Yup, it is to laugh. It is hard to be truly miserable over my problems du jour, because quite simply they are too fucking funny.

Today, on a gorgeous Saturday, the day before July 4, I drove over to the psychologist’s and took a little personality inventory. I’m guessing I scored, hmmm, how do I put this? Yeah, right, NORMAL. I didn’t answer true to the shit about hallucinating and wearing tinfoil hats and talking with the animals while envisioning Our Blessed Mother, and I didn’t answer false to the tricky ones, like “I never right stuff in my ‘blog that may be misunderstood.” Of course, though, there were some ones where I will sound borderline paranoid (actually downright paranoid). “Do you think someone is out to get you?” Why YES, yes I do, else why would I be in this office? And, “Do you think people are talking about you?” NO, not at all, it’s a mere coincidence that 30 individual work-related computers have looked around dee-rob.com. Probably just all felt like reading some wonderful prose all at the same time, independently fired up their work computers and came here. Couldn’t be ’cause folks is talking about little old me.

After getting my head shrunk, which took the form of a perfectly lovely conversation with a nice, considerate man, I headed to the beach. Good god is Crane’s beach beautiful. I walked the trails, listened to the continually random iPod, rested in the sun and dove into some frigid Atlantic waters, which were as smooth as the whetted edge of a balanced cleaver. Saw some plovers that nest there and footprints of wildlife in the sand.

Perhaps when all is said and done, I’ll write a thank you note to the seriously humor-impaired person or persons who claim I am at risk of workplace violence. Afterall, a little free time in the midst of summer sure helps you to remember what’s important on this little party planet. Hell, like the psychologist said, I have a great support network. Who needs a job, when they are in touch with what’s vital to survive?

…if you’re thinking about integrating life’s pieces and being all cool and hip and mentally healthy, do not ever forget the affection and/or sense of humor of a guy who in the middle of too much attention being paid sends you a sign (literally) goofing on whether it is all about you….

So, you spend your morning speaking with a psychologist, and there is going to be thought given to integration versus separation. In other words, split personalities, i.e. Sybil, bad, normal functioning with a broad spectrum of understanding and emotion good. I’ve been thinking of that concept of integrating your behavior and the facets of your life.

All’s good when family and friends get the joke or whatever, and you aren’t left explaining a separate world. It’s even better when you fuck around and stumble across the like-minded folks where meaning is telegraphed and they’re integrating shit left and right and life is moving forward. Imagine, people with notebooks and cameras and stupid ideas and open conversation, like yourself. These people trust you, because they have no reason not to, and for the same reason, you can trust them.

Maybe it boils down to the conersation I had with another comedian last weekend. She made two observations that stick with me through the other bullshit and the literal strife of work. (1) Is that hanging out with comedians is always interesting (who else would connect a ceiling fan and pretzel rods into a fun target/mouth catching game) and (2) the writers among groups have different sensibilities. Her example, seeing the movie Napoleon Dynamite, hated by the “civilians” in her group and imitated by the writers.

And, so it goes that I will keep writing, “and so it goes.”

Could be I’m just giddy with hanging out late, knowing that I don’t have to be with any serious world tomorrow.

Some time every woman of a certain age needs to make a choice and submit. So, this morning I went to the first of possibly a series or pair of psych evaluations. Dutiful, quiet and submissive, that’s what I’m all about.

I had tried to avoid submitting to the evaluation. Not because I don’t care about the work situation, and certainly not because I thought that there could be any basis of finding me prone to violence. Instead, I have just found it morally repugnant. Perhaps “morally” is not the right word, since my feelings are very tied into the whole American thang we got going on here. The rights to speech, innocence before guilt is proven and facing your accusers are not universally held as moral and true and right in a universal sense, but they are my birthright, my culture and my morality, and so it goes. I was appalled, I am appalled that my writing here would come to a place where my brain is fair game for analysis, my own words held against me for an inherent intangible such as mental fitness. So many questions are raised by “mental fitness” — by who, for whom, for what, when, and who defines all of the terms?

Misgivings aside, I went. I went for my own sake by my own choice, because the only thing I can have any control or sway over is my own behavior. Therefore, I concluded that since I am not psychotic, a danger or anything other than a writer, it is best to work proactively to exhonerate myself.

Since I could not find a place of compromise to another solution (and god and my lawyer know I tried), I will do everything happily and cooperatively to clear my name and clarify that my writing and performance are not evidence of anything other than an active and intelligient mind.

Part 2 will be an actual personality assessment type of test, and Part 1 I believe went well. (Of course, how could it not, since I am a responsible, reflective, intelligient member of society.) At the end of the day, I may in fact (and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least) get myself fired over an enormous misunderstanding, since, of course, if the workplace don’t wanna groove on what I’m doing, they don’t gotta. No one ever said they have to like me, like what I have written or pay me for anything at all. (Their side of the free society is to not let me back in the door, and, hey, I have to respect their view, if that’s how it plays. I can piss and moan all I like about the good work I have done for them and my rights, but no one promised me a rose garden.)

But, my behavior is controlled by me, and I am choosing actively and with a whole lot of reflection to submit to their evaluations and examinations. Then, when all is said and done, the dust has been settled I can know myself to have done the right thing, to have considered the import of my actions and to have done what was necessary to clear my name. Ultimately, I plan to sleep well knowing (1) that to have written here is not in and of itself a hostile act and (2) I am not the person they are claiming me to be.

Meanwhile, through out the whole interview, the guy was reminding me of Mr. Rogers because of the careful measure and deliberateness of his words. That doesn’t make me crazy, now does it?