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?

I have been so hung up on the capital ‘B’ Bullshit that’s been falling all around me, I forgot to make with the jokes…

So, I’m into technology, and I think Bush has got to go. What does a tech savvy chick do in 2004 to sway voters? Here’s my idea — webcams. I seduce people in chat rooms to cam with me. After showing them my tits, BAM, I hit ’em with my rhetoric — NO MORE in ’04. Better than Dean’s Blog for America, I’ll cam to defeat Bush. Doing my part for democracy one horny geek at a time.

OK, needs a punchline, but I think it combines my three favorite things: Sex, Politics and horrifying people with the outrageous.

ROCK ON, and remember kids, Cam if you love Jesus.

I was just thinking in the shower (because in this rocking life, I don’t need to shower afore noon).

Firstly, you’ll need this:

Secondly, this post may be the first REAL post here ever. Everything has been honest, but very little has been absolutely real (I will explain that below, grab the NoDoz…)

Here’s the thing, there is a part of me that feels like a huge fucking failure. I want to clean up loose ends at work. I want to be remembered for all of the hard work I did not for this misunderstanding. And, it is indeed a misunderstanding, not a relevant sign post in my impending psychosis. I am sure that several people feel that I have let them down. Perhaps I would too if the roles were reversed.

I think they see me as reckless, but I am not and have never really been reckless. In the drug years of youth, I always did far, far fewer than any of my peers. I picked and chose moments and never ingested anything unknowingly without caution. In the sex years of that same freefall of youth (OK, that’s not a past tense kind of thing, although damn if I ain’t getting any right now, shit), I mostly have exercised a little judgement there too, and acted mostly safely. To this day, I’ve never done anything universally freaky or fetishy; no costumes, no ball gags, no crowds, no pain, no tampering with orifices ideally left to their own natural state. (I have an ongoing argument with a friend on vanilla vs. freak. I swear I’m vanilla, he points out the context of the true vanilla. But, still and all, I have simple tastes.) And, financially, apart from a blip also fed by callow youth, I have lived largely debt free. I paid off student loans literally as soon as they possibly could be, saved a bit and bought a house when I was 31 or 32. After college, I’ve held jobs and done the “right” things, making career choices and developing skills. Stable and focused.

I mention all of this, because here’s the thing — I like to seem reckless. The ideas in my head, my politics, my beliefs, my “vision,” the shit I think is cool all lean toward radical. I don’t think the revolution needs to involve sado-masochistic destruction, however. You do need to rattle some cages and shake shit up to get new ideas moving. I just don’t think personally that you have to starve or explode to make changes or to ONLY, if only, just to START A GODDAMN DIALOGUE. Comedy is reckless, because you are saying shit out loud for effect that other people don’t think of or don’t want to say or whatever, but still want to hear. Writing is reckless for the same reasons. By the way, performing nude brings all of that shit over the top and beyond.)

But the recklessness of comedy and writing isn’t actually reckless. There’s no destruction or doom lingering, no total anarchy without caring. For fuck’s sake, if anything it’s a pussy way to revolt and not lose your benefits. Thinking is just a good idea, it’s not radical at all.

I thought that it was pretty widely apparent that writing and thinking and ironically, intellectually masturbating in a public forum was and is not REAL. Weblogging by it’s on the fly nature, by being temporal, by grabbing disparate links and ideas, amalgating little doodads and factoids can’t be REALLY REAL. The Internet is a virtual world. I am a virtual character made flesh (I hope) by my words, but the person typing this text has other real world, tangible characteristics, reponsibilities and context missing from this page. AND, by the very nature of writing versus living, those things will always fucking be missing from this page.

However, if I write properly and effectively my emotions are honest and my thoughts genuine. The frustrations I have described in regard to work are true, but they are not real. Emotions are not tangible things. They also are usually fleeting. Describing anger and frustration (and fucking humor) in prose does not equal action in the real world. Apart from Ernest Hemingway sucking on a rifle barrel most people and/or so-called artists aren’t looking to wallow in the pure idea-based, descriptive, emotional plane. I mean think about it, how much would life actually suck if every time you had a thought or an emotion you just snapped and acted right on it. Guess there’d be a lot fewer jobs and spouses and a lot of Hemingway-type messes to mop up alongside a whole lot of freaky naked sex in the streets.

I value honest expression, but I don’t confuse it with reality. If only someone else were smart enough to figure that out, we all wouldn’t be listening to me wax all philosophical right now.

