A Lotta Moxie

Do you think Michael Bublé does private events? Like in my bedroom?

Garage Sale Shoppers:

These people are no longer fulfilling the requirements of qualifying as a human being in my opinion. If you’ve ever had a garage sale or even been to one you know the kinds of people that I’m talking about. Let me just clarify that I’m not talking about the people who are just looking for an excuse to be on the Antiques Roadshow. I’m talking about the breed of people who, 20 minutes prior to the opening of a garage, are crawling out of the woodwork like zombie crap-collectors - sniffing out the weakest link in the family to haggle over the framed painting of a bald eagle catching a trout. (My mother got really upset with me when I let some blue-haired demon walk away with this treasure for $60 less than the asking price because she scared the shit out of me. I just wanted it to end). Were they born like this or was it this continued lifestyle that made them this way? I’m inclined to believe the latter, because sometimes you don’t know a person until you see them spot a garage sale sign and notice their eyes get kinda wide and crazy. And then you realize that you haven’t actually been inside their home or apartment, but it probably only contains a lot of porcelain figurines to distract you from discovering the human bodies lining their walls.

The “tall half-skinny half-1 percent extra hot split quad shot (two shots decaf, two shots regular) latte no whip” Person

If I was the Barista on the other side of the counter I’d just give this person water. Because the world will not constantly adjust itself to your ridiculous standards, greedy person. These people seem to have such an overwhelming sense of entitlement that they don’t care whose expense their request is at, just as long as they get what they want. These are the individuals who take Burger King’s slogan of “Have It Your Way” way too seriously. When Burger King would like you to have it your way, they didn’t mean ‘be a dick’. Seriously. You’re getting water.

The Emotional Terrorist Posing as a Banker

I guess this one is more personally significant, and for that reason he may be the most dangerous one of all. Like a chameleon he projects a helpful do-gooder appearance with his pressed shirt and his car salesman smile. He’s assured you as you walk through the bank doors, all disheveled and upset, that everything is going to be alright because he has the power to fix things. $600 in overdraft charges? No problem. Paycheck not in until next week? Not to worry, here’s something to tie you over. Did you want a Diet Coke? This Sensitive Sam routine lasts for as long as it takes for him to pull up your account, and then the tiger is out of its’ cage. All of a sudden you feel like you’re being interrogated by Al Queda:

“how the hell could you have lost this much control over your finances?”

“There’s nothing I can do for you about these overdraft charges. Even with your minimum wage job, you’re lookin’ at 25 years of debt. I’ve actually already shut down your account.”

“My six year old daughter could manage her money more effectively than you. Do you suck this bad at the rest of your life?”

At this point you are blubbering excuses to him about student loans and getting behind on your rent. You swear that you only live off raw almonds and wine, that you are so much more frugal than it seems on your statement. It all falls onto deaf ears however, because this man has managed to make you feel like you are the only person in the banks HISTORY that has overdrafts on their account. You’re not just hurting yourself, but you’ve managed to scar the integrity of the bank as well. Way to go, you’ve blown through your funds faster than Nicolas Cage. Just try and rebuild your self-esteem after this.

Lists are the work of a non-denominational power whether it be spiritual or your singularly powerful soul (I’m reaching out to my diverse demographic).

I love lists. I would marry lists if they had a job and could support me financially and wear scarves.

Seriously though, men + scarves = it’s not gay anymore, it’s just sexy.

The reason I love lists is that it allows someone without any ability to adhere to a theme (read: me) to pretend to be a person who has the cognitive skills to mentally pull thoughts together under the umbrella of a theme.

Like if you had a list that said, “Vegetables” on the top you’d most likely find your average Joe listing just that:

1. Tomatoes

2. Potatoes

3. Leeks

4. More Potatoes

Easy enough, right? Wrong. My love for lists never stemmed from any ability to create themes or patterns. My lists are that of chaos, because that’s what our world is. Even when I was younger and we were still doing things like making mixed tapes for friends and significant others as a way of speaking our feelings through the sweet melodies of U2 and Kate Bush, I had no idea of how to put songs together to make a theme.

The track list of an actual mixed CD I just found in my car yesterday circa 2002:

1. Theme song from Cast Away

2. Burn One Down - Ben Harper

3. Christmas song from the first Harry Potter score (you know the scene where they are playing chess in the great hall? Classic hit.)

4. Dashboard Confessionals (Broody brood brood brooooood)

5. Girls Just Want to Have Fun (It will probably be played at every 7th/8th grade dance ever)

6. My Name Is - Eminem

7. A sound bite from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where they are rapping in front of the convenience store.

8. Paolo Conte - Veri Vere (It’s alright, he was a niche artist.)

9. Dr. Dre (When I roll into school and I want to look cool)

10. Dr. Dre (When I roll into school and I want to look cool)

11. Tribe Called Quest (When I roll into school and I want to look cool)

12. Theme from the movie Amistad about a slave ship that was set free after having an enormously emotional time in the US courts with Matthew McCounaghay as their low-budget attorney. (Beautiful choir part.)

I threw that on a CD. I actually burned a CD with those tracks on it. I didn’t even name it because when you think about it… does it really need a name? The answer is no, the mellifluous sounds coming from your Subaru speakers should be enough to make you crap your pants so that you forget all about the theme of the CD and just need new pants. And I actually still jam to this CD, you can ask any one of my friends who now refuse to ride in the car while I’m driving.

And I use lists for other purposes too!

Like for instance when I came into my room today I started comprising a list.

1. That book I just read was good.

2. I have to run right now

3. I need socks

4. My hair feels quite fresh today

5. There’s a dog on my bed

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, folks. If you’d like more lists, feel free to ask. I’ll deliver. Oh, I will deliver.

5 years ago if you had asked me to pick up the phone and call customer service I would have been like, “Uh, I can’t because I’ve suddenly realized that my voice box is on fire and I should probably get it checked out before I start talking on the phone again because that could really strain it and I don’t want to go against the doctor’s wishes before I’ve actually seem him and start out on a bad note.” And then I would have run away. But slyly.

The phone makes me nervous. It’s like a little box of uncertainty that also carries a certain anonymity to it that almost always gets me into a sticky wicket. Like when your aunt calls you and she assumes that you know who she is already and when you pick up and say, “hello” she just says, “Hi sweetie, it’s me.” and I’m thinking this could be like 1 in 180 people. I’m pretty sure that the woman who made my latte this morning called me sweetie and she could have gotten my phone number from any number of places, you just DON’T KNOW. Whenever this happens, instead of asking who this is my brain always goes, “LAURA, PANIC! FIND A PLACE TO HIDE IN YOUR MIND! BUT FIRST, PLAY. ALONG. They must suspect NOTHING!”

This guy knows what I’m talkin’ about.

So inevitably I just say, “Oh, hello there. It’s been a long time. How is….everyone?” and then we carry on a conversation that is seemingly meaningful to them, but during that entire time my face is stuck in a very tense panicky stare while I flip through my mental rolodex of people I’ve given leave to call me “sweetie”.

So you can imagine what happened this morning at work when myself and a coworker had to go in a little early and the phone rang. My coworker looked at me expectantly as if to say, “Not mine.” So I answer it (answering the phone at work isn’t as horrific as my cell phone or home phone because I can hide behind a shade of mysteriousness. Nobody knows who I am and for all intents and purposes, they never will. And thus I disappear into the shadows after our conversation has terminated).

My business phone persona somewhat resembles a 1940’s Jack the Ripper

It was another coworker asking if we would like some coffee.

As the answer to this question is always an emphatic YES, I gave him our orders and in return I heard the following question:

“Eothwrae otiwrh ahhh teeeks?”

Panic.

What. the. hell. did. he. just. say.

Being the strong-willed woman that I am I responded with, “sorry, I didn’t hear that.” And felt very proud of myself. Progress, Laura. Progress. Again he repeats the same muddled question, this time even more incoherent than the last time. And my muscles go stiff. Laura’s inner monologue was somewhat like, “do we play it cool and just say ‘see ya when you get here!’? Or do I dare ask again what the fuck he’s try to communicate to me?” Instead of going with either of those ideas my stupid head decides to just respond with:

“No.”

I don’t have any idea what I’ve just said no to. I could have just said no to a million dollars and I would not have the slightest clue. It was a gamble I was willing to make in favor of this horror going away as quickly as possible.

I could have been like 50 Cent, packing his car with stacks of money for Vegas if I had just said yes.

Instead I hear my co-worker laughing on the other end of the line as he says, “what? why not?”

Dead silence. What do you mean why not?! I DON’T KNOW WHY NOT! JUST NO! No is the answer to your meaningless question in telephone english! THIS IS WHY WE WERE NEVER MEANT TO HAVE IMPORTANT CONVERSATIONS VIA THE TELEPHONE! Don’t break up on the telephone or agree to be somebody’s roommate on the telephone! It takes away our basic human instincts to perceive and react to others in a meaningful way because of body language and smells and facial expressions! 

