I Look Young For My Age

You know how at Brookstone and Sharper Image and super trendy places like that have the massage chairs that you can try out?  Those chairs usually have a sign in front of them that say you are only allowed to sit in them if you are 18 or older.  When I was about 24, I sat in one of those chairs...and got carded!  The 17 year old boy behind the counter actually asked to see my I.D.  That's pretty much the story of my life.  I'm 35 but I look 25.  Most people would say that's a great thing and usually, it is.  Fast forward to today. 
I've been feeling better in the past week or two due to the Zoloft.  Less panic, less fear and less meltdowns.  Because of that, I decided to leave the house and get a haircut.  My hair was ridiculously long.  It almost touched my butt and was becoming unmanageable.  When I sat down in the chair, the stylist said I had great hair and I could do almost whatever I wanted to it.  I told her I didn't really care and I gave her full reign to do what she thought would look good and be easily maintained.  She clapped her hands together and looked all gleeful.  She said "I'm going to make you look like a celebrity!  You have great hair!  I'm so excited! We'll do layers and bangs and this and that and..."  So, in my head, I've prematurely pictured something like this...

I'm not sure why because I'm barely 5"1 and I've never had blond hair in my life.  My eyes are green, not blue and I'm pretty sure I've never been able to pull off the "sultry" look.  Regardless, I closed my eyes and let the Great Clips girls work her magic.  After about 30 minutes or so, she's blow drying and I'm excited so I open my eyes.  Instead of the sultry, windblown tall person look I was hoping for, I got this.

*Sigh*-So, for the next 6 months I am stuck with my Blossom haircut and the awesome experience of the "in between stages" of bangs.  Oh well, at least I'm still tall...oh, wait.  Well, at least I'm still sultry...yeah.  Yeah?  Well at least I LOOK YOUNG FOR MY AGE!

GUESS WHAT?!?

CHICKEN BUTT!!!!

I'm not sure how my blog went from witty, humorous anecdotes about my forage into Crazytownland to 8 year old chicken humor but seriously, how could I not?  I will be back to regular posts soon.  I've been working for 7 days straight.  I don't have another day off until next Friday but I promise I will post something intelligent in between now and then.

P.S.  I want to say a special thank you to Rot Du Jour who gave me the One Lovely Blog Award.  After this post she may never read me again so I felt the need to say it now.  Thanks!

Completlier More Unrelatedness

Real text message conversation between me and a nameless identity-less person
Other Person: Don't blog this (ppfffuuu!  Like that was going to work!) but I asked my mom what cashmere is made of and she said Canadian Goats.  That's not true, is it?
Me:  Don't be ridiculous...They are from France.
HA!  I am hilarious.

Short But Funny

I was speaking on the phone to one of our best customers.  She orders corporate lunch at least 3 times a week and spends a considerable amount of money each time.
Customer:  We are not going to order from _________ (restaurant name deleted) anymore.  The food really wasn't that good.  We are going to order from _______.  Can you ask them to put less anger in the food?
Me:  Ummm, sure.
Me to restaurant:  This customer is new to you and would like to request no anger in her food.
Restaurant to me:  I can't make any promises but I will do my best.
Sometimes I have the best job in the world!

 This is how I picture they get angry into the food.  As always, inspired by but not as talented as Hyperbole and a Half

Why Would You Pick That Profession?

So, I took a little hiatus for a few reasons; first, I was celebrating a one year anniversary with the boyfriend.  B, I was shopping for a new flat screen T.V.  And last, just because.
First thing's first...gratuitous hipstamatic photo of my dog.

My completely unrelated to this story dog.

Now, story time...
I  hate the dentist.  Whatever, everyone hates the dentist, but I REALLY hate the dentist.  Anything having to do with teeth and inside someone's mouth (including my own) is a major panic trigger for me.  I find it absolutely atrocious that anyone would stick their fingers in someone else's mouth on purpose. Needless to say that over the years I have caused some dentist office drama.
When I was about 8 or so, I had to have 2 cavities filled.  I'm not sure if dentistry back then was still in the stone ages or the guy I went to was some sort of child hating dental sadist but he drilled through two of my teeth in two different places.  What I mean is, he drilled up and he drilled into the side...How is it even possible that I had two cavities that big in two different teeth that both required extensive drilling?  He filled four holes in two teeth with whatever that nasty metal is that they used back then, I was traumatized, life moved on.
Fast forward to me in my mid 20's.  I hadn't really had any mouth trouble since the first time and I was never forced to have regular cleanings so my visits to the dentist had been sparse to non-existent.  All of a sudden, my face started to hurt so badly that I felt compelled to have it looked at.  I went to the dentist who promptly told me I needed a root canal...on both sides. I freaked out but scheduled the appointment anyway.  Being the big girl adult that I am, I called my mom and asked her to not only go with me but be in the room during the whole thing.  The closer it got to the day of the surgery the more nervous I became.  I called my mom and told her I was going to cancel the appointment and somehow she talked me out of it.  By the time the actual day came around I was full of Valium, a nervous wreck and vomiting roughly every 30 seconds.  I tried to make a break for it twice from the waiting room before they ever even saw me.  They somehow finally got me to the back.  I'm not really clear on how that happened as at that point I was pretty woozy from the three back to back to back Valium.  The nurse put the spit rag around my neck, laid me back, put spacer thingies in my mouth and told me to relax.  I asked if I could use the restroom and my mom immediately warned them not to let me go.  The nurse ignored her, of course thinking that I was an actual adult, and allowed me to go.  She even helped me get there (again, three Valium).  I thanked her, closed the door and proceeded to lock myself in.  Fifteen minutes later I could hear my mom banging on the door yelling at the nurse that she told her not to let me go.  Eventually, they picked the lock and made me come out.  After they finally wrestled me back into the chair I was promptly administered whatever it is that knocks you completely unconscious. 
That, my friends, is the end of this story, however, I have three post scripts. 
P.S.  My younger sister went into the dental industry.  I'm pretty sure she did it to spite me
P.P.S.  The two root canal teeth are the same two teeth that were traumatized the first time around
P.P.P.S.  That was not the last time I had to have those two teeth worked on

