The Bad Shrink

About 12 years ago I went to a Psychiatrist.  I've always had problems with severe social anxiety which can border on agoraphobia if I let it get control of me.   The internet certainly hasn't helped in that regard, you can pretty much do anything from home now, but that's off topic. I'm extremely shy, get panic attacks frequently and I needed some focused movement in my life.  Pretty much any evening social engagement I had required alcohol for me to be able to get through it without a panic attack  I felt like I was just floating around with no purpose.  My initial impression was that the Dr. (hereforth called Dr. John)  was a pretty strange guy, tall and wiry framed, high voice, pretty nerdish, but I kind of liked his informal style.  I realize now that his informal style was actually why I shouldn't have continued seeing him, he was very inappropriate. Always running behind schedule, perpetually frazzled, sometimes asking me to wait for a while so he could eat, sometimes eating lunch in front of me, occasionally taking short calls while in session, and the big Psychiatrist no-no, talking about his personal life.  But, he didn't seem to have the MD I'm better than you....and you are wasting my precious time attitude that I usually get when I see a physician so I stuck with him.  Big fucking mistake.  I think I was a little flattered that he spoke to me like an equal. God knows that's a rarity. We pathologically idolize MD's, just try watching that perversely bad TV show ER or any number of lame medical gloryfests without a whiskey bottle to anesthesize.

I went to him about once every two weeks for about a year.  Mostly he would just write a script for Prozac, we would chat about various stuff, usually not related to me or my problems, and send me on my way. Then it really started to get strange.  I noticed that he was talking a lot about people that he believe had slighted him in some way, his office mate (another psychiatrist he shared the office with), his landlord, his patients were ungrateful for how deftly he could prescribe complicated medicines to interact, how the world had treated his brilliant parents with disrespect, very paranoid stuff. He also talked incessantly about how he really didn't want to be a Dr., he wanted to be a famous musician but the world hadn't discovered his unbelievable talent, how the medical community didn't recognize his brilliance..."I'm like Mozart because of the delicate artistic way I practice medicine".  Yes, that is a direct quote.  He actually bragged repeatedly that he was a direct decendent of Mozart, which I found strange, because last time I checked Mozart wasn't Jewish.  I'm the victim, feel sorry for me kind of stuff.  And I did feel sorry for him because of my low self esteem. 

But, strangely, I started believing his schtick. I started believing that he was this poor unappreciated ultra brilliant saviour for all of mankind.  I was totally drinking the Kool Aid.  I was being brainwashed.  Actually, I was being prepared, he was working me into being one of his conquests, his followers.  I never thought it would happen to me.  I never thought of myself as some proverbial naive waif being prepped to join a commune in British Guyana, but I was just as brainwashed as they were.  He was my DR so he must be smarter/more important than I, and this is a very difficult admission for me to make,  I was so.....grateful to be let into his life.

Milking It for Fun and Profit: Shameless Exploitation 101

I am currently in Las Vegas, not exactly America's gilded throne of nuanced thought so I find it perfectly appropriate that my television viewing experiences are reflective of that.

My hotel has about six news TV channels outside of pay-for-porn, pay-for-movies. Fox, Weather Channel, CNN, local Las Vegas news, Headline News, MSNBC. For the last 24 hours it has been constant hurricane coverage whipped to whorish K2-esque heights by the likes of the bloviating Wolf Blitzer, the nearly 100% senile Larry King, pretty yellow slicker clad Anderson Cooper and force fed to us by transparant assholes like John McCain who have decided (for non-political reasons of course) to go to New Orleans and show how "presidential" he is by exploiting a very low level national event and delivering a speech. If it turned out to be a biblical proportion disaster I'm sure it would have been a great idea for relief services to deal with the massive entourage of John McCain, a presidential candidate, while trying to alleviate the suffering of the real people that live there. But it isn't a massive disaster, by any stretch of the imagination, and he still goes there to pander and get photo ops. Heartwarming photo ops will be so worth any trivial inconveniences the people of New Orleans may have to encounter because of his private-planed appearance. I can visualize it perfectly......John, basic starched (but not too starched) white button-down shirt with sleeves perfectly rolled up to emphasize satorial sensitive common man, (with common man shirt pointers from the previous head of FEMA, Michael Brown) handing out Red Cross packages to the misty-eyed, grateful citizens, thereby eliminating the previous images we have of FEMA's massive Katrina screw-fest. It says ..He cares for us, he's one of us. And it will work, middle America will see him as a strong leader who cares, polls will reflect that truth immediately. Except for the inconvenient reality that he and the trophy twenty something billionaire heiress wife that he left his middle aged not billionaire wife for have seven houses that he can remember, and a private plane to whisk their asses out of there pronto when the cameras are gone. He has contempt for you, us.

