neurosis

Can you put me in a medically induced coma? For the last month I have been waiting for some news to come by May 9^th, so this last week has been murder. The sand is running out of the hour glass. May 9^th is nigh, and I exist with a frantic edge. I’m afraid I can’t tell you what I’m waiting for at this time. If I told you, I’d have to — you know the rest. I’m not waiting for the results of a medical test thank goodness.

The medically induced coma would put my evil mind to rest during this waiting period. My mind inflicts my body with odd little glitches and a vague malaise. Having experienced neurosis-driven conditions before, I suspect that this waiting for May 9^th period (along with a few other issues) has quite a bit to do with my insomnia and the one or two other physical things happening to me that I won’t even bother to get into.

In my early twenties, suddenly I couldn’t swallow food – except for sweets (very tell-tale about this so-called ‘swallowing condition’) – and anyone who knows me well knows that I’d rather eat cake than food – fuck food. (The going out and getting it, the energy used to balance your diet, killing it, cooking it, taking an hour to eat it – what a pain!) I went to the doctor, who prescribed a lovely medication. The pill allowed me to swallow food once more, and it also made me unusually mellow. I called the doctor to find out what was in the pill and he told me that it was phenobarbital (I was a dumb kid who didn’t think to ask what was in it before he prescribed it – if I had known I wouldn’t have taken it).

This was a lesson about my neurosis. I have seen as well what stress does to other people, what sicknesses they contract because of it, so I just remind myself of this mind-body connection, hoping that my body will eventually see the dirty little trick that my mind has been playing (Or is this the other way around?).

I’ve seen what some fellow bloggers in the sphere have lived through so I know I can do it. But I’ll do it with a slight sense of hell… In the interim, I must remember to be kind, helpful, and compassionate to people, to be of service – it’s not all about me — but it is all about me dammit. Thanks for listening.

Hey, I’m all for self-empowerment. I like the mindset of the entrepreneur, especially the young entrepreneurs on the train, the ones selling candy, the comedians, those a capella guys. At times the entertainment value of these performances leans towards the alternative — hell, I even like that tone deaf guy who bangs on the bongo with the hole in it, and that guy who sings with the two-stringed guitar that he found in the garbage. And who says you need teeth to be a subway car performer? The subway car break dancers, they’re the ones that I’m on the fence about. I’m a very nervous train rider. I have panic attacks in tight places where I’m confined for a period of time. When I start thinking that there isn’t enough air in the car, I start hyperventilating. And most of the cars you can’t walk through, so you’re trapped.

The break dancers, a jaunty bunch who tend to burst in on the scene suddenly, while you’re preparing to read your New Yorker. On the A line, they generally come in on 59^th Street where the train going uptown is non-stop express all the way to 125^th Street. So for 66 blocks, over three miles, you’re part of a captive audience. They engage in lightening speed acrobatics to the chants and yelps of their fellow break dancers, and of course to the accompaniment of the boom box. That screaming, the sudden movements, the loud music in the tight car — now this is enough to make me take my clothes off and go screaming up and down the aisle – for some reason claustrophobics like me think there will be more air if they take their clothes off. Yeah, I know it doesn’t make any sense… My neurosis, it also involves a fear of being kicked in the jaw by the one doing back flips to ‘It’s Just Begun’ by Jimmy Castor. What am I supposed to do if he breaks my jaw with his flailing foot? This ain’t Cirque du Soleil, but a rag tag bunch who probably don’t give too much thought about the precision of their movements. Ah, see – I’ll bet you never thought about that one. There are people who are amazed at the spectacle of these performers, and some who find them novel. But I watch through fear-widened eyes. I strain my head as far back as I can into the wall of the car, take shallow breaths, and pray for the performance to end without anybody getting kicked in the face.