Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Freak Out

Life advice from Abby:

I would like to think I never overreact.

It’s not true, but I would like to think that about myself. The truth is that sometimes something like my spoon falling into my oatmeal can garner the same reaction from me as having to go to the hospital again or call a guy to remove a raccoon from my chimney–all three things that have happened entirely too much these past couple months. 

SPOON INTO THE OATMEAL, PEOPLE. 

Anyway, because I’m a helper, I decided to create a guide of sorts with a few questions you can ask yourself the next time you feel like flying off the handle.

Are you in the pasta aisle of the grocery store?

Good call. Pasta is delicious, but this is a maniacal maze of shapes, sizes, and sometimes even colors that if considered for too long, will drive even the most sane person to madness.

Do you want long or short? Small, medium, or large shells? Ziti? Rotini? Penne? Elbow? Bow tie? I DON’T KNOW I JUST WANT TO SMOTHER IT IN PESTO!

What to do:

Keep your eye on the prize–pasta, pesto, and other edible things that may or may not start with “p.”

Consider 1) the damage-to-clothes-while-consuming ratio–what affords you the least chance of spillage, 2) how much fork work you want to do –longer means more twirling while short means more stabbing and 3) why no one has invented macaroni made out of cheese in the first place.

Are you running?

Are you attempting to move at a rapid pace while wearing neon spandex? Are your muscles burning, along with your lungs and calories you just consumed from inhaling the eight pounds of pasta you just made because you can never figure out the right serving size? 

What to do:

Unless you are being chased by a wild animal, just stop. While physical exercise is vital, jarring your body up and down on hard pavement is not. No one should have to endure that. Cease and desist immediately. Take off your Nikes, post on social media about how you just went for a run, and nama-stay on the couch in corpse pose to recover. Power yoga for the win!

Are you dealing with Comcast?

Have you been on hold for 45 minutes? Are you refreshing your browser every .03 seconds and restarting your router only to get the same browser error? THIS IS A LEGIT REASON TO PANIC!!!

What to do:

Unfortunately, there are some things out of your immediate control, and you will probably find yourself going through the five stages of grief–denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance–while on hold for the third hour. This is natural. Let it happen.

When you’re finally connected to a person who assures you that they’re working on the problem, let them know you’ll be “working” on paying your bill whenever you get around to it. Once your connection is restored, be sure to make at least four jokes about “Comcrap” on social media. This appeases the gods.

Are you reading an inspirational quote?

Are there uncomfortable words like, “success” and “motivate” or reference to “Keeping Calm and Doing Something Completely Random” shared by someone you thought as a “friend?”  You might be reading an inspirational quote.  

What to do: 

Distance yourself from that person immediately. Block. Unfriend. Do what you have to do to remove yourself from that situation. You don’t need that kind of pressure in your life, especially if you’re shopping for pasta that night. . 

Are you driving?

Are you behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, minding your own business and putting down an awesome version of Uptown Funk to the zero passengers in your car? Are you the only effing person on the planet who knows how to slightly lift one finger to use a turn signal or go the speed limit in the left lane OH MY GOD YOU DON’T HAVE TO BRAKE WHEN YOU’RE MERGING ONTO THE HIGHWAY!

What to do: 

Actually, if you’re already yelling that at a high volume and using selective hand gestures as you pass the idiot driving with their head up their ass, you’re already doing okay. Gold star. Keep those roads safe. 

Were you eating and now you’re not eating? 

Scene: You were eating. You reached for what you thought was the last bite of food, only to realize you had already eaten the last bite of food and now you’re so emotionally unprepared that you don’t know what you can do. Now you’re not eating. Now you’re sad. 

What to do: 

Wipe the tears and the crumbs from your face, take a deep breath and evaluate the situation. Is there possibly a piece of pita you dropped on the couch? Maybe under your napkin? If not, I suggest you go towards the light, and by that I mean the light in your fridge.

Remember, hummus is the spackle that can fill a hole in your heart.

