Sort of?

I did not make resolutions this year, because I figure I sort of screwed myself over by starting therapy the month before the new year started. What am I supposed to do to top that level of self-improvement? At any rate, this has led to a lot of minor, half-joking, situational resolutions. A short list:

This year, I have resolved to:

• make Limoncello, in honor of this tweet, and in honor of fruit-flavored alcohol being delicious.
• wear tall socks with heels, because if ever there was an absurd fashion trend for me to follow, this is it.
• take swimming lessons, because as I have mentioned before I can't swim. And, sidenote, this whole idea of black people not being able to swim, which I always assumed was some racist bullshit that slave owners used to say and it somehow stuck around, is actually a real and well-documented cultural phenomenon. And I guess it's true in my own experience, it was always my mom who took us swimming, Dad never even got in the water. Who knew?
• Spend less money on clothing, because I went through 12 months' worth of bank statements last week and apparently that's what I spent the most money on. I was kind of hoping it would be fast food, because that would be easy to cut out. 
• Joint resolution with Heather: Be sexy with each other, but not with each other (there is a suggestive eyebrow raise and raised inflection in that italicized text, by the way). I don't think there was any specific reason for this resolution other than we bought Groupons for the gym that has stripper pole fitness classes and we need to use them before they expire. 
• Apply for the Fringe Festival again. This one is not so much a resolution as an acceptance of the inevitable. The misguided, hilarious, half-written inevitable.

There you have it. I have seen the future, and it is now. And it is fucking ridiculous.

Christmas time lightning round update post

• I should be sewing right now. I SHOULD BE CRAFTING. I have presents to finish. Lots and lots, although not all due by the 25th. So I came downstairs to sew, then I ate some nachos, then I decided to update my blog, then I spent about half an hour reading TOVA test manuals, and here we are.
• I took what I am pretty sure was a TOVA test on Monday (do you see how I foreshadowed that in the previous bullet point? I am literary devicing the hell out of this post). It had numbers instead of little boxes, so it may have been a different brand than the one in the link. Anyway, it was horrible, and I don't have the results yet. The doctor said that generally if the person looks away from the screen during the (15 minute OMG it was so awful!!) test they have ADHD, and I read everything she had posted on the walls. But still, I'm worried that I failed the test, or passed it, however you want to look at it, and that's not what the problem is and then I'm back to square one of not knowing why everything about me is wrong or how to fix it. And I am just going to continue to freak out until I know exactly what I need to do, because I am irrational and this is how I do.
• Bell choir plays on Friday night at 11:00 for the Christmas Eve service and I have no idea how it will go because I had to cancel practice Monday because of the snow. Actually, I had to cancel practice via ad hoc phone tree from my car stuck on I94 in the middle of snowstorm + Vikings game gridlock. Monday was a stressful day, guys. 
• Ryan got me a photo book of all our Disney World food pictures, plus a shit-ton of chocolate and random wasting-time books. I am getting him an Arduino, which he asked for. I have no idea what it is, so I looked it up on Amazon, clicked on the first product that came up, and bought all of the "Frequently Bought Together" products. Total cop-out gift, I know. He may get something sewn too, if there's time, which there won't be, because I still have a few bullet points left in me. Onward...
• Speaking of the food picture book, I've noticed lately that a lot of pictures of me could be classified as food porn. Not food porn in the food-blogging sense, like "Oh, hey, the editor called, he was wondering if you could Photoshop a few of those water droplets out of the picture you sent over. That tomato looks a little too juicy." I mean in the actual sense of food and porn, like, there are a lot of pictures of me sticking phallic shaped foods into my mouth. Case in point, my current Facebook profile picture. What's that all about? And, more importantly, is there a way to monetize this phenomenon? Surely there has to be a fetish for photos of people eating food in an accidentally sexy manner? My knowledge of nontraditional sex is limited and I'm afraid to Google it.
• Holy crap, I just Googled it. Food porn (the blogging kind) has a Wikipedia page with a subsection titled "Actual Pornography." If this page had pictures (why wouldn't this of all pages have pictures!?) it would be the best Wiki article ever.
• Clicked over to the Google image search and was confronted with several pictures of women wearing bacon bras. HOLY CRAP AGAIN.
• This is probably a sign that I should get back to the Christmas presents. Here are a couple quick previews:

There are more, things that aren't far enough along to have photographed. But I've got the rest of the weekend, really. How does Santa do it, one is culturally obligated to wonder at this time of year.

