I recently read a tedious, long-winded, nonsensical opinion piece in the New York Times entitled “How To Live Without Irony.” It’s the kind of self-absorbed, self-righteous, vacuous essay that makes me sigh deeply and weep for humanity’s intellectual decline. I got the distinct impression that the author, (An associate professor at Princeton, no less. This is not some part-time teacher at Butler Community College. She teaches at Princeton! Where smart people go!), cobbled her essay together paragraph by disjointed paragraph in between hefty doses of Ambien, Lexapro, and Cabernet Sauvignon. If it hadn’t been published by the New York Times and written by an associate professor at Princeton! <gaped mouth O!M!G!> I would have assumed it was written by an anxious, over-achieving 16-year-old who was cramming at midnight to complete an essay at the last-minute for her AP English class that she is desperate to get an ‘A’ in so she can maintain her class-leading 4.87 GPA, who the following day starts cutting herself when her (non-Ivy League-educated) public school teacher gives her a C minus on it.

That being said, her piece of shit opinion piece sure did give me something to think about.

Now, I don’t expect you to read her essay. But if watching bad reality television or listening to painfully bad Usher songs aren’t filling you with enough of that delicious kind of agonized self-loathing that make you want to repeatedly stab yourself in the neck for the horrible life choices you continue to make even though you’re a grown-ass adult and you should know better by now, by all means, knock yourself out. I linked it above. Happy stabbing. I’ll still be here when you get back from the ER.

Or, in an effort to save time, (and valuable plasma at the Blood Bank), I could just give you the gist of her arguments here:

1)All we do is live ironically now.

2)Hipsters are the worst at this. The absolute worst. Some of them even have moustaches and play trombone! I mean, for shame!

3)Living ironically is bad. Ironic living makes it hard to make real connections with other people, serious subjects, or your own feelings. It also makes you incapable of looking people in the eye or buying heartfelt gifts for your friends.

4)The author came-of-age in that glorified decade known as the 90s, where no one was ironic. People were grungy and apathetic back then, which was WAY better than being ironic like today’s hipsters.

5)Why?

6)It just was. It might have something to do with the superiority of flannel over tiny shorts, but she does not really flesh this out. Perhaps because it is such an obvious truth that no explanation is necessary.

7)You can try to reduce the amount of irony in your life by trying to behave more like a four-year-old. Or a person with severe mental disabilities. Or a plant.

(Now you probably want to read her entire essay to find the part where she encourages you to live non-ironically, just like a ficus. (Yes, she does. I assume that particular paragraph was written after not one but two bottles of Cab Sauv.) Happy stabbing. I’ll still be here when you get back from the ER.)

At no point did she tell those damn kids to stay off her lawn, but we do not know for certain at this point if that was merely edited out for size.

So, clearly, this essay made me grit my teeth and want to punch the next person I see reading The Atlantic Monthly. I never quite understand why intellectuals are so reviled by most normal people, then I read pretentious crap like this, a wee little lightbulb goes off in my head, I hear a precise, metallic <ding!>, I raise my forefinger in the air and think, “Ah ha!”

But, since I’m actually spending my valuable time responding to it instead of watching Dancing With the Stars, who’s the real idiot? <ding!>

Now, I would like to couch my response to her with a few disclosures: I was born in 1969, (which means that I’m 43, for people that do not want to bother with the maths.) I am not a 20-something standing up in solidarity for my skinny jeans wearing, Frappucino-drinking brothers and sisters. And I am not John McCain, suffering from the shock of yet another lost election cycle, ranting nonsensically about how unqualified this woman is to be Secretary of State. I am, ironically enough, of the same generation as the author, although I am clearly much more rational and clear-thinking. (I’m guessing that’s because I am not on her same diet of antidepressants, booze and sleeping pills.) I also do not have a sociology degree or anything else that would remotely allow me to call myself an expert on this subject. I certainly don’t teach at Princeton. (I don’t even teach at Butler Community College.) All I have is a wee bit of common sense and a slightly larger worldview that this hopelessly addled author.

So, let me break it down for you:

America is a diverse country. We have never been a laconic, static nation. Our borders are filled with bustling, energetic groups of every ethnic and religious background imaginable. Our “culture” is an amalgamation of hundreds of different subcultures. It is fascinating, breathtaking, impossibly large in scope, ridiculously challenging to get a handle on, and always shifting.

What you can NEVER do, (not without sounding like a complete moron), is ascribe an entire ethos, (in this case, irony), to “the hipster.”

