Strategies for Feeling Better When Things Suck

Today started out awesome because it's Friday and I had a really great time with some new-ish (for me) friends last night. So I was feeling really confident, really on top of the world, really pulled together this morning. And that was despite not having very many good outfit options since it's the end of the week; usually that bothers me in the morning.

But not today! I'm totally ok with ABW (already been worn) jeans and my old green fleece. So ok, I get to work and am immediately productive, even though its Friday and I didn't have breakfast. I even get through my RSS feed this morning without getting totally distracted or fired up. Want to get fired up about something? This'll do it. Stupack sucks.

Anyway, things are going great. Then 11am rolls around, which has become My Enemy this week. For some reason, I can never keeping going past that hour. Then I wind up wasting an hour before lunch. Repeatedly, this is because something happens at work, and I need to take 30 minutes or so to re-plan out what work needs to get done when and catch my breath enough to prevent myself from leaping ontop of my desk and throwing things.

This happened today. What happened is irrelevant; there is always something. I hope that I will come to accept this and not feel the need to propel somewhat dangerous items at the heads of my cowokers. That will not be good for CW's and mine saving goals for the wedding or indeed my goal to stay out of jail.

I manage to get home for lunch and everyone is in one piece.

Maddie, who is much too good for a dog for me, sometimes bears the brunt of my Eleven O'Clock Hour of Rage, but today is Friday after all, so I force a smile and talk in a high pleasent voice about how much I love her. She wags her tail, and I feel myself actually feeling happy about how much I love her rather than angry about how much work (and Stupak) sucks.

• Strategy #1: fake it until you make it.

We go for a walk. I cut it short because there are a lot of people on one of the roads in our apartment complex doing work on a water main, and Maddie's overly friendly personality often pushes me into social interactions I'd rather avoid. So we do a quick walk to keep from bumping into any of those people.

• Strategy #2: know what makes you unhappy or angry and work around that.

Then its time for lunch. We have hot dogs. Actually, the sell-by date for them was January 1st, but hot dogs are highly processed right? Into the frying pan it goes.

"One lonely little hot dog for my lonely little lunch," I say pitifully to Maddie. But I think if I add some green beans that will be pretty healthy lunch. So I boil a pot of water to begin my made-up vegetable cooking strategy: put veggies in a pot of boiling water for three minutes, strain, then drop in cold water to stop the cooking, then serve. I don't know where I got that from, but the results have been pretty good (if a little cold).

I actually am really proud of myself because, instead of butter, I put olive oil, salt, and pepper on the beans. So even stressed out, I managed to cobble together a somewhat healthy (if the hot dog doesnt kill me) meal.

While lunch cooks, I wash the dishes the in sink, dry them, and put them away. I don't like having a) dishes in the sink or b) dishes in the drying rack on the counter cluttering the kitchen up. So I get rid of the dryer. In between making and eating my lunch, I clean the countertops and the stove top, wash; dry, and put away the dishes I used for my lunch; wipe down the coffee table with Pledge; and put away the little pile of junk growing on the kitchen table. I think about the best way to talk to CW about improving the way we manage the cleanliness of our house.

• Strategy #3 and #4: distract yourself and think proactively.

Then I give Maddie a treat and send her to her crate. I turn up the heat and open all the doors upstairs so the apartment warms up as it cools down outside and the air circulates more. I get my things together and go outside and check my phone. And even a voice mail from my mom doesn't penetrate and bubble of calm I created.

Then I get to work and decide instead of waiting for a good time to write about the latest news that's interesting, I ought to just blog about my day because I want to be honest and I want this blog to be about Life, generally, as a twenty-something, thinking woman in the US. Then I read one of the may favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk, who has a particularly relevant post today and had a great post yesterday, and I'm reminded about how much I want to talk about the challenges I, and I presume others, face every day. So I did.

KILLER WHALES

There is much I wish to share with you today, but as my deadline creeps dangerously close and I have Plans to Go Out with someone other than CW tonight, I won't be sharing them. But stay tuned, awesomeness will abound!

Instead, I simply had to link to this news story at Discovery News about Killer Whales dividing into two separate species. HOLY SHIT penguins and seals, watch your backs.

I wonder if this could hold true for humans: will vegetarians actually become a separate, somewhat freakish and intimidating hominid species??

Side note: I'm so apologetic to vegetarians. I find out someone I know has Switched and I'm all "Wow, I'm so sorry about how much I love meat. Oh no, I'm drooling all over you, I'm SO SORRY." They tell me they don't care what I eat; that this is their personal choice, but I guess I just don't believe them.

Anyway: killer whales guys, killer whales!

