The Universal Cry

I used to blame it on hormones, but now I suspect the Holy Basil. All day yesterday I was on the verge of tears for no obvious reason. As disclosed in a previous post, my anger addiction has subsided since I began popping Holy Basil twice a day. Something has to replace the anger, right?

And if the truth be known, I just realized that, for all intents and purposes, I have been free of any and all addictions for a couple of days now. For me, this is remarkable and surely can't last, but for now I'm off everything except Holy Basil. Whenever I dis-addict, I find myself flooded with previously repressed emotions, because, after all, the purpose of indulging is to numb.

I did drink a cup of coffee shortly before bedtime, which ensured that I would not sleep until dawn. I had to think of a way to pass time, and I wanted to cry and be done with it, so I thought of my final conversation with my mother before she died many years ago.

My mother had actually cried during that conversation, and it was the only time I had witnessed such an event (her crying). I come from a long line of very closed, tight, repressed, non-orgasmic women. Somehow I had summoned the courage to ask her if she thought she was going to die from the pancreatic cancer ravaging her body. That's when her tears emerged- the tears of a lifetime.

So I reviewed that rare occasion of communication with my mother, and yes, I cried profusely. I bawled. You'd think that would have been enough. But noooooooo. After a quick breather, I was presented with another tear-jerking memory, this time of my dear little Irish grandmother who died in my arms. (Lest I sound like a saint, let me clarify that I am normally not a very mature person. For me, Maturity waits in the wings until the chips are down and somebody's dying or something. Then, when it's all over, Maturity sneaks offstage.)

And apparently that wasn't enough. Before I knew it, I was going through my entire history of sorrow, from loss of life to breakups with boyfriends. I actually listed each profound incident of my life and systematically cried over each one.

I concluded this sobfest with my oldest memory. I was about 3 years old and in my crib, having been put to bed without my nightly Irish lullaby sung by my mother. I will never forget the despair of that endless night. She was mad at me and had withheld the lullaby as punishment. I cried at the top of my lungs and howled for dear life. Nobody came. I vowed to surround myself with lullabies when I grew up.

I am now dried out and exhausted from this emotional exercise. I'll have a hangover of sorts tomorrow (today). Is it possible that this is what living consiously entails? I need a lullaby...

The Furnace Guy

In anticipation of his arrival, I cleared a path from my front door to the basement utility room. I would've done more, but as my friend TA says, you can't undo years of neglect in an hour.

So when I heard his tentative knock on my screen door, I was ready. Or so I thought. First of all, this was a GENTLE furnace guy. Did he announce his arrival with the ever-so-obvious doorbell chimes? No. Did he pound the door down? No. He barely carressed the frame of my delicate 43-year-old screen door...

My heart stopped as I beheld the sight in front of me. He was a typical Adonis, except he was my age, give or take a decade. I looked up into his smiling, kind eyes and forgot what he was here for.

"I'm here to service your furnace."

I couldn't speak. Seeming to understand, he ever so graciously opened the door, entered, and glanced around.

"Um...Do you want to show me your furnace?"

FURNACE???? Who cares about a fucking furnace?????? Fuck the furnace!!!!!

But I played along, flushed and breathless. (Let him deal with the furnace first.)

While he fussed around with the furnace, I was cautious to tiptoe lightly on the floor above him. Thank God I was wearing my best rags. The jogging bra, though, tends to flatten the chest, so I quickly replaced that with a padded Maidenform. He'd never know... I even managed to unearth some perfume that TA's mother had given me a few Christmases ago. Then I fired up the curling iron for the first time since college.

My heart raced when I finally heard his sexy boots ascending the basement stairs. The sweat on my forehead dampened the freshly made curls. Aiming for subtlety, I desperately tried to slow down my breathing. He stood very close to me while he wrote the bill, explaining in detail everything he'd done to the furnace. I heard nothing. I just stared at his face, entranced.

I didn't snap out of it until the echo of his words rang in the distance: "Thank you... see you in the spring..."

Holy Basil theory

Before I began my Holy Basil regimen, I think that my emotional spectrum consisted of anger. Yes, there were levels, but it was all anger, ranging from venemous rage to barely bothered. And that anger was fueled by the cortisol which coursed through my blood vessels with a vengeance.

Why? Well, my blood type is A negative; thus, according to blood type research, I suffer from elevated cortisol levels. Cortisol is the stress hormone associated with the fight or flight response. I constantly fight or flee, living on the edge of my chair, just waiting for the next "attack" to defend myself from.

Isn't anger the perfect emotional accompaniment to such a state of being? Heaven help me, I was raised in a family of type A hotheads brimming with cortisol. Our method of communication was yelling, alternating with passive aggression. Everyone was hyper, jumpy and explosive. I actively sought negative attention, both physical and verbal, because that was all there was.

OK, so now I'm on Holy Basil. (I have no idea why I've lost my color, size and font, but I take it as a sign.) It's known to help type A blood-ers with stress by regulating cortisol. Honestly, I no longer feel that adrenaline rush of the fight or flight. In situations, often involving the Chihuahua, where I would have felt my heart pounding, face flushing, muscles tensing and voice rising, I feel like a numb observer.

