Every weekday morning that I manage to make it through my email before noon, I do a thing on Twitter/Facebook that I call #morningstumble. Basically I go to StumbleUpon and hit the button until I find something that makes me smile or makes me think, then I share it with that hashtag. It's one way of ensuring I'm not talking about my damn self all the time.

However, it often exposes my dirty little secret: there are huge swaths of culture that in my thirty-eight years I have missed. This morning, I tweeted this picture with the caption "I have no idea what is going on here, but the cats look pissed."

I happened to be on a conference call with my co-workers when I tweeted it, and no sooner had my fingers left the keyboard (I am not kidding, it was that fast), Stacy said, "Oh, Rita, you're JOKING! Right? RIGHT? You know what that picture is that you just tweeted?"

(crickets)

I could hear the panic creeping into her voice, something akin to when one sees one's friend drop ice cubes into a wine glass in front of their connoisseur other friend.

At this point, I realized it was something important I should know but clearly did not, so I just sat there to make it all worse. Sometimes when you're busted, you just have to own it.

"RITA! YOU KNOW THAT'S A VERY FAMOUS SELF-PORTRAIT BY SALVADOR DALI!"

Nope! And I just proved it very publicly!

I think it worried her more than it did me, because I'm currently in grips of an ongoing anxiety attack about something else, which I'm sure will pass in a few weeks. The fact that all I saw when I looked at that picture were some wet fucking cats should probably be more horrifying than it is.

And I actually felt comforted by the fact that though Stacy was taken aback by my unwashedness, she loves me enough to click on my links. REFRAMING! Look at me go!

Today I wrote about the national face of Ann Imig's amazing live performance series, Listen to Your Mother, on BlogHer. Here I thought I'd share details about the Kansas City show, which is directed by my friends Erin Margolin and Laura Seymour. Here are the details:

Be part of this national event that will be in Kansas City for the first time on May 11, 2013. We want you to join us in giving Mother’s Day a microphone!

You’re invited to join other Kansas Citians in a national series of live readings celebrated locally and shared globally via social media, blogging, and the small world of the internet. Listen To Your Mother-Kansas City is directed, produced, and performed by our local community, for our local community.

We are officially accepting submissions! Please email yours to us, ErinMargolin@gmail.com and Laura.Seymour@gmail.com. These will be accepted from now through February 15, 2013.

Commitment for cast members includes two group read-throughs in April, a pre-performance run-through at Unity Temple on the Plaza, and one 7:00 p.m. performance on May 11, 2013.

Ticket sales for this event will begin March 1, 2013. If you are interested in sponsoring or coming to our event, learn more at our website: listentoyourmothershow.com/kansascity, and please don’t hesitate to email us with any and all questions!

Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the Rose Brooks Center. Rose Brooks Center provides emergency shelter to women and children escaping life-threatening abuse. Once they are safe, these families receive the tools and resources they need to begin rebuilding their life – a life built on respect, love and compassion. -Rose Brooks

PS: In other news, if you've ever wanted to speak at BlogHer's annual conference, you should submit a Room of Your Own idea.

Viva la voices!

Beloved lost his old job on September 28, 2012. He got an offer for a new one on December 21, 2012. He starts on Monday.

We are returning to the land of two incomes and kissing that unemployment debit card goodbye.

I am exhaling, finally. We aren't going to go over the fiscal cliff as hard as I feared when Beloved's unemployment benefits ran out in March.

Growing up, the fear I fixated on was my dad losing his job. It was probably a bigger deal than Beloved losing his job, because at the time I was fixated, my mom didn't work outside the home. Sometimes I worried about it alone at night, in my bed. I don't know if the little angel has been doing that. I don't ask her, because I don't want to plant the fear if it's not already there. She hasn't had unexplained stomachaches or trouble sleeping or showed any other signs of kid anxiety, so I've tried to be very breezy about money in front of her.

My girl knows the reason we haven't been going out to eat or buying anything but the bare necessities these past few months: because we were waiting for Daddy's new job. She knew we had enough to be safe but not enough for the bubble gum every time we went to the grocery store. She accepted the cancellation of the full-on pumpkin party in October and the homemade birthday gifts for her friends during the fall. She asked when we could have a party again, and we told her after Daddy got his new job. That was pretty much the answer to everything. We reassured her she would still have a nice Christmas, that we would get each other smaller things so she could have a nice Christmas. And she did, mostly thanks to grandparents and my sister, who pulled serious weight this holiday, and for which I thank them.

