a funny thing happened on the way

if you call locking my keys in my car "funny."

last saturday night I was on my way to a surprise party - one that I helped to plan and was supposed to help set up - and stopped to get some gas. for whatever reason, I took my keys out of the ignition, threw them on the front seat, took my phone and debit card out of the car with me, and shut the door. I realized moments later that I'd locked myself out. I can, at this point, only say that I was glad that I'd taken my spare out of my WFM apron pocket (as the apron was in the backseat of my car at that time) and left it where nick could find it.

there is a certain amount of emotion that goes into a personally disruptive event such as this one: anger, fear, disappointment, resignation. I've locked my keys in my car a few other times, and this was the first time that I felt the latter two more than the former.

for example, as a junior in college, I locked my keys in my car on a snowy, cold day. on that day I was impatient and angry: my car was running, I was on my way to class, and my mom couldn't get there fast enough with the single spare key. this was the case in the handful of other incidents involving my person and a missing set of keys: there was a certain amount of woe and whining, of acting like a giant baby and apologizing sheepishly later.

in the forty minutes it took nick to venture to our apartment and then meet me at the gas station, I seemed to handle myself quite differently than before. sure, there was the intial sigh and depressive self-blame ("oh, I'm such a fucking idiot...! who does that?"), then the resignation ("nick's my only hope. I'm going to be late, but that's how it has to be."), and then... like no other time before... there was the positivity! the "well, it's fucking hot and sticky outside, so I might as well go into the convenience store and see if the attendant's at least nice enough to let me hang out for a while." and that's just what I did.

it turns out that the attendant was nice enough. I explained my predicament immediately and nervously, but berlin, the tall, lanky, cornrowed, pretty-eyed young man behind the counter, was friendly and nonchalant about the whole thing. for most of the time that I was there, I was the only other person in the tiny store, and pretty soon I found myself in random, but not shallow, conversation with the most genuine person I'd met in months. the regulars who came into the store liked and trusted him, and I could see why: he gave everyone who came in an equal chance. he would talk to those who needed to talk, laugh with those who needed a laugh, hurry for those in a hurry. but he remained smiling, seeming to enjoy all of it.

in a time when I'd feared that my efforts of last fall - my self-imposed campaign of allowing others to show me how amazing they were, no matter what the circumstance - had failed, or at least somehow stalled, I saw that another person out there was also entirely open to this kind of thinking. he was simply naturally happy to be treating others as he wanted to be treated, with interest, affability, and respect. and he sloughed off people on whom this equal chance was seemingly lost, not rudely but in the kind of softly resigned way that shows disappointment in the present and hope for the future.

the rest of my night was entirely better for this encounter. rather than noticing how long I waited at the gas station, I was instead ridiculously happy and grateful to see nick. and in an exceptional interpersonally challenging moment, I was more comfortable than I usually am in entering a social situation without a buffer and fostering a few new friendships while there. okay, okay... the substances consumed at the birthday party helped in that, too, but the point is that I think I regained my enthusiasm for letting amazing things happen to me in a few moments when I could have pity-partied my way through the rest of the evening. and I can't think of a better way to spend a saturday night.

from anaphylaxis to zombies

while mindlessly munching my way through a small tub of carob-covered raisins yesterday morning, I stumbled on my current greatest fear - a single raw sunflower seed at the bottom of the tub.

I already know, per my very limiting diet and extensive list of allergies, that I should absolutely avoid the bulk aisle at whole foods (or anywhere, for that matter). but I am assured by the bulk buyer that he's got some things I can eat... and carob-covered raisins, being one of them, are probably my favorite candy on the planet. so though I should stay out of the bulk aisle, I am often lured to its cross-contaminated bins by the promise of a candy I can't get anywhere else.

this single seed, however, was a bit of a shock. to date, sunflower seeds were the cause of my worst allergic reaction - an episode of anaphylaxis that was scarily quick and just as quickly quieted with a high dose of benadryl. earlier this weekend, in fact, I'd picked up a stray potato chip from one of the hand baskets at work and almost instantly developed an uncomfortable rash between two of my fingers from the sunflower oil on the chip. so, facing one in the middle of my carob-y goodness was rather jarring, and it got me to thinking: if I am most afraid of a small achene and a few stone fruits - some of the only things that can kill me as I stand - should I really be all that afraid of anything else?

