‘Pronoia’ p.271 #1: Have you ever had permission to indulge in a marathon of braggadocio? Have you ever gotten an invitation to bluster on endlessly about your own charms without feeling even a touch of guilt or inhibition? I hereby grant you such a license right now.

To whet you imagination, read an excert from the boast of Eric Baer, a participant in a Brag Therapy session hosted in Milwaukee. “I have opposable thumbs, ” Eric exulted. “I can read. I breathe all the way through the night even though I’m asleep. I have access to emporiums where I can choose from 25 different brands of toilet paper. I know how to turn food into energy. I live where knuckleheads run everything and yet nothing ever blows up.”

NOTE: I’ll be honest, it honestly took me a couple days to muster the gumption to do this exercise. But what the hell? You only live once. Here we go:

I sing rock songs done originally by men so well that I don’t have to pay a bar tab at most karaoke bars, and not just because I don’t drink alcohol. I put brown sugar in my tea which makes it more awesome than usual. I have the prettiest, healthiest, thickest hair of anyone I know - and the color is divine. I was curvy before it was trendy. I can say the alphabet backwards. I have hitchhiker’s thumbs. I have a soul and believe in helping people who can’t help themselves, which means that I may have to sacrifice some of my luxury to do so. Sometimes when I get on a roll I’m funny as shit. I can win debates with about 85% of people and I can level those people with calm, stealthy rhetoric. I’ve sampled more types of chocolate than most people my age. I have unbelievably dark and long lashes. I’ve rung up a $50 tab on sashimi all by myself. I can alternate reading the same 5 books and still remember where I was and what was happening in each of them. I believe in changing energies and the Law of Attraction and perform rituals to do so. I can do the best Ethel Merman impression you’ve ever heard. I can dance like a fiend. I only get about 4 zits every year. I can eat a whole gallon of chocolate ice cream in one sitting. I wrote my first piece of erotica at 12 years old. I can sing every song on Styx’s “Paradise Theatre” and “The Grand Illusion” albums by heart. I’m not allergic to ANYTHING. My child literally uses manners in her sleep because I rock at setting an example. I spoil my friends with presents, even when I can’t afford them. Actually, I love giving people things in general and have been known to make myself broke by making donations to charities, people, bums on the street, etc. I waited until I was totally ready to lose my virginity and, no, I don’t think I was too young and, no, I won’t be upset if my daughter loses hers at the same age. I’m more introspective and proactive about changing my dysfunctions than at least 70% of the rest of the people in the society in which I was raised. My nose piercing has looked the same since the minute it was done - no swelling, no infection, no redness, just adorableness. I’m the biggest ‘Sesame Street’ nerd I know. I have a fantastic alias/nom de plume. I totally pick up on social cues even though I choose to ignore a lot of them. I have five short stories I’ve been working on for a year now. My body magically knew to provide me with too much seratonin and dopamine during my pregnancy as a defense mechanism against my chronic depression. My eyes change color every day. I know how to spell. Every time that I’ve done something that someone else has perceived as psychotic, I’ve been fully aware that that was what was going to happen and I went ahead and did it anyway - sometimes just to freak people out. I’ve never ever cried to get myself out of a ticket. I look adorable in earmuffs, a furry hat, pincurls, dreadlocks, kitty-cat ears and 1950’s style A-line housedresses. I’ve had over 20 diaries and journals since I was 5 and I’ve kept all of them. I know exactly how to be annoying and I can cite the minute it happens with anyone I’m targeting. Oh yeah, and I annoy people I don’t like but have to be around because it’s totally fun and I’m thoroughly amused by it… and because I have to let my inner brat out from time to time. I pwned the 12 Steps and tools of therapy. I’m so irresistable I’ve had to put out not one but two restraining orders on people. I won a multiplication bee when I was in the 3rd grade and, because the teacher preemptively knew I’d win it, she bought me some Sherlock Holmes books ’cause she knew I loved reading them. I’m fully aware when I say things that make me look dysfunctional. I was the only one giggling when I saw both “Titanic” and “The Notebook” (I was dragged) in the theatre. Despite what my high school drama teacher (”facilitator”) said, I got my own paragraph-of-glowing-praise in the public reviews from the only two community theatre productions I’ve ever been in… and in one of those productions I didn’t even speak. I make ideal pancakes. I have over 40 mix tapes and CDs that were made by friends in the last ten years. Oh, and I make arguably better mix CD’s than most people. I saved at least $1,000 by buying all my textbooks from Amazon.com and teaching my family how to do the same. I work every day on self-betterment, even if I don’t have time for it. I didn’t marry an idiot. I have my own desk, my own computer, my own filing cabinet, my own Etsy store, my own three domains and my own two blogs. I get gifts from across the planet every year. I make the most artistically badass scrapbooks I’ve ever seen. I’ve played a 200 year old piano located at Juliette Gordon Low’s house after the tour guide said, “We only let one girl do this every year.” I’m so irresistable I’ve had not one, but three “stalkers” (crazy people who won’t leave me alone and keep calling/harassing me because they’re in love) and have had handfuls of people I’ve heard can’t/won’t/don’t stop talking about me even years after I’ve forgotten them. I live in North Carolina. I know a real enigma. I survived both jr. high and high school. I’m not a bigot. I’m a neo-feminist which means that I can enjoy baking, sewing, knitting, etc without feeling some sort of guilt that I’m backsliding or being a slave to societal patriarchy. I look awesome in red. I also look awesome with purple highlights in my hair. My guitar was given to me by a Grammy winner and Top 40 recording artist. My top half is two sizes smaller than my lower half. I can recite every line in “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” The Movie. I’m no longer envious of, threatened by or hateful to beautiful women (and not just because I’ve embraced the fact that they turn me on.) I have a Pick of Destiny. I get more excited about autumn than most [Christian] kids do about Christmas. I’ve never seen an episode of “The Hills”, “Laguna Beach” or “Jersey Shore”. I won/earned a Girl Scout Silver Award before anyone else in my troop did and I earned every Try-It that Brownie Girl Scouts could in the early 90’s. I’ve traveled abroad and have been to all but 15 of the United States. I’ve learned how to cut needy idiots out of my life once they’ve screwed up too many times instead of staying emotionally invested and draining myself for no reason. I stopped biting my fingernails. I have the cutest child on the planet who also happens to be polite, selfless, sociable and giggly. After years of apologizing and making amends for all those years I was a terrible, awful person, I’m finally in the clear and don’t owe anyone anything [for the moment]!!! I had the best wedding I’ve ever heard of in my entire life.