There is I hope truth in everything I write or perform, even just a kernel, but it fucking ain’t real.

Fucking lemons = fucking lemonade. I suck in a trite classroom poster kind of way.

On the serious bright side (whatever the fuck that means, somehow I’m picturing seriously bright, like lasers), I really needed the free time. My car is about to be illegal in multiple ways simultaneously, and to make that not happen I need(ed) to pay off parking tickets in three different towns. Plus I need to get it inspected, and now there are a lot fewer places to go, and, as always, you have to go during a regular 9-5 type of day. So far, two towns down on the tickets, one to go. You gotta pay cash when you are trying to get the paper to prove to the registry that your deadbeatedness has been resolved, and there’s a limit on how much cake the ATM will let me get.)

I should be more careful with writing about the parking violations. Knowing my current luck, I’ll be mistaken for the criminal element for sure. (How stupid is it when the most criminal thing you got going on is parking tickets, but you are expected to undergo a psych evaluation, because you might explode at any minute. Seriously, yeah, I might just pop and, watch out, you might see me not feeding the meter on time. Yeah, I’m a rebel. No quasi-legal parking space is safe when this wild woman feels the urge. Hide those lawn chairs or barrels, I’m liable to stack them on the curb neatly off the street and park anyway. You just never can tell, I’m a maverick.)

Last time I needed to re-register my car or renew my license, I couldn’t find the time to take out of my work day. My bro, who was between computer companies, did me a righteous solid and went to the Boston City Hall parking desk for me. Is that fucking ridiculous or what?

I am soooooo glad I worked soooooo hard and put my own life on hold. Man, I am so friggin’ smart I can’t stand it.

When you ain’t got no schedule handed down from “the man” weekends are interesting. I spent part of the weekend not being sure what to do, because I didn’t have to worry so much about having time enough to get things done. Having that extra 50 hours or more I think I’ve spent week after week at work back gives you a lot more play.

While I ponder my fate and wonder what in fuck will happen and/or can happen, and whether at the heart of all of this mess is simply the desire of my workplace to find some way to extricate me from the workday life, I can’t help regretting or resenting all of the time I spent at work. I fucking tried and worked my ass off, and I found a lot of good in even the most trying situations. There is tangible evidence of my impact, and several people do know (or fucking should anyway) that I pulled some mighty big shit out of the fire (OK, that was fucking awkward and mixed metaphorish). But, honestly, I did some work that sucked badly at the time, but I’m proud of from the distance of time, and I know would have caused weaker mortals to weep; Simultaneously organizing, clarifying, encouraging, pushing, pulling, prodding and fucking doing it all with a goddamn sense of humor. I missed two different comedy shows, because I stayed until midnight once and 10 p.m. another time to make sure folks had the help they needed to meet unrelenting deadlines. For a while, it was a regular occurrence that I would be given sketchy details at 6 p.m. and would show up at 10 a.m. the next morning with well-thoughtout spreadsheets tying those sketchy details up in a honking big red bow. For fucking fuck sakes, the night before my big meeting where I found out at least one person thinks I’m nuts, I worked until 11 p.m. sending out five separate emails with five separate spreadsheets to five separate organizations giving them precise budget breakdowns detailing several changes and future scenarios over several years, because the boss decided what I had previously provided wasn’t detailed or clear enough. I can’t help wondering if she knew what brick was about to smack me upside the head most rudely, when she wrung that last bit of workaholic productivity out of me.

If you asked me why I worked so goddamn hard (and I really did, and someone must fucking recognize that), I would say it’s because I honestly cared about the people with whom and for whom I worked, and I cared about the work they are doing. (Watch the tenses in here deteriorate. I have no fucking idea whether I am now to my employer clearly the past tense, and they are just waiting for the right moment to yell “last call.” And, I don’t know if I should give a shit anymore, because only a drooling imbecile still fawns and cares after the folks who kicked her to the curb. With each day I feel more and more like a character in a Toni Morrison or similar novel. You know, it’s a modern classic cliche, the impoverished black woman takes a job in the wealthy white peoples’ home. They bond together and suffer adversities and the women’s friendship is strong and nurturing. Until some terrible shit comes down, and everyone has to deal with the fact that the maid is just a goddamn maid afterall and there was no use in her getting all uppity and thinking she mattered. I’m not a black maid, obviously, but I was servant under the ivory tower of academia and now they all be up in my face letting me know I gots too uppity by reading and writing on this here world-wide web.)