I need to understand why Anderson Cooper is standing on a wind-blown New Orleans street in his appropriately touseled wet silver hair when the "hurricaine of the century" has been downgraded to a Category 1 eight hours ago. It's practically a thunderstorm at this point. But they won't stop, the show must go on.

Anderson Cooper: "Right now, I'm going to show some pictures of tree branches that have fallen down, and behind me, and few shingles have been pulled from the roof of a church".

Wolf Blitzer (breathless with excitement): "Thank you for that fascinating report Anderson, please be very careful of flying debris, you might get hurt". Ooooh so dangerous, Anderson. Insipid regurgitation, repeated on the quarter hour. It's the news filler equivalent of Denny's $1.99 Grand Slam Breakfast for the masses. You're hungry fifteen minutes later, and slightly nauseous. Will the levees give way? Look! City streets with a few inches of water! See the wind, see the rain on my face! Look at my hair blow! Cut to the same loop of a levee with an incremental amount water sloshing over the top plays ad nauseum. I'd much rather pay for real porn than watch compris pseudo-verbal masturbation.

What I need is a good old fashioned Christian-value laden sex scandal for diversion, after all, I am in a town where you can get DD endowed hookers comfortably delivered to your hotel room in twenty minutes or less, which is proudly hucked on hundreds of billboards and pamphlets everywhere. In contrast to our pseudo news stations I appreciate media accuracy about what "service" is being provided

Sara Palin to the rescue. Now this is topical and worthwhile media. No one has the screaming brass balls to mention one obvious fact. Sara Palin's daughter was happily fornicating away in high school, getting knocked up when she was 17, which, last time I checked, would normally be a big family values problem for the no sex before marriage, abstinance Fascists. But no, no no. Sara's a Christian Right deified HERO for not running out to get her daughter a big scary metal coat hanger and finding a dark alley to abort her fetus. Right wing Christian values are so fabulous in their hypocricy. Mind you if Chelsea Clinton had been forceably abducted, chloroformed, raped and impregnated by giant space aliens, not to mention at the tender age of 17, she would be labeled as ultra slutty white trash and further proof of our liberal moral vacuousness

Just further representative proof of our Liberal moral shortcomings. We are defenseless against their spin. Sadly, we are weak, we will lose, and we will get the government we ultimately deserve.

The Man

So I met a man who was interested in me or so I thought. Surprised the hell out of me, that's for sure. Most people would label me "intense" upon spending any time in my presence, what they really mean is angry, suspicious and negative. My few redeeming qualities? I'm fairly smart, super irreverent and I've built up a decent sized business out of a ridiculously small amount of money....by being a workaholic with unrelenting perserverence. And I'm attractive, I work out a lot to keep myself that way. Good wardrobe too. Enough with my pseudo personals ad.

I liked him even though I knew very little about him personally. He seemed to be interested in some of the same things that I was...notably the environment, how pissed of we both are about our government, our intense dislike for a certain sitting president and his satanic minions. He seemed to have strong values. He had encyclopedic knowledge of music and movies. I do not know much in those areas, but willing to learn. He had a great sense of humor, albeit a little frat-boyish. But I was willing to forgive that, I wasn't sure if it was nerves or bad judgement in humor. Anyway, I was hopeful. I own a company, he is professionally a complete opposite, which I liked. Sometimes you just don't want to be around people who talk about business all day, and that's what I've been around for the last seven years.

