who flew the plane that crashed into the Hudson river a few weeks ago, made me (as a librarian in training) very, very happy.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

I Could Go for a Xanax About Now

A few years back I had what I would delicately call (after coughing behind my hand) a female problem. No one really wants all the gory details but what it came down to was experiencing a lot of pain in an area of the body that about 99.99999% of the time you don't even think about having. My doctor could diagnose the problem as generic "inflammation" but wasn't able to pinpoint the cause...or alternately, provide much in the way of treatment options. As you might imagine, this made me more than a little cranky and depressed. I sought the counsel of a wonderful psychiatrist who tried prescribing an antidepressant, but as I am extremely sensitive to prescription drugs (and probably the illicit ones too, but as we've established previously, I've never done any of those before) I wasn't able to continue taking the Zoloft she prescribed. As a result, she gave me a prescription for the anti-anxiety medication, Xanax, with a stern warning that it would not be given long-term due to its propensity for addiction and abuse. And after taking it, I could understand why. I used to take a half of the smallest dose (1 mg as I remember, but it's been a few years so I could be wrong about that) and that was enough to spread a warm feeling throughout my whole body. Oh sure, my problems were all still there, but I just didn't care. It was a delicious feeling, but I was smart enough to use it only on the most dire days--when I was having a hard time of it--holding myself together with duct tape and baling wire, which seems to be an extremely Texan saying. Long story short, I was able (through help from my mom and mother-in-law) to find a holistic treatment that made me pain free (Hooray!) and I didn't need to use the Xanax anymore.

I could definitely be talked into using my little friend "Xan" for the last month or so, though. My company experienced some layoffs in January that directly influenced my workload (and not in a good way). Don't get me wrong, I am happy to have a job in today's economy, but added to my schoolwork this semester I seem to want to escape to "Xan" island. Things have been better in the last couple weeks but anxiety seems to be my constant companion these days. Sigh.