Under Pressure

So, like, when large, scary things happen to you that require immediate action, theoretically you're supposed to learn a lot about yourself. When such a situation presented itself yesterday, primarily I learned that I suck under pressure.

I could make excuses. Thousands of them. But mostly it came down to my needing to make a big decision, and instead I hyperventilated and pulled at my hair until it scared small children. And then I made the decision, only it turned out to be nothing at the last minute. And so I should feel disappointed, or relieved, or happy, but mostly I just feel sad that I'm crap with stressful situations.

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On lighter notes, I walked into the break room in my office yesterday and had the most violent allergic reaction that I've ever had in my entire life. The secretary from the main desk was making a fresh flower arrangement in the sink. The simple act of me walking into the same room as those particular flowers caused me to go into near convulsions and I could not stop sneezing. And my eyes watered so badly that I couldn't see, and I ran into the table during one particularly violent sneeze and had to be physically guided out of the room by an elderly woman. Now, I am not allergic to flowers. Those particular flowers did not care, however, and proceeded to kick my ass for the rest of the morning.

As the day progressed, things became more and more stressful and I slowly degraded into my psychotic state, there were many random little things that drove me to near insanity:

• I had to drop off a document at Neiman Marcus. I got caught in the middle of the perfume/makeup section lodged between two huge bachelorette parties and managed to get in the cross-fire of no less than 4 different shots of perfume. This started up a second wave of sneezing, very reminiscent of earlier that day.
• While in the parking lot of the post office, I saw something long and thin and moving on the ground in front of me, out of the corner of my eye. In my altered state, my brain assumed it was a snake. I freaked out to hell and back, complete with shrieking and arm flailings. It turned out to be a discarded hair ribbon. There were so many witnesses to this freak out that I'm pretty sure I will never be able to go anywhere in Dallas without people pointing and whispering "Isn't that the guy? The one who is scared of hair accessories? Let's throw barrettes at him."
• My battle with no air conditioning in the TOM finally reached a head, on the hottest day in my recent memory. When I got home from work, I went to change out of my work clothes into something more suited to my unwell mental state. When I pulled my shirt off, it made the same sound hitting the ground that you get when you throw your bathing suit on the ground after a vigorous swim. A very wet thwap-splat. Dallas = oven. Jason = gross sweat factory.
• Oh, and I walked into 4 different sets of doors over the course of the day, never quite thinking to check for the difference between a "Push" and a "Pull" set-up.

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What else? I have now seen The Red Eye twice in the course of two days, and both times it was very good. Rachel McAdams is awesome. Cillian Murphy is hot in a very menacing i-wear-a-burlap-bag-on-my-head-and-plot-assassinations sort of way. The movie gets fairly ridiculous by the end, but it's sufficiently nerve-wracking enough that I don't have biteable fingernails anymore.

I'm really starting to loathe the Cityplace movie theatre, though. For the love of little green apples, if you aren't going to have stadium seating, at least make sure your surround sound works completely. Only the left rear was active, and it bugged the bejesus out of me.

And a final note: Any day, no matter how bad, can be improved by hearing the song Faith by George Michael.