An Outside Opinion

the bee: I think you need to get out of the house more. It’s good for you. On the inside and out.

me: (peeks face out from behind open refrigerator door) I get out of the house (SNAP! *crunch*crunch*crunch*) …sometimes.

b: I mean somewhere besides the supermarket or the library.

m: (half-chewed orange substance sprays from mouth and freckles fridge door handle and shirtsleeve) Ai THIK yer fergaeg…

b: No…

Going to the drive-thru at the bank doesn’t count as “getting out”. Not really, anyway.

m: (uses open fridge door as make-shift ballet barre; *plié* *ronds de jambe* *plié* *relevé* *plié* *ronds de jambe* *plié* *développé* !!!)

I was going to say “the mayonnaise”. You’re forgetting the amount of mayonnaise that we consume in this house. I don’t think it’s fair to discredit my trips to the supermarket. I need to restock, like, bi-monthly.

If bi-monthly means what I think it means, which is to say I don’t know what it means and ANYWAY, where else am I SUPPOSED to go? (SNAP! *crunch*crunch*crunch*)

b: I dunno… ANYWHERE. Just go for a drive, get lost, have adventures, have FUN!

m: Do you have any idea how depressing that sounds? (waves a baby carrot in the air to emphasize the enormity of the issue) Who the hell wants to be out in public ALONE? It’s humiliating. The last time you told me I should go to the park because it was a beautiful day I did and it was a complete disaster. (SNAP! CRUNCH.)

b: Don’t you think calling it a “disaster” is a bit dramatic?

m: Ummm, NO… (baby carrot now inches from the nose of the offending conversationalist; half-chewed orange substance airborne and within range to fleck the shirtsleeves of others)

…I peeled off my cinch waisted pants and forced my hair into something resembling a trampled beaver’s den, though a thoughtfully maintained one, all so I could end up sweaty and looking pathetic while trying to find someplace isolated to sit and read my book.

Being amongst all those smiley, happy couples and families was honestly the most alone I’ve ever felt…

(dispiritedly grande pliés into the cold embrace of the refrigerator; crumples on the floor nestled between the ketchup and cold cuts where her mind transports us through a vast and trippy memory telescope/photo album type-thingy into… the recent past)

*****

I wandered aimlessly…

I took some pictures…

Lonely, DEPRESSING pictures…

I encountered 2 girls with a dog who happened to be hanging out in a shady place by the path I was on and I was pretty sure they were staring at me and laughing so I took this picture, which isn’t really of anything but it saved me from having to look them in the eyes while being publicly ridiculed…

Then I ended up getting kind of lost…

Honestly though, this rendezvous with desolation was the most welcoming moment the afternoon had offered so far…

So I decided to take a load off and just relax. I started messing with the camera to see if I could remember how to use all the different functions.

I couldn’t…

So I took a few not so great pictures…

Until…

Ahhh… That’s better…

I found some red in a tangle of green and brown…

A weeping, gnarled monster reaching skyward from its grave….

And not far from there, finally, a nice comfortable place to sit and read my book…

*****

b: How utterly… nightmarish.

m: I know. It really was.

But do you know the worst part about going out? What I would consider the ultimate in human degradation?

b: Ummmm…

Being harrassed by religious fanatics?

Feely airport security guards?

Not being able to cool yourself while simultaneously abusing precious home energy resources?

m: Close. But no.

b: Then what?

m: Eating in public. (closes fridge door and pirouettes out of the room)

Like a vampire except really just the bit about being pale and aged.

My doctor recently did some blood work for me and told me that I am substantially vitamin D deficient. This is mostly pathetic considering you really only need semi-regular exposure to the sun to remain within the 30-80 “normal” range.

Mine is 15.

Admittedly I’m not a big sun worshipper. I like a sunny day and I appreciate warmth but when it comes to exposing my porcine flesh to the outside world only dressed in a tank top and shorts, I’d just as much stay indoors in some nice climate controlled room wearing full coverage clothing because the AC makes the room I’m in just a *touch* on the cold side.

