What to do to rejenerate brain cells...

Vegging out. I can see that finishing Seasons Five and Six of Sex & the City are in my future.

Other things:

Go to the pool.
Go for walks.
Go to the mall (since walking outside is really hot these days...)
Go to the museums. I may break down and become a member. I love going to visit the Monet and the Van Gogh's at the Carnegie Art Museum. The Andy Warhol is more fun if you have folks with you, though.
TAKE THE BUS!!

Read read read. But only books with happy endings. It appears there is a sequel to Babs' favorite childhood book, Roller Skates (thanks LC!) The Year of Jubilo, so I'll try to hunt that down. (Just ordered it, will pick it up at the Downtown Branch, as I'll be riding the bus...) (And I just reserved a bunch of Sex and the City videos and DVDs which I'll pick up at the Edgewood branch.)

Do a coffee shop crawl. Dude, Pittsburgh has a large amount of these, and most are very unusual and cool. I'm not talking Starbux either. One has an esoteric DVD rental shop in the back that I must visit since everyone raves about it.

Helping the Creasy's with their house...

At some point, I imagine Emily will drag me to a bridal shop where I'll try on a bridesmaid gown. Ack!

Less interesting but important things:
Getting the car inspected.
Cleaning the apartment.
Making sure the bills are paid.
Changing banks.

The Key:
Not freaking out, not "shoulding" myself, and just be-ing, instead of do-ing.

This is the first time I have recognized that some time off might be in order--in the past it's been the doctor saying "you need two weeks or five weeks" (which respectively became 5 months and 6 months.) So I think I have come a long way to recognize it myself, and to have the wherewithal to ask for what I need. I had blood tested today. This was fun: The lab closes at noon. I finally got the requisition and tubes for the blood (sorry if TMI) at 11:50. The elevator must have been coming from China, for the speed it took to reach the eighth floor.

I get there, and Ruby, my favorite pheb-technician is there. She says with a wry smile, "I told them upstairs no more blood draws after 11:30 because I have to be at the clinic at noon. I sat here for three hours and no one. The past 20 minutes: three people have come down." She is such a sweetie, though. Then she tells me I have to go register, because the blood draw will be billed to my insurance. (You're supposed to register BEFORE you have a procedure or appointment, but I never have, as I'm in a study that isn't billed to my insurance.) So I go up to the first floor to register. At first she can't find my information. "I have to get some blood drawn," I tell her. Meanwhile, I think she could prettty much figure out I'd already had the blood drawn, since I had a bandage on my right arm where a vein would be.

Then I go back up the elevator (yes, the same ones I got stuck in for 20 mins a few weeks ago) and went up to floor #8 (yes, why I didn't take the stairs, would you?) and made an appointment to see my adorable Italian psychiatrist next week, and an appointment with a woman doing a study on hormones created by exercise. More on that next week...

Then I go down one last time, discover that I *can* pay with a credit card for my parking, and drive home to wash my hair and get ready for work. Ah, with the very important note from the Italian that says I can have two weeks off. Which is really good, b/c the amount of work I got done in the 4 hours I was in Tech Serv today would normally have taken 30 minutes. It's bad, folks, but it's gonna get better.

Okay, can I take a nap yet?