I used to spend a lot of time trying to come up with content for this thing. I didn’t want to come across as too sappy, or too emo, or too over the top. I should probably warn you that I no longer care. Sure, the ultimate goal is to share something humorous yet thought provoking… in theory. But the truth is, I’m just happy I feel inspired to put finger to keyboard again. So if I feel like writing something, I will write something. And if you don’t like it, shut your stupid face.

This week I had my first visit with a new therapist. I figured it was time for some maintenance. Plus I really really like talking about myself to someone who is required to give me their undivided attention…. as if you didn’t already know this.

It had been about 6 months since I have had any sort of official therapy and I had nearly forgotten how helpful it is. I truly believe that ANYONE can benefit from talking to an unbiased someone every once in a while. It really puts things in prospective. Granted, 9 out of 10 times – my sister, my friends, and my coworkers give me the same advice that the therapist gives me… but somehow it’s different when you pay someone to listen.

Since it was my initial visit with a new counselor, we had A LOT to cover. Three hours worth, in fact. Three hours of me giving her the rundown of every idiosyncrasy of my character, and every hardship I have ever endured. While it felt good to tell my story, it was a bit exhausting- to say the least. But it did make me realize something.

I’m dramatic. I’m emotional. I over-think and catastrophize every situation. I have a bad case of ADHD.  I have major sleep anxiety. I have general anxiety in nearly every situation in my life. I have a bit of an inferiority complex. I have absolutely no control of myself when I drink liquor. I’m constantly teetering on the edge of hypomania. I have a major case of body dysmorphia. I will probably never have a comfortable relationship with food.

I could go on for days about my emotional and behavioral issues, but what I realized was that I’m OK with it all. In fact, somewhere over the last year, I’ve learned not only to accept- but also to appreciate some of my issues… or at least the fact that I can acknowledge them and work towards dealing with them.

In the very least, they don’t freak me out as much anymore. The difference between this session, and the first time I met with a counselor last year is unbelievable.

That being said, I can’t help but imagine a world where I didn’t have to worry about keeping myself in check. Where I didn’t have to use “tools” like mindfulness and meditation to calm my nerves or talk myself down from cliffs. And especially where I didn’t act on such impulse all the time. Like, can you imagine if you could program yourself with your own, personal panic button that would prevent you from saying and doing things that you immediately regret?

Por ejemplo: Oh yay! Bob Schneider is playing my at my radio show’s Christmas benefit! He’s my favorite musician in the entire world. I should walk up to him and tell him about how much I love him.. and keep talking for about ten minutes until he looks like he might take off running in fear.

ACTIVATE PANIC BUTTON

Carissa. Take a deep breath. If you want to say something to your most favorite musician in the world, fine. But for God’s sake, he doesn’t want to hear your life story, or how you once drunkenly wrote him a facebook message proclaiming your love. Just. Stop.

Por ejemplo #2: I’m at a co-workers birthday party drinking a little wine. Just the night before I decided to swear off liquor because SOMEHOW I ended up waking up on the bathroom floor of a boy’s apartment who I actually really like. Boss hands me a shot. Boy, I sure do love shots. Especially warm cinnamony whiskey shots. And it would probably make me a lot more fun to talk to.

ACTIVATE PANIC BUTTON

Hey girl hey. If you take that shot, it’s all gonna go down hill. You’ll end up making an ass out of yourself in front of all your co-workers. Then you’ll proceed to call that boy you dig and ask, no beg him to pick you up. And THEN you’ll call your dad 10 times telling him you don’t know where you are. So, no… Don’t take that shot.

Sighhh… if only.

Instead, I have to learn these things the hard way. Stupid human body, unequipped with panic buttons. But I guess then I wouldn’t have anything to work on.

So until someone learns how to reprogram my head- I’m just gonna embrace my poor decisions and nutso brain.

ACTIVATE FREAK FLAG

I know, I know… it’s been a kazillion bajillion years since the last time I uploaded this ole’ blog. For a while there, life got so busy that I completely forgot about it. Then one day I googled myself to try to find an article I had published once upon a time… and my blog was gone. I’m not gonna lie. It freaked me out a bit. I may not have the time to come here very often anymore, but I spent way too much time sharing my deepest darkest thoughts on this site to just let it fade away. Plus I have a horrible memory and I like to have a timeline for this particular time in my life.

