So how are y’all? I, for one, am still under the influence of last night’s Ambien, which means that I am super sleepy and not at all alert and aware. Please do not sneak up behind me today; most likely I will be all Whaaa? and it will ruin the surprise and not be fun at all for you. Sorry.

It’s been kind of a busy week since last we spoke. Molly and Jason from the Bachvomit got married on TV last night, the tail end of which I was able to catch after I got home from business class. THAT’S RIGHT, I’m taking a BUSINESS CLASS, bitches. Check your jealousies at the door. (More on that in a minute.) Last week we were getting the kiddies all ready for their spring break, the one where they get to go home and do whatever it is that they do there, and the one where I HAVE TO BE HERE. AT SCHOOL. IN MY OFFICE. I’m totally not bitter, y’all.

In other news, our fun friends Butt Pirate and Rump Ranger came over for dinner Saturday night. There were lots of laughs but I’d say there wasn’t nearly enough name-calling, so I call a do-over RIGHT NOW. As a hostess gift, Pirate and Ranger brought us a rain gauge. It is 8 kinds of awesome. Yes, you should be jealous. (Except I think I told you to check your jealousies at the door, so…we’ll work on that.)

Do you see? DO YOU SEE? This is what the Ambien does to me in the mornings. I cannot be held responsible for my written actions. (Did I just steal that from a Kennedy kid? It sounds familiar…) Anyway, so then we finally went and bought a dryer on Sunday, which is just in time because this morning I went to get my jeans and they stunk like mildew in the cold dryer, which is when I realized that the stuff in there was STILL DAMP and it pissed me off and made me almost cry when I had to wear some other pants. The new dryer comes tomorrow night, and it’s not really the dryer that dreams are made of, but it’s fine. We searched four hours for that damn thing, and by the end we were all Yo, pack that shit up. Even if it’s a Maytag.

So back to my new bidness! I’m so excited about it, and you should be too because it might mean that I have extra dollars to do stuff with. Except that last night my friends and I went to this class on how to write a business plan, and apparently people who start their own businesses start out with like no money and wind up with even less money until 10 years later when they collect an annual salary of like $50. THESE ARE MY ASPIRATIONS.

It’s going to be a stationery and invitation printing business, where you’d come to my house, tell me what you need said invitation for (your divorce is final, your 40th birthday has come around again for the 7th time, your kid managed to make it another year without breaking a limb, or whatever) and we sit down together to design it and make it happen. Or you can be boring and flip through some books and order crap out of there, too. Except it’s TOTALLY not crap. It’s fine, expensive but affordable paper that you and everyone who sees it will love. My goal is to build a base of satisfied and loyal customers who will return holiday after miserable holiday to buy their paper goods from me because I am skilled, personable, and offer competitive prices.

Or at least that’s what I’m telling people.

I have decided right this second that I’m going to have a contest! With a PRIZE! Like a real.live.giveaway y’all. I need a name for this business that is going to rocket into the universe at lightening speed and return to earth with buckets of cash. I’m not sure that “Buckets O’ Cash” is quite catchy enough for an elegant invitation business, do you? Well, maybe you do.

Anyway, cough up your ideas in the comments section, and the one I like best (but am not contractually required to use) gets a gift card, probably to iTunes. Woot woot, ’cause who can’t use an iTunes gift card, yo?

So get to it: put on your thinking caps, get creative and do my work FOR me already. Sheesh. And also do it for the iTunes card. You know you want it…*said in sexy come-hither voice that is NOT AT ALL creepy.*

Now onto far more serious business: The Over-Saturation of our fair Bachelor, Jake Pavelka.

Or as I like to put it: VomitFest 2010.

I know a lot of you don’t watch The Bachelor at all, and therefore have no real interest in this post, but for the rest of you, let’s recap. Jake was originally on The Bachelorette seeking out the love of a cast-off from a previous show. Cast off himself, Jake became the sole recipient of dozens of expressions of love from like, 1,000 slutty-looking girls. He weeds the intelligent, Harvard-graduated group down to three and then two, and he’s left with Snow White and the Wicked Witch of the West (or east, or whatever.)

Snow White is Tenley, a really sweet-seeming girl from Oregon, who’s divorced but apparently dreams in cartoons and shits rainbows, according to her bachelorette roommates. She’s all googly-eyed for the square-jawed pilot and can’t help but fall in love with him on date after date after date after date…all on some island or in some swanky hotel or on some petal-strewn picnic blanket.

