Project: Become Less Psycho
Posted by Moose on September 18th, 2006. Filed under: Uncategorized.Project: Become Less Psycho (P:BLP) entails activities that are uncomfortable reminders of many youthful moments spent in a yurt communing with children named Willow and Sea Star when I’d rather commune with the TV and Beverly Hills Teens.
Sojourns in the yurt chafed, especially when compared with the Motel 6 pool encounters that would be gleefully recalled by my neighbors while I shuffled my feet and tried to omit enough detail to not seem, well, weird. But Willow and Sea Star weren’t notably crazy. They didn’t eat bacon, which is undeniably strange, but they were calm and composed. Unlike my usual Hi-C swilling companions. So perhaps there is something to the wholesome lifestyle.
Because, people, if you haven’t noticed: I’m somewhat scattered. Emotional. Even psycho, when seen under the right light while standing near a strategically placed chainsaw.
Hence, P:BLP. I will be meditating. I have not actually meditated yet, but it’s on my to-do list. Which totally counts, so be quiet. I will be conducting experiments of the Stick Little Needles In My Epidermis After I Hand Over Lots of Cash persuasion. I will be performing maneuvers reminiscent of the dog, except that I will be doing it on a mat after paying for a class, when she totally gets to do it for free on the living room carpet. I will be trying to get eight hours of sleep. Per night, rather than spread out over the course of a week. I’m told this is healthier. I will also refrain from running across the street in my pajamas for packages of peanut M&Ms. Instead, I will make my own granola. [Insert your own joke here. Hey, I can't be expected to do everything for you. Though I believe that falls in direct opposition of my Be Less Selfish plan. Crap.]
My new hippy lifestyle does have boundaries. I will continue to bathe regularly. There will be no yurts. No hypnotherapy. Or holes drilled in the refrigerator so none of those delicious beer-y calories are wasted by opening the door to get the keg – a cunning maneuver employed by my father in the ’70s, apparently he confused “hippy” with “frat boy who owns a toolbox.” It’s a toss-up as to whether the conservative East Coast in-laws were more shocked by the keg on the porch or the marijuana plants in the living room.
Come to think of it, P:BLP* may be more effectively managed by pot consumption. My to-do list would certainly be shorter.
~~~
*Sadly, P:BLP coincides with Project: My Boss Is Leaving For Two Weeks. Which means extra work involving dangling modifiers. (I can picture my boss’s comment right now: “DO NOT fix dangling modifiers!” Subtext: Leave it for the proofreader, you fool, lest you make things worse.) This does not bode well for my new lifestyle of harmony and organic carob.
September 19th, 2006 at 8:51 am
ah the agony of personal development…
good luck… start with yoga, then move on to the other, more difficult things… like organic carob… ugh.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Carob? I thought that was removed from the public marketplace because it sucks. Butthis is not the case, I take it…
Please, Moose, spare yourself the indignity of this inferior chocolate impostor. But good luck with everything else.
(Also: I have no specific source, but I’ve heard carob is the devil. So, you know, there’s that to consider besides the suckage.)
September 19th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Also, it fills me with glee when you write “yurt.”
September 19th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Am I to blame for your childhood vacations spent in a yurt with Willow and Sea Star? I hadn’t realized you would rather be home watching TV. I sure could have saved a lot of money! And you surely wouldn’t have the “Psycho scars” you so chillingly describe.
Also, to be very truthful, your dad’s East-Coast inlaws never did come across the marijuana plants.
The beer keg in the porch refrigerator was quite enough for them to handle.
September 19th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Lots of blogs have people who get miffed in the comments. I think I may be the only one whose mother is responsible for most of them.
Humor value, mom. Humor value. The yurt was fine. (This is not to say that I wouldn’t have been happier in front of 90210.) But my point is, Willow and Sea Star (OK, I made up Sea Star but there was totally a Willow) set a GOOD example. Because they weren’t crazy. They demonstrated the WHOLESOME lifestyle. A lifestyle I am now trying to emulate. If you are to blame for my craziness, it’s because of biology. Not the yurt.
But did I ever blame you? No. Except maybe for the carob.
September 19th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
Yes, the carob, and don’t forget the tofu pudding.
September 19th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Oh, yeah. I totally blame you for the tofu pudding. That stuff scarred me for life.
THERE WILL BE NO TOFU PUDDING IN MY WHOLESOME LIFESTYLE!
September 19th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
I think it’s a wonderful thing to strive to make ourselves better and better, so I applaud your efforts. Plus I never really thought of you as “psycho”, maybe eccentric*, but never “psycho”.
Jason
*Please take eccentric as the compliment it is intended to be.
September 19th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
maybe a bottle of wine, and a scary movie is in order…. hay wait thats what im doing…. hell yeah Silent hill…. and damn…. one bottle down, i know i got antoher one around here…. if i could only stand up
have fun on the quest for finding your self… just remember, you are sitting right next to you, so dont ignore them!
September 19th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Wait – did your dad REALLY drill a hole in the refrigerator?
September 19th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
Sweatpantsmom: OH, YES HE DID. I’m sure he’d be happy to send instructions, if anyone was inclined to try this at home. He probably has some rusty auto parts that he could carefully arrange in your front yard as well.
Squid: Here’s where I put y’all to shame by showing just how classy we are. We pulled out the box of wine, realized it had expired, and cracked it open anyway.
September 20th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
What cracks me up is that while wine in a bottle gets better with age, wine in a box has a ‘best before’ date.
September 30th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Pony kegs of beer in an old fridge (with the coils on top) sitting on the front porch is the ultimate in convenience and good taste (as in good beer, not fashion):
1. It’s always cold
2. Walking out the front door and drawing a mug of delicious beer at anytime has to be convienient
3. Beer in kegs don’t need formaldehyde like bottled beer
4. You always had beer — a keg could last almost a week . . . sometimes
5. Source of fun stories, for example: A good friend and his family (wife and 3 kids) visited us one Saturday afternoon. After a couple of hours of raucous good conversation, we noticed 8 year old Brett literally staggering around the living room with the world’s biggest shit-eating grin on his face. His dad and I looked at each other, we both looked at Brett, we looked at each other again . . . then his dad had to make a stern pronouncement to all kids that the beer tap was definitely off-limits. No more beer for kiddos. At least Brett was a good-humored drunk.
Perhaps the front porch for the fridge might bother some people. You have to keep in mind that this place was located in the remote woods, up a dirt road, crossing a stream four times with rickety bridges and through a locked gate. No one, but no one visited us unless the were old friends and already knew how nutty we are. Fashionable suburbia was never my forte.