Last year, one of my friends told me: “All your fears are lies.” This is something I’ve believed for a while now but I’d never really thought of it in such a stripped-down, obvious concept: Yes! Those restraints holding me back in the form of tangible fear are fortress walls that simply do not exist. Not only do they not exist to anyone else, but they don’t exist to me, either. This is one of those things I repeat to myself daily.

However, there was a second level to the principle that my self-provided lies held me captive, that I recently discovered has been an even bigger contributor to/foundation of my general mentality and motivations for a couple decades now. And I don’t know if it necessarily applies to everyone, so I can’t make a grandeur universal statement about it like the one my friend brought to me. So instead I’ll just try to explain.

For no discernable reason whatsoever, I’ve always had this inexplicable habit of subconsciously assigning everyone I meet with a level of “Importance.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re good people, it doesn’t mean that they’re intelligent people, hell, it doesn’t even mean that I like them. But, for whatever reason, in my mind, every person I come across gets placed on a scale of “Importance” and, from then on, I keep this status of them in my mind from then until forever, allowing them the appropriate level of respect or clout.

Okay, let me stop right now and explain profusely that I honestly don’t know where in hell this came from, why in the hell I do it, when exactly I started doing it, and what in the hell it all means. It could be a product of that inevitable/imperative time in adolescence when some alpha-dog bully wrangled power away from me and controlled my emotions, it could be based in some bizarre biological recognition of societal survivalism principles, or it could just mean that I’m a hypercognitive wackadoo. But, whatever the case, I’ve aaalways been one of those people who allotted a hierarchy to everyone in my immediate surroundings and adhered to these completely fabricated rulings as if everyone I knew was aware of and participating in this specific political structure as well.

[Though, to be observational for a second, I believe a lot of this exists/begins in superficial social situations like high school or Hollywood. For example, a bunch of people think So-And-So is pretty so everyone else goes along with that inherent belief even if they don't necessarily agree and she ends up winning Homecoming Queen every year or being invited to parties by people who don't even really enjoy her company, etc. (This isn't something I'm proud to say I relate to by any means, but I think it's about as close of a parallel as I can draw to what I'm talking about.)

But, outside of the aforementioned superficially-based environs, the best example of people having assigned others around them to a personal level of "Importance" to which they adhere is found in abusive relationships. Any man or woman who would abuse their partner is disgusting to begin with but there are so many times where a victim tolerates the abuse of someone who is nothing short of repulsive (in intelligence, appearance, competence, motivation, etc.) because they believe that person is "Important" or, at least, moreso than themselves. (I'm speaking in generalities here, although I have had enough friends prostrate themselves and take entirely too much abuse from hideous, uneducated, self-centered morons who would be attractive to nobody with objective taste for me to believe that this is more than a coincedence. But then, attractive, well-educated, self-aware men/women don't hate themselves enough to be abusive, so it's all cyclical, I guess... ANYWAY.)]

In hopes to find a remedy, I sat down a while ago and made a list of all the people who I’d subconsciously deemed as “Important” at any time in my life and noted how that invisible caste system had effected how I reacted to events in my relationships with them, how I thought about myself, how I made my decisions, etc. And once I’d gotten the obvious people out of the way, I started assessing every single person that I’d ever been in some personal relationship with (friends, family members, co-workers, professors, etc.) and was shocked when I realized just how screwed up my mentality had been for forever, it seemed. There were people who had the ability to make me feel unimportant or full of self-doubt who contained every single horrible trait that I loathed, and yet, they had remained on my subconscious “Important” list and I’d never stopped to think that maybe they didn’t belong there. Meanwhile, there were people who have never been anything but amazing to me and who go out of their way to love me and never say otherwise whose combined gestures of kindness couldn’t cancel out one gesture of one of the crappy people on the “Important” list in my fucked-up mindset. What the hell?!

Needless to say, I was pretty embarrassed. Especially because none of this was really news to me but, because I’d never looked at all of it objectively and admitted “I give people I don’t even like more sway on my emotions than people who actually respect me.”, I was willing to dive into drama with people I genuinely thought were gross wastes of time instead of doing anything else - including being with people who were awesome to be around… or just doing nothing by myself… again. Anything. Anything else. - just because I’d at some point deemed these people “Important”. For no valid reason. I was willing to shrug off my morals and dignity and time on people who just didn’t matter at all. And I’m not even talking about the Big false-”Important” people, but also about the more minor players of that category, like distant family members who made me feel insecure for the half hour I saw them annually or asshole former acquaintences who were mutual friends with one of my Facebook friends and would attempt to pick fights with me via “Status” commentary. The whole thing was just so stunted and backward, I felt like a naive 3rd grader who just realized that all adults don’t know everything.

So, in order to rewire my brain and reverse the current, I started over by making two new Lists. I know. I know it seems ridiculous and even more juvenile than the first subconscious “assignment system” but I figured I had to undo the procedure in an equally effective method. I literally spent a few hours going through every person I’d been in some form of contact with in the last 10-ish years and put them on a list of “Important to Me” and “Not Important to Me”. (The “to Me” part was included because I’m sure everyone is important to someone else. Just not to me. I can’t be a judge of their overall importance, you know?) I was pleased to find that the “Important to Me” list far outweighed the “Not Important to Me” list, but the few of those who were in the grey area received the benefit of the doubt and were put on the former of the lists. (Everyone’s “Important” until they prove otherwise to me. Everyone.)

I started to wonder if this categorization method, too, was unhealthy but then I realized that everyone has people who are more important to them than others. This doesn’t mean that everyone walks around and judges everyone else’s Importance (and it definitely doesn’t mean that everyone has a list sitting around of who’s “In” and who’s “Out”), just that everyone values each other differently. And I needed to work out my own personal economics for once without getting involved in everyone else’s exchange rates…

The funny thing is that when I sat and looked at the “Not Important to Me” list, I was shocked at how many of these people had not one appealing trait. Most of the people on the list sucked very very badly, but had at least one or two decent qualities to make me doubt their “Not Importance” from time to time. However, the handful of those who didn’t were just another glaring reiteration of the power of my personal agreements, especially evidenced in the way my mind automatically flipped completely over to “Yuck!” mode once I physically moved those names onto a “Not Important” list. Seriously, it was kind of bizarre. I’ve had this thing for a while that, when I find someone both annoying, intolerable and physically unappealing, I cannot make eye contact with them anymore. (I know. That is just an awful thing to say out loud. When I get to hell, I’ll get Kathy Griffin’s autograph for you.) I’ve done this my whole life, actually and it’s just something I can’t fix [or don't want to yet.] I can watch any sort of sick video you can whip out (I literally just watched a video of a girl having sex with a giant teddy bear before murdering it with a knife. Not kidding. -Thanks, Brody!) but put me in a room with someone I think thoroughly sucks and I’ll involuntarily cringe and look away the whole time. So, within a matter of a few hours, people I’d always deemed to be somehow worthy of persuasive powers and general attention became mentally unbearable once looked at objectionably. So it actually worked.