If after asking these questions you still feel like freaking out, just make sure to do it loudly and in a public setting so we can enjoy the show. I’ve found sometimes people will even throw you some tips. I’ve made $24 this year alone which is enough for a cart full of pasta…

BUT OH MY GOD WHAT KIND?!? Here we go again.  

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Cutting the Cord

Last week felt like that moment you get in your car and hear only the last two seconds of your favorite song. Things most certainly could be worse, but it was a series of frustrations—a $200 bee exterminator fee, a leaking faucet, etc.—that culminated with me actually writing a blog post.

(I know. I should have called my sponsor for an intervention.)

Anyway, to say that Comcast is a frustrating company is to say that a Kardashian takes a selfie or two now and again. This won’t be a (well-deserved) Comcast rant—but it’s an important detail to the story.

I was working on Friday morning when all the sudden both my TV and Internet went out. Great. I immediately freaked the hell out—in part because I work from home and in part because that’s my default mode when things are out of my control, which is super helpful.

I looked outside and there was literally a cable cut and hanging out of a tree into the street in front of my house.

Not a good sign.

Long story short, it culminated in more than 13 phone calls to Comcast, five live chats, etc. and being told that since it was a safety hazard it was a “top priority” and “escalated” for techs who would be out there that day by 1…and then by 4 and then 5.

See where this is going?

It was a whole day of supervisors lying to me, apparently, because no one actually showed up to my house until 1 pm on Saturday. In fact, the energy company had to remove the cable from the road because of safety reasons that Comcast evidently didn’t find quite important enough to address.

Anyway, here’s the moral of the story (other than the hatred I have of Comcast.)

I enjoy my job. My job is 100 percent online, and I enjoy being online even when I’m not working. But there comes a point when you’re forced to go without it, and you’re forced to face reality—and not in a virtual sense.

I should preface this with the fact that the issue goes way deeper than just being online with me—my OCD, depression, exercise addiction, etc. have been out of control these past months and it’s a separate post.

But it took literally having this cord cut for me to realize how much I retreat to a repetitive world, covering the real issues with a virtual Band-Aid.

In those rare moments when I’m not working, I mindlessly click around the same few websites, TV show in the background that I’m not really watching anyway.

It’s really a metaphor for so many other issues with me (see above.) Is it easier to dig deeper and take steps to be healthy and happy long term or distract myself with overexercising and the Internet and worry about real life later?

Click. Walk. Click.

The thing is, it’s easy to rationalize.

I don’t have a smartphone because I don’t want to be one of those annoying people constantly checking my phone in line, in the car, when talking to people, etc. Yet everyone ignores how destructive this behavior can become because there are so many other people who do the same thing.

It’s easy to rationalize my OCD/exercise addiction because there are so many people who ignorantly claim to “wish they had my problem,” even though my health is so bad I should probably be hospitalized and the emotional (and physical) investment I place on these routines completely disrupts—and in fact, pretty much rules—my life.

Maybe part of it is that we (I) don’t always feel like there’s really anything else to stop for because these things become the life that we’ve created, for better or worse. To cope with certain things, we develop habits that have nothing to do with actual meaningful goals just so we have a distraction, a way to fill the time.

For me, even living with the constant “something is seriously wrong here” feeling, I often can’t make myself stop doing what I know isn’t healthy.

It would take being put in the hospital again to get me to stop exercising. It would take having my depression get so bad that I scare myself in order to go back to therapy. And it did take having the cord literally cut for me to realize how purposeless so many things have become.

Yes, we all need distractions—they aren’t all bad, that’s for sure. But we (I) also need intention.

I was able to work from my mom’s on Friday and Saturday, and once the basic stuff was out of the way and I had “fun” time, you know what I did?

I sat staring at the computer screen wondering what the hell I was doing. It took me 10 minutes to go through Facebook and Twitter and email, and then…mindless clicking. And then something clicked. There was nothing I needed that second that wouldn’t be there when things worked at home again. 

So I shut it off.

