SOME LIFE LESSONS:
• The busy season at work is not a good time to move.
• A month during which you are moving is not a good month to start school.
• The weeks during which you are starting school are probably not the best weeks to be obsessively charting your infertility signs in order to determine the efficacy of recent drug treatment.
• Doing all these things at once is the stupidest idea you will ever have.
It is an odd feeling, to have simultaneously not enough and too much time. I want the month to go by quickly, so that I can stop spending so much time with my cervix, and yet I want the world to cease turning, so that I have more time to pack. I am willing things to speed up and slow down all at once, and you can imagine how well THAT is working out. Aside from the fact that I have had very little luck in the past willing the universe to do anything, it is difficult to rend the fabric of time in two opposing directions.
Also, I am fairly certain I have been the victim of Voodoo. Wednesday night, I was sleeping–just lying there, all peaceful-like–when something stabbed into my calf. I lurched awake with an “EeeeeeEEEEEEEEEoooooooaaarrrrrrgggg!” clutching frantically at the Nearly with one hand while the other groped toward the offending leg. My first thought, naturally, was that I had been bitten by a large and hungry Rat, who had been overcome with a desire for girl-flesh upon glimpsing the succulent meat of my upper ankle. But the pain continued, and as I writhed (wrothe?) about, I deduced that there was no rat wound at all, and that my calf muscle was merely engaged in some sort of epileptic fit. The fit passed, but I was left with a LIMP that has persisted for 48 HOURS.
Now, I am not athletic, so it seems highly unlikely that this was a “muscle cramp.” It is far more probable that someone is practicing Voodoo upon me from afar, and had chosen that moment to thrust a pin into a doll-sized Alexa, fashioned from corn husks and twine.
But other than my issues with the temporal, and Voodoo, and the faint thrumming of anxiety behind my sternum, I am holding up quite well, largely due to my excellent coping strategies:
• I have been attempting to Delegate, by which I mean I bullied the Nearly into putting gas in my car while I stayed home to watch Gilmore Girls.
• I am trying to transition from my usual short, panting gasps to some sort of breathing system wherein I actually take in enough oxygen for all of my cells.
• I am making lists. Many, many lists.
Some of you were kind enough to offer moving suggestions–clever things like using your clothes to pack breakables rather than tediously wrapping newspaper around each champagne glass. Most intriguing, though, was Jul’s suggestion of a Treo 650. I am always on the lookout for some material thing on which I can fixate as the solution to all my problems, and the Treo is perfect–a phone/camera/email/internet/word processor all in one shiny, button-y package. Surely, if I had one of these, I could keep up with my homework, update my blog more often, take a picture of the hateful girl at work who wears the belled peasant skirt (a picture to send to the hit man I will hire via cell phone, of course), and still have time to Google “Metformin ovulate help help.” Alas, I cannot afford such an extravagance until after the move. Currently I am considering taping a phone and a camera to a notebook, in an attempt to craft myself a cheaper facsimile. Wish me luck!

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was that a “Charlie Horse” in your calf? I get those from time to time…horrible, frightful, indeed! Not just stabbing, but terribly tightening? Like you can’t flex it or your foot out? I’ve read they can come from over exhertion of those muscles, and dehydration. And can leave lingering soreness for a couple of days. Google it…charlie horse!
I too have a habit of thinking that it will be great to make a bunch of major life changes ALL AT THE SAME TIME! By far the worst was the four months I spent doing my job and my boss’s job (after the boss left), buying and moving into a new house, and planning my wedding. I look back at that time and wonder how I made it through without a nervous breakdown, and then I remember I DID have a nervous breakdown! However, modern pharmaceuticals are a wonderful thing, and I lost so much weight from all the stress that my wedding dress had to be taken in three times and I look absolutely fabulous in the photos! Anyway, my advice is to keep breathing, know everything will work out somehow, and keep the psych number handy for the prozac RX.
I don’t think it was voodoo – I think it was submliminal waves from the Gilmore Girls viewing!
I hate moving. I think it was a moving cramp that you had.
Yeah, sounds like a really viscious charlie horse to me. Pooooor Alexa.
I’m about to pop into this whole moving thing, and I can’t think of anything I’ve ever looked forward to less. We just have SO MUCH SHIT.
Good luck, girl.
Hahaha! You should patent that. I’d buy it.
Now I’m totally going to do a post about moving horror stories. Check it out- if you can delegate the Nearly to go ovulate for you or something so you have the time!
good luck w/ your move – I know how much that sucks (just did it in December).
peasant skirts w/bells? ah, hell no . . . .
I have a slight tendancy to make several life changes at once. I figure if I’m already in the mind frame for change, why not get it all out the way in one swoop. It does make things a wee bit more hectic. I hope you make it through okay. The metformin isn’t still causing an aversion to alcohol is it??
I’ve been getting random foot/calf cramps which sound similar. Extremely painful. Sounds like others have the diagnosis.
You are doing too much, but you are doing great. Keep telling yourself that. Just finish the next task before you start worrying about the one after that. If you try to look at them all in one go you will really go insane.
Oooh the dreaded Charlie Horse – I’ve heard something about a potassium deficiency being known to cause such things.
Thanks for the moving tips. I was thinking of asking the internet for advice on such things perhaps we can all share.
i find that only 50% of your cells really require oxygen….Ok, maybe not for you know, health.
the charlie horse sounds awful, as does the skirt with BELLS?!?! WTF????
Take care and good luck with the move. Sounds like you have way to much on your plate right now I don’t envy you a bit.
Dude, that sounds similar to the homemade computer I made out of a broken abacus, a slate, and a beach ball. No wait, that’s the PCP talking. Somehow, I think you’ve got a better shot. Mad points for creativity.
Dear Alexa, your plate is indeed mighty full. Methinks your plate runneth over.
How do you still manage among all that stress to pull off those amazingly funny posts?
Now for the assvice bit. (You knew it was coming, right?) First of all, I know nuffink about Metformin, other than I’d prefer to keep it that way, but have you made sure your cramps aren’t a side effect of that? If it’s not an effect of the Devil Juice, it might well be magnesium you lack. One of the classic symptoms of magnesium deficiency is bad foot/leg cramps. I get those occasionally, and we have a supply of magnesium powder here (tablets to dissolve in water). They usually work quickly — within a few hours. And may I suggest you snack on bananas, nuts and dates during Gilmore Girls? They (the foods, not the Gilmore Girls) are good sources of magnesium.
I love your delegatory style. This weekend I got J to run my car through the local car wash while I curled up to read Haven Kimmel’s latest in my favorite reading chair. Ahhh, now that’s delegation. :)
Hang in there through the stress; one day you’ll look back on this period and think, wow, it was all worth it to get where we are now. :)
Awesome blog. Peace out until next time TabathaOster