Fly me to the moon. In other words, Lisa Nowak is pissing me off.

I’m not very good at hiding my feelings. I think that’s directly related to the fact that I never try to hide my feelings. They are always right there on my sleeve by my watch so I remember where I left them.

This morning my big unhidden feeling is how upset I am over this whole Lisa Nowak drama. I am fit to be tied and since I don’t even know for sure what that means, that should indicate to you my high level of anger.

You’ll remember Lisa as the diaper wearing NASA astronaut who took a trip across country to allegedly kidnap and murder the chick who was keeping her from a man she desired.

This week her attorney was quoted in all major media as saying, “Listen kids, Lisa was freaking nuts when she did that. I mean seriously. I’m saying she was depressed, she hadn’t slept, she’d lost a lot of weight and she had that whole obsessive-compulsive disorder thing happening. Everybody knows those OCD people are totally freaky.”

Now my personal brand of crazy is not only all over my face, but all over the news as well.

Because of Lisa’s deep desire to stay out of prison and her counsel’s deep desire to be on Nancy Grace, the only thing most of the public will ever know about OCD is that it has something to do with wearing Depends and stalking people.

Of course, that’s only a small part of it.

Having obsessive-compulsive disorder is not exactly a barrel full of monkeys. I don’t enjoy having something everybody thinks they understand but almost no one does. Given the choice, I think maybe I’d have picked a malady that is both plain to see and incredibly easy to understand.

Perhaps a big wart right on the end of my nose.

No one would think I could stop having a wart just by telling myself I don’t have a wart and I would be surprised if anyone felt the need to tell me they once had a pimple, so they too know the pain and humiliation of having a big nose wart. That's exactly how it goes with OCD. Everyone who gets close enough to you to see it wants you to just stop it and everybody who's ever avoided a crack so as not to break their Momma's back has it.

With regard to my mental wart, I was pretty much born knowing something wasn’t exactly right with me. From the time I could think thoughts, a small voice repeatedly reminded me that I wasn’t like everyone else.

It was my little brother.

Years and various and assorted torturous acts against my brother later, the white-coats concurred and gave my crazy a name. It was a relief to finally know, but misery on a stick to live with and to find people who would love me while I live with it.

Everybody loves an obsessive-compulsive when the house is dirty, but nobody wants to live with one.

So Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, if I, a regular chick from the South who almost never tried to gain entry into the Space Program, was diagnosed by small city doctors who could barely spell MMPI, how is it possible then that Lisa’s OCD wasn’t found out until last Thursday? Am I to believe that NASA…we’re talking freaking NASA here …had no idea they had an obsessive-compulsive in their midst?

Surely someone noticed she was flipping the lights in the space ship on and off twenty-one times every time someone said the word Tang.

While it’s absolutely 100% true that most of us with OCD are fantastic “hiders” and quite adept at making sure we wipe the crazy off our faces before we go out in public, it’s ludicrous to expect twelve jurors of even the most limited intelligence to believe that the months and years of tests and checks and training did not uncover a mental illness severe enough to cause one of their own to think Huggies are strong enough for a baby, but made for a woman.

And in that vein, here’s one more tidbit provided as proof positive that Lisa Nowak is more criminal than crazy. Anyone who has known an obsessive-compulsive person for at least two minutes knows there is not a chance in hell we’re going to sit in our own poopie for even one millisecond.

I can’t even sit in my own bathtub!


~*~*~*~*~*~*~


Copyright © 2004-2007, Sherri Bailey
This blog may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.

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Better git yer shovel, Claude.

Sher to visiting Southern Daddy - - -“I remember when I was a teenager we girls once came home to find the contents of our messy bathroom drawers dumped out on the kitchen counter with a note that read ‘You are acting like pigs so you need a trough’.”

Daddy to Sher - - - “That did not happen.”

Daddy to Sher’s son - - - “Your Mother gets a little carried away.”

Sher to Step-Mother - - - “You know what I’m talking about. Tell him he did so do that.”

Step-Mother to Sher - - - “Yes, he did.”

Daddy to Step-Mother - - - “You’re getting carried away.”

Step-Mother to everyone for no good reason - - - “One time when I was a young girl, one of the neighbor men came running to the front yard where my Daddy was working. He said, “Better git yer shovel, Claude! Somebody’s done fell out of an airplane!”

Sher to Step-Mother - - - “Somebody fell out of an actual air plane?”

Step-Mother - - - “Yes sir. He thought he was going to the bathroom and opened the wrong door. He fell right in the church graveyard.”

Sher to Step-Mother - - - “You Madam, are telling an untruth.”

Daddy to Sher in defense of his wife, who by his own confession, gets carried away - - -
“Oh yes he did. I remember hearing tell of it.”

Step-Mother to family who had just eaten a glazed ham supper - - - “He sure did. Daddy said they was shoveling intestines for hours.”

Sher to toilet - - - “Ralph.”

Sher to Step-Mother - - - “You expect me to believe that some guy not only falls right out of an airplane while attempting to pee, but does so over the church graveyard? You further expect me to believe that in response to a guy splattering all over the place, your Father simply grabbed his shovel and at the request of a neighboring farmer, went to scooping up bits of guy?”