I'm trying to unclench.

My restricting anxiety has been operating on all gaskets since September, and I haven't been able to resist tracking every penny we've spent on a daily basis. My sister asks why I would do that to myself, but it's comforting to me in the way counting calories in the margins of my high school notebooks was comforting. I know that once the income streams open back up, I need to stop that. I need to go back to being careful but not obsessive. I need to look once every two weeks, not every day.

The anxiety wants to keep restricting and pay off every single credit card as soon as possible so if something like this happens again, we'll at least have credit. Thanks to Beloved's work expenses and our own years of recession backpedaling, we had more on the cards than I could let myself think about and there wasn't much room to move. I'm glad that in three months, the only thing we put on there was my flight to ALA Midwinter after a friend offered to let me stay with her if I wanted to go to learn about librarians in relation to THE OBVIOUS GAME. But we paid the minimums for the first time in our entire marriage for three months, and it made me absolutely insane to not see that amount go down more.

We will pay off the cards in a realistic timeframe. We talked about it on New Year's Eve over dinner. We've learned our lesson. But just as I went on and on about my wishes to be debt-free, my husband told me as nicely as humanly possible that my clothes are all threadbare and my once-beloved J. Jill sweater looks like "matted felt."

It's true. Even when things are good, I am not good at spending money on clothes, and eventually I look down and realize the t-shirt I'm wearing is older than my daughter and is of an unknowable color. He said it really nicely: "Honey, you're prettier than you're dressing. You should buy yourself some new clothes." Of course, as with any painful truth, it was a little hard to hear, but your lover should be able to be honest with you about such things. I heard the love in what he was saying. Not "you look like a slob," but "you're only 38 and you should get some v-necks."

The answer with spending, as with eating, is somewhere between greed and starvation. I refuse to charge anything that doesn't absolutely have to be charged. I want us to be throwing piles of money at those credit cards, and we will throw the piles in as reasonable a manner as possible once we are back to normal, income-wise.

But I have to go to Target tonight, because I threw away all but three pair of underwear yesterday.

Things are going to get better now, and for my mental health, I need to stop counting things.

Editor's Note: Before I could focus on this sponsored post, I had to write my thoughts on Newtown, tragedy and parenting on BlogHer. It seems wrong to post those raw emotions right next to a sponsored post, so I'm letting them exist separately. I hope that's the right thing to do. I committed to this post well before Friday's tragedy, and with Beloved out of work I've decided to go ahead and honor that commitment.

---

It's the holiday season, but you still need to buy toothpaste, right? And you might need to save money on toothpaste even more than usual this year because, hello, you had to bring a side dish to sixteen parties, contribute to eight Secret Santa or Giving Tree campaigns, give gift cards to three teachers, the mailman and your hairstylist and your kids have discovered Apple. Who doesn't love a deal? And I do in fact have a deal for you, if you choose to accept it.

Proctor & Gamble put together an estore with day-to-day shopping in mind. The store has everyday specials, such as free shipping with a $25 purchase and free samples with every purchase. And then there are some specific deals just for this campaign.The first one? You can get 15% off your first purchase from the P&G estore with this promo code: A9Z-MN5-KY3-ISA.

Goodies By Product Line

For the furry among us: You can get a Braun series 3,5 or 7 razor through 12/29 for $15 off

For your pearly whites: Oral-B rechargable toothbrushes

Mail-InRebates

- $15Oral Care - Crest, Scope, Oral-B (through 1/5/13)

- $15Oral-B Power (through 12/31)

For your softest skin:

Olay SpecialOffers (while supplies last)

-FreeOlay Regenerist MicroSculptingCream w/ $79 purchase --  promo code OLAY79

-FreeOlay ProXAdvanced Cleansing System w/ $99 purchase –- promo code OLAY99

P&GOlay eCoupons

-$5off 1 Olay Pro-X or RegeneristFacial Moisturizer (through 12/29)

-$3off 1 Olay Facial Hair Removal (through 12/29)

Olay Mail-InRebates

-$15Beauty Rebate (through 12/31)

CoverGirl SpecialOffers (while supplies last)

-FREE CoverGirl CatEye Look  w/$69 purchase -– promo code CATEYE22

-FREE LashBlast 24 Hour Mascara  2/$25 purchase –- promo code LASHBLAST8

P&G CoverGirleCoupons

-$2off 1 Outlast All Day Lipcolor(through 12/29)

