Weakly Managing Blog Anger

First off... I'm wondering when the parodies of this blog title will end. You'd think I would know the answer, since I'm the guy writing it, but noooooo! Apparently in this 'stream of consciousness' style of writing, I don't have any idea what milk will be spilling from my coconut... not until it rears its pointed little head, anyway. 

Okay, enough about the silly title... onward ho to more important fare.

I find one of my feelings right now is 'anxious', and I even know the reason for it. It's because, week after week, I try to find a topic for this blog, to excerpt my life during some moment of strain or emotion crossroads, which can be darn near impossible, because in the wide course of human experience I am, for all intents and purposes, a happy-go-lucky, it's all good,  even-keel kind of guy.

And who in hell wants to read an anger blog about a guy who rarely gets angry?

My daughter will disagree. She thinks I get angry at her. This couldn't be further from the truth. She would say, "But you yell! Yelling is angry!" I would have to respond with, "I don't yell... I just speak up when you obviously don't hear what I have to say the first six times." I'm just not mad at the kid! But you know teenagers... one day, I hope to be as smart as one. When my daughter gets a bright idea it's my responsibility to talk her down from it.

"I'm not sure it will be helpful to have a license as a Witch Doctor..."

"When I said you should learn about sacrifice, I didn't mean ANIMAL sacrifice..."

"You probably should hold off for awhile before tattooing 'Fuck You' on your tongue..."

She's of legal age, and I suppose she can do what she wants, but I just want her to make life decisions a little later along in life. But that's not what this post is about, either. It's about how I feel, trying to come up with a fresh and interesting topic week after week. I'm not employed by anybody... there's nobody riding my ass and looking over my shoulder, "You've got a deadline, boy... how're ya gonna keep yer deadline? I'm gonna fire your lazy ass!"

 I can skip a week if I want to. I can stop writing altogether. There's nobody reading this blog anyway. I could actually say anything I wanted to, no matter how inflammatory or rebellious, and probably nobody would even notice: 

I jack off in my cornflakes, and then I eat them, but not before I squirt coconut pancake syrup all over them too, because my jizz is too salty for cereal!

I bring a stepladder with me no matter where I go, so I can stand on it in a public telephone booth, which brings me close enough to rub the handset all over my naked, sweaty butt crack. I do that to about 60 phones a month!

Ew. EEEEEEEW! I keep forgetting what a delicate flower I am. Okay, I know that nobody's reading this blog... nobody but me that is, and I just grossed myself out. It's not true what I wrote, anyway. It's just not ME to behave that way. but I'm certainly not above imagining it and making others read it. But I think I've made my point-- when I don't have a topic, I get grumpy. 

But wait... isn't THIS a topic? Aren't I expressing my feelings in a meaningful way? YAY! Now I can move on with analysis and resolution!

What is it in me that makes me want to complete things? I know I'm an obsessive/compulsive (translate: anal) and I have to straighten, organize, reorder, count, neaten, dust, and scrapbook whatever moves into my eyeline... but the question is WHY? What makes me this way?

I have often said that I don't like messiness. At the same time, I AM a collector. 

Now without qualifying (which is just what I'm doing, isn't it?), I have to say I'm not at the top of the list-- psychiatrists aren't shoving each other to be the first in line to analyze me-- but it does bother me nonetheless.

As a matter of fact, I use my own solution when trying to eliminate unwanted behaviors: I shine a figurative light on them (which makes me sensitive to them) and when I catch myself falling into an old pattern, I decide whether it is 'normal' or 'over-the-top' and make a decision to stop doing it, if needed. 

As an example, I was cleaning up my wood shop the other day. You can be certain that a dust bowl like a woodworking shop will have a mess in every corner. I was on all fours with a vacuum cleaner and a wand extension, trying to pull a pile of sawdust in a back corner, behind a table leg. I was straining to reach when I just said to myself, "STOP!"

I actually startled myself! (no, I didn't.) I made the decision right there to leave that little bit of sawdust... just ignore it. I then cleaned the rest of the shop normally. When I was done, I felt momentarily proud for challenging my OCD and fighting it directly.

 Just Say No.

That's when I reversed my decision... and my Shop-Vac, and turned it into a Shop-BLOW. Starting in the back corner I hit the switch and caused a mini-tornado, like being in an Iraqi sandstorm-- visibility at zero, sawdust swirling about in large twirling waves... and I think I saw Dorothy's house pass by.
I approached the door using my wind wand like a dust gun, shoving the airborne mass outdoors. Spic and span, one, two, three.

That may not sound like a solution, because I had solved the problem which was irritating my OCD instead of letting it lie. But it was the WAY I solved it which made me proud-- it wasn't a NEAT solution. Virtually everything that wasn't tied down found a new location in the shop, mostly on the floor. But then I picked it all up and dumped it into a drawer, and I was done! Cleaning like a man! It's a good thing I have no carpet in there or there would've been a huge lump in the center!

Besides, I'm not sure if wanting things organized IS anal-- in my line of work time is money, and if I can't find something in my inventory that I need for a job, it will takes TIME to find, and TIME is MONEY. And the one thing I am is FRUGAL. I save the skin off apples because it makes a good wallpaper (no I don't, and no it doesn't-- but I AM frugal nonetheless).

Okay... anal AND frugal. Looks like we're analyzing a damaged person, all right! What else can we find in my bag of tricks, hmm? I went to a website which lists common human psychiatric conditions, and I think I might be suffering (to one extent or another): 

Panic attacks, phobias, stress, sociopathy, depersonalization, dissociative amnesia,  bulimia nervosa, bipolar disorder, cyclothymic disorder, depression, delusions of grandeur, schizoaffective disorder, dissociative fugue, anorexia nervosa, schizophrenia, gender identity disorder, the Peter Pan effect, transsexualism, paraphilias, dissociative identity disorder, somatoform disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, binge eating, conversion disorder, hypochondriasis, somatization disorder, schizophreniform disorder, pain disorder and Munchausen syndrome.

Munchausen Syndrome. Yeah... sounds about right.

So while I may be irritated at writing a blog I'm not required to write by a deadline I don't have to keep for an audience who not only won't read it but isn't even aware of its paltry existence, at least I get the rare opportunity to analyze myself and my issues and arrive at some kind of conclusion about my chances of wellness or healing in this modern, crazy world. Catharsis. That's why I do this.

Gee... I feel better!