Sasha Is a Monster

My car is back in Seattle.

When I flew back to Phoenix from LAX, I left it in a long-term parking lot there. I gave the keys to the parking lot. I posted a brief message on Craigslist saying I needed someone to drive my car from LAX to Seattle and I would happily pay for gas. I didn’t expect to get any responses, but, within a few hours, I had 10 responses, and in a few more I had 25. People were begging to drive my car up the coast for just the price of gas.

I picked the response that was the most grammatically correct and sane-sounding. It was a 25-year-old girl who said she and her boyfriend had been wanting to get up to Seattle to spend time with his family, and this would be amazingly helpful to them. After speaking with her on the phone, I decided I still liked her. She sent me photos of her and her boyfriend’s drivers licenses, and I called my insurance company to make sure I’d still be covered if they got in a wreck. After that, I told her the address of the parking lot and I called the parking lot to tell them to release the car to her. I figured that there was about a 50% chance my car would end up at my apartment in Seattle and a 50% chance it would end up in a chop shop in Mexico. At the time, I didn’t much care which.

When I posted on SIAM about having left my car at the LAX lot, I got emails from friends and family. Family in Southern California offered to pick up my car and take it to their homes. Friends offered to drive my car back to Phoenix. One dear friend texted to say that, if I needed him to, he would fly to LA and drive my car back up to Seattle for me. These are real people who actually exist in my life because I’m crazy blessed like that. I can’t even believe the wonderful people I have in my world. Thank you all. I love you guys so much.

By this time, though, the Craigslist people had already picked up my car.

I gave the girl my Seattle address and the phone number of my neighbor, who would take the car and the keys from her. She kept in regular contact with me via text message, asking things like what kind of gas to use and did she want me to return the car on a full tank. She gave me her boyfriend’s bank account number to deposit the gas money in. “I don’t think you should do that until you see the car,” my mom cautioned, reasonably. But I knew these people weren’t flush with cash, and paying for all that gas is a hardship when you don’t have much money to begin with. Plus, I figured that if anything went wrong, having the guy’s Bank of America account number would make it easy for the cops to track him down. So I deposited the money. At this point, I figured there was still about a 30% chance of my car currently being in a Mexican chop shop as I deposited hundreds of dollars into a total stranger’s bank account.

Wonder of wonders, my neighbor texted me tonight to let me know that she had the car and the keys and that everything was in good shape. She said she’d met the couple and they were very sweet. My car is currently in my apartment complex’s garage and the keys are on my kitchen counter. Wonder of wonders indeed.

“Thank you,” I said to the girl who had driven my car up. “This was so incredibly helpful to me.”

“No,” she said. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how helpful this was to us. We had so much fun, and we’re so glad to be in Seattle. You really helped us out.”

Tonight I was marveling to my father at the phenomenon of my car not being stolen by these people who could pretty easily have stolen it. “It’s bizarre that there are still good people in the world,” I said.

“You know what I think is bizarre?” he responded. “For all the crime that occurs in this world, there’s still a hell of a lot of crime that doesn’t.”

First off, thank you for all your kind and supportive comments, emails and Facebook messages in the past couple of days. You guys are amazing and you help keep me going through the hard times. I continue to find it incredible the way that people can connect on the Internet, the ways in which they can share and help one another. Then again, everyone is currently announcing their bra color in their Facebook status, which is a literally marvelous but otherwise entirely un-marvelous application of these trillions of interconnected fibers. The Internet is hit or miss.

I went to Jazzercise today. My month-long membership at the CrossFit out here had expired, and I needed to fucking exercise, and I have been wanting to go to Jazzercise ever since I realized that it not only still existed, but existed in the form of a full-fledged studio around the corner from my mother’s house. It was $15 for a drop-in, and worth every penny.

First off: They really do have a giant stage at the far end of the studio where the instructor stands with a head-strapped microphone and shouts out instructions over pulsing music. My mind was blown. And I don’t know that the moves have changed at all since the ’80s. You’re still doing a bunch of step-step-point while throwing your arms around in the air. It’s everything you imagined it would be.

That said, it’s actually a really tough workout. It’s not, like, CrossFit tough (at no point did I truly think I was going to vomit and/or pass out, which is my barometer of workout toughness since I started doing CrossFit), but it’s challenging aerobic activity. They really keep you moving for the full hour, without any breaks, and I was surprised at how quickly my muscles and my cardiovascular system started to “feel the burn.” Plus, when you’re learning all the moves for the first time, you just look like a total moron. I found myself wishing I’d taken more dance classes as a kid.

