One Hardly Leaves Room For The Other

I'm not sure what's wrong with me that I haven't had the words to type on this here blog o' mine. I could tell you a lot of things, for things happen every day, but the words don't sound poetic. My sentences lack eloquence and I am loathe to put out something I'm not at least vaguely fond of in case the Washington Post comes back. At least I haven't said "fuck" in this post yet, thank me lucky stars. (They're magically delicious!)

I could tell you about the turtle Mr. Mystery and I pseudo-stole from a stranger who found him on the side of the road, a turtle with a cleft lip that had definitely seen better days. I could tell you how we then gave the turtle to a woman having a yard sale, a yard sale at which Mr. Mystery purchased a 10 billion pound cast iron stove that is currently making permanent indentations in my car's leather upholstery. I could tell you about the cast iron stove and its permanent indentations, but if I did, I would also have to tell you that I was the one that whined about hauling it out of the car, which means that I'd have to tell you the permanent indentations are of my own making.

I could tell you how we gave Bixby her first bath this weekend. Or how we found a baby sparrow on the sidewalk and smuggled it onto the Metro and then back to Mr. Mystery's house to convalesce. I could tell you that I brought the lame birdie to Second Chance, how I have named her "Captain Jack," and how I plan on keeping her should she not recover from her injuries.

I could tell you about how I moved offices this week, how another of my ideas got shot down at work, how defeated and frustrated that makes me feel, how embarrassed I am that the dysfunctional nature of my company affects the people I outsource projects to. I could tell you that my attitute at work is starting to slip, that my annoyance is becoming constant, that my will to do well is being overrun by my desire to run away.

I could tell you that Mr. Mystery and I met two drunk men this weekend, both of whom started up conversations with us that made very little sense. I could tell you how someone died at the Bethesda Metro station on Sunday and how sad that made me. I could tell you about the woman from Mr. Mystery's neighborhood who has gone missing, and how the flyers up on the lamp posts break my heart.

I could tell you how annoyed I am that I can't finish my audio book because CD 3 of 12 is so badly scratched that the story no longer makes sense.

I could tell you how, right now, The Cat is so desperate for attention that he is deliberately inserting his tail up my nose so that I will pay attention to him. I could tell you how this makes me sneeze, how my eyes water.

I could tell you a lot of things, but the sentences that tell the story, when pieced together, don't make sense. The parts, when placed together, do not make a whole. And damn, but isn't that exactly how I feel about myself? A collection of parts, far from a whole.

Last week Mrs. Lady Doctor told me that I was in no position to make decisions about whether or not to have a child, whether or not to get married, whether to choose paper or plastic bags at the grocery store. "There is a lot going on with you," she told me. "There is so much to sift through that it would impossible for you to make major life decisions at this point."

I guess that I can't really argue with her on this, especially considering that the choice between paper or plastic bags sends me straight into the arms of a panic attack. But to be told something like that, point blank... well, it blew, and I would be lying if I said that I haven't been obsessing about it for a solid week.

So another week has passed and it's time for me to go to therapy again, and people? I'm not looking forward to it. What will we uncover this time? What new problem will be unearthed? How can the GreenCanary be further broken down into her component, messed up parts? Urgh, I don't even want to think about it.

So instead of thinking about it (which I inevitably will, likely just as I'm about to fall asleep and then I'll be up all night in an anxiety-induced sweat), I will instead tell you something supremely sad. Early in our relationship, Mr. Mystery gave me the Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding album, a comic about the nuptials of, you guessed it, the Green Arrow and the Black Canary. Not being a comic person, I had no idea who these characters were, but I could (and can) get on board with any color canary, especially one that can kick ass while wearing fishnets and heels.

Now that I've been with Mr. Mystery for nine months (NINE MONTHS, PEOPLE!), I'm more familiar with comics and graphic novels. In other words, I was primed to read the comic he got me oh so long ago. And you know what? IT WAS SAD AND I CRIED.

Crying over a comatose comic book character was not the best way to end an evening, so it's no surprise that I had wicked weird dreams about finding my dead childhood pet (a guinea pig named Hobbit) in my closet, all solid and hard and gray like modeling clay. The best part of the dream was when I realized that I was at fault for the g. pig's death because I had put her in the closet and then forgotten about her FOR SIX MONTHS.

Yeah. Even dreaming I knew that was bad. Who leaves their pet in a closet for six months?! Dream Me, that's who.

My colleague told me that this was an anxiety dream, a dream about forgotten responsibilities and such. I was all, "You think?" said with no shortage of sarcasm.

I blame therapy for my anxious woes. I'd do something to alleviate said woes, but apparently I'm in no position to make major life decisions.

Oh, who am I kidding? I wouldn't do anything to alleviate said woes, unless that anything involved a pint of ice cream, a shelter magazine, and a Tivo'ed episode of Friends. Perhaps Mrs. Lady Doctor was right.

Paper? Plastic? Suck.