Take Me Bak 'Ome

Have any of you ever felt like you just couldn't cram any more information in your heads?

Not one more fact. Not one more thing to remember to do. Not one more appointment.

I envy people who have their lives mapped out for months in advance in a day planner. Or in their Blackberries or whatever. I'm so old school. Who even uses a pen and paper anymore?

I've never been able to keep a planner. I've always had a spot-on memory. For school or work...I'll make a good go of using a planner for about 2 weeks, and then it just sits in the bottom of my bag collecting dust. Or whatever else that's disgusting and lurking at the bottom of my bag.

I use two methods of reminder.

#1:

As you can tell, I'm right handed. I love to write all over my left one. Chuck hates it. He keeps saying I'm going to get ink poisoning.

When my dad was alive, he lived by Post-It-Notes. The whole back side of his front door was covered in them with reminders. You can see I've carried on the tradition.

#2:

But my hand is like a travelling Post-It-Note! Genius! Some days it's covered in so much ink that it looks like a strange tattoo. My hand is unusually devoid of pen marks this morning.

These days though, it seems as though it's not enough.

Chuck and I have little pet peeves about each other's habits, as all couples do. His most irritating habit? He'll come in from work, wash his hands of drywall mud and dust, dry them on the current clean tea towel, and then leave the tea towel crumpled up on the counter or the back of a kitchen chair. Drives me batshit. Even though I'm the messiest person in the world! Go figure!

I do many, many things that drive him nuts. One of them is not turning the shower faucet off correctly. Our faucet is effed up and drips all day long if you don't turn the single knob a certain way before shutting it off.

Drip drip drip drip drip

I forget this every time I take a shower, the latest being this morning. Chuck can remind me about it every time, and I still don't remember. He doesn't understand why. I don't either.

It can be little things like that, or it can be bigger, more irritating things. Last night I closed at work. Got home at 11. Schedule said I had to be back at work for 7am.

I drove there this morning, wishing I could have had an extra hour of sleep. I pull into the parking lot behind what looks like the assistant manager's truck. I was like, wtf? He must have switched shifts with someone, because he wasn't on the schedule I had printed.

Yeah, he switched with someone all right. Me! I completely forgot that I said I would close tonight for him if he could open this morning. Drove all the way into Jacksonville for nothing. I'm such a bonehead.



My head is just too full of stuff. So much is going on at work right now. Holiday set-up is just about complete. Holiday Charity Book Drive is in full swing. Customers are starting their Christmas shopping early.

The District Manager is coming to visit the store next Wednesday, and I'm solely responsible for walking through all the displays with him, and providing rationale for the choices made. I'm not really that anxious about it. He seems to really like my work and my personality. But there are so many things to still think about and get done before then.

And it seems like the closer it gets to Christmas, the more the negativity jumps out at me from everywhere. It's really draining.

I'm the first to admit that I'm not happy happy all the time. I don't eat, sleep and shit rainbows.




But as a person who has a...let's say 'big' personality, I understand that I have the power to use it for good or evil. An individual with a big personality has the ability to influence the mood of an entire room of people.

When I'm feeling negative, I choose to crack jokes and put on voices and do silly walks and such until everyone around me is laughing. Not only does it make me feel better, but everyone else as well. Who can be miserable when I'm doing my awesome Sean Connery impression??



On the occasions when life is just too much and I can't contain my negativity behind a silly face (and it happens), it's almost as if I've lined everyone up and slapped them hard in the face with a brush filled with gray paint. No one is comfortable around a big-personalitied miserable person. And not only do I strongly affect people's moods, I also am strongly affected by people's moods.

There are a few people I know with big personalities, not trying to be egocentric here in only talking about myself. Lately a couple of them have been letting the stress in their lives get to them. In letting it get to them, it bleeds all over everyone else. A cloud of anger, nerves, worry and cynicism descends. I'm not going to get all hippie dippy about it, but it's just bad vibes, Man. Makes me feel absolutely horrible and depressed.

(Oh, and by the way, in case you think I'm talking about you, my dear Reader, I'm not. But this is a public blog, so you never know just who is going to find it.)

So lately I find myself trying to relieve stress dumped on me by other people. Cribbage and chardonnay on the porch. Writing in this blog. Listening to an assload of music.

I am currently chair-dancing to Slade.





I love a man in plaid pants and platform shoes. Or maybe it's the muttonchops that get me.

What do you guys do to relieve stress and channel anger?

Booze? Sex? Dancing? Slapping children? What?