Don't Panic

It's Towel Day!  (Okay, not that I knew there was a Towel Day until this year, having finally read the books and all, but I will celebrate this year, dag nabbit.)

We have Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker's Guide books for countless cultural memes and little existences that are so bizarre, hilarious and in some cases meaningful that they actually pre-date the Internet.  Can you imagine?  Among them:  42, Mostly Harmless, and of course, the words which are said to grace the cover of the Guide in soothing letters: "Don't Panic." 

I would really love to internalize that message (and also to get a Babel Fish, but I'd want to yank the fish out of my ear to hear French, because I just adore it).  That (the message and the fish) would be so convenient right about now.  As I have already said over the past weeks, I have had it about up to here *** (up there, at the top of the line) with my level of anxiety lately.  The problem with anxiety, whether you're talking anxiety attacks or generalized anxiety, is that when it's intense enough it actually saps your strength.  Your muscles get weak, first as a psychosomatic symptom, then as a physical reality because you've had them tensed up at either a huge intensity or for a long duration.  The energy the anxiety requires to maintain itself saps your reserves and you find yourself exhausted at the end of a day of doing nothing more than taking a thirty minute walk and doing some light HTML work (which we all know is physically and mentally taxing, woe).     

So let's all breathe deep and internalize the message:  Don't Panic.

And if that doesn't work, let's all find a Babel Fish.