Okay, Here's the Plan

I've always wanted a job where I showed up for about five minutes on a Sunday evening. During that five minutes, I would be asked to bitch about some aspect of life; preferably, I would bemoan the passing of time and be unreasonably pissed off about the ways of the young people. My appearance wouldn't matter at all, so I could grow my eyebrows out to inhuman and unwieldy proportions. This job exists, people, and he's going to retire sooner or later. I'm preparing my resume.

Hair Redux (Again)

There is blending! And scalp coverage!

Thanks for all your nice comments which I pretty much forced you to say. Still, I appreciate the support in my hour of need.

I giggled every time somebody said it was funky because I'm so un-funky. Funky for me is wearing a twin-set...that isn't grey!

Red Is the New Brown

I just allowed my racist hairstylist (yes, I still visit her--we've reached a compromise: she makes bigoted comments and then I get to interrogate her about why she believes the things she says) to put red stripey highlights in my hair.

I can't decide if I look hella cool or like a college professor with red stripes in her hair. I caught someone staring at me in the grocery store, but that might have been because I walked up to the meat counter and announced in my microphone voice, "PLEASE GIVE ME FIFTEEN TO TWENTY DE-VEINED SHRIMP." And then I repeated "deveined" 9,000 more times just to show off to the old woman in the motorized Shopping Weasel that I know it's not dev-vee-end. Duh. Do you think I'm stupid, Lady?

I haven't gotten much work done because I've just photographed my hair from multiple angles and then texted pictures to everyone I know with the message, "Do I look like ass?" So far, I've only received a response from my mom who called to say, "I saw someone with red-striped hair on American Idol," which, of course, does nothing to answer the fundamental question: do I need to shave my head now?

Seriously, I'm sure I would have a successful scholarly publishing record if I were bald. Instead, I have three unfinished articles; nine ungraded papers; one unplanned class; and forty gatrillion unanswered emails. And my hair is still red-striped.

Gah.

Update

A whole lotta nothing going on around here. Go to school. Come home. Go to school. That pretty much sums it up. What's up with these lucky bastards who are still on break?

I'm going to a conference in two weeks, and I haven't written one single word for my presentation yet. Is that bad?

I've been watching trash TV while I exercise which means I'll stay on the elliptical until my legs burn. I eat brownies to help rejuvenate myself.

I'm supposed to attend a HUGE, INCREDIBLE, IMPORTANT social function this weekend, but I'd rather stay home and exchange misanthropic banter with Awesome Man. Please vote on the best excuse for my absence:

* Snake bite
* Menopause
* Old lacrosse injury acting up
* Surprise IRS audit
* AM having affair with local news anchor

I step-parented today. Usually I suck at being a step-parent, but I was pretty okay at it today. When AM's daughter asked me what I would do in a particular situation if I were the mom, I said, "I'd ask my mom because she's better at this kind of thing." I think my honesty underscored my complete ineptitude, thus signaling that parenting questions ought to be directed to those more qualified than me. Fortunately, I get to act as the mediator. I find out what her mom thinks about something and then I find out what her dad thinks about something, and I just reinforce those messages. If I had to come up with the messages on my own, though, I'd be lost. I make a somewhat acceptable role model in that I don't have an arrest record and I've never snorted coke off of a hooker, but I would be a horrible parent. Case-in-point: I recognize my nephew's birthday every third year, except for the five years that I just forgot altogether.

For the good of humanity, I'm now going to take a shower and wash my hair.

Seriously, the World Needs More Valets

If you know me in real life, then you know that lack of parking used to be my kryptonite. My dream job (right after professional book recommender) would be professional parking lot assigner. Nothing would please me more than being able to place name tags on parking spaces across the country. It doesn't make sense to me that one goes to the grocery store and one parks wherever one feels like parking. Assigned parking would solve a lot of the world's problems.

The fact that I can't park at work would have been like exposing Superman to gold kryptonite had I not found the antidote to my parking weakness: my employer has provided a satellite parking lot with plenty of parking spaces and a shuttle bus. Everyone who knows me in real life knows that my third dream job is shuttle bus driver (with an assistant who parks it at the end of my shift).

The subject of parking stress arose again in my household when Awesome Man's employer, Ass-Clowns-R-Us, decreed that nobody could park in the parking lot anymore. And then the city said that nobody could park on the street anymore. (Keep in mind that we live in a city that provides the world's worst public transportation. Buses run about once every five hours and only to places that you don't want to go. Trains run from downtown to the outlying suburbs, but unless you happen to live and work directly on that line, you are screwed.)