The hipster is no more a blight upon this nation than the flapper was, or the beatnik, or the hippie, or the slacker. The hipster certainly flavors our culture, but in no way does he control or dominate it. And so if you’re trying to make the point that our lives are filled with too much irony and we need to learn to be more sincere, it makes no sense to point an accusing finger at a man in a vest and skinny jeans wearing horn rimmed glasses shouting, “There’s the culprit!”

Which do you wish to excoriate, hipsters or irony? Because they are two totally different things. Since you entitled your essay “How To Live Without Irony,” I am going to assume that irony is your main buggaboo.

So. Let’s look at irony for a minute. There certainly is a lot of it in our culture. Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report has clearly perfected the art. We have more late night talk shows than ever skewering national and world news on a daily basis. Comedy podcasts like the Bugle tackle meaty subjects with humor as well. And, of course, South Park and the Simpsons and other animated shows still manage to poke at revered icons and taboo subjects. Irony is not necessarily a bad thing. In many cases, it can be quite hilarious.

Irony is not the same thing as cynicism or apathy. It is also not necessarily an indicator of anti-social behavior. Just because a very masculine man wears a Care Bears t-shirt, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know how to listen to his girlfriend or carry on a conversation about serious subjects.

In fact, let’s just take a look at what this country has endured, at least in my lifetime:

1)Vietnam–a war we were lied into, were drafted into by the hundreds of thousands, that we didn’t want to fight.

2)Watergate–a clear-cut example of the President of the United States employing dirty, immoral, dishonorable tactics in order to win re-election over a political opponent

3)Nuclear Arms Race–people in the 70s and 80s lived with the extremely real possibility that we would all be blowed up real good any goddamn day now.

4)AIDS

5)Stock market collapses

6)Cyanide in Tylenol. Remember how we almost shit our pants over that one?

7)Toxic shock syndrome. Your tampons were going to kill you. Seriously.

8)The attacks on the World Trade Center. More frightening than your tampons.

9)Ten or eleven years of perpetual war. Or maybe it’s twelve years. Is anyone still counting?

10)The cola wars I can’t take it anymore.

Through the past ten years, our protests against the system have been weak and ineffectual, our wages have shrunk, our college debt has risen, we’ve been told that we’re greedy for expecting social security to remain solvent, that we’re fools for believing that global climate change is man-made, that Janet Jackson is the Devil for flashing her nipple at our children during the Super Bowl, that we’re criminals for trying to download a Young MC song off of Napster, that we’re going against God’s will, prophecy and ALL THAT IS WRITTEN for believing that gay people are should be treated like people, that we’re morons for thinking that electric cars and solar power are going to make this globe a better place, that we’re socialist terrorists if we think Barack Obama is an effective leader, that we’re going to Hell for not believing in Hell, that we’re bringing on the destruction of the country for expecting our immigrant brothers and sisters to be treated with dignity and respect, and that we’re unpatriotic if we don’t blindly support a military that seems to derive an inordinate amount of power and pleasure from blowing people up.

And yet you have the audacity to lament the prevalence of irony in our society?

I submit that the only thing that has kept this pulsating mass of a society from losing its collective mind in my lifetime is its beautifully honed sense of irony. You want to know who WASN’T ironic? Timothy McVeigh. That Heaven’s Gate cult leader. The dude who flew his plane into the IRS building down in Texas. A lack of irony will kill you.

Irony does not allow people to shy away, hiding in public, as you so ignorantly claim. Irony allows people to face serious, complicated, painful issues head-on, by laughing at them. Being able to laugh at those that wish to harm you is the ultimate way to have power of them. Having power over the things you fear gives you strength. It gives you the ability to think. It gives you the ability to formulate a response. It gives you the ability to feel more in control when faced with forces that are much more powerful than yourself. America has a long and proud history of mocking the Establishment that controls us. It doesn’t matter whether we do that on a political stage or on a marketing stage or on a cultural stage. It is all, to a certain extent, a form of rebellion. And in a corporate society dominated by oligarchical thinking, sometimes it is those little forms of rebellion that keep a people collectively sane.