-$1off any CoverGirlproduct (through 12/29)

CoverGirl Mail-InRebates

-$15Beauty Rebate (through 12/31)

Gillette SpecialOffers (while supplies last)

-FREEShave Gel & Details Magazine Subscription with Stylerpurchase

-FREE Febreze Car Vent Clip with Style purchase

-FREERazor & Shave Gel  + 400 PampersGifts to Grow Points with Pampers diapers purchase

P&GGillette eCoupons

-Buy1 Gillette Cartridge Refill, get $5 off ProGlideRazor (through 12/29)

-Buy1 Gillette Cartridge Refill, get $10 off a ProGlideRazor (12/30-1/26)

For your cleanest clothes:

P&GeCoupons

-$1off any TWO Tide, Downy or Bounce (through 12/29)

Because batteries and diapers apparently go together:

SpecialOffers (while supplies last)

-FREEPampers Diapers & Gifts to Grow points withbattery bundle purchase

-Duracell Sweepstakes (through 1/10/13)

-AA/AAA28 ct value packs

AND NOW FOR A PASSEL OF INDIVIDUAL PRODUCT DEALS.

Crest Whitestrips - ALL  

Crest 3D White Whitestrips Professional Effects - 20 pouches  

Crest 3D White 2-Hour Express Whitestrips - 4 Treatments  

Crest 3D White Whitestrips Intensive Professional Effects 7 Count  

Oral-B ALL  

Oral-B Professional Care SmartSeries 5000 Toothbrush  

Oral-B Professional Care Rechargeable SmartSeries 4000 Toothbrush  

Oral-B Professional Care Rechargeable Toothbrush 3000  

Oral-B Vitality ProWhite Rechargeable Power Toothbrush 

Oral-B Vitality Floss Action Rechargeable Power Toothbrush  

Oral-B Vitality Dual Clean Rechargeable Power Toothbrush  

Olay ALL 

Olay Professional Pro-X Advanced Cleansing System  

Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream Facial Moisturizer - 1.7 oz  

Olay Regenerist Microdermabrasion - 2.2 oz & Peel System Skin Care - 2 oz  

Olay Smooth Finish Facial Hair Removal Duo Kit - Fine to Medium Hair  

Olay Smooth Finish Facial Hair Removal Duo Kit - Medium to Coarse Hair  

CoverGirl  

CoverGirl LashBlast 24HR Mascara  

CoverGirl Outlast All Day Lipcolor  

Cat Eye:  LashBlast Volume Mascara  

Cat Eye: Smoky ShadowBlast 

Cat Eye: CoverGirl LiquilineBlast Eye Liner 

Tide PODS (ALL)  

Tide PODS Detergent Spring Meadow - 40 ct  

Tide PODS Detergent Ocean Mist - 40 ct  

Tide PODS Detergent Mystic Forest - 40 ct  

Downy Unstopables (ALL)  

Downy Unstopables In Wash Fresh Scent Booster 13.2 oz

Braun (ALL)  

Braun Series 7-720s Pulsonic Shaver 

Braun Series 7-760cc Pulsonic Shaver System 

Braun Series 7-790cc Pulsonic Shaver System  

Braun Series 5-550cc Shaver System 

Braun Series 5-590 Shaver System  

Braun CruZer:  All products  

Braun CruZer 6 High Definition Precision Trimmer 

Braun CruZer 6 Body Shaver  

Braun CruZer 6 Face Shaver + Bonus Details Magazine  

Braun CruZer 6 Beard & Head Trimmer  

Gillette - ALL  

Gillette Styler + Bonus Details Magazine & Shave Gel  

Gillette Styler + Bonus Febreze Car Vent Clip  

Gillette Fusion ProGlide Manual Razor - 1 ct  

Pampers/Beauty Offer  

Pampers/Gillette Offer  

Duracell - ALL 

Duracell AA Value Pack - 28ct 

Duracell AAA Value Pack - 28ct  

Duracell Sweepstakes  

Duracell/Pampers Offer  

BUT RITA, HOW DO I USE THE COUPONS?

Good question.

Occupational hazard: I read a zillion articles and posts and tweets and emails and pitches every day, and sometimes these things synthesize into unnecessary navel-gazing in the evening hours. This makes my head hurt.

