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neurosis

F I N A L L Y!

Ok. I am joking. Well, maybe 50%. I am most likely kidding on the square, as is my MO.

I have been thinking about being thankful, for all the right reasons, like everybody else around Thanksgiving time.

When I went to the grocery store across the street for the fourth time in two days yesterday afternoon, I asked the cashier lady what time they would be closing.

“7 pm. Why? You want to come back again?” She laughed.

“No. I was complaining to you about coming here so many times, but then I remembered that you are still working on Thanksgiving Day, so I am kind of embarrassed for being a whiner.”

Somehow I couldn’t get our brief exchange out of my head.

How many times have I complained to a cashier in a store about my day? To the teachers at my kids’ childcare center? To a salesclerk? To the person behind a counter, any counter? To all these other people earning minimum wages (or hopefully higher) and lousy healthcare / retirement benefits (if any) who probably at that moment just wanted to wring my neck but were able to wear a plastic smile because their jobs required them to?

Here are what I am thankful for, for the not so politically correct reasons:

I am thankful that working for me is a choice and not a necessity.

I am thankful that though I work, I do not carry the stress as a sole bread earner.

I am thankful that I am able to treat my work and responsibility as the “second” income and therefore I am not as stressed out as my husband.

I am thankful that my life is comfortable enough that I can afford to be plagued by angst, ennui and neurosis.

I am thankful that my reality affords me to worry about ideology.

I am thankful that I can afford to be generous.

I am thankful for not having to think at all in order to come up with things that I should be thankful for.

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I promised that I’d be snarky in the title so I cannot possibly let you down. Here it is…

I am thankful that Sarah Palin proved yet again that she has no business commenting on political issues or any other serious issues.

“Obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies.” — Sarah Palin on Glenn Beck’s radio show

(Yes, I’ll admit: it took me a while to try and work this gem into this post…)

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I am going to bet that at one time or another 99% of the women were asked one or all of these questions:

“Which Sex and the City gal is your favorite?”

“Which Sex and the City gal do you want to be?”

“Which Sex and the City gal are you?”

I never knew how to respond. Because deep down in my heart, I know who I resemble the most, dread resembling the most even though I also know, deep down in my brains, that I am crazy (also self-presumptuous and self-delusional) for thinking so.

Laney Berlin.

Who?

Laney Berlin. From Episode 10, Season 1, originally aired on August 8, 1998. “The Baby Shower”.

It is no surprise you have no memory of her. My google search only came up with ONE picture of her:

Laney Berlin “Which Sex and the City gal are you?”

Laney is the Fab Four’s former friend, or more accurately, frienemy and to Samantha, rival.

Laney Berlin. You can’t really describe her. You just had to know her. Chances are eight years ago you probably did.

Laney did A&R for a record label… Every time she went on a scouting trip, she came back with some hot new group… and a gynecological condition no one had ever heard of.

Those things make so many public appearances, they need a booking agent.

Disclaimer: Of course I am nothing like the above. I’ve never had a hot body for me to lament the loss over it. I’ve never had a wild, rebellious streak in my life, that is, until now… mostly inside my imaginary inner world, and even at that, with limitations. Tis sad that I channel Woody Allen even in my wildest fantasy.

In fact, Laney was another Samantha… until she found herself an investment banker, got married and moved to Connecticut. The Fab Four reluctantly went to Laney’s Baby Shower at her stereotypical suburban MacMansion surrounded by stereotypical suburban Stepford Wives. The gifts they brought? A fistful of cash. A bottle of Scotch. And pastel condoms.

Incidentally I gave birth to my first child in March 1998. I squirmed as I watched a dichotomy being artificially formed when the world of Sex and the City was split in two: Me and the pregnant, suburban Laney on one side; the gals on the other (And goddammit I want to be on that side with the Fab Four too!) and what happened when Laney tried to cross the bridge, back to the other side.

Laney, despite the outward appearances of marital bliss and contentment, felt regretful of her choices. Back  in the city, the gals found a pregnant Laney crashing Samantha’s party, demanding vodka (and attention naturally], offering to show her tits, and struggling on the stripper pole.

[Carrie] This is at once so sad…  and the most fabulous validation I’ve ever gotten in my life.

The image of Laney on the table surrounded by the party-goers who are obviously appalled has stayed with me since. I understand that 99% of the disapproval came from her being so “due any day now” pregnant and you simply DO NOT SHOULD NOT imbibe alcohol (and Vodka at that!) when a child’s life is at stake. However Laney on the table also symbolizes for me the attempt to grapple with the erasure of one’s (imagined or not) identity and the desperate attempt to retain/regain the last vestige of youth/freedom/autonomy/carefreeness/etc. It is that desperation that makes it so sad, that I respond to viscerally.

Every time when I behave like a wild child, act and dress against what I believe is age-appropriate and role-appropriate, flirt with strangers, skip down the sidewalk, party like it is 1999 (or 1997 aka 1 BC – “Before Child”), because this is who I am without thinking, I get a flashback of Laney on the table and I am immediately paralyzed by an onslaught of self-consciousness. I put myself in my place through the eyes of the others:

“Do I look like I am trying too hard? Too desperate? Do I look ridiculous? These people… What are they thinking of me? Are they laughing with me or at me?”

