Two Kinds of Sick (But Very Well Overall)

Lately I keep waking up at 4am. This happens a lot in December, now that I think about it. Usually I'm just garden-variety anxious and/or looped into some kind of solstice-related biorhythm. Tonight (this morning) I am anxious with the added bonus of feeling sick and gross, one sickness self-inflicted, one not.

About the former: Please remind me never, ever to drink before dinner. This is very bad. How did I get to be this old and not learn this lesson? ¡J! and I had toodled up to Queens for a tour of a swankaroo restaurant (in which we could get married -- warning -- more bridey-bride blog posts to come!) and we had to wait a few minutes at the bar. What the heck, bartender! I'll drink what he's drinking! A Manhattan? On a stomach full of lettuce and popcorn? No problem!

The sweet, delightful wedding expert for the restaurant gave us a tour of the appropriate rooms -- the bridal suite, the ceremony room, the cocktail hour nook, the walls that could be folded away to make a big-ass room bigger-ass. With a breathtaking view of Manhattan, this place seriously kills. But as the whiskey seeped its way into my system I started to get overly fascinated by the carpeting, the mirrors, the bunny hutch-ness of the bridal chamber, the copious artwork in Impressionist colors. (They are renovating the place for spring and it's going to be much more clean and modern. Less like Laura Ashley and more like Mitchell Gold. Whew!) I got distracted by the stall size in the ladies' room and peppered our girl with important, relevant questions (Post-reno, will it be big enough for two -- one to hold the bride's dress while she pees?). Later, we moved the party downstairs and we went over a lot of details (menus, pricing), almost none of which I can recall, having become deeply enamored of the twinkly lights and the piano player's choices (did he switch to Cole Porter to help seal the deal?), so it's a good thing ¡J! is on top of everything and our girl had a very nice packet with everything all written down.

This is all a long way of saying I got drunk off my ass on this wedding tour. We went to a really nice dinner afterward and I was still kind of drunk off my ass (salad and steak, alas, not that absorbent). It was fun while it lasted -- the car ride to dinner was inexplicably hilarious -- but I woke up feeling totally nasty.

The second illness is merely the cold that has taken hold as a result of having compromised myself thus. The only interesting thing about the cold is that it has a lot of gusto. I had a big sneeze in bed and was whiplashed by its force, volume, and trajectory. Basically, imagine being pelted in the face with a boomerang slug. This happened twice, so I'm inclined to believe it's a bonus feature of this particular strain of virus.

Stay tuned for further adventures. For now: water crackers all eaten up. One more glass of water. Beddy-bye!

Watching "Oprah" and Crying

That is what it's going to be this week. All week.

Everything is great; it's just the necessary catharsis.

Love that Nate Berkus.

It's Official

I've accepted a new job. Soon I'll be working in the building I like to think of as the Taj Mahal of American Literature, on books that have an established tradition of being fabulous.

This is a very emotional time. ¡J! and I are getting ready for his big move-in; I have to bid see-you-later to the lovely ladies at the office, and then start the getting-to-know-you with new lovely ladies. Parting and coming together . . .

Friday funk

I've been getting up early all this week, anxious over this or that.

Slowly I've come to realize that getting up early is the key to everything.

Watching sunrises, for example. Eating breakfast. Banking online. Having a spot of tea and calming down. Thinking through whatever was bothering me.

I've completely forgotten to mention, or send an announcement, indicating that tomorrow I will be playing a solo show opening for Rebecca and Ken, hereby christened Hungrytown. They have a new CD! Hurrah!

I'll be at Googie's Lounge at 9pm. Hungrytown goes on at 10.

Still Crazy Shit; Smaller Ass; Further Reflections

I deleted the last entry. It Just Wasn't Right. I shouldn't talk about people so negatively, even if they occasionally terrorize me.

Also I don't think I got to the heart of the situation: How even a seemingly-supportive comment can set off feelings of inadequacy, even paranoia. This week three (3) other people (female) also commented on alleged weight loss. I accepted and appreciated their compliments but also started to feel self-conscious. Considering I'm really trying to drop more weight, and always have felt some degree of ambivalence toward my stature, the comments set off some weird thought spirals. I actually entertained the thought that they might just be fucking with my head.

It appears as if I've regressed to seeing everything through the lens of day camp circa 1982.

But this is what always happens -- a wave of insecurity, and then an upsurge of energy.

Save the date: the record will be released January 25!

Intuition

I trust the voice inside my head. In general, I trust other people.

However, at one point in life I was very disconnected, depressed, and panicky. I started to lose my trust in others. I sometimes thought people were trying to poison my food. I knew this was nuts but I couldn't stop being nervous. I'd eat a few bites, freak, spit the last bite out into a napkin, and try to hide the napkin. This got to be very embarrassing.

I went to my doctor for an EKG to see if my always-racing heart had a physical cause or was just anxiety. The office was closing early because a snowstorm had begun. Dr. Sharkey sat me down in his office after the test.

"How are you doing?"

I started falling, falling, falling down a hole in my soul. Sob, sob, sob.

"What's wrong?'

"I don't know . . . " Doctor, there's a hole in my soul . . . .

"It says here you're having panic attacks? Like, you're sitting there, and suddenly feel like you're going to lose it?"

"Uh huh."

"I get those. It happened to me at the Board of Directors meeting at NYU Hospital."

"Uh huh." The snow was splatting against the 15th-floor window.

"I'm going to prescribe an antianxiety pill for you. If there's something you have to do, and you need to calm down, just take half a pill and you'll be fine." He pulled out a prescription pad, wrote something on it, tore off a sheet and handed it to me.

"Okay." I took the paper.

