Give bad feelings the boot

Retail therapy is a fine complement to dynamic cycle-therapy, I've found.

Before my Mallorcan adventure, I was contemplating intense psychotherapy and some pharmacological helpers to combat anxiety brought on by grief and years of unrelenting stress.

But now I'm cured! I figure with all the money I saved in psychiatrist fees, I could do this trip annually until 2050, but my husband doesn't agree.

Let's see how long the good feelings last. Souvenirs can be a great spirit booster. So here's a little tour of my keepsakes.

Footwear

Mallorca: the olives, the bread, the aioli, the footwear! Oh yeah, the cycling and bike stores are pretty awesome too.

First, THE BOOTS:

These babies are suede and high. I'm close to six-feet tall in these suckers.

Of course, I'll never be taller than my gorgeous 6'2" sister, who wears heels to boot. (I think these boots are nicer than hers, but don't tell her. Shhhhhh).

Next are the whore shoes:

Look how well I balance on one foot. I'm doing tree pose in this photo.

The fashionistas in the office assure me they're not whorish at all. Wear them with jeans, I've been told.

Casual sandals from the Camper outlet:

Try not to look too closely at the veins. These feet look like they belong to a transvestite weightlifter. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

These are my comfortable shoes, but I won't wear them on my Home Depot shopping trips with my friend Susan. Staff there always mistake us for a couple and I'm the man. Not that there's anything wrong with that either.

Cycling wear

Next up is my cycling fashion series. My only concern is that these up the flashy factor, which might raise people's expectations in the speed department. Oh well, I'm stylish, but slow. Sue me.

This is my favourite, favourite cycling acquisition:

Good thing this isn't a scratch-and-sniff picture. You'd fall over. Maggie doesn't mind though.

It has a nice fleecy inside and I'm utterly charmed by the pinkness of it. Great for chilly days. I've worn this five days in a row on commutes. Oli held his nose while he took this picture.

Flashy jacket:

The light, bright Ca'n Nadal jacket. This jacket is how I recognize fellow Mallorcan tripsters on cycling rides in the Gatineau Park.

I think everyone who does this trip buys one of these. It's wind resistant and it folds up teenie weenie. Perfect for your jersey pocket and you still have room to stuff in your portable IV kit and pint of EPO-infused blood for those really long rides.

Trip jersey:

Lori's arm warmers are a perfect match for this gorgeous jersey. She really should just hand 'em over.

These jerseys were given to all trip participants. I love the design and the fit. This is the best fitting jersey I've ever worn. But that could be because I buy cheap-ass jerseys as a rule and not expensive nice ones like this.

Trip fleece:

The fact that the fleece matches Jen's and my eyes is an added bonus. Photo by William Fu.

Great for post-ride hanging around or dress-down days at the office. I love how this fleece is fitted. Again, this jacket was given to trip participants. Love it.

Whoever said money can't buy happiness was wrong. WRONG.

Can I have my brain back now? Please?

I feel that I should be reading all kinds of self-help books about grief and had a couple suggested to me--The Year of Magical Thinking and The Mourner's Dance. Thing is, I can't read very well and I can barely write because the adrenaline is gone. I feel like I have a family of squirrels nesting in my cranium.

In addition to my inability to read or write coherently, I can't follow conversations well. At all. I'm a visual learner. I need pictures and I need to actually do what I need to learn. I can't follow verbal information unless I can run the meeting or take over the conversation with questions. I'm always like that. Now, I feel like I'm under water when people are talking.

When people write about depression, they often talk about going to a dark place. But my place isn't all dark, it's kind of stupid really. It's a foggy, stupid place.

Also, I have the attention span of a gnat. But that's been a problem since I had children. Actually, having children was the time the first couple of squirrels moved in, ate some grey matter and replaced it with fluffy nesting material.

I decided I'd make up my own stages of grief. A couple of them are mine, but a couple are the real thing. Can you tell which is which?

1. Anger - Did a post on this. Nuff said.
2. Projectile vomiting - Did a post on this too.
3. Seeking a geographical cure - Since most accidents happen close to home, let's move. Now! But, since packing up my family and moving us all to Sudbury is impractical, I signed up for a cycling trip to Spain in April. See also #4.
4. Retail therapy - Superficiality is the balm for my soul: bought stuff, have become an avid reader of People magazine because the story lines are easy to follow, actually started whitening my teeth with those Crest White Strips in my drawer and now do the occasional mud mask. And yet, I'm not watching the Oscar's? Why? Too hard to follow. Too many names and title thingies.
   
5. Bitterness - Don't feel there's much of a point to being optimistic. Especially when I think back to New Year's Eve when my husband and I clinked our glasses together and said 2010 would be "a good year". What were we thinking? Am now so negative that I figure if my plane to Spain doesn't crash, I'll probably get hit by a car while riding around Mallorca on the fancy rental racing bike.
6. Depletion - Not feeling resilient. Dealing with my brother in law's death, my husband's heart failure and various house woes, including bed bugs over the past five or six years has me running on empty.
   

Need a plan, Stan. Maybe the answer isn't meditation--it's medication. Oh, what a difference one tiny letter makes.

Speaking of typos, my own personal favourite occurred a while back when I accidentally ended a work e-mail with "Retards" instead of "Regards" and no one noticed.