Today I counted the e-mails we have sent to each other over the last month. 95. I don't send 95 e-mails to my closest friends in a month. I've never had a date with him. He once sort of weakly said he was going to a movie in my neighborhood and if I would like to attend. I had to say no as I was working and it was the Christmas season, our busiest time. I'm always working. But we've been flirting via-email. So I've been essentially obsessing over a person that I've never had a date with, and probably never will. He never telephones me, and when I suggest that the telephone can be helpful, he always says he will call in the future and never does. I think he probably has a girlfriend, he seems to be away most nights and never divulges any personal details. I think that he is probably away with her skiing this weekend. Don't know for sure, but I suspect. Can't be too jealous, we haven't had a date yet.. But it doesn't feel good. I seriously doubt that she knows that he e-mails me regularly, which makes him essentially a dick. Why do I fall over obviously problemmatic people? So annoying. Maybe I should stay out of the dating world.

It's simply too flaky out there. I blame My Space and other social networking sites. Seriously. Too many men have too many options, and many women these days don't ask for respect. They seem to have an implicit knowledge that the boy will probably stand her up or flake out in some way. He has lots of other options. My female employees are perfect examples. They are young, attractive, articulate and they find their men through My Space. I have never seen a group of women that are stood up on dates so much or are treated badly if they refuse to sleep with the man right away. They tell me stories, they ask my advise. Sometimes hooking up can have consequences, namely that men can get the sex, and go on really, really easily in the world of web socializing. It shouldn't be that easy. Not that women don't play the field too, but most times they don't want a one nighter. And they don't like being lied to, no one does, but that's the game out there right now.


So today I disabled the e-mail address that he was using to contact me. No explanation, nothing. Just disabled it. It's just been going on too long with no apparant benefit. If nothing else, I will show self-respect. Even if it takes me 95 e-mails and a month of wasted time and energy to demand it.

Now that's sad

Bitter and Twisted

Sometimes I horrify myself. I am very, very angry and it’s not well concealed. I try to not express the overwhelming anger, frustration and derision I feel towards, well, essentially the entire human race or at least 99.5% of the people that have regular or even visceral contact with me. It doesn't work, people around me say that every emotion I am having, most notably revulsion towards people I consider to be idiots, is belied by my facial expressions. It's a curse, I cannot hide anything.

There are a few exceptions to my intolerance. I have some great friends consisting mostly of women who have known me for 10 - 20 years and ex-boyfriends who have moved into the position of close personal friends. I think they tire of my constant ranting, I understand, they have to hear my swear word laden diatribes 24/7. Writing this seems to help a little, it takes the pressure off of them to prevent me from
a. Having a heart attack at a young age.
b. Bludgeoning the guy at the UHO table in front of Barnes and Noble on Union Square. The last thing I need in my life is a guilt trip by a probable crackhead who only recently decided to put himself in a wheelchair and get a dog to con money out of unsuspecting tourists. “Help feed the homeless” my ass. More like “help feed my crack habit”
But I digress….

It wasn’t always like this. Starting this business has not been good for me. Working 70 hours a week for 10 years has not been good for me, physically and mentally. As the business gets bigger I have less of a life, I thought it would improve. It actually didn't seem possible that I could have less of a life, but here I am working from 6 a.m. until 8 or 9 at night Monday through Saturday and 6 hours on Sunday. And thinking about ways that I could work more because I am so overwhelmed. This past week I actually considered taking a shower every other day as a time saving measure. I used to have interests beyond worrying if I can pay my employees this month and whether or not I was a complete hardass to my accountant because he lost my tax returns.

I used to be vain. I liked being vain and I was really good at it. I liked worrying about whether or not my hairdresser was putting in the right shade of blonde highlights or if Ballet Slipper was a good pinkish/nude color for my nails. I used to read books. I used to take tremendous pleasure in watching four hour back-to-back COPS marathons on TV just so I could recite to my friends detailled stories about the half-naked drunken arrestees getting handcuffed on their mobile home front lawns. Nothing like being entertained by the personal tragedies of others.

Now I look forward to a glass of wine and an Ambien to put me to sleep.