God, this whole thing reads as kind of nuts, but personally I wouldn’t have done it any other way as it’s seemed to work. And in the many months following this, I’ve made assessing the value of the people I choose to keep around me a regular practice, as I’ve chosen not to waste any more of my time on people who aren’t important to me. (Obviously, this doesn’t mean I’m not ever going to make any friends or give to charity ever again; again, I think everyone is “Important” until they prove otherwise. Isn’t that kind of a given, though?) And I am pleasantly surprised at how much better I feel in my daily life and in my relationships… although I’m still pretty embarrassed it took me this long to get to this step.

When am I going to start “getting” things when everyone else does? Why are common realizations so easy for other people but it takes me months of overzealous deliberation to understand the most basic social concepts or implement the most obvious habits? Is every Great Life Realization going to take this kind of mental defragging procedure for the rest of my life…

::shrug::

Schmeh. Better late than never.

Usually, I’m one of those positive-energy mongers, always pushing myself to keep the Big Picture in mind and seek out the good and/or humorous in everything. It’s been a very rewarding practice in the last couple years since I adopted it, actually, and is something I hope to pass along to my kid(s). However, in the last week or so since The Bad Thing descended on my psyche, I’ve felt like more things have begun to weigh on me. Even with my inherent Autumnal Excitement and the good things that are going on around me right now, I feel like my mind is going, “Wait! I just need an effing break from all this positivity. I’d like to look at some things objectively and note that they suck without having to think of a way to make them better or fix them or whatever. Just gimme a second.”

And, because I do believe in the Law of Attraction, I know that a lot of the negativity that’s cropping up has a lot to do with the negativity I’m wasting time thinking about and/or being frustrated over. So, while this Release of Complaints to the Universe could really go either way, I’m hoping that I’m just using this as a means to exorcise these thoughts from my consciousness. Perhaps I’ll counter this with a Counting of Blessings post. That actually sounds like a good way to recharge myself after the following Whineage Dump.

Lessgo:

~ I’ve become completely disillusioned with Facebook in a way that’s beginning to depress me. Admittedly this is mostly my fault for making my frequent visits a daily habit. I sort of justified posting pictures and commenting on people’s pics and stats to myself as me being able to stay in better touch with people I don’t get to see as often as I’d like. And for the most part that’s pretty true.

The thing is, I have 630+ “friends” on there, all of whom I know by name and have had real actual conversations with in real life. (And only one of them is an ex boyfriend!) At first, it’s really a lot of fun to pull a High School Reunion and go look through photo albums to see how one’s 2nd-grade crush has turned out or find out if the prom queen got fat and any of that other stuff that keep people returning to reunions with people from adolescence. (Thus the reason that h.s. reunion attendence has declined in the last couple years.) But after that you just kind of find yourself hanging on to these electronic connections between these people for the sake of manners or some other new internet etiquette bullshit for absolutely no reason. After a while it becomes apparent that laughing at how that middle school bully turned into a fat, ignorant, racist drunk just isn’t as much fun or validating as it used to be and that the only thing that connection succeeds in doing is reminding you why you hated him so much in the first place. Sure, there are instances where I’ve been able to forge new connections with people I wasn’t necessarily friends with in high school and I’ve even been able to have really intellectual conversations with those types of people that have broadened my thinking and challenged my beliefs. But really, who cares? If we all really wanted to be involved in each others’ current lives, wouldn’t we make it a point to do so? We can share internet memes and funny websites with each other via email, we can pick up the phone and call people who live out of town, we can organize parties and arrange reunions without the use of a formal “Event.” Hell, we can even go about our daily activities without requiring commentary from everyone we know.

And before we start weighing in on my inherent hypocrisy, I realize that I’ve bought into the hype as well. I syndicate this blog through my profile and post recent pictures of funny things that I’ve seen or experienced and send friends links to hilarious new websites and take meaningless quizzes about what sort of famous person I’m supposed to be an embodiment of. Like a lot of people, it’s become a bit of a lifestyle if not only a habit. I check it when I get bored, I kill time by commenting on other people’s ramblings. But after a while, it all just seems like perpetuating our own desperate need to be noticed and recognized (much like, say, a blog) where we’re throwing every detail of our lives into a public forum in hopes to prove that we’re still alive! And existing! Look! Here are pictures of me with other friends hanging out in real life!

And the truth of the matter - and the thing that makes me the most depressed - is that it’s apparent that Facebook is sort of like living in a small town; while there are people who are genuinely exciting to be around and may find you exciting to be around as well, mostly there are just a bunch of people you don’t particularly wandering around believing in the great myth of themselves and living in this state of circular nothingness that’s not exciting enough to warrant even an hour’s worth of conversation, let alone constantly updated spot on a News Feed. Same people. Doing the same shit. With the same other people. This time via the Internet.

Aside from the fact that the whole system is kind of boring and trite, I’ve become bothered with my need to participate in this as often as I do and even more bothered by the realization that I can’t just cut myself off from it just yet. I think this may be a weaning, trimming-of-the-fat situation in which I whittle down my friend base to just the people I care enough about to keep in touch with in the Grand Scheme. And then there is the adjusting-of-the-frequency-of-my-visits. I wonder how much I could get done in my day if I didn’t stop by Facebook so often to reply to someone’s commentary or share a funny link with everyone I know. I wonder if I could do everything on my To Do List in a realistic amount of time and I wonder how far I could go about developing this Great Image I have for myself and my life.

I feel like in anyone’s life there are ways to create distractions from our higher purpose and even if I get rid of the habit of Facebook, there will always be something that will invite me to slack off and divert my attention. But I also think that this is a major thing that is also draining a bit of me personally. I gotta do something about that.

~ My haaaaair. It’s not really as awful as I make it sound and, after scrubbing it with Dawn detergent and superduper dandruff shampoo, it’s getting better but it’s still not what I wanted. I hate wasting an autumn on a mediocre hair color.

~ I think I’m going to have to ditch some friends. This is always hard for me because of my weird thank-you-for-noticing-me mentality I developed in jr. high in which I just feel honored that anyone is taking note of me at all (I really should start growing out of that. I’ve had enough therapy. It’s time.) and I should be lucky to have friends at all, so I don’t want to run the few I have off. And really, in the last three years I’ve become much much better at cutting off people who like to perpetuate self-loathing insanity and the resulting drag-everyone-into-it drama that inevitably ensues. (These are the people for whom I used to prepare arguments to defend my reasoning and give them a respectful “This is why I’m cutting you off” speech -complete with bulleted points and relevant examples - only to have them completely disregard it or not get any of it at all. Now there’s just a personal severance.)

