Things I learned yesterday.

• A man coming on to a woman is one thing. A man who holds a copy of the keys to the woman's apartment coming on to her, however, adds a whole 'nother level of scary to the equation.
  
  What disturbs me the most is that when my husband related that his coworker -- who also lives in our apartment complex -- has also had a history of harassment from the landlord, I felt relieved. WTF? The reasoning, I think, is that if he's done it to someone else and they were never physically assaulted, that means I don't have to worry too much about it either. But I know even that is iffy. And either way, I shouldn't be happy that someone else has gone through the same thing. Blech.
  


• When we got on the trolley/subway/train ("the T") last night, all the seats were taken -- we weren't the only ones heading to the Penguins game. I am loathe to ask people for any sort of assistance when I'm out in public, because it opens me up to questioning that I don't particularly want to deal with. So I figured, you know, it's just a quarter hour worth of standing, it won't be pleasant but I should be able to manage.
  
  Little did I know that it's not just being upright on one's own two feet: it's holding on to the rail (holding my arms in any unnatural position for too long is painful) and keeping one's feet planted on the ground. Every time the train stopped, started, lurched, turned, or hit a bump, it meant a serious effort to stay upright and not go crashing into some other poor passenger nearby. And it was seriously hard on me, particularly that one arm, and all up and down the backs of my legs.
  
  The suckiest part is that I then had to walk uphill about a mile to the arena, and then try to maintain my balance on a wet cement "bench" while trying to get a decent view through the people and trees in front of me. I emptied a small handful of pain killers into my bag before we left, and there were only two halves left by the time I got home. And I woke up with an awful headache this morning, that I'm still trying to fight off.


• Gas is expensive...
  
  
  ... no, seriously:
  
  
  
  This same station has before advertised their gas at $2.09 when the prevailing price was just a few cents above three dollars: they were obviously going for $2.99. That was the most tightly-packed gas station I've ever seen -- and I lived in California my first twenty years.
  


• I had a bit of a realization on the way home last night. Stress and pain are irrevocably intertwined, we know. I've never been able to pinpoint a recognizable pattern of correlation in my own life, though. Until I paid attention to how I reacted to point no. one above: I pretty much fell into a slump, blank and depressed emotionally, slow and devoid of any energy physically. This is very common for me as a reaction to any stressor.
  
  And now that I think of it, I know I've read on adrenal fatigue (?) -- essentially, in chronic pain patients, the body compensates for the effect of the "extra" pain with adrenaline, but after overproducing for too long, the system becomes fatigued -- and when traditional "fight-or-flight" situations are encountered, the body just sort of shuts down. Whatever the merits of the condition itself*, that's certainly a fair description of what happens to me when I face very stressful situations -- I just shut down, not only emotionally but physically as well. It pretty much lasts as long as it takes for me to be able to clear the worry from my head.
  
  In fact, it's rather similar in function to a panic attack. What's different are the symptoms experienced.
  

*Ugh, I know I started the "alternative takedown" thing here, and I'm still not entirely happy with people who push scam treatments on people who are desparate or disillusioned enough to try anything. But I don't think scorn should be directed toward the people who are suffering with problems that their doctors can't (or won't) diagnose, for whom traditional means of treatment prove ineffective. These are people who are navigating the world they live in as best they can. If there is judgment to be given, a better focus would be the practitioners who push ineffective treatment on people for profit.