Even when I am not sick, but want to watch something comforting and familiar I turn to these movies:

At the top of my list is "The Princess Bride". It has been my favorite movie since childhood. Romance, action, comedy – what more do you need?

Since it's the holidays, my favorite is "Miracle on 34th Street" – in B&W, not Technicolor. I also love "Arsenic and Old Lace".

When I want a great action flick, I turn to Captain Tightpants and "Serenity".

If I need a good cry I watch "What Dreams May Come".

Then yesterday, I went to sleep ok, could not wake up. It felt like there was a heavy hand on my chest and cotton in my brain. I checked on Josh, who still sounded like he was trying to cough up a lung, so opted to stay home. And then realized, I had absolutely no interest in leaving the house, not even to get the rest of my stuff out of the car. “Great, just great, here we go again,” I thought. Then the shortness of breath despite no physical activity whatsoever. This is how I usually know that I am about to have an anxiety attack. And this uncontrollable urge to go back to bed and crawl under my blankets.

I had a bout of agoraphobia last summer that was particularly bad. I couldn’t even leave the house to walk the dogs. That was messy. Yeah, it was that bad. At least this time I have a job that can take my mind off my troubles for eight hours a day. And a sick kid to take care of. So long as I don’t have to take him to the ER.

Random Observation

Since I started blogging about my anxiety and tagging my posts, it seems that I have a notable attack about once a month. It doesn’t seem that often in my brain though.

Update

It’s Friday. I’ve been home all week and haven’t left the house at all. Partly because I caught a touch of what Josh has. I hate being sick, it doesn’t make the anxiety/agoraphobia/depression any easier to deal with, that’s for sure. I think I’m better. I still don’t want to go outside if I don’t have to, but I can if I need to.

Image by VitiligoCover via Flickr

We all know I have a love/hate addiction problem with twitter. I love it. I’m addicted to it. Sometimes twitter hates me.

Today there was a phishing scam going on. As soon as I tried it and realized that I had NOT been taken to OAuth, I changed my password. This worked fine for a few hours. Then around 1:06 PM (3 hours later!!!!) I get an email from twitter stating:

Hey there.

Due to concern that your account may have been compromised in a phishing attack that took place off-Twitter, your password was reset. Please create a new password.

Please click on the link below our copy and paste the URL into your browser:
http://twitter.com/account/password_reset?[redacted]

This will reset your password.

The Twitter Team

This was about the same time an app that I was using stopped working and wanted me to log in again. And I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t first tried to reset my password about 1:20 PM.  And reset, and reset, and reset …. and endless loop of reset emails! And then I contacted support@twitter.com and guess what, GOT THE SAME info from the help page that had prompted me to email the support team in the first place.

I finally got in after switching browsers.

*sigh* I have a headache now. I cussed on twitter – well as much as I do out of respect for my followers. They all have such good vocabularies I am sure they filled in the blanks and missing syllables.

I need help. No doubt about it. And now it’s time to get that coffee.

Why am I stoked about a non-fiction book? For one thing, his style definitely makes Twitter accessible for non-techies AND *drumroll please* I got to consult on the Android/G1 portion of the book!

So please, if you don’t “get” twitter, get this book!

Product Description

Make Twitter work for you–right now!

Twitter! Everyone’s talking about it. Its membership grew over 700% in just one year! Now, learn how to make the most of Twitter–in your personal life, your business, everywhere! All a Twitter delivers quick, smart answers to the questions everyone’s asking about Twitter: What’s it about? What’s it good for? Is it worth your time? How do you get started? Where can you find great Twitter feeds to follow? How can you build a worldwide audience for your own Tweets?

You name it, Tee Morris answers it–and shows you exactly how to do it, step-by-step, in plain English. No experience? Looking for something new to do with your Tweets? No problem: this is the Twitter book for everyone!

Covers all this, and more…

• Setting up your Twitter account and getting started in minutes

• Creating great Tweets: making the most of the 140 characters Twitter gives you

• Using Twitter to make connections, exchange great ideas, and uncover hard-to-find resources

• Building a Twitter audience–and using it to build your business

• Tweeting to recruit, promote, and coordinate volunteer organizations

• Mastering Twitter etiquette and avoiding beginner mistakes

• Swapping Tweets on your browser, on your desktop, and on your phone!

• Finding tools that make Twitter even more efficient

• And much more…

My heart breaks and I wonder if there wasn’t more I could have/should have done. Once Eric arrived at UCLA and made it onto the donor list I went back to my old avatar and didn’t tweet about him as much. I didn’t think there was anything more for me to do.

But there is. We still need healthcare reform in this country. So please, contact your state representatives, sign the petitions, do whatever it takes to get health care reformed in this country. It’s appalling that we have so much wealth and yet so many Americans are uninsured and can’t afford quality health care.

