He Came With Hero's Arms and Bullock's Eyes

A topic of conversation: nagging. Secondary topic: therapy and how people think it gives them carte blanche to criticize and insult you. AND BACK RUBS! All right, that's three topics. Three weighty topics.

Topic One: NAGGING
The other day I texted Mr. Mystery to let him know that there was laundry sitting in the dryer. I asked him to run the dryer for an additional 10 to 15 minutes so that the clothes were thoroughly dry. I am very anti-wet smelling clothes and towels and Mr. Mystery's dryer likes to leave things damp, so the additional 15-minute dryer run has become the norm for me and thus the norm for my lovely luv-ah. Since I wouldn't be at his house to run the dryer myself, the surplus dryer run would have to be run by him, and not me. Thus and therefore? The Call. The Call has also become the norm for me and my lovely luv-ah. The "darling, can you run the dryer again?" call.

On my way home I gave my babycakes a call, mentioned the dryer and its second run, and then jokingly said something about me and my incessant nagging. Mr. Mystery made an agreeing sort of sound, a sound that said, "Yes dear, you do nag me but I don't mind because I'm super laid-back and mellow and there is very little that bothers me." Being super NOT laid-back and mellow myself, I was all, "Uh, WHAT?! You think I nag you?!" and then my bottom lip protruded like the sad girl that I am, only Mr. Mystery couldn't see this as he was on the other end of a phone and phones aren't great with the visual aids. So I added a manipulative little whimper to my voice and asked sadly, "B-b-but... you think that I... n-n-nag you?" and then in a quieter and even-sadder voice, "I try very hard not to be a nag."

Mr. Mystery saw through this charade straightaway and responded matter-of-factly, "There are some things you go on (and on) about, like the laundry and painting the bathroom." I hemmed, I hawed, and then I conceded that I may, just perhaps, on occasion harp on like the harpy I am. Sometimes.

"But love," I countered, "I don't nag you to DO the laundry. Just to run the dryer again. That's not REALLY nagging, is it?" I could hear him smile over the phone. "No dear, it's not. You're wonderful. You rarely nag." There may have been some sarcasm there, but I chose to ignore it. It was a solid win for me.

Topic Two: Therapy and how people think it gives them carte blanche to criticize and insult you.
The major drawback to being open and honest about one's therapeutic walk through the Crazy Daisies is that people think that, since you're receiving so much good, honest feedback from your doctor, they too can give you good and honest feedback. Except that it's not usually good and honest feedback as much as it is hurtful and mean- insults - about nothing that has anything to do with one's fear of pigeons, their fear of dying alone, their off-kilter rationale for avoiding physical contact with people, or their certainty that they will catch Swine Flu from the sales clerk that sneezed on them when they were buying Pillsbury cookie dough.

Yesterday I hadt a chat with a friend of mine that went a little something like this:

Me: "Aarrgghh!"
Her: "Articulate as ever, I see."
Me: "I AM FEELING ICKY. The Caps Lock kind of icky. I think I ate bad cheese."
Her: "Bad cheese? What did you eat today?"
Me: "I ate yesterday's leftover mozzarella sticks. And now I'm all hot-flashy and dizzy."
Her: "You're a hypochondriac... and you're always dizzy."
Me: "HEY! Though... this is true."
Her: "It never fails... I'm discussing government expansion of powers as it pertains to passports with [name of other friend] but with you [I'm discussing] whether or not you've been poisoned by stale cheesesticks."
Me: "Hmmm. I am debating whether or not to be insulted by that."
Her: "Consider yourself insulted. The cut direct."

In case you didn't catch what happened here, my friend is letting me know that I talk about brainless things like death-by-cheese, while her other friend talks about important things like expansion of power as it pertains to passports. Extrapolate that further and you'll see that she called me a brainless idiot.