Really Cool Stuff

I just discovered this website today so I'm still figuring it out, but honestly, I'm blown away. The funny thing is that I found out about it via those annoying suggestion boxes on Facebook: someone I know is a fan of it and Facebook thought I would too. Carelessly, I clicked the little X, only to stumble across it a few hours later when another blog I was reading linked to it. I guess Facebook was right.

The site's About page does a better job explaining what it does, but this relates really well to what I was talking about yesterday in filtering the news you read. Instead of telling you What Is Important, this site tells you what lots of other people think is important, even if its news that's a few days old and even if the traditional Media isn't covering it.

I was looking at one topic - Apple's purchase of Quattro Wireless - and Thoora had a tab of the big news media, a tab for its indexed blogs, and a sidebar running alongside both with the most recent Twitter posts on the subject. It only gave you a snippet from each source, and the clean lines and soothing colors (I mean CNN, really: a giant, fire-engine red banner across the top, while simpler than you're previous look, is just the thing to get me all concerned) prevented it from becomming an overwhelming experience. So much information, and you get to choose who get it from and how indepth you want to get. Fabulous.

I haven't explored the various tabs and filters yet, but I'm pretty much sold - Thoora is officially part of my Google Reader feed.

24-hour cable news is bad for you

I would now like to address the challenge of being well informed and up to date on current affairs while avoiding the hysteria of the mass media which aim to spoon fed Americans in a spasm of fear.

It bothers me a little when my friends say things like “I don’t want the news; it doesn’t effect me and its so negative it brings me down all the time.” First of all, I’m sad that they get sad when the think about how terrible the world can be; I mean, it is depressing sometimes and who wants their friends to be sad? But advice like this, found at an otherwise excellent blog The Personal MBA -

Seriously – 99.999% of the things you hear in the media are completely outside your sphere of influence or locus of control. The news media makes money by attracting attention, and nothing gets attention more than the rumor of imminent danger or threat. The only likely outcome of watching the news is that it’ll sap your attention and divert your energy from improving your situation to fretting about what the world’s coming to. Keep your attention on what you’re doing to build the life you want to live, and it’s only a matter of time before you get there.

- also bothers me because, as a citizen of a democracy (in title anyway; let’s not go there today shall we?) that is a major influencer of the world, I think its irresponsible to not care. It’s your right to not care of course, and maybe I’m not thinking about the people out there who will never care, no matter what. But as a curious human being, don’t you want to know what’s going on?

The real issue is about control: where you get this information dramatically effects how you feel about it. Is someone behind your TV screen and someone behind a desk telling you what you Need to Know? Then of course you’re going to feel lost and scared. I agree with the above point in that those Someone’s eat when they get your attention and the cheapest, easiest way to do that (since the world can be, in fact, a somewhat scary place) is to talk about bad things and the negatives. Seriously: look at those headlines!

What’s the solution?

Instead, get your news from sources you can control, and the Internet is the best place to start. At least at the above sites you can click on what you want to know about and what is important to you.

A site I like to get my news from is Politico. I’m subscribed to its RSS feed in my Google reader and, throughout the day, I get a peek at its headlines. If a headline seems especially important or interesting to me then I click and read further. Otherwise I focus on what I’m interested in and what makes me happy.

Salon and Slate are good news sites that mix hard news with feature stories about life that make me happy. Twitter trending topics, interesting articles your friends are posting on Facebook - these are other ways you can focus on what you want to know about without all the DRAMA. Take advantage of technology and learn about the world around you! It's not all that scary, really. Plus, it's fun to get fired up!

Welcome to 2010

And we're back! After a week and a half basking in the glory of vacation, I'm at my desk and have been surprisingly productive. No fidgeting and no doodling. I even made it until about an hour ago before thinking into The Future in that non-productive, worry-inducing, crazy way that I do.

Where will I be in five years? How can I prepare? What do I want to do with my life? Am I good enough to do that? What if I never reach my potential?

The thing I've come to understand about New Years is that it's a period of transition that humans love to endow with mystical powers. There is no difference between January 1st and December 31st except a handful of letters and numbers, really; the first day of the new year is always the same 24 hours you have every day. It's really just for convenience sake that people make resolutions for the new year, but how often do people follow through?

I, for one, have never completed a New Year's resolution. I decided last year not to make them anymore. And this year I'm thrilled not to have to. I've been trying to lose weight and read more every day for the last six months, and some days I get closer to those vague goals than others. That's all you can do, really: take one day at a time.

I sometimes think I ought to get that tattooed to my right hand so whenever I pick up a pen to start scribbling three-, five-, and ten-year life plans with any kind of seriousness, I'll remember to breathe first.

Nietzsche said, "You must have confusion in your heart to give birth to stars." Someone else said something about how the mark of a true genius is to be able to hold two conflicting ideas in her head at the same time. These quotes comfort me: being confused is a natural, and even enviable, way to be. Those who are certain of the path before them are blind to the possibilities.

You can quote me on that.