Does This Striptease Make Me Look FAT?

All week long, I’ve been actively looking for reasons to feel insulted.

And finding lots of them!

This kind of thin-skinnedness is not typical of me (I hope), so I can only suppose they’re indicative of some vast inner continent of drifting discontent, fueled, in part, by the weather and in part, by income limitations.

I have a pretty keen emotional intelligence when it comes to sussing out other people’s psychological states, but none whatsoever when it comes to deciphering my own. This is not uncommon among those of us who were reared by parents with borderline personality disorder. Constant monitoring was called for! Hypervigilance was called for! But what we felt ourselves was always pretty irrelevant because it wasn’t going to change anything.

Consequently, I’ve always had a very hard time figuring out what I feel at any given time.

Sometimes, I’ll find myself crying and think, Wow! I must feel sad!

And when I add up the evidence, I think, Right! And I have reasons to feel sad.

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So, yesterday, someone told me I do “psychological stripteases” online.

Like I said, I was looking for reasons to get offended.

It’s always bizarre to get a glimpse of oneself through another person’s eyes. If you’re feeling unsettled, if you're feeling momentarily ungrounded, you will always embrace whatever caricature has your name tag on it.

So, this person thinks I’m an exhibitionist. Trotting out train wreck after train wreck for the delectation of some vast, invisible television viewing audience!

Uh huh.

Of course, this person was wrong. What I’m really doing is putting messages in bottles.

Hoping to make connections that will override space and time.

###

Anyway, I have been working waaaay too much in between doing selfless, altruistic TaxBwana-ing. This is because I want to shove money at RTT and pay for his dentistry.

It dawned on me yesterday that within the past six months, RTT has really maxxed out the stress chart. The Big Four on stress charts are always Death, Divorce, Job Loss, and Moving; RTT has had three of those things.

I do know what that feels like.

If only I could focus hard enough to dematerialize here and rematerialize in that casino parking lot, I could mug that guy from yesterday before he had the chance to gamble away thirty-three thousand dollars! I could give it all to RTT and say, Here! Travel! See Southeast Asia and Indonesia and Bhutan before they close the borders on those places for-evAH!

But I can’t.

So, I slip him what would otherwise go into the New Car Fund to allay some of his present financial worries.

“My dentist—she’s very nice—told me she thought I should see a psychiatrist,” RTT told me glumly yesterday. “I grind my teeth at night. She said it was stress.”

“Yes. Well. It’s the family curse,” I said. “I grind my teeth, too. So does your brother. Your brother, by the way, finds Wellbutrin very helpful. It doesn’t have the side effects that are associated with other antidepressants. All that dope you’re smoking is an attempt at self-medicating, you know. If it’s not working, there are other options.”

###

This weekend I start socializing and having some fun again.

So, you know.

That will be good.