Stuff like this chat (though not of this chat's magnitude) has been happening a lot lately. Usually it's a quick, pointed suggestion - "You are constantly canceling plans, Canary. You should talk to your therapist about why you value your time over everyone else's." - but sometimes it's a completely irrelevant, fly ball from left field. Sometimes you can be walking down the road, minding your own business, when suddenly you see your local ice cream parlor. You suggest to whomever you're with that perhaps you should revel in the summertime and go in for a scoop. And sometimes that person responds with, "You use food to suppress your feelings. You need to be in therapy more."

C'mon folks. Sometimes a scoop of ice cream is just a scoop of ice cream and not some dairy-laden cry for help. And sometimes people need to keep their opinions to themselves. Unless that person is a licensed therapist and I'm paying them hundreds of dollars an hour. In that case, they can nag me about ice cream all they want.

And now on to Topic Three: Backrubs
Turns out that I know jack about rubbing someone's back. The other night Mr. Mystery asked me to rub his back. As the boy asks for so little (he will occasionally ask me to make him a sandwich), I told him, "Hell yeah, I'll rub your back!" But when it came to rubbin' time, I was completely at a loss.

I poked at him with my finger. I jammed my knuckle into his L4 vertebra. I wacked him with the heel of my hand. Fascinated by the power I had (the boy's back was turning red and angry with every poke and prod), I contemplated giving him a good smack to see what sort of mark that would make. I even considered, quickly, snapping him with the rubber band that was holding my hair back.

But I didn't.

Instead, I thought super hard about what might feel good to an aching back and tried to with all my might to perform. Only I couldn't. I just... couldn't. I didn't know what the hell my hands were doing, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be looking at his back or staring off into space. Should I hum him a little tune while I do this? Do I comment on what I'm doing? "I am now going to smack you with a branch from the tree out front, in an effort to help your body commune with nature." Eventually I stopped completely, sighed, and started up a thread of conversation that required face-to-face discussion.

The next day, when asked what I had done that weekend, I told my coworkers, "Oh, you know... I learned that I'm a complete back-rub moron." They both gasped. "What do you mean?" one of them asked. I told how I didn't know what to do when Mr. Mystery asked for a back rub, how I eventually gave up when my jabbing him refused to make him feel better.

"Massage is the gateway to romance," my colleague told me. "It's all about giving to your partner." I thought about that a moment. "That's probably why I couldn't do it," I said. "I'm not much of a giver. Taking, though... TAKING I can do."

My coworker clucked her tongue and told me that she had a book that I could borrow. "Is it a dirty book?" I asked. "NO!" she replied, astounded. "Why would it be a dirty book?"

"You know, because massage, as you said, is the gateway to romance," I told her. "I assumed that 'romance' was code for 'kinky sex.'"

Turns out that sometimes someone just wants you to rub their back.

And there you have it, people, a totally convoluted post about several non-related things. My brainless self, the self that talks about death-by-cheese and can't rub your back, is having some issues with writing.

Don't worry... I'll talk to my therapist about it.

Glossy, Efficient Prose, Garnished With a Pinch of Irony

Today's word of the day is MELODRAMA. Actually, it was yesterday's word, too. And the day before that.

I knew that I was leaning toward the melodramatic when, yesterday, I put my head on my desk and cried over the presence of FAT FREE half-and-half in our work kitchen. Having been out of half-and-half for days, I was momentarily elated when my colleague called me and said, "CANARY! Someone bought half-and-half! Holla'!" I nearly shouted my joy, having felt deprived, coffee-less, and decaffeinated. "Oh wait..." my coworker said sorrowfully, "it's FAT FREE. Nevermind."

Umm... What? WHAT?! Who drinks FAT FREE half-and-half?! It's an abomination, is what it is. To remove the fat from half-and-half. Like my thighs, it's fatty by nature! (Not to be confused with Naughty By Nature, the Grammy award-winning hip hop group that brought us such hits as "O.P.P." and "Everything's Gonna Be All Right," aka "Ghetto Bastard.")

Anyway, the FAT FREEness of the FAT FREE half-and-half made me put my head on my desk and cry, a reaction whose intensity may have been a tad higher than the situation called for. This made me think that I was teetering the line of the melodramatic, and perhaps I should dial down the Crazy a little.

So I did.

Until today when Mr. Mystery suggested that I not come over to his house tonight because he's sick and he doesn't want to contaminate me.

Sweet, right? His desire not to infect me? Yep, it's sweet... and it's put me in such a tizzy that I think I've actually foamed at the mouth.

Admitting that I am being an irrational, emotional, slightly crazy beyotch to the nth degree, I ask that you not judge me too harshly for what I am about to tell you. I ask this because I already know that I am being an irrational, emotional, slightly crazy beyotch and that Mr. Mystery is completely in the right to be sick and desirous of not having company during said sickness. So please, for the love of God, have some mercy on me and refrain from telling me what a horrible person I am and how mean I am being to sweetish, flu-ish, feverish Mr. Mystery. Because if you do? I will likely have a melodramatic meltdown all over your well-meaning asses.

Okay, here's why I'm being all dramatic over my not going to Mr. Mystery's:

1. My mystery man and I have gotten into the routine of spending Friday-Sunday together, but spending our weeknights apart. This means that I haven't seen my man since Sunday. I am making the assumption that my boy will continue to feel ill throughout the weekend which means...
2. ... I will not see him until NEXT weekend when we have plans to travel to my cousins' house for the 4th of July. Traveling and spending the weekend at my cousins' means...
3. ... that we will not have any alone time (and by alone time I mean HOT SEX time) for another TWO WEEKS. We also won't have the regular sort of alone time, which makes me sad, too.
4. And I haven't seen Bixby in a week and I miss my birdie.
5. And lastly, DAMN IT! I shaved my legs this morning. Cripes. I wasted days of sensitive-skin itchiness for a night spent with The Cat and another viewing of an old black and white movie, though I sort of already covered this in number 3 above.

So, there you have it. All of my selfishness wrapped up in a neat little post. I'm sorry Mr. Mystery is sick, and if I were a better woman, I'd be over there now taking care of him in his time of need. Except that I don't think he wants me there. And he hasn't turned his AC on yet and it's ass-hot here in D.C. And also I'm not good with other people's sicknesses. So in reality I wouldn't be over there nursing him back to health, but I would be over there cleaning and really, who doesn't feel better in a clean house? What sick person doesn't immediately recover after taking a nap in fresh sheets? And did I mention my smooth legs? What sick man doesn't appreciate being molested by a girl with smooth legs?

See? MELODRAMA. It's running through my veins this week and I can't seem to stop it. If I had to venture a guess as to the origin of my nuttiness, I'd blame the following:

1. Hormones. I's gots 'em.
2. Mrs. Lady Doctor has gone on vacation for two weeks. Before she went, she told me how to contact her in case of a "Mental Emergency." The words "mental emergency" have planted the idea in my head that such a thing is going to occur, so now? We're circling the Crazy Airport and getting ready to begin our approach.
3. I miss my man and am sad that he feels icky. I want to make him feel better but feel powerless to do so.
4. I don't like the idea that he doesn't want me to come over, even if his reasoning is for my own good.
5. I SHAVED MY LEGS. That should tell you about the sort of *ahem!* mood I'm in. This girlie is disappointed that her night will be less physical than she had planned it to be.
6. I bought my boy some Round-Up and wanted to give it to him. (My man loves him some weed-killing. For reals.)
7. Today's lunch was less than amazing and I'm terribly disappointed that I spent money on it.

And there it is, Internets, my horribleness. My naughty (by) nature. Feel free to contact Mr. Mystery to tell him what a bitch he's dating. It might perk him up in his time of need. Starve a cold, commiserate with a fever. You know the drill.

Not the Outstretched Hand, Nor the Kindly Smile

The other day I was listening to an interview on NPR. The guest, an author of some sort, was discussing his theories on trust, specifically the ways Americans trust and the political ramifications of that trust. I was half asleep at the time (NPR is Mr. Mystery's morning alarm), so I missed the major points of the conversation, though I didn't miss so much as to prevent me from developing some thoughts on the whole trust issue.

I'm a trusting sort of person. At least I sort of am. When it comes (came) to The Ex, I trust(ed) little to nothing of what he says or does (said or did). (Lessons learned the hard way, let me tell you.) But when it comes to Mr. Mystery, I trust implicitly. Opposite colors on the Male Spectrum, these two guys are, but my level of trust at the beginning of both relationships was the same. The variance came later after experience taught me that some people? They just can't be trusted, while others totally can.

My point being that experience is key when it comes to trust.

This got me to thinking about all of the things I trust. I trust that the pilot flying the jet I am on is well-rested and well-trained. I trust that the person standing on the highway overpass isn't going to throw things at my car, a la The Good Son. I trust that those who hold political offices know more about what is going on in the world than I do, and that they have my best interests at heart. I believe that the pastor of my church knows God better than I do.

Some things you just sort of accept due to the nature of the situation and the "clout" of those involved. Those seen as "experts" are trusted for their expertise. But the truth? The cold, hard, scary-as-shit truth? Some things just shouldn't be trusted. Or less harsh, some things don't deserve the level of trust we put in them. Recent political events have taught me this. Bad behavior from church elders. The recent Metro crash. Photos of train operators and bus drivers texting. A pilot that died of natural causes while flying a transatlantic flight. These things, these scary-ass things, have all come together to teach me a valuable lesson about trust.

I'm starting to fa-reak myself the hell out because I had assumed those shuttling me around were paying attention and in good health. I had assumed that my local train system was equipped with anti-crashing-the-hell-into-other-trains devices. And worse? I have been trusting that those who work in the food service industry were washing their hands after they used the bathroom because it was the right thing to do.

That I am still alive today is a miracle. With E. coli and rollover minutes monkeying around, it's a wonder I haven't been taken out before now.

Part of growing up (and going to therapy) is accepting that the world is a scary place and that some people who share our world are scary people. Growing up (and going to therapy) also meansthat we accept that we ourselves are not perfect, that we make bad decisions and text while driving, that we clog our arteries with French fries and then tempt Fate (and a heart attack) by getting behind the wheel of our car. We ourselves - even if we're "experts" in our field - can stand to learn more. We can stand to pay more attention. We can stand to question ourselves and others. We should not take for granted our personal safety, our intelligence, or the things we believe. Question, question, question. Look and learn, explore and discover. Make decisions of our own. Be open to the thoughts and feelings of others.

I don't know what my point to all of this is exactly. I just know that I'm suddenly nervous about people on overpasses and train operators. I'm also thinking that perhaps NPR is not the best way to wake me up in the morning... too many deep thoughts for a sleepy head.

Every Time I Move, I Make a Woman's Movement

Today I sat in Mrs. Lady's Doctor office and gave her the mediocre report on the prior week's accomplishments. Not being one for "assignments," Mrs. Lady Doctor is careful to avoid "making" me do anything, as the improvements to my life (and mental health) are to be made of my own volition. That being said, Mrs. Lady Doctor also knows that I have absolutely no volition, so if I'm ever to move forward, someone has to give me a little nudge in the right direction.

I sat on her couch and told her how "floopy" I had been the previous week, how "off of my game." She asked about the frequency of these "off weeks," but I couldn't give her an answer. In addition to my lack of volition, I also don't pay attention. "They come and go," I said, "but I couldn't tell you if there are triggers. Maybe it's hormonal... I don't know." I trailed off and looked absentmindedly into the middle distance (an uneasy feat in her tiny windowless office).

"Canary," she began, "let's be practical..." I instantly knew that I wasn't going to like what she was about to say. Practicality? Not one of my strong points. "You didn't finish what you began because you simply didn't want to." I started to argue because, really, who comes out and says such things? I mean, sugarcoat it a little, would you? Be kind to my poor, needy self and deliver the blow with some honey and cream.