I don’t enjoy laying on the beach for two reasons: I hate being hot and I also hate sand. I’m terrified I might contract skin cancer from UV exposure, or whatever it is in the sun that causes cancer. Save from the time I was born to around the age of 7 (a.k.a. a time when I knew no better) I have had no reasonable desire to bake myself naked on a beach towel for a few hours under an unforgiving sun.

Somewhere down the line I convinced myself that any prolonged sun exposure was going to cause not only skin cancer but (god forbid!) premature aging so now I just don’t go out and if I do I’m slathered in an SPF anywhere between a 50 to an 80. This practice has left me so translucently pale that on a cloudy day you are bound to hear me before you actually see me.

Given the day and age we live in and the fact that I’m both Italian and from New Jersey, it is virtually unheard of for someone like me to exist in our society. I realize that my appearance is an embarrassment to this culture of tanned, fun-seeking, willfully unemployable miscreants and I’m basically OK with that.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that, although still technically a 20-something, I’ve felt more like a septuagenarian in terms of my curmudgeonly ways. I don’t like “going out” and I generally dislike “doing things” if it involves leaving the house after 7PM. This sort of paints a picture of me a few small steps away from being an invalid which would not be entirely inaccurate depending on the day.

I also frequently complain about “kids”. How they’re overly “self-involved”, “entitled” and “tech-obsessed”. Phrases like “Why I aughta!” (with exasperated fist-shake) and “Get a job!” frequently cross my mind but then I realize they’re all too busy sex-texting each other’s SpaceBook pages.

So…  why bother?

But, unless I’m alright with being pork-belly white and potentially, very ill in the long run… (zoinks!) I need to start taking care of myself. It’s just funny how you think you’ve got one part of your life sorted out; you eat better, exercise regularly and you find out that you’ve still been overlooking basic things like making the time to leave your darkened basement of a life for a little time with the living every now and again.

Sheesh!

*****

I thought I might include a completely un-retouched photograph of myself in case I decide to get serious and chart my progress back to health via my skin tone:

For instance, it might seem unclear from the photo but the shirt I’m wearing is actually white. That’s just the effect my ghostly pallor has on everything. Also, I’m noticing now that the “squat” position I’m assuming in this image is far from flattering.

Let’s ignore that part entirely…

Thanks.

I can cook. Just not very well.

me: Oh, thank GOD you’re here.

the bee: What happened?

m: I think I may have ruined the chicken.

b: What makes you say that?

m: I’m not sure if I cooked it long enough.

b: How long did you cook it for?

m: About 15 minutes, but it feels raw to me.

b: Should we really be feeling it?

m: I think so.

b: Well, when you cut it open is the chicken pink or is it white inside?

m: It’s white but I tried some and it felt like raw in my throat.

b: *raises a concerned and skeptical eyebrow*

m: Should it be white on the outside too? Because it doesn’t look very appetizing…

b: Steff, it’s fine. It looks exactly the same as when I cook the chicken.

m: You’re just saying that. I won’t believe you til you try it.

b: Ok. (Takes bite and chews for an inordinate amount of time to eat a reasonably sized piece of chicken)

*gulps* It’s… good.

m: *waves arms in a defeated and hysterical manner* Oh my GOD! Somehow I’ve managed to make it both raw and overcooked. I’ve ruined dinner! It’s a disaster.

and poison!

b: You just need to relax. This is not a disaster and it’s not poison. It’s chicken.

m: *mumbles under breath* poison chicken…

b: *sideways glance*

m: Well?

b: Maybe…

I B Freakin’

A few months ago I wrote about how I was still on the fence about going to BlogHer ’10. Long story short, I spent so much time straddling that damn thing that I missed my chance completely. Early bird registration came and went and then so did all the regular priced tickets. I figured it just wasn’t meant to be and even though I signed myself up for their waiting list I was secretly happy that I wouldn’t have to shell out a few hundo for the event.