Step-Mother to Sher - - - “It’s the truth.”

Sher laughing hysterically, to all present - - - “I cannot wait to write about this. No one will ever believe we actually had this conversation at the dinner table.”

Daddy to Sher - - - “Don’t get too carried away.”




Copyright © 2004-2007, Sherri Bailey
This blog may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.

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The Baptists are coming! The Baptists are coming!

As I sit here this morning, slamming coffee as fast as I can swallow and googling "how to fake your own death", I am reasonably certain I am heading for a complete melt down. I can feel the crazy so close, I keep turing around to check for a guy with wild hair and a hat made out of aluminum sneaking up on me.

When I get like this it's never one thing that got me here. It's always more like a big bunch of little upsets during which I stuffed the OCD bubble down instead of letting it fly. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a lot like a shaken pop bottle. If you release it slowly and carefully, nobody gets covered in sticky.

Let's just say that I'm in such a state, it is highly likely anyone who stands near me today is going to need a roll of paper towels.

Why? Why am I a lovely bunch of coconuts this morning?

My Father is on his way. Even as I typed that, I burped OCD a little. Now I feel like I can't use the "g" on my key board any more or somethin- bad will happen. That's just -reat.

I have cleaned everythin- in my house in preparation for his inspection... I mean visit. I have also spent a stupid amount of money on thin-s that I am hopeful will make me appear to have it all to-ether and not at all crazy.

There are new pots and pans so that he'll never know I've been usin- the same ones for several husbands now.

New pillows, new bathroom stuff, new back yard thin-s.

I even have a new water filter because I worried the stuff that currently comes out of the faucet is not clean enou-h for the man who raised me.

Another bubble. Damn. Now I have to -o wash my hands. Han- on. I'll be back.

OK. I washed the crazy off. Back to my Father's visit.

Crap. Did you know the word Father has that certain number of letters that I don't like? You know...the one between five and seven? That's bad. I can -et throu-h this thou-h. I'll just say Daddy instead.

Daddy. Look at all the d's in that word. That's three d's in one word. I'm not a fan of three either, but I can tolerate it so lon- as I don't allow myself to mentally multiply it.

Too late. Multiplication has taken place.

It isn't that Pop is a bad -uy. On the contrary. He has a -reat respect for women who keep a clean house, know how to make li-ht and fluffy biscuits and who don't -et married every time the wind blows. He especially likes people who aren't crazy because as far as he and the rest of my family are concerned, crazy people are like knuckle-poppers. If we'd all do somethin- else with our hands, we'd be fine.

Idle hands are the devil's workshop.

Pop. One, two, three. Devil's. One, two, three, four, five, number I hate. Lovely.

So you see, the -uy who is -oin- to show up here early tomorrow mornin- is not just some man. He is the Bi- -uy. He holds the keys to the bolted door to the room where my self esteem lives a quiet little life, hidin- underneath the table.

I'm sorry to cut you off so abruptly kids, but it's time to -o to work and I have yet to boil my Yorkies in peroxide.

Don't freak out. I'm really just -ivin- them a bath, but the words "boil" and "peroxide" make me happy.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The definition of love.



Copyright © 2004-2007, Sherri Bailey
This blog may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.

Tell me you love me at: HumorWriter@gmail.com

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Sher, Sherri, Sherita, Shurry, Cheryl, Sharon, Sadie Mae

Dear Sher,

Is your real name Sherry or Sher?

Dear Person who went there (and misspelled my name),

My birth certificate says I was born Sherri Lynn. Apparently my Mother was a member of the "Name Your Daughter Sherri Lynn" club because at that time every third girl in America was also named Sherri Lynn. I hated the name always because I never felt like a Sherri Lynn. I knew I was a Sadie or a Collette trapped in a Sherri body.

My Mother always called me Sher Bear, which stuck with lots of people over the years. Given a choice, I liked Sher better than Sherri for no good reason really. People don't mispronounce Sher, but as you can see by the title of this post, they frequently mispronounce Sherri and in some of the most bizarre ways. There you have it then. Mystery solved.

Dear Sher,

I happened to stumble in to your site.I am from India. Let me just say your work is the most hilarious I have read in recent times. You truly have a flair for comedy.
Write away Ma'am. I am your fan :).

Dear Sexually ambiguous writer from India,

As you didn't sign your name, I have no idea whether you are male or female. That's a problem for me because as you may or may not know, when a man says something like you just said I am immediately in crazy love with them and have an overwhelming desire to marry them, produce offspring and then later leave them because they blew their nose too loud.

Dear Sher,

"Unconscious" is a delightfully refreshing indie film that we feel you and your blog audience will be very interested in hearing about. The film questions sexual taboos in Barcelona in the early 20th century, yet resonates with a modern sensibility. Hypnosis, love, danger and every imaginable taboo are intertwined.

Since we feel this movie is of interest to your particular audience, we’d love it if you could post the trailer to your site and/or talk a bit about the movie.

Dear Person who had me at "sexual taboos",

I am so delightfully refreshed right now, I can't even tell you. I have always personally questioned sexual taboos in Barcelona in the early 20th century and longