Batshit crazy: a longwinded explanation

Anyone who knows me in real life probably doesn't even question the fact that I'm batshit crazy. Probably because I say things like "I'm a poet. I have an MFA in being depressed and drinking!" and then, when my sister suggests that I enjoy being depressed, remind her that as a poet  I must  be a broken shard of a human being (my poetry is significantly better than that phrase, I promise). See, the thing is, I got this useless degree, and now I am only marginally employable and overeducated. I spend a LOT of time with my writerly things: my computer, my typewriter, my different notebooks and pens for each specific type of writing (you know, one for jotting down notes, one for poem drafts, one for journalling, one for other more personal journalling, one for journalling about poem drafts-- you get the point, right?). Spending so much time without human contact makes me a little weird sometimes.


It seems I have this weird disconnect between the things I say and what I mean. Like, my brain moves at its own strange pace. When I try to explain intricate things I lose track of what I'm saying, or I get off on a tangent and forget my original point. The funniest examples, and the ones that make my siblings say I'm batshit crazy, are the ones where my brain just gives up and offers my mouth a shortcut to what I mean to say. Once, when my sister was driving me around and I was missing my little car that had recently blown a head gasket, and I couldn't figure out a way to ever afford a car again, and my sister and I were not even remotely talking about anything that had to do with the subject, I turned to her and said "Maybe I should just get a sugar daddy." I mean, out of nowhere. It was like my brain just assumed she had heard it play out all the other options for affording a vehicle I hadn't audibly expressed desire for, and was like, "skip to the point, girl." 


Another time, I was standing on the bus stop with my brother and he was starting one of his long, rambling rants about how he's studying engineering and math and logic and boring shit, and is going to have a job one day. I told him to shut up about his math research, because math had already been discovered, and he responded in detail with how wrong I was. So, I started gently toning him out by listing all the ways I could fix up my apartment, and I was telling him that I can't get rid of this table I have that's totally in the way because that's where the hamster cage goes. He was all, "Wait, when did you get a hamster?" and I had to confess that I didn't have one yet. I just had imagination hamsters, which are better because I don't have to watch them eat their own poop and they don't stink or run in the squeaky wheel all night, but they're also not as good because you can't pet them or watch them stuff shit in their cheek pouches. I watched as my brother almost crapped himself laughing at me. Then, I told him to shut up because math is imaginary too, and he makes shit up all the time, like numbers and zero. 


The thing is, I'm pretty sure the batshit crazy is genetic. See, I spent the day with my mother a couple weeks ago,  because I went to a new endocrinologist and I wanted some company in case he was as shitty as the last doctor I went to. This maybe wasn't the best idea because my mom has some kind of weird body dysmorphia where she's like a size 8 but she thinks she's as big as a house. She swears her nutritionist told her she'll never be thin, but I'm pretty sure, having been a patient of the man, that he probably told her something like she won't go below the weight she is, or she won't be as thin as she was 40 years ago, or something healthy like that. Anyway, I brought her into the endocrinologist fully expecting her to be a little weird.


To start with, we sat in the waiting room with several older Staten Island ladies. Every time one of them would speak, my mother would roll her eyes and whisper snarky comments about their accents and how unintelligent they were. At first this annoyed the crap out of me, because my mother is so very judgmental. But then I realized the women in the waiting room were idiots and I had a good laugh about it. BONDING WITH MOMMY. 


Then, when we met with the doctor, he began asking weight-related questions. He asked about who in my family had weight problems, and I said there are endocrine weight issues on both sides of my family. My mom suggested she also had a weight problem, even though I was actually referring to her mother who had a thyroid problem. The doctor looked at my mother like she had just grown a unicorn horn and starting farting out rainbows. He asked her weight, and told her she was barely overweight for her height and age. I may have told the doctor that she's crazy and has body dysmorphia. He seemed to have a good sense of humor about it. 


Then he asked me how long I've had a weight problem. I paused to think about it, wondering if I should mention having always been a chubby kid, or if I should go with when I started having symptoms of PCOS, or when I actually started gaining weight at an abnormal rate. Before I could answer, my mother told him that I've had a weight problem since I was 5 days old. I sort of wish I had a camera to capture the doctor's face. She insisted that I gained almost a whole pound a week from birth (which I find incredibly hard to believe)  and that my pediatrician was all like, "omg lady what are you feeding this kid?" But, um...babies are supposed to gain weight. It's not really abnormal for them to do so. The poor doctor looked mortified for me, and just kept making jokes and explaining to my mother that these kinds of medical issues are very emotional for the patient and stuff.


I would have been furious at my mother, but then later when she asked me if she'd been butting in too much, I realized that my mother is priceless. I mean, aside from the fact that she's crazy out of love, she gives me a built in excuse. I'm sorry I tone out everything you say and then interrupt loudly to talk about my imaginary pets, but my mom is batshit crazy. It's genetic. Also, I'm not fat because I overeat or anything. I was BORN THIS WAY. 


