September to Now, Consolidated

I need to catch up with September.
Overall I have been dealing with some pretty bad anxiety, but honestly I really think anyone in my situation would be, I think I am having normal reactions to highly stressful situations.

Labor Day:
Daya and I rented a boat in Flushing Meadows and had a lovely day.





Tram:
I took Daya on the Roosevelt Island tram.
Now she has done all the NYC transportation options: car, boat, train, bus, walking, bike, tram.






Keyring
Daya told me she lost the key to the lobby. This is a very odd thing to lose, so I asked her how it happened.

Apparently she thought that taking her keys off the keyring and letting them float around loose was a good idea.

She does not know why she thought this was a good idea.

I'm not going to let her live it down.  Ever.

Locked In
We got locked in the dance studio.
Here is a picture of Daya unsuccessfully trying to get out.
Ms Victoria was the only other person in the building and she had to come downstairs from the 4th floor to rescue us.

Rat Sitting
We had 5 house guests for most of the month... 5 lovely rats from an artist who went on an art residency in France.
They were really excellent rats.

Painting:
I am still working on a new series of Topiary cats. I have 5 paintings out of 7 going in various stages of completion.

I also built and launched my website and had some cards printed.  It was a LOT of work, and I was literally working like a crazy person for three days straight.  Then I kept tweaking and changing things over the next 2 weeks, including breaking stuff and having to fix it.  My site is an evolution, but it is good for now and I'm SO GLAD this has finally been accomplished.  I have been needing to do it for years...actually started a few years ago but never finished it.

Upstairs Noise:
I still have a dumb amount of anxiety about it.  They have been quiet for the past couple of weeks.
But there have been some issues, and I know my reaction is overblown especially when they are quiet.  When they blast I go into crazy-mode and it takes me a long time to calm down from it.

Apparently from talking to others and reading stuff, I'm pretty normal in my reaction to unwanted noise in my home.  It is severe as I have only had a reduction in the last few months... otherwise it has been consistent for the last year and a half and my nerves are completely shot.

Even when they are quiet I can't quite let go of the anticipation.

I'm over-stressed.
I can't seem to get my relaxation back down to 0 no matter how hard I try.
Everything is too much.
And there's stuff with Daya too that I just don't want to write about, but it is enormously stressful.

Time Travel:
We apparently went back to the year 2000.

Driving:
I have done over 60 hours with Charlie in the car. A lot of it has been in scary rush hour Manhattan, including 4 lane unmarked construction roads which is freaking scary.

Because the days are getting shorter and I have a daylight only license, I have to stop my lessons.  I know I need to make that jump to going out alone, so I enrolled in Zipcar. I mentioned it to Charlie on our last lesson and he had a really weird reaction.  It was not encouraging at all.  He said I was skipping his process.

It was POURING rain during our lesson and he was really emphasizing all my mistakes and acting.... just really differently than he ever has.

My confidence plummeted to complete zero.

I spent a couple of days being very upset.

Then I contacted a driving school right in my neighborhood for an evaluation lesson, which as of the writing of this post I haven't done yet, but will do this weekend.

I still need to learn how to park, and I need freeway lessons as I have not done either of those things.  I also want a driving school to evaluate my driving overall and fill in any gaps.

In addition to zipcar, I got a GPS and a driver seat pillow for a few extra inches because I really am that short and can't see over the dashboard.

I'm still feeling really scared and need to build my confidence, but honestly I really should be ok for the most part especially in normal roads that are not Manhattan construction rush hour traffic.  Plus, the GPS will help me a lot too.  I just feel there is so much I still don't know.

Work

I now work for a different company as of Tuesday because we got bought.

Nothing has changed, but there will be cuts and that starts next week.

The Cats:

They are fine.

Uncategorized Cool Picture:
From the dance team meeting.