i've been freaking out all day because i have a therapy appt this afternoon. i have an irrational fear of therapists...i know it's good and i know i'll feel so much better yadda yadda yadda but that's little comfort to me NOW, when i'm pacing the apartment and sobbing uncontrollably and then getting pissed off because my eyes are going to be swollen and i'll look like the basketcase that deep down, i'm sure i am. fuck. well, whatever. it reminds me of a story i once wrote about a guy who had an irrational fear of choking. he panicked everytime there was a morsel of any substance in his mouth, convincing himself that he would be unable to successfully swallow it. for years he had existed on soup broth, ice cream, apple sauce and energy shakes. his teeth were rotting from lack of use. he couldn't take a girl out for a steak...finally, after years of actual liquid lunches, his doctor called him up and said, good news, we found a cure! so the guy rushes to the doctor's office and is like, OK, what is it, what do i have to do to get rid of this horrible disorder? and the doctor smiles and opens a jar and hands him a little white pill.

"Just swallow this, and by the time it hits your stomach you will be cured forever."

ha--funny, right? well, I never finished the story, having realized that although the metaphor was kind of cool, the premise wasn't all that believable. They would have had that shit available as an injection, or a nose spray...rectal paste, whatever...

well, wish me luck--off i go to offer a helpless dr my thousand yard stare. "mental health". hrmmm. a concept with as much truth and plausability as that other old fave, "western civilization."