oh noes

fuuuuuuuuuuck.

what is wrong with me? why do i continue to procrastinate? i blame it on my uterus and the beer i shouldn't have had. hello little green bottle of yuengling, how are you?

i'm currently reading about... oh.... 3 books at once. the lead pencil club, stiff, the genius factory, devil in the details... hm, ok, 4 books. plus a few others. i'm trying to read the god delusion, but i don't think it's going to happen, nor could i get through a massive swelling. alas. they're almost too... strident, perhaps.

devil in the details is about a woman who suffered badly from scrupulosity in her younger days - a type of religious ocd. it's really quite interesting. my friend j and i talk about how we both have strange ocd compulsions, but for the most part, they are under control. at least, where they don't disrupt our lives and we don't need heavy medication. we just drive our loved ones crazy sometimes.

there have been a few times in the book when what she says just hits me right over the head.

"i could not trust that my body would do what i wanted. i was grateful for the involuntary bodily processes that didn't require my input, but i didn't trust those either, as i secretly believed that i could, accidentally and against my will, make my heart stop beating with my scarily potent mental powers."

one can just say that i believe in the intense power of the human mind. the collective consciousness. i also believe that i can make myself not be sick. that healthiness is a state of mind. but truly, i have to force myself to stop thinking about the way my heart beats sometimes.

"it was rumination, a mental image that ran over and over in my head. this happened every summer. i just get antsy when i have too much free time. come june, images would start looping endlessly in my brain, and unspooling reel of torturous what-ifs. in 1982, while the rest of the country was watching e.t., i was watching myself stab my mother."

i'm uber careful when putting away knives in the kitchen when anthony and i are cooking. this is also why i can't watch scary movies very often. not even cheesy ones like friday the 13th or the brain (this movie was highly traumatic!).

"measure out 3/4 cup water into a new plastic cup, being sure not to let the cup touch the spigot, which is contaminated."

i feel like this one is totally normal. right? also, it's very easy to fix, just pour the water out, swish the cup clean and you're ready to go a second time.