Numine.com: Seattle working-class blog

Aww, poor Poopert. I hope he is back to normal soon.

Have fun in Amsterdam! Say hi to Aunt Julie and the girls for me. We'll have to get together when we are both in the states to share photos and stuff.

love love love!

I hope duperty-doo is feeling better. Give him my love. And have a safe flight blah blah blah. I'll come by evetually to pick up good ol' fran. Thanks! Love you!

Solstice!

by Kat

Happy Longest-Day-of-the-Year to one and all! Snog your lover while there's still light. :D

Mine's all wrapped up in his studying, from week one of intensive nursing classes, so I doubt there will be any snogging for us. Instead, I'm getting my second wind on Consumating (link to my profile), a Web 2.0-ey social site. Fun times, good distraction.

I'm listening to jazz and there's a lotus flower floating in a bowl of water next to me. I'm watching the last of the light fade from the sky after sitting out on the balcony until sunset while the cat frolicked in the hall. The little Japanese girls next door came over today to visit him and he was a champ. Though he doesn't normally like strangers and has no idea what to think of kids, he was curious and eventually tolerated their approaches. I think he's just happy that someone has boundless energy they'd gladly dedicate to playing with him.

In other news, Justin and I are planning to camp out this weekend, probably somewhere in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness or Glacier Peak area. Annnnd... my work just relocated to a new, bigger, swankier office. Yet I'm not *in* it until Monday because that's the earliest Qwest can switch on our damn ports. We were going with Comcast as usual but there's no dedicated cable to our building and we'll have to build out from the hub in the street. Bah. Anyhow, life is good, even if the details seem more complicated than they should be.

Two weeks until I go to Amsterdam! Oh, and I have a new review in the Seattle Weekly today-- Alice Childress's Wine in the Wilderness. Check it out!

Posted on June 21, 2006 @ 9:37 PM | 3 comments

Comments:

Hi -- I stumbled onto your blog after reading your comments over at Not So Simple.

The whole "staying in the moment" thing is a definite struggle (according to my therapist the fact that so many of us can't these days is somewhat of a "cultural neurosis"). I'll check out the book you recommended.

And I can definitely relate to the whole anxiety/meds thing... I recently decided to go back on meds myself and they're made all the difference.

I checked out Consumating. Not sure I completely "get" it yet... Anyway, ramble over.

Ashley, at 9:27 PM, June 22, 2006

Hi Ashley, welcome!

Yeah, staying in the moment is a huge problem. I think it's linked inextricably to information overload syndrome, which more and more people who work in the average office setting suffer from. I know it made/makes me a nutcase. I've been on citalopram (Celexa/generic Lexapro) for a few months now, and so far so good. I'm trimming back appointments with my counselor as the summer is an easy time for me to let myself relax, but I know she's there when I need her.

As for The Power of Now- it's an excellent book but do take it with a grain of salt. I'd tell you to skip the intro, but doing that will guarantee you'll read it! Anyway, the intro is a bit heavy-handed and turns a lot of people off (myself included) but if you can get past it, it's a great read with good exercises.

There's really no point to Consumating, I suppose. It's just social networking with a bunch of geek toys. Hard to stop once you get the ball rolling on your popularity tho!

Kat, at 12:01 AM, June 23, 2006

Thanks for the tips about the book. I'll keep them in mind!

Re: meds... Citolopram sounds like a good combo. I was on Lexapro for a while and it helped, but I think my current med is better for me. It's a newer one called Cymbalta that is very similar to the drugs in the SSRI category.

I have some major anxiety. For a while I was determined to handle it through stress management techniques like meditation etc, but I finally came around to the idea that I needed something just to help me "get out of the starting gate" so to speak.

As for therapy, for me it's really feeling like I need it to stay sane, but I'm truly fascinated by the whole process of growth and self-discovery. I resent the "stigma" that sometimes gets attached to it. But I'll get off the soapbox! ;)

Ashley, at 4:13 PM, June 23, 2006