I had a nicer topic loaded into my brain, but then this one barged in and took over the joint, so I guess I gotta talk about it.

I just pulled yet another “me”. A Michael Bertrand special. Namely,. when I got back from dinner with Felicity, I looked down, didn’t see my keys, and said “Oh my god, I forgot my keys!”.

Humiliation enough for most people. But not for me! No sirree!

So Felicity is nice enough to call up to the apartment and ask Julian if he can come down and let me in.

After all, he’s done that for me so many times before.

But exactly one second after Julian says “Sure!”, I realize that I actually do have my keys, they are exactly where they were supposed to be, and the only reason I didn’t see them when I looked down was because the motion of the car had caused them to slip over to one side of my massive gut.

D’oh. Once more, I leapt to a panicky negative conclusion based on far too little evidence, went off half-cocked^[1], and made a fool of myself.

Now I am not super upset about that. Everyone involved knows me and knows that I am absentminded as hell and hopefully they consider it part of my signature charm.

And cute. :Like a helpless kitten with its paws caught in yarn.

But note that dignity is not part of that equation. And I am not talking about some toweringly alpha attitude stuffed with gravitasse and importance.

I am talking about the very modest amount of dignity that comes with not making an idiot of myself on a regular basis.

The dignity of the mildly competent would be a huge step up for me.

Now let’s quickly run through the usual thoughts I have about this

1. I’m not competent to look after myself and there is nobody else to do it for me
2. I need some kind of assistant
3. AFAIK, I am helpless to stop this
4. My life is a never ended series of humliations and embarassments.
5. Woe is me et al

I think that covers it. Now on to fresh work.

I think the main thing to focus on is that this flaw of mine make me worthless as a human being. Nor does it make me a liability to those who know me, or that nobody can ever have any respect for me, or any of the other crazy shit my bad chemicals tell me.

Everyone has flaws. Nobody is perfect. My flaw happens to be somewhat comical. If I could jump into my childhood dreams and become the wacky side character that everyone loves in a sitcom, it would be one of my characteristic flaws,

Like Urkel’s lack of boundaries on Family Matters, or Don Knott’s absurdly exaggerated machismo on the Andy Griffith show, or Norm’s determinedly low ambition life on Cheers. These are not what positive traits in the straght-ahead obvious sense.

But they nevertheless make the characters more likeable because it makes them more human and hence more relatable.

I like to think that I have that kind of charm.

And yeah, it hurts to be destined to a life of these sorts of events, but only if I take them too seriously. That is, if I continue to feel like every single incident like this is some kind of damning evidence that I am some form of horrible person and don’t serve to be around people any more.

Oh yeah. Wouldn’t my social anxiety love THAT.

But if I just slow down and calm down about the whole thing, I will realize that these things are no big deal and they only have the power I give them and that I am a pretty amazing dude otherwise, so what’s the big deal?

That involves reconciling my feelings and the truth, which is something I have been doing a lot of lately.

It is sobering to realize one is crazy like that. TO know that, despite my pretensions of wisdom and objectivity and the pats on the back I give myself for being able handle seeing things as they really are. I am just another deluded fool.

Except my delusions make me feel worse.

Being crazy might look like fun sometimes, but few of us are so lucky.

Uh. Sundown is making me sleepy. Only 45 years old and I am already sunsetting.

Well I always was ahead of my age group.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Being insane.

The good news is that now that I am aware of these… let’s say errors, I can fix them. For me, that is a matter of letting the reality of the situation seep in and displace the craziness and bizarre emotional distortions.

This might not be enough, though. There is also the “need to panic” angle.

I think that panic attacks can serve a vital role in one’s emotional ecology because as unpleasant as they are (and they can be nightmares), they nevertheless provide a form of catharsis and allow the brain to discharge the excess emotional energy of someone loike me who has a lot of repressed feelings.

It’s like those naturla gas wells that periodically burn off the excess gas coming up from below by burning it off. Or a Jacob’s Ladder discharging the overcharge accumulated between the anode and the diode.

The best thing about my metaphors is that they are so relatable.

The superior solution would be not to accumulate the overcharge in the first place. Otherwise known as learning to express my emotions.

I am um, working on it.

It’s hard to beleive that normal people more or less manage to do it. They express their emotions at roughly the same rate as they generate them. How does that even work?

I think the key is that they actually act on their emotions. In fact, act according to their emotions instead of being an emotionally constipated egghead like myself.

Is it too late for me to convert?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.