As for the emotional result of Holy Basil, I am still sorting it out. Yesterday at work I was "attacked" by a co-worker. It was the perfect setting for a major fight or flight outburst, and I did manage to spit out a few of the words that would have previously been inspired by anger-r-r-r-r-r. But I felt unusual. I fought back tears for a while afterwords, and thought that maybe I was hurt. Hurt is somewhat new to an anger addict. I wasn't sure how I felt or what to do, and somehow I ended up in some sort of irrational word exchange with another co-worker who happens to be a dear friend. Whatever I said to him must have been pretty upsetting because he stormed off.

It will be hard for me to describe my reaction to that. For a moment I was sent back in time to when I had a boyfriend. It was a lovers' spat. I wanted to run after him, crying, screaming that I loved him. But this guy isn't boyfriend material, so the above reaction was baffling.

At the very least, I can say that I experienced a strong emotion directed toward my friend, and it wasn't anger.

far be it

Far be it from me to continue to imprison this poor dog whose life's goal is to escape the borders of my property. In my house he is provided with only the highest quality CANNED dog food, bottled water to drink, 2 warm beds which are washed weekly, a closet full of toys (many of which he, being a Chihuahua, is suspicious of) a young human playmate, hundreds of dollars worth of veterinary items and training gear (flea medicine, hair tonic, combs, vitamins, leashes, collars, harnesses and treats) and unlimited floor surface, both hardwood and carpeted, on which he feels free to eliminate. Yet somehow, that's not good enough. He just wants to leave.

Even though it's Saturday, a day most people consider "off", I must haul ass into work. The Holy Basil makes the early mornings just a tad more challenging, as if I'm sleepwalking for the first couple of hours. The dog eased his way out the door when I retreived the newspaper. My house is situated on a city park, and of course I had to take off running, in my pajamas, into the city park, after the Chihuahua, yelling as loudly as the Holy basil would allow. My neighbor, calmly walking his (adult) dog on a leash, was rendered speechless for the first time since I met him. It occurred to me that this didn't make sense. Who am I to wreck this dog's life by containing him? I offered this thought to the neighbor, whose eyes enlarged but voice remained silent. "Maybe I should just let him go...", my Holy Basil muttered.

I'm leaving for work now and the Chihuahua remains at large.......

Fulfilling My Motherly Obligations

Last night was Open House at my kid's school. In the world I covet, I'd whine about what a difficult week it's been and how much my head aches, thereby inspiring ever-loving (yet studly) superhusband to croon, "Oh, honey, I know what a demanding job you have. You deserve some time for yourself. Let me take the kid to Open House!"

In the actual world there is no husband, super-, ex- or otherwise. Everything that gets done for (or to!) the kid gets done by MOI.

At first I thought I had an out. The kid, who despises school, ranted about how bitterly he resented being asked to return to school that evening. How dare they cut into his time???

"What were you planning to do tonight instead?" I ventured.

"WATCH TV!!!!"

And for a few sweet moments I harbored the notion of staying home to rest my weary head and feed the kid's unwholesome addiction. Before long, alas, the familiar Irish Catholic guilt infiltrated my fantasy. I agreed to allow the kid to haul the contents of his bedroom to Open House so he could show off his bribes from his unscrupulous mother.

Somehow, as we were loading up the Open House-bound Honda, the Chihuahua escaped, frolicking joyfully into a copious stream of detoured minivans from the nearby Rec Center. The kid dashed out into the traffic to save the Chihuahua. Horns honked, vans veered, tires screeched, but my Holy Basil prevailed. (See yesterday's post.) I just stood alongside the road, smiling meekly, taking it all in, realizing that postponement of the trip to Open House could be mutually beneficial.

Eventually the dog was captured and restrained, as was the kid, and we proceeded down the main thoroughfare bisecting our fair city. Little did I know that we would have been better off walking the 4 miles rather than driving. The road was under construction, to put it mildly. Only one narrow lane was open AND my car was in the unfortunate shadow of a city bus. I am all for mass transit except when I'm positioned behind it.

We crept along at a pace of, oh, about a mile every couple of hours. My Holy Basil stupor prevented me from ditching the car and boarding the bus, which would have eliminated our next hurdle.

When we FINALLY made it to school, lo and behold, there was nowhere to park, not even in the surrounding neighborhood. I drove around in circles, half praying, half praising, not quite sure what I hoped for, until finally the child looked up from his hand-held video game bribe and moaned, "Mama, we've been in this car too long! My butt is numb!!!"

I circled the school three more times and finally threw my hands up in the air, exclaiming,"It's 9:00!!! Open House is over!!!!"

AS IF I needed more trauma

As if I, a single working mother with no family and nearly no friends, needed more trauma in my troubled existence, I have taken in a nasty Chihuahua puppy. The good news is that I've started myself on a regime of Holy Basil to combat the added stress of attempting to control a clearly over-sexed, yet too-young-to-be-neutered Mexican. Before work this morning I discovered that I have no underwear left with the crotch intact, thanks to said dog. The Holy Basil saved the dog's life, as I calmly told myself that panties with the crotch intact are non-essential to peak job performance. I dashed out the door to escape the desperate little Chihuahua, only to discover, to my horror, that he had sunk his teeth into my whirling skirt and was on his way to work with me.

Welcome to Whirling Betty's Blog!

Hi, I'm Betty and this is my blog. Here is where I'll whirl out my baggage and spin off the burden using the centrifugal force of open expression. Here I go...Watch out for large flying objects!!!