As more time passed I started to think maybe my saving myself the money hadn’t been worth all that I would miss at the conference. As much as I’d like to envision myself as a Dooce or a Bloggess in 10 years time, I don’t know the first thing about blogging for bucks or even blogging all that well, so if I ever wanted to chase that dream, this was my chance.

As they often do, the fates aligned and I got my chance at BlogHer redemption. Reading through blogs (as I am wont to do during the work day) I came across a post that Mayopie wrote, offering up his 2-day conference pass that he no longer needed. Maybe BlogHer ’10 WAS meant to be after all! After a few days of back and forth emails the pass was mine and I was one step closer to world domination.

Given all that…

Can somebody please tell me why the reality of all this makes me want to upchuck my lunch?!

BlogHer is about 3 weeks away but already I feel like I’m going to be my normal awkward, anti-social self who will wish she could turn around and go home the minute she steps into the Hilton/find the darkest loneliest corner to hide in until it’s all over and OH GOD! What if somebody tries to talk to me?! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhh! but, Oh NO! What if NOBODY talks to me?!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh…

How big of a mistake have I made by signing on for this thing?

I just read through the BlogHer ’10 “Checklist” of things to bring and things to do in preparation and let me tell you, it’s not making me feel any more relaxed. Especially the part about bringing a “Business card with your blog’s URL and/or Twitter handle”.

BUSINESS CARD?!

Why didn’t I think of this sooner?

Ugh.

I read a post that Schmutzie wrote on tips to consider when creating your business card which was actually quite informative but I’m at an impasse: what the hell kind logo do I create for my card when I can’t even decide what kind of blog it is that I have here?

Am I a personal blogger?

Yeah, kind of. I talk about my life to an extent but I don’t really get into grittier topics for good reason (Hi there, Mom! Dad! Gramm!) and I do hold a lot back that I would most definitely share if I were slightly more anonymous. I’ve got some killer stories that will forever stay on the shelf because some of the people involved actually read this blog and I’m not in the business of hurting anyone’s feelings or alienating the few friends I have left.

Am I a humor blogger?

Eh… maybe. SOMETIMES. Though I think some of my funniest stuff is often times unintentional.

Good thing? Bad thing? You tell me…

Am I a photo blogger?

On occasion. I like to take pictures and all but are there people out there that DON’T? Doesn’t that kind of make everyone a photographer? That’s a lot of competition, yo. How the hell do you make yourself stand out with that?!

I dunno. Maybe I’m over-analyzing all this and intensifying the negative (that is what I do best, after all) but in the year or so since I started blogging, I have not found a way to appropriately “brand” myself. Maybe it’s because I hate labels and trying to fit things into neat little compartmentalized categories even though I will still try to do it because of my own obsessive need for order.

Have I mentioned that being me is AWESOME?

The more I read about successful bloggers the more I hear that one of the biggest pieces to completing that puzzle is to find your unique niche or brand so you will stand apart from the rest. But what if you can’t? Does that determine imminent failure from the start?

I’d really love to hear some feedback on this subject. Are YOU going to BlogHer this year? Have you ever attended a BlogHer or like-minded conference? Are my biggest fears irrational at best or am I totally in the right for freaking the fuck out over this thing?

7 Ways to Successfully Avoid Planning a Wedding

maybe we could just get the cake...

1.  Think about topics for blog posts. 

2.  Write blog post which is nothing more than an arbitrary list of ways to further procrastinate on wedding plans only to realize that creating the list is ALSO an awesome element of avoidance of said topic! 

3.  Make plans to sit-down and figure out wedding plans but never actually follow through with those plans. 

4.  Map-out an extensive cross-country road trip itinerary that JUST HAPPENS to coincide with the proposed date of nuptials. 

