Ugh, Kalamata Greek olives suck! Instant rat food. Really grateful to have those furry garbage disposals around. Food is never wasted when you have them. ;) 

I’m baking chicken wings in a bag with McCormick’s chicken seasoning. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s as good as the version they have for pork. Tom picked it out and I tried some seasoned pork chops with him, and wow! They were sooo good! I’ll never skillet-fry or Shake-n-Bake pork again. This is also a little healthier, cuz remember, I’m trying to lower my cholesterol and sodium intake. 

Just ate the chicken, which cooked for an hour as I read an email saying that royalty payments from Germany were on the way. It was very tender and tasty. :) 

I slept long and horribly. I kept waking up. Then one time I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep for a while. I didn’t have to take a lorazepam, though. Not sure if my heart was racing or not. It might’ve been a little bit. Gonna see if removing the body pillow helps the quality of my sleep or not. God knows it’d surely look better without it on the bed. Two pillows and the rainbow teddy bear I just HAD to splurge on at Walmart is enough. The bear isn’t just for looks, though, but to lie against the too-bright digital clock at night. It’s easier to pull it aside to check the time during the many times I wake up than a bulky pillow is. 

Anxiety was borderline when I got up, like threatening to bubble up below the surface, but now I feel fine. Eating seems to help, though if I get too anxious that actually snuffs out my appetite. I just know I never had this kind of anxiety before the thyroid pills entered the picture, but I also don’t know that the medication is solely to blame. Some of it could be my thyroid or just me worrying. I’m already worrying about being left alone tomorrow, but this week, depending on what happens, I will contact Doc A. 

Tom accidentally stumbled upon an article on anxiety that says the best thing to do is to embrace it, tell yourself it’s ok, you’re not going to die, you’re not having a heart attack, and simply “ride the waves.” Meaning that the body reacts the same when you’re about to go down a steep rollercoaster as it does when a panic attack sets in. The heart begins to race, the adrenaline begins to flow, and we react to these physical actions by becoming fearful as harmless as they are. As I told Tom, though, it’s hard to resist the fear as it would be if a psycho with a gun approached me. 

“But the psycho with a gun can kill you. Anxiety can’t,” he said. 

However true this may be, and no matter how much you tell yourself it’s harmless, it’s still very hard not to feel terrified and afraid to be alone. Like I said, I’ve never had this before levothyroxine that I would quit the stuff altogether if it wasn’t for the unwanted hypothyroidism symptoms I’d go back to having, and the serious complications I may very well be looking at in 10-15 years. 

I guess I just gotta learn to “ride the waves” better. And stop “what-iffing,” and overanalyzing things like asking myself, is my heart beating faster? Does it feel like it’s going to start racing? What if I’m alone and I run into trouble? Etc. 

Now for some happier news… Tom’s passport is on the way and this weekend we’re going to throw a few possible dates for Tammy to make sure she’ll be available at those times. She has a lot of medical drama going on, but since she isn’t working right now I’m guessing she’ll be pretty flexible. It’s just a question of how many days we’ll be with her, how many days we’ll be cruising, where we’ll be cruising to, and if we’ll even be cruising at all. There are many possibilities. Tears of excitement sting my eyes just thinking about seeing everybody for the first time in 24 years! 

There’s what I want and there’s what would be easiest on me. It’d be easiest to spend just a couple of days with Tammy and do a 4-day cruise to Mexico or even just a weekend cruise to the Bahamas. But since part of the fun is adding new countries to my list, I want to spend 3-4 days with Tammy (which will also give the girls a chance to meet us at Tammy’s) and do the week-long cruise that goes to Mexico, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. 

My biggest worry is my sleep curse. That concerns me more than any potential medical drama. I’m less likely to have anxiety when I’m not alone and when I’m busy and doing fun things. 

“You survived 6 months of jail,” Tom pointed out. 

True, but I was younger and healthier. Still, jail wasn’t fun or worth being tired for. Vacation is. 

I have more to write about but will do it later on. I want to hit the Bowflex now! 

Later… 

Ah, my first workout felt great. It was more of a refresher course than anything the first time around. It all came back as I went about the routines. Our last one didn't have a tower and Tom would've laughed if he saw me cuz I hooked up to it incorrectly at first. Now if only the intermittent anxiety could back off… 

I've trained on and off in various ways for years, so the names of the muscles and exercises are familiar, and since the body has memory, it can spring back to life quickly enough, not that I've let it "forget." A 50-year-old doesn't have boobies this lifted unless she's been doing something or another (push-ups and planks). Ass isn't northerly, but it's not southerly either, so that's good. Call it a Midwestern ass. I'm not 34 anymore so I expect to always look like shit to a degree, but it's fun being a Bowflex Babe just the same! 

I was at some party in last night’s dream where some chick started to come onto me. Then she backed off and someone else gave me a huge container of popcorn. I took the container and decided what movie to watch while I ate it. 

Then, I don’t know if I observed this through a movie or what, but I watched as a bunch of cops tried to get this guy to shoot some other guy so that it’d look like self-defense or something like that, but I knew in my mind that they were just trying to manipulate and incriminate the guy. Just when I thought the guy might fall for the trap, he caught on and a high-speed chase ensued both on foot and in vehicles. 

I was in Nebraska in another dream and met with Aly. She took me to her house and her parents were both tall and slim with ponytails that covered their backs. I suddenly realized that her house was really one of the houses we had back in Massachusetts and asked her father if he bought it in 1987. He confirmed my suspicion with a nod, and I couldn’t wait to be led down into the basement where I used to spend a lot of time hanging out. But the stairs leading down there now seemed so narrow that I wondered if I’d be able to squeeze down them. But I did manage to get down the stairs and then we watched TV. 

Aly eventually went to take a shower. I heard water running and glanced upward at these wooden beams that ran across the ceiling. Thick nails appeared every few feet or so and water trickled from each of them. I wondered if I should go upstairs and tell someone.