sounds like a plan

There are days when so many things seem like a good idea. Like giving yourself a pedicure without your contacts in or cutting the cat’s hair with your kitchen scissors. You think through the details, the process, if it’s doable, within reason, will it be painful, exciting, at the very least bloggable? If it makes it past this first set of criteria, it’s almost a go. But I’m a big outcome girl, too. So then I consider pretty much every possible result, good and bad and otherwise acceptable. This part of the process seems a curse of therapy, one even further ingrained given that I’ve been on both sides: “And if that happens, what would it mean? And would those thoughts help or hurt me? And is madras ever really appropriate on a man?” If the angst on this decision tree limb doesn’t kill me, I fold my thoughts nicely like I do napkins at anxious family dinners, and promptly choose to do something I wish that I hadn’t.

On those days, there should be a panic button that should fall from the ceiling, just like an airplane oxygen mask, and when it knocks me in the forehead it should summon minions to lock up my cell phone, my laptop, and my memories of my mother giving my sister the bigger bowl of ice cream when I was 7. The minions should cage me in comfortable clothing that does not make me feel fat, allow me out in five-minute increments that do not involve emotional segments of the movie Rudy, and steer me away from mirrors and whatever box of carbohydrates made it home with me after work. Phone numbers/pictures/memorabilia of dead loved ones/ex boyfriends/transients will be stowed away swiftly to avoid nostalgia and/or having a heart. Properly bedazzled muzzles will be used as appropriate. And all alcoholic beverages, including cough drops and fancy chocolates hiding that demonic nectar, will be removed from the home. At least overnight. Or until I’m only cutting my own hair with the kitchen scissors.