Long live the anxious!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Daily Mail, for validating 27 years of anxiety-riddled freak outs, crazy spells, panic attacks, and crying jags. Apparently all the worrying I thought for sure would kill me before 40, might, just might, make me live longer. The hyper-vigilant state I call my life -- where at any second I expect a gun-wielding stranger to attack me or a metro train to jump the tracks -- might actually be keeping me alive. (Though that doesn't explain the stress ulcer currently residing on my gums.)

And the idea that being awkward and antisocial might also make me live longer? I'd be dancing for joy in the streets were I not so awkward and antisocial. (And also a truly terrible dancer.)

Now, for a few article highlights.

"A new study by Israeli scientists has discovered that those who avoid close relationships and are more anxious are better at sensing danger than those who are more secure."
Can I print this on a business card and distribute on dates? "I avoid close relationships in order to better sense danger. So, really, it's not you, it's me. As in, it's me trying to prevent a shark from devouring you."

 "Between 50 and 60 per cent of us are secure; avoidant and anxious types make up the remaining portion of the population in equal parts."
Wait. A. Minute. There is no way in hell 50 to 60 percent of the population is "secure." No. Way. In. Hell.

"Scientists believe that being anxious and avoidant actually boosts levels of self-dependence.

'Someone who is avoidant, with respect to attachment, is likely to value his or her self-sufficiency more than others. They are uncomfortable depending on others, opening up to them, or having others depend on them,' R. Chris Fraley, an associate psychology professor at the University of Illinois, told the site."
Anxious and avoidant=independence. That's really all I needed to know.

"'Someone who is anxious is generally less confident than others that their loved ones will be responsive and available during times of duress.'"
No funny joke because it's true that this is an actual anxious thought I've had and it's just really sad. However, considering how many of my loved ones are also emotional basketcases, I'm actually more confidence after this article that they have my back.

"The new data goes against the grain in terms of choosing social groups, Fraley told the site: 'If I were in a position to choose my friends from scratch, I would probably choose people who are relatively secure and well-adjusted.'"
Disagree. I like my friends to be just as much, if not more, fucked up than I am. No one likes normal, well-adjusted friends. Unless you are normal and well adjusted and, in that case, you're probably boring.

"Rather, the study...shows that, far from being an awkward addition to a social group and despite their insecurity, 'highly anxious and avoidant people have the potential to contribute to group dynamics in beneficial ways -- especially with respect to detecting and reacting to threats that put everyone in the group at risk,' Fraley said."
Do you hear that, friends? For every rambling, irrationally anxious email I send, that's one less dangerous situation you have to fear because I'm on it.

Have to run and get to bed so I can have anxiety dreams or, as I'm now calling them, life-lengthening rehearsals.

Oh, sweet, sweet justice

I read this article in the New York Times over the weekend: Unlearning to Tawk Like a New Yorker. To begin:


"Andrew Ramos always believed it made him more charming, an endearing characteristic integral to his identity. But, finally, after too many people mocked him, he began seeing a therapist. ...'I was diagnosed with a New York accent,' Mr. Ramos said."

That's right. A segment of the Yankee population are undergoing therapy to cleanse themselves of their dialect.

Had I not been in public when I read this article, a happy dance would have shot out from my toes and fingers in an entirely un-coordinated and frenetic way. (Note: My happy dance is actually no different from any other "dance" I do. There is not an ounce of rhythm in these bones.)


"Those who seek professional help to conquer their accents make similar complaints, like,  ‘People don’t understand what I’m saying,’  said Sam Chwat, who is considered the dean of speech therapists. ‘I’m stigmatized by the way I speak.’ ‘I’m tired of people imitating or ridiculing the way I speak, or saying I sound cute.’ ‘My accent seems to imply negative characteristics.’ ”

Years and years of the Southern accent being ridiculed, mocked, and judged. Years and years of that sing-songy twang called ignorant or un-educated.


"A New York accent makes you sound ignorant,” said Lynn Singer, a speech therapist who works with Miss LoGiudice. “People listen to the accent, but not to what you’re saying.”

I read an article years ago in the Raleigh paper on Southerners being urged to take classes to erase their accents for similar reasons. Oh, sweet justice, thou art seriously sweet.

Though I rarely hear my supposed accent, I still feel a kinship with my Southern-kind and recoil at the derision they receive for their "ya'lls", "aint's," and "fixin's." I've always found a New York or Boston accent to be far more harsh and significantly more worthy of mocking. So I'm kind of happy they are learning how to "tawk" correctly.

However, we are a huge country full of a plethora of ethnicities, personalities, and yes, accents. Can't we all just get along? Or at the very least just to agree to adopt the Southern accent? I'll take a drawl dripping in biscuit butter over an ear-piercing squawk any day of the week.

On the edge

Confession: I write in my books.

I can't help it. I just love words and sentences and the well-written occurrences of each that demand recognition.

But I'm not the only one. I recently came across this New Yorker article from the summer on the margin notes of various famous authors, called marginalia.

"Anne Garner's specialty is marginalia, and she had place-marked some of her favorites... In the soft lamplight, the open pages of the books she had chosen glowed like a physical and visible representation of the sublime."

Twain, Nabokov, Plath, Hughes, Kerouac. All utilized their. margins.

As a marginalia scribbler, Mark Twain was perhaps the most entertaining and voluminous of all, with comments that bloomed from space breaks and chapter headings and end pages, sometimes turning corners and continuing upside down.

Though, now thinking about it, I'm actually more of an underliner, starrer, and exclamation-point-marker than note writer. At least since leaving college. (With the exception of some political books where I have written "grrr" or "NO!" beside stances or incidents that anger me.)

 I can't decided if it would be supremely flattering to be so famous of an author that someone is interested in my loopy margin thoughts. Or supremely terrifying that fifty years from now someone could be trying to interpret "YES! or !!!! or :-)" in my margins. Maybe I need to be a bit more purposeful with my notes in the future.

New Yorker article: Marginalia
Photos: mine

This is why no one likes you, Georgetown.

Oh, wow.

Georgetown student advertises for personal assistant

"[He] posted an ad for someone to tackle 'some of my everyday tasks,' such as organizing his closet, dropping him off and picking him up from work, scheduling haircuts, putting gas in the car and taking it in for service, managing his electronic accounts and doing laundry (although the assistant will be paid only for the time spent loading, unloading and folding clothes, not the entire laundry cycle)."

The really sad thing is, if he'd let me work in the evenings and weekends, I'd do it for the extra spending money for the holidays.

Just kidding. I don't even fold my own laundry. (I pile it on the desk chair -- it's like a treasure hunt every time I need a sock.)