Ummm, Yeah

I just posted something and then deleted it by accident.  Am I an amateur?  You betcha!  This gist of it was this; the last couple of days were pretty bad for me as far as meltdowns and panic attacks.  Based on that, and my lack of humor the last couple of days, I decided not to post.  What I did post was some cute pictures of how I can feel from second to second every single day.  I'm going to give it another shot and if it turns out to look like a 6 year old posted this, so be it.

Deep In The Heart of Crazytownland

I KEEL YOU!!

Irritated and Anti-Social

Terrified of EVERYTHING!

I jacked this cripplingly cute picture from this guy.

Customer of the Day Award

Day 4 9/18/2010.  We must keep in mind that my posts are relevant to the blog title in that most of these stories (except maybe the short one about my sister) relate to how I got to this place in my life.
I have a talent for gravitating towards jobs where customers should know what they want, but don't.  I used to work at Tower Records which was the greatest job ever!  I don't know about you but when I go to a product specific retail store, I usually go in with enough information to get what I need.  At Tower Records, we constantly had customers who came in or called on the phone and asked questions. The most common question, "I'm looking for a song that's sung by a female artist with the word love in it, can you help me?".  The wonderful thing about Tower was that the answer was always just no and then you just got to walk away and go on about your business without a second thought, leaving a confused and irritated customer in your wake . The next most common question was a phone call, "I just heard this song on the radio, can you tell me what it was?".  Again, no.  I'm at work, I'm not listening to the radio.  And if I were listening to the radio, I probably wouldn't be listening to the same crap you are.  LOVED that job.  Anyway, after my several years at Tower I somehow moved into the restaurant industry and that brings me to my current job.  My co-worker is not the only stressful part of my current job.  Customers provide their own source of stress for me.  Our company delivers for about 55 specific restaurants.  You can find a list of the restaurants and what areas they deliver to a number of different ways.  We try not to make it difficult as we actually want people to use the service.  Not too long ago I received a phone call just as I had walked into the office for the day.  The woman asked me if we deliver from Waffle House.  I politely replied no ma'am, we don't, and figured that was probably the end of the conversation.  It wasn't.  She then asked me the same question in a different order.  Perhaps thinking I might change my mind. "So you don't deliver from Waffle House?".  No, we have about 55 restaurants that you are more than welcome to choose from but unfortunately Waffle House is not one of them.  Again, I thought that would have to be the end of the conversation.  Nope.  "But I want Waffle House".  At that point I started getting a little anxious and a little irritated.  I'm sorry ma'am but I really can't help you.  "But I can see it from my window".  After I smacked myself in the forehead in frustration, I paused.  Is it within walking distance, I asked? "Yes, I can see it from my window".  Could you walk there?  "Yes, I told you, I can see it from my window".  Then perhaps you should walk there..."So you won't deliver it to me?" I hung up the phone.  I'm quite sure that was not the right way to handle that situation but by the end I was so rattled and annoyed I had no idea how to put a stop to this early morning madness.  Bad customer or bad customer service, you decide.

How I looked

How I felt

Completely Unrelated

Real text message conversation between myself and my sister

Me:  You are a black girl in my Cafe World game on Facebook.  Just thought you should know.
Sister:  You are a white girl in the real world.  Just thought you should know.

