Politics and the Divided Self:

And now a word from the pundits on the left:

But it's not all in her head. There are a few things that happened, that are fact, that are irreducible, that are not just her interpretation. Like, a few weeks ago, when this is all started, (not my infatuation with J, which predates all this by 3 months, but when things got weird) we were talking about, something, toward the end of a session, he started acting really irritable, and short with me, and he stopped making eye contact with me and he told me time was up really abruptly, no "Last thoughts?" and something vague about a call he had to make, and he gave me my appointment card, pretty much dropped the thing into my hand and recoiled, and when I stood there, dumbfounded, looking at the card, he stared up at me and said, "Whatever it is can WAIT."

See, I didn't move because I've never even touched that door. He opens it every single time. Every time. He's a gentleman, it's a common courtesy, and sitting at his desk while I left was just SO off... So I was just, standing there like an idiot, and then mumbled "Sorry" and started backing out and he looked back down at his desk and didn't say Bye or anything... And then the next session, which wasn't for a week because Dan took me to Miami, well the next session he was just, harsh. He almost made me cry I felt so uncomfortable. He attacked and picked apart things I said, he didn't smile once, he snapped at me for touching a shelf or having my feet up which are things I always do and go without notice... That was when I started this blog. He hasn't been that way since, thank Christ.

And the Right:

She has a pretty powerful imagination. The "facts" don't exist here, they don't even belong, they have no place in this setting, a therapist's office, or rather, the recollection of a therapist's office as seen through the eyes of a lonely, romantic, oversexed, highly imaginative but emotionally adolescent 24-year old singer/writer/stripper. The ultimate taboo, what a juicy premise for a late-night fantasy or a confessional blog, maybe? Even if there were an attraction or even a flirtation it would likely be subconscious and therefore not a flirtation at all, but just the natural behavior people who are of fond of each other, on any level, who have a connection. Verdict: This isn't Hollywood, kids.

And center: Ugh! That's enough out of the two of you! Shout out to John, thanks for commenting, and thanks for caring :-) It isn't Hollywood, so what other outcome could there have been than this, anti-climactic, aimless denouement...?

Love, Left, Right, and Center,

Scarlet-O

Ode to the Art of Holding Horses--

Whoooooaa, Girl!

I used to ride 'em, too. Disgraceful.

Okay, I won't delete my last post because that would be cheating, censorship and denial, but I'm gonna take it easy with the trigger-happy temper-tantrum trash-talk from now on... If I'm a jackass, I'm a jackass, but Julian is not, and really, he's done nothing wrong in any way, hell, I don't even know if he's ever been flirtatious at this point, I don't know if this has all just been in my head...

That being said, the HeadSpin on today is that... Oh god it feels deluded to even suggest, but...

Okay, okay, first the No Spin Zone Play-by-Play. Well I came back in feeling lethal and hollow. I sat down and after the five-minute warmup routine he asked if I had anything else on my mind and if not then, okay, and I stopped fidgeting and crossed my legs and put my hands in my lap and looked straight at him with my own impenetrable pokerface, the kind I can only manage when the stakes are high, prepared to be utterly unmoved, and okay then, he was "just thinking about talking last week and-- wondering if maybe sometimes I give the impression that, well, like about the movie for example--"

YES? Bring it already, goddamnit!

"I don't want to underplay the effect past experiences and upbringing could have, because, it seems they might weigh quite heavily on you, and we hardly discuss them, it's almost conspicuously absent..."

Zoink??? Okay... Well, the pokerface was still a good bet (when's it not?) and thanks to J's penchance for polysyllabic English, and the slow, deliberate way he articulates, I made a full recovery by the time I had to respond (though I wonder if the gratitude and relief were hidden entirely.)

So, anyway, we ended up talking about my family and stuff, which I'll avoid here too, for as long as I can, though if the lien on personal photos is any indication... I just don't wanna nail too many people to the cross here... But, yeah, it was just Julian being beautiful Julian, and I can't complain about that.

But okay, it really felt deliberate. I know how bananas that sounds... but it did, that ambiguous lead-in, the announcement of the pending Big Question (again!), the suspense, the phrasing- concerned about giving off an impression? It's just that, Julian IS.CALCULATED. He is. This is what he does, he is a clinical psychologist, and he's psycho-smart, and there is not a snowflake's chance in hell he's unaware I have a mean, steamy hard-on for him, and okay, I'm gonna stop. Maybe he's just trying to bring things to a balance...

Not Another Stripper Blog

Dear. Everyone.

Dear Anyone.

