travel anxiety

I'm going away for the weekend. I know some people would be excited and see it as a way to relax, but not me. I have a bad case of the flaming fantods. I can hardly finish making plans, I'm obsessed with all the things that could go wrong here and there, I can't even think about packing, and I'm a wreck. I suppose you could view this as a problem I should think about resolving but I don't see it that way. I'm not at all distressed by people who like to go away and I think they ought to just do it to their heart's content.

I noticed on my way out of the driveway that we have a burgeoning rabbit population in my garden. I used to cuss the neighborhood cats but now I see they served a purpose when they laid waste to the bunny nests. That's a gruesome thought, eh? Once in a while, a mentally challenged rabbit would make a nest in our backyard which is the size of a large postage stamp. What, she couldn't smell the dog? The nest always came to an abrupt and bad end. The rabbits were sniffing around my lilies today so I'll have to get out the putrid egg spray again to dissuade them.

Regis stumbled onto a website today which I won't print here because I don't want to disparage anyone's religious beliefs. But this site claims that it will send out an email to those you left behind six days after you are wafted up into the great beyond. I say this with all due incredulity. This is not an individual wafting but a group waft, if you get my drift. One would assume that the person sending out this mass email was not worthy of the waft himself, if this is truly the case. Of course, if a person had the time and the inclination, it would probably be very frightening to see just what kind of nonsense is out there as fact.

I'm going to go about my trip planning and hope for the best. Here's a Billy Collins poem for the road:

The Willies

"Public restrooms give me the willies"
—ad for a disinfectant

There is no known cure for them,
unlike the heeby-jeebies
or the shakes

which Russian vodka and a hot bath
will smooth out.

The drifties can be licked,
though the vapors often spell trouble.

The whips-and-jangles
go away in time. So do the fantods.
And good company will put the blues
to flight

and do much to relieve the flips,
the quivers and the screamies.

But the willies are another matter.

Anything can give them to you:
electric chairs, raw meat, manta rays,
public restrooms, a footprint,
and every case of the willies
is a bad one.

Some say flow with them, ride them out,
but this is useless advice
once you are in their grip.

There is no way to get on top
of the willies. Valium
is ineffective. Hospitals
are not the answer.

Keeping still
and emitting thin, evenly spaced
waves of irony
may help

but don't expect miracles:
the willies are the willies.
-Billy Collins