Wicked Witch is Vienna, tabloid-proclaimed trailer trash from BFE Florida, with a tattooed father, a Harley riding stepmother, a previous job as a Hooters girl, and a lovely hip tattoo herself. She’s “fun” and “passionate” and murders the English language every time she opens her mouth. (“Jake and I’s relationship couldn’t be better. I can’t wait to meet his sister-in-laws.”) She’s cast as the villain from the get go, arguing with her roommates and making enemies along the way.

And then, folks, there’s Reality Steve. I don’t read Steve’s blog or really know anything about it, but apparently he’s some guy who has predicted – correctly – all 10 winners of the Bachelor franchise. So he comes out early on with his prediction, and damn if he wasn’t right again. So mostly no one was shocked last night when Snow White dreamed her last Disney dream and was sent packing in tears. And Witchy got all weepy and accepted a fat Neil Lane diamond that will probably last on her finger, oh, six months. Tops.

Reading the Internet fallout this morning, I noticed that people kept saying that The Batch was “so sincere” and that the proposal seemed so “heartfelt.” And I thought to myself, I don’t know, I was too busy gagging myself with a spoon to notice, but they’re probably right. When you’re set down in the middle of a gaggle of blond blue-eyed girls whose eyes are only set on you, how hard can it be to find someone you kind of love? If there were 25 adoring people throwing themselves at you, would you be able to resist picking one out of the group to be your favorite?

I seriously can’t stop watching this show because it is such an addictive train wreck, and it boggles the mind as to how many stupid people there really are in this country. One of Jake’s cast-offs will be the next Bachelorette, and I’ll probably watch that, too, because she endeared herself to fans this time around, and now we all want to see what happens. But will Ali find love, we wonder? Will she be Cinderella and find her prince?

Truth be told, no one really cares.

What we do care about is the suspense of watching one guy or girl pick the lesser of 25 evils to spend the rest of their lives with. Out of all the fish in the sea, are these 25 the only ones you could ever possibly love? I guess we’ll see on May 25, or whenever that craptastic show comes back on.

In the meantime, the other favorite ABC reality show – Dancing with the Stars – has gone to the dogs by hiring the likes of Pamela Anderson, the almost-octomom Kate Gosselin, AND AS IF WE WEREN’T ALREADY SICK TO DEATH OF HIM, the newly-engaged Jake Pavelka.

For the love of God, ABC, these people are the stars of nothing and you should treat them that way.

And I started to wonder how someone defines their self-worth. Is it important to you that you are recognized for your work? Does a compliment on your outfit or hair send your confidence soaring? Or do you need your family to appreciate you for who you are instead of who you could be, or who they want you to be?

The girl on the show – I think her name was Jessica – had a family that was trying so hard to help her see what was under the striped tights and goth t-shirts. They wanted her to look in the mirror and believe for herself that she is beautiful, hard as it may be.

I am not exploring this as a rhetorical conversation; I really want to know what you think. Tell me what it takes for you to say to yourself that you are truly a valuable person not only to the people in your life, but to the world as a whole?

(And if you don’t already think that, then you’re coming with me to therapy hour tomorrow afternoon.)

For the record, I don’t have answers to these questions. I love my family, and perhaps this isn’t exactly the way I should air my grievances, but I’ve been told my entire life that if I were smaller, if I were thinner, if I were able to fit into pretty clothes like everyone else, I would be someone special. It was suggested to me not that many years ago that the reason I was unemployed at the time was because of my appearance.

Partly because of that, along with many other things, I no longer know what value I have to the outside world. Sure I have friends that love me, and deep down I know my family loves me because they’re my family, but I still wonder every day of my life who’s judging me. The thing I hear most often about myself is that I’m funny, hilarious, clever, witty. I can make a joke at my own expense and endear myself to others, but I will never be taken seriously as long as I look different. I will always have a pair of eyes on me as I pass through the buffet line; I will always hear the girl across the room whisper to her friend what a shame it is that I turned out to be the fat black sheep.

I do not write this to garner pity or empathy or even a response. I write this because I want to relay my experience in hopes that you will share yours.

How do you define self worth?

We talked about my childhood – the beloved golden compass of therapy, the holy grail, the manna from heaven, and my girl got what she wanted: tears, lots and lots of tears. I’ve said before that I didn’t realize how angry I was at some things, and at first, I didn’t know at what or whom I was angry. But then I wrote a letter (and six more in my head) and then my counselor asked the right questions and then suddenly I was crying so hard I couldn’t catch my breath, and I was remembering things I haven’t thought of since I was 8 and HOLY CRAP THIS WOMAN IS WORTH THE MONEY.

I really wish she read this, because she gets so many free compliments, it’s ridiculous.