Now, clearly, there are effective limits to irony. You certainly wouldn’t want to be sitting at your friend’s hospital bed as he’s battling cancer, saying, “Yeah, I know how you feel. I had the worst headache yesterday.” There is a clear difference between irony and being a dick. And there might be a lot of 20-something dicks in the world. You may have a point there. But, you know what? There have ALWAYS been 20-something dicks. Alexander Hamilton was a huge 20-something dick. So was General Custer. And others! That has less to do with the prevalence of irony in our culture than it has to do with the fact that 20-somethings think they’re invincible and amazing and that they’re going to change the world. But, they’re also awkward and arrogant and incredibly self-absorbed and stupid. It’s okay. They’ll grow out of it. Or die young. Unless they’re Donald Trump. Or Charlie Sheen. (Also two very non-ironical guys.)

Lastly, while I hope I’ve shown that irony as an ethos is not necessarily an indication of society’s decline, I would, however, like to point out that not everything about our country is steeped in irony. We are still an amazing country of charitable givers. We still are incredibly benevolent when it comes to rescuing dogs and cats from animal shelters. Many young people–those hipsters that you scoff at–are passionately involved in global climate change initiatives, gay rights, and other political projects. There are also many young people passionately involved in their churches, advocating for all the things I hate, like abstinence and anti-abortion efforts. (Again–not ironical people!) But they’re doing it! Yay for them!

We Americans are just kinda tired of being shit on politically, economically and militarily.

Don’t blame us for turning ironical. Be grateful. It takes a lot of intelligence to grasp the nuances of irony. Don’t feign disgust at people who appear to be living ironically. Feign surprise and pity for those who aren’t.

When I started exercising eleven weeks ago, I had no idea that I would eventually find myself here, eating a Granny Smith apple as a snack, perched over a keyboard, trying to talk to you about the three month journey I’ve been on.

(Did your eyes skip over that revolutionary bit? I am eating an apple. AS A SNACK, not as part of a Fear Factor challenge or a hostage-negotiation tactic. I’m eating an apple. Because I WANT to. Not fried pork skins. Not cheddar cheese popcorn. I mean, WHAT?!)

Other than the Kardashians, I can’t think of a topic of conversation I find more annoying than “dieting.” Unless, of course, that topic is expanded to “dieting and exercising.” (Oooh! Double the aggravation! One topic for each fist! How convenient. Now stand still while I use each to punch you in the teeth! Keep talking! Wow. You only use fat-free dressing now? *Kaplooey!* AND you try to do 20 minutes of cardio a day? *Kablow!*)

So, allow me to talk to you about the three months I’ve spent dieting and exercising.

People who are familiar with the exercise world may know this, but I was unaware that something called “exercise boot camp” is quite popular these days with women, (I’m assuming it’s predominantly a female thing, as women seem to dominate every fitness craze in this country, from jazzercise to aerobics to pilates to yoga to spinning.), looking to lose weight. So, in April a friend of mine encouraged me to purchase a Group-On discount for boot camp with a local trainer. I bought the Group-On voucher because it was only $35. I know I can throw $35 bucks away at the movie theater on buttered popcorn, a large Coke, a box of Bunch-A-Crunch and a shitty 3-D movie by James Cameron, so it wasn’t a huge investment for me. Essentially, I bought the voucher just to get my friend to shut up about it.

I sat on that unredeemed voucher for two months. (Considering my weight and my appetite, I’m surprised I didn’t eat it.) As I sat and did nothing, though, my friend actually began going to the classes after work. And within a few weeks, her progress was evident. She had more energy, she was more upbeat, she was losing inches. So many things were going great with her that I thought that maybe I could do it, too, after all, despite the groaning protestations from the cholesterol in my veins.

I started participating in boot camp on Monday, June 4th, and my world hasn’t really been the same since. Gone is the sedentary routine. Thanks to both the exercise class and the two week diet that is finishing up today, I don’t really have much time to sit around and do nothing any more.

When I started working out in June, I said that I wasn’t interested in trying to change my diet, and I meant it. For the first nine weeks of the program, all I wanted to was make sure that I didn’t skip classes and that I was avoiding major leg pain. (I didn’t realize when I started, but I have learned recently that I have been walking/running wrong my entire life, probably due to poor quality shoes. My incorrect stride is the reason that I have battled shin splints all of my life, and why working out has always been torture for me. Hopefully, the few corrective actions I’ve taken this past week will allow me to finally exercise without pain.)

But the thing about challenges is that, once you meet them, you find yourself ready to take on more. And sure enough, by the time August rolled around, I felt confident enough in my new routine to try the 14 day diet that they offered.

I had felt like I was developing more stamina during the first eight weeks for sure, but it wasn’t until I changed my diet that I felt like I was truly shedding weight.