I really, truly felt as though one of the people from work thought more highly of me and cared about me more than just the maid. But, clearly, I read that fucking WRONGO! Dumb shit that I am, I didn’t realize I was so expendable. But, live and learn I guess and always remember your place. I will never be the equal to a non-ethnic (because face it there is no WASP ethos), highly ivy-educated, academic leader. I suspect that would be true, even if I got my doctorate, because some pigs will always be more equal than others. I can’t explain how much it hurts to have this light dawn on me.

You wanna know the one thing worse than being told you are being investigated for the potential for workplace violence over something you wrote in your private life as a joke? Finding out that people who should know better are going along with the aburd accusations for some reason you will never likely know.

Meanwhile, as I learn about who doesn’t give a shit about me, cosmic balance keeps reminding me about the people that do. What would I do without M. listening to my harangues? Jesus, that man has some mighty big store of patience. Either that or, as I veritably wallow in my soap opera, he still manages to find some of my better qualities in the pity mix.

This weekend I heard from a couple of people who saw the thing in the Boston Globe’s Sunday magazine about the chick who was fired from Harvard. Someone else offered an anonymous corner of his domain to let me get my well-lathered dander up. (I think he’s waiting to see the torrent of literary abuse excellence this workplace tempest could inspire. I’d link to his site now, but you never know I might need to take him up on his offer.) I also got some of the web stats from the sites I’ve linked here. Good to see Big Brother is making such a thorough game of it. I ain’t naturally paranoid, but I was fucking relieved to have the weekend, when so many hits from work domains weren’t racking up my totals. Let’s hope tomorrow they find other target to analyze. (Actually, I don’t want that last bit, since I know it blows and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’ll just hope “they” find something else to read or do.)

When shit happens, it’s easy to wallow, feel isolated, think the worst of dark clouds, death and destruction. But, what the fuck? Given the coolness of folks around me, they’d just punch me for being a jackass.

One thing I’ll say in defense of the ball-breaking institution known as a large, Boston Irish Catholic family, don’t even fucking think about messing with someone in the clan. Nah, it’s not just parochial “for us or agin us” bullshit. It’s support, great fucking advice, emails, phone calls and great fucking advice. My aunts, my uncle, my oldest brother (haven’t talked with the other two), my sister, all pretty cool, and they of all people in the world would probably know if I was a fucking powderkeg with a short fuse and a raging temper. They know the real me–the one that is actually too fucking inert to even get it up to take a shower right now. My rage as a kid was yelling, and retreating to the furthest corner to weep silently and read a book. Yeah, I’m psycho. (Note to whoever is reading this shit to mind my business, that last sentence is sarcasm. It’s sometimes used for humorous intent.)

And, there’s a ton of friends, who are OK with me boring them over dinner again, as I lick my wounds. (I think you know who you are, and Thanks.) Or the “comic” who left a couple of voicemail messages taking a stab at what my favorite song might be. The contenders, “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads or “Crazy on You” by Heart. Someone else added Sheryl Crow’s “The First Cut is the Deepest” (OK, that song could be a lot of people, I just figured Sheryl’s is the freshest).

I’ve met a lot of people who I wouldn’t have if I never went down the perverse path of trying to fucking do stand-up comedy in the first fucking place, and whose ears I wouldn’t be looking for right now, if I skipped that path entirely. Motherfucking life, why does there always have to be the thorn and fucking rose. (I was going to say something about a blade, but don’t want to freak out non-metaphor-comprehending big brother.) I do stand-up and write here to get out of a fucking 40-year old closet, too shy to go public with my bullshit words. I finally leave the house, meet a literal shitload of like-minded people, and the fucking people who I was afraid to cross for 40-fucking years of closet living are out there in spades. Proving one thing I know, given half a chance, people suck (and software with “people” in the name sucks, but I digress).

Finally, how cool is it that in the middle of whiny, whiny, self-indulgent, whiny-ass whining about my dilemma, M. is chatting about growing older together and hoping we’re as cool as my aunt and uncle? (It always has to come back to the clan I guess, after, what is it, like 300 years or something of dumb mick oppression by “the man.”)

By the way, do y’all think it’s a fucking coincidence or what that so far in the month of June there have been in the range of 15-20 searches combining “Denise” “comedy” “Boston” and the name of my employer, whereas in all prior months there have been ZERO featuring my employer. Coincidence right? (By the way, the only reason there was even one hit–I went to a non-work related benefit for a related charity. Yeah, I’m an asshole.)