"C" as in "D"

Day 3 9/17/10.  I had a pretty uneventful day as far as meltdowns go, probably because I was stimulus free.  I didn't leave the house all day and I was alone.  That doesn't tend to cause an uproar in the place I've affectionately come to call Crazytownland.  I experienced a couple of side effects, the major ones being extreme lethargy and lack of concentration, but I don't necessarily want to track the side effects.  They will go away eventually.  What I really want to track is how I feel as directly related to stress, anxiety and panic.
Now, the serious stuff is out of the way and by far not interesting enough to read about so I thought I would tell my favorite story about my aforementioned co-worker.  As I mentioned in my previous post, he probably played a major roll in my original Budget Truck move to Crazytownland in the first place.  Sure, I had looked at some brochures and priced a few apartments but I hadn't made any decisions to move yet.  I am the operations manager for a high end restaurant delivery service.  The kind of business that doesn't exist without customers and doesn't thrive without good customer service.  Steve, let's call him Jack to preserve his anonymity, is for all intents and purposes, the first person that our customers talk to. Jack is a "larger than normal" man who is given to bouts of loud eating, unbridled bodily noises and breaking out into song.  Breaking out into song would generally indicate a cheery disposition but Jack is lyrically challenged and his outbreaks usually come across more like Tourette Syndrome.  Its difficult to appreciate when after hours of working quietly, he suddenly breaks out into "PUT YOUR LOAD OFF ANNIE, PUT YOUR LOAD ON FREE!!!" and then...nothing.  Occasionally, when a customer's name is in a song he thinks he knows, he will sing to them too.  We take customer's names, addresses and credit card information over the phone and it is important that that information is transcribed carefully and correctly.  Jack also has occasional bouts with dyslexia so we had to start having him repeat the customer's information back to them to make sure he got it right.  It quickly became habit to listen to him with one ear while doing my own work to make sure that information was being taken correctly.  One day, Jack was repeating back the customer's information to them and I perked up and listened a little more closely because he had to repeat the customer's last name back to them repeatedly.  Finally, he asked them to spell it.  He was repeating back the letters, "a as in apple, b as in boy" and such.  Then, he says it, "that's C as in D, correct ma'am?".  He didn't hear himself say it and kept right on going.  Me?  I pulled out the brochures and started making serious inquiries. 

Getting Pulled Over By The CrazyTownLand Speed Police On The Way Out Of Town

Day 2 was 9/16/2010.  I took a half a pill (25mgs) at about 9am.  By 11:30, I was lethargic and un-focused.  Not good for someone who runs a business that peaks from 11am-2pm.  I was alone in my office and found my regular tasks to be abnormally daunting.  Eventually, I will get into the back story of where I work, what I do and the most annoying co-worker on the face of the planet (and possibly a large part of why I moved to crazytownland in the first place).  Above is an idea of what its like though, through my limited MS Paint talents and my Allie Brosh inspiration.  Anyway, I digress.  My poor boyfriend has been suffering with me for the past month or so since I flew off the handle and ripped him a new asshole for going a different way to Florida than I would have gone.  Since then, I have tried to help him understand what anxiety is and how panic attacks work.  I haven't really been successful and his answer is either to buy me food or some little trinket.  I have discovered through some self examination that part of my problem is that my brain is either WAY under stimulated or WAY overstimulated very easily so I asked my boyfriend by email if maybe we couldn't do something a little different for dinner.  After some trial and tribulations, we decided we were going to go to a fondue restaurant.  I was happy, I was excited, I was glad we were going to get out of the house and do something a little different.  He made reservations and all was well...Then, he ran late at work.  I immediately knew where it was headed and tried to think positively and somehow we would still get to go...Then, he couldn't find his keys.  As soon as I got in the car to drive 30 minutes in traffic to pick him up, he found his keys.  By that time, I was in meltdown mode and he knew it.  Reservations got canceled and we ended up at the Mexican joint down the road that we eat at at least once a week.
So, on day 2, I can definitely confirm that at 25 mg, you will not NOT have a meltdown and you might have headaches all day.  And that is the story of trying to move back home from crazytownland and getting stopped by the "your Zoloft has not kicked in enough for us, in good consciousness, to let you leave" police.

Day 1: On the Road Home from Crazytownland

Day 1 was actually yesterday.  I made a conscious decision to start taking a pill-a-day and become a member of the Prozac nation.  My Prozac of choice is evidently Zoloft according to my new Primary Care Physician who has me pegged as an addict of some kind on the first visit.  I can't be too angry about that though, it's a case of "guilty by association" as he is also the long time physician of my boyfriend who is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict.  So, all that having been unnecessarily said, I intend to use this blog as a personal journal to track whether or not Zoloft is working for me, how crazy I am today and if my crazy is getting less noticeable as time moves forward.  I decided to make it a blog in case someone stumbles on it by accident and has something to say about what I'm doing, how I'm doing it or how I can do it better.

Down to the nitty gritty:
I took a half pill (25mg) yesterday 9/15 at about 9am.  As expected, no real change in how I feel but I did have a few vicious bout with some gastrointestinal "issues".  I will say that I did experience a couple of mild panic attacks but felt pretty decent throughout the work day.  However, at 10pm, my boyfriend wanted to leave the house and go to the bank and I had a meltdown.  My heart had been a little poundy for about 20 minutes previous to that and I chalked that up to the medication.  So, he stayed, meltdown subsided after about 20 minutes and I went to bed...