Time limits

It's Sunday afternoon here in my ridiculous life. The dogs are sleeping in their usual place, right on my side of the massive king-sized bed. Why must I always fight for that position? It's not like there isn't plenty of space here people. There are chicken breasts in the oven for a casserole I'm making to feed me for a substantial portion of the week, and the sun has finally broken through after 4 days of rain. I'm quite happy to have maintained my 27 pound, 108 sticks of butter weight loss this week. I haven't done any dog walking and am quite surprised there hasn't been a flat out mutiny. You'd think it was an idyllic little scene wouldn't you?. Think again. This is me we're talking about.

I'm scheduled for my weekly Sunday afternoon panic attack. The simple truth is that I'm usually too busy during the week to have one. Sunday is the best time. I can loose my demons and let them romp around in the pit of my stomach for a while. They curse and twist and shout and lambada the forbidden dance until I'm in a state of anxiety. Then they send little fun messages of failure and destruction up to my brain until I finally shut them down for the rest of the week. I have to give them a time limit, otherwise they will monopolize all my vitally important energy and attention which needs to be focused on things like keeping the stink bugs out of the house and figuring out how I managed to de-program the universal remote. (My remote karma stands true and firm)

I had to place a time limit on all of my negative emotions, especially self-pity which was always one of my favorites. "OK Nancy.....you have exactly 5 minutes to wallow in self-pity.....GO!!!" "I'm never going to be anything" "I'm always the outsider and I'm going to die old and alone and...TIME!!! Done and done. I usually don't even have the time to generate a few tears. Like I said, it has to be that way if I'm going to accomplish any small but significant stink bug related task. Such is my ridiculous life.

So My Panic attack time has expired and it's time to move along with my damned day. I'm telling you people that were it not for my ability to see the humor in my life, I'd devote a full 10 minutes to feeling sorry for myself, and probably a solid half hour to my anxieties. As it is, the remote control mystery still remains to be solved, and I'm annoyed that the Barefoot Contessa said that my chicken breasts would take 35 minutes and we're rockin' up on an hour in the oven. I should have known that any recipe generated in the ritzy Hamptons would crash and burn in my fun house of mythical beasts and dust bunnies.

There is an extenze commercial on television. Some bone-head is talking about enlarging his penis while a beautiful woman with a perfect ass stairmasters in the background. What is the message here? Why am I struggling to keep my head above water and this fool is getting paid to talk about "That certain part of the male anatomy" which seems to require enlarging. Maybe with a larger penis, he can bag that babe in the background and achieve his life's goal.... penis-wise anyway. All this while women are struggling to have that perfect figure to entice Mr. penis-in-need-of-enlarging in to noticing them.

I'm going to take a moment and breathe.....and breath again.......and feel grateful for what I have in my life......which at this moment includes unlimited time for anger.