I was so exhausted after that encounter that I went home and tried desperately to do more than wander around like a limp noodle, but I failed. She gave me some online surveys to take which basically measure your relationship to yourself and how you view your strengths and weaknesses. Turns out that I’m not my biggest fan, and also that my strengths are that I don’t actually kill people even when I want to. Go me!

So I guess from here on out one of our goals is to teach me to “love myself” or some other sparkly rainbow bullshit and that I should try to unlearn the learned behavior of self-deprecation and self-loathing. (I kind of just made that up.) I’ve decided to give myself some gifts.

#1: I finally used my Sephora gift card from Christmas and loaded myself up on products that no one in this life really needs (i.e. Kim Kardashian’s perfume. Don’t hate me, but it’s kind of awesome.) I wrote myself this note on the gift card in the package that said something like “yay for facing your fears” and then I put little x’s and o’s on it so I would feel like I’m making out with myself.

#2: I was really conscious over the weekend about staying on track and taking my medication (aka “DRUGS!”) as prescribed so that I didn’t have to play whack-a-mole with the anxiety that would try to pop up now and then. Again, go me.

#3: I got proactive and made BB call a painter to give us estimates on some much-needed house projects. This is a gift to me because then people in our neighborhood won’t talk about us and give our house dirty looks and send our house to a therapist for self-esteem issues, which in turn makes me feel better. Whew.

#4: I actively re-routed some thoughts in my head after one person close to me said a thoughtless, hurtful thing. Instead of waiting until I went to sleep to pound her head in, I instead snatched the thought in my head, jerked it to the left and sent it down another path. Kind of it worked.

My panic and anxiety, y’all, are just leaps and bounds and over-the-rainbow and up in space and are light years away and better than last summer and fall. I can’t even begin to tell you what a difference I feel in myself. I go back and look at my posts from those months, and I recognize that girl but I don’t feel a wave of panic when I read what she wrote. Sure I’m still insecure, and sure it’s possible that I’m a closeted introvert trapped in an extrovert’s body, and yes, it could happen that an airplane ride or a conference room or a crowded wedding could give me a little shiver. Anything can happen.

What I have gifted to myself though is the greatest gift of all: recognizing that I have a problem, accepting that I can’t fix it myself, and seeking help for it at all costs. I know y’all raised your eyebrows on Monday when every answer on my list of questions was Drugs! Drugs! More drugs! Gimme drugs! and I understand. Plenty of people I know, family members included, can’t stand to take a pill for anything – let’s walk it off, drink it down, whatever, and forget about it. For me though, these drugs are my lifeline. They are as important to me as the air I breathe and the 8 glasses of water a day I don’t drink. I’ll tell you what they are later, but for now you should know that if I am able to function even 40% better than before, I have won an Olympic gold medal.

(And actually, I’d put myself at 65%, truth be told. BECAUSE I ROCK.)

New post on The (Not) Mama: http://wp.me/pOtVR-s. The one where I talk about stuff that’s really none of my business, until I made it that way.

Top of the mornin’ to ya!

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Went to a psychiatrist.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Made some, forget them, couldn’t care less about them, didn’t make them this year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes. Good God. You people need to stop over-populating this earth because you’re making the rest of us look bad.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
More people that I’d like to count.

5. What countries did you visit?
You mean like “out in the country?” Because I went plenty of places out in the country. I went to that one field with the horses, I went to that farm with the old barn…oh wait. You meant like other than the US. So, no.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A book deal.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Inauguration Day. My birthday. That’s it.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I went to get my head fixed. Oh, and I didn’t kill anybody. I always give myself props for that.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not killing anybody.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I suffer everyday from being hot all the time. And not in that I’m-too-sexy-for-this-cardigan way, but in the turn-up-the-goddamn-AC way.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Appliances. All of them.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Mine!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Mine.

14. Where did most of your money go?
To the town, who jacks up my utilities to over $500 a month. You simple bastards. You rotten thieves. I change my answer to #13 to the TOWN HALL.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Drugs.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
“Blame It on the Alcohol” because I do.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier. It’s the drugs.
b) thinner or fatter? Like a burger?
c) richer or poorer? I don’t count my money. It’s better that way, because then I can’t honestly say whether or not you will get my payment on time.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Graduating.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Waiting around for Kelly Cutrone’s new show.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Of 2010? Fuck if I know.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Yes. With my shoes. All over again.

22. How many one-night stands?
Oh baby, I had the BEST one-night stand that one night back in 1998 with… Oh. Huh. Yeah. Just kidding.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
This question is just retarded.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Always! Don’t hate the game, hate the PLAYA.