But that's not what I pay her for, so I quickly changed my mind. Besides, she was right.

I took a deep breath before looking her in the eyes. "You're right," I conceded. "I didn't want to do those things, but I can't tell you why... I don't know why I didn't want to."

She smiled and said, "That's okay. Determing WHY you didn't want it is another issue for another time. Today - and from now on - you're going to call a spade, a spade. No more playing games with yourself."

Hot damn. Game-playing. That's what I was doing... I was playing games with myself! And what's more? These weren't fun games. These were horribly long and intricate games with little to no payoff, like Eurorails or Fluxx. Not even a bag of chips, some French onion dip, and a cold bottle of beer could make these games better.

Mrs. Lady Doctor is going on vacation so I have the next three weeks to get my ass in gear and stop with all of the bullshit. My assignments? To 1) recognize when I'm lying to myself; then 2) stop lying to myself; and 3) take a small step toward the light.

Small steps. Movement. Welcome to the one-canary woman's movement.

The Sight of the Stars Makes Me Dream

Being the sort of person that I am (the sort that thinks way too damn much), I can say with certainty that uncertainty blows.

I hate to admit this to the world at large, but I've reached a point in my life where nothing is set in stone and I'm flailing like a fish out of water. Some people thrive in the face of uncertainty. Some people fail. I am the sort that fails.

I was raised to believe certain things, to think a certain way. The ideologies and theologies of my parents were never forced upon me, but they were an unquestioned way of life. When it came to religion, I believed what they believed, even if my mind could not wrap itself around the mysteries of miracles, the possibility of the impossible. My heart always longed for the Greater, the Bigger, the In Charge. I wanted to have that fire in my belly, that passion that others had. I wanted to KNOW that what I believed was TRUE.

As I've gotten older, I've begun to question everything. I question myself, I question God, I question other people's Gods, I question The Cat. Asking, asking, asking and the only answers I've gotten aren't so much anwers as they are more questions.

I will confess that this journey of discovery is scaring the holy living shit out of me.

If God exists and I question him, will he punish me? But if God doesn't exist and I put my faith in him, does that make me naïve? Is God who and what I think he is? Is he something different? When certainty comes only in death and its long walk into the light, what the hell am I supposed to think in the here and now?

What scares me even more than the not knowing is deviating from a path that has been walked by almost everyone in my family. Disagreeing with them, especially when I am searching for answers and don't know where I stand, sets my nerves on edge and my teeth to gritting. I can not argue my position. I don't even know what my position is. I am indefensible but I feel defensive. If I were Jericho and the Canary family status quo was marching around my walls, I'd be skeptical that their battle cry could bring me down... but yet? What if it could?

It's that "what if" that has me scared. I don't want to wait to see if the impossible is possible. I don't want to wait for the walls to fall to determine what I believe. I want to know now, or if that's impossible, then I want to believe something - anything - so passionately that even if it's wrong, even if God looks at me with such supreme disappoint that it breaks my heart in two for all eternity, I will be able to look myself in the eyes and say, "You were wrong, but at least you were true to what you believed."

I don't like being a fence-straddler, but I REALLY don't like not knowing whose fence I'm on and whose pastures are around me. I just don't like not knowing, and I'm not enjoying the process of finding out.

Now taking applications from anyone who has the answers: Apply within.

One Hardly Leaves Room For The Other

I'm not sure what's wrong with me that I haven't had the words to type on this here blog o' mine. I could tell you a lot of things, for things happen every day, but the words don't sound poetic. My sentences lack eloquence and I am loathe to put out something I'm not at least vaguely fond of in case the Washington Post comes back. At least I haven't said "fuck" in this post yet, thank me lucky stars. (They're magically delicious!)