And the thought that I absolutely abhor:

“Do they feel sorry for me?”

I am desperate to not appear desperate. Insane? I know.

This is why every time when I am at a party I make a beeline to the bar and down 2 shots of vodka before the party starts for me. Because as it turns out, thank goodness, Laney Berlin can be warded off with alcohol.

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“We don’t always have a choice on how we get to know one another.  Sometimes people fall into our lives cleanly — as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth — the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.”

–  John Irving in Last Night in Twisted River

I have issues.

Ok. If you have read more than three of my posts, you probably have figured that out on your own already. By the way, thank you for staying after that realization, oh Brave One…

I am a social person. An extrovert. A vampire. I need to feed on people’s energy to feel alive. I revel in the small connections I make with friends and strangers. I become a great conversationalist. I am bubbly. I am chatty. I am flirty. I am fucking hilarious. I get a high.

I am also a recluse. An introvert. A hermit crab. I crash every time after I have battled through a social occasion. I replay everything inside my head. Over and over again. Did I say anything wrong? Did I offend anybody? Hurt somebody’s feeling? When I went crazy and all “I don’t fucking care what people think of me”, did I do something stupid? Was it obvious I am an insecure needy hanger-on? Did I come off genuine? Too genuine? Too genuine so as to come off as fake? Dripping with molasses? Was I too much of myself? And which one at that?

I don’t know why — Even though I’ll be the first person to tell you, all Chinese wisdom and Zen shit, that

There will always be somebody who dislikes you, for no reason at all, no matter how hard you try to get on their good side.

– I am dastardly bothered by the possibility that out there, there is somebody who hates my gut. This is a no-win situation of the pathological proportion. For example, when I am driving, I worry about what the other drivers will think of me. Will they be pissed if they are waiting for me to go through the intersection to make a left turn and I make them miss the light? I floor the car upon that thought.

I imagine the other driver thinking to themselves, “Wow. Appreciate that gesture, kind albeit reckless driver!”

Nah. Just kidding. I may be crazy but I am not delusional. I am fully aware of the futility. And the possibility this may be bordering on psychosis. (Oh, the irony…)

It takes one day for me to recover from each hour of my putting myself out there…  I was surrounded by strangers (women nonetheless) and more importantly, people who I genuinely would like to become friends with, for two whole days last weekend…

… … …

Yeah… This is gonna take a while…

I could not understand why I have been restless and jittery and utterly exhausted and prone to crying this week until I sat down and started typing out these words above.

I am going through withdrawal. The detox process has begun.

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* I thought the whole night and decided to turn the comment function off. I did not write this post to fish for more compliments which many of you have kindly bestowed on me, deservedly or not. I just needed to get this out of my head, hoping doing so will help speed up the process or at least stem the tide that’s dragging me further away from what is deemed normal.

** No worries. I am ok. I am always ok.

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I Comment Therefore I Am – Trolling

June 15, 2010 imho is just a polite way to say I know you don't give a hoot what I think but I'm going to say it anyway

When I was in college, Deconstruction and Postmodernism were in vogue, later when I was in graduate school, Cultural Relativism was all the rage, and I thrived in the academic environment that prized my way of examining and understanding life and people from all perspectives. In real life, this makes me a person with no [...]

33 comments

Last Day of Innocence

June 8, 2010 no manual for parenting

He may not know it but today marked an important milestone in my oldest’s life, and also in our life as parents. My husband walked the boys to the bus stop this morning and he even took some pictures of them together waiting for the bus albeit with his phone*. This will be the last time [...]

33 comments

“precisely ninety-one centimeters from himself”

March 17, 2010 therapy in session

“Having been struck by a 150-ton meteorite, Henry has to adapt to living precisely ninety-one centimeters from himself.” Once in a while, you come across something that so resonates with you to the point of altering your reality. Or your perception of reality. It’s like, all of a sudden, you can see yourself more clearly. [...]

18 comments

Scary Movies

February 24, 2010 random

The boys and I are still awake. We went to bed at around 10:30 pm. Or rather, we started getting into bed at around 10:30 pm. When my husband is out of town, both boys like to sleep in the big bed with me. I let them. You know why? Because I am scared. I [...]

34 comments

The strength of not giving a damn

January 29, 2010 therapy in session

We have all been asked of this quiz question before: What Super Power do you wish you had? I still don’t know what my answer should be. Flying? Mind control? Teleporting? “The ability to eat as much as I want without gaining any weight”. Yeah. That’s what I am thinking right at this moment. You [...]

49 comments

Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

December 11, 2009 a picture is worth a thousand words

I was thinking since I am all over the map going from warm fuzzy pictures of my kids smiling like angels to crazy ass inappropriate jokes and cursing to crazy ass all-out ranting on people/events/things that piss me off. I either have ADHD or Bi-Polar, I realized, or as my husband would gladly tell you, [...]

40 comments

Freedom from Want, Or The Case of the Golden Turkey

November 22, 2009 a picture is worth a thousand words

Even if you don’t know its name, you must have seen this iconic painting by Norman Rockwell: The name of the painting is Freedom from Want, by Norman Rockwell in 1943. Ever since its appearance and subsequent permeation into the pop culture and the collective American consciousness, it is also known as Thanksgiving Dinner. This [...]

23 comments