The most notable thing, I think, was the age of the other women in the class and their comparative fitness level. And by “comparative fitness level” what I mean is “totally comparable to mine despite the fact that they were 30 years older.” Man, I am a slacker. These chicks were buff and bouncing around and probably have 18 grandchildren apiece. They were totally inspiring in addition to being totally depressing. I mean, you’d think that I’d have a better body than most of the 60-year-olds in the room, but no. I am a pudgy, lazy, out-of-shape slob in comparison to the Jazzercisers. I kept telling myself that older women have a harder time maintaining fat mass, but the truth is that they also have a harder time retaining muscle mass, and quite a few of these ladies had totally ripped arms. No, it turns out my fitness level is just utterly reprehensible compared to that of women twice my age. Must get my butt in gear.

Anyway. I still didn’t sleep last night. I talked to Wiggles and he was like, “Dude, you need to sleep. We can’t work with any of this until you sleep.” (Wiggles did not actually say “dude,” but that was the gist of it.) So I called the doc begging for an Ambien prescription and she obliged. EVERYBODY PLEASE CROSS YOUR FINGERS THAT I SLEEP TONIGHT. I really, really want to get back to Seattle, but I have to sleep first. SLEEP PLEASE.

I’m doing better today. My Arizona doctor — the one I loooove — didn’t have an appointment available until the 28th, but when I told her admin that the appointment was for me, she was like “Oh, hang on a second” and she gave me an appointment on her break, because she is amazing. I told her about everything that I’d been feeling lately with the panic attacks and the not sleeping and the crazy. She explained, of course, that it’s a hypomanic episode, which I already kind of knew, but it’s always good to have someone with a degree clarify for you why your head suddenly isn’t livable anymore. She prescribed some new medicine, and I’m already feeling better. I still can’t sleep worth shit, but I’m not in panic mode anymore, which is a godsend. I realized today that the panic started like a week and a half ago, which is insane. I can’t believe my body’s been under that much stress for so long. I can’t believe I didn’t see a doctor or do anything about it for that long. Sometimes I’m totally on top of that shit, and sometimes I’m just not.

I called Wiggles, too, and he said to buy a bag of oranges. He says that, when I can’t handle the panic anymore, to get one out and focus on peeling and eating it. He says it’s a “pattern interrupter.” It sounds crazy, but it can’t be crazier than I am right now. Must. Buy. Oranges. He also says I shouldn’t call them “panic attacks” or “manic episodes,” I should just call them “experiences.” I like that idea, too. Lord knows I understand the power that language choices have on our brains. And the fact that it’s so hard for me to distance myself from that language should speak even more about the importance of doing so.

I was emailing with a friend in Seattle who has similar issues with anxiety. “Don’t you sometimes wish you could have another ailment?” she asked. “Like asthma or chronic bad breath?” I laughed out loud when I read that. Would I rather have the crazy episodes or halitosis? You’d think it would be a simple question to answer, but it isn’t. I really don’t want bad breath. The crazy is what I’m used to. “We all have struggles,” my mom said to me tonight. “And, when it comes right down to it, most of us wouldn’t trade ours for someone else’s.”

To end on a good note: One of my best friends found out today that she’s going to be on the Dr. Phil show. The Dr. Freakin’ Phil Show. I don’t think I can talk much more about it until after it tapes, but OMG that’s like thisclose to knowing someone on Oprah. I’m, like, happy for myself that she’s going to be on Dr. Phil. I’m going to know someone who’s been on Dr. Phil. It’s almost like the time I sat in the audience on Rachael Ray and she handed me the plate of food she’d cooked during the episode. That was like the most famous moment in my life until now. Oh, in other news, I’m doing an appearance on a radio show in Westchester on Monday, which is basically like doing the Dr. Phil show except with 10000% less of an audience.

I swear. :)

I had a great and lazy time in San Diego with my girlfriends. The problem is I’m still in total panic attack mode, like, all the time. It’s been going on for over a week now. I got to LA and realized that spending the next two days in the car was going to be a really, really bad idea. I left my car at the airport and took a plane back to Phoenix. I need to see some of my old doctors out here and figure out what’s causing this and how I can resolve or manage it.

I guess of all the problems in the world, this isn’t the worst, and I am infinitely grateful to have a family who loves and supports me unconditionally. I was puking in a garbage can outside the airport today (new fun feature of the panic attacks!) and a lady was like, “Are you okay?” and I was like “Yes, just having a rough day” and she was like, “It will get better.” I wanted to hug her and tell her she was an angel. They’re simple, easy words, but today they resonated with me.

WELCOME TO 2010, bitches!!!! I did a video, of course. Videos are the new writing. I’m not sure why we’re wasting all this time teaching our small children to spell when they could be learning how to use iMovie. (They’re never going to learn to spell anyway.)

