Hi, anxiety

Things my brain decided it needed to discuss with itself right now between 1 and 2 a.m. last night:

• How I used to wrap gifts and never do anymore
  
• The lyrics to Lady Gaga's "Poker Face"
  
• Whether or not I knew where everything was for the office White Elephant exchange next Monday
  
• How Calvino uses semiotic squares in If on a winter's night a traveler

The longer I deal with anxiety the more I am convinced that it is a brute physiological force, not anything contextually explicable. Seriously, I was giving myself chest pains over ... what? I used to think it was stress, but sometimes I wake with a racing pulse, sweating, reciting Dr. Seuss to myself frantically.

Of course, in better news, the dentist agreed to replace my bite guard (which they said would last five years, and I cracked within two weeks) at cost. "I've only met three people in twenty years who have ever cracked one of those," the dentist said admiringly. "You must be serious!"