Low-level Angst: DEFCON 2

Because I'm not ready for a full freak-out, but am definitely gearing up.

As we are living in interesting times, I am finding that very small things are assuming disproportionate weight. On Friday, I hurt myself. I was running up the stairs to help Hunter with his computer game, and I was already feeling low-level guilt for letting him play on the computer instead of trying to have a conversation or card game with him. Schuyler was downstairs, doing some low-level complaining about being hungry or gassy or something more existential- who knows? As I ran up the stairs, I tripped, and caught my foot in the hem of my pants, which is incredibly ironic since I had spent the entire day feeling a low-level embarrassment about the short length of these pants, and had just about decided I should never wear them again. The nail of my big toe, which has been incubating a big-time fungus infection for the last 10 months, caught in the hem of my pants and ripped most of the way off. This led to serious suppression of swearing (of which I am really proud) as I hopped over to the computer to help with the computer game. Then I hopped back to the linen closet to get a towel so the blood streaming from my toe wouldn't make a huge mess. Wrapped the whole thing up in a handkerchief that I cut into a bandage (because my stock of muslin petticoats seems to have run out), and went back down to deal with the baby and my suddenly less appetizing dinner (seafood, since the man is out of town).

So a ripped toenail is cringeworthy, but just a small thing, right? But I can't get over it. I went to the podiatrist yesterday to have the nail removed the rest of the way, and had to practice my best yoga breathing to not pass out. There is something deeply squicky about having my feet interfered with, even worse than my teeth. At the dentist, my second best yoga breathing is usually sufficient to keep me from trying to bite people (I usually think about being a wolf, and convince myself that the hygienist or dentist torturing me would taste too much of minty toothpaste to be worth the effort, and then I start wondering about the mechanics of running with 4 legs and a tail, which usually leads to further wonderings about wolf-food, and if they enjoy eating deerhide and such, or just eat what is available, and then the dental-prey leaning over me is generally finished, having kept their lives without knowing how close they were to experiencing a little Call of the Wild). But the podiatrist is probably 10 times worse. The most painful part was having my foot numbed, which may have involved a needle. I don't know for sure, because I was fully reclined at the time, having warned the doctor/victim that I was likely to pass out. He was quick and expeditious, wrapped me up in a huge bandage, and I was out of there.

I was ready to let all the angst go, and managed to proceed with routine (soccer practice, McD's for Hunter, liberal suburban guilt about the McD's, mild glee that Mom paid for it (a whole 5 bucks, score!)). Then while I'm sitting around imitating a milk truck, the dog walks into the room, moves to the back of her crate, and pukes up a huge pile of half-digested dog food. Staring at the huge pile of stinky vomitus while continuing to imitate the milk truck helped to ratchet the angst back up above mild. I started to hope that trusty Mom would take care of it, but I had 25 minutes to realize that allowing my aged parent with the two gimpy knees and recently repaired eyes to clean the mess would plunge me into a pit of guilt from which I might take hours to recover (yes, hours. I'm not that deep, emotionally). But this is where the toe comes back in, because climbing into the crate to swab up the mess was a bit awkward, what with the throbbing, the bandages, and my general fear of causing myself any further pain.

You'd never know I just had a baby, right? You should see me perform when I get paper cuts.

After all that, Mom and I and whinging baby settled down to watch Olberman (who had us screaming at the television) and all the business news we could find, which led us to conclude that our finances are going to hell, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Thus the Defcon 2 of angst: an accumulation of small things on top of a big thing I can't control left me feeling like a high-water wearing, mediocre parent with a hat made out of dog vomit. If only our politicians felt the same.