Well, I'm off to cuddle with my imagination hamsters. They just got a new math wheel to run in (because math is fake.) I'll leave you with this random image of Chamillionaire. Those teeth!

I know you have a crush on my blog, because you didn't say so.

An acquaintance was recently talking about online crushes--having a crush on someone you only know via the internet and how weird that is, especially when we stop to consider how the ability to structure our social networking pages to suit how we want to be presented is used. I mean, we talk about preserving privacy, which is totally a good thing, and way more important than most people seem to realize, but we're also preserving, deconstructing, and repurposing a sense of anonymity and control over what people know about us. People tend to make a ton of arbitrary rules for how their internet existence is presented that they insist on following and then judge others for not following. But, we all make our own rules at the same time, and hope that we're being better at the internet than the next person.


For some people, facebook, tumblr, twitter, instagram (which, like, seriously, wtf is that instagram shit even necessary for? I already have a tumblr, pinterest, twitter, facebook, and gods only know what else.), and whatever else they have are an opening into their lives, interests, thoughts, happenings. For others, it's just another way to keep in touch with people, and involves powering through all the privacy settings. Which is cool. I have members of my family, ex-classmates, ex-coworkers, etc. who I block from seeing most of what I post. But, then, those same people could probably find my internet presence pretty quickly just from looking around. I've used the same "screenname" for a decade. Plus, I kind of enjoy oversharing because I think it's hilarious to make people uncomfortable. Which means that some people I've never met and often internet friends who I have never even remotely opened up to can find my blog and read about my gynecological mishaps.


But also, I don't see why I should have to hide anything about myself from anyone I actually know or want to know. People should either like me or not like me, and I shouldn't really have to try to pretend I'm not batshit crazy or whatever just to get people to like me. This is related to internet crushes. (I swear I'm not just rambling). This is totally related to internet crushes. Hang on I need to wrangle a stray train of thought because shiny things keep happening and also Ally Mcbeal is on. 


Where was I? Internet crushes and our control over our internet representations and arbitrary rules we make for ourselves? Connections? Oh. Right. Ok. Another friend was recently discussing the self-imposed rules of dating that our generation seems to abide by. Don't text someone too often. Don't call first. Wait some magical amount of time after a date before contacting. Don't have sex right away or they'll never see you as anything more than a fuck buddy. Don't ever tell someone you like them before you're sure they like you too. Fuck that noise, right? Especially when it comes to online dating, these rules are ridiculous and constricting, and pretty much inhibitive of any kind of real connection (we can argue later about whether online dating allows for real connection or not; for now we're talking about internet crushes).


I keep thinking about an internet crush I had many years ago. I can't even remember his name. Probably Justin or something like that. I believe he went by the letter "J" (he's one of about 20 guys I've known who do that, and it's almost never not kinda douchey). I was maybe 19 or so when I met him. He contacted me on some dating site that I was on at the insistence of some friends after a break-up. By the time I had figured out how to reply back to him I was already dating someone else. But a friendship was started, and we'd chat on a regular basis. We always spoke of hanging out, but I never wanted to deal with having to explain to the guy I was with that I was heading out to meet some other dude from the internet. But at some point, I dumped that dude, and made it pretty clear to "J" that I was now single. And totally rebounding.  In the end, "J" came over less than a week before he moved to Nebraska or somewhere, and we made our for, like, nine hours. And instantly we weren't friends anymore. I mean, we chatted a bit after he moved, but within 6 months he had disappeared completely. And I totally missed my friend.


I've been told that men never move women into the "friend zone". It occurs to me that potentially my entire friendship with this guy was his way of trying to get into my pants. Even more, it occurs to me that I really didn't know much about him. I knew what he did for a living, and what area he lived in. I knew to some degree what kind of music he was into and what he did for fun. But I never bothered to ask him what his intentions were with me, and I never told him what I really wanted from him. So, my wanting to chat with him after we hung out potentially sent him the signal that I was more into him than I was. Which is possibly the stupidest thing ever.


I shouldn't have to be careful not to IM a person just in case they think I like them more than they like me. Or not like their facebook photos too often. Or whatever. But we do have these rules. Self-imposed rules based on the fact that men and women supposedly speak a different language, which is total bullshit. Men and women do not need to be fucking mysteries to each other, except for our culturally imposed and socialized differences. Whatever, bitches. Gender is a construct and queer folk have these stupid rules too, and nonsense makes me sad. But I still don't want to tell a person I'm into them because no matter how many hints I may think they're dropping, I'm still not sure what they want from me. And it's against the rules to ask.  


Which is just fucking ridiculous because unless you've known someone a pretty long time you can't possibly know what they're thinking. Whether they're on the internet or not. I'm pretty sure the moral of this post is to shut the fuck up and project whatever image you want of yourself whether it's on the internet or IRL, or totally in your own head. Also, tell that person you like that you like them. And not in a creepy way that makes them question why they know you. Also, I'm pretty sure no one will read this post anyway because I'm not talking all crazy-like about my lady business.