You're Doing It Wrong

I’m thinking I should see a hypnotist or something about my driving anxiety.

I’ve always been an anxious driver but it seems like it’s getting exponentially worse. Like if I have to go anywhere off my normal beaten path I have to go through all these extra preparations and if there’s the slightest unexpected blip, my heart races and my knees tremble.

I keep asking myself what exactly am I anxious about? It’s not like a terror about accidents although I do have an exaggerated fear of skidding into a vehicle in front of me. I’m committed to safe following distance.

I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like I’m afraid all the other cars will beat me up if I do something wrong.

I found the scribbles of genius in my coat pocket this morning. Yay. I had intended to look there but since I was having the world’s busiest weekend, and the weekend did not involve any rain, I never got around to it.

Yesterday on the way home from the candle party the traffic came to a screeching halt at the bottom of the Marquam Bridge. I figured there was something going on at the Rose Garden Arena and we’d be past it soon and cranked my Scorpions Rockers and Ballads CD a few notches and didn’t worry about it.

But when we got to the Rose Quarter, I realized that everyone wasn’t getting off the freeway. I also noticed that the only cars coming from the opposite direction were coming from the onramp.

I felt a little bit queasy about this because if the freeway is totally shut down, it can’t be good. Then we curved around and there was an RV sideways – completely blocking the entire southbound freeway. (To clarify, my side wasn’t blocked, we were lookie-loos.) It was so perfectly sandwiched in there, they were still trying to sort out how to tow it. There was maybe a 3 foot space between the back end and the freeway median.

It didn’t look bad enough that anyone was hurt, only a pain to clean up. This morning I looked for skidmarks on my way in to see if I could figure out what happened. It’s a spot where three lanes goes to two and looks like the RV had to brake hard probably because some jackass zoomed around on the right, and then skidded perfectly sideways.

I found this last time I downloaded photos. I took it from the yoga studio parking lot two weeks ago. Two weeks later the rain was pounding down and all the leaves were gone.

On Thursday on the bus on the way home I had a great idea for solving a story problem I’m having. I scribbled it on the back of the grocery list I was holding since I was making a stop on the way home.

Then I got groceries. Now I can’t find my genius scribblings. I even looked through the recycling. I think I remember everything so it’s not really a tragedy. But I wish I could find it. I might check the grocery bags.

I just did my daily word on a writing date with Kira. Now I’m off to hurry up and do chores before I go to the candle party with Kathy.

Non-Binding Agreement to determine whether removing dams on the Klamath is feasible.

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I’m in the middle of the world’s busiest weekend and need to head out the door as soon as I have a snack.

Yesterday was the first day I didn’t hit my word minimum and today is looking more grim. Sure, I could be doing it right now but I’m hungry and need a power nap. (For the record, I did write, but only on a non-NaNo project that we read at writer’s group today.)

Maybe when I get home tonight.

Turns out I’m about three weeks ahead of schedule on my regular holiday-overschedule hysteria attack.

I had a slight preview to this earlier this week. I had an errand to run in another part of town and I thought I’d invite a friend who lives out that way to join me and we could have lunch and visit and so forth.

I got out the calendar and realized that the only day I could do this errand before December 19th was today. And because I’m crazy and doing National Novel Writing Month and doing a related but different project for my writer’s group which meets tomorrow in addition to regular old having a life, there was no way I could do lunch or visit. I ran out and did errand and returned and parked back in the writing chair.

But the panic started when I tried to figure out when to schedule our inspections for the furnace. We have to do two and we were advised that one of us should take the day off to be here for these inspections. But Bob doesn’t have the kind of job where you can just take a day off so you can get some inspections and I shouldn’t have to take a day off since I’m on a 4-day work week.

First I thought we could do it next Friday and get it over with. But you know what’s on Friday?

Twilight. And I know it’s just a dumb movie but I have been looking forward to that dumb movie for a long time and I want to be sitting in the theater downtown at the first matinee at 11am with my Team Edward t-shirt, and my Team Vampire baseball cap and my limited edition Bella and Edward Raisinets and my Forks Washington Commemorative Super Gulp and see my damn movie. I don’t think I should have to miss it just because we got a new furnace.

Meanwhile, I have something every single Friday between now and December 19. I need to call and see if we can schedule it that far out, otherwise I’ll suck it up and take a day. I just hate using up leave pay for something stupid like that. Or to make it even stupider, you could argue that I’m taking leave pay so I can see a vampire movie.

I bet I’m not the only one.

John-Boy and Gibbs have the same Dad.

This morning Bob took me to a breakfast place that’s a local chain. It’s located in a strip mall between a laundromat and a payday loan place and has yellow walls and hard chairs.

After we were seated Bob said, “Isn’t this nice?”

I said, “Remind me how we ended up together.”

It’s one of those places with a confusing menu where if you order just what you want to eat, say, 1 pancake and 1 sausage link, it costs about $9 but if you order the special with 2 pancakes, 2 eggs and 2 sausage links it’s a buck cheaper and all the food you can’t finish gets thrown away.

The monthly pancake special was pumpkin and it was delicious. But between my breakfast special and my hot chocolate I had more sugar and fat (two giant dollops of whipped cream!) and carbs than I’m accustomed to before Noon and as soon as we got home I had to have a nap.

Today’s writing hasn’t been worth crap and I’m fretting about wasting a whole free day without getting any work done. I’m going to keep my butt in the chair for one more hour and then light a presto log and goof off until dinner.

On the way home from yoga I composed a post in my head about the amazing personal growth I’m experiencing due to NaNoWriMo (18,217 words so far, if you’re interested) but now it’s almost 8:30pm and I’m tired and I just hoovered my dinner which was a salad and potato chips. Maybe I’ll write it a different day.

Today’s post will be about another energy saving tip I read. It said you should take clothes out of the dryer slightly damp. They will dry as you put them away.

First of all, I’m not sure which is the “slightly damp” setting on my dryer. So do I stand there and check every five minutes?

Second, I’ve taken items out “slightly damp” because I had to get a move on and didn’t want my stuff in the dryer any longer. I then hung them up and two days later they were still damp.

I think this is a lame tip.

I’ve been hearing that energy is expensive. Yet almost every weekend I hear people leaf-blowing for what seems like hours.

I’ve also heard that Americans don’t get enough exercise. Yet, there are leaves that need to be raked.

Why don’t we team up the people who don’t get enough exercise with the people who have leaves and rakes. Everybody wins.