The problem at the moment is that the [useta-be] friends I’m having to cut off at the moment hit a little closer to home. I’ve not always been a good friend to a lot (a lot) of people that I consider my friends and I’m incredibly lucky to have received love and forgiveness from many of them, but these days I work really hard on being selfless and giving and nurturing and attentive and all that. I really do. And, again, I’m incredibly lucky to have a handful of really good friends who give me the same - or moreso - in return. (Some of these friends I haven’t even met in person. I know that sounds weird but I’ve had a small group of old message board buddies that I’ve known for about 5 years who have been amazing to me.) But I have a few friends who have been very Take-Take here recently and I think it’s about time I pulled the plug on it. And I’m not the type to just give up on someone but if it’s been a couple years and I’m not getting anywhere and they’re not “getting it” then I don’t really feel bad at all. In fact, with one of the friends I’m shocked at how apathetic I feel about the whole thing.

I am severely, noticeably awkward.
And not in a way I know how to classify.

A lot of people say that about themselves, mostly because “awkward” has somewhat become a trendy form of humor these days like in “The Office” with the painfully social ineptitude of those characters or the bumbling awkwardness of Lemon on “30 Rock.” In this new post-technological society where nerds are ruling the world, “awkward” has suddenly become a mainstream form of “genius” entertainment, bringing back styles similar to those created by Andy Kaufman.

There’s the cool awkward where a cute girl is klutzy or emotionally crippled in some adorable, faux-needy way.
I’m not that.

Then there’s the “nerd” awkward where the social ineptitude leaks over from adolescence into the real world and LARPers and Trekkies still think it’s important to violently argue about Asimov’s theories. (By the way, it’s weird how geeks across the planet have the same awkward speech cadences and ticks, or how they have identical gestures or facial quirks… it’s like a gene.)

That’s not me, either.

There’s the random-humor-and-obscure-loser-reference awkward that Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island guys like to play with.

Not me.

And then the painfully-insecure-overcompensating-Michael-Scott-epic-fail type of awkward.

Ehh… Used to be me. Then I stopped drinking, so not so much anymore.

And there are countless other subcategories that aren’t really publicly illustrated but are definitely noticeable to the average person. There’s the fat-girl-lost-a-lot-of-weight-and-doesn’t-know-she’s-hot-so-still-acting-self-loathing-and-sell-outty awkward. There’s the 40-year-old-math-teacher-divorcee-trying-to-reclaim-her-youth awkward. There’s obligatory-creepy-lecherous-perv awkward. There’s the-gay-guy-trying-to-cling-onto-the-coatrack-in-the-closet-even-though-everyone-KNOWS awkward. The list could go on forever.

Again, none of these are my type of awkward.

I’ve known about my type of awkward since I was little and started listening to my deeper-than-everyone voice on my parents’ tape recorder. I noticed that my cheeks encompassed a majority of my face and the corners of my mouth stick together when I’m talking, which has caused more than one person to remark, “You remind me a lot of Melissa Joan Hart.” (…awesome…) My nose spreads endlessly across my face like a tribute to Bill Cosby, my arms have always looked like turkey legs even at the peak of my weight-training regimen, I have more facial hair than anyone who isn’t Italian should legally have and for whatever reason, I’ve always been at the very least a leeeetle heavier than my doctor says I should be.

And that’s just the physical stuff. I literally can’t leave any social situation without having at least one moment I look back on and think, “Why in the hell did I do/say/wear that?! What the eff is wrong with me!?” Fortunately, these actions are never part of a major disagreement or conflict (God blesses me with good judgment and the ability to only say what I mean during those moments) but the other 96% of my life is fair game for my social uselessness. Actually, the only place I don’t immediately flinch at my actions in retrospect is in text and I accredit that to my ability to edit. This same questioning-of-actions is constant and is heightened when I revisit old performances or photos or memories of defunct relationships or any era when I was really reeeeaally dysfunctional and/or inebriated. Suffice to say, there’s a lot of forehead slapping involved in my self-analysis.

And honestly? Yes, I am always amazed that I’m able to have/keep better-than-amazing friends and even more amazed that I’ve ever been able to trick anyone into finding me attractive. That’s the truth.

Don’t get me wrong here. When I say that I’m awkward, this is not me being self-depreciative or loathing, if you can believe that. I’m not saying I’m socially inept or incapable of any sort of productive, enjoyable existence. And I’m definitely not saying that I don’t have any redeeming qualities about myself, physically or otherwise. I’m really just saying that even after spending years upon years watching myself and finding that, even after years of therapy and tankerloads of introspection, the Awkward is the one thing that remains constant. It’s mine to keep, apparently.

The problem with having recognized my awkwardness is that, unlike performers like Rachel Dratch or Chris Farley who seized their awkwardness and entertained the masses with it, I have no idea how to make any of my Awkward appealing or humorous… or if it’s even possible. At all.

Even though I worked a lot of the “Who am I?”s and the “What the hell is going on with me?”s out in my younger years, I’ve come to realize that I still waste a LOT of time grappling with this ongoing resistance to the ultimate notion that I’m a bit left of center. I still play dress up and take pictures of myself to try to convince myself that I’m extraordinarily attractive when really, even the one usable photo out of every 200 that I take is only satisfactory. I still fling as much of myself “out there” as I possibly can even if I have absolutely nothing informed or relevant to bring to any table at which I may be aiming. I recognize that I did a lot more of that in my adolescence, which is really strange considering how much I haaated myself. You would think that someone who was completely convinced she was a hideous moron would hide under a rock but for some reason, I still enjoyed being a bit rogue and outspoken when I could… I know; it doesn’t make any sense to me, either.

Now, though, I don’t have all the disgust and hate for myself that trails around with me through all my actions, so I’m really just looking at myself objectively. I’m awkward, not ever going to fit into some battleax role, nor am I ever going to be a lusty object of desire. And, despite all my flailing idiocy, I’m 99.9% sure that I’m always going to slide into average obscurity with the rest of the masses. That’s just how it is and I’ve become happy with that. (And yes, for the record, I do blame this celebrity-crazed society of ours for trying to convince everyone that if they aren’t wildly famous or publicly lauded then they aren’t worthwhile. It’s all lies that I’m happy to avoid.)

However, the underlying question that keeps nagging at me after all these conclusions is simply “Where the hell does that put me?”

What does my type of Awkward qualify me for? Where would my Awkward be best utilized? How can I get that to work for me? How do I even start figuring all that out?