Of course, I say that, but here’s the thing about me: I’ve been doing this exercise thing for going on three months now, and I haven’t weighed myself. Not once. I also haven’t measured myself. I do that deliberately. I cannot imagine getting caught up in numbers. I know that “they” say a woman of my height and build should weigh about 140 pounds–since I haven’t weighed that since I was a junior in high school, that’s depressing enough as it is, thank you very much. My trainer thinks I’m insane, and I probably am. I simply don’t like the way women become obsessed by a number, a dress size, a cup size, as if simply hitting that number will suddenly make everything perfect in their world. I think it’s the obsession itself that is unhealthy. Once a woman hits her ideal weight, (not that I’ve met many that have), then they simply transfer that obsession onto something else: the number of fat grams in their food, the number of calories in their meal, how much bread they ate this week. Guh. I hate listening to it, and I certainly don’t want to become that. All I want to do is become toned and capable of doing a hearty number of push-ups and sit-ups without feeling like I’m going to die. In short, I don’t know how much weight I’ve lost. At least a pound. Maybe a squillion. I don’t know.

By far, the best thing that has happened to me in the past three months has been the introduction of the meal plan. That, more than the exercise, has turned my life around.

For a long time now, as anyone who reads my Twitter feed can attest to, I have been disgusted by processed foods, give or take a delicious pork skin or two. I have realized that so much of what is sold to us in the grocery store and in fast food restaurants is little more than poison. Delicious poisons heaped with sugars and fats and flavorings, to be sure, but I knew that eating them was bad for me. The problem was that I didn’t know how to avoid them. Bitch all you want about how bad certain foods are for you, but unless you know how to prepare healthy alternatives, you’re kinda stuck sticking the same gunk-crusted needle in your vein.

The meal plan told me what to buy, and what to prepare for each meal. It took all the guesswork out of it. Boil lentils. Have a salad. Eat a banana. Okay.

Before I started eating all these vegetables and legumes (and CHICKEN! Holy crap, I’ve eaten so much chicken in the past two weeks I now find myself sexually attracted to Foghorn Leghorn.) I was scared because everything that the meal plan said to stay away from was everything I ate. “There is no way I can do this. There is no way I can do this. There is no way I can do this.” That was essentially the mantra in my head before I started. But, I looked at the daily meal plan and did almost exactly what it told me to do. Eat 12 almonds. Have a chicken breast. Boil brown rice. Drink this water. Okay.

(It told me to eat plain greek yogurt, but I absolutely refused to try and gag that whale sperm down. That was one food that I easily modified. I ate Chobani–the ones with the great tasting fruits in them, like pineapple and black cherry and blood orange. I told myself that if my weight-loss depended on the caloric difference between nasty plain greek yogurt and Chobani with fruit in it, well, I was just going to die obese at age 47 from diabetes, because life just wasn’t worth it.)

The meal plan taught me that couscous is DELICIOUS! (Who knew?) That lentils are DELICIOUS! (Who knew?) That brown rice is DISGUSTING! (Oh, white rice. I’ll miss you.) It’s taught me that having a ton of fresh vegetables in the refrigerator is wonderful on days when you want to make an omelet. (Today I made one with mushrooms, bell peppers and tomatoes…and it was DELICIOUS!)

It’s also taught me that preparing food is a lot of work. I’ve washed dishes more times in the past two weeks than the first eight months of the year combined. I have to want to do it. In short, it’s a lifestyle change.

Of course, part of me is worried that I am so very lazy that I will stop cooking food in an effort to get something faster that involves a lot less clean-up. That and the expense of fresh food are the two things that scare me the most about this change. But, I do have two things going for me to combat that. One is that I truly see almost all processed foods as dangerous poisons that will harm my body. Oreos are not my friend. Cheetos are not my friend. Pork skins <gasp!> are not my friend. That mindset is amazingly helpful when you’re trying to plan what you’re going to eat. Just as you would never willingly add Drano to your food as you cook, I never want to add ketchup or Rice-a-Roni or Ritz crackers.

The other thing that I have going for me is that I don’t have an addictive personality. I haven’t been dealing with any out of control withdrawals or cravings these past two weeks, even though I have completed changed my diet. Not suffering from withdrawals makes it easier to transition into new behavior, so I’m fortunate in that regard.

So, who knows? If I keep at this routine, maybe I will someday hit that ideal weight of 140 that “they” say I should be at. Not that I’ll know for sure, as I won’t be weighing myself.