Okay, back to work. But one more bullet point I just thought of.

• "Lightning round" is a pretty inaccurate title since it implies some sense of speed and I took about half an hour to write this. But what would be better? Potpourri, or something like that? Miscellany? Clusterfuck? That last one is the most accurate but I had a swear word in the title of my last post so I need to self-censor this time around.

Ugh. Time to try to salvage some productivity out of the night.

That at least explains all the dick jokes

So I've been going to see a therapist. It's been okay, really. She's nice. She's also an ordained minister, which is kind of cool, but also weird, because you know, am I allowed to talk about sex? Because all of it thus far has been premarital (not that I have any specific reason to talk about sex, it just would be nice to know how awkward I should feel if it were to come up). But she is a Lutheran minister, so at least I know she doesn't think I have demons. We are a demon-free people, on the whole.

I've been learning a lot of interesting things, mostly about myself, things that I already knew because somehow I have managed to become really self-aware, which I think is part of the problem, because I'm critical. Anyway, they were things I already knew about myself but didn't put together as a cohesive whole, because I have a serious thought maintenance problem. They're just...in a cloud or something. A big electron cloud, and my head is the nucleus, and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is directing the show. Is that too esoteric? Is quantum physics not an appropriate topic to use in an analogy? Because I have thought long and hard about this (critical self-awareness, you see) and quantum physics is the best I could come up with. My thoughts are wave packets and it is impossible to know where they are and what they are doing at any given moment. (That's not exactly what the uncertainty principle is, but for the sake of the metaphor it works. Also, the electron cloud of thoughts is hazy and green. Obviously.)

So we have been discussing what it means to have hazy green negatively charged sub-particle thoughts, along with a lot of other, non-bastardized scientific terms like "working memory" and "executive function," and oh, hey, it turns out I have like all of the symptoms of ADHD. What?? Come on.

To be honest I kind of expected it, and a former therapist recommended I get tested for it, but at the time I was busy trying to keep myself from wanting to die, so I forgot about it, then I remembered it again but put it off, and so on for five years, right up until the point a few weeks ago when I was convinced I was getting stupid and about ready to become a recluse. Because that is what I do. With everything. And, also, it's always better to err on the side of blaming yourself for things like this. I didn't want to come across as a victim or an excuse-monger, you know.

So next week I'm going to take the test, which I'm scared to death of, because 1) it's long, and I'm afraid I won't be able to concentrate long enough to answer questions correctly, and 2) I'm afraid I won't be able to think up good examples for the questions I'm asked. But maybe they've factored that into the test already? I don't know. I do know, not on the subject at all, that Ryan was overjoyed that I told my therapist I hate movies because they're too long. Because that is totally what I'm going to focus on fixing, Ryan.

But regardless of how the test turns out, I already feel better. This is validation in a way, this idea that something is wrong, yes, but it can be fixed. I remember it was the same way with my depression a few years back - I didn't start to get better until I had read a ton of research on depression and convinced myself that it was an actual, medical problem, not just my ability to fix myself. Plus, just having a term to search for on the internet is cathartic, really - today I found an article that had a 10-step guide to using a day planner to make lists and OH MY GOD THAT IS THE BEST THING EVER.

Seriously, I told my brother to get me a planner for Christmas. I'm pretty excited about this. There may also be color-coded post-it notes.

Bottom line: Things are gonna be okay, I think. They're about to get expensive, because next year my deductible goes way up, but I'm not taking classes next semester (I *may* be on academic probation...another warning sign I guess I missed...) so this is what I'm going to work on. Organizing. Color-coding. Paying bills in a timely manner and filing them in an easy-to-access-come-tax-time spot. Oh, and not being so hard on myself. In that vein, all future references to "bullshitting my way through life, desperately hoping I don't get caught" will now be referred to as "developing and maintaining effective coping strategies." I'm no expert at either, but I think cognitive-behavioral therapy and public relations may be the exact same thing.

There you go. I probably have ADD. So I'm not stupid. I'm just an 8-year-old boy.


