We watched the final episode of "Xena: Warrior Princess" Saturday night at a friend's house. I haven't followed the series since the first two seasons, but John's been devoted to it, and I couldn't resist seeing how they ended one of the wildest amalgam of plot lines outside of a soap opera. I didn't feel much of an emotional payoff, frankly. Xena gets herself killed in a battle with some Japanese samurai in order to slay a Japanese demon who eats souls, forty thousand of whom she is apparently responsible for having become souls in the first place. She's died before and come back, only this time she has to stay dead, but I don't really know why. That is, the explanation is given but it seems a bit convenient. As I said, not quite the emotional payoff I expected of a series that ran eight years.
Frankly, the best part of the show was when the local emergency broadcast system broke in to warn of a tsunami expected to hit the coast in a few hours. There was a huge earthquake in Peru earlier in the day and the waves from it were forecast to arrive around 1:40 in the morning. I excitedly explained about tsunami and wave trains and subduction zones, Miss Oceanography 2001 on the spot. To our disappointment the warning was later downgraded to a prediction of some fairly ordinary waves instead of a towering wall of water. The people on the coast were no doubt relieved.
Without any sort of warning I've had a recurrence of panic attacks. As soon as I get a referral I will be visiting a psychologist to see if I can work out whether it's random chemical wires crossing or, as in the past, the result of some long term psychological strain. I can't think of what the problem would be, though I don't discount the trauma of losing my dog. Still, it seems decidedly odd because along with everything going very well for me I've done an awful lot of work in the past on resolving old problems and I thought I was all done. I'm not happy to be going through this again. Oh, who am I kidding? I am massively upset because it makes me feel as though I were defective, and also because they are terrifying every single time they happen. They're happening a lot. It's bad. I hate this.
The body is a tricky thing. I try not to take anything for granted, most especially the good things in life. Unlike Xena, I can't come back again.
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