What I do know, though, is that if you commit, if you try, if you let go of your lust for deep-fried mushrooms and pizza with extra cheese, you might learn that you can live with diet and exercise that you otherwise thought would turn you into a half-starved, pain-stricken she-beast.

Psst. I have a secret that I want to share with you and you alone.

I am falling in love.

“Eww! Gross! Laurie, c’mon! I’m trying to eat my dinner, man!”

Go ahead. Have your “Einhorn is a man!” moment. I’ll wait. Do you have enough gum?

Look. I wasn’t expecting this, either. I was perfectly content living my completely self-contained life, reading Cat Fancy magazine, planning my meals for one, whilst occasionally drinking myself into oblivion.

And then I met Her.

I use the phrase “falling” in love to lend some pretext to the romantic notion that this emotional event is a subtle transition that is occurring in real time, that with every full rotation of the Earth I am growing closer to utterly acquiescing and completely surrendering my heart. (Wow. Lookit all the big words I just used. More and more this is starting to sound like just another article torn from the pages of Penthouse Forum.)

Saying I’m “falling” in love helps make it seem like I’m being 1)rational; 2)reserved; 3)careful; and 4)cautious. In fact, I’m being none of those. I’m 42 years old. Like Dick Cheney when he has a heart “episode”, I am old enough to recognize the symptoms. He’s experienced enough “episodes” to know when he’s having a heart attack versus when he simply ate one too many Funyuns. And I know full well that I am in love. I have been from the first spark of laughter, the first look, that we shared together. She is a very special woman and my life will never be the same now that I’ve met her.

Now, at this point, please allow me to explain something to you fine, upstanding people who undoubtedly think that I am about as stable as Anne Heche, what with the falling in love at the drop of a hat and all. Just because I’m in love doesn’t mean that I have any expectations about this relationship. I don’t. No, really. I don’t. (Because there are complications. Oh. Yes. There are. Of course there are.) But, I don’t believe in beating around…(okay, I was going to say “beating around the bush,” but I know all of my immature readers would snicker and think I was trying to make a cute lesbian pun)…I don’t believe in pussyfooting…(okay, again, it’s just an expression. Jesus! Grow up, people!)…I don’t believe in half-measures. I know with as much certainty today that I am in love with this woman as I am going to know six months or ten years from now. The only thing I don’t know about The Future is whether or not my being in love with her is enough conquer Life’s Obstacles. Trying to keep my heart in reserve while that is being determined isn’t going to save me from any heartache, if that is what is on the horizon.

I haven’t always believed in love at first sight. I guarded my heart when I was young. (It didn’t get me very far, I’ll have you know.) I held back emotionally. (It seemed like the reasonable thing to do.) And, you know what? Here is the epiphany I had after all the little dramadies that I endearingly refer to as “past relationships” were said and done: When I was afraid of getting hurt going into a relationship, not only did I inevitably get hurt by said relationship, but that fear reinforced the belief that relationships generally suck, which in turn hardened me and made me more guarded for the next one. My heart gradually became calcified by fear. (And I don’t even want to BEGIN to describe what it did to my bagina.)

Now, look. I’m a Virgo. I pack six pairs of socks for an overnight trip. I’m afraid to watch “Intervention” for fear that I’m going to become an addict through osmosis. I want my rollercoasters to come equipped with airbags. Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t ride rollercoasters! Far too dangerous. I’m not exactly wild and crazy or overly-confident. If I was in charge of naming the perfumes at Estée Lauder, the top four would be: Rational. Reserved. Careful. And Cautious. So for me to become so intoxicated like this, to tumble headfirst down this Slip n’ Slide of Love, something pretty extraordinary must have occurred.

All my life I’ve been haunted by a vision of a brown eyed woman. These dreams are never very complicated. She looks at me, we silently share an emotion more powerful than words can express and I wake up, shaken to my core by the connection I just felt in my subconscious. I’ve only had that dream, oh, about a thousand times in my life. That brown eyed woman has never been anything more than a figment of my imagination. I had so relegated her to the realm of fantasy that I did not think it was possible to share a look like that with another human being in the Waking World. And then I shared that look with Her and I realized I wasn’t asleep.

And, that’s it, basically. She now possesses my heart. There’s really not much more to it than that.