I don’t assume that anyone is going to read this blog religiously or beg me to post more often because I provide terrific entertainment. I don't. My brand of humor is overwhelmingly negative, my overall writing style is pretty depressive which is a perfect reflection of my personality of late. Writing well is simply not a skill that I possess and that’s okay. I know my writing is stiff, formulaic in a corporate correspondence kind of way, sarchastic and sometimes pedantic. Thankfully I have other things that I do well. This is just something to do in the rare moments that I am not working or thinking about working or thinking about what I could be doing if I were working…..you get the idea.

Model Wannabe

We just finished a grueling photo shoot. I let the photographer pick the models. The last time we did a shoot he was despondent over my model choices. He hated them. Passionately. He almost walked out on the last shoot, but I thought the models were good. So I figured he would have absolutely no excuses for mediocre images if he chose the models this time. Photographers love to blame the models when the images are mediocre. Sometimes it’s true, but often the photographer just screwed up and isn’t taking responsibility. Images of Linda Evangelista in LaPerla lingerie and Christian Louboutin shoes could look like a Cherry Budweiser Sponsored Amateur Modeling Night in the Deliverance Trailer Park if she wasn’t lit properly and the camera angles are wrong.

We've done photo shoots for five years, there are rarely problems except for the occasional no-show. Modeling is not an easy job, I acknowledge that. Most models usually work hard without acting like prima donnas. I've had a few models with significant hangover issues, but they usually rise above it with the help of strong coffee, Vitamin Water and lots of cigarettes. This shoot was different.

Photographers if given free reign, almost always choose the most expensive models they can get away with. This time they were $3,000 per day, per model, two models. We are a small company and this is a lot of money for us. The whole one day shoot cost about $15,000 total, not the kind of budget Dolce & Gabbana would have, but a lot of money for us. Our expectations are always high as it means so much to us to get it right.

Models arrived. Hungover. Puffy. Dark circles that implied a not-so-distant ancestral mating with a family of raccoons. I should have been smart enough to not schedule a shoot that day. It was the morning after a major American drinking holiday. I should have sent at least one home, but was hopeful that the combined skills of heavy makeup/Photoshop-clone/blur tools would render their obvious physical discomfort less visible to the human eye. Sometimes the heavy-lidded look can be interpreted as “sexy”, as opposed to the reality “I’ve had about 30 minutes of sleep after drinking a bottle of Ketel One, and I wish you would get that fucking flash out of my eyes”.

I suspect one of them was high.
a. She smelled like pot
b. She ate two Danish, 1 croissant, 1 fruit cup with granola and yogurt and a breakfast sandwich consisting of scrambled eggs, ham and cheese within ½ hour of arrival
c. She was asking about lunch at 9:00 in the morning after consuming the above.
d. She found my question “Hello Jane, how are you today?” very, very funny.
e. The make up artist said she was stoned and it was hard to apply make up that made her look "awake".

I don't care if you smoke Nicaraguan Sandinista Guerilla Gold by the kilo. Enjoy yourself, inhale deeply. I do give a damn if you do a wake and bake before a photo shoot where I am paying $3,600 a day for you. Jesus Christ... Is this so hard to understand?

Here’s a sampling of the day’s dialogue. When reading the Model part, be sure to use a very slightly feminine but thick Kissinger-esque accent.

Model: "Don’t put that on me, it has vool in it."

Me: "Are you allergic to wool?"

Model: "No, but vool is itchy. I don’t like vool. I DON'T VEAR VOOL." (throws garment to floor)

This puts us in a bad position as 50% of the garments that we needed photographed have wool in them. We try to coax her to put them on, but she won't do it.

Me thinking: How is it possible that you are a fashion model if you won't let wool touch your body? Do you only allow certified organic cotton vegetable dyed fibers to touch your pristine ivory skin? That must really limit your employment prospects in the industry.

You are essentially a highly paid clothes hanger, it is your job to display clothes beautifully. Put the fucking wool sweater on for 10 minutes, your agency is getting paid $3,000 a day +commission for you. I wouldn’t hire a diva like you to lick postage stamps in the real world. Based on what I've seen today, your only employable quality is what some would term freakish genetics. 100 years ago you would have been put in a travelling carnival, given the title Skeleton Girl and shared a booth with Midget Man and Gecko Boy.

