Anxiedote

Please accept my apologies if your problem is depression. Depression is my problem too, but not today. Today my problem is anxiety, and also tiny little bumps on my forehead. Not a rash, just a buch of little blech I hate the word - whiteheads, or maybe hardheads - that I keep patchkying (messing) with, causing them to make a slight barely visible scab. They perpetuate themselves like a little colony of chorale singers calling to me every day: you are skanky, in the chipmunk voices. They're little and irritating in every way. Yes, that's anxiety for you. It permeates every pore.

I am naturally anxious about my anxiety and I hold onto it as if it is my life raft and without it I will drown in the misery of acknowledging real feelings and the slow mild mediocrity of life. Anxiety is fast, pert, I-can-do-anything type stuff, without the mania that is probably not in this category, although I have nothing against mania per se. It's just that my anxiety remains within the realm of the real so that there's no one to tell me that my goals are unrealistic: I can stay up for hours working; I should worry about my job; I could do a little better; my mom might need a phone call; there is too much laundry waiting. Must remember to worry more! Picking at my forehead as I consider this reminder.

One useful trait in anxietiacs is that we can multi-task our thinking. I can drive to work and plan my day. No sweat. I can drive to work, plan my day, talk on my cell, and work out a lesson in my head. I can drive to work, talk on my cell, plan my day, work on a lesson, and worry about stuff all at once. In the middle of multi-thinking - as opposed to multi-tasking - I'll realize I haven't been back to the dentist to deal with that old filling. By the time I am at work, I have heard the headlines, said good morning to a couple people, figured out what I will do when I first enter the building, and finally learned all of the lyrics to Tracy Chapman's obscure song about a sailor.

Some days I get the anxiety hangover. Same ride to work. Radio's going but I can't concentrate on it. Houses slip past. Squirrels stop by and I roll down the window to chat. I call my mother. "Hi, Honey," she says, in a vaguely southern accent. I have the idea that I am heading toward school, but the anxiety shift to my stomach has changed my speed to such an extent that I almost think I'm depressed. But I'm not. I'm happy as a clam. Just bored, or even a wee bit boring. No fast music, or multi-thinking, just a gal in a car going to her job. It's a relief from the tension, but then it's a bit of a downer, too. Not to fear: this little anecdote has a happy ending. The anxiety always returns! I have hundreds of things to do, my mind races, I talk quickly, and I worry about each item in overlaps, in triples and quadruples. Right now I am worried about staying awake to do work, managing my arguing children, editing this writing, scheduling my writing group, doing the laundry and remembering the phone calls I hafta return. See? I'm okay. And I'm just about to pick at my forehead.

Abstract Theory on Random Behavior

The Theory: if you have far too much work to do, and your children will be neglected if you do it all, and you will have no time for your own personal needs, never mind your hygeine, and all will go to hell in the proverbial handbasket, you should begin by getting on the computer and looking for a different job. This will solve your problem in two ways. First, and I hate it when people make lists like this and say first so I'm just going to list as many things as I wanna; second, you will think about the future and the possibilities, and your anxiety and frustration in regard to your current job, and its innumerable requirements, will be softened - the anxiety and frustration, that is, because you will be avoiding it; second, or third, if you like, we're not really counting, remember? Fourth, you may actually get a sense of accomplishment because you will find jobs listed where they are waiting for someone exactly like you, no, actually, they are waiting for you, or to be precise, me, personally, to come on over and finally make the dull workplace that they inhabit a well-run and dynamic place to be. I did find several such places and actually wrote a cover letter to one that looks eager to have me, and to pay me perhaps a sizeable fraction of what I make now. Seventh. Eighth, you should be doing the actual work you are avoiding in the first place, you know, and I know, and we both know the other knows, but it would seem so mainstream, so with the crowd.

Where does one find an identity if it is not an anti-identity? I am not just like everyone else. I do not take pride in paperwork, and I am not a concrete fucking sequential thinker, so now let's all stop telling me that I'm 'random abstract' as if that's non-judgmental. Twelve: these terms are related to learning styles and concrete sequential people are organized, together, love lists, sorting, robotic chores, bad literature, and uninspiring art. But I don't judge them. Abstract random persons, such as myself, enjoy typos because sometimes they're funnier than the original text, love a good mess, listen to loud music, and have better fashion sense than any of those organization freaks. We are always better looking, better dancers, and the people with the big ideas. Fifty two. I think I'll stay up late to get my work done.

I Am The Reality

What if I wrote a post in the middle of a typical working-mama anxiety-jag? What if I have too much work today, and tomorrow I am going to be judged on all of my work for the entire school year, based on one observation? What if at least one motherfucker is going to come in and tell me how incompetent I am because her daughter is smart and I should give her high grades? And despite the fact that that mother wears belly-shirts and her very sweet daughter seems to have a memory problem, I am utterly anxious about the conflict? Despite the fact that I am known for my sharp wit, etc, that having any parent kvetch is like a case of salmonella in a public school? What if my new-moan-ya is coming back, just a bit, and I had to sleep the past three days, way more than I expected? And last weekend, instead of work, I was attentive daughter to ailing parent? And what if I am doing laundry, right now, for crissake? I'm 10 minutes from fold and sort.

Instead of a theory, I am the reality, right now. I took the meds I take for the goddamn anxiety disorder, but if I take the PRN for bad days, I'll be sedated, and then what? Why did I choose a profession which earns me just enough? I was brought up to have what I want, and I want my own bathroom. I want to take a leave of absence after a family member dies, or is quite ill. And what if I am quite ill? Must I say always that I am lucky because I am not starving? Or the pathetic line I give my children: "we're actually rich, compared to the rest of the world." Can I just be a product of our piggy lazy society and say I wanna lie on the couch, I wanna minute to volunteer at my kids' school, I wanna go back and get my hair re-done without thinking about the goddamn money?

I am not a sociological theory, I am a lady barely managing financially and emotionally in the lovely woodsy suburb so my kids can get an education worthy of the best private schools around. Somewhere along the line I forgot about me, or maybe money and me. The brawny psycho-pharm guy said it was impressive how much I've done, considering my psychiatric history. Oh, puhleez. Isn't raising two kids, getting a master's degree, trying to live with a man, and working full time enough to actually give someone a psychiatric condition?

I'm off to persevorate more, the imaginary print lining the inside of my skull.

The Oscars Are Bullshit and The Wrong Kinda Whine

Brokeback was a precedent-setting film: every movement and still moment on Heath Ledger's face created a character utterly believable, miserable, and sadly wise. The chemistry between the two actors was also precedent-setting: in what other film have we seen two people pressed up and seeking each other like Ennis and Jack the first time they reunite on Ennis's steps?

The Oscars were pathetically mainstream. How innovative is a running fag joke? Everyone is scared shitless to offend African Americans in any way, but we can say whatever we want, we're all pals with "Will & Grace."

Movie actors are not the self-sacrificing altruists Mr. Clooney described: they may be artists, but they are not as innovative or political as some of them think they are. Reese Witherspoon, for example, is not an Oxfam worker, despite her yearning to matter. And would someone please reach down Ms. Witherspoon's throat and adjust her voicebox? That thing is like interference on an old radio.