Mental Health and not-Freudian Typos

This morning I had quick anxiety attack (thank God that's over) followed by crying over my brother. You know what really sucks? It sucks when you adore someone and you feel utterly comfortable with him and then he gets killed by a half-baked porn star. You think you're better and you really are, but there are not that many people who pad around in pajamas all day concocting "cheesies" with Korean sauces and other fine ingredients like sardines. There is just no one who has as many condiments as he did, or who looks as scruffy. Plus, to be selfish, I do miss being understood and accepted. Plenty of people are very good to me, but to love me is to embrace the unpredictable and get ready for some emotional crap. Ball & Chain is good at reading the paper and I don't mind and when I do he puts it down.

I don't like it when people talk about Baby Brother like he was perfect. That's not it at all. But his appreciation of the so-called 'low brow,' and his array of crap, were quite comforting. like that guy under plastic with the little magnetic hairs that you move with a wand to make a beard or hair or both. I am good at that. (Baby Brother would have loved this political version to the right - Create A Commie - although the little magnetic hairs should probably be gray as homage to Senor Castro.) I was looking for some crap to cheer Rugelah up when she was sick. Big Kid found Pez with a weird cat head. I found stickers that you put on your office stuff - for example, teeth for your stapler - to jazz things up a bit.

But back to naxiety. Ooh I like that typo - I'm leaving it. Naxiety: The condition of being so anxious that one loses the ability to type properly as symptom of weakening ability to think sequentially. I could write my own DSM! Both anxiety and naxiety are a fucking plague on my life. I had been taking an SSRI only to discover that that particular drug is associated with memory loss. Here I thought that I was having word-retrieval issues that coincidentally arose when some half-assed psycho-pharm doctor put me on it - oh no it was my old inappropriate shrink who sent me an email along with his other "friends and colleagues" before I ditched him - without ever mentioning memory issues. Ack!

What's the theme of this piece of writing? For the one and a half people reading - and the dog, of course - it's beware of psychopharmacology, especially if you genuinely need it - and don't ever forget that your anxiety is just your coping mechanism for avoiding what really hurts. Naxiety is a related disorder found in 80% of people with anxiety and predession, a topic for later discussion.

What Would Carol Say?

I received a Dear Jane letter. Not from my husband, not from my lover ( that would also be my husband), not from some crazed spammer. It was from a former friend. We were friends briefly, then the fun and hilarity that sprung up quickly faded almost as quickly. She was cold and distant. I thought 'what the hell'? I had other friends and I got over it or whaddevah and moved on. Years passed. I continued to be friends with my friends - Becca, Chrystal, Doctor, Cutie, among others - and my children grew, etc etc. Suns rose, moons rose, zits came and went.

Then one morning last week, sitting with the coffee Ball & Chain makes me, was a gray envelope, clearly from this woman. We'll call her Egomania S. New-Heights. She actually has a very Austen-esque name, so we could call her Penelope, which sorta cracks me up - but I'll decide later. The letter, over which B& C was drooling a bit, as he is a yente (Jewishe busy-body) inside a WASP body, was addressed in a stylized cursive. How quaint. A letter! I was too bleary to imagine why this person would write me now, but apparently B& C thought it would be a rapproachment of sorts - how Penelope-ish - or something similarly juicy.

She said she had pondered our relationship from all sorts of angles. Out of her ass perhaps? And she felt she owed me an explanation as to why she had "dumped" me. I was genuinely perplexed. Dumped me? Angles? I, the ruminator of all ruminators, worrier extra-ordinaire, had not given a thought to this woman in years. Our friendship was brief, she became unpleasant, I had other fish to fry. She went on to say that she had begun to feel critical, and to her, "that meant death to a friendship." See what I mean about the Jane Austen part? Okay, maybe more Carol Burnett? Remember when Carol came down the stairs, a la Scarlett O'Hara, wearing not only the drapes, but the curtain rod across her shoulders? Her forte was laughing at melodrama, and of course those bulging crazy-eyed expressions.

Penelope went on to wish me well and make reference to my witty personality or something. She broke up with me and we were not going out! I was offended, I started to be angry, and then I realized how funny it is to receive a break-up letter from someone you never think about. In fact as I write this, I cannot help laughing a bit because here is one issue I really did not consider. What to do with the actual letter? Keep it to make petty and vindictive remarks? No fun, really, as I have no pent-up feelings of revenge, as I do not think of her. After an intimate discussion with B&C - about 10 seconds - I took his advice and threw it out. If it were the Carol Burnett Show, I would have had to light it with a match while Harvey Korman emitted an evil laugh. Or at least I could have found the several gifts she had given me and angrily tossed them. I like the stuff, though, so I am keeping it.