Edit: OH MY GOD I JUST REMEMBERED THIS! The greatest South Park episode of all time!

Timmy 2000
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

Sad part is, that's my favorite book...I was totally yelling "It's a gold car! It symbolizes money!" at my screen the whole time... :)

Naomi Beck, Tiny Playwright

My brother is in town this week so yesterday we all got together and went to the buffet at the casino, because we are a classy bunch of people who appreciate the option of eating multiple portions of pig in a single meal. After brunch we went back to my mom’s house, where I was cajoled/guilted/forced into going through some of my old things which are still in her basement. I moved out almost six years ago but I’ve never been motivated to dig through the piles of books and papers, mostly because I knew I’d end up sitting and reading everything. But faced with everyone’s prodding I finally agreed to spend 15 minutes cleaning out an old nightstand.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Most of the things I found I threw out right away - old magazines, homework, more stickers than I care to admit, that sort of thing. But I had plenty to keep, too. Old music flash cards (this was out of pure laziness - I assume that someday I will need to teach someone notes and key signatures, and I will be happy that I don’t have to make my own flash cards), a few letters from my dad (he used to write one to my brother and I at the start of each school year), some school awards, a letter I wrote to a former teacher but never sent, decorated with the aforementioned sticker collection (confession: I have had a crush on every male teacher I’ve ever had since junior high. I kept the letter more out of embarrassment than anything. I don’t think I can even read it!), and, probably the best thing that I forgot I had/did: a play I wrote when I was seven.

Yeah. I wrote a play! See, when I was little, I had a ton of career aspirations, but the one I remember having for the longest was writer. Or more accurately, a flight attendant, so I could see the world and meet a lot of interesting people to write about. I was a practical child. I remember writing stories all the time, but as far as I can remember, this was the only play.

So here it is: The Big Trip, by a seven-year-old Naomi, transcribed with spelling/punctuation/style errors left in. A few notes:

• Tania was my best friend at the time and Aubrey (spelled incorrectly throughout) is her older sister. I believe we performed this for the kids in the nursery at church. As I recall, it was a total flop.
• The parts are written for the performers rather than the characters, which I guess shows that I was writing it from a directorial perspective. It should be pretty easy to figure out who the characters are, because they usually introduce themselves. In the scenes on the planes, I'm the flight attendant.
• The Peabody is a real hotel in Orlando, Florida. My family had gone to Orlando the previous summer and seen the duck march there, and I was absolutely enchanted. As far as I know, the catch phrase was of my own invention.
• At the top of the first page I had written and crossed out "Daddy and Naomi's Big Adventure" (supposed to be a play about the time Dad and I took the car to the shop and rode the bus home) and on the back of the last page I have "The Mystery of the Lost Items" (no idea what that was supposed to be about). Even back then I couldn't finish things :/
• I still do not know the difference between a scene and an act, so I can't comment as to whether that is correct or not.

Enjoy!

The Big Trip
by Naomi Beck
Naomi, Tania and Aubry
(written March 1992)

act one Tania’s House - T.A. office

Tania: This house is getting very dull. I think I shoud go on a trip. I’ll call the Travel Agent right now. (Tania dials the phone)

Aubry: Travel Agent office. Miss Conolly speaking.

Tania: Hello, I’d like to go to Florida and reserve a hotel there, too. Do you have any?

Aubry: Yes. I have a hotel and a flight for you. The hotel is the Pebody and I’ll get your flight pass ready for you. You can pick it up tomorrow.



act two Travel Agent’s office

Aubry: Here is the pass. Have fun packing!

Tania: Oh, Thank you! I’ll have fun!

Aubry: You don’t get it. Bye.




Seven Weaks Pass
Act three on the plane

Tania: Wow! This is neat!

Naomi: Buckle your seatbelt. This plane takes off in five minutes.

One Hour Later

Naomi: Here is your meal. Enjoy.

Tania: This is good!



Act four the hotel

Naomi: Pebody, Pebody, Pebody! May I help you?

Tania: Yes, can I get the key to my room

Naomi: Here it is. Have fun.



Act five Tania’s room

Tania: This is a nice room! (Tania relakses then gets her swimsuit on)

Aubry: Hello, I’m the maid. I’ll clean your room for you.