Information bias – the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action

Yesterday I read this New York Times article about the cost of raising a child. (Newflash: They're expensive!) The writer had already decided not to have kids, and she justified that decision by talking about financial responsibility. When she mentioned this to other mothers, they told her nothing really matters once you decide YOU WANNNNTT A BABBBBEEEEEEEEEE!

I tried to glean some insight from my discussions with women who arepersonal finance and parenting experts. I hoped they would help mereconcile the knowable and unknowable advantages and disadvantages ofhaving children. Instead I was assured that a cost-benefit analysis wasneither necessary nor helpful, and that one day I would feel the urge toprocreate, and so I would.

If you read the comment section, your eyes will bleed. People get really pumped about a complete stranger's decision to procreate -- or not.

False-consensus effect - the tendency of a person to overestimate how much other people agree with him or her.

---

A few hours later, I was doing my #morningstumble on Twitter and I came across the Wikipedia list of cognitive biases. IT IS LONG. I stared at it, then I bookmarked it, then I came back to it and every political ad I've ever seen in my life flashed before my eyes.

Hostile media effect – the tendency to see a media report as being biased, owing to one's own strong partisan views.

I've read all the Malcolm Gladwell books and minored in human relations. My undergraduate degree is in communications. This is not to say I know anything at all about communicating or decision-making, but I like to study it, and the older I get, the more I'm inferring from myself and my surroundings: It is debatable whether or not it will help you to understand how other people make their decisions, but it is incredibly valuable to your mental health to understand and accept how YOU make decisions.

Curse of knowledge – when knowledge of a topic diminishes one's ability to think about it from a less-informed perspective.

Every super-stressful experience to date in my life has arisen from my belief that whatever decision I made at that moment was it, the end, no second chances. Until about age 35 I thought every decision I made -- from my choice of university to the number of children I would have to the house I would buy to the career trajectory I would take to the weight I was at in that moment was as important as the decision whether or not to push the red button and blow up the world.

Illusion of control – the tendency to overestimate one's degree of influence over other external events

And, shocker, I was wrong.

Now I think there are better decisions and less good decisions, but ultimately, life is a series of decisions and -- except in life-and-death matters, of which there are not that many unless you are a professional soldier -- the bad ones are only truly horrific if you don't change your tack after making them and head in a safer direction.

Irrational escalation – the phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong.

---

I also used to hem and haw for weeks and months over a decision, resting assured the minute I made it, I would never have to think about it again. Also not true.

Ambiguity effect – the tendency to avoid options for which missing information makes the probability seem "unknown."

Just because you made a decision that didn't work out doesn't mean there isn't a chance to course-correct ... and just because you made a smart choice doesn't mean the universe won't reach down and throw you a disease/lay-off/car accident. There are no safe places or unsafe places, there are just places.

Just-world hypothesis –the tendency for people to want to believe that the world isfundamentally just, causing them to rationalize an otherwiseinexplicable injustice as deserved by the victim(s).

So now I try to think through all the possible outcomes of my decisions and then go with my gut, even when it isn't the most fiscally prudent way or the most societaly acceptable way or even the way that would make my family the happiest in every instance. Ultimately, we all have to live with our own decisions, and sometimes the decision that will bring you the most money means you won't have a kid or the decision that makes your daughter cry for joy makes you want to stick a fork in your eye every Saturday morning.

---

I used to think decision-making was a skill and that I was good at this skill, because some things in my life turned out super-awesome. Then I thought I must be very bad at that skill, because of the eating disorder and the depression and the anxiety and the hurt feelings and stupid jobs and not-recession-proof houses. Then I looked at this list and realized I am neither good nor bad at decision-making: I am human.

Outcome bias – the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.

Why do all those commenters care whether or not that writer has children? Why do I care? I think we all care how other people make decisions because we need proof we're good at it, that we can gauge from our armchairs how the shit is going to go down.

Bias blind spot – the tendency to see oneself as less biased than other people, or to be able to identify more cognitive biases in others than in oneself.

The longer I stare at this list, the more I realize we are all just lucky we haven't all killed each other yet. And also that I really need to stop worrying about how I make my decisions, because they are never, ever, ever going to be completely rational. And I probably wouldn't want them to be. I understand how my heart pumps blood through my body, but even if I concentrate really hard, I can't stop pumping. Self-preservation vs. rational thinking -- that's the human condition smackdown, isn't it?