“That’s IT, Laurie? You specifically used the word ‘extraordinary.’ There hardly seems anything ‘extraordinary’ about looking at someone. God dammit, I’m unsubscribing to this blog. If you want to entice me with stories about your love life, you need to describe full-blown orgasms, dammit! You’re a LESBIAN! Wow me with some lesbian shit!” ~ I can almost hear you say. To which I respond, “Ssh, Mother. Go watch ‘Dancing With the Stars.'”

I’ve learned to listen to my instincts as I’ve gotten older. And my instincts started screaming at me almost as soon as I met Her: “She’s beautiful!” “Did you hear that laugh? Laurie!? Did you hear that? That is a woman who KNOWS how to laugh! Make her laugh some more, Laurie!” “Look at how kind she is? Did you see what she just did?” I just asked for her phone number to get my instincts to shut the fuck up, really.

I don’t know what The Future holds. Honestly–eep!–it doesn’t look great. There are A LOT of obstacles to overcome. I mean, this is the ABC’s “Wipeout” of potential relationships. So, I’m not going to think about The Future. All I can do is take it one day at a time. I’m grateful that I get to spend time with her, that I get to tell her that she’s beautiful, that I get to share that Look with her. If it all disappears tomorrow, at least we’ve had that. But…oh, the possibilities The Future holds. I’m looking forward to the day I can look into her eyes and tell her I love her. Because we haven’t reached that stage in our relationship, you see. As far as she knows, I merely like her. A lot. And maybe that’s all she wants from me. Maybe that’s all she can handle right now. And all I want is to give her what she wants.

As long as She doesn’t read this blog, She won’t be the wiser.

If you’re anything like me, (Lord help us all if you are. It has taken me six seven! minutes to create this one sentence, so if we’re similar, no wonder nothing ever gets done around here), then you experience a thousand dissimilar, random thoughts and emotions a day. And, if you’re also like me and have a Twitter account and possess very little amazing impulse control, you at least have a place to type those weird teeny, tiny little thoughts so they vent harmlessly into cyberspace instead of building up behind your eyeballs to dangerously high levels until the pressure becomes so great that spinal fluid starts seeping out of your ears. (And I don’t even know if spinal fluid CAN start seeping out of your ears. I mean, it certainly doesn’t sound like it could, as your ears don’t seem to be connected at all to your spine, not even in the wildest way that I try to imagine what the inner-workings of my skull look like, which is with tubes and stuff like the evil genius from Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits. But the cranium is a very complex cavity and who really knows what goes on in there? I mean, I’m sure I could Google it to find out. I could just type in “spinal fluid leakage” and see what pops up. But, of course, I won’t because I have very little amazing impulse control.)

**Five minutes later**

Okay, holy crap, it CAN come out your ears. I had no idea! I thought it just dribbled down your spine like slimy water on a steamy metallic wall in that primordial egg-laying scene in Aliens. (Which I am not going to bother linking to, as you have all seen that movie a gazAlien (!) times and know exactly the visual that I am trying to express. Although, can I just say? My over-use of links is making me suspect that I am not writing so much as I am creating a web-based pop-up book. But, pardon me–I need to go back to writing my blog now.) Of course, I should probably spend another good six seven! minutes trying to rephrase the expression “can come out your ears,” as that is leading to a desire to google something else entirely, and we certainly don’t need me linking to THAT. (Shush, boys. NO. WE. DON’T.) So I won’t. Because I have amazing impulse control.

This is probably the point in the essay where you, my Intelligent Reader, has deduced that tonight’s topic is about Twitter and/or impulse control. And that is where you would be Wrong.

Now, just for the sake of argument we are all going to agree, (Logical Reader: “But how can it be ‘for the sake of argument’ if we all agree with you, Laurie?” Slightly-caffeinated, determined-to-stay focused blogwriter: “Shut up.”), to my original point that we all have a thousand random thoughts a day. I realize that this is not a scientific statement. I realize that some people do not flit in unfocused fashion from thought to hyper-active thought like a Vietnam POW camp surviving hummingbird on ecstasy. (Those composed people? Those who can speak in complete paragraphs and can leave the radio in the car on one station EVEN WHEN A COMMERCIAL COMES ON? Those people I fondly refer to as freaks.) The main point is that, whether we wash dishes for a living, are chefs or even brain surgeons, on some day in our life, whether we are elbow-deep in soap suds or reading Kierkegaard, at some point we are eventually going to wonder, “Who DID put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?” It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that George W. Bush, for example, was struck by that thought ALL THE TIME. And he was PRESIDENT. Here’s an example of him being struck by it. Or so I imagine.