25. What was the best book you read?
The Help. READ IT NOW.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
This question is also retarded.

27. What did you want and get?
Drugs.

28. What did you want and not get?
Drugs.

29. What was your favorite film(s) of this year?
Yeah so, what movies came out again?

30. What did you do on your birthday?
Cowered in my office hiding from The Boogie Man.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
That book deal no one seems to want to give me.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Bah! My “concept” is that I’m pretty sure I don’t have one. My personal fashion is made up of a covetable shoe collection and some ugly-ass clothes.

33. What kept you sane?
Drugs.

In other news, I have to share with you a new purchase BB and I made last week. I think I’ve talked about this before, but in case I haven’t, you should know that we are slaves to our cats. Lucy and Charlie are brother and sister tuxedo cats, they weight about 15 lbs. each, and they run. our. lives. We make grocery store trips just to get them food, when we need nothing else. We stand at doors and windows waiting for them to make up their minds about whether or not they want to brave the elements. We change the temperature of the house just to calm them down, and we cater to their every single solitary need.

We are crazy. Enter the purchase.

One of the major problems we have is that our cats like to hop in the windows when they’re ready to come inside. They [not so] patiently wait while we haul ourselves up from wherever we were, and they cry and howl and scratch until we let them in. Regardless of whether or not it’s 3am. Regardless of whether or not we’re in REM sleep. So after 6 years of this complete and utter nonsense, we finally broke down and ordered this:

It was remarkably easy to install (you just pop it in the window – it has springs) and I was delighted to discover that it fit our window easy as could be. The hard part though is training those beasts to use it. I shoved them through two or three times from both outside and inside, and Charlie is still scared to death of it while Lucy is too lazy to attempt it.

This HAS to work, or someone isn’t going to make it in my house much longer. Frankly, that door could have cost a month’s paycheck and I would have paid it because I’m so desperate for a break. But y’all, if they can’t get used to it, and I still have to play rock paper scissors with BB to see who opens the window, I’m not kidding…I will inflict damage.

Either that, or someone’s getting a revenge letter from me.

So apparently I have some forgiving to do. Let me start at the beginning:

I have never, not one time in my life, ever forgiven a person. If you wrong me, I might slap a smile on my face and pretend that shit didn’t go down, but really I’m still holding a grudge. Really, every time I look at you from here on out, I’ll be thinking You son of a bitch YOU, I will never EVER forget what you did to me.

Apparently this is not healthy. Where was I when they had Forgiveness Day at school?

Early on in January, my doctor finally got my meds on the straight and narrow such that I am able to mostly function throughout the day and sleep more than 3 hours a night. (WOO HOO! SLAM DUNK, BITCHES!) But I started noticing a weird side effect, not which hadn’t happened to me before, but which was happening with more frequency than usual: I was beating the shit out of people in my dreams.

Of course I’m not going to name names here people, I’m not that much of a monster, but I will say that I did some damage. And if I didn’t slap/kick/punch hard enough, I would do it again and again juuuuust to make sure I got the job done.

(Are you disturbed by me yet? It’s okay. You’re not alone.)

I would wake up from these dreams and still be pissed until lunchtime. My phone might ring, the beaten person would be at the other end, and I’d be all Whaaaat? Didn’t you learn your lesson last night? Yeah, that’s not okay.

So I went to my therapist a couple of weeks ago and asked her about these dreams and she said that a) it could just be an unfortunate side effect of one of my medicines or b) I have some really stuck-up-in-there anger that needs to be sucked out. After that I went to my doctor, and she said that bizarro dreams such as mine are actually very symbolic (and she showed me the brain and the section and the whatever to the such and such to explain all this) and that I needed to work closely with my therapist to discover where my issues lie (lay? lie? I never got the hang of that).

I told her to give me more Ambien.

Back to the therapist, who has encouraged me to write letters to the people at whom I’m apparently angry. The whole twist on this scenario is that I didn’t know I was angry! I mean, really. I was not aware that, walking around with this big old smile on my face, I was actually seething underneath it all. I’m totally not lying, y’all.

So my appointment is Friday, and these letters I’m supposedly writing are supposed to be read to my therapist as if I were reading them to the person they’re intended for. And I can scream and yell and cry and whatever at HER, and then it will be out of my system.

Supposedly.

But my question to you is this: how am I supposed to write these letters and get over my anger if I can’t tell the people I hate that I hate them? I’m no therapist obviously, but how does that shit work, exactly?

By the way, don’t sweat it if you get a letter in the mail from me. It’s probably a birthday card.