It's returned, yes it has, the neck and upper back pain. This is slightly different than the constant I-work-a-desk-job-and-always-mouse-with-the-same-hand upper back/pinchy nerve sort of pain that I've had for years. This is the I've-been-cowering-like-a-dog-with-my-shoulders-around-my-ears pain I get when I'm holding my stress in my shoulders. You could bounce a quarter off any part of my upper back right now.

I work at home. I have an actual desk. On the actual desk is my work laptop, and behind that is our home desktop computer, which is one of those crazy-huge Macs that we got refurbished (side note: refurbished is the way to go) about five years ago. Unfortunately for me, I can see my reflection in the Mac. It's unfortunate because since I work from home, I usually don't shower and get ready until after I've worked out over my lunch hour, so I'm looking all nasty most of the time in that reflection. But I can also see where my shoulders are, and it's like I push them down and then five seconds later, they're floating back up to my ears without me even knowing it.

There are things that help, and I know this. One of them is stretching. Once when it got really bad, I ended up in physical therapy, and so I went looking for PT stretches online and I found this list of stretches for the neck and upper back. It takes a ridiculously long amount of time to do these stretches properly, which is why I don't wanna. But they help, they really do; it's totally worth it. So I thought I'd share them here in case you, too, have a major pain in your neck, or will because you have to spend a few days straight with your extended families next week.

You're welcome.

I did actually manage to pack yesterday. I haven't yet determined how much I forgot, other than my phone charger. But Beloved has one just like it! So, phew. Because even though my phone doesn't get reception here in the hinterlands, I still have to have it with me and charged like a woobie.

So we made it up here, and I woke up this morning all KA-POW! feeling like myself again, thank you Jesus, because wow that really sucked feeling paralyzed! Interestingly, what snapped me out of it was going through my 117-point marketing plan for The Obvious Game with Beloved in the car. He asked if I were going to get blurbs for my novel, and I was all BLURBS ARE THE TIP OF THE TYPE A PERSONALITY ICEBERG, DUDE. And I read him my plan and he was all, "That is, um, a LOT more than you did for Sleep Is for the Weak." And I was all, "Twitter barely existed in 2008, and I had no idea what I was doing. Also back then I thought it would be easy to sell books."

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

But even though I'm in a tougher publishing environment now than I was in 2008, I at least now understand the toughness and am prepared to face the toughness and spend a half hour a day four months before publication doing everything I can to get ready for this novel to come into being. I told Beloved that incredibly 31 people have signed up to help me out on my Google form, and he was shocked, and I was also shocked, because that is pretty amazing, the offer to help, and I'm so honored that people would volunteer their time or effort to help me break through the noise a little for a book that I so need to get out into the world.

And that did it. Thirty-one people signed up to help me, so I better get unparalyzed and get off my rear and get back into high production, because there's money to earn at the day job and a wedding to attend in the family job and the book? Well, that's what I do for myself. There are a lot of balls in the air, but doesn't everyone have them, and as I've said before, though your friends and family may love you and want you to succeed, nobody cares if that book gets published but you, my friends. It's a blessing and a curse.

---

Part of getting off my rear involved writing this review about the 2012 American Girl party dress and holiday accessories. There is an itsy bitsy Nutcracker, the cuteness. Check it out on Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews!

My cousin's wedding is on Saturday, and we need to leave in a few hours. I have tons of work left to do, I'm not packed and someone is coming to watch the cat and the house is a train-wreck of half-finished homemade Christmas presents and school supplies and unsorted coupons and to-be-read books. We are drowning in paper products at Chateau Travolta.

Forcing myself to focus is almost physically painful. I can do it, but only for a few minutes at a time. I'm not quite sure what is wrong with me, but it could be that I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off and not going anywhere except the bookstore to stare at the young adult section and try to figure out how it works. I haven't taken days off to putz around in a long time, and usually it's all I can do to not immediately fill those days with cleaning the house and raking the leaves and making more of the homemade Christmas presents and and and until I return to work feeling more exhausted than when I left. I desperately need to recharge my batteries, but I'm my own worst enemy in that arena. But this time I can barely get myself to Iowa for my own cousin's wedding.

I couldn't even blog yesterday, though I have so much on my mind.

( ... )

The funny thing is that I never in my entire life have had a problem with procrastination. I find it hard to even identify with procrastinators -- how could you possibly want to put something off when the guilt of an unfinished thing will then just sit over your head like a raincloud? My anxiety is raincloud enough and the voice in my head screaming DO IT FINISH IT GET IT OVER WITH even made me graduate college a semester early. Is procrastination a present you get when you're almost forty, along with abdominal fat and crow's feet?