Of course, sometimes the thoughts that dance around in our noodle are not as serious as, “Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong?” Sometimes they are lighter, superficial thoughts like, “Why am I upset that a man I’ve never met decided to use Twitter to post words of encouragement and hope to depressed people on the anniversary of his brother’s suicide?” “Why does it bother me that such a trivial medium was used by someone to speak to people with serious problems?” “Who am I to judge, no matter how serious or deadly the subject may be?” Or, (and this is maybe a little bit less specific to, like, one imaginary person’s head), “Holy God. I am the worst mother on the planet.”

Heck, I’m sure that, even when hipsters order coffee-like things at Starbucks, seemingly without a care in their TV-On-The-Radio-loving, cinnamon-sprinkled, cappuccino-soaked heads, they are randomly struck by the thought, “Fuck. I’m going to die.” (And that’s even in the Starbucks that AREN’T by robbed!)

The truly weird thing about these thoughts, the thing that makes them truly unnerving and life-debilitating, is that you can’t just turn to the person next to you on the bus and say, “You know–Hi! Strangest thing: I just thought about drowning my husband in the tub if he has one more goddamn cigarette behind my back. And it FELT LIKE THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Oh! Here’s my stop. Bye!”

Most all of us have negative thoughts. I mean, not me, of course. I am perpetually sunny. Aside from that first thought of the day which is, typically, “Where am I, where are my panties and why does my ass feel like that?”, once I find my underwear I am nothing but Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm until my head hits the a pillow at night. By writing this supportive essay I am simply trying to empathize with my audience. I learned about doing that in that writing class I took from Bill Clinton.

Again, I would like to admit, for the record, that there are some people out there who are GENUINELY even-keeled, who never experience even a flicker of frustration, fear, self-loathing or doubt. WE HATE THEM. They should swim the ocean currents, help Dory Find Nemo, and leave the job of being a suffering, miserable piece of humanity to the rest of us. I’m not worried about them, as they are nowhere near an internet connection. Much like Ed Begley Jr.’s character on The Simpsons, they are busy powering their cars with their own sense of self-satisfaction. They are planting trees on Mt. Everest for orphans while developing a cure for rickets. WE HATE THEM.

So, how do we survive these fears and insecurities? We wake up. Walk the dog. Pee on the cat. (You know who you are.) Focus diligently on our jobs, our children, our hobbies. We answer e-mail after e-mail after e-mail. We text. We tweet. We plan supper. We tweet about what we’re making for supper. (No. Really. WE DO THAT.) We pick up the dry cleaning. We stay as busy as we can so that the stress build-up from those random, inescapable thoughts doesn’t lead us screaming straight into an oncoming bus. (Or a train, if you’re in Nebraska. But, wait. Who am I kidding? No one in Nebraska is reading this. Nebraska doesn’t have internet access.*) Like Dory, we just keep swimming. (But, that is where the similarity to Dory should end, as Dory had the memory of a rutabaga. Which is not to say that she had loving memories of rutabagas, but that her mind was about as developed as a root vegetable and not designed to sustain a cohesive thought for an extended period of time. But, listen, this is no time to discover the universal taoist principles covered in a Pixar film. I have to talk about anger and nasty stuff like that.) (And, hey, psst, listen. I have no idea if there are taoist principles in ‘Finding Nemo.’ I really don’t. I mean, there probably are–you know how those hippies in Hollywood like to indoctrinate your children and turn ’em gay and all that shit. And there’s nothing gayer than “taoism,” am I right? I mean, c’mon. The first letter is a ‘T.’ So why do they pronounce it with a ‘D’? Because it’s DUMB, that’s right.)

So many conflicts lie unresolved in your head. And they become suppurating blisters in your brain that you can never confront. “That job man woman I work sleep flirt sing pray live with drives me absolutely fucking insane and if I had the power to leave, I would. But I can’t. I just have to sit here and take it. Because I am supposed to suffer support endure.” You get angry or feel belittled or disrespected. And your feelings are so very hurt. And you cannot turn to the person next to you and say, “Man. I really feel like I’m losing my place in the world and that I really don’t matter. And if I have to grit my teeth and smile at one more person I’m really going to lose it.” At best, if you’re lucky, you shake your head, gulp and say, “Some day, eh?” For most of us, though, all we can do is look up and say “Paper, please. No, I changed my mind. Plastic.” Because at that moment you’re all, like, “Fuck Mother Earth.” 