I went home and finished a magazine. I put in a DVD (that still worked even though cable was out) and actually watched it—not just had it on in the background while I was online. I wrote a rambling blog post that probably 10 people will read. 

And while it was a pain in the ass for two days, life went on, as it tends to do. 

Because unlike service from Comcast, you can always depend on that. I owe it to myself to pay attention. 

So do you. 

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A Day in the Life

Sometimes I envy bloggers who live super exciting lives filled with travel and social engagements that make for great stories. Then I remember that I don’t really enjoy traveling and only like being social in limited doses, so that envy gets wiped away with my Wet Jet on “Swiffer Saturday.”

But I thought I would humor myself and the dozens who read this with a hypothetical “day in the life” post.*

*Some of the logistics are a bit fuzzy, but that’s only because the day was so full and enriching that details fell by the wayside. Or maybe it’s because of the Vodka. Don’t judge.

5 a.m. Alarm rings for work.

5:01 a.m. Remember I’m working from home, seeing as I got that great gig writing a “Dear Abby”-type column. Throw alarm across the room.

8 a.m. Wake up again on my own.

8: 15 a.m. Remind hot hockey player boy toy to lock the door as he leaves. Thank him for his services the night before (I could never have cleaned the gutters on my roof without his help.)

8:30 a.m. Be grateful I can wake up and do exactly what I love—eat—and do just that, enjoying the first of many feedings for the day. 

8:45 a.m. Go online. Read that the Tigers have continued their 82-game winning streak and see my inbox is filled with fan mail, freelance writing opportunities that require minimal thinking/maximum pay and coupons for all my favorite products.

9 a.m. Work out. Learn that anyone—male or female—who marinates in perfume, refuses to wipe off the machine or wears shorts so short and tight they would be considered in bad taste at a gay Mardi Gras parade will be asked to leave.

10 a.m. Go home to shower and snack. Delight in the fact that for once, my hair doesn’t make me look homeless.

10:30 a.m. Flip on the big screen TV. Discover reality shows involving dating and entertainment “news” are all cancelled. Forever.

11 a.m. Forget to be productive.

11:30 a.m. Jump in the car and speed out to meet Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell for lunch at a great vegan restaurant.

11:35 a.m. Celebrate the local police department honoring National “Give Only a Warning” Day and avoid a ticket.

Noon Enjoy lunch. Laugh a lot. Forget to offer to pay.

12: 30 p.m. Learn anyone who starts their tweets “That moment that…” or uses more than two hashtags per tweet has been banned from Twitter. Smile.

1 p.m. Serve as a guest judge for a veggie episode of “Chopped” where I pull my best Gordon Ramsey impression and throw things around the set.

2 p.m. Get offered a full-time position with the show.

2:30 p.m. Go on a shopping spree through Trader Joes on the Food Network tab—I had that written into my contract—and hop on a plane for Detroit.

3:30  p.m. Actually answer my phone and hear that my lawsuit against Comcast for emotional distress has been settled for millions.

4 p.m. This announcement becomes public and I learn I’ve become Queen to the millions of people who have suffered similar psychological damage via Comcast.

Request tiara.

5 p.m. Arrive in Detroit for dinner with Buster Olney and Scott VanPelt (ESPN people). Talk a lot of sports. Forget to offer to pay.

6 p.m. Agree to co-write several features with Buster for “Baseball Tonight” before taking my seat at the game.

9 p.m. Celebrate Tiger victory and head home, snacking and sipping a Vodka gimlet on the plane with Eminem while discussing how badass I look in my tiara . (Or how I went the whole day without realizing a dryer sheet was stuck in the leg of my pants. Again, the details are fuzzy.)

10:00 p.m. Arrive home, forget to floss and hit the hay. After all, tomorrow is still “Swiffer Saturday.”

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This begs the question, “If you could have lunch with anyone, who would it be?”

To be honest, I probably couldn’t decide and would end up staying home to eat in my dining room while watching a bird gang bang under my bird feeder, but whatever. Play along.