Please just stop

It's sunny today; looks gorgeous outside. The birds are tweeting (they have very tiny smartphones). I've had some truly good days where I felt very, very good.

So I don't know why today I feel like absolute shit and want to crawl back in bed and into a ball underneath the covers. Not only would I be too warm under there, I would soon find it difficult to breathe do to the carbon dioxide build up. I know this from experience.

I didn't do anything differently. Went to bed at the same stupid time after letting myself stay up until I was seeing two of everything. Got my now-typical six hours of sleep. Got up at 9am or so. All very usual. Ate the same foods, did the same unproductive routine: tea, breakfast, sitting on couch reading blogs and email, taking meds, putting drops in eyes. No different than the last many, many mornings. So why were the past several days good and today is very much not good?

I feel bad today, in many senses of the word. I feel mentally and emotionally in a bad place. I've not fulfilled some very serious commitments, making me feel like a bad person. i left some comments on two blogs that i wish I could take back because in the one case I feel chastised and in the other ... I just feel like I've done the wrong thing and everyone is simply ignoring it. And because the two people who run the blogs are friends who share a house, I feel as if they are talking to each other and saying "geez, she's such a pain. And all she talks about is herself. I wish she'd go away." I feel like I wish I weren't here, not necessarily forever, but just for awhile.

The bills are all late and I think the city may have cut off mom's water. I'm a totally crappy executor. I haven't been keeping records, I rack up late fees. It's even worse for my own finances. Fifty years old and I cannot even keep track of my own money or keep up with my checkbook.

I am having a really, really bad day. I'm starting to cry. Just a self-pitying blob. And I'm not saying this to get people to feel sorry for me to to validate me or any of that. It's just how I feel: I feel like a pathetic example of humanity, incompetent, self-centered, moody, immature, can't-suck-it-up-and-cope nothing. And everyone is getting tired of me bitching and moaning all the time; pretty soon no one will want to even be my friend because I'm so tiresome.

Hell, any more of this and I'll dump me.

I want cake.

Talking to Strangers

When I was a child, I was amazingly outgoing and would talk to anyone who stood still long enough. I once introduced myself to a new mailman with my name, followed by "and I'm cute!" I knew it was true because everyone told me so.

But my dad was a cop, so he worked hard at teaching us, me especially, not to talk to strangers. Between that, puberty-onset shyness, and my inherent introversion, I became quite good at not talking to strangers. (I could still talk to friends who stood still long enough.)

But now I must talk to strangers if I am to find work and/or develop my own business. I must talk to strangers if I am to make new friends. And while some of my abilities and issues have changed, and my meds have had an effect, it's not always enough to make talking to strangers anything close to easy. And now that the meds aren't doing their job, such speech is very, very far from easy.

Tonight, my mind and body are buzzing as if filled with a hive of mad bees. I attended a professional meeting and spoke not only to individual strangers but to an entire group of them when I announced needing volunteers for a project I'm working on. I had met a few of these people before, but could only count two as people who knew my name. The food was well-balanced (and tasty!), so I cannot blame blood sugar. And the buzzy, vibrating feeling began before I entered my car for the long drive home. (And I don't have a sex toy in my pocket, although that might be a useful idea to help me come down from this feeling!)

I think it's nerves, both the anxiety kind and, probably in reaction, the neurological kind, given that I do have some neurological issues, too.

I can't go to sleep while I feel like this. Caffeine is useful and easy for perking up. What drink is useful and easy for perking down?

What would work, and has worked in the past, would be slow, comfortable conversation with a loved one. (Well, slow comfortable something else with a special loved one would work, too.) However, that is not an option at this moment, so instead I must contemplate warm milk.

If only there weren't so damned many strangers that I have to talk to!