Yesterday I was so busy that I didn't eat anything. Nothing. I drank black coffee all day, like I'm a prima ballerina or Nicole Ritchie. I always hated it when people say they get so busy that they forget to eat, and I didn't FORGET, per se, I was just too worried about getting to the next thing.
This morning of course I got on my Lilliputian scale and I think I lost two pounds. It's a guess because I can't see the lines, really. I decided to keep the scale, though, because what I finally noticed is the outside color is the same as my bathroom color scheme, which is Sort of Light Blue Sort of Pale Green. I hate to give up anything that goes with my bathroom so nicely.
MY POINT IS, here's what I've been up to.
On Tuesday, Ned and I schlepped out to the country, to this old mill on a river way out in the middle of nowhere, where Lucinda Williams was playing. It was beautiful there. BEAUTIFUL! There were places to eat, so we did that, too.
Anyway, we got home really late, then I had to go to work early, which was delightful, as you can imagine. I've been doing extra projects at work and yesterday something exciting happened with something I did that would be lovely to tell you about but I don't want to be Dooce and get fired for talking about work on m'blog. But suffice it to say June is a superstar. -ish.
And also? Depressed.
I think.
A few months ago, I noticed my throat was tight, like it was closing up on me. I figured it was anxiety, because I've had anxiety on and off since I was, oh, seven. I remember being eight and lying in the hammock in the back yard with a book, RIDDLED with anxiety. What the fuck did I have to be anxious about? I was eight. In my own shady back yard. WITH A BOOK. I wasn't standing before a firing squad.
And it'll go away for years, my anxiety will. On New Year's Eve of 1999, I was on a ferry to visit friends who lived on one of the islands off of Seattle. I had the first panic attack I'd had in 15 years. By the time I got off the ferry, my friends were all, "Say, when did June get hooked on the amphetamines?" I was shaky and sweaty and...other....addicted to amphetamine things, from my vast experience with amphetamines. Whatever. You get my drift. And of course it's shameful to admit, which is stupid, but I didn't tell my friends what was up, I just got in their car all bug-eyed and tense, like Barney Fife had come for a visit.
Anyway, one of the nine thousand things I did yesterday involved going to my doctor to make sure I wasn't dying of esophageal cancer. I love my doctor, Dr. T.
Dr. T.
"I pill the fool!"
First of all, he hasn't quit, which makes him stellar right there. I finally found a new gynecologist after my last one quit two years ago, and my new gynecologist retired this year. Yeah. But Dr. T is my regular doctor, who has to deal with my migraines and my colds and my nausea and my freakouts but not my vadge.
Anyway, I love him. He came in yesterday. "Wassup?" He really said that. "Well, my throat is tight. I figure it's anxiety or cancer." Dr. T is totally used to me. He asked me some questions, and then finally he said, "Have you been depressed?"
Anxiety is a form of depression, in case you haven't Googled the shit out of it the way I have.
"Oh, I don't know." I thought about the other night, when I was doing Zumba in the park with a hundred other people, and how happy I felt. Or when I'm spooning Tallulah at night and hear the wind rustle the leaves. I don't feel sad then.
lu do not be your little spoon, mom. pleese to stop calleeng her that.
"Have you had any life events that've made you sad?" Dr. T asked me.
"Well, my husband left three years ago, and"
That was it. That was all I got out and I cried like a moron. Cried cried cried. I've been in therapy since I was a kid, I mean, not all the time, but a lot. Not once has a therapist had to hand me the Kleenex box that is inevitably there. Not once. I just sit there like a cold stone and complain each week.
Dr. T handed me his tissue.
"Well, you seem tearful, June."
Really?
"Do you feel suicidal?"
I mean, maybe just a smidge. Doesn't everyone feel a smidge suicidal from time to time? Not a lot suicidal, though, I told him.
The point is, he looked down my throat and gave me an antidepressant, which also alleviates anxiety. I don't mean he opened my mouth and shot one in with a pea shooter. You know what I mean.
"If you ever feel suicidal, June, I want you to just walk into my office. Just sit here. If it's after hours, call me." He was writing my prescription when he said, "I could give you a kitten. Would you like a kitten?"
"I always want a kitten," I said, blowing my nose.
Dr. T perked up. "Really?" Turns out he rescues kittens. If I didn't think Talu would munch each and every one of them like cocktail nuts while she sipped her evening scotch, I would so rescue kittens. What could be better? Anyway, Dr. T currently has four kitten wittens who he showed me photos of, and they not only need repeated kisses on their noggins, they also need homes. I told him to email me the photos and I'd put them up here. We'll see if he remembers.
When I left Dr. T's office and screamed back to work, I did the thing I sometimes do, which is call Marvin's voice mail and just cry into it. He always knows it's me. He called right back. "You rang?" he said, finding his own self terribly clever. It's hard to be high-handed, though, when you've been the idiot crying into a voice mail. I told him what was up.
When I'd blog about Marvin back when we were betrothed, I used to tell you guys all the time that Marvin should volunteer at a crisis line. When I was done talking yesterday, he said, "You have a job that you love. Shut up."
True. Then he told me he was reading a book called 10% Happier or something. "So far I'm 10% poorer after buying it," he said.
"That was funny," I told him. "It was," he agreed, "I'm gonna go make it my Facebook status."
Marvin has always been professionally miserable. So if he gets 10% happier he'll only be 487% miserable. Maybe my problem in life has to do with the maths.
Anyway, that's my story. Busy. Anxious.
And now I think I'd better eat something, because it turns out food makes you feel less lightheaded, I hope.