"I'll tell you what." He wrote something else down. "This is my buddy. He's a great shrink. He'll fix what's bothering you. Just fix it. He doesn't want to hear about your problems, doesn't want to hear about your family. He'll patch you right up."

I took the second paper. I was still snorting and choking on sobs. However, I still knew this was bullshit. I walked out of his office, rode the elevator down, and stepped out into snowy midtown.

Crazy-Ass Shit

I'm freelancing at home but can't concentrate.

Lately more than a few of my friends have started pleading with me to quit my job. Apparently, it's torturing me. I suppose I have trouble discerning it from all the other things that are torturing me.

As you might have discerned from these increasingly sporadic posts, it's been busy at the office. I'm the editorial coordinator for 24 or so books a year. There are 2 other staff members in the book department –– both designers. So basically, I have a fuckload of work. Everying from contracts, to schedules and budgets, to witing flap copy and proofreading –– even if it's freelanced –- it goes through me.

2 months into the job, I suffered Ye Olde Tragedie. That didn't help, neither. But really, despite being distraught, I just took cry breaks and kept working. I decided not to stay late or come in on weekends -- that's it.

But I need to discern some problems from others. One is the nuts and bolts of too much work and too little time. Now that I *have* started staying late and coming in on the weekends, it's apparent that the river is rising and we need more sandbaggers. Not having resources to do your job is very bad, but you can work on it. I'm freelancing out a lot of stuff. I'm lobbying for an assistant. I'm ensnaring my more flexible-scheduled friends to come in and help with office stuff.

The second problem is always the kicker: the tone of your interactions with others. This is where it gets spooky, and simple situations suddenly turn into nightmares.

For example, the president of the company walked by my cubicle the other day and his foot hit a box. It was left there as a delivery. (I have a lot of boxes stacked outside my cubicle wall because there is no room for them inside the cubicle. I had an intern consolidate them. But when an editorial coordinator doesn't have a bookcase, and has to keep page proofs in a box under her desk, things tend to pile up quickly.)

I got up and pushed the box inside my cube.

"How is it going, Erica." The president has a way of making even simple questions sound mocking. Is he mocking me? He's chewing gum.

"It's okay. There's . . . a lot going on this season, but we're on top of it so far." I am profoundly uncomfortable.

"Yeah? Like what."

"A lot of stuff coming in, and going out." Oh duh. "Manuscripts are coming in, and I'm sending them out to be copyedited." That is about one one-thousandth of what I'm doing, but so be it.

"So, you're busy."

"Yes . . . I'm very busy." I raise my eyebrows and glare. Oops -- knock off 2 points for sarcasm.

"Well, then, don't let me keep you." he emphasizes the word keep. He walks off.

Yikes.

I instantly guess he saw me reading the Times online one too many times. But that strikes me as strange and superficial. Or did he hear me on the phone with my parents? As a rule, parents get unlimited phone access (all others cut to five minutes -- ten if it's a crisis.)

This exchange, after weeks of clocking extra hours and giving myself stomach cramps, made me want to flush my head down the toilet.

What remains strange to me is that, if there is a problem, it is not made explicit. If I'm doing something not kosher, a simple "please don't do that" would rectify it in a flash. So it must be something more.

I'm choosing to see it as a study in power. A person maintains feelings of power by keeping others off their footing, constantly guessing and being taken by surprise. I was the victim of the day.

But is this the reward I get for frying myself to get these miserable books out the door?

I am wading through some serious crazy-ass shit.

Hey baby.

Tonight is the first band rehearsal in what feels like a very long time, and actually has been a long time -- a few weeks at least.

This weekend I remembered the hard way that playing a solo show can be uniquely frightening. I was at a festival this weekend at Club Passim in Boston, playing in the round with three other women who are quite proficient and fun. In the midst of all this good energy, I suddenly became a timid 14-year-old who had had 2 guitar lessons tops and a swig of her parents' whiskey. I was honking and thunking and couldn't keep time for shit.

It really sucks when you expect to sashay in and nail it, and subsequently blow it.

There are lessons to be learned here. First, don't put all your confidence in your outfit. I was feeling extra fancy and wore my red heels and fat pearls. Perhaps this was too much for a Sunday afternoon in New England.

Second, practice. Duh.

Third, practice the acoustic, even when you've been favoring the Strat lately because it's easier to carry to band rehearsal.

Fourth, practice standing up. In the heels.

Now that we've established a game plan, I'm gonna go practice. With the band. In pink sneakers.

I'm also going to write to the club and see if I blew it for good, or if they'll have me back.

Cross your fingers.

Hey, what day is it?

For the benefit of the 2 of you reading this, I apologize for being blog delinquent as of late. It's been a joyous and harrowing week or so. I've been wrestling with a backlist catalog that eerily resembles The Blob, boogieing among killer waves, vanquishing evil bacteria and viruses, and much, much more.

The little ditty that follows is officially too much information, but I'm going to share it with you anyway because it's amusing and I have no class.

There was a phone message on my work machine this morning from my girl-doctor's office. I had gone for a tune-up a few weeks ago. They call you when something is wrong, so immediately my antennae go up. It was a familiar, deliberate voice with an Eastern European accent.

"Yes, hello, Erica. This is Marika from Dr. Krause's office. I just wanted to follow up with you about the tests you had done . . . "

I start to think fast. Test, test test . . . ok they tested me for chlamydia . . .

"and I wanted to let you know that it came up positive . . . "

Now that's a new one. The blood plummets to my feet.

"and I think this is what you and Dr. Krause were expecting . . . "

Oh, really? Speak for yourself!

"So give us a call at the office . . . "

I'm standing and leaning over hard, my elbows on the desk.

"Oh wait. I'm sorry. Your test is negative."

Now my head is on the desk.

"I'm so sorry. Well, give us a call if you like. Thank you, Erica."

click.