.gulp.

Well, today is the day.  In three hours I take an exam that is more or less 420 minutes long, including some scheduled breaks.

I'm nervous.

I'm more ready to get this thing over with.

.this is a stupid post; consider yourself forewarned.

Signs that I am pushing the limits of my sanity in regards to preparing for my board exam:

I've read and reread the same damn paragraph three times because by the time I get to the last sentence I can't remember what the first three said.

It is 7:00 p.m. and I want to go to bed.

I would rather not eat anything for dinner rather then get up from the couch to walk to the kitchen.

I think I may have the energy it takes to turn on the bath water so I can take a bath, but I am not totally convinced so I am still sitting on the couch.

I am writing a really stupid blog post like this one so that friends and family can be assured that I am still alive even though I have been basically unattainable by phone or email during these last few (ok, seven) days.

....................

And I am alive.  But just barely.  Five more days. 

.prepster, that's me.

I haven't had my haircut in a ridiculously long time.  My hair had become so long that it was impossible for any item of clothing in our house to not have at least one strand of my hair on it somewhere.  Leif's clothes were even coming out of the dryer with my hair still all over the place.  You don't even want me to describe the size of the dust/hair bunnies that we've found in the corners of our hardwood floor. 

So Thursday morning, the morning that I woke up with the stomach ache, I went to get my haircut by a new-to-me stylist.  I am nothing if not consistent in my hair stylist-hopping.  The last time I got my hair cut by the same person twice in a row was sometime when the novelty of legally buying alcohol had not yet worn off for me.  I guess that would be, like, nine years ago.

This one I liked even before she cut my hair.  I like the self-deprecating hipster and she was a pretty good one.  It was her comment about how she was at her limit of cutting mullets for Silver Lake hipsters.  You see, the hipsters have ruined Silver Lake and now have their sights on Echo Park, where she grew up (not my words).  But she said that the gangsters in Echo Park would make sure that didn't happen.  I believe her.  Her dad is the largest pot grower in Maui. 

Then she cut my hair and I liked her even more.  Six inches gone.  Felt pretty good.  It was the highlight of what was to be a shitty day.

 Returning to the topic of hipsters for just a moment...

Last night Leif and I jokingly coined the word "prepster" to describe ourselves.  We wear way too much J. Crew and Banana Republic to be called hip but we often find ourselves at the same venues as the hipsters, listening to the same bands.  If hipsters and prepsters were at a family reunion, they would be the hip cousins from Hollywood and we would be the blazer-wearing cousins from Upstate New York.

By the way, those photos of my new haircut were taken with the Hipstamatic application for my iPhone.  Fitting.

Yesterday I went to see my therapist.  Good news is that I am not crazy, just in case anyone was concerned.  I'm actually quite normal and all the anxiety I have been feeling about passing the exam, finding a job and (most likely) moving are all just compounded by my grief for George.

We can all sigh a collective sigh of relief.

.disquiet.

Last night I had a dream in which Leif and I were part of a small group of survivors of some unknown catastrophe that left most of the human race dead.  I think it must have been happening in the far future or on another planet because there were absurd flying ships, strange technologies, and a once-human-now-talking-feline sidekick involved.  Hayao Miyasaki films have obviously made quite an impact on my subconscious mind.  For most of the dream, at least the part I can remember, Leif and I were separated on different ships and I was desperate to get to him. 

Oh, the amount of subtext in this dream is quite something, I think.

I woke up with a stomach ache; the kind that convinced me that my stomach had finally decided it had had enough of being a slave to my bad eating habits and was extricating itself from my innards to look for greener pastures.  Fair enough.  But the stomach ache quickly turned into nausea; the nausea quickly caused the already brimming water in my eyes to spill out onto the white pillow cases.

Some days I just wake up feeling his absence so strongly. 

My stomach ache and the nausea are manifestations of my anxiety, I know that for certain.  A quick look at my nails will tell anyone that anxiety is something I struggle with.  It is a gross habit.  At one point in time I thought I had it conquered but the day we were given George's diagnosis was the day I returned to my old ways and my pretty nails have not been seen since.

Over the last five years that Leif and I have been together my anxiety has significantly improved.  Somehow he is able to quell the rough waters that often occupy my mind.  He is magic.  He is salve to my soul.

But there are still times when even his magic fails and I am left alone to face those stormy waters in my mind.  So that is where I am right now, making a desperate attempt to batten down the hatches by myself.  I've been here before but very seldom am I as anxious as I am today.  As I am right now.