I would like to say "no." but I'm honest, so you know that's not the case.

I am one of those people who is admittedly afraid of scary movies, and lately will refuse to watch them for fear of nightmares. at age six, I was the kid who thought vampires were real and didn't fall asleep unless the blankets were pulled up to my chin and the hallway light was on. I will walk through any neighborhood or building during the day, but leave me in my mom's dark basement at night without a flashlight and I might cry.

late yesterday evening I found myself at my friend john's apartment, making pizza, playing with his puppy, and being talked into watching a zombie movie. i am legend, which, it turns out, is actually based on a book and set of previous films that were actually about vampires, is not something I would have seen in the theaters. of course, the behavioral social worker that I am, I was entirely more interested in the plot bits regarding adaptive psychological traits of the hero and the antagonists, but I was shaking at the turn of each hemocyte head nonetheless.

for everyone's future reference, I am also afraid of: abandoned buildings, being jailed/kidnapped/otherwise detained in a foreign country, deep water, dark spaces, gremlins, guns, hostile alien takeovers, knife fights, papercuts, serial killers, spider bites, rabid monkeys, tree nuts, tsunamis, and watching other people die.

but none of these, honestly, are as scary as that centimeter-long seed I saw yesterday morning, for most of them will never enter my personal bubble for longer than the 120 minutes spent in a theater. maybe I'll just be more careful in my edible and watchable selections.

just another manic month

I was all set to write a new blog... another new 'universal realization' about having friends as an adult... inspired by a recent depressive streak I've developed around my social life and a good conversation with crank. and then I realized that I need to just pay attention to the chaos going on around me right now, more than I need to lament something that I can somewhat control.

I feel like I've spent the last week of my life on some kind of high-alert for damage control. so I'm floating the question, "what's with today, today?," out to the rest of you, and then I'm going to rant about some of the chaos that has been presenting itself in my life lately. here goes:

I feel like I'm drinking entirely too much, just to prove to myself that I'm not going to throw up whatever I'm drinking. I just lived through two weeks with an mild fever, recurring migraines, and a case of nausea that wouldn't subsist - especially when I would drink any kind of gluten-free alcohol. which, of course, means that I developed a minor paranoia around the possibility that maybe I'm not meant to digest sorghum or rice either. but this week, in some championship-style moves involving bar-hopping and softball, I've made some pretty good progress in my apparent new-found quest to binge-drink my summer away...

...and I've also run my mouth a little too hard in a few scattered directions during these binges. but that's another story altogether.

the small social life that I do have is kind of blowing up around me. I don't see my old friends enough, and I think I sometimes see my "new" friends too much. both sets are experiencing their own patches of turbulence. people are getting fired from whole foods, people are fighting and getting injured, people are getting burnt by people they used to enjoy. not much of this social drama involves me directly. but I'm taking it all entirely too personally, allowing myself to become a sounding board or to absorb some of their feelings in order to help. and it's causing me so much stress that I find myself either shutting down or taking it out on myself with bad behavior directed at my liver, my brain, or my boyfriend.

and my family, who I'd hoped would enjoy the michigan summer in my place, are instead spending their summer mediating fights and making tough decisions. being at the other end of the phone on some of these hours-long rants about houses, money, relatives, and pets is tough, and I am exhausted at the end of these calls. I cannot comprehend what they're going through, and sometimes lack the empathy to try.

grumble.

I have been instructed by jim to "stop answering my phone." we all know that I hardly ever answer my phone, but I get his point: stop allowing myself to be that sounding board. but I think my good friend (and self-proclaimed personal life coach), tim, said it better when he told me to "always look on the bright side of life" and focus more of my attention in that direction, instead of on other people.

I can't promise anything, boys, but I'll try.