The Non-Fiscal Cliff - and Career Advice

Is it okay to just say “Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!” and supply audio of a voice fading as it falls off a cliff? Because that’s where I am today. Just a bit overwhelmed. I have a small amount of paid work – yay! Although the work is straightforward, learning the ins and outs of the company is not. It’s like being in the car with someone learning to drive stick shift. Remember that? Start, stall, restart, move, jerk to a halt. Restart. Get my drift?  It’s the nitty gritty details of my invoice and checking my daily report and learning Google Docs.

Whine, whine. Gimme some wine!

It’s not the small amount of work and the need to learn the nitty gritty that has me going (insert sound effect of Bo falling off the Matterhorn in “Auntie Mame”) “aaarrrrgghhhh!” It’s that along with everything else. My own personal deadlines for blog posts, and other writing projects, and the children’s carpools, and the extra rehearsals for the performances that are starting up this weekend, to name some of it. I will be attending the first of 3 Nutcrackers this season. Pardon me for complaining, when I know that I am getting off light on Nutcrackers. Some parents are going to more plus more of those than I am. One day there will be no more Nutcrackers to attend grumpily, and then I’ll be sorry.

Plus also, I forgot I wasn’t supposed to take an antihistamine last night and took one, so I had to reschedule my appointment at the allergist for venom testing, for the second time. Rescheduling is not so bad, really, since bee season has come to a close, but at this rate, it’ll have started up again before I get the testing done. I’d really like to know what exactly caused me to burst out in hives of an unbearably itchy quality last summer before I might encounter it next summer. Especially since I have been informed by experts that hives are a sign of anaphalaxis, and that I’m likely to have a more severe reaction if I’m stung again.

This talk of doctors reminds me that I have to try to make an appointment with a new dermatologist since the old one is scheduling out to April. Hello? So the new one I got referred to has office hours from 9:30-3:30 four days a week, and when I called the other day at 3:15 to make an appointment, I was already too late and got put over to the answering service. This turned out to be a form of light torture, because the answering service, in a very nice and polite voice, took my name and date of birth and phone number and asked me to spell everything three times, turn a sommersault, and recite three Hail Marys, before telling me that she was the answering service and that I’d have to call back another time. 

Readers, if you go into medicine, become a dermatologist.* There are few emergencies and fewer hours of work. Futhermore, the work you do consists, for the most part, of peering at an irregular splotch of some sort and saying either, “Here’s a prescription for a steroid cream,” or, “Come back next week so I can saw that thing out of you.” This is when it comes in handy to be married to a shrink, or to have one on retainer, so he/she can prescribe a refill for your Xanax, while you wait for lab results.

Unfortunately, I am married to a neurologist, whose schedule is dictated by emergencies, and who scruples to prescribe medications outside of work. In any case, I don’t take medication, except for antihistamines and the occasional Tylenol. Apparently, if I were a mental patient, my resistance to medication would fit the rubric for some kind of mental illness. I forget which one. I’ll have to check with my sister the psychoanalyst.

And what does this have to do with success or its tangents? This blog is about those, ostensibly.

Let’s consider times like these, when I feel stressed and overwhelmed, as tangents. It’s times like these that I have to remember some of the things I’ve learned about feeling successful. I have to take it in bits. So I meditate. When I remember. And do yoga. When I remember. And exercise. When I can.

It’s times like these when I try to remember Auntie Mame. If I could handle myself the way she does in challenging situations, I'd - I'd - I'd - well, I'd be wearing fabulous hats and gloves! (The clip is only 58 seconds long. Watch.)

These are the secrets of my success, Readers. 

P.S. Yay to progressive education! 

P.P.S. Someday I will have to write about the Wisdom of Auntie Mame.

*This is the career advice advertised in my title.