I could tell you about the turtle Mr. Mystery and I pseudo-stole from a stranger who found him on the side of the road, a turtle with a cleft lip that had definitely seen better days. I could tell you how we then gave the turtle to a woman having a yard sale, a yard sale at which Mr. Mystery purchased a 10 billion pound cast iron stove that is currently making permanent indentations in my car's leather upholstery. I could tell you about the cast iron stove and its permanent indentations, but if I did, I would also have to tell you that I was the one that whined about hauling it out of the car, which means that I'd have to tell you the permanent indentations are of my own making.

I could tell you how we gave Bixby her first bath this weekend. Or how we found a baby sparrow on the sidewalk and smuggled it onto the Metro and then back to Mr. Mystery's house to convalesce. I could tell you that I brought the lame birdie to Second Chance, how I have named her "Captain Jack," and how I plan on keeping her should she not recover from her injuries.

I could tell you about how I moved offices this week, how another of my ideas got shot down at work, how defeated and frustrated that makes me feel, how embarrassed I am that the dysfunctional nature of my company affects the people I outsource projects to. I could tell you that my attitute at work is starting to slip, that my annoyance is becoming constant, that my will to do well is being overrun by my desire to run away.

I could tell you that Mr. Mystery and I met two drunk men this weekend, both of whom started up conversations with us that made very little sense. I could tell you how someone died at the Bethesda Metro station on Sunday and how sad that made me. I could tell you about the woman from Mr. Mystery's neighborhood who has gone missing, and how the flyers up on the lamp posts break my heart.

I could tell you how annoyed I am that I can't finish my audio book because CD 3 of 12 is so badly scratched that the story no longer makes sense.

I could tell you how, right now, The Cat is so desperate for attention that he is deliberately inserting his tail up my nose so that I will pay attention to him. I could tell you how this makes me sneeze, how my eyes water.

I could tell you a lot of things, but the sentences that tell the story, when pieced together, don't make sense. The parts, when placed together, do not make a whole. And damn, but isn't that exactly how I feel about myself? A collection of parts, far from a whole.

Last week Mrs. Lady Doctor told me that I was in no position to make decisions about whether or not to have a child, whether or not to get married, whether to choose paper or plastic bags at the grocery store. "There is a lot going on with you," she told me. "There is so much to sift through that it would impossible for you to make major life decisions at this point."

I guess that I can't really argue with her on this, especially considering that the choice between paper or plastic bags sends me straight into the arms of a panic attack. But to be told something like that, point blank... well, it blew, and I would be lying if I said that I haven't been obsessing about it for a solid week.

So another week has passed and it's time for me to go to therapy again, and people? I'm not looking forward to it. What will we uncover this time? What new problem will be unearthed? How can the GreenCanary be further broken down into her component, messed up parts? Urgh, I don't even want to think about it.

So instead of thinking about it (which I inevitably will, likely just as I'm about to fall asleep and then I'll be up all night in an anxiety-induced sweat), I will instead tell you something supremely sad. Early in our relationship, Mr. Mystery gave me the Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding album, a comic about the nuptials of, you guessed it, the Green Arrow and the Black Canary. Not being a comic person, I had no idea who these characters were, but I could (and can) get on board with any color canary, especially one that can kick ass while wearing fishnets and heels.

Now that I've been with Mr. Mystery for nine months (NINE MONTHS, PEOPLE!), I'm more familiar with comics and graphic novels. In other words, I was primed to read the comic he got me oh so long ago. And you know what? IT WAS SAD AND I CRIED.

Crying over a comatose comic book character was not the best way to end an evening, so it's no surprise that I had wicked weird dreams about finding my dead childhood pet (a guinea pig named Hobbit) in my closet, all solid and hard and gray like modeling clay. The best part of the dream was when I realized that I was at fault for the g. pig's death because I had put her in the closet and then forgotten about her FOR SIX MONTHS.

Yeah. Even dreaming I knew that was bad. Who leaves their pet in a closet for six months?! Dream Me, that's who.

