to my surprise, darren thought i should put "go buy things". i mean, i like to shop, so there is some truth to his assessment of me. but on stressful days, i will usually just buy one little thing. like fun socks or a cool shirt on sale. does that really count?
this, then, made me wonder if i actually do shop to relieve stress. which would be bad. because we're in GRAD SCHOOL. so i've been paying extra careful attention to my stress management strategies this week....
which brings me to today. it had all the makings of a bad day, especially since i was expecting a good one.
to begin with, i got up before dawn. i should've known this was a bad idea--it leaves way too much time for things to go wrong. but, i got up before dawn anyway, with the purpose of going to the gym, showering there, and getting to work on my thesis by about 9am. getting things done relieves stress, right? right.
the exercise was great. all downhill from there, though. painfully downhill, since i strained my IT band (again) while doing 15 minutes of warmup walking on a stupid elliptical machine. this makes for a lot of pain walking down hills (like i have to do everyday to get to one building where i teach) and steps (like i have to use everyday to get to my floor in the other, newly renovated building where i teach--which has no elevator.)
even after the straining, i was still in a pretty good mood, as long as i wasn't walking anywhere. i went to my department and planned my lesson for today. done. and getting things done relieves stress.
then i went to starbuck's and purchased a delicious vanilla latte to be had as i sat down to work at the corner of downtown athens on a perfect 76-degrees-and-cloudy-so-the-sun's-not-even-in-my-eyes kind of day.
but what's this? my computer gives me an error message saying it basically hates me, it hates itself, and it wishes i would just go throw it in a dumpster down the street. either that or melt my jump drive in a fire somewhere. the two apparently have not been getting along. and here i am in the middle of an electronic love triangle:
jump drive not liking laptop, but working fine with desktop. desktop finds out about jump drive's escapades with laptop and starts picking fights with jump drive, too. chapter-i'm-supposed-to-be-writing gets corrupted by fighting parents and locks himself in a dark room somewhere, not giving me permission to come in.
fortunately, sneaky me found a way to get to the file...after another hour and a half (involving a little anger, some colorful words, and a painful walk back to my department).
this puts us at roughly 12:45. i teach from 1:25 to 3:20. then i realize i haven't eaten since that cup of yogurt before sunrise, and i'm stressed because getting things done relieves stress, and i haven't gotten anything done.
so (back to the point of this post), what do i do?
THIS.
this, my friends, is a homemade veggie sandwich on ciabatta bread brushed with olive oil and toasted, complete with greek style hummus, cucumbers, monterey jack cheese, plum tomatoes, banana peppers, garlic and herb feta, avocado, and sundried tomato vinaigrette dressing.
what does this mean? that i pig out when i'm stressed? sometimes, but that's not really it. no more than the shopping theory.
when i'm stressed, i do something i'm good at. like using a dangling preposition. and i am good at making myself a sandwich. i make myself pretty much the best sandwiches i've ever eaten. and the pleasure's as much in the making as in the eating.
same with shopping. i am pretty awesome at finding great deals on things. and that's why it's so satisfying. the pleasure's as much in the deal-ing (?) as in the wearing.
and, finally, i am darn good at rambling on my blog about silly things in order to ultimately give myself a compliment on my sandwich-making abilities. but don't come asking me to make you one--i've got a chapter to write.
13 comments:
I think that sandwich would complete my soul if I ever ate it. It is beautiful. And I'm feeling awfully hungry now... (Also, I'm surprised you didn't mention the Study Shoes!)
Hmmm... when I'm stressed out I like to walk around, find some old book shop and after an extremely picky examination of every shelve, find a very good book at a very book price. Closest thing to treasure hunting for me. And a therapeutic experience as well.
ah, yes, i have done that many a time myself. well, before the best used book store in town closed a year or two ago. guess they were selling me books a little too cheap :)
having read your post and knowing myself and how i deal with stress and bad days, i think i do basically the same thing: not so much finding something i'm good at as finding something i can control and controlling the hell out of it. shopping, preparing food, reading a book by choice, writing in a journal, even spending time in tranquil solitude are all things that we are in charge of. they are subject to our whims and wishes and therefore under our control. thus, we can re-establish our grasp on the day by controlling something seemingly minute about it.
(more online quizes, though?)
sorry - quizzes.
and try going to a shootng range and firing fifty or so rounds into a paper silhouette of a person. it'll relieve some stress for sure.
yeah, i'm with you on the control thing. but i was trying not to admit it, so as to somehow not seem so type-A. but that's absolutely the reason i went home to make a sandwich instead of ordering one somewhere. if i make it myself, i KNOW it will be awesome.
the shooting range, though, i have yet to try. would like too sometime soon.
oooh...it's good. my friend gave me 2 hours at Franklins waaaaay back on my 23rd birthday. Shot a Gloch (Glock?), 19mm (i think?). Not the point. It was grand old fun - although it's suprisingly uncomfortable at first. I mean, I'm a VA country girl, i've shot a bolt-action rifle or two in my day, but there's just something about holding that little vehicle of death in your hands that's a bit...weird. So small, comparitively anyway, though so huge in our imaginations. And in power.
Um, I meant 9mm. Of course. Wow, 19mm would be rather big. Yikes.
so did you take the photo of the sandwich solely intending to poat this story or do you randomly take photos of you food? it could be the early signs of a serious mental disorder.
uh, which one would betray a mental disorder (so i know how to answer correctly)?
i took the picture just to put in the post, which i typed as i ate the sandwich. in a way, i thought if i multi-tasked as i procrastinated, i would feel better about myself. which i did.
can i just interject here that working at panera gives you an unfair advantage over the rest of us in your supreme sandwich-making skills? Also, that stress with small children looks so different. i like to lock myself in the bathroom (because that's the only place I can justifiably lock myself without feeling guilty for locking said small children out) and even that only lasts for a minute or two. knitting works. only when they're napping though. hey, maybe i should hide some knitting needles in the bathroom. haha
tay makes a good point--if you notice, that is panera ciabatta that i used to make the sandwich. but when it comes to mommy skills, she's got us all beat :) and i'm all for the knitting needles in the bathroom. guys read the newspaper, girls knit.
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