I woke up today with an edgy, jumpy feeling of dread. Of course, I am sure it stems from a lizard corner of my brain dealing with overactive stress (and imagination) with a little bit more andrenaline and nerve juice in the blood stream.

Sometimes, you just get a bit overwhelmed and start thinking, “hey, I should remember to fucking breathe.”

Given that I ain’t never really stopped breathing or hyperventilated from pure worry, this too shall pass no doubt, like most of my irrational emotions (and the rational ones). But, for the moment the darkening, clouded sky is one of them there metaphors.

Truth is somewhere or another August just started getting a bit crazed. From possibly kind of sort of maybe I’m not sure vaguaries about the Fringe Fest in Scotland, I now have a ticket. And, at work the nebulous, theoretical “strategy plan” now has an in-sight due date and the retreat I planned starts tomorrow night.

As an aside, I fucking hate planning major expeditions at work. In this case, it’s an offsite retreat for almost the whole workweek with lodging and food and memos and shit for 12 to 15 co-workers. Now, I’m good at this shit, don’t get me wrong. (Although, realistically, I’m not cooking the food or making the beds, just hiring the caterers and whatnot. Rocket science or storming Omaha Beach it is not.)

But, being responsible for people just kicks my natural tendencies into senseless worry into high gear. It’s why I don’t typically love throwing parties. Like, suddenly, it’s on me if people have eaten, but what if, I dunno, all the stores suddenly close and there’s pestilence and rioting? That’d be my fault, right?

Jumping from spending the work money on a gathering and finding appropriate rooms to meet and sleep and gather and all to working on finding lodging at the Fringe Fest is kind of a busman’s holiday, though, you know. Not to mention, there’s a about 8 or 9 zeroes of decimal point’s difference to the work budget versus my own.

How much exactly can I afford for a week’s stay in Edinburgh? Surely, it won’t be the same business plan rates I handle at work.

Am I willing to sleep in a house with a dog and fuck my allergic self up in an overdrive of histamine production to save a few quid? (Probably “yes” when I was last in Scotland, circa 1984. Probably “no,” now that I’m a bit softer round the middle physically and emotionally.)

To battle the vague angsty feelings of the vague angsty, unformed worries, I’m regressing musically. I spent part of last night and this morning grabbing the tunes from the appropriate late-70s, early-80s period of optimal young adult confusion. I’m tearing it up in my head with the Buzzcocks, Mission of Burma, Dead Kennedys, but this time its on my pricey iPhone not my cheapo, knock off Walkman cassette player.

We even went into a music store last night, and I flipped through the clearance bins for old time’s sake. Even now, I fear the record-store (or I guess CD/DVD-store) employees and their judging eyes as they rang up my buys. I never was cool, and I ain’t likely to renaissance.

For both the retreat and the fest, I can probably grab my toothbrush and just show up. Shit will work itself out. But, I know the innermost dirty truth. I am just not that hip and spontaneous.