What I Should’ve Said: A Collection of Unsent Letters
by Castallare

Table of Contents

I.
Everything I Needed to Know NOT to Do, I Learned From You Idiots.

II.
Pathologically Lying about Trivial, Unimportant Things Makes You Look Certifiably Crazy
or - By the Way, We’re Onto You.

III.
Is There Any Stereotype of Ignorant White Trash You Don’t Fit?
or - Stories About Your Family’s Tasteless Antics Will Fit Nicely Into My Novels

IV.
Your Beliefs are All Oxymoronic and You Sound Like an Imbecile Proclaiming Them Constantly

V.
If I Had a Dollar For Every Time I’ve Wanted to Tell You to Grow Up and Stop Whining All The Damned Time, I Could Afford a Mansion of Roman Proportions. Literally.
or - Yes, People Really Are Avoiding You On Purpose
or - Diplomacy and Class Have Kept Me From Ripping Your Face Off and Making You Cry

VI.
You’re Evidence That There Are People Without Souls
… So There’s No Need For You To Worry About The Afterlife

VII.
One Day You’ll Pay Money To Watch Lesbians in Action
… So Making Fun of Them Now Kind Of Makes You Look Stupid

VIII.
You’re a Jealous Coward
… But Because I Love You, I’m Not Mad At You Anymore

IX.
I Get Why You Drink But You’d Be Better Off Just Leaving
or - Tell Me Again Why You Married This Guy?

X.
How Did You Become Such a Materialistic Bitch?
or - Wow, That Didn’t Take Long at All.

XI.
No, I Don’t Give a Shit How Much Money You Have: Rich or Not, You Still Suck
or - Having a Giant House Won’t Save Your Soul

XII.
Everyone Who Matters Is Seriously Over You
or - How Come You Didn’t Turn Out As Cool As Everyone Else?

~ Sometime after I got pregnant I turned into a giant softie. I wasn’t emotionally devoid before this or anything but ’round the time I got knocked up I found my emotions had moved to just a sceeerraaatch below the surface. Suddenly I was the woman crying about Clorox commercials (The one where the little girl is pretending to be a mermaid in her bathtub, to be exact. I was thinking “One day my daughter will have an imagination!”. Waterworks.) I kind of thought that this would go away after all the Natal Juice dissipated. No such luck.
And honestly, it’s more than just ridiculous at this point. I mean, there are things that have always made me cry (”The Land Before Time” made me sob in the theatre when I was 8. I can’t even listen to the music to this day and I haven’t seen it in some 17-ish years…) but then there are things that make me tear up for absolutely no reason at all. This happens about once a day and, while I’ve developed a technique for thwarting oncoming tears, I’m still pretty embarrassed by the whole thing. And the motives for the tears run the gamut, too.
My husband tells my daughter she’s beautiful? Tears.
A woman is crying in her car in the Sonic parking lot? Tears.
A song reminds me that I miss my best friend? Tears.
Holocaust footage? Just as many tears as if I see a dead cat on the side of the road.

~ The programming on Bravo is making me lose faith in humanity. With all these “Real Housewives” shows and other shows based around self-centered, drama-laden idiots it’s turning into MTV for adults. Which. Is. Gross.

~ Celebrity verdicts? Alright, here we go:

- I don’t think Dave Chappelle lost his mind; I think he didn’t want to sell his soul for fame and that’s admirable and even more indicative of his genius. I miss his work but I admire his integrity.

- I don’t think Michael Jackson did anything with those kids. Do I think the man was bonkers as a result of a fuuuuucked up childhood? Yes. Do I think that his music was only really “great” when he was working with Quincy Jones? No question. But the first kid who’s parents pressed charges came out years later and admitted to making the whole thing up and the second case pretty much showcased a mother out for MJ money. Also, when the kids stayed in his bed, he slept on the floor. Just let the man rest peacefully, for Christ’s sake. I really think that his life is one of the saddest stories I’ve ever heard. Fame took a toll on his sanity; he’s free from it now. Let’s try to learn something and then get the fuck over it. (And I’m glad he pwned his dad in his will. Way to stick it to him, Mike.)

~ I just wrote a song, which is weird because musical inspiration NEVER comes to me and when it does it’s always a massive exercise in terrible. But this time the song is actually pretty good. It’s more pop-rock than is my taste so I’ll probably never play it in public, but hey, it’s a start.

~ Two days until the trip to Chicago. I folded and purchased Dramamine today. I’ll be using this for emergency only and will probably suffer from a little guilt afterward.

~ Shit, I’m bored.

~ When Greg and I had only been dating about six weeks we traveled up to Chicagoland to visit his parents. While there we took a superlong road trip to Cleveland for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony (which, by the way, takes place in the freaking Waldorf-Astoria… miiiiles away from Ohio) and stopped off for lunch in the small town where Greg grew up. Even though we were only at the beginning of our relationship and were still completely unaware we were about to become parents, we looked at each other and said “You know, I wouldn’t mind starting a family and living in a tiny town like this with you.”

I’d forgotten about this exchange until just this morning.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is one of those posts that starts out all redundant and whiny but it has a totally reflective, positive ending. Promise. I’m still riding this whole revelations thing, apparently.

The daily frustrations and insecurities have been slinking back into my daily life. There are so many things I really want to do right now and the constant understimulation of observing of a small child all day have been starting to take a toll on me, my self-esteem, my sense of self-worth again. I start becoming convinced that I’m wasting my 20’s being counterproductive to society and not accomplishing any of the things I genuinely want to do, to start in my life right now. Additionally, all that momentum I was feeling a few weeks ago regarding my handful of major new projects has started dissipating as I’ve found myself unable to get anything completed with the lifestyle I have right now and I’m starting to feel confined and trapped within the restrictions of caring for an active toddler. This is something I’ve been told many mothers experience but that knowledge rarely makes me feel any better when I get these spells of self-pity. And nothing seems to quell the repeated frustration of having the wind taken out of my sails yet again.

Now, look, I’ve been through enough therapy and recovery to know what to do with myself during little typical-human rifts like this. Divert my attention to the things I’m grateful for. Make a game plan that accommodates my needs and still allows me to make progress on my goals. Don’t focus on the negative. Accept that this is normal new-mother behavior and ride the waves of life until this works itself out. Be patient as this, too, will pass and as the Bear grows older, she will become more independent and I will have the time to finish the projects I have planned for myself.
I got it.
I know.

But still, sitting in my therapist’s office, I felt like such a whiny fool for having this same problem that was affecting my mood and powerless as it’s something I have to just accept and live with at the moment. I feel powerless that I can’t provide for my family better, that outside forces have held us back from advancing in our careers and physical location, that even though I start every day with a handful of intentions, rarely are they all completed by the time I go to bed.