Me seething: "Oh, maybe we can have the stylist find something to put under the outfits so you don’t itch."

---------------------------------------------

Model: "How many more shots today?"

Me: "Well it's only 2:30 in the afternoon and you are scheduled here until 5:00 so I don't know. Even if we finish with the garments we may go back and re-shoot some things that we are not happy with"

Model: "I have another audition to go to."

Me: "You won't be here past 5:00"

Model: "My audition is at 4:30, I NEED to leave at 4:00"

Me: "So call your agency, you won't make it on time. I am sorry"

Model, voice rising: "But it is for a huge imporant account!"

Me: "Okay, but maybe your agency should have thought about that when they booked you with us today. I'm not closing the whole shoot down one hour early so you can leave for another appointment."

Model swearing under her breath: "undistinguishable word, undistinguisable word...fucking job"

Me thinking: You must have attended a prestigious charm school in Slovakia

------------------------------------------------

Me: "Okay, so for a few of the shots the hair person is going to put a wig on you."

Model: "I hate fucking vigs"

Me: "Yeah, I know, wigs are hot and not very comfortable, but we want to change your look a little"

Model: "Vigs hurt, I hate fucking Vigs. My hair won’t fit under a fucking vig!"

Me thinking: Hasn’t your “tourist visa” expired?

Me: "Well it’s the last shot of the day so you won’t have it on for long, we’ll try to keep it short."

Model (almost hysterical): "But it vill vreck my hair and I have an audition for a dandruff commercial this evening. My hair has to be long and lustrous! (tosses wig on floor)."

Me losing my temper: "I don't particularly care what your evening job demands are, at this moment in time you have been hired to work for us. Please let them put the wig on you."

Me thinking: I hate you more than you will ever know.

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James Joyce, Rock Star

Yesterday one of my employees, a fairly recent Cornell graduate with honors, asked me who James Joyce was. She thought he was a rock musician in England. At least she was close with the country. We were talking about Bloomsday. She thought it was a rock festival. She was serious. She never heard of him before yesterday.


Last night at dinner in a neighborhood restaurant a girl at the table next to me was trying to impress her date. It was her life long dream to go to John Hopkins and that she was going to apply. She repeated it loudly a few times so I was sure that I was hearing it correctly. I personally think your dreams should include knowing the proper name of the institution that you are longing for. I wonder what her date thought. I wonder if he even knew.

I have a constant ringing in my ears and my head may explode soon.

BrYanZ Grrrl

I realize that making snap judgments about potential employees based on their e-mail addresses may not be particularly fair, and I don’t give a flying damn what their personal address is, but how much common sense do you need to realize that sending out applications for an office position should be done in a more professional manner? Really, how hard is it to get a hotmail or gmail account using something boring, like possibly your real name?


More fine applicants today. Again I have changed the actual addresses significantly from what I actually received, but believe me, the overall tone and grammatical structure is very similar.

IGotWhatUWantBaby4404 @ xxxxxxx.com
I certainly am not against people that have a high opinion of themselves, but please…. My assumption is that “whatuwant” is her appearance and/or possibly a set of skills that I would prefer to not think about first thing in the morning. I doubt that it has anything to do with reading Dostoyevsky in original Russian by candlelight.

BrYanZBabyGirl_92030 @ xxxxxx.com
Good for BrYanZ or Bryan’s or Bryan. Or whomever she is baby girl to. What’s the deal with Baby? Baby seems to be an overriding theme lately. I hate it when women refer to themselves as Baby. In songs its okay, otherwise it’s obviously pretty demeaning, and goes against everything women have been fighting for in the last say 100 years.

Perhaps you should prepare for the future, a future you probably can't imagine right now. A future that may/may not include BrYanZ. Maybe you should register SomebodyZBabyGrrrrl for that special period when you are no longer BrYanZ baby but you haven’t found another guy to put at the beginning of your e-mail address. Never put your name in your own e-mail address. Use your boyfriends name, representing to the world your entire reason for existence.