I Want to Be Diseased

Not really. Or do I? I read brain articles. Came across one on Psychology Today where this blogger talked about why she didn’t engage in social media. Apparently she blogs about the pro-ana world, which is to say, pro-anorexic, people who view anorexia as some kind of romantically tragic condition.

Social media, it seems, reinforced her dangerous obsessions. She wanted to be anorexic, and “was” in the sense that she used not-eating as a control mechanism and it did bad things to her body. She doesn’t immerse herself in social media anymore, even though, to be honest, blogging IS social media, isn’t it.

Sounds like simple narcissism to me, but then I’m a blog reader, not a trained psychologist. Other articles and blogs I’ve come across talk about how social media sights, specifically Tumblr, have niches where people identify with depression and reinforce one another’s so-called symptoms. I’m not saying some of these people aren’t genuinely depressed, I’m just saying, don’t act as if social media is any more of a problem than the existence of tall buildings for people to jump off of. You don’t take hammers away from carpenters just because some asshole killed his wife with one once.

Came across another “affliction” in another read called “Typomania.” Oooh, I want that one. I write all the time, it seems (750words.com every day, three blog posts except on Mondays when I am too weekend-tired, writing for my job all day, novels and poems and short stories, oh my). It would be cool to tell people “I have typomania: I HAVE to write.”

But it’s not true. I don’t have typomania. My desire to have it is just a desire to have an identity, to be different, to be held in unique regard by people. “Look at him, he’s a genuine insane artist!”

Nah. I’m just a tragic fool stabbing fingers at a keyboard because I can, not because I have to. The article above does

Office Coffee

Around here (4th and Pike, Seattle WA, 98101) there are more Starbuckses than you can shake a stick at. That might even be literally true, because I don’t know if you could find them all in a single stick-shaking sessions. A phrase I used the other day, when someone asked me if there was a Starbucks nearby, was “you can’t move your arm without pointing at a Starbucks.” Inelegant but so true.

From the front door of our office building I can turn left or right. If I go left, I walk to the next intersection, and there’s a Starbucks. If I go right, at that intersection I can left one block to a Starbucks, forward one block to a Starbucks, or right one block to a shopping mall with two Starbucks in it—one in the atrium at a kiosk, and one a little bit further inside.

I’ve been to them all. My favorite is the kiosk, because its usually the least busy. Usually. I go because I have a card and its tied to an app and I get nerdjoy from using my phone screen to pay for things. Also, I read that cocoa and caffeine and cinnamon are good for your brain, so I like a mocha. Also, their tea-lemonades are a good afternoon pick-me-up, an if I bring my own cup, not too expensive.

But today I brought in my own container of milk so I could have some free n easy office coffee. The other first-arriver of the day always makes it as part of his daily ritual, and I’ve been meaning to imbibe. I still believe in caffeine, and as much nerdjoy as phone-screen-buying gives me, not-paying-at-all gives me another kind of joy.

The cups were delicious, by the way. I had two. Milk and sugar. 

This is not to say that I’ll never go back to Starbucks. There’s just too many to not be pulled in to their gravity, not to mention the free wifi when I need to kill time and/or write a blog post or twelve. And that nerdjoy is compelling—and the app also awards you “stars” for your purchases and when you get enough you earn a new “level.” Can’t get THAT at work.

Morning Work Conversation

This is what we talked about at work this morning: an idea for a new sit-com.

Kim Jong Un attempts to raise his father from the dead and the result is a zombie Kim Jong Il. On a humanitarian mission to North Korea, Bill Gates is killed by the zombie KJI and also becomes a zombie. A misfit gang of cabinet members do such a good job of covering up the crime, they are assigned to cover up all of KJU’s crimes, as he occasionally murders people as a consequence of following his zombie father’s advice. This crack team of crime scene investigators unravel the threads of KJU’s deeds in order to re-weave them into a plausible scenario, based on what they’ve learned watching old episodes of NCIS. The Crime Cover Up Unit will consist of KC, JJ, Bill Gates, and Larry.

The TV show will be a joint venture by ABC and CBS and will be aired in AMC. It will be called “CBS and ABC Present CSI NCIS NK: CCUU KJU.”

On a very special episode, Richard Belzer from Law and Order: SVU will help the team cover up the murder of JK Rowling who was murdered while reading HP Lovecraft in the Phi Beta Kappa house at NKU. 

Typical scene: 

JJ and KC enter the room where Bill Gates and Larry are looking at the half eaten body of JK Rowling.

JJ: WTF!

Bill Gates: I know, huh?

KC: We’re going to need help on this one.

There’s one of those “dun-dun” sounds from Law & Order, and Richard Belzer enters.
Richard Belzer: Will I do?”
Larry: Richard Belzer!

KC: How are we going to handle this one, Richard Belzer?

Richard Belzer shrugs nonchalantly. “We’ll blame it on OJ.”

JJ: Wait, pulp or calcium enriched?

Bill Gates: You’re an idiiot, JJ

Laughter, fade to black. “CBS & ABC’s CSI NCIS NK: CCUU KJU will be back after these messages”



Go to commercial.