Crazy and Obsessed

That's me today. Or, maybe even more accurately, crazy-sick-obsessed. Or some permutation thereof. The sick part is the easiest to explain. I haven't had so much as a mild cold for some freakish number of months now. I was long overdue, but I seem to making up for lost time. Either Q gave it to me or I picked it up at the coop and gave it to her (though the latter seems less likely since she manifested the snifflies a full day before I did). Not that it matters in any case. If you're going to kiss someone on a regular basis you simply can't worry a lot about incubation times and illness probabilities. Or at least I can't worry about that.

The crazy obsessed part is a little more involved. One part is working on the diss, which actually made me into a raving lunatic for the first part of today. Q was, as they say, grace under fire as I shrieked at her about radically unrelated minutiae that, because of my unstable emotional/intellectual state, had become quite blown out of proportion. Then she comforted me and all was well for a short time. This scenario repeated a bit later on a slightly different topic, but I think, for the day, I've finally got it managed. Significantly helpful in this capacity are the three jam thumbprints I brought home from the coop. Never underestimate the power of a jam-filled cookie to soothe emotional sores. (Though in hindsight I don't think the words "jam" and "sores" should ever appear in such close proximity.)

So imagine me, crazy and raving and sniffling, dragging my ass to the gym at exactly eleven o'clock today. I couldn't run because of that sick thing where you pant for breath after even minimal effort. All of this because I simply had to see the I Love New York 2 reunion show. What do you think? Is this a new low? I actually wanted it to end after an hour, but it ended up being a ninety minute show. I walked the whole ninety minutes. It totally sucked.

So that's the saga of crazy-sick-obsessed, though you may choose to apply those labels willy-nilly. Now things have indeed calmed down a bit. I know I promised stories from the holidays in Montana, so here are some brief highlights:

• My uncle and his girlfriend are, indeed, getting married this summer. Also another one or two of my cousins. Speaking with my mom about it, she excitedly began listing the very few young people in my very large family who are of age and could potentially get hitched in the near future. The conversation went like this:

Mom: Wow, who's left? There's your cousin so-and-so, and so-and-so, and that's about it!
Me: Well, there's ME.
Mom: Well, we just don't know what's going to happen with that.

• I ~mostly~ succeeded in not getting into any arguments with my uncle (a different one) who used to a a lawyer and is notoriously belligerent. I have this horrid memory of having him cross-examine me at great length when I was fifteen and just exploring atheism for the first time. Truly painful. He's fond of saying thing like: "Women only have half a soul until they've had children. They will always regret not having them if they don't." The lovely thing was watching my mom tear into him about it, and we even collaborated to antagonize him by blandly generalizing about how "men are." That was fun. Okay, and maybe a little childish. My mom and stepfather also awesomely hopped to my defense when he began a line of rhetorical questioning by asking me why I think milk is poisonous for babies and not just neutral like all other food. Yes, you read correctly, this man used to be a lawyer.
  
• I managed not to be mean at all to my stepbrother's 14 year old son, who has been praised and loved and fought over as the long-sought male heir over two older daughters. I'd like to think that his life will get harder. I just wish I could be sure. And to be fair, it may be that what I can only describe as his "fuckishness" as in "what a fuck!" is due primarily to his age and station in life and is not innately part of his personality.
  
• I had a great time seeing a few old friends and generally hanging with my mom. Perhaps best of all, I didn't fight with anyone or cry at all the whole time I was home. A real triumph.