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?