One of the things I love about AM is that he's willing to get worked up over parking. In fact, I'm going to IM him right now and ask him if the world should have assigned parking. I bet he'll say, "Hells yes!" Let's see. Hold on.

Damn it. He said, "Maybe." Well, under normal circumstances, he would agree on the parking issue. After further discussion, he did agree to assigned parking...based on an IQ test.

But back to the issue at hand. AM's employer, Ass-Clowns-R-Us, created a braintrust to solve this parking dilemma. Employees can't park in the lot because it's owned by another company and the lot isn't big enough for everyone. Hence, the other company gave Ass-Clowns-R-Us a set number of spaces, but not enough for all employees. How do you suppose the brain trust solved this problem?

That's right. Valets. They hired valets. When AM arrives at work, he is supposed to pull up to the front of the building and give his keys to the valets. The valets will also retrieve AM's car, but only if he leaves by four pm. And he never leaves by four. So he has to ask security to get his keys and then wander around the parking lot to see where the valet has placed his car.

Let me summarize this situation for you in case you are missing something: because there are too many cars for the number of parking spaces allotted to the company, they hired valets to park the cars. Go ahead. See if you can figure out the problem with this solution.

I guess the moral of the story is that the world needs more valets because they are problem-solvers. They are kryptonite fighters. Heroes, I say!

I think we should send them to the Middle East next.

File This Under 'Too Much Information'

I hesitate to share the following story because it will force me to out myself regarding something that I don’t really want to talk about in such a public setting. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that this story bears telling.

I have a certain disorder. It’s nothing new; I’ve had this disorder for as long as I can remember, but it comes and goes. If I’m really busy or stressed out, the disorder gets worse. I’m masterful at covering it up, and, frankly, I really don’t like thinking or talking about it. Why give myself over to it and have this little disorder define who I am? I’m generally a pretty happy person, but being happy is work, people. I work damn hard at it.

Anyway, just for the sake of this blog post, let’s say that I have a severe phobia of Pat Robertson. (Chris is president of his fan club, by the way).

Note: I do not really have a phobia of any sort. It’s just an example, and being afraid of Pat Robertson is better than being afraid of velvet theatre curtains. I’m looking at you, Billy Bob Thornton.

So, lately, my PR phobia has gotten increasingly worse because my job takes up so much of my time—time that I would normally use to keep my PR phobia in check. I need lots of time alone and only small doses of stress in order to keep the PR phobia from taking over everything and making me very unhappy.

Recently I decided that I should seek professional help because, hell, this PR phobia is a lot of work. Recall that I had to call my insurance company and get names of potential professional mental health workers from Six-Dollar-An-Hour-Sally. After almost a month of dealing with my insurance company, I finally visited Therapist Thelma this week.

Thelma began by giving me a test, and that was great fun because I LOVE tests. Naturally, I was determined to outscore everyone, including the woman in the waiting room who told me that she collected lint.

After telling Thelma about my PR phobia, she handed me a whiteboard marker and told me to start doing some equations on the whiteboard. She asked me to estimate how long I’ve suffered from the PR phobia (since the beginning of time) and how many days per year I estimated that the PR phobia kept me from doing what I want/need to do (um, way too often). After much calculation, I came up with a number of days. She then asked me to calculate how many days my life span will encompass.

She then ran to her bookcase and began pulling giant textbooks off the shelves. She read off how many pages each book had and made me add up those numbers on the white board. When I finished all those calculations, she had me stack up the number of books which metaphorically equaled my entire life. Next to that stack, she had me stack up the number of books which metaphorically represented the number of days I’ve spent consumed with PR phobia. When I saw the stacks, I stared dumbly until she pointed out that I’ve spent almost as many days with PR phobia as I have days left to live. At that point, I started to bawl.

What exactly was Thelma trying to prove to me? Duh, I know that this PR phobia eats up my life. I know it’s a bad thing. I know it’s something that I need to change about myself. That’s why I was at Thelma’s office!

