The True Neurotic

Your Score: The True Neurotic You scored 54 anxiety, 62 awkwardness, and 54 neuroticism! Congratulations, you are The True Neurotic, you nail-biting, conflict-avoiding worrier, you. You're plagued by self-doubt and anxiety, which makes social activity hard--even though you may be well-liked, you feel under a storm of silent criticism. It doesn't help that people give you funny looks for organizing all your pens by color or sharpening your gnawed pencils to a delicate point. Your high anxiety score implies that you are unable to relax, worry about the future often, and probably are plagued by irrational fears and self-doubt. Your high awkwardness score implies that you are socially inept, probably stick out from the crowd, and feel uncomfortable in large groups of people, such as at parties. Your high neuroticism score implies that you exhibit neurotic behaviors--probably organization, fanatic obsessions (can you recite the entire first LOTR movie?), repetitive mantras, constant checking, or orderly rituals.

Thanks to Canada - I think!

I don't like Mondays....

Sigh... well I am still fighting this cold which has gotten much worse. p is still quite ill with it as well. Saturday we went up to Barrie for the family get-together which was a lot of fun. Had a good gab with Michael, Claudia, young Michael, a little with Max, and John and great Aunt Nancy. MJ brought a tonne of pictures that had been moldering in Mary and Joan's garage. Awesome! Mum has a picture of the original Nanna now (Dad's Nanna). Wow she was really pretty. I've asked Dad to scan it for me because I want to get back into the the family tree. I might even pay for the ancestry.ca subscription now the finances are flowing a little better. I need to email Michael because he has tonnes of information that we can use to update the family tree. Actually I need to log into the website and find out how to let him get into it. I think I gave Dad privileges so I ought to be able to give him privileges.
The conversation I had with Claudia was excellent. She's an art therapist - segue, there are a lot of really excellent artists in my family -- Bill, MJ, Claudia and of course several musicians. --- and we had some really great conversation around a myriad of topics including mindfulness meditation, my frustration at being so physically weak and she was telling me about some of her clients. She also told me her philosophy about being an artist which is that anyone can learn to draw etc but just because one is technically good doesn't mean the art really lives and breathes. It has to do with finding a way to connect your heart and soul to the art and letting it be expressed. Which is interesting because it echoes something something I've learned about music. Which is you can be technically note perfect, but not musical. You can be less then note-perfect but incredibly musical. Words are hard to use to explain this but I know until I started studying with B and really really focusing I didn't know how to be musical. It's like the difference between a computer program reading something and a human reading it expressively.

Licorice is doing better. He's putting on some weight. He's become quite the demanding little tyrant! Every two hours he's wheeking and asking for food! All through the night! And he doesn't shut up until he gets it. At one point, he was in bed with us snuggled in his towels, and suddenly p says where did he go? He had launched himself out of the towel cave and was trotting across the pillows to p's head! He's such a sweet little guy. Totally unphazed by anything, even the dogs at Mum and Dad's Saturday nite! He's so funny to watch running around as he gives these little hops and jumps as he gallops away!

I do feel absolutely miserable. Better then yesterday though. It's so hard to get up in the mornings and on a Monday to boot without feeling miserable. It's partly my own fault, I never even thought to warn G and I about my immunity. And ironically, p's been the sickest. But it's because the rest of my friends are so good about letting us know if they have anything communicable that I didn't think about saying anything. I guess I was taking it for granted. But G and I aren't used to the notion with me so of course wouldn't have even thought of it. I think I'll just wait until the next time we plan to get together and I'll bring it up then. There's no point in making them feel bad now that the cow's out of the field so to speak!

Enough for now, must go and do some work. Or at least try..... stream of consciousness is much easier then focused work!!

