Summertime, and the living is... stressful

Some people deal with stress by exercising. Not me, no sir. I bottle it all up. It's a technique that's served me well over the years. The only side effects are 1) occasionally I give myself an illness that even doctors can't figure out and 2) the stress, it comes out, well, in my dreams. My friend Amy, who's also in graduate school, does the same thing and she and I compared stress dreams the other day. She sent me this email:

"I was up most of the night in panic about my class and how I'm going to get it all done. You will appreciate the stress dream I had: I dreamed that people were holding me down and cutting gashes in my arms and filling the gashes with heroin so I'd become an addict."

To which I replied:

"DUDE. That's a stress dream if I've ever heard one. Wanna hear mine? I dreamt that I went to the doctor for a checkup (which I never do) and they told me I was pregnant. Not just pregnant, though: ABOUT TO GIVE BIRTH. But, uh, I didn't look pregnant. I didn't feel pregnant. I was not, that I knew of, pregnant, and CERTAINLY not nine months pregnant. But the doctors, they were convinced that I was pregnant, and had decided to cut me open to haul the (nonexistent) baby out."

Probably not the best way to deal with stress, but it certainly makes for interesting conversations!