New Year’s Eve was a blast. I woke up suuuuper late and still hadn’t bought an outfit, so I hit the mall, which was completely insane. There was so much demand on the credit-card processing companies that pretty much everyone’s credit machines went down, so lines to buy anything were like half an hour long. However, I was determined to purchase something cheap, hyper-sexual, sparkly and utterly devoid of class and dignity. I think we can all agree that I succeeded:

Ohhhh yes. Thanks to Forever 21, that is what I wore ALL NIGHT LONG. That is what I wore to the Melting Pot, where we had dinner among rich old people and an insanely drunk old man sitting at the bar. The food at Melting Pot was AMAZING, and, although our waitress was very sweet, the service generally sucked. It took like 45 minutes to get drinks. That’s the last time I do a NYE dinner there, although I might swing by again for chocolate fondue. This is me posing with my chocolate fondue:

Dipping a cream puff in chocolate fondue and then eating it is like what our world would be like if our mouths could have orgasms.

I was designated driver, so after dinner I made everyone go back home with me to pick up Leo so that he could come to the house party. He had to come to the house party because he had an outfit and it needed to be debuted. Leo’s New Year’s ensemble was, per usual, furnished by the good folks at Build-a-Bear, who have been kind enough to create teddy bears with chest dimensions eerily similar to my chihuahua’s:

The house party was awesome, and very low-key. Last year, it was just one out of the FIVE New Year’s Eve parties we hit. I’m glad we just did one this year, because I was pretty exhausted and stressed. It was nice just to be around a small group of people I’ve known forever and who mean the world to me. We ushered in the new year with hugs and love all around, hung out for another hour or so, and then made (seriously) a loop around the Phoenix metropolitan area dropping everyone off back home. Next year, I’m charging for this shit. :)

Tomorrow, I hop back in the car and drive to San Diego, where I’m going to spend the weekend with two of my best girlfriends in the world. Neither of them came home to Arizona this year, and it was kind of depressing not having them around. It’s weird how we’re all so grown up with our own lives now, and people don’t necessarily come back to Arizona for the holidays. So I am really, really, REALLY looking forward to time with them. I’m also really sad about leaving Arizona, but I’m sure I’ll be happy once I’m settled in Seattle and into my groove out there once again. Happy and cold.

I wish I had a good camera. I wish I were a good photographer. Because the moon in Scottsdale tonight is brilliant in the literal sense, beaming like a headlight. If I’ve ever seen a moon like that before, I haven’t noticed. My moribund digital camera could never capture the majesty of it. It’s practically daylight outside in the middle of the night.

I took Leo out for his walk, and there was a coyote just strolling down the street. On the sidewalk, sauntering around like it was his damn city. Leo freaked out like a madman, and I picked him up, because I was having visions of Jessica Simpson’s dog’s untimely demise. I could just picture him wiggling out of his collar to chase after that thing. Even after he’d peed twice and we were back in the house, in my bed, he was still growling. He wanted that damn coyote.

I’m back in mild panic attack mode. I haven’t really slept in days. This is my reaction to stress, and transitions are stressful for me. I’m stressed to go back to Seattle. “Sasha, you love Seattle. You absolutely love Seattle,” my wonderful friend Stephen reminded me tonight. And I needed to hear that. I do love Seattle. And I’m going to be just fine when I get back there, and I get settled in, and I’ll forget that I was ever in Arizona to begin with. There’s a lot to look forward to in Seattle, and I have amazing friends that make my life joyful out there, too. So I’m trying to just accept the panic attacks without needing to obsess on them. I’m trying not to worry about whether or not I sleep. I will be fine either way.

I’m not especially big on the concept of a “new year” or “new year’s resolutions.” I’ve given up on the notion that years are “good” or “bad.” Years have good days and years have bad days. There are trends and there are mini-trends, like a stock-market graph, and our reactions to the dips and bounces is almost strictly comparative and rarely absolute. I suppose though, that on years that have trended downward, I’ve approached the new year with hope. There’s value in that.

This year began at a pretty solid low, as did last year. In fact, the past two Januarys and Februarys have been arguably the hardest four months of my adult life. Both years, my life kind of skyrocketed into happiness and possibility after March or so. And I just realized that maybe that’s why I’m so panicked right now. The first couple months of the new year have historically been traumatic for me. My mother believes the body quietly carries memories like that, and it reacts instinctively, without cluing your brain into why it’s reacting. I see the truth in that. See, this is why I write a personal blog. It’s the absolute best way for me to sort out my thoughts and get to the fact behind my feelings.

Leo panics whenever we drive into a parking garage. He’s terrified that he’ll be left in the car. He’s associated the concept of parking garages with abandonment. Most of the time, he gets to come inside with me, wherever I’m going, but his body has this instinctive reaction to parking garages, and he slams himself up against me and screams at such a high pitch I can barely hear anything but the hiss of breath leaving his throat. “It’s okay, baby, you’re coming in with me,” I tell him. “It’s going to be fine.” But he’s not calmed down until he is actually out of the car and at my side. Maybe the end of December is my parking garage, and maybe I ought to approach it this time with a bit more reason than a chihuahua.