every little thing is gonna be alright

i am going to distract myself with senseless blog writing.

i have been a ball of anxiety today.

1. as part of the COFFEE Project (wherein, 9 of us have committed to doing something that scares/challenges us), i have committed to performing at an open mic next Thursday. me + guitar + some songs i made up = Little P needs a Big B-is-for-Barf Bag.

this morning i opened my calendar to record a February meeting, and boom: There it was. "OPEN MIC"-- in ink, no less-- no longer a theoretical event i would talk about indefinitely (without ever actually doing it). IMMEDIATELY, my hands got sweaty, and i started to tremble, and i had to go to the bathroom 85 times in the next 30 minutes.

what IS that?

i tried to tend to work and couldn't focus my brain. couldn't focus my eyes. couldn't get my hands to go still.

you know what i did to calm down? i ran data. i pulled up the database, and i ran data. converted it into an Excel spreadsheet. nice and tidy numbers in rows and columns. observable, quantifiable, linear representatives of completely measurable behavior. adding and subtracting chaos with a calculator.

this is why i like math. i find it calming. being alive is so hair-raising. i hate not being able to control my own body's reactions. sometimes it's nice to step out of myself and study my codes like line-items. if only i could find a way to do this without turning into a complete nut job.

2.  we get "daily headlines" at work. i read them. this was a mistake.

first i read about the bill to amend the constitution to ban same-sex marriage and its variations. this makes me so quivering sick in my soul. it does. it absolutely does. i don't have words. except that i wish so very hard that people would not use the gentle and loving God i believe in to further this cruel campaign.

3.  next i read about the bright idea to just fire everybody hired since November.

i don't know if it's bad professional form to comment on such things. and so i will simply reflect what i hear in my head:

"In order to fix a broken system, you should keep the same people around forever. Because the system is in such disarray, they have obviously been performing very well.  To fix things that are broken, you must not change anything. You must do exactly as you have done forever and ever and ever, amen."

…
…
…

but i'm sure everything is going to be just fine.