Then my therapist asked me something that caused me to immediately burst into tears:
“Is this the life you would have chosen for yourself?”

Obviously, this is a life I did choose for myself. I did have the option to not keep my child, I did have the option to not marry my husband, I did have the option to choose a path much much different than the one I’m on now. But I knew then and know now that these things really weren’t an option for me; my heart wanted to keep my child, my heart wanted to commit myself to my husband. These are choices that I’ve always been proud of and always been happy with. Even now when I’m struggling to find a sense of competence within them.

But when I found out I was pregnant, I was in a really transformative stage. After years of being crippled by depression, addiction, shitty self-esteem and the ensuing lifestyle choices that inevitably follow these sort of criteria, I was finally emerging on my own. I was finally happy being romantically single, I was finally getting out and getting involved within my community, exploring new facets of myself and enjoying things that I really loved doing. I had this great momentum I wanted to ride into my postgraduate years, taking the inner independence I was uncovering and seeing the world, attending graduate school, finally getting out from under my parents’ watchful eye and trying this whole adult lifestyle thing again. These were things I was actively working toward around April 2007 and things I was finding more excitement for than anything else I’d been a part of in many many years. I was high on the relief and joy of finally stepping into my own.

I love my life now. I love my husband and my home and my daughter and I honestly would not give them up for anything in this world. I wouldn’t even take a time machine and delay their arrival if I had the choice. I mean that. I’ve not spent a moment in the last two years resenting or regretting anything about my choices and there’s liberation in that. True, I’m not living where I want to and I’m not able to make the forward movement in my career and education that I want to, but aside from that, I live in a tiny paradise. And I’m thankful that I get to look forward to the rest of my life with these two in tow.

However, my therapist brought to attention that maybe I hadn’t taken the time to think about the loss of hope and optimism I had just before everything changed. I had been banking on a new change, a new start and, while I certainly got one, it might not have been the one I would’ve chosen for myself at the time if given the choice. In fact, if I’m going to be completely honest, it definitely isn’t what I would’ve chosen at the time.

Shit, that’s hard to say out loud. Especially to someone else. (Not that I talk to myself… or… or anything ::sheepish laugh:: I mean, I’m not crazy… heh.. anyway.) Even though I’m delighted with how everything in my immediate life has turned out and who I am as a result of choosing it all, I hate that apparent admission that it wasn’t my first choice when it all started. At the time I didn’t hesitate to fling myself into the joy associated with bringing a new life into the world and starting on a whole new journey. I really didn’t take the time for reconsideration or even questioning this new lifestyle; I was scared and uncertain, sure, but I think I was so excited about having found love and the unexpected surprise of a daughter and so eager to hurl myself into change and forward-motion that I didn’t pause to reflect on the diversion my life was taking. Maybe I was so desperate for change that I rode the high of having it handed to me a little blindly. Not that I regret that when I think about it; wasting time questioning myself would’ve only added to my stress during all of the moving-in-together, and preparing-for-baby and all that. Maybe it was a mental defense mechanism…

But when my doctor asked me that one question, I found myself in tears I absolutely wasn’t anticipating and didn’t even know were part of the equation. Admittedly, it was a bit of a luxury to cry over the loss of a self-indulgent, egocentric lifestyle I’d planned for myself (a sad stereotype of being an early-millenium twenty-something it seems.) and I’m trying not to waste time on guilt with that, but apparently it was something that needed to come out, this whole act of taking a little bit of time to recognize and mourn the loss of a projected path, an ideal lifestyle I’d crafted for myself.

Naturally, this doesn’t mean that all hope is lost for my life’s potential or anything ridiculous. I’ll continue to have the same ultimate goals for my life that I’ve always had and I’ll continue to plug away and try to make those a reality, although they may take more time to accomplish than I’d like. (Damn you, Universe, for your tireless lessons on patience!! ::shakes fist::) Inevitably, on any path I would’ve encountered obstacles that would’ve hindered my enthusiasm and progress, so it’s not like this one is any worse or outstanding than the others.

But it kind of felt good to recognize that, while they were totally selfish and self-serving, I did lose something I badly desired for myself and I am allowed to feel pain for the sacrifices I made to have the life I do now. I don’t know why feeling these things required permission from an outside observer; maybe the guilt of seeming ungrateful or hurting someone’s feelings was too much for me to admit this revelation to myself no matter how bad it was eating away at my subconscious. Whatever the case, it was freeing in a way and really started putting my doubt and frustrations in a perspective based on my personal circumstances, even if that’s more than a bit of an indulgence. If nothing else, this whole realization and chance to grieve has served as a sufficient pressing of the “Reset” button on my mentality as to how I’m living right now and the pressure I put on myself to adhere to the same rules and regulations I had before being a parent was my defining job title. It shifts the whole frame of reference to something completely different and there’s a good deal of liberation in that.

And maybe I’m finally starting to emerge from criticizing myself so oppressively based on the standards I assume must apply to everyone and maybe even starting to accept that everyone has their own set of actions that define their “personal best.” Maybe there’s something to that 4th Agreement that I’ve been raving about for a couple years now…

Christ, it takes me a long-ass time to “get” things. My therapist must really be enjoying my [literally] retarded breakthrough process, if only financially.

In the last month I have sat down repeatedly at my computer to begin building a decent resume to present to potential employers. I write my name, my address, my various alternative contact informations. And then I reach the line labeled “Objective” (a new addition to the professional resume since my high school days) and I come screeching to a halt. I freeze for a moment, commence my existentialist panic at having to identify and describe my whole objective in my potential life’s work, switch off the computer without following the formal log-out procedure, and run out of the room. This exact event has literally happened at least six times since the end of February.

Seriously, what the hell? I don’t know if I’m even qualified to obtain a decently-paying job in the first place and now they want me to sum up the [theoretical] ultimate goal, the great personal dream that will fuel and motivate me to push myself forward, working and investing my life’s energy to one day accomplish into a teeny tiny sentence that may or may not capture the eye of someone who is looking to hire me for somewhere around $10-$15 an hour?! Somehow that seems both extremely arrogantly brash, ignorant, and juvenile in addition to incredibly daunting.