5.  Think of new names for the cat (that already has, like, 3 too many): 

• Stinky
• Stinky Winkerbean
• Stinking Butt
• Mr. Pants
• Mr. Monkey Man
• Meep Meep
• Balki from Mypos
• Lil’ Lenny Lemur
• Ling Ling the Lion
• Carl (jk! only a lunatic would name their cat Carl…)

6.   Schedule yourself for non responsive sedation a few days prior to the event, with explicit instructions left for friends and family to “carry on without you” and another set for doctors to wake you the day after it’s all over. 

7.  Cling to the flimsy hope that on the day of the wedding you can just show up and someone will have taken care of everything complete with guests jumping out from behind shrubbery shouting “SURPRISE!!!” 

Wash, Rinse, & Repeat until you finally get your way and the bee and your joint army of step/half/thrice removed relations will have to accept that all the headaches and hysteria pomp & circumstance of a traditional wedding ceremony is just not for you so can’t we just head on down to the county courthouse, sign some papers and then come home and take a nap?

Don’t Put Marbles In Your Nose/Put Them In There/DO NOT PUT THEM IN THERE (or anything else for that matter)

I’ve always been a “different” kind of person. Words that have been used to describe me since as far back as I can remember include: weird, strange, eccentric, alternative, unique, quirky, DIFFERENT. And those are just the nicer ones.

I mention this because when I was much younger I decided that shoving fuzzy willows* up my nose would be a great idea because I liked how they felt.

There is no doubt that fuzzy willows are perhaps some of the most decadently soft and luxurious little suckers in all of existence. In fact, if someone was entrepreneurial enough, I’d bet that harvested willows could be turned into some seriously excellent fabric, potentially putting the fur industry out of business.

Think about it…

Now, picture this:

I am 3 years old.

At the time, we lived with my grandmother, and my Gramm, being my Gramm (and likely my direct link to eccentricities abound) had less of a house and more of a museum filled to the brim with various tchotchkes, antiques and oddities. One of those oddities was an old spittoon that held branches of fuzzy willows.

My mother is busy at the sink, finishing up the last few dishes before she has to jet off to work. I am all of 5 feet away curiously picking at the fuzzy roundness of the willow branch emerging from the brim of the spittoon when one after another after another AFTER ANOTHER find their way into my pint-sized self’s nostril. No sooner than the last of ’em have been shoved into my nose, my mom turns to find her 3-year-old looking something like this:

My mom has now entered into full panic-mode.

So here I am, 5 or more (nobody is really sure) fuzzy willows unceremoniously shoved into one nostril, my breathing is struggled and my complexion is spotty.

~momentary aside~

I was very inquisitive and somewhat independent as a child, frequently looking to push the boundaries of what was the norm or acceptable into something that what was straight up bizarre-nified. I went through a brief phase where I would only wear different shoes together. I can remember being in kindergarten and wearing 1 pink cowboy boot and 1 rubber soled canvas slip-on to school. Rubber soled so I could still participate in that day’s poor excuse for physical activity: jump roping. So while I perfected the one-legged double jump, I’m sure my biggest success was establishing myself forever more as a closeted extrovert.

I’m not entirely sure something like that even exists but I’m totally claiming its discovery as my own.

(except i can’t because i just googled “closeted extrovert” and found someone’s blog! check. it. out.)

So!

The closeted extrovert (according to my own definition) is someone who just lives to push the envelope but doesn’t want to be seen as overly “show-off-y” or “obnoxious”. Just sort of outer circle and mysterious/weird, strange, eccentric, alternative, unique, quirky, DIFFERENT. Apparently there is also something called a “clos-et extrovert” and that’s basically the exact opposite of what I’m talking about so let’s forget I even mentioned it…

~resuming~

My mom runs next door to get my uncle (because what the hell ELSE do you do in a situation like this?) and he looks at me and then looks at her and suggests I be seen by some medical professionals.

