My Constant Companion

I just got off the phone with the Professor, which I highly recommend to everyone who’s feeling out of sorts. I, of course, was feeling quite out of sorts after being called a narcissistic princess by a man whose praises I spent all Tuesday singing, but I chose not to burden the Professor with that.

Instead, I was telling her about my exciting trip to the counsellor. I won’t bore you with the details except to say that I’ve been told I need to get a reign on my inner child and possibly some medication for my mildly moderate depression.

It is this mildly moderate depression I’d like to mull over.  It’s not that I doubt that I’m fucked up.  Clearly, I’m fucked up.  I’m not an idiot.  But I don’t feel depressed.  Except for the thing that shall not be named, I feel pretty good about my life.  Exciting things are happening; we’re more financially secure than we’ve ever been (knock on wood); I’ve got good friends who love me; and I’ve got the cutest dog who delights me.

I don’t feel depressed.

I feel anxious.

And that’s kind of two-pronged what the Professor and I were talking about, how I have a ton of anxiety and that, even though it seems to have manifest itself more acutely recently, that’s also because I’ve been doing a lot of new things that are incredibly scary and great sources of anxiety for me.

In the past, I just would not have done those things and so I probably appeared less anxious, but basically just because I stayed in my comfort zone and never did things that would cause me any anxiety.  But now, as I’m doing more things that freak me the fuck out, lo and behold, I am often freaked right the fuck out.

So, it’s kind of a self-perpetuating problem–doing new things makes me anxious but I want to do new things so that I can get over being freaked right the fuck out by doing them.  I mean, folks, I have every intention of making Don Coyote put me back on that fucking four-wheeler and listening to me bitch and cry again until I finally just get the fuck over it, if I can.  I’d like that, anyway.

I hadn’t ever been to a counsellor of any sort before.  It’s not what I expected.  And I felt like I was spending a lot of time just bringing her up to speed so that she could understand me.  I don’t think anything during the session helped me understand me.

But the work I did afterwards, to try to understand what she was saying and to judge it against my own understanding of myself has been amazingly useful.

I don’t mean to make it sound like I’m discounting her diagnosis.  It’s just that I don’t feel depressed and I rely a great deal on my emotions and intuition to guide me.  I’d be really freaked out to discover that I was so out of touch with the tools I so heavily rely on that I couldn’t tell when I was depressed.

On the other hand, I always feel a little anxious.  Anxiety is a constant companion and one that does get in the way sometimes of me being in touch with my own self–as evidenced by the anxiety attacks and my freaked out response to them.

And the other thing is that I don’t want to patch myself together just so I can continue to do the thing we won’t talk about.  If it takes drugs and counselling to make it so I can continue to bear the thing we won’t mention, it seems to me that I need to find some thing other than the thing we won’t mention to spend my time on.

Is that myopic?

Stacey Campfield

I’ve been thinking a lot about Stacey Campfield (not in that way, you perverts) and I’ve been mulling over our encounter.  Okay, the encounter between him and Don Coyote, which I had the pleasure to observe.

We’ve talked some about the differences between conservatives and liberals, just in their mindsets–what they choose to emphasize and what they choose to downplay (and Indifferent Children, I’m still thinking about that article you linked to).  And my feeling is that, in general, most people are sincere in their political beliefs and motivated by a sincere desire to make things better (even if it’s only for them).  The mindsets are just very different.

But, as I was listening to the Republican lawmakers talk, what I realized is that they feel kind of sandwiched in some way.  When they’re at home, they can get tons of local media attention, but when they’re here, they hardly get any.  And, I have to say that, I think it’s because as “politician-y” as most of them came across, none of them, save one, was a real showman.  Yes, a couple of them were good story tellers and a few of them were funny.

But you know how there’s that moment in The Prestige where the magicians realize that the trick another magician is able to do requires him to hold a gold fish bowl between his legs and so, in order to pull the trick off successfully, he must be committed to living his whole life as if he is frail and barely able to walk–that way, when the fish bowl is between his legs, there’s no discernible difference?  How he is committed in his whole life to the success of the trick?

That, my friends, is Stacey Campfield.

He’s committed to the trick and everything about him is devoted to making Stacey Campfield a person who cannot be ignored.  Seriously, can you think of any other state legislator from Tennessee that gets national media coverage?

And, too, I was thinking about how Mack and I were saying kind of harsh things to him and nothing about his demeanor suggested that it got to him.

I honestly think his only misstep was ignoring us until Mack went over to his table.  If he had come over first thing and introduced himself, if he seemed unafraid of us and completely oblivious to why he might be uncomfortable in our presence, I would have sensed no sign of weakness.  Right now, though, having observed him in person, I think his weakness is that he’s not exactly sure how to answer his critics (I think that’s obvious from his blog as well) and he comes across like he’s uneasy around women.

I mention this because the man is driven and committed in a way that the other Republicans are not, and in a way I found, frankly, scary to be in the presence of.  Campfield is not the biggest fish in the pond, but he’s determined to make the most waves.  Right now, he’s got two big chinks in his armor, but if he fixes those, the dude’s going to be as smooth as silk.

Little Girl, Big World

It’s grandefille’s niece’s birthday today and I am madly in love with this photo, which seems to me to be one of those photos that, the longer you look at it, the more you think about.

We were watching USA, I think, the other day and they had some promo on there for the WWE and some hot woman was talking about how watching other hot women in tiny clothing and big ole fake titties roll around on a matt made her feel empowered.

I laughed so hard I about fell off the big green couch.  The Butcher didn’t see what was so funny.

Clearly, I should have dropped an email… ooo… a “shemail” to Lindsey.  She would have appreciated the Twisty-ness of it.