Sean, do you have the time and opportunity to do some kind of physical exercise?

I get the "general anxieties" often enough that my best remedy is a long walk with some really good music in my ears. U2 used to be my default, but I also really like the Blues. seems kind of counter intuitive, but I like the groove. Funk works too.

Yeah, I will likely go for a walk later today (I've already been for one brief one this morning). I do walk quite a bit, not owning a car, but I can always exercise more. Starting tomorrow, I'll be getting plenty of physical labor for the next week or so, so hopefully that will help as well.

Sean, I hope the activity helps. I know it does for me. (Clean something! Preferrably something high and difficult to reach!)

bonny, you've gotten such good advice. For me, the sticking point wasn't how people I denied my help would manage as much as the hit to my self image as a helper person. That can take some adjustment.

Epic! You're the only other person I've known with a cat named Ember! Is she a tortie? Ours was, bright orange stripes shining through dense black, it's how she got her name. She had the loveliest pansy face, dark velvet black nose and streaks of gold on cheeks and between her eyes. Dumb as dirt, but sweet and beautiful.

Ginger, I have no good advice on rat eradication, except I do prefer traps to poison--at least you can find and dispose of the carcass in a trap, where the poisoned go and die in some inaccessable cranny and smell, until they don't.

But if they're sugar ants, I can recommend Ant Terro. It's a primitive bait, but my mom and dad used it for decades, I've used it too, and it's always worked. It's pretty neat and tidy, too, and there usually are no ant Mirandas to sweep up. You put a bit of it on a cotton ball in a soda or milk bottle cap, somewhere observable but out of the way. It will soon be heaving with ants tearing off bits of the cotton to take home to share. Maybe for a day or two. And then, nothing. It doesn't smell, it's not toxic to breathe, and if you don't have climb-y pets, they won't get into it.

If you can't find it locally, Amazon carries it.

All my sympathies. There should be wee signs we could post, small enough for varmints to read: "No camping. No foraging. Area posted and patroled. Keep Out."

except I do prefer traps to poison

With you there. And we needed the serious trap, the one that basically looks like wee jaws of death. The old fashioned trap was useless. Smart little creatures.

I made sure that we warned the neighbor who was keeping an eye on mine when I was out of town - that Ember would probably do that, that it wasn't a comment on her scooping skills, that it didn't mean that she's sick - and not to worry about the rug (an old throw rug that we've written off for this purpose) beyond getting rid of the pile.

This would be both, what I do and what I expect.

The cat person gets a partial pass because he really did not know that the former friend would hang me up. He apologized profusely and gave me extra money.

He _did_ however, drop into the casual conversation that 'he always does this.' Yep. Woulda been nice to know that.

Weirdly, he did not know about Speck's fate (which has not yet been confirmed) either. I guess it is not reasonable for me to assume that sharing pets, and a yard, owning a house together and a significant history means that one knows everything about the other.

My bff gave me a rational come-to-jesus this morning. She is genius at that.

It's hard though. Both she and I come from extremely abused backgrounds and have turned out to be good people, which boggles me as to how people who have had an arguable 'easier' time of it...in quotes because I an acutely aware that everyone's experience is relative and cannot really be compared.

She is coldly rational sometimes...which can be very helpful to me. Specifically today, "You cannot draw a connection between these three incidents, despite their rapid succession." (I still see a scatological theme here, rational or not)

Imagine my shock when she said, "You don't cry enough." Meaning, my self-sufficient, 'I can handle anything' persona makes it easier for people to take advantage of me.

Huh.

Don't know what I could possibly do with that. Though, she is right that there is some sort of middle ground between stoicism and screaming meany. I'd _love_ to know what that might be.

The 'let me check my schedule' is great advice. I need to get distance, for sure.

Sean, I hope the activity helps, if just as a distraction.

I've been struggling with the 'whys' of a lot of stuff. I wonder if it might help to let go of the question of 'why am I anxious' in favor of, what do I need to do for myself when I am anxious?

In any case, I hope you feel better soon.

For me, the sticking point wasn't how people I denied my help would manage as much as the hit to my self image as a helper person. That can take some adjustment.

Oh Beverly. Again, you are me.

I need to go back and read the "Helping Prison" chapter of Ram Dass' "How Can I Help?"

I don't need to be a helper for the prestige (or whatever) that comes from being that kind of person. I don't really even know how to explain it. It's like a physical requirement of living.

Or something.

It reminds me of a huge fight I had with an employer nearly 30 years ago about tossing a gum wrapper out a speeding car window.

I was _appalled_...seriously breathless. Her defensive/angry response was, "It's just one." As if there was zero awareness that it was one in millions.

I guess the lesson there ought to have been that very, very few people see the world the way I do...though more now than ever before...and that I have to somehow find peace with that.

I cannot allow myself to improperly dispose of things...littering, not picking up after my dog, imposing on other people's space/kindness, etc. I just can't do it.

Anyway, I need to do some thinking about how to figure out the middle ground.

Second thought: I nearly typed that I don't want to impose on other people's freedoms, but I guess that isn't true. I totally DO want to impose on their freedom to be wasteful, dangerous or jerky.

Conundrum.

I completely understand, bonny. I confronted a littering driver--with my kids in the car. And then had to caution them *not* to follow my example, but to find other ways to use that anger productively.

And then we picked up litter at a local park. Their opinion was, it was more fun to yell at litterers than to have to work cleaning up after them.

Job hunters! Copperbadge, of fanfic and tumblr fame, recently posted a systematic approach to job hunting. I thought it looked super useful. [link]

And then we picked up litter at a local park. Their opinion was, it was more fun to yell at litterers than to have to work cleaning up after them.

Oh so true, though one precipitates a tangible result while the other is often just wasted air.

Sigh.