The session got worse after she made me sob uncontrollably. She told me a story about another client who suffered from the same PR phobia. Thelma explained, “Michelle—that’s my client’s name—has this exact same problem. When Michelle has an ‘episode’ she calls her parents and they come over and make her dinner, do her laundry, and take care of her. What are you getting out of your PR phobia?” When I told her that I honestly don’t know what I get out of this—I’d gladly relinquish this disorder in a second if I could’ve done it alone before this—she assured me that everyone who has a PR phobia gets something out of it. She asked me to think about how I’m using it to manipulate people. Honestly, I’ve only told about three people in my whole entire life about this; Awesome Man is wonderfully supportive, but it’s not something we talk about regularly. He knows when I’m having a PR phobia attack, but he doesn’t treat me any differently than normal. I don’t want him to treat me any differently.

Thelma then asked me to explain a typical PR phobia attack. I explained the details of it and then added, “I’m perfectly aware that none of this is rational. I know that if I think about this logically, it just doesn’t make sense. Still, I can’t seem to keep myself from having this reaction” I think it’s pretty clear from that statement that I know my phobia of PR is not rational. Thelma asked me to close my eyes and then asked me a series of questions: “What are you scared of? Will that really happen? What if it did? Then what? Then what?” This is exactly the process I take myself through when I’m having a PR phobia episode. I told her this as I answered her questions. At the end of the Q&A, Thelma said, “There. Now you’ve taken yourself through a logical set of questions, and you’ve concluded that there’s nothing to be scared of.” Thelma, did you not listen to me?!? I know I’m being irrational. If it were that simple—admitting that this is a ridiculous phobia—I wouldn’t be sitting in her office staring at the breathtakingly frightening statue of Jesus perched atop her desk and blowing my snotty nose on generic Kleenex.

She gave me mental health homework and told me to come back next week with a list of ways that my behavior is similar to my mother’s. And also to think about how I use this phobia to manipulate people around me.

But you know what really illustrates that I have a problem? I made another appointment so that I wouldn’t hurt her feelings. And I cried all day long because my life is almost over, and I’ve spent most of it being afraid of Pat Robertson.

I’m not a mental health professional, but I’m pretty sure that Thelma sucked. During our session, she talked about herself multiple times, answered the phone, and discussed other clients (at length) who had problems completely different than mine.

Here’s what I revealed about myself during the session:
* My marital status
* My age
* My job
* My phobia

That’s it. I didn’t tell her anything else. You want to know what I know about her? Here’s what she talked about:

* Her recent surgery
* Her general health conditions
* The ages and professions and mental disorders of her children
* The deaths of close family members
* Her brother’s tour of duty in Vietnam
* Her computer malfunctions (in detail)
* A few anecdotes about her mother (all of which sounded like email spam stories)
* An unpleasant experience with a professor in graduate school (in detail)
* Her GPA
* The reasons she became a therapist

I’m not used to sharing my mental problems with anyone—let alone a mental health professional—but is this normal? Is it normal for the therapist to talk more than me? Is it normal to leave feeling like she knew nothing about me or my problem?

Sadly, the whole experience has turned me off of therapy. I’d rather deal with my PR phobia by myself than put up with this. Alissa, my racist hair stylist, provides better feedback than this!

File This Under 'Too Much Information'

I hesitate to share the following story because it will force me to out myself regarding something that I don’t really want to talk about in such a public setting. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that this story bears telling.

I have a certain disorder. It’s nothing new; I’ve had this disorder for as long as I can remember, but it comes and goes. If I’m really busy or stressed out, the disorder gets worse. I’m masterful at covering it up, and, frankly, I really don’t like thinking or talking about it. Why give myself over to it and have this little disorder define who I am? I’m generally a pretty happy person, but being happy is work, people. I work damn hard at it.

Anyway, just for the sake of this blog post, let’s say that I have a severe phobia of Pat Robertson. (Chris is president of his fan club, by the way).

Note: I do not really have a phobia of any sort. It’s just an example, and being afraid of Pat Robertson is better than being afraid of velvet theatre curtains. I’m looking at you, Billy Bob Thornton.

So, lately, my PR phobia has gotten increasingly worse because my job takes up so much of my time—time that I would normally use to keep my PR phobia in check. I need lots of time alone and only small doses of stress in order to keep the PR phobia from taking over everything and making me very unhappy.

Recently I decided that I should seek professional help because, hell, this PR phobia is a lot of work. Recall that I had to call my insurance company and get names of potential professional mental health workers from Six-Dollar-An-Hour-Sally. After almost a month of dealing with my insurance company, I finally visited Therapist Thelma this week.

