Toilet Wreck

Blarg. Yesterday was hell of puke-y for me. Had the worst migraine I've had in ages, 10 delicious pukes. Similar frequency of passage from the other end. So, maybe not the best birthday. But then I checked my email and phone messages and had all these nice people wishing me good birthday times. I'm kind of emotional, some would say "high," on the comedown from a severe migraine, so things like eHallmark Cards from my Grandma brought tears to my eyes. Migraines always put things into perspective for me. Sometimes I think the reason the women in my family get migraines is because we get all worked up and stressed out about not-so-important stuff, and start being annoyed by everything or just perpetually dissatisfied, and then a migraine whooses in and puts everything in perspective. Most of the time, we aren't experiencing severe pain. We're in good health, have good friends, and are ridiculously wealthy by most standards. We just forget sometimes.

Had a good weekend at ecofest with the swimming and lounging around playing cards. Went to an interesting talk about earth housing but couldn't manage to drag my lazy ass to any others. Would rather learn about permaculture in a hands-on setting anyway. I had these dreams that the festival would be a big networking opportunity for me, but that was incredibly optimistic. I forgot for a moment how difficult it is for me to talk to strangers, let alone network. I'd see people doing interesting things and start running in the opposite direction. Aggg. I'm so dissappointed in my shortcomings sometimes. People keep telling me to network network and things will work out, but I'm having a very hard time with it. I always mean well but the follow-thru gets me. I'm terrified of contacting people for references, which holds me back from applying to jobs. I wonder how different my life would be now if I had taken that post-doc up on her offer of coming to Harvard with her after graduation and being her research assistant. That would have meant staying in Boston, which probably wouldn't have been good for my mental health. But what if job satisfaction had managed to overcome that? So many what-ifs.

I will be extremely satisfied with my life once I get over this networking hurdle. In a way, I should appreciate it because most people don't get to experience the satisfaction of overcoming it. Their lives may look more successful from the outside, but maybe they have less satisfaction in the small stuff.

Ha! The above paragraph must be the sort of thing cripples and mentally-challenged people tell themselves to feel better. Nice try, cripples! Why don't you hobble over there and get me some juice. I know I know, it's hard to do without any extremities, but just think of the SATISFACTION when you succeed!

Cruelty is the only way out of this self-pity rant, it turns out.