It's Thursday and I wish it were Friday

Worked from home yesterday. G and her family came for dinner on Saturday. It's the first time I've seen her since our wedding and I didn't really get to talk to her at it. It had been ages really. We had a good time catching up and it was nice to meet her I properly instead of at the wedding! Her boys are pretty cute too. Except that I didn't think to warn her that I am susceptible to colds etc. The first thing they announced when they got there was that one of the two boys was sick.
:-(
Strangely p has it worse then me. I hope that doesn't mean I'm going to be sicker. I've re-scheduled my IV-IVG for Saturday so that should help.
Licorice is doing okay. He went to the vet on Wednesday because we were worried because his only lower front tooth had broken off and left a stump. Good news is that he's not losing bone mass in his jaw - phew! But his molars are growing in over his tongue. Sigh. So it's back to the vet next week to get them trimmed again. Hopefully he'll start eating again the way he was for a few days. The vet didn't charge us for the visit yesterday either which was awesome. He is such an amazing vet!

I'm feeling crappy today. Probably because of the cold. My shoulders are achey and I'm kind of feeling spaced out. I went for walkies with T today (the second time this week) and just couldn't maintain the pace I have been walking at on previous days. And that's despite being inside and doing the loop de loop at the mall. She helped me carry back my provisions from the Dominion and I realized it was a good thing because it would have been exhausting for me to do so. It wasn't that much - just a couple of bags, but I guess my lungs are weaker today because of the congestion. Sucks - I can feel it rattling and I can't cough it up and I keep sneezing. But again, I'm not as bad as p who has lost his voice practically and is very weebly.

So, my mum is holding a get-together for my Dad's side of the clan. They are all going to Barrie on the 24th. She called me a couple of weeks ago to ask me because of course she was asking my brother. Now, I wasn't happy about it - but I said yes I'll be there and I'll try to behave myself. On Monday I had this great long conversation with Dad as I had called from work because Mum had tried to get a hold of me several times over the weekend. It's great when he's home alone, we have some of the best chats. At any rate, I asked him who was coming to the get-together and said well all of the cousins etc. So I had to ask, is D coming?? Dad said no, he's not. And I said, is it because of me? Dad said yes. Then he said Mum is kicking herself because she didn't think to say before she hung up that gee that's tood bad because K (meaning me) didn't have any problem with coming!! I told Dad I was sorry about it. He said it's obvious D hasn't gotten past what caused the whole kerfuffle before our wedding.

The good thing is that Dad doesn't expect me to do anything more then I already have done. Mum on the other hand, would love it if I would say "sorry". She forgets I have already done so, and forgiveness for D entails me crawling on my knees and grovelling and taking all the same shit as I have all my life from him.

Tuesday Morning Go Train Hell

Last night I did not get any sleep again. Despite going downstairs to the couch in the living room my feet kept hurting all night long. One would stop then the other would start. Not quite as bad as last Thursday which caused me to stay and work from home as I was exhausted and there was no way I would make even the 8:00 am train at Burlington. Probably more on a par with Wednesday night.

Every morning I drag myself out of bed with p's help knowing that I have 45 minutes to an hour or more to sleep on the train on the way in. I really need that hour espeically after nights like last night. Well this morning at Burlington these three dames (and I use that loosely) get on the train and plunk themselves down beside me and proceed to yap yap yap all the effing way into Union Station about the most inane things. They all went shopping in the States on the weekend and bought this which cost that when in Canada would cost this. All three were more then overweight, dyed blonde and very hard looking. And what really killed me was the topic of conversation after the initial shopping bit. They moved on to Christmas and gift giving and all they could talk about was how much they spend on someone's gift compared to someone's elses, and I'm going to stop buying my god-daughter gifts how old should I wait for her to be before I can stop? And people give the most useless gifts and blah blah. Then, the one sitting next to me decided to give the woman across from a blow by blow of a TV show. Meanwhile, the entire way in I'm sitting there with my eyes closed obviously trying to sleep and they can't shut up or move some where else to be considerate. It's the morning for God's sake. I sat there thinking SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP all the way hoping in vain one of them might be slightly empathetic and figure it out. But no.... yap yap yap yap. The three of them were the epitiome of Hamilton women. That is not a compliment in case you were wondering.
What a bunch of inconsiderate shallow excuses. They could have at least had an interesting conversation if they had to keep me awake. I should have moved once they sat down. I just knew they weren't going to shut up.

Yes I'm grumpy - it's bad enough my body won't cooperate with me to get a good night's sleep but then to have my train snooze so rudely interrupted was beyond belief. Why can't I find a spot on the train that is quiet??? Why why why???