Rest in peace, Eric. I’m sorry I never got to know you.

Michael Jackson via last.fm

Jaw. Dropping. Shock. Speechlessness. Deep Sadness.

I don’t want it to be true. How can it be true? I wanted to marry the man (before he got weird). Michael Jackson has been a part of my *whole* life. And now he’s gone at 50. So young. And so suddenly.

I don’t usually get all emotionally torn up over celebrities, I mean, they are celebrities. But when you grow up knowing all the words to all the songs, from the Jackson 5 albums, to PYT, to Thriller, to Bad … on and on. He was an innovator, an entertainer, a pioneer. And his music will be greatly missed.

Michael Jackson via last.fm

Jaw. Dropping. Shock. Speechlessness. Deep Sadness.

I don’t want it to be true. How can it be true? I wanted to marry the man (before he got weird). Michael Jackson has been a part of my *whole* life. And now he’s gone at 50. So young. And so suddenly.

I don’t usually get all emotionally torn up over celebrities, I mean, they are celebrities. But when you grow up knowing all the words to all the songs, from the Jackson 5 albums, to PYT, to Thriller, to Bad … on and on. He was an innovator, an entertainer, a pioneer. And his music will be greatly missed.

Image via Wikipedia

Driving home today, after having a talk with Josh, I had a realization. I hate yelling now.

Despite growing up in a house of yellers (large 4-bedroom, 10 people, majority kids – we were a loud bunch, and yelling was faster than walking all over the house trying to find someone), I don’t like it anymore. I used to be the most vociferous (my grandmother constantly telling me “If I wanted you to yell, I could have done it myself. Get off your butt and go find [insert name of relative]”).

We used it mainly as a means of communication –  not to belittle, harm emotionally, nor rant without thinking of the consequences. Josh’s first 4 years were in this environment and he’s sort of used to me being a yeller, but not like this weekend.

Sure, I have used yelling in those ways before, who hasn’t? Tim used to complain about my yelling in the house to get Josh and Joy’s attention if they were other areas. Again, as a means of (in my opinion, effective) communication. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that you could go as far as you wanted so long as you came running when she called? BEFORE cell phones? Back when we could play outside all day and half the night?  I digress …

This past weekend was hard. The days started with yelling (around 6AM). And it didn’t stop till bedtime (between 9-10PM). And I wasn’t the one yelling. In fact, Josh and I were the only ones not yelling, screaming, crying, or otherwise creating negative energy. It was horrible. Josh called my mom on it, she accused him of yelling and he had to ask her “When do you ever hear me yell?” Because, really, he doesn’t. Except at Joy. But we’re working on that.

Josh opted to leave the house 1.5 hours early for church. I tried napping to block it out. One of my nieces came into my room to snuggle and get away from it. Unfortunately, she was the object of much of the yelling. Not because she’s a bad girl. She drama queen’s as much as Joy does, if not more, and it can be frustrating, but that’s no reason to yell unceasingly at a child.

All this to say that I feel on the edge of breaking. The last time I felt like this was right before I told Tim that I would no longer allow him to take his anger out on me and the kids. I had finally realized and accepted that I was being abused mentally and emotionally and I had had enough. No more making excuses for you. I am not a verbal punching bag. And neither are the kids.

I feel bad for my nieces. They deserve better. I don’t know if my she realizes what she’s doing to her kids. It’s different, but as bad as what her father used to do to her. I feel bad for my son. It feels like we just got out of an emotionally toxic environment.

It’s going to be a long week.

I’m affection starved. This is a real phenomenon. Some of you may have heard of it. Yes, it started in my marriage. Before that I had plenty of friends that I could be affectionate with and we never thought anything of it (until later in life when we found out not everyone was as free with hugs and shoulder touches and hand-holding that didn’t mean anything more than “I am so happy to be near you”). Ok, yeah, in High School there was the potential for mixed signals, and maybe even in college, but I lucked out that most of the people I was affectionate with, despite being the opposite gender, had no interest in me sexually. Or if they did, they let me be clueless (thanks guys!)

I’m the touchy-feely sort. I need the positive bio-feedback that I get from being touched, being able to touch, and letting people know how I feel about them — in a purely platonic fashion. What I didn’t realize is what a stress-relief it can be.

I am stressed to the max. There is a lot going on that I don’t want to talk about or deal with. Someone said I am carrying around a lot of emotional deadweight. I can feel it in my skin. My body is crying out to be touched, hugged, something, anything! And not necessarily sex. NSA (no strings attached) sex is too fleeting, too distanced, and doesn’t lead to a positive bio-feedback loop. Yes, been there, done that in the search for affection. Don’t look so shocked. I do some stupid things when I am nearly out of my mind with loneliness and the simple cure is a hug from someone I didn’t give birth to and don’t have to clean up poop after.

So I’m starving and crazy. Welcome to my world.