I stand here before you, in the backyard of cyberspace, cradling my dirty laundry as the breeze catches my hair... I'm here because I need to unload, because, I'm in therapy.

I'm a young person, shall-we-say, a twenty-something. I'm single, though not lacking for suitors or even people who think they're my boyfriend, and I live in a notorious hellhole, and I have a lot of secrets.

Secret #1: I have a very prestigious occupation as a dancer at a gentleman's club, but this is not another stripper blog, and I'm not gonna dwell on it.

Secret #2: I have a very mild form of every Cluster-B personality disorder in the DSM-IV and a load of addictive tendencies and bad habits.

Secret #3: I am terribly, terribly lonely.

Secret #4: I am terribly, hopelessly in love with my therapist.

There. I have lots of secrets, my own and other people's, and I'm very good at keeping them, but I think that's a good place to start.

I began therapy at the urging of an old f*@!buddy/person-who-thought-he-was-my-boyfriend/ex/person, and sent him to the curb after my second session. I was only with the ineffectual SOB because of Secrets no. 2 & 3 and because I live in a notorious hellhole, and I was getting so depressed I could no less stand him than kick him to the curb, and the further I sank the more impossible it was to commit to a 9-5, and the more tempting it was to resort to Secret no. 1, which I couldn't possibly do with him around. He was keeping me down but also paying for everything so I was in a sort of Catch-22 and, despondent, I figured I'd just label myself dysfunctional and hide behind a professional skirt. I used my insurance (blessed, blessed PPO, cursed, cursed new government plan) Dial-A-Doc option and found one with a positively Austenian name, jogging distance from my apartment, and after a brief-- intelligent, compassionate and concise-- phone interview, I made an appointment. I was anxious to get in there, cry me a river, and turn all anguish and personal responsibility over to the hands of a qualified provider (double-entendre duely, dually noted.)

I sat in his waiting room and browsed through the literary selection-- Time, Vanity Fair, Newsweek-- standard stuff but a refreshing contrast to my other shrink's variety which could rouse a latent eating disorder or sexual identity crisis with all the cut, sun-kissed, bare-chested dudes on the covers. (Among the weeklies also lurked a dated, unbound, black-and-white precautionary pamphlet about the perils and no-no's of Whitecoat-Wacko sex, which upon discovery struck me as funny and a little odd, but which I now recognize as a preemptive strike, and have lately taken to reading as I wait, hidden between the pages of one of the heftier glossies, perched almost upright on my knee.)

He opened the door and I was just, taken aback. Dr. Darcy* is gobsmacked gorgeous. Stupid gorgeous, really. He looks like a doctor from a soap opera, as photographed by a giggling, Gaussian Blur-happy groupie-amateur with a digicam and bootleg version of Adobe PhotoChop, sans tutorial. He truly glows; he towers, just under the maximum height cutoff for male models, his eyes are the color of the midday sky after a thunderstorm, he really could turn the world on with his smile, it is genuine and contagious and radiant and brimming with unironic joy. Somewhere in the back of my mind I regretted the depressed teenager getup I wore.

As he asked the routine questions and jotted down his impressions (what were they! what were they!) I took in my surroundings. Tasteful. Spacious. Original painting. Print, artist's name unrecognizable. Love the art. He has a really good poker-face but even at that first meeting I caught the barely perceptible shift, the shadow lengthening under his eyelashes, when he has a hidden thought. This time the hidden thought was that I said something ridiculous, as I spilt my tired old beans about moving, loneliness, bad relationship. And then point blank:

"Wait a minute, what's good about this guy?"

And buh-bye, boyfriend.

Anyhow. That's enough for today. It's been over three months and needless to say, I've stirred another ingredient into my can of beans, and I can't very well talk to my therapist about it, because, in spite of my better sense, I am still hopeful that I have a shot. In spite of all the odds against me on this one-- in spite of "transference," his position, his career, in spite of all the crap he knows about me that I'd never share with a man with whom I had any hopes for any kind of union, even an ineffectual SOB monkey-man and let alone a demigod like Dr. Darcy, and all the personal crap I know about him that he'd never share with me or any other walk-in lunatic, potential Tony Soprano patient-person, and for good reason, but that I've discovered on my own, well-guarded as it is, because if I'd been given some different opportunities in life I'd make a damn good spy.

So, here I am, faceless and anonymous, airing out my dirty laundry in cyberspace, in hopes of some connection, support, and therapy... Maybe even some answers. Maybe it'll stop. But I will be the unsung hero of Transferers everywhere, and I will chronicle my experience on the couch.

Love and latent phobias,

Scarlet O.







*Names changed. Obviously.