And thus, I’ve decided to make yet another effort to keep this site going. I’m sure I’ve long been erased from every rss feed… I’m not sure people even use rss feeds anymore. The internet seems to have changed so much in the last year. WordPress is foreign to me. I had to search through years of emails just to find my password. Words are even different. I no longer understand internet speak. The people of the internet seem to have forgotten how to spell simple words… either that, or I may have gotten old.

One things for sure. 2011 has been the craziest year of my life.

When it started I was in an extremely dark place.  I’ve always considered myself a pretty happy person. Sure, I’m emotional as hell… but I had never before  really felt depression. Long story short, I spent the better part of 6 months working on how to get a grip on my life through various forms of therapy, meditation and yoga. I had fallen back into disordered eating, had anxiety about the things I used to love, and for a while I was convinced I had lost my fire.

Then I lost my job and had to get out of town for the weekend. I took a free improv workshop at the Institution theater here  in Austin, and decided not to leave. I signed up for classes, found a part time job, and found a couple of roommates on Craigslist. That was in May. I still haven’t made it back to Dallas.

I miss my friends. A lot. But to be honest, there is a part of me that doesn’t want to look back, at least not yet. It scares me to think about where I was 6 months ago. I know I’ve grown a lot this last year, and there is no way I’ll fall again that deep… but it still scares me. Plus I’m busy as hell here and I love it.

The last few months have been amazing. I’ve met so many wonderful people in this city and I thank all of you for your encouragement. People are good. I look around and I can’t believe how lucky I am to have so many inspirational people in my life. I could have never adjusted so quickly in a new city if it weren’t for my sister, the Austin Improv Community, and the kind listeners who have reached out to me.

And that being said, I owe a long over due thank you to over a hundred of you friends and readers who wrote  recommendation letters to help me land my dream job. I fully intended to write each of you to thank you, but time got away from me and for that, I apologize. Your letters and made me laugh and cry. I still can’t believe how many of you came through for me.

Moreover, I owe this new found happiness to those of you who supported me through my tough times. I know I haven’t been the best at staying in touch, but there are A LOT of you in the blogging community and old friends who put up with a lot of complaining, venting, and whining from me over the last year. You lifted me up and encouraged me to go for my dreams. I appreciate you. And I’m glad to be back in the living. I LOVE YOU!!!

I have told you before that technology hates me. Like, bad.  I pick up a phone, and it loses service. I sit in front of a computer, and it completely quits working. Since I’ve been at my current job, (for a year and a half) I’ve gone through 3 computers.

3 computers. One which was brand new.

I’m sure my bosses think I’m on porn sites all day contracting computer AIDS, purposely sabotaging my computers so I have an excuse not to work. In actuality, I have NO FREAKING IDEA how or why these computers keep breaking on me. I treat them well. I run anti-virus programs regularly, and I’m very careful about what sites I go to. The only reasonable explanation that I can think of, is that I have been possessed by a frequency demon. I’m not sure it is actually a frequency demon. It may be a computer demon or a technology demon, but I personally think frequency demon has a better ring to it.

But I digress.

I will state for the record now, I am in no way responsible for my current state of, yet again, being without a work computer.

I’ll start from the beginning. (Imagine the following told to you in a ghost story voice. It’s not the most exciting story ever… but I think that will help.)

Last Friday was a normal day at work. It was rainy, and I was planning on leaving early to head to Austin to see my little sister.

As usual, my bosses left (even earlier) to go either hunting, golfing, or fishing… I forget which- on this dark and foreboding day. As usual, I cleared my internet history and shut my lap top down before I headed out.

*Side note- I actually have two work computers. My desktop has Vista, and the marketing software I use, naturally does not work on Vista. Therefore, my bosses begrudgingly had to get me a second computer to use for marketing purposes. A computer which I need in order to get anything done.

