Angry all the time

Kathleen wants to know why I am angry all the time. And she's right. I am angry all the time. Or at least most of the time. I try to hide it from her and from myself but when I really think about it, I am angry a lot. I get ticked off easily (too easily) any more. Little stuff, big stuff and more just tick me off. When I am alone, I let it out. When I am with Kathleen or anyone else, I just cover it up. 

All this came to light today when Kathleen went back to work and found a message from me on her work phone. It seems that when I had gone out to get dinner on Saturday night at our favorite Mexican take-out place, I had inadvertently hit her office number on my cell while it was in my sweatshirt pocket and she got to hear my totally ticked-off tirade about the idiot drivers taking forever to get into the parking lot where I wanted to go. It wasn't just that. It was just the whole thing. I started making lists of things that have just been ticking me off. It's always the little stuff. 

Here's what I mean. Kathleen needed an Amazon gift certificate for a gift exchange at work. So I went on early today to get it for her. First problem was you had to know who to make it out to. Well since it was a grab bag kind of gift, we didn't know. So I had to wait until she got home to finish the purchase. Then it should have been an easy thing to buy it and print it. But that was not to be. She got home, we figured it out and I bought it. But did Amazon recognize me (like it ALWAYS does)? No! I have to type in all the passwords and then it finally lets me put in my credit card. Then it won't take my credit card because I didn't tell it that it was the right kind of card. So I have to type everything back in again. Then I get it purchased but it won't let me download the PDF and print it because I have to wait to get the e-mail that confirms I bought it. But the computer I was on (that was hooked up to my color printer so I could print it) doesn't have e-mail. So I had to go to this computer (my laptop) get the e-mail, save the PDF and then copy back to the computer connected to my USB color printer. Then I tell it to print and the printer is out of yellow ink. It's been printing fine up until then but now it wants yellow ink. WHAT THE ^#%&&$^%$$%#%#!!! So I get out yellow ink and try to install only to find that the only yellow in I have only fits the printer I used to have. So I have to e-mail the PDF to Kathleen's computer upstairs so I can print it there. I finally get it printed but it has now taken more than 30 minutes for something that should have taken five minutes, MAX! That's the frustration I am talking about. Things like that happen all the time. 

And don't even get me started about my head. It is a constant irritation. As great as my psoriasis has been the new treatment that Dr. Greene has for my scalp means that I have to have a solution on my head covered by a shower cap for 6-8 hours a day. And under that shower cap it itches constantly. Like having continuous poison oak. My head itches just about 24-7. But it has improved my scalp enough that I am no longer losing big chunks of scalp and hair. 

Is there any wonder that I am on edge constantly. And there just isn't enough time in the day. And an awful lot of people I deal with are just plain stupid. I am sorry. I have gotten to the point where I don't suffer fools very well. And for some reason I seem to attract the fools more and more all the time. 

I wish I could figure out a way to not be so stressed on a regular basis. I just have too much going on. Too much to do. I'm just damn tired of this. I know that to relieve stress there are lots of things I can do. A big one is exercise. I already work out an hour a day and get up at 4:20 am to do it. I can't do anymore. I just can't.

Frustration and guilt

Oh boy, two of my favorite topics. 

I am frustrated today. Why, because the person I love the most in the world is sick and there is nothing I can do about it. As mentioned before, Kathleen has shingles. And they are painful and making her tired and worse. I want to do something to help her besides putting gas in her car or cooking dinner but since I am not a doctor there is nothing I can do beyond what I am doing. Frustration! 

Kathleen says that I am a typical "man" that has to solve every problem that comes his way. And that is pretty much true. When we have disagreements or arguments, I don't want to discuss things. I just want to know what I need to do to fix something and then to fix it. Cut to the core of the thing. You get sick, let's fix it. Maybe that's why I love my new dermatologist. His attitude is, you have psoriasis? Let's cure it. And he just keeps trying until he does. And he has. I am just about 99% psoriasis free.

Now to the guilt. I grew up Catholic. More Catholic than my brothers and sister. I went to 9 years of Catholic school. I was an altar boy, sang in the choir and was taught by nuns in 6 of those 9 years. Nothing instills guilt like a Catholic upbringing. And this coming week the guilt is going to set in. On Sunday I have to fly to Orlando to attend Jostens annual National Sales School. And it's bad enough when I go and leave Kathleen when she is well (OK, I admit it, we hate being away from each other) but when she is sick it will drive me nuts. I have already offered to cancel but she is adamant that she will be OK and that I am just being foolish. Of course she has always said that about my "stupid guilt" and she is probably right. She usually is, on most things. That's why I love her so much.

Psoriasis makes me look like The Edge

The last few days have been a pretty downer. Not sure why but part of it has been my new scalp psoriasis treatment. If I have not mentioned it before I have psoriasis. Many people do not know exactly what psoriasis is so let me clarify. If you have psoriasis then your skin (or at least parts of it) grows about five times as fast as other people's skin. Since everyone's skin grows and flakes off in microscopic pieces and you completely shed your entire skin about every month or so those of us with psoriasis can do that on parts of our skin (plaques) in about an hour. I can seriously say that I can scrape off some of the skin and an hour later it will be back. 

I have had this since I was about 42 or 43. It's hereditary. My grandfather and one of my brother's has it. So I have been fighting it for more than 13 years. And not very well. It gets better and it gets worse. At the end of November I got totally fed up, ditched my current dermatologist (who was an idiot) and found a new one and I can now say that the man is a miracle worker. At the end of November I would say that I had psoriasis plaques over about 30% of my body and in my scalp. As of today, I have NONE other than my scalp. 

I have been doing narrow band UV light treatments three times a week at Group Health in Seattle for almost all of November and December and it works. THANK YOU GOD and Dr. Green. But my scalp (because the light doesn't get to it) is still giving me problems. I did try some medicine for the entire time I was doing the light treatment but it didn't work too well. So when I met with Dr. Greene last week he suggested we try something new with my scalp.

So now, for six hours a day minimum, I have to put stuff in my hair and then wear a shower cap to keep it moist and warm. It's really fun as my scalp itches like crazy when I have it on. Thank God I work at home and can wear the shower cap in the morning when I am hear alone. Some people wear it at night but I sleep so lousy now that doing that would only make it worse. So I have elected to wear it from 6:00 in the morning when I finish my workout until just after lunch. And it's not fun and it really puts me in a bad mood. And this week I have had people coming by to service things here at the house so I got a ski cap to wear when people come by. Kathleen decided it makes me look like The Edge. (If you don't know The Edge, he is the guitarist for U2). 

So that brings me to my bad mood this week. It's hard to concentrate on work when your scalp is itching like you have poison oak. It's the pits. Today I had a lot of non-computer work to do and that seemed to help. I packaged and shipped my newsletters today and that keeps me busy enough on menial tasks to ignore the itching. Which brings me to today, which was a good day! Now maybe I can sleep tonight.