Finally, but boy was it too hot last week. My basement lair is cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and Thursday was 80 degrees, or maybe 89 degrees.

Here’s what I want to understand in my current, everyday life. How can I go about doing things I’d like to do without getting all mad and teeth grind-y? That’s how I got stuff done, well, forever. I sort of tighteened my stomach muscles (girding my loins, I would actually think, if loins were something that could be in the stomach. Note to self: google loins definiton and etymology), grind my teeth, get really pissed at something, and then proceed.

On a good day, the thing gets done. On a bad day—and there have always been more bad than good—I would explode a little and mess myself up. The explosion would be a nasty word to Ben or an edge to a coworker or even just a bubbling fear in my stomach that I had mortally offended someone or was in danger of being fired.

My friend called these outcomes popping. To be accurate, she called the externalized one, the rage spikes, popping. I went along with that metaphor because of how accurately it described the activity. I had never called that thing I did something. So that was the first time I saw my emotional life as something apart from myself.

I see the popping as more a gurgling that just churned along, sometimes quiet and sometimes a rumble. If it got close to a rumbling boil, I would belch foul emotional gas at someone. This image is making me so happy. I mean, yeah, it’s not a great look for me but you don’t kill anyone with a burp. My sin against anyone is against myself.

Note to self #2: I need to write about this awful evening in the mid-90s when these cute reporters bought me a boilermaker and I drank it (I’d never had one before and I will never, ever have one again) and I belched loudly, like out of the blue, and they stopped hitting on me. The not as cute one is kind of a big writer now. Oh wow, I’ve already followed up on Note to Self #2. So efficient!)

I do think I did not direct the lethal strains of my burps at the kids. I didn’t try to burn their souls down (yes, I know the difference between these kinds of parenting styles). I would just be cranky. When I would cross a line and be just stupidly mean, they would set me straight. I didn’t do it too often, and they are very good kids and kind people.

So yeah, I’m not doing that anymore (so much)

It’s fucking awesome. Let me tell you, to operate effectively and have a good time while doing it is pretty nice. I’d like to enjoy it more but I am terrified I’m going to fuck it up. See, the curse words are poppingup as I type. Cursing for me signals fear.

I should take a note of that last sentence. I hadn’t known that, for sure, before.

And so I do the things I have to do and need to do, meaning I work at a job where the corporate politics are just staring me in the face every day all day and there is nothing I can do about any of it except hope I don’t get fired because “a finger will need to be pointed” (said my boss to me cheerfully) but the hand hasn’t rested on any of us yet. I do fear it will finally land on me. (oh shiver with fear)

So I press on and hope and when I’m not working or in a meeting, I lie down on my couch and put myself into a coma with audiobooks. I’m listening to A Brief History of Japan right now and a super stressful way-we-live-now book about precocious children and competitive parenting.

I also do the PTA stuff and try to figure out what we can do that will benefit the kids the most.

Will I always need the intermittent comas?

When I’m not doing that I’m in a coma. Oh, I exercise every day and I eat but I don’t talk to a lot of friends, although I text all day with PTA friends, who are friends. I talk to my mom once a week. I do stuff with Wyatt and Calvin. I cook when I have to.

I would like to do a bit more, I think. More excercise, more chatting, better clothes. I just don’t want to gurgle and belch! I’m worried the strain of not gurgling will bring on gurgles!