Monday morning I came back into work. It was still raining, and I was in a particularly foul mood. The bosses were going to be out until Wednesday, but regardless, since I had left early on Friday, I had plenty of work to do. The early morning was business as usual. I updated the blog, checked my email, and caught up on my friend’s weekends via facebook. Around 10:00 am I turned around to start up my laptop and get started on some mailings.

DUN DUN DUN….

The laptop…. was gone.

At this point I actually didn’t think much of it, and I was a teensy bit excited that I DID have an excuse not to spend the rest of my day swamped with the monotonous task of sending out mailings. The bosses have taken the laptop with them on their hunting trips before, (as my screen saver slide-show of dead deer proved) and I figured that they had taken it again to showcase their killings. Plus, the case was gone- so I was confident that they had packed it up, because the case was nowhere near the actual computer. So I spent the next two days outwardly cursing my bosses for leaving me bored and with nothing to do, but inwardly thanking the heavens that I had extra time to do as I pleased. By late Tuesday though, I was as bored as I have ever been on a 13 hour road trip with my parents. I was racing to answer the phone. Giving insurance quotes never seemed so fun.

First thing Wednesday morning when the bosses returned I popped right in their office to ask for the laptop.

Boss: Distracted that I’d come in without knocking “Ummm… OK.. we’ll get it for you.”

I returned to my desk and about 5 minutes later I was called back into their office.

Boss: “Did you say something about the laptop?”

Me: “Umm yeah… I need it back, so I can… do some work.”

Boss: “Well where is it?”

Me: “Uh… umm… you… have it?”

Boss: “Noooooooo…..”

By this time, everyone in the office (all 6 of them) were up and in the bosses office, eager to know what we were discussing. I explained how I thought that they had taken the computer to put their pictures of bloody deer on, and they acted surprised at the prospect that I would think they would do such a thing. There was no sign of foul-play. No broken windows. Nothing else was missing. We looked in every drawer, under every desk, and in every corner of our tiny office. They asked me about five times if I was sure I didn’t accidentally take it.

Oh sure, I packed a laptop and carried it out without realizing it.

Did I? I seriously started questioning my sanity. I clearly remember leaving the office and driving straight to Ft. Worth to meet up with my friend LA, and we headed to Austin as soon as I got there. But what if I had a crazy drunk ambien moment and drove back to Dallas, stole the computer, and drove back to Austin without even remembering it?

Ok, even I am not that crazy.

The bosses called the cops and talked in length to the owner of the building. They all concluded that, besides the cleaning ladies who the building-owner fully trusts, there is no way that anyone could have gotten into our office without a key.

Its been nearly a week now and there are no new leads. Oh sure, there have been the daily jokes… “So Carissa, if you just bring the laptop back- no charges will be made.” Or the ever so clever, “So, hows that laptop treatin you? You sure were smart in stealing your own work computer to have an excuse not to work.”

I’m over this shit. Even if they decide to get me a new computer, it will take me at least a week to get everything set up again… that is if my software is even compatible.

So I’ve decided to take matters in my own hands. Seriously, I’m thinking of coming to work tomorrow donning a trenchcoat and very large pipe. I WILL get to the bottom of this.

In other words… To whoever is out there, typing away on my work laptop. I hope you are enjoying yourself right now. Because in the very near future (*shaking fist) “I’M GONNA GET YOU!!!!!

Despite the fact that it’s Monday and I have come down with what I can only assume is the  swine flu- I’m still smiling about the craziness that was my weekend.

My friend L.A. and I decided to road trip it down to Austin to celebrate my little sister’s 23rd Birthday. My sister is all kinds of awesome; but other than fabulous taste in music, our habit of chewing on small pieces of plastic and the way that we both eat our sandwiches upside down- we have very little in common. Even so, she’s my best friend in the world and I don’t think I would survive without her in my life. Like, literally.

Though she is 5 years younger, she has definitely learned to take on the big sister role in our relationship. I’m not going to go into details because like I said, we are complete opposites- and as much as I love being the center of attention- I can bet you that she is blushing just reading this.