My colleague told me that this was an anxiety dream, a dream about forgotten responsibilities and such. I was all, "You think?" said with no shortage of sarcasm.

I blame therapy for my anxious woes. I'd do something to alleviate said woes, but apparently I'm in no position to make major life decisions.

Oh, who am I kidding? I wouldn't do anything to alleviate said woes, unless that anything involved a pint of ice cream, a shelter magazine, and a Tivo'ed episode of Friends. Perhaps Mrs. Lady Doctor was right.

Paper? Plastic? Suck.

In Life Is To Be Forgotten

This past weekend, Mr. Mystery and I set out on a world of adventure that looked nothing like what we had originally planned. This isn't out of the ordinary, the reality not matching the dream, in that Mr. Mystery and I are both avid sleepers and make a habit out of missing the mornings on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday was, well... I don't remember Saturday. There was a family BBQ involved, but I don't remember what we had planned to do and we actually did. Brunch was in there somewhere, as was walking, which means that there was also whining about my feet.

Sunday was the day in which we were to Do Things, but what actually happened is that we went to the movies instead. Again, this is not out of the ordinary. Our movie of choice? A lighthearted animated children's film by a reknowned animation studio, a studio that has turned out success upon success and whose films have never failed to make me chuckle. This particular movie, however, made me want to slit my wrists and die.

The problem was this: Pixar? They tried to kill me with tears and sadness. The tears were because the movie, UP, was heart-wrenching, a fact they omitted in the trailers. I was ready for a topsy-turvy adventure with balloons and talking dogs, a boy scout and a curmudgeonly old man. Pixar gave me these things, but they came at a price. The price was an unsettling look into the blackest parts of my very soul. Had I known that I was going to be drawn and quartered by fearful sadness, I would have traded in my Skittles for some Goobers. Tears like mine needed chocolate, not a rainbow of fruitiness.

UP was sad because it embodied the world's (read: MY) two biggest fears: 1) DYING ALONE; and 2) COMING TO THE END OF YOUR LIFE AND REGRETTING NOT HAVING DONE MORE WHEN YOU COULD.

The movie ended on a supposedly high note, but it was too late for high notes. The beginning left me for dead and once dead, you just don't recover. (Unless you're Jesus.) I sniffled as Mr. Mystery and I left the theater. "That was sad," I said. He agreed. (Side note of love: My man? He cries at movies and I dig that.) "That movie was my two biggest fears... ANIMATED."

Mr. Mystery pulled me against him and gave me a hug. We stood there for a few moments quietly, me thinking that I was going to die alone and regretful, him likely contemplating the perma-knot in the back of my head and wondering why I don't brush my hair already, for the love of gawd.

UP haunted me for days. Because I was so deeply perturbed by the children's film, I decided to discuss it with my therapist. This? Was a BAD IDEA. For the first time since starting with this new doctor, I left the appointment feeling more dissatisfied than when I started, for instead of picking at my Pile of Personal Problems and reducing its size, we ADDED TO THE DAMN THING.

"There is a lot of work ahead of us," Mrs. Lady Doctor told me. "Lots of issues to delve into." I think I may have thrown myself on the floor and wailed at that point. Really? I have lots of issues that we need to delve into? I wonder what tipped her off... my fear of dying and having God tell me that I was a royal screw-up and undeserving of Heaven? Or my thought that having a child would mean that I wouldn't be left alone, to die lonely and ancient, steeping in my own excrement? Or maybe my fear of disappointing my parents, even though I'm 31 and well beyond the age of caring about such things? Finding issues with me is like shooting into a barrel of fish.

Anyway, there is no point to this post except to warn you about UP. And also, maybe, to warn you about me. I'm nutty and likely to go off at any moment. If I lose my mind and start stealing people's babies, all the while screaming, "DON'T LEAVE ME TO DIE ALONE! DON'T LEAVE ME TO DIE ALONE!", blame Pixar, those rat bastards. Blame Pixar.