Tania: All together, this is worth all the money I paid.



One Week Passes
Act Six on the plane

Naomi: Well, it’s nice seeing you agin!

Tania: It’s nice seeing you to!



2 Hours Pass
Act seven Tania’s house

Tania: Wow! Was that ever a good trip!

Aubry + Naomi: Well Tania, was your trip good?

Tania: I just said that. Come on, let’s go! I’ll tell you all about my trip.

(Everybody walks away.)

The End

The annotated coffee shop visit

3:55PM I'm not sure why I came here. I could've just gone to the computer lab at school. Really, it's too late for coffee. I'll be up all night. Maybe I'll ask for it half decaf.

3:58PM Well, I just made a fool of myself asking if it was okay to charge a dollar coffee. Best not to make a bigger fool of myself by admitting I can't handle caffeine after noon. I'll just drink half of it. It's on sale, at least.

4:05PM Who do I sit facing: creepy guy with laptop, or two creepy guys talking near the "fireplace"? Oh, laptop guy is leaving. Problem solved.

4:15PM Is this coffee burnt? Seriously, not worth a dollar.

4:30PM I just used my student email for the first time in over six months and managed to somehow email myself instead of my teacher. How does that happen?

4:35PM I should leave. I already smell like old coffee. I should go to church and work on bell choir stuff. Wait, no, I should resend this email first.

4:37PM Guess I can't work on homework until I get a response, right?

4:38PM Mindless internet surfing

4:50PM Ooh, it's Cyber Monday! Gotta get Christmas presents while the shipping's still free.

4:54PM I hate Christmas music. Seriously. So much. Better Facebook about it.

5:00PM I have very little knowledge of modern American literature. Better Twitter about it.

5:14PM The wifi in here was working perfectly right up until the EXACT MOMENT I tried to make a purchase. WTF. This had better go through...

5:15PM Email....from teacher...oh well.

5:16PM Email from Barnes & Noble, awesome. Although I just thought of another book I need to buy. Damn. Hope the coupon works for more than one order per person. Or I could get Ryan to buy it for me. Could I convince Ryan to buy his own present? Am I that clever/devious/good at lying? I'd probably forget all about it by the time I got home.

5:20PM More Facebooking. Some texting. I really should leave soon.

5:21PM A couple of teens just sat down at the table across from me (formerly occupied by Creepy Laptop guy) and preceded to very loudly eat their Subway sandwiches. Like ridiculously loudly. On the order of livestock. I am 10 feet away and I can hear the chewing. Also, I'd like to point out that WE ARE AT CARIBOU. I hope they can feel the hatred I am beaming at them.

5:25PM Still chewing. Still beaming.

5:30PM The eating has ended but clearly I've lost focus. The homework isn't done, the coffee is only 1/3 done, and I am going to be smelling gross old coffee on myself for hours. And, as I look around, I'm noticing that most of the people here are teens, and they're very loud. I don't care if you're studying for your ACTs, or doing your group projects about the Industrial Revolution, or whatever, you kids need to keep it down. Seriously, don't make me come over there. And stop drinking Caribou Coolers or whatever they're called. They're not real coffee; they're basically ice cream. And caffeine makes you skinny, girls. It's just like nicotine, but D.A.R.E. won't get all up in your face about it.

5:36PM That was totally an old person rant. I'm ranting about teens now. On my blog. Ours is a strange generation, the Millennials.

5:38PM New rule: Finishing a blog post counts as finishing something. I'm out of here. If I hurry, I can get to church in time to play the organ really loud for a few minutes before people start to show up. Yeah, I do that for fun.

5:40PM See you tomorrow, Caribou.

Unwelcome cachet

(Transcript of a phone conversation yesterday, as verbatim as I can get it)

"Hi, I'm wondering if anyone at your clinic is taking new patients?"

"That depends on what time you'd like to be seen."

"Mid-afternoon? Between 3:00 and 5:00 would be best."

"No, we don't have anyone available then. The only times we have free are between 10:00 and 2:00."

"Hmm, that probably won't work. Do you know if any of your other clinics have openings?"

"I can check. What is your primary reason for this visit."

"Um, I guess that would be depression."

"Oh. [pause] I can get you in at this clinic on Monday at 4:00."


