Jennie Smash

No, I didn’t eat non-plan food or start guzzling gin out of my shoe in the children’s playground down the block. (Despite what the police might try to tell you.) I gained two pounds this morning, and I think it was entirely because of stress.

Yesterday was the day when nothing would go right. I had to have blood drawn in the morning, to make sure that my thyroid hadn’t completed its transformation into a paperweight. It was raining, and halfway to the lab, I realized I forgot my prescription, and had to run back seven blocks to get it. I’m not supposed to run, because of my whole broken back thing, and when I got back outside from grabbing my prescription, it wasn’t just raining, it was pouring. Like the kind of rain where the rain went up and sideways, as well as down, plastering my jacket and pants to my body and my hair to my face. Then I got to have a needle stuck in my arm, never a good thing. I think this is why my cortisol levels are always through the roof.

The rest of the day went similarly. I didn’t get much work done, because I had two appointments, the blood draw and PT, and that always screws up my productivity. I have a new gig, which I love, but there’s always a learning curve, so I felt like I didn’t really get anything done. Then, I found out that my awesome new glasses were made with my old prescription, and had to navigate the whole, “telling someone I’m displeased without looking like either a banshee or a doormat” scenario that I love so much. After I finished that conversation, I decided to have a shower.

Due to the flooding from all that rain, the boiler was out, and icy cold water poured down on my head.

I stood shaking in the bathroom, more from rage than from cold, while my husband tried to talk me down.

“OK, you’re shaking,” he said calmly. He’s doing his psych rotation right now in nursing school. “Is that involuntary, or…”

“It’s the only way I can adequately express my rage,” I said. “This day. THIS DAY. This day needs to be over.”

“Do you still want to go out and meet friends for drinks?”

“It’s the only thing that’s keeping me from going back to bed.”

So we went out and had a great time. I drank club soda the whole night and didn’t really miss drinking alcohol, to be honest. The only difference between being out and drinking and being out and not drinking, besides the obvious, were that when it was 10 p.m., I was like, “Whelp, I’m about to turn into a pumpkin. See ya!”

Which my friends probably appreciated, since when I’m drinking, I’m like, “You’re going home? BS. Let’s go get a pizza and hit another bar. In fact, fuck it, let’s go to Chinatown and get noodles. Immediately. It’s a noodle emergency. We need emergency noodles.”

The next thing you know, it’s one in the morning, and we have noodles and the opportunity to sleep for about six beer-soaked hours before it’s time to go to work.

I could see incorporating some club soda into my usual social routine after this is over, is what I’m saying.

Image: chris-fritz/Flickr