Thelma began by giving me a test, and that was great fun because I LOVE tests. Naturally, I was determined to outscore everyone, including the woman in the waiting room who told me that she collected lint.

After telling Thelma about my PR phobia, she handed me a whiteboard marker and told me to start doing some equations on the whiteboard. She asked me to estimate how long I’ve suffered from the PR phobia (since the beginning of time) and how many days per year I estimated that the PR phobia kept me from doing what I want/need to do (um, way too often). After much calculation, I came up with a number of days. She then asked me to calculate how many days my life span will encompass.

She then ran to her bookcase and began pulling giant textbooks off the shelves. She read off how many pages each book had and made me add up those numbers on the white board. When I finished all those calculations, she had me stack up the number of books which metaphorically equaled my entire life. Next to that stack, she had me stack up the number of books which metaphorically represented the number of days I’ve spent consumed with PR phobia. When I saw the stacks, I stared dumbly until she pointed out that I’ve spent almost as many days with PR phobia as I have days left to live. At that point, I started to bawl.

What exactly was Thelma trying to prove to me? Duh, I know that this PR phobia eats up my life. I know it’s a bad thing. I know it’s something that I need to change about myself. That’s why I was at Thelma’s office!

The session got worse after she made me sob uncontrollably. She told me a story about another client who suffered from the same PR phobia. Thelma explained, “Michelle—that’s my client’s name—has this exact same problem. When Michelle has an ‘episode’ she calls her parents and they come over and make her dinner, do her laundry, and take care of her. What are you getting out of your PR phobia?” When I told her that I honestly don’t know what I get out of this—I’d gladly relinquish this disorder in a second if I could’ve done it alone before this—she assured me that everyone who has a PR phobia gets something out of it. She asked me to think about how I’m using it to manipulate people. Honestly, I’ve only told about three people in my whole entire life about this; Awesome Man is wonderfully supportive, but it’s not something we talk about regularly. He knows when I’m having a PR phobia attack, but he doesn’t treat me any differently than normal. I don’t want him to treat me any differently.

Thelma then asked me to explain a typical PR phobia attack. I explained the details of it and then added, “I’m perfectly aware that none of this is rational. I know that if I think about this logically, it just doesn’t make sense. Still, I can’t seem to keep myself from having this reaction” I think it’s pretty clear from that statement that I know my phobia of PR is not rational. Thelma asked me to close my eyes and then asked me a series of questions: “What are you scared of? Will that really happen? What if it did? Then what? Then what?” This is exactly the process I take myself through when I’m having a PR phobia episode. I told her this as I answered her questions. At the end of the Q&A, Thelma said, “There. Now you’ve taken yourself through a logical set of questions, and you’ve concluded that there’s nothing to be scared of.” Thelma, did you not listen to me?!? I know I’m being irrational. If it were that simple—admitting that this is a ridiculous phobia—I wouldn’t be sitting in her office staring at the breathtakingly frightening statue of Jesus perched atop her desk and blowing my snotty nose on generic Kleenex.

She gave me mental health homework and told me to come back next week with a list of ways that my behavior is similar to my mother’s. And also to think about how I use this phobia to manipulate people around me.

But you know what really illustrates that I have a problem? I made another appointment so that I wouldn’t hurt her feelings. And I cried all day long because my life is almost over, and I’ve spent most of it being afraid of Pat Robertson.

I’m not a mental health professional, but I’m pretty sure that Thelma sucked. During our session, she talked about herself multiple times, answered the phone, and discussed other clients (at length) who had problems completely different than mine.

Here’s what I revealed about myself during the session:
* My marital status
* My age
* My job
* My phobia

That’s it. I didn’t tell her anything else. You want to know what I know about her? Here’s what she talked about:

* Her recent surgery
* Her general health conditions
* The ages and professions and mental disorders of her children
* The deaths of close family members
* Her brother’s tour of duty in Vietnam
* Her computer malfunctions (in detail)
* A few anecdotes about her mother (all of which sounded like email spam stories)
* An unpleasant experience with a professor in graduate school (in detail)
* Her GPA
* The reasons she became a therapist

I’m not used to sharing my mental problems with anyone—let alone a mental health professional—but is this normal? Is it normal for the therapist to talk more than me? Is it normal to leave feeling like she knew nothing about me or my problem?

Sadly, the whole experience has turned me off of therapy. I’d rather deal with my PR phobia by myself than put up with this. Alissa, my racist hair stylist, provides better feedback than this!