So about a month ago I came to a shocking realization: I am a huge fucking moron and a total failure at everything I do. Out of nowhere! I can't finish anything, I can't start anything, I can't do anything. I'm not smart, not funny, can't communicate in any meaningful fashion, can't behave like an adult. I used to be so good, so awesome...and now I'm a horrible asshole. A huge fucking moron. I totally shut down, because when you are stupid and awful there's not a whole lot you can do anyway, right?

I thought about my problem long and hard and came to the conclusion that one of four things must have happened:

• I somehow suddenly and inexplicably lost 26 years of intelligence and social graces;
• I was always without intelligence and social graces, but somehow suddenly and inexplicably lost my ability to bullshit my way through life;
• I was always without intelligence and social graces, was never able to bullshit my way through life, and was just now realizing what everyone else knew all along but was too polite to tell me; or
• Adult-Onset Asperger's

When I finally got around to researching my predicament online (in the precious few moments I had between sleeping all of the time and being immobilized by my sense of worthlessness), I found out two things: First of all, there's no such thing as Adult-Onset Asperger's. And second, the symptoms of being a huge fucking moron are exactly the same as the symptoms of depression.

Seriously. Depression. What the hell.

Because here's the thing: I've had depression before. In a big way. The pills, the therapy, the overnight in the psych ward, everything. And I worked my ass off to fix myself and rebuild my life. And now it's back? Again, what the hell.

But then I realized, if it is depression, that means I failed to keep myself un-depressed. So either way, I'm right. I'm a failure. I win! And that tiny bit of cognitive dissonance was enough to overcome my denial and make me call a clinic, resulting in the above conversation. And they apparantly think I'm in such bad shape that I won't survive past the weekend. I win again! I win at having incredibly poor mental health. Gotta take your victories where you can, right?

So here I am, waiting for Monday. Already I feel better, smart enough to have figured out what was really wrong, accomplished enough to schedule an appointment. In control of my life enough to fix the broken parts. I am okay, or good enough, or working on it. It varies minute to minute.

For now I am just going to keep existing and see what happens.

In it for the long haul

How to Survive a Snowstorm:
1. Put on your warmest sweatshirt. Bonus points for irony. Extra bonus points for irony and veracity.

Puns = Fashion

2. Put on your tallest socks, because seriously, fuck pants.

Source

3. Make sure you have plenty of warm beverages.

Premium Taste!

4. Make sure you have plenty of other beverages, too. Gotta have Vitamin C; it's cold season after all.*

Make sure you're getting your RDA of garnish, too.

All of this would have been greater comfort had I not actually had to go out in the storm today, but I had class, and for whatever reason my teacher decided that we really really needed to turn in and present our projects today and it just couldn't wait until next week. So I bundled up, dug my car out from underneath the (unnaturally heavy) snow, and five minutes into the trip realized I had left my phone at home. And that maybe psyched me out a little bit, because about half an hour later, when I was almost to school, my car spun out and I ended up perpendicular to the road stuck in the unplowed snow between the lanes.

Now, it should be noted that I survived (obviously), without injury to myself or my car, but spinning out is a harrowing experience nonetheless. My car stalled, since it's a manual, so I had to restart it, then fight my way through the snowbank, hoping that no one else was coming down the road, because they sure as hell wouldn't have been able to stop. Fortunately I was only stuck for a few minutes before I broke free and was able to get my car turned around, then I found a parking lot to turn back around in and drove back over the exact spot where I'd just spun out. By the time I got to class (25 minutes late) my nerves were so frayed I didn't even feel nervous standing in front of everyone to present my project...although, that could have been due to the fact that only about ten people actually showed up...

So to recap: We are less than 24 hours into winter and I'm already over it. But I have 99 more tea bags, the rest of the bottles of tomato juice and vodka, and at least one more ironic sweatshirt (remember the Burger King Kids Club? My chest sure does!). Come find me when it's April, okay?


*Apparently Vitamin C doesn't actually do much to prevent or cure colds. I found this out a few months ago, and it's been seriously messing with my worldview ever since. All those fortified cough drops...the oranges...the gin and tonics...were for nothing? I guess I can take comfort in the fact that I've while I've had numerous colds over the past 26+ years, I've never once come down with a case of scurvy.