The next few hours are a blur of lab coats and arms holding down my tiny body to an exam table so I don’t squirm away while a GINORMOUS pair of tweezers infiltrates my nostril in the hopes of removing the fuzzy perpetrators before they lodge themselves too much farther inside my nasal cavity.

Thankfully, I was left physically unscathed by the whole incident and (probably) all willows were successfully removed from my head.

It was a highly traumatic event to say the least but I learned my lesson. If you’re going to put things up your nose make sure they are BIGGER than your nostril.

Like a tiny marshmallow.

Duh.

*i had to ammend the name of said item due to a large number of kiddie p()rn perverts finding my blog.

Dining with Slob-zilla: The OCD Wackjob

At our house we don’t eat meals at the kitchen table.

We don’t even have a kitchen table. What we do have is a very tiny house and all that works as an eating surface in the kitchen is the countertop. Even when we did have a table and room for its existence in an appropriate space as we did in our old apartment, we rarely (MAYBE twice) ate a meal there.

Our meals, from breakfast to dinner and any and all snacks in between, take place in the living room over the coffee table and in front of the television. It’s like killing 3 birds with one stone. We get increased comfort, sustenance AND entertainment all rolled into one.

We are so fucking evolved it’s not even funny.

I’ve mentioned before how I’m not much of a cook  and I’m more than a little neurotic.

I have been late to work on numerous occasions because I simply can-not leave the house unless the entire living room is straightened up; blankets folded, throw pillows *just so*, all miscellaneous items returned to their proper place and good LORD! let’s pray there are no dishes on the drying rack because I’ll have to put those away too even if it’s 7:30 in the morning and the bee is still asleep and the sound of dishes being slapped on top of each other followed by the BANG! of the cabinets is completely disruptive to a sleeping bee and I. KNOW. THIS. but something deeeeeeeeeeeeeep down inside my inner sanctum tells me that the world will COLLAPSE if I don’t put that fork in the drawer before I leave.

Maybe you are like this too?!

Hey!

We should start a club!

We’ll just arrange for someone to mess up a room and we’ll all get together and put everything back where it should be for like an hour every Tuesday night!

How fun does that sound?

Here’s the part where I explain what an anomaly it is that I am the way that I am based on what exactly it is that I am.

(what?!)

You see, I am completely deranged into order and balance but I fear this is all because I am, in actuality, a complete and total SLOB-zilla.

I usually spend most of my time cleaning up after myself because I’m such a sloppy klutz. My clothes are always wrinkled and disheveled and just the other day I almost walked out of the lady’s room at work with my skirt tucked into my underwear.

True story.

Thankfully, another bathroom patron was kind enough to bring this to my attention before I embarrassed myself (more than the norm) in front of my colleagues. If I wore lipstick, there would certainly be more on my teeth than my lips, hence why I don’t wear it.

Yet, when it comes to any area of my life that I can seemingly control, WATCH OUT! because my obsessive need for order will likely overtake all else, leaving your own life’s needs/wants to be swallowed up by me and the need to sort things out MY way.

For instance…

To the great dismay of the bee, we can’t have a certain pillow/pillowcase combo on the bed because then it would throw off the balance of the bed. The really funny thing is I almost never actually make the bed (because WHAT is the point?). It’s just that were I to know that one of the pillows wasn’t the right weight/shape/consistency to appropriately match its “pair” then I would likely obsess about it until I had pulled out all my eyebrows and my teeth were ground down to a pulp.

Say we had 6 identical cups and one of them broke.

I would rather break another cup to keep the set even rather than have an additional, perfectly good cup ruin EVERYTHING by leaving the set with an odd number.

I love Häagen-Dazs. It’s probably the best ice cream in existence and it comes in containers sized most perfectly for just the right amount of over-indulgence.

