There's a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather

I think I'm having one of those days. I seem to be having a lot of them, lately. I actually was thinking about what to write while I was coming up the front walk, but instead all I have now, staring at this screen, is the feeling that I want my own Goddamned computer back, and anger at the TV and how far away it is from me while I am typing this and how much I hate having to use the setup with the TV as the monitor for John's computer, which he, of course, loves.

It kind of seems like it's been one of those weeks, too. I have been having definite highlights (my Monday night knitting in public foray comes to mind) but for the most part, I'm annoyed and stressed out, and it is making me anxious and unkind. I seem to be vacillating wildly back and forth from being pretty blissed out (like I am in class or when I'm talking about class) to being really annoyed with the human race, people I come into contact with, my pets, drivers that I encounter on my way home, and every other thing that seems to cross my path. I don't know why this is or how to describe it, other than that I really just don't feel like myself.

It's super dark outside tonight, almost bitingly cold, and everything is thickly blanketed in fog. It's the kind of fog you feel as you move through, almost like a rain that just hangs in the air. I read a Tom Robbins novel once where he describes this weather we have here in the Bellingham/Skagit area as the kind that rusts everything, making the mountains like jaws of a steel trap that is stuck halfway open. I can see that on nights like tonight, where I instantly realized I left my scarf at home when I stepped out of Kulshan today after my Microbiology lecture, or when I realized that I haven't been able to get this 10,000 Maniacs song out of my head all evening. I climbed out of the car and watched John walk across the street in the misty dark to get the mail. He disappeared into a swirl of haze just off the edge of the driveway. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it reminded me of watching my blood swirl and mix in the cloudy bloodsmear slides I prepared today during my Anatomy lab.

I hope that I'm not "one of those people" who really has nothing better to talk about than school. I feel like I have lots to say, and I'm not quite sure what to talk about next. I often feel, when I am going through something, like I am the only one in the world to have experienced it in just that way, which I know cannot actually be true. I'm working hard in my classes, and I'm kind of eating, sleeping, and breathing all kinds of Biology right now. Maybe it makes me boring except to other science nerds. I don't know. Whatever. I feel like it's the only interesting thing I have to add to just about any conversation right now. (Did I tell you guys that I made the Dean's list again? 5th consecutive quarter in a row.)

I feel some big change on the horizon for myself. I feel like I'm moving towards something, or some event is moving towards me with a velocity that scares me. I can feel parts of me changing in response to stressors, and it's like watching a film of evolution in fast forward. The parts of me that I don't need anymore are withering, shrinking in on themselves. The parts I'm trying to cultivate are not coming forth readily, they're not needed in response to my environment. I have to work harder to nurse those attributes to the surface: Patience, Temperance, Peace. I was able to find a glimmer of calm in myself on Monday, and I'd really like to be able to tap into that when it is needed.

Tonight, I should be studying Histology. I should be making my flashcards and repeating "Psuedostratified Ciliated Columnar Epithelial" and "Simple Cuboidal Epithelial" and "Dense Irregular Connective" to myself over and over again. I should be drawing a flowchart for myself of the 33 relevant chemical steps to Aerobic Cellular Respiration. I should be going over and over the notes for my Anatomy test on Tuesday.

But I can't. Tonight, I'm panicking. Tonight, I'm wound tight and I threw a pen at the window next to Wyatt when he wouldn't get the fuck off the entertainment center and was blocking my view of the screen. Tonight I'm annoyed at the dogs and annoyed at my friends and annoyed at some of the stupid people I had to talk to from the other side of the counter at work and I'm annoyed that I had to spend 20 minutes figuring out how the hell to void a duplicate credit card transaction and then I was so fucking annoyed at that mess that I miscounted and had to go over all the money again. I'm pissed at work and pissed at money and pissed at every responsibility I have, and I have this tight ball of blackness in my chest and it's making me shake a little.

So, John is picking up slack. He got the car taken back to the mechanic today, because the check engine light came on a few hours after we picked it up. He got stuck there for hours, went to the grocery store, ran home and packed me a lunch, and then picked me up from school to take me to work. He made sure I had extra food since he knew I hadn't eaten today, and what he brought me was delicious! (Tuna salad in whole wheat rosemary high fiber wraps, and it's delicious! He stuffed them with veggies and cabbage, too, my favorite way to eat them. So crunchy!) He came and picked me up from work this evening, and tried to gently get from me what was wrong on the way home. He told me to forget about studying for the night, to let my brain settle. He brought me a Lorazapam, told me to write about it, and went to clean the kitchen.

Sometimes, he does just the right thing.

I just realized that I left something important down at work, and I have to go all the way down there to get it so that I can have it done for the person tomorrow. I suck. Uungh.

I should go to bed on time tonight, instead of staying up till 2 again. It's going around, apparently, this lack of sleep thing. I ran into a friend on campus who told me she isn't sleeping either, and John is staying up as late as I have been. It makes getting up early very hard.

I should sign off for now, let the meds kick in, drink some water, and do something mindless and vegetative.