I guess I owe you all some fudge...

...call me if you want to collect. I could make some fudge if you need me to.

This is apparently the time of my month when I want to cry every time I see the videophone commercial with the sincere-looking curly-haired Army guy talking to his family from a tent in War-ville. Also the time when I want to just lie on the floor and have the dogs be really still and let me hug them like stuffed animals. But most especially the time when I embrace my capacity for Overwhelming Worry about Many Things Over Which I Have No Control.

For example: the dogs. Are out in the rain and cold. And I want to rush home and towel them off and let them in but they'll just get muddy again. And I think about installing a dog door in the garage, so they'd at least have some shelter in bad weather. But would they even be smart enough to go inside if we're not there to encourage them (which of course doesn't work because if we were there they'd be inside with us)? Can I even convince my high-strung dogs who won't go up stairs or through gates to squeeze through a hole in a door? Would they destroy the (mostly unimportant) contents of our garage? Or would putting in a dog door open the garage up to looters?

Another example: work. I got a new job! I only have less-than-three weeks here! I should be emotionally extricating myself with every passing moment! Instead, I'm laying in bed this morning obsessing about taxes and printers and hiring new bookkeepers and...well...taxes. I'm really concerned about taxes.

And the new job! Could the people who work there possibly be as cool and friendly and welcoming as they appear? What if it's a cult of terminally clever and hip prototypes who say all the right things until you're suddenly sucked into a white slave workshop and they've replaced you with a robot and no one notices? When they say they dress casually for work, does that mean "rock star" casual or "ratty sweatshirt" casual? Would they be horrified if they saw me in my current ensemble of Extreme Slack? HOW am I going to adjust to getting to work at 8:30 in the morning?

Then there are the random creepers of worry that populate the rest of my life when I'm not busy obsessing about many aspects of one thing. Like windshield wipers. And my herb garden. And the light bulbs in our ceiling fans, which are not only hard to find and frequent to burn out, but aren't the environmentally friendly ones! And then I start doing the thing where I'm listing all the people I miss. Mom. Aunt Paula. Mike McIntyre. My grandmas. Kate. Ingrid.

What this means to me is that by this time next week, I'll find myself picking unnecessarily cruel arguments with people I love while denying that I am the one who started it. And then by the week after that, I'll just be thinking about Sex and Salty Foods, all the time.

This makes me sound like a crazy person. Or perfectly normal, depending on how you look at it. And really, I need to just force myself to examine the Utter Joy that is my life right now (outside of work, at least). We have got it going on pretty damn good right now. Lots of free time with which to sloth around the house with my Boo, snuggle our animals, play lots of Tetris, cook lots of good food, plan lots of fun things for the spring, which is starting to feel like it might come after all. Multiple times, every day, I sigh and say, "How lucky are we?" Who gets to say that and mean it? Looking at it all from over here, I think I can pack up my worry pants for another three weeks. At least.