After a silence and a futile argument about technology happening in my head I finally just say, “Jeremy, I’m going to be honest. I have no idea what you just asked and I just figured the best answer would be ‘no’ across the board.” 

Jeremy: “I asked you if you could text me your coffee orders.”

Me: “Oh. Yeah, I can do that.”

I haven’t posted in a while due to crippling disappointment in myself lately. I’m on the down swing of my mood and don’t get me wrong, I love my mental illness, but the sad days just aren’t as memorable as the days where I am awake 48 hours straight and have sketched my ideas and blueprints for the next (BETTER) space station with a built-in karaoke bar on 17 post-it notes. I just seem to get more done on those days.

The thing is that I have a lot of great ideas. I know that everybody says that in a tongue-in-cheek, modesty outshines egocentricity kind of way. But the upside to being selectively deaf and blind to any sort of social obligation of modesty is that I can actually say that my ideas are way better than yours AND get a full 10 hours of sleep tonight free from any moral qualms. Lately my great ideas have all been centered around how to best exploit my own mental illness in such a way that not only makes me rich, but also provides an outlet for what would otherwise be an endless black hole of insecurities and drinking. Like marketing yourself for a job opportunity. How do you put a spin on mania that makes it sound like a DESIRABLE quality in an employee?

(Nobody wants a Joaquin Phoenix situation in their office)

“No really, when I run around in eccentric clothing and experience a euphoria that has me convinced that I’m divine, I really do type out better memos than the average employee. I’m gonna tell you right now, I’m an asset to this company. Also, there may be a couple weeks out of the year where I just don’t show up or answer my cell phone. I might not shower either. Listen, anything could happen when it comes to my behaviors. What’s your health care coverage, by the way? ‘Cuz I’ll be racking up those points like, whoa.”

I’ve been using different resources lately to gain more perspective on how to dress up my crazy as a pretty little package, and the latest one was kind of interesting. I have a Kindle, and being that I’m an adult with responsibilities and bills and motivation to be completely free of any sort of financial support from my family, I’m still on the family Amazon account. A couple weeks ago I was perusing the family archive of books. (Which is actually hilarious, it’s just a scattered library of thoughts and ideas that in no way have any over-arching theme. It looks like Jekyll and Hyde’s combined book collection with one side having a self-help theme and the other being about how to care for your horse, or just a melée of historical romance novels. There’s a book about personally raising your dog to be a sheep herder next to a copy of Persuasion by Jane Austen, to give you an idea. It’s amazing and I bet you all wish you had the secret key. But you can’t have it because my Dad holds that key and he’s kind of weird about it.)

Anyways I was perusing through our collective creepy archive and found a book about the genius in madness. I guess it’s pretty popular now but it talks about the mania of people in leadership positions and how they have harnessed their manic side to either make money or gain power and control.

(Here’s the book, in case you want to be president some day.)

Well, shit. As someone who knows what it feels like to be manic, I can tell you right now that I felt this sinking feeling as soon as I finished reading the description (Yeah, I didn’t read it.) of the book. What was I doing with my life? Well, occasionally I harness the energy of my mania and use it to start a new project every ten seconds and then promptly get about 3/4’s of the way through and figure that the finishing touches aren’t important …. and move on to the next project. In the time it takes to eat an apple, I have set up an entire Ikea home office except for the last screws on the top because that’s the point at which I realize that I could very well have magic painter hands and not know it because I never took the time to allow myself artistic freedoms. Two seconds later I’m doing a Paint By Numbers. But it seemed unlikely that this type of harnessing would ever result in me being the next Winston Churchill. I hate bowties.

In job interviews lately, I’ve found myself saying things that probably are not a turn-on to many employers. For instance if I was an employer looking to hire some 20 year-old lackey, I don’t know if I’d go with the one who said she “has a lot of opinions and is not afraid to share them”. Pretty sure I’d add her to my black list.

But being that I’m young and motivated to believe the best in the world and my place in it, I’ve decided to give my personality as much slack as possible. I’m going to be myself in these interviews and see who bites. I’m going to READ THAT BOOK (read: I’m not going to read that book!) and start learning how to present my crazy as something to be desired and coveted. I’m going to take a Xanax and DO MY TAXES, dammit! I WILL NOT LET THE WORLD SHUT ME OUT BECAUSE OF MY QUIRKS!

I will have forgotten all about this statement in 4 minutes in favor of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and picking up a book on art history.