I so totally need sleep.

Insomnia for two days running, which is not cool. I am attempting to roll with it. I mean, it's not something I want to use as a long-term lifestyle, but I don't operate heavy machinery, it's my week off between programs at the gym (more on that momentarily) so I won't be doing heavy lifting, and there's not a lot going on that requires me to be smarter than the average bear, or possibly six-year-old. So. Rolling.

Before I forget, my latest awesome blogfind: Shapely Prose. What is it about Chicago that we have so many smart women who write so well?

Tomorrow starts the first day of the second stage of tapering off the Zoloft: half a pill every other day, instead of every day. I have decorated my birth-control pill packet with little stickers every other day (usually I just put a sticker on the second Monday into the pack, as a reminder to do my breast exam; my doctor is NOT going to yell at me about that again this year, dammit!), so I won't forget. All set.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

My Hub is in a state of deep paranoia about me getting off the drugs, since his ex-wife tried it last year and fell immediately back into depression as a result. There are several big differences here, though: 1) I'm tapering off, not going cold turkey, 2) I'm doing this under a doctor's supervision, 3) I have a significantly healthier lifestyle going than she does, and don't have to deal with a mentally challenged stepchild, and 4) I actually have a pro-active therapy program going to deal with stress and emotional upheaval. None of these things, separately or together, give me any guarantee of success, but I like to think I've got a better chance. Still, any time I have a bad day his first reaction is "OH MY GOD, IS IT THE ZOLOFT? ARE YOU GETTING OFF THE STUFF TOO QUICK? ZOMG!"

And, no. Typically I am just having a bad day in those cases, and more often than not these things occur when I haven't done my mediation. I haven't made it to the point yet where I can always recognize the stress as it's approaching and deal with it in a good way; occasionally I overcommit or I don't tell him when something is bugging me, and things blow up. Still working on it.

The big fun news: we bought a boat! A little inflatable tandem kayak/canoe, specifically, which will deflate down to backpack-size (26 pounds) so that we can tote it around to our heart's content. Sturdy, certified, unpuncturable. Cheap for a personal boat, too: I think we spent about as much on life vests as we did on the kayak itself. We wisely refused to compromise comfort and quality for a lower price in that case, since life vests are no good if we don't wear them.

(It's also worth noting that of all the paddling vests that are out there, the versions earmarked for women appear to merely be smaller versions of the male versions, and only one brand-- the Stohlquist BetSEA-- took into account the fact that women have boobs. ONE. [Note: I have found a few other brands online, but the BetSEA was the only one in stock at this particular store.] This baffles me more than I can possibly express. One would think that this would be a key factor in the design process, since this isn't a fashion thing, it's a LIFE SAVING DEVICE. I need to be able to cinch a PFD in such a way that it won't pop up over my head if I fall into the water, dammit. RESPECT MY BOOBAGE, LIFE VEST DESIGNERS.)

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this in a major way. I've been talking about kayaking and other forms of paddling, on and off, since around the time I started this blog, but while my Hub was leading a more sedentary lifestyle he didn't feel the pull toward it that I did. It's no coincidence that this is the first summer that the two of us are both relatively in-shape and relatively strong, and hence feel up to a new challenge. This is going to be a hell of an upper-body workout, I hear. Woo!

In other news, anorexia nervosa has struck again in my family. Not immediate family, but close enough (details withheld due to the internet being the internet and all that; it's one thing to bray my problems all over, but someone else's would just be bad taste). My parents are baffled and feeling powerless, anxious, and frustrated-- par for the course, really. I filled them in a little bit on what I knew about anorexia and eating disorders in general, but I'm pretty sure that this was less help for them than it was me making myself feel better by putting it in the context of Meg-the-quasi-expert instead of Meg-the-concerned-relative. Sigh.