Like a lot of people, I eat it my Häagen-Dazs straight from the container. The only problem is in order for me to finish I need to ensure that I have eaten the ice cream in an even method so that the surface remains flat, without dents or chunks missing before I put it back in the freezer. If there are dents? (god help us) I will have to continue to eat it until the surface of the ice cream is smooth once more. This is a highly delicious yet ill-advised technique because on numerous occasions I’ve been forced to finish an entire tub in one sitting because I couldn’t get the symmetry right which typically ends in midnight belly woes.

It seems like symmetry/balance is the real motivator to my madness (being a Libra, I guess it’s just meant to be) and come to think of it this would also fit the M.O. behind my recent haircutting massacre mishap.

I believe this post proves that I am not only OCD but, quite possibly, ADD considering I began discussing one thing and ended with another without really concluding either thought effectively.

Both (me) and this post are a mess.

I’m starting to think of it as less of a negative and more of an asset/major part of my charm.

Yeah, that’s it…

It’s been all SORTS of crazy up in here…

I went mental over the weekend.

I woke up Saturday morning and just lost it.

My mind, that is.

I was all ornery and cranked-out and PMS-ing all over the place.

And when I say PMS-ing I mean cramped and crying + irrational, psychotic and hyper-sensitive about ev-ry-thing.

My boobs were swollen and started taking over my neck space which greatly pleased the bee but left me feeling anything but sexy. For those who just read that and thought: “Oh, that BITCH. Complaining about her giant boobs, why I aughta…”

Just hold it right there…

Along with getting monster boobs I also get the highly hot & sexy belly bloat which makes me feel like a beached whale too fat and useless to even be rolled back into the ocean.

You know what?

That’s not all entirely true.

My being mentally unstable and pre-m’d is spot on. It’s just that, in truth, it started getting this way about a week before Saturday and I still kinda feel that way right now.

Which is probably why I hate everything about this post and what I’ve written and if I could scribble all over my monitor and then crumple it into a little ball and heave it in a wastebasket only to hysterically pick it out 10 seconds later making futile attempts to smooth out the wrinkles and decipher what I’ve written under scribble marks and creases and the blueberry yogurt gobs now smeared throughout the page because I don’t always throw my food trash in the kitchen which is bad I know but I can be really lazy and even though the desk trash starts to smell pretty foul after awhile because of rotting yogurt cultures that have been collecting amidst miscellaneous desk debris and hair clippings (I’ll get to that in a minute) imma do it anyway and then I realize that I threw this piece of trash away for good reason so I proceed to stomp kill it once and for all before ripping it into a million tiny pieces and then throwing those god-forsaken pieces back into the trash except for the ones smeared with yogurt because I’ve just realized that it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon and all I’ve eaten that day is 2 pots of coffee and a little bit of fiber couldn’t hurt at this point…

this didn't even happen and still a drew a picture

You know what you probably shouldn’t do if you are emotionally unstable/trying to grow-out your hair?

Start chopping away at it maniacally!!!

First it started as a means to get rid of a few split ends. Then I kept finding more and more and MORE until I was finally finished and it was clear that I now had a new, wildly lopsided problem.  

Trying to straighten some things out resulted in shorter, stupider looking hair that I basically hate.

So…

AWESOME.

Since I was already aboard the crazy train to almost balds-ville I took the next logical course of action:

I bleached a skunk-stripe in the front…

except it’s really not much to speak of.

Or see.

The bleach I used wasn’t very strong which was probably a blessing in my case given my track record for the day.

I call this one “Sadface/Duckface”:

FYI-

If, like myself, you have a major case of sadface then you should just go over and view the archives at antiduckface.com.

After looking through like 3 pictures you’ll at least be happy that you aren’t any of those people.

Or just feel worse than ever.

That all depends on your penchant for giving duckface.

So DON’T.