Now, I would like to be clear. (Annoyed Sarcastic Reader: “Really? NOW you want to be clear? Laurie. Do you actually READ your essays? Do you know how hard they are to get through? If David Foster Wallace were alive, he’d say ‘I just don’t understand this shit.'” Overly-Caffeinated, Hungry, Slightly Nauseated Blogger: “You’re hurting my feelings, making me feel inadequate and underappreciated. Also, I know for a fact that at least two of you have NO idea who David Foster Wallace even is.” Reader: “Oh shut UP!”) I am not saying that we as fallible humans are consumed by thoughts of negativity all the time. (If you are, please know that depression is a manageable disease that can be effectively treated with talk therapy and/or medication. I hope you have the courage and the strength to find someone who can help you breathe again. For me, it was a three-legged cat. But that’s another story. (See, you inconsiderate tweeting sonofabitch who shall remain nameless but oh you know who you are!? THAT’S how you talk about depression–in a fucking blog! Or maybe a magazine column, at least, I don’t know! If you’re a radio personality maybe you create a radio segment about it! I’m just spitballin’ here. What you DON’T do is type ANYTHING about SUICIDE or DEPRESSION in a fucking 140 character TWEET! Especially when you spend the rest of your time on Twitter making lame-ass jokes that are so horrible they literally make people want to kill themselves. “Hang in there, Kitten!” is NOT AN EFFECTIVE DETERRANT AGAINST DEPRESSION. Asshat.)) What I am saying is that we get pummelled by these thoughts on a fairly steady basis. They’re like solar flares headed straight for our brain. They cause us to be irritable, short, achy, a little bitchy…it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they also caused scabies or vaginal dryness. (Motherly Reader: “You are SUCH a child, Laurie. Can’t go a paragraph without saying ‘vagina,’ can you?” Hypoglycemic Blogger: “That’s not true. It’s a real medical condition. And, anyway, if I were trying to be childish I would have called it a ‘bagina.'”) But if we don’t find a way to understand and conquer them, if we can’t learn from these thoughts, then they will become soul-crushingly heavy and destroy the simple joy that we are supposed to get out of life. And then we just end up sitting on our sofas in our Snuggies eating Doritos watching So You Think You Can Dance.**

And THAT is why it is important to infuse your life with art. (Ha! This essay is about ART. Betcha didn’t see THAT coming. Not from the woman who has framed Guiness Stout beer coasters on her wall as decoration. *And a Winnie the Pooh poster! Yes, Laurie. And a Winnie the Pooh poster, too.*) You have to read, you have to explore new ideas. You have to listen to great new music. You have to really look at that beautiful painting from that guy with the weird name that kind of makes you nervous when you see it. You have to experience the world through music, or poetry, or sculpture, or literature. It is in that space that you will find the universal language that will give you your voice. You are not abnormal or unusual for your feelings of pain and insecurity. It’s through the world of art that we learn, after all, that we all go a little bit mad sometimes. (Bonus Blog Points for those of you who know that is a famous quote from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.”) (And Bonus Bonus Blog Points for those of you who are familiar with the song I just linked under “Psycho.”) (Good God. It’s like I’m going down a psycho wormhole.)

Now, sure, certainly, of course, you can find that connection to inner peace through religion, too. Since the important thing is helping you get to the point where you don’t feel like you’re going to stroke out at the thought of having to sit through another miserable family dinner with your annoying sister-in-law who thinks she’s so high and mighty and who never burns her pot roast or misses a PTA meeting and GAHHHHH!

Since the important thing is getting you past THAT, sure, if you can find it in your church, who am I to begrudge you that one bit of solace? Of course, the solace and comfort I’m referring to is visible in the eyes of real live humans, all over the globe, regardless of their religion, and I actually think it is healthier to connect to real people through genuine emotions rather than by sharing an imaginary sense of love and well-being with an invisible space entity that doesn’t really exist except through the power of your faith…oh, sorry. No, I’m sorry. You’re right. Whatever gives you strength.***

So. You are not alone. You are not insane. (Except for you. You are batshit-eat-your-feces-insane and you need to institutionalize yourself immediately because God knows we can’t just throw you into that asylum against your will because you have a little something we like to call “civil rights.” Or as you like call them, “asparagus.”)

You are not a twit.

Hang in there, kitten.****

*This is the point in history when Laurie lost her one reader from Nebraska.

**This is the point in history when Laurie lost all of her readers in Wisconsin.

***This is the point in history when Laurie lost all of her readers in the South.

****This is the point in history when Laurie lost Laurie.