More Random Crap

1. My apartment building flooded today. And I thought to myself, "The only really good thing about this is that I got to wear my ADIDAS flip flops."

2. I used to live in Queens. I didn't really like it. But I DID buy a pair of ADIDAS flip flops there.

3. I finally found a new psychiatrist. He is only a block away from my office, so basically he can brainwash me into making dresses out of human flesh a la Silence of the Lambs, and I'll still go to him. Convenience is important.

4. A huge piece of sheet rock just fell off the ceiling in the hallway. I think I'm staying up all night in fear of a full building collapse.

5. Or maybe not. I'm kind of tired.

6. The new psychiatrist's answering machine message asks callers to leave their name and phone number twice, slowly. I think I talked extra slow, so I'm sure he thinks I'm a moron before I even met him.

7. It reminded me of when I quit therapy via phone earlier this year. My therapist's message also asks for your name and phone number, and emphasizes that she needs your phone number so she can easily call you back. And I was thinking, "Do I leave my phone number, because that would indicate I want her to call me back and talk me into not leaving therapy, and that's not the message I want to send, or do I NOT leave my phone number, which will either send the message that I seriously don't want to be in therapy or that I'm an idiot?" Ultimately I went with idiot. And ultimately she was able to work her therapy magic and find my phone number anyway. And this whole story, ironically, is an indication that I should probably be in therapy every minute of every day, forever.

8. Enough of this talk.

9. I wonder if they still make Postum.

10. Every year I run a toy drive on my floor. Children write letters to Santa, and volunteers answer them. Last year, a co-worker bought a Beach Barbie car and a Ballerina Barbie doll. I went totally apeshit on her. I didn't understand why Ballerina Barbie would be going to the beach. She didn't understand why it was such a big deal. She was probably right.

11. I also work for the volunteer agency that sorts and sends out the "Santa" letters to groups of people who answer them. Some of the letters the kids write to "Santa" are hilarious. Once, a kid asked if Santa could take away his cat and leave a dog. They draw pictures of what they want, and pictures of Santa, and they are so real and honest it's amazing. Others are gut-wrenching. Kids ask for winter jackets and homes for their mothers.

12. It makes me feel good to work on this project, but I feel I do it more for me than for them. There's a line from WICKED: "Was I really seeking good, or just seeking attention? Is that all good deeds are when looked at with an ice-cold eye?" I think it's not black and white: I want to help others, I want to feel good about it. But I still feel guilty. Sometimes I think I just like the toys.

13. I haven't really been keeping up with the whole movie-watching thing. I'm just not into it right now; too much football and Top Chef and first-run shows to watch.

14. And there's also READING. I'm on a reading kick right now. I'm reading a book about wild animal trainers, and where they go to school. The first thing the students are required to do is decapitate a live pigeon with their bare hands. This is to show that animal training is not all cuddles and happiness. (The pigeons are not wasted; they're fed to other animals.)

15. My favorite athletes, in no particular order: surfer Laird Hamilton, football players Tiki Barber and Peyton Manning.

16. If I was a football player, I'd want to play defense. Maybe cornerback. You get to slam into people, but with the possibility of fumble recoveries and interceptions, you can still score points.

17. Today I forgot how to spell "either." I kept trying to fit a "g" in. There is no "g" in "either."

18. There's no "I" in team. I never really got why that was supposed to motivate me to be a team player. To me, it sounds like I don't belong on a team.

19. In 10th grade, we were broken into groups by our student teacher in history class. We were supposed to decide, as liberators of a third-world nation, whether it was more important to take feed the people first or set up the government and THEN take care of the needs of the people. The self-appointed team leader wouldn't listen to my opinion, so I said I was seceeding from the new nation. The student teacher took me into the hallway, said that she respected my opinion and my decision to seceed, but that since she was being graded, could I quietly rejoin the nation?

20. She was nice, so I did.