‘Cause it’s the little things… That do us harm

Sometimes I just forget to do simple things. Simple things like eating regularly or getting enough sleep. Like taking my meds daily or wearing my occlusal device (which is just a fancy name for a mouth guard) to prevent my compulsive nighttime tooth grinding. I mean it’s not like I don’t want to eat. I LOVE food for chrissake, just not when I have to make it for myself. Now that could be part of the problem. When left on my own, the most I’ll ever “make” is a beeline for the fridge to rake through what’s available in leftovers + 2 minutes in the microwave. Ok, I have been known to crack open a can of tuna fish adding mayo and sugar (don’t you judge me) and, if I have them, carrots and onions but since I don’t really buy fresh food often enough that last part doesn’t usually work out. I guess in my mind, if it takes longer to MAKE the food than to EAT the food, then it’s just not worth it. This does not apply to meals made FOR me, because I will eat those without complaints.

Exposing my shoddy cooking skills wasn’t where I was going with this. To be honest, I wasn’t really GOING anywhere with this post anyway. You see, I’ve been in this weird kind of funk where I feel generally unproductive and lethargic and just BLAH. I haven’t really felt incited to do much of anything since we’ve been settled in our new home. I think all the craziness over the last few weeks/months took a major toll on my brain meat. I’m just EX-HAUSTED. Allllllll. the. time. exhausted and where I would normally be buzzing around getting things done, lately I can’t seem to be bothered. The dishes? Leave ’em. Laundry? What’s wrong with what I’ve got on? I changed my underwear last week. WHAT? Go for a walk? Sorry, can’t. Forgot how.

At work I was presented with the task of taking on a department-wide monthly newsletter. This was met with a healthy grin and multiple emphatic head nods on my part but inside I felt little more than ho-hum at the prospect of this new task. In truth, I would rather be busy here than bored (like usual) but even a project seemingly right up my alley brings little joy to my altogether joyless outlook at the workplace. It seems like I’m just complaining about my job YET AGAIN and in a way that’s exactly what I’m doing only now it’s not just about my job. My lack of motivation and excitement has begun to seep into my personal life as well. Sooooooooo, not really an improvement. Just a more balanced level of melancholia. Shit.

I need an attitude adjustment. Or something. Maybe a green tea colonic would help. It can’t be as heinously awful as it sounds. Right?

Code Red: Stress Level Rising!

So I’m doing this thing again where I pull my hair out. My hair is actually in the best shape it’s been in close to 10 years so instead of just breaking off like it used to when I would pull and pull and pull OBSESSIVELY, now I’m getting it out by the root. I attribute all of this hair pulling to my increased stress level over the past few weeks. I thought I was doing good. I THOUGHT I was taking things in stride and dealing with the upcoming move like a level-headed adult-type person. The hair pulling tells me something different.

I remember when I first started pulling my hair out. Not so strangely it coincided with my first diagnosis of clinical depression, though I feel this act is more indicative of my anxiety issues but WHAT-EVER. I would sit in class and just pull and pull and PULL out my hair, usually from the front until the lecture was over and then I would walk out of the room with little broken pieces of blonde hairs covering the front of my shirt. Another effect of pulling your hair out? Your hair looks like shit. I had unintentional “bangs” for years bc I couldn’t stop my compulsion.

This move is considerably simpler than the last one. We only have to travel 20 minutes down the road as opposed to driving 8 hours up I-95 praying the TV doesn’t crack the window of my hatchback. This is giving me little comfort right now. I’m freaking out about everything. I am a raw exposed nerve and I WILL snap your fucking head off. Just ask The Bee. He’s still recovering from yesterday’s dose of insanity. In short: I suck. I’m also not feeling so hot. Maybe it’s those damn raw nerves causing my stomach to want to empty its contents repeatedly. TMI?

Because I am feeling all sorts of craze this week, I figured this vintage Pixies clip was an appropriate and literal interpretation of my current plight. So enjoy! It’s either that or I can further entertain you with my “Tales from the Toilet“.

Yeah, I thought so…