But just so you get a better picture of how different we are, my little sister started off the weekend offering to be the designated driver. On her birthday weekend. I don’t think I have ever offered to drive whether drinking was part of the deal or not. Needless to say, we were not evil enough to take her up on this offer, though we still managed to double her on our alcohol intake.

Friday night we went to a little bar on 6th street. Since it was ACL weekend, everywhere was a little more crowded than usual and the clothing was about 20 times more interesting than usual. My favorite outfit of the night was a girl wearing a cape over a tank top and panties. Awesomeness. Definitely something you will never see in Dallas.

LA. and I spent most of the evening obsessing over the fact that we were damn near 6 years older than all of my sister’s friends. I think we both still look fairly young, and there is no question that my sister and her friends are at least 10 years older than us if your basing it on maturity, but I couldn’t help but feel a little cougar-rific. The highlight of my evening was when a someone said they thought I was the  younger sister, though they were clearly just humoring me. Or maybe they overheard L.A. and I playing the “Penis game”… you know, the game where you can be the most obnoxious by yelling Penis the loudest. I always win.

When we got back to my sister’s apartment on Friday, we were all pretty tipsy. But we were smart enough to buy liquor to drink after the bar, so we dove right into that and then proceeded to call every person in our phones who had lived in or maybe just visited Austin in their lives. After we pissed off several people’s wives and woke up several children, L.A. got a hold of a very drunk guy who said he was 90% sure he could get us into A.C.L. the next day. After our initial excitement wore off, L.A. and I got into a physical fight over whether we would go see Dave Matthews (her choice) or Ghostland Observatory(my much better choice) because they were playing at the same time. My sister had gone to bed at this point and was abruptly woken to the sound of my body slamming L.A. into the foot of her bed.

that's my "gonna kick yo ass" face.

It turns out the bruise on my right shoulder and scrapes on my left legs were gotten in vein, because the asshole who said he could get us tickets, definitely did not get us tickets.

We spent the greater portion of Saturday drinking water,  watching tivoed shows from last week, and eating copious amounts of Thai food. For about 5 minutes we thought we may just couch it for the evening and watch some Gossip Girl (shhhh) on DVD, but my sister mentioned that she had never had a martini. Twenty three years old and never had a martini? Deal breaker. We took turns dying our hair with boxed hair dye (L.A. could now be Carrot Top’s obnoxious twin sister,  I look like a witch, and my sister’s hair looks maybe 3/4 of a shade darker than it was,) showered, tried on about 30 outfits a piece, and left to go out wearing the first outfit we tried on approximately 3 hours later.

**Looking back, removing the hair dye from our hair really would have been a much smoother process, had we taken actual showers…

The night ended up being a ton of fun! And we did get our martinis, though not everyone was has happy about them as I was… The first pic is of us pre- first sip of dirty martini.

The following picture was taken immediately after our first sip (and my sister’s last.) My sister’s (far left)  face: Priceless.

The rest of the night was kind of a blur. I do know that L.A. and I, being the ever so proper house guests that we are, invited a bunch of people to come over to my sister’s apartment after the bar. We finished off that bottle of vodka, and  as usual, I acted inappropriately . You see, the dress that I was wearing was the sort of material that you can’t really wear underwear with unless you want the world to see rolls of flab in extremely unbecoming  areas. And I apparently should be banned from not wearing underwear with dresses for life, or should not be allowed to drink with people who I do not know very well.

I guess I owe an apology or two.

My dear sister,

I had a wonderful weekend and I am so happy i got to spend your birthday weekend with you. I love your friends, your roommate, and your apartment. Thank you for making sure L.A. and I didn’t leave the bar with any strange people. Thank you for telling your friends that I don’t usually act like this and that it was the drunkest I have ever been. I know you hate to lie, but this one doesn’t hurt anyone, and it helps your sister from coming across as a complete ass. I’m sorry that I fell of the chair into that plant on your back porch. But mostly, I’m sorry I flashed my panty-less hoo-ha at your friends. Even though most of my friends laugh when I do that, I realize now they may have a different sense of humor than my friends do, and I should have at least asked first. I hope that you won’t be too scared to ask me back!

I love you!

Your  favorite (and only) sister in the world,

Carissa