Science just validated my navel-gazing.

Check it out, y'all, I'm not even a narcissist. This blog is for SCIENCE.

Via Inc.com: The Mental Health Benefits of Writing, Backed by Science:

That's actually how the page started, as ersatz breakup therapy -- I thought I could just write my way sane. As it turns out, I needed REAL therapy, but am still a filthy whore for those red "like" notifications, and it definitely helps, so I kept it up. Along with a private journal. And a Twitter. And a new blog where I work clean so I can put it on my résumé.

Don't judge me. "I just have a lot of feelings."

P.M.S. P.S.

The P.S. on an email to friends about all my special feeeeelings:

"I'm also menstruating, so kindly accept this grain of salt. Just a grain, though -- I'll bite your goddamn hand off if you take my salt."

Not today, Satan.

Can someone please come exorcise this weepy bitch from my brain? I'm not sure how she got here, but she's kind of an asshole. 

"I'm not trying to land him, I'm just using him for sex."

I don't know what it says about me that I officially lost interest in a man when he said the hooker-client relationship was too impersonal: "There's no love there, no little notes on your car windshield."

So...your degree is not in rocket science, is it? That's the POINT -- professional fucking and no ridiculous feelings. Not all of us enjoy romance via vehicular litter.

Vodka made me do it.

One more on this, and then, sweet baby Jesus willing, I think I'm done.

Possibly (erm, make that probably) inebriated conversation with a male friend...

Friend: "Does That Guy know you're the one writing these posts when he likes them on Tumblr?"
Me: "Yep. I told him about it before I fucked everything up."
Friend: "Before HE fucked everything up. Don't get it twisted."
Me: "Mutual destruction."
Friend: "That's weird, though."
Me: "What, that he knows? Or that he'll like posts about my body but turned down my many offers to do any naughty little thing he wanted to it?"
Friend: "Both. I mean, he made his choice, right?"
Me: "Eh. It's fine. He doesn't read often. If I don't want him to like the posts, I'll just keep writing about feelings. He never did like my feelings."

The Asshole Files, Entry (...ew...) 1.

OK, so remember yesterday's "asshole" warning? Let's start easing into some of that...

I know this is partly my fault for letting so many "little things" go and stifling my feelings and then exploding (go Irish!), but I wish people who claim to know me understood how far they had to push me and how much they had to hurt me for me to NOT talk to them.

I WILL talk, eventually, because I'm generally too lazy and forgetful to hold a proper grudge -- I have better uses for brain space. But for the moment, something you've done has shut me down, and I Basic Bitch "just can't" with you. You broke me; I need to "breathe and reboot," to think things through before I blow up on you. And that's always the time people are in my ass, setting up tent cities and trying to talk like we're just cool now.

No. You should've talked before. Right now, fuck you. You're picking a scab, making the wound worse, and giving me, like, emotional MRSA. I just need a minute.

(Or, OK, in extreme cases I've needed...10 months and [not-that-I'm-]counting, but A. That person should've known better, and nudity/trust were in play, and B. Right now it's just my family I'm having issues with.)

On Wednesdays, we wear our hearts on our sleeves.

So, the therapy posts aren't going over well, which is fine, it's a little bit weird. But I wanted to share this, which was kind of an "up day" breakthrough. Plus, it's Mental Health Awareness Week, and I think it's important obviously to #endthestigma, but also...It's not CRAZY. I joke that it is, and I shouldn't, because it's not. Some of us just need a minder. And this particular thing is something I think a lot of women struggle with.

This is from my actual, personal journal, where I write about each therapy session right after, so I remember what we talked about and what I'm supposed to be doing, and sometimes it spurs thoughts about certain things, and sometimes it's just nice to get it all out of my skull. So I wrote this the other day, which was a down day, after she and I had talked about my romantic history (Ex-Box, That Guy, Idiot Boys I Dated):

"When I met That Guy, I FELT stuff: good, bad, but never dispassionate. Never like I was just...THERE. I felt strong, smart, sexy, like I was a good writer, funny, pretty, good at the limited intimate things we did, etc. And when that went sour, it went REALLY sour -- I don't know if I've ever been angry like that. I know that's because I was hurt. But I think that's why it's been really hard for me to let him go is that I didn't know I could be like that -- confident, sexy, bold, horny, angry... He woke things up in me I didn't know I had. And yes, theoretically now I know I HAVE them, so it's on me to go GET them, but CHRIST, it was so easy and just thrilling having him do it. But his rejection in not wanting to be with me, or even friends in the way I'd like ...what if I was wrong about all that stuff? What if I'm not those things?"

But then I started thinking about it more logically, and...fuck THAT. That is a version of myself I had, and I will find it again FOR myself. It's part of why I started this blog in the first place, so my id had an outlet.

A lot of this had to do with the recent serendipitous arrival of Jenny Lawson's book, Furiously Happy, in my mailbox, and the subsequent reading of the original "Furiously Happy" blog post, which said in part:

"I’m fucking done with sadness, and I don’t know what’s up the ass of the universe lately but I’ve HAD IT. I AM GOING TO BE FURIOUSLY HAPPY, OUT OF SHEER SPITE. Can you hear that? That’s me smiling, y’all. I’m smiling so loud you can fucking hear it. I’m going to destroy the goddamn universe with my irrational joy and I will spew forth pictures of clumsy kittens and baby puppies adopted by raccoons and MOTHERFUCKING NEWBORN LLAMAS DIPPED IN GLITTER AND THE BLOOD OF SEXY VAMPIRES AND IT’S GOING TO BE AWESOME."

Also the Caitlin Moran talk I attended a few months ago, where she basically said, "Decide what you want to be, and BE it, even if that means faking it until you make it." This is a mood I get in a lot, but I'm really trying to harness it so it's my default.

So this morning I put on a dress and heels and some red lipstick and whipped my bitch-ass brain into compliance. I don't have time for this shit. I have Awesome to be.

Unexpected Pixar rage.

I'd steeled myself to feel all the feels and FINALLY go see Inside Out.

But what I did NOT prepare for was the bullshit short cartoon they showed before the movie. It was about a lonely boy volcano, with a face, looking for volcano love, singing an insufferable song about being a lonely volcano and not being able to find a lady volcano.*

Now I have a goddamn VOLCANO reminding me that I'm dying alone?! A VOLCANO needs a soulmate?

Thanks for reminding me I'm at the movies alone, Bitch Volcano. Maybe you need to look inside yourself for validation -- did you ever think of that?

Pixar can go fuck itself. In 3D.

* "Lady volcano" is my new favorite euphemism for my vagina.

"Swallow my doubt, turn it inside out..."

I had far too many feelings yesterday resulting from being social, so of course now that I have a free day to myself, as soon as I woke up they all came rushing back, and it was like a team of squirrels took over my brain and started playing emotional volleyball -- "Confused about this!" *pass* "Insecure about that!" *pass* "Oh, hey, what about having kids, wanna rehash that one?" *pass*

Right. So I'll be here all day with a slow drip of coffee martinis, watching comfort movies. I dare you to be sad when Justin Timberlake is serenading Mila Kunis with Kris Kross's "Jump." (Plus...dat ass.)

Or, hell, this seems like a pretty solid state of mind to finally go see
Inside Out and just embrace it all. (Obviously with a venti spiked Starbucks and a big fuck-off tray of theater nachos. That's just being prepared; I learned that shit in Girl Scouts.)