The pounding of my heart is marking the passage of time toward the date that I take my board exam.  Twelve days.  It has been beating so loudly the last couple of days that I can hardly keep focused enough to study.  It certainly isn't helping matters that I am studying the second of two disciplines that I dreaded the most.  The first being obstetrics and this one being cardiology.  

But I wonder if it is really the exam making me anxious or if it is something else.  After all, I think the last written exam I was nervous about was the MCAT and that was almost nine years ago.   My best guess as to the cause of this anxiety is that it is not the exam itself but rather the part that comes after the exam.  The applying for jobs part.  The interviewing part.  The huge change that Leif and I are going to be making part. 

 .L.

And I am pretty sure that the huge cup of coffee I had this afternoon wasn't decaf as I had asked for.  Because otherwise I would not be wishing that I had a zipper attached to my skin so I could more easily crawl out of it.

.small town museum.

While Leif and I were cat-sitting for my parents a couple of weekends ago we managed to extricate ourselves from playing with the kittens out back in the soul-crushing heat for long enough that we were able to visit some local museums.

The thing about smallish cities and their museums is that while they may be, um, petite, they have much more charm than their counterparts in major metropolitan areas.  More often than not the people who are responsible for the success of these places are volunteers.  So it is because of sheer love and passion which enables these places to exist at all.  I find that admirable.

Often they are cobbled together in the best way that they can be with limited funds and limited interest from the general public.

Case in point, the Natural History Museum in my hometown occupies 22,000 square feet of what was an old Radio Shack.  It has water stains on the ceiling and not enough funds or equipment to provide air-conditioning for the entire space (as is evident in the photograph of me with my hair plastered to my face with sweat).

.L.

.L.

 .L.

Our docent?  A thoughtful sixteen year-old kid with braces and a very apparent love for dinosaurs of the scary, meat-eating variety.

 .b.

.L.

.L.

 .b.

Home made signs, placards, and displays.  Too much to do with not enough resources.

 .L.

.L.

.L.

Yet these are all the things that make museums like this so perfect.  They are the accumulation of years and years of unnoticed hard work on the part of very committed individuals.  Their one goal is to pass on knowledge and inspiration to other people.  

And so you leave these museums with a sense of gratitude and a little more knowledge to boot.  What did I learn?  Aside that for the 19 years I lived in that town I was overlooking something very special?

That the place I grew up- that dusty, hot valley that has been pumping out oil for decades and decades used to be at the bottom of the ocean some unfathomable millions of years ago.   

 

.ebb and flow.

The space inside my head is a tangle of webs and spiders.  Webs catch whatever is good and the spiders work quickly to drain, leaving behind dried husks that blow away with the slightest breeze.  I try to dip inside and pull out something meaningful or at least something worth rummaging around for but all I come up with is soft gauzy wisps of nothingness and dessicated remnants.

Two clear days are followed by a day nailed together with gloom and self-loathing.  Today I am carrying with me my hammer. 

I'm not sleeping well.  I can hear the hands from a not-really-there alarm clock ticking, ticking, ticking.  Only I don't know what it is ticking toward or if I should be worried.  

My baths are so hot that they turn my skin pink.  I tell myself to relax.  To breathe.  Everything is going to be fine.  But I know that there are no guarantees.  Statistics are our bedtime stories.  Fairy tales.

After three days spent back "home" Leif is excited about things to come.  Right now I am just relieved that he is here with me.  Safe. 

I think I am too indulgent.  That was the word I was looking for all this time.  Someone else found it and presented it to me without even knowing that she did.  Her words giving a form to my thought.

Today I am the mangled mess of metal and rubber that people slow down in their cars to look at and cringe.  That girl is so broken. 

.now with 50% less words.

I haven't felt much like writing here this week.  At least not about cheery topics like my dead baby. 

Maybe it is because I've been walking a lot, like as in many, many miles nearly everyday.  It is like I just discovered that you can get to Place B from Place A using only your feet.  Imagine that?  I just put in my headphones and my life is suddenly accompanied by a soundtrack of songs from The Shins, Circulatory System, Radiohead, and Elvis Presley.  Is it possible that I work out all the stuff I need to during those walks without having the need to do it here?

Maybe it is because my board exam is coming up in just over two weeks and I have entered survival mode.  The place where I can function with only one goal in mind; do not fail this exam, oh please, oh please, oh please.

Maybe it is because I have something to look forward to in our upcoming vacation.  Sandy beaches and warm water.

Maybe it is because my heart is slowly making scars around the places where I had to stitch it back together again after it shattered into a million pieces.

Maybe I am just exhausted.