I'm going to go stare at my to-do list now and try to cross something, anything off it.

Two weeks ago, my husband told me he'd lost his job in a clean, P&L-based cut. And suddenly, that thing I feared ever since we got married and bought a house and birthed another mouth to feed happened, and I wasn't sure if we could live on my salary or not.

Whether or not we should be able to is beside the question. Of course we should be able to. But we weren't. My husband and I earn within a small range of each other's salaries, and we've always been a two-income family. We've both been laid off or about to be laid off three or four times each -- I've been in Internet publishing since 1999, and he's been in sales-related jobs since 2007 -- but only once before was it quite like this, and that was almost twelve years ago, before the little angel, before the mortgage, back when we were 27 and could just stop drinking beer for a week and everything would be fine.

There are other things I'm afraid of -- cancer, other terminal illness, the death of loved ones, finding a possum in my basement, the usual things -- but sudden, unexpected job loss without a back-up plan is something I've been afraid of since I was a little girl and my mom stayed home with us, so in my mind if my dad lost his job, we would immediately starve to death, like within days.

It's been two weeks, and surprisingly, we haven't starved. We haven't even been hungry. And though I have been through the usual gamut of emotions starting with shock and ripping through anger and fear, they didn't last long. I'm not sure why, actually. I cried last night for a completely unrelated reason, but that's the first time I've cried for more than about five seconds in the entire two weeks.

I have no doubt he'll have a new job that he likes eventually. He could probably have one right this minute if he were ready to go out of the frying pan and into the fire, but I've begged him not to do that, to be thoughtful in his journey. We're not spring chickens anymore, and I know as well as anyone that being unhappy with your work will rot your guts and raise your blood pressure. We're at that age where it would be good not to have work stress operate on your innards any more than it has to.

I don't know how long it will take, though. I'm staring at the tattoo on my arm of the word "now" and trying to mind it. It doesn't matter how long it takes, because I can't know, and I can't do anything about it, and right now, right this minute, I'm tapping this away on my laptop and listening to Drops of Jupiter and wondering when the leaves will drop. The grass that was so dormant it hurt your feet a month or so ago is lush again, the only evidence of the worst drought in years left in the dead patches scattered here and there, the lawn's scars from the summer of 2012.

When I was twenty-seven and this happened (again in a crazy P&L, lost-client situation), I was terrified and angry and took it all out on him. Even though it wasn't his fault, I thought he should've seen it coming, should've known, should've warned me so I could prepare myself. Then time passed, and the year 2000 happened, when I had three jobs, and then I heard a few jobs ago that I was going to get canned, and then I went somewhere else and lost projects and contracts and all manner of things until I guess I came to the place in which I currently reside: the place that knows there is no safety in the world of work, but there is usually a new gig around somewhere. There is no soft place, there are only places. Which sounds horrific but I find extremely comforting. Because if there are no soft places, then there are no hard places, either.

There are just places.

There. I just touched my "now" again, because in five minutes I might not feel so chill about our situation. I'm minute-to-minute with my anxiety disorder, but we don't have to be in a hard situation for that to happen. My anxiety disorder doesn't give one shit whether we just won the lottery or whether we just got sued for $100,000. It's all, HEY, YO, YOU AWAKE? LET'S FREAK OUT.

My thirty-eight-year-old self wants to grab my twenty-seven-year-old self and tell her what's the what: Two months from now, you and Beloved will get married. He'll have a new job within a week. He'll change careers twice again. He'll end up in the exact same place in eleven years. But you, my friend, will have lost or left SIX JOBS in eleven years. The bubble will burst. The economy will get shredded. You'll buy a house. You will love the house. You will invest money in the house. You will bring a baby home to the house. You will lose money when you sell the house. You will buy another house. Your cat will die. You will love the house. Your replacement cat will die. You will remodel the house, slowly, room by room. You will get yet another cat. You will teach yourself to garden. And then, when you're tempted to bemoan the fact that sometimes it feels like you're right back where you were in this minute, right now, twenty-seven-year-old self, you will realize that you and Beloved stuck through it together, every minute of it, and that's all that matters.

We're all the heroes in our own stories, and every story needs obstacles or they're fucking boring.

That's what I think in this bit of now.

So buck up, Rita.