As the weeks have flown by and slowly built up the frustrations at myself pertaining to my life/career’s stagnation and the notion that I’m not actively doing anything to remedy this ever-compounding frustration. So I did what I always do when I come to an unsolvable mental problem. I took it to my therapist. (Hey, the woman helped me pinpoint what I wanted to write about for my thesis after months of confusion and procrastination. She’s good.) I was sent home with the very very primitive homework of brainstorming everything I had done in the basic categories of “Education”, “Paying Writing Jobs”, “Paying Other Jobs”, “Various Creative Ventures”, and “Objectives”. Alright, cool. I can do that. Baaaaby steps. (Apparently, I just need someone to cut up my meat before I dig in to this Great Feast of Life. Hence all the therapy.)

So, after a week and a half of brainstorming I have a half-page (of notebook paper) pertaining to my completed education, a whole page pertaining to paid writing jobs I’ve had, a page devoted to paid other jobs I’ve had since 2001-ish (turns out I have 6 years under my belt with DG Golf Management! Score for longevity and versatility!), and THREE WHOLE PAGES of unpaid creative ventures that I’ve been directly involved with in the last 8 years.

(On a completely self-indulgent side note, I was honestly shocked to learn that I’ve been a far more productive flighty bohemian than I’d assumed. I’ve been a performer in six full-length plays and/or theatrical productions, I’ve been a makeup artist for a short film, I worked as technical crew for a community theatre, I ran my own ‘zine out my dorm room during my first two years of college (in the midst of developing problem, no less!) that was sold in a handful of indie music venues around North and South Carolina and was featured in a 2002 North Carolina Zine Directory, I was an artist’s model at NCSA, I’ve had numerous stories and photography published in a dozen magazines and literary journals (internationally! And some of which weren’t even student publications!), I’ve run a small consistent web store since 2003 and launched a small independent business last year with my Yum in the Tub stuff. I signed a contract after auditioning and being accepted into a burlesque troupe in Charlotte (that unfortunately lost funding and never got off the ground), I performed and traveled with a bellydance troupe, and I wrote, choreographed and performed with an award-winning comedy troupe in Melbourne, Australia. I’ve won a handful of awards for writing, photography and humble kayaking skills. And I’ve kept a blog consistently since the summer of 2003 that is now recognized by and featured in BUST magazine’s blog directory and is syndicated through Skirt! Magazine’s website.

Holy crap. I’m kinda productive. Who would’ve thought?)

And, still, I sit staring at the page titled “Objectives” with no idea what to write.

My first reaction consisted of basic, utilitarian answers:

• I want to work so I can get paid and have a house and feed myself and my family and not be supported by my parents for the rest of my life.
• I’d like to work at a job in my field of expertise that would allow me gradual advancement and a chance at happy retirement.

Next came the realistically-based goals, although somewhat irreverent:

• I want to work in an environment where I am not some arrogant superior’s “bitch” and am able to contribute to society without perpetually battling through a minefield of self-worthlessness.
• Please just pay me to do something humane.

And then were the goals that allowed my inner-self to fly fancy free and that would inevitably have me escorted from any HR office:

• I want to write an opinion column for a publication of some sort where I blather on about parenting or music or pop culture or whatever else I feel like.
• I want a 5-book deal with a major publishing house to sit around and put my bloggery into essay form a la Sedaris and then travel the globe on book tours. I don’t want to be terribly world-famous and I don’t intend to be revolutionary or even brilliant but I want to write about stuff that people can relate to, smile about, and maybe even remember enough to recommend to a friend.
• I want to be the ringmaster for one of those crazy, bohemian circuses like the fantastic Yard Dogs Road Showthat tours the country with firespinners and erotic aerialists and various oddities.
• I want to collaborate and perform with a burlesque troupe and pose for retro pinup clothing companies like the gorgeous Max Masuimi at Pin Up Girl Clothing.;
• I want a job that requires me to travel the globe and write about food artistry and movements.
• I want to be Tina Fey and write for SNL and then have my own self-produced/written/directed/starred-in sitcom that’s a major, massive, brilliant hit that redefines comedy.
• I want to be a lingerie or artist’s model without having to get any sort of reconstructive plastic surgery to fix all these baby-induced damages.
• I want to found a magazine or journal with my husband where he is the graphic designer and I am the editor.
• I want to own an indie record shop and host indie bands and have crazy parties when Bjork releases crazy new albums.
• I want to open that multiplex that shows old movies all the time.
• I want to pass the Bar and become a lawyer and help fight for laws protecting women around the world from genital mutilation and caste-system violence.
• I want to sing jazz at a night club every night and wear schwanky evening gowns along with a giant flower tucked behind my ear and Billie Holliday makeup.
• I want to own a house in the country where I work writing books all day and then tend to my garden and hike around our sprawling property in my spare time. We’d go fishing in the ponds and kayaking on the rivers and camping in the fields and every so often we’d have a big bonfire and invite all our friends out to have a Romany Gypsy-style moon party.
• I don’t wanna work. I just want to bang on the drum all day.

I’ve spent hours doing this to no real, tangible avail.

And then, out of nowhere, it sort of all came to me and was, in fact, the most obvious answer imaginable. What I’ve always really worked for and been passionate about is exactly what I want and plan continue to do for the rest of my life, regardless of whether I’m getting paid for it or not. Why didn’t I think of that?

Objective: To preserve, perpetuate and promote liberal arts, artistic movements, and creative mentality in any form or venue.

Yeah. Let’s see what kind of reactions and job offers I get from that.

I honestly don’t know if I can do this.

I know what I believe. I know what I want to make of myself as a person. I realize that the crime this incarcerated penpal of mine committed has nothing to do with me and, therefore, does not require my judgment or forgiveness. I know what the right thing to do is right now, but I don’t know if I have the strength of character to do it.

Before I Googled this woman yesterday, I was halfway finished with a letter that I was writing to her. I hadn’t caught up with her in a while and I owed her some correspondence as I felt bad for having neglected her in the last few months. When I read what she had done, I was immediately put into a tailspin and was really confused and troubled by what I’d learned about her. All afternoon my heart was heavy with shock and grief and, hours after I laid down to go to sleep, I was still unable to stop thinking about it, wondering about it, trying not to put a visualization to it.

I finished the letter today although the words were staggered and awkward without the usual comfort I’d been able to exude in the first half. I fought my way to the post office and sat in the drop-off lane looking at the letter until the man behind me honked for me to make a drop or leave. Holding my breath, I dropped the envelope into the slot and roared away before I could begin to regret what I’d done.

I immediately threw up when I got home. Even now, I’m anxious and troubled and unable to think about anything else.

Christ, it’d be nice not to have to feel every single emotion I have so damned intensely for a change.

I know what I believe. I know what kind of person I want to be.

But I feel more sapped of energy and strength than I have in a long time. I am ashamed with how defeated and cowardly I feel about this whole thing and how my overwhelming judgment could be capable of changing my entire relationship with and personal worth of someone else who has never done anything to hurt me or my family. I’m embarrassed and troubled about what that says about me as a person. I am embarrassed about what that says about my commitment to my convictions.

