Patsy Cline: "Crazy..."

This isn't something completely out of the blue as it's been building for some weeks now, but today, I woke up feeling rather antsy. It was like I was going to crawl out of my skin if I didn't go for a good run or do something else very athletic. I did my typical morning reading...then I did my normal exercises in the hopes that those would calm me down, but they didn't. Then I read "Little Women" some and when that didn't work, did 30 minutes on the exercise bike. That took it out of me for a few minutes, but not long enough....so I started running laps in the downstairs of my house. That didn't last very long as it _really_ spooked the cat (which was kinda fun ;p )...........but I thought it would be enough. Then I went up to my room to change into "real" clothes....and got a little too close to the footlocker where my baseball mitt and balls and volleyball were stored. So out they came. I tried throwing the baseball in the air a few times, but I realized that what I really wanted to do was throw _hard_, not just play catch with myself. So I pumped up my volleyball and went downstairs. The only place with a relatively high ceiling was under the stairs by the washing machine. It wasn't really enough room, but I was able to hit against the wall a few times. That kinda freaked the cat out too, but instead of hissing and running, he was enthralled....just scared of it. But he'd go chasing the ball anytime it'd get away from me. That was kinda funny.

After that, I finally got dressed....then played piano for a while (hoping _that_ would soothe me some....it didn't)....then came into the office. I'm still pretty keyed up.

It's like "culture shock" finally really hit - 15 months into being overseas and 7 months before I go home....I feel like I'm going to explode if I don't get to play a game of volleyball. A _GOOD_ game (no jungle ball here!). I literally have a difficult time sitting still.

Please be thinking about me right now. I have no idea how to deal with this and it's a really big problem. About the only thing that seems to help is to do some type of physical exertion, but that only works for about half an hour, then it's back (and I can't exactly spend all day, every day in my house running laps). It's like the dam with which I pent up all of my athletic energy has burst and right now I'm awash in the desire to be able to run or play like I'd be able to in America, but which I can't do here.

And in the meantime, I'm going a little nuts....