How I would eat up a letter from the guy with whom I was engaged and broke it off; the friend who never returned my letter after we argued over politics; any former female lover; the childhood frenemy who led the girl group to shun me with evil little notes about my awful hair and face. Or my long-lost pretend uncle who always adored me from afar (when he dies I will inherit pretend money - a lot of it)? So many people about whom I dream, wonder, and consider after lo these many years. But Penelope aka Egomania? She's not even a post-script in my imaginary autobiography. Perhaps this is at least one person out there who over-thinks even more than me? Or - a more realistic theory - did not watch enough Carol Burnett to know when something is downright silly.

Yikes Anxiety

Didja ever find out that someone at your job was not having her contract renewed and then get in a panic because you remember other awful and difficult places and then you think well maybe I was wrong maybe all these places fire teachers willy nilly who says stuff like that - willy nilly - anyway then you try to call your two pals at your work but they're not answering and what with caller id they will think you're insane?

Ironically I just dreamed about Lou Grant who turned out to be Bitchqueenfromhell and it was the first dream in which she was trying to get me to stay there before she decided to try to get me to leave there without telling me to leave but just tormenting and humiliating me because I was more qualified than she thought I was and somehow being a certified teacher drove her mad. Whoa upon rereading that truly makes no sense.

I threaten people. That's my problem. I overwhelm people with my Mensa-esque intelligence, my stunning Cate Blanchett (not Winslett) look and my probing questions. Ack! When I saw my co-worker's face I recognized that freaky sudden realization that oh I need to go elsewhere. Of course when Lou Grant did that she followed up with offering a position a few days later but still there have been other situations in which my job has gone bad somehow or I have felt unwelcome oh woe is me this is ridiculous. Do you sense the defensive tone? Someone might actually read this and judge me and be like ooh why didn't they like her at that school and now even when I have a good situation I am a nervous goddamn wreck.

That's all folks. Psychopharm appointment tomorrow - no shit.

Post Script: Seinfeld rerun tonight was perhaps the funniest episode I've ever seen: Kramer stopped wearing underwear, Jerry dated a white woman who pretended to be Chinese, George's dad - Jerry Stiller - had a lawyer who wore a cape, and Elaine ruined her friend's life. I could just add: and while watching, Lucy convinced herself that her job was going down the tubes.

Gimme Fred and Ethel.

I am writing instead of watching the SuperBowl - ha! I would rather watch Desperate Housewives and I do not like Desperate Housewives. I would rather watch Mitt Romney and John McCain have a debate and I dislike both of them immensely. I would not rather watch Hilary and Obama because I am a traitor, a fake, a massive hypocrite. I do not like Hilary because she was for the war, she gives me a headache, and worst of all, her goddamn husband would be in the White House controlling shit and that's weird because he was already The President, right?

So I am not the perfect product of women' college. I don't feel guilty. No, no, no, ack, yes, okay I do. Is it not prescribed that I vote for Hilary? I adored Geraldine Ferraro, I swear! She was smart, down-to-earth, righteous. She absolutely did not talk about the "HBT" ("human being time") she had with her husband. That was then, this is now, and I am disappointed. A Republican friend (yes I have one) asked me today what Obama's positions really are. I admit that I don't exactly know, apart from opposing the war, but I really like what he says. I know he's progressive and intelligent and all-the-stuff-I-am, I think?

Perhaps I am a political ignoramus. I did go to the Obama web site a few weeks ago to become more well-versed with his policies. It was so fucking boring I could feel my brain dry up a bit as I read. Do I remember what it said? Hell, no! It was like reading a history textbook, a task I never succeeded at, unless it was one paragraph on a page with a lot of photos and a penciled-in moustache on a dead white guy.

But I digress. I do read the paper and I am familiar with what's going on politically and I cannot embrace the joy of Hilary Clinton's candidacy. Reign in the husband, Lady! Ethel and Fred both had strong personalities, but she didn't let him weigh in on Lucy's dilemmas. I've had mixed feelings about Hilary ever since her husband was elected and she began to work on health care. I was like 'hold the phone,' who elected her? Now it just keeps going like that, with blurred boundaries between the two of them. I had a crazy-ass principal years ago - I've had a few - whose unemployed husband joined a meeting she had with a group of teachers. None of the teachers knew what to say when the guy offered his advice, but they were too polite to question his presence. I have not been accused of being too polite - ever - and unless we start electing co-presidents, this is wrong.

On the proverbial second thought, perhaps it's not so different from Bush/Cheney. Hill/Bill. They could run for president and vice president together. I'd like to see the husband as the VP in the old VP style: no real power and we never hear from him. I'd particularly like a genuine First Gentleman, in the tradition of the many First Ladies before him. Now there's a concept I could embrace: the 'pussy-whipped' former president in an outfit by a famous designer giving interviews to Ladies Home Journal. He could start a controversial campaign against drugs or in favor of children reading. The style pages would publish articles on his hair color and choice of ties.

The Clintons are both extra-intelligent, but there's something sneaky that makes me queasy and uneasy. I'd rather think about football. And I don't like football.