Aliens

This is not about illegal or legal immigrants in Italy. This post is about stress, and the things it does to a body.

Since we gave notice on January 6 to our landlord that we were leaving Italy, since the worst confrontation with our horrible neighbor on December 14, I have been trying to make lemonade out of lemons, smiling and being polite. I grumble to Angel, but he gets tired of hearing that, too, as I get tired of grumbling (though I have to say that crossing Lungadige...the frontage road along the river...at any time of day is to take your life in your hands, which makes me grumble...see previous post about where in the pecking order pedestrians fall).

My body has given me progressively dire warnings that I have to change my life (which I am going to do) and get out of Dodge (which I am going to do) so that I can feel at home again in my own skin. First, I clench my jaws at night, which started in 2003 after a terrible accident I was in that brought on screaming nightmares. I now clench my teeth so hard on my plastic night guard that my jaws are sore in the morning anyway.

Second, my right eyelid developed a random tic which almost is comical because I think it must look so insane. I wear sunglasses a lot.

Third, I feel a sudden sharp pain in the center of my stomach whenever I have to deal with some absolutely crazy unexplainable piece of Italian bureaucracy, or Italian tell-you-one-thing-mean-another so as not to offend by not saying what you want to hear.

Fourth, and most unexpected, I have ... there is no other way to say this... an external hemorroid. I call it the Alien. Angel asks me how the Alien is today. I tell Angel that I have to get up from our lovely outside table at the cafe and walk around because the Alien is ready to leave. I have had to learn to go into pharmacies (farmacie) and talk in my combination of English and Italian to perfect strangers about my Alien.

Angel Googled for causes of the Alien, and he found...STRESS. He also found OLD AGE, but we are not going to go there. Of course, no more coffee, chocolate, citrus, tomoto, spicy food. Hell, I already don't drink, so this is further limiting my diet. I think I will go on an all-white diet: potatoes, garbanzo beans, cauliflower, pudding, fish, chicken, like that.

I also carry a little inflatable ring to sit on in restaurants. Of course, it fits perfectly into my beautiful Bottega Veneta bag...just the thing.

Stress ('lo stress', in Italian) is my companion.