Irritability levels and the Sociability Hangover

I realised earlier this week that my irritability (at people, and not at acts of fate or whatever) is a direct function of my social anxiety most of the time.

This feels like a big revelation to me simply because it's something that had never occurred to me before; I am used to evaluating my huge capacity for irritation as a separate personality trait from my anxiety. I'm not sure it's a very productive revelation, because I don't know what I could do with the knowledge yet, but it helps to be able to interpret my own emotional state more accurately on the basis of its true causes and not the situational sparks that set it off.

I don't mean that my degree of anxiety about a person dictates how annoying I find them; on the contrary, as far as I can tell that has almost no effect on it, with the rare exception of people I love so much (and I can't say it has to do with security in my relationships with them since most of my family members still irritate me in this way), for whatever reason, that I never find them irritating at all. Rather my degree of background social anxiety directly affects the likelihood of my being irritated by any given stimulus and almost any given person.

I've noticed, too, that I have what I call a Sociability Hangover after every episode of being out and enjoying myself with other people. After I come home at first I am still excited, but in an hour or so my mood crashes into depression, insecurity and foundationless anger as the social anxiety I wasn't feeling from too much input comes rushing back in. My irritability reaches new highs at these points even worse than my usual PMS, in fact. It's a much more severe version of the sort of periods of brief emotional exhaustion that follow more restrained trips out of the house such as errand-running or attending lectures.

This icon is the new possessor of my 'arrrgh brains' keyword and represents my frustration and social anxiety, which is quite a common mood so I'm sure I'll have to restrain myself from using it too much. I identify so strongly with Circe in it (the painting is Waterhouse's Circe Invidiosa), and the malevolent colour of the liquid she's pouring. I think of it as a big bowl full of malice and rage and loathing for the entire world. Look at her cloudy brow! It makes me shiver.

Let's talk about icons.

girl_clone picked out seven of my current icons and I'm going to explain them under the cut. Holler if you want me to do the same for you.

( Read more... )

Tim Gunn's Guide to Style > How Lingerie That Fits Will Change Your Life

Meanwhile, if you weren't sure how great Tim Gunn is, his motto about changing people's lives apparently applies to you, the viewer, too, and not just to, you know, his fashion victims. He's already changed my life and Wax's.

Now, you should understand about Wax several things:

1. She hates reality television.


2. She hates fashion, but especially women's fashion.


3. She hates fashion television most of all. She somehow hated Project Runway.


4. Shopping for shoes or clothes with her is a giant ordeal because, even if she NEEDS them such as because there's snow on the ground already and she doesn't have any shoes she can wear in the snow that don't have holes in the soles, I have to drag her out to the stores and then she'll stand around pouting and refusing to pick anything because she feels oppressed by shoe fashion and doesn't like anything with fur or the wrong kind of heels or the wrong colour or too tall or blah blah blah and she'll eventually have a panic attack right there in the store and when I try to coax her into rationally discussing her options she'll just stand there like she's comatose and not even answer. She hasn't shopped for bras, in general, since before I moved in with her in 2004, and she's lost 30 pounds since then.

Well, Tim Gunn is so awesome that she watched every single episode of Tim Gunn's Guide to Style that played while she was in the room, and she liked all of them. She made running commentary and craned her neck to see my monitor with lively interest. One of the first steps in this show is that Tim Gunn and Veronica the supermodel go through the woman's lingerie drawer, throw out the inappropriate items, and take her to a lingerie expert to be fitted and purchase some really good lingerie that will form the foundation for her wardrobe.

Wax was inspired to go bra-shopping, so we went bra-shopping the other day and she found her size (75E/34DD) and bought a few bras that fit. Myself I'd kinda given up on bras a while ago because I wear a 32A, but at the very small end of it such that in about 75% of brands I'd need the non-existant 30AA; since my boobs are so tiny I haven't really worn bras... pretty much at all... for a couple of years. But I decided not to put up with non-fitting lingerie either and we bought a bunch of bras for her and a bra and some underwear that's not too big for me, and then we spent the day out yesterday and it made such a difference. Wax kept exclaiming aloud, "My breasts feel great!" or "My bra hasn't moved at all!" or "Look, my breasts are still where they're supposed to be!" - To the somewhat consternation of the young gay guys we were out with. I didn't subject them to a similar discussion of my panties, but believe me, I'm in love with them. I want to run back to Stockmann and buy ten more pairs right now.

My Tim Gunn buddies, we're having a minor IP address issue. We'll consult Brother Linux and hopefully get the remote logins straightened out in a couple of days.

US residents - you lucky bitches - Tim Gunn airs on Bravo on Thursday.