Suddenly, I feel very very weak. Very very small.

I spend a freakish amount of time dissecting and scrutinizing myself, motivations, emotions, thought patterns, actions, etc. I’ve discussed it before but in my recovery I kind of took the whole “taking a daily self inventory” thing to an extreme. (I’m big on extremes; never much for moderation. This, too, I’ve discussed. Moving along.) Most of the time I’m not so much reviewing my actions as convincing myself further that I am an emotional disaster that even the Red Cross wouldn’t cover. I obsessively judge every single thought that crosses my mind and I tend to drive myself into a self-beaty-uppy frenzy more often than I’d like to admit. Honestly, I’m not just tough on myself; I’m fucking relentless.

Recently, however, I’ve been privy to a few different situations that kind of have stopped me in my tracks. A while ago I talked about the Universe momentarily dropping the veil between my life now and what it could have been hadn’t bothered with practicing active recovery and, since that didn’t seem to be enough to get the message across (I’m a slow learner sometimes), the Universe then began hurling at me more and more examples to support its point. I was kind of starting to get it, but apparently I needed an extreme example. Go figure.

So yesterday I’m folding laundry, washing dishes, doing other general housewifery and watching a documentary about women who are stalkers. I listened to women who were reformed stalkers and had gone on to live normal, sane lives and other women who were still proud of their actions and felt totally justified in their completely insane tactics. It was weird how some of the women on either side discussed a very real sense of purity and justice in their actions (even though the reformed ones have since realized that this was a mere illusion) and remembering how, in my craziest (usually alcohol-soaked) moments I felt the same drive. And then I thought about people that I knew/know in my own life who display this same kind of Crazy… and then I started thinking about the people I know who display a lot of Crazy in other forums.

And I started to feel really really good about myself for a change.

Here’s the thing. I still have tendencies toward the Crazy from time to time and sometimes they even get a little out of my control, which is scary. But I am always always working to get better and I’m consciously keeping them in check (or immediately wrangling them back into check should they momentarily escape.) And you know what? My Crazy isn’t ruining my life or the lives of those around me anymore. My Crazy isn’t bailing on my friends and family, isn’t busy trying to destroy myself with drinking or drugs or insane spending sprees or shitty relationships. My Crazy isn’t driven from fear or loneliness or selfishness or low self esteem anymore and I’m no longer perpetuating a shitty or even mediocre existence out of confusion or denial or anger or fear or anything, really. My Crazy doesn’t conduct any of the dramas that inevitably come into my life and I’m able to dismiss any unnecessary bullshit quickly and efficiently because the Crazy doesn’t rule my ego anymore.

In fact, if I can take a minute to fling humility by the wayside, I have a pretty rad life right now. And, given that this life is so much better than it used to be a few years ago, I’m pretty convinced that my work in therapy and sobriety and general recovery is directly responsible for building this around me. My family not only completely trusts me these days (a MAJOR change from the former) but they enjoy my company and have confidence in my abilities as a parent and as a competent adult (an even more major change.) I have a base group of amazing friends who constantly have my back and are always rightthere when I need them, without me having to ask. I have a functional, jealousy-and- [99%]- insecurity-free love life with a man whom I trust and love completely, who treats me the way my parents always told me I deserved to be treated, who is committed to growing and nurturing each other in our lives together. I have a healthy, happy daughter who is developing perfectly on schedule even though I know next to nothing about being a parent.

Apparently, even though my Crazy may always be on my mind and I may always be on guard for its attacks, it really plays a very very minor role in my life these days. My neuroses (and ensuing insecurities and then the resulting complications of such insecurities which cycle back into neuroses) are minor obstacles that crop up every so often instead of acting as guidelines and barriers in which to contain my whole entire existence. Proudly, I can admit that this is the very first time in … well, since I can remember… since 5th grade?… that I can say that. These days the things that used to cripple me and keep me submerged in a miserable life are just little mostly insignificant quirks to my character that are laughable among my close friends and family, instead of being exhausting and embarrassing to those around me.

This doesn’t let me off the hook, of course. I’m never off the hook, really, if I plan to keep growing and learning about myself and life and recovery and all that (which I do.) And I certainly don’t think I’m all figured out or have all The Answers or am somehow above fault or relapse or missteps. I’m not a conceited idiot. I’m sure I’ll continue over-scrutinization/criticism of myself until I’m old and grey (even though, like effing everything pertaining to my thought behaviors, I’m working to find a middle ground on that, too.)

But for just a second, I think I’m going to take a break to be a little smug and arrogant. (Again, I’m big on extremes.) ‘Cause I used to be Utterly Hopeless, Pathetic, Destructive Crazy, but now I really believe (supported with aforementioned evidence, of course) I’m safely in Self-Aware, Seemingly-Normal(-Whatever-That-Is), More-Than-Functional/Downright-Thriving Crazy. To the outside [of my head] observer I’m functional, capable, assured, competent, sane, trustworthy, normal-amount-wobbly, instead of being chronically catastrophic. Nobody’s making “Crazy Bitch” or “Crazy Train” the ringtone that sounds when I call them. (This actually happened at one point.) Sure, people may have terrible things to say about me (people always have terrible things to say about anyone, it seems) but they’re not locking their doors or putting restraining orders out because of me. (Frankly, I think anyone who may have a problem with me these days really just has to be looking for drama. Clearly they’re wasting more time/energy being pissy and resentful than I am, ’cause it’s clear skies on my end.) And I’m not covering my head in shame from my most recent stint of making a total ass of myself or loudly defending myself to a bunch of random people I may or may not have wronged a la “Springer”. Not having the Crazy at the ready is pretty damned liberating, relaxing even.

So yeah, I’m taking a minute to sit back on my laurels and indulge in a little schadenfreude toward the Crazies with whom I no longer share a category. Of course it’s morally wrong/bitchy/insensitive and an incredibly cocky, shameful fault to admit to publicly. However, this emotion will, of course, settle into a middle ground of healthy, normal, gratitude with which I can maintain a productive sense of humility. But for just one second I’m going to enjoy snorting and sighing at the Crazies around me with knowing pity, “Damn; that bitch/bastard is cah-razy.” without feeling too much like a hypocrite.

I’m probably going to start with my next door neighbor. It’s like having Springer’s show delivered to my home! (Actually, any reality TV is good for this.) And then there’s the crazy bitch that keeps harassing me via MySpace from 1,000 some miles away. Oh, I could do this for a while.

“I’m rich rich richrich rich.” - Yeah Yeah Yeahs