Paxil (known as PaxHell among people who quit taking it) is probably the worst thing in the world to me now. I’d even go back to smoking if it would help the withdrawal. Last night, I decided once again to give sleeping without a pill a try. Bad idea. You see, if I take a sleeping pill before I go to sleep, I can fall asleep despite the heart palpitations. If I fall asleep despite them without a pill, I wake up within 10 minutes with not only the heart palpitations, but rapid heartbeat as well. So that’s what happened last night. So I took a Sonata after I was so rudely awakened, but the palpitations were so bad, I felt like I was going to re-enact William Hurt’s famous chest-popping scene from Alien. Except that my neck, back, and face would also explode along with my chest. I had been lying there wishing for sleep for an hour, hubby was asleep beside me (unlike me, he lies down. He falls asleep. He wakes up the next morning well rested. I don’t know how people do that.), which made it even worse, because my upper torso was still throbbing violently away at about 125 beats per minute, and the sleeping pill had made me more drowsy than I started off, but hadn’t put me to sleep. Damn him for sleeping when I couldn’t! (These thoughts are not uncommon, I’ll betcha, when you’ve been sleep deprived like this every single day for more than eight weeks. . .) I picked up my pillow and retreated to the family room, where the lack of a bedside clock and the white noise of the room a/c unit would surely help.

So, yeah, I did manage to fall asleep in there eventually, got up at 6 to visit the bathroom and take my synthroid (pills. . .grrr.) and went back to the family room to sleep. Hubby calling on the phone woke me around 8 or so, and I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t.

Well, during breakfast, I commenced my usual routine. Take a bite. Sneeze. Go get a tissue and wash hands. Pick up food. Put down food. Sneeze. Go get a handful of tissues and wash my hands. Finally finish breakfast and go take an allergy pill. Suddenly, it occurs to me – my allergies aren’t this bad in the Family Room, only in the rest of the house with central air (which we’ve been keeping on regardless of the weather because my outdoor allergies have been hellish down here. . .) I pull out the filter, after I manage to find it. The 30-plus year old furnace/blower gave me no easy clues as to where it was, and I took off the wrong part, which requires far more muscle than I have to put back, so now it’s kind of hanging there. I measure. 18 by 30 inches. Add to the shopping list.

Finally managed to get the laundry hung up and a new load started, and took Daughter #2 shopping. We hit Target, in the hope of finding her some shoes that would go with her Renaissance Faire outfit. Problem is, she’s very picky and has specific tastes and is not particularly adaptable, and has mixed these things up for quite some time (something that is not her taste will be “uncomfortable”, and she’s not willing to let shoes stretch out, for example. . .) Other problem is, her tastes precluded her from picking any of the half dozen shoes that would have passed for Renaissance-y, and she was instead drawn to the boots and the patent leather pumps. We did finally find a compromise, but not before I was about to let her decide between barefoot or sneakers. I hoped beyond hope that Target would also have furnace filters and high-potency wasp killer, but no go. Fortunately, it’s a brief walk across the parking lot to Lowe’s, where they did have the bug spray, but only one kind of filter that would fit our odd size blower.

Let me tell you about this filter. . .it’s just like the one we have. And it’s so convenient! Cut to fit!!!!! Then all you have to do is unscrew the ancient aluminum frame, open it up, wedge each side of the filter into the little tiny rough open edge of the aluminum, repeating multiple times, as the last side you squeezed in comes out as soon as you start wedging in the next. Then screw it back together, wedge in the parts that came loose while you were screwing it together, remove all items that block the doorway next to the furnace because the filter is just as wide as the space between the furnace and the edge of the door, and try to slide the rough-surfaced aluminum frame into the rough-surfaced aluminum slide and fit the furnace pieces back together!! And as far as filtering out allergens? Well, if I were allergic to small alien spacecraft, this would definitely do the trick. It’ll filter out any allergen you can see with the naked eye. Thank goodness for online shopping. The super anti allergen filter size I need is manufactured, and I could even comparison shop, so in a few days I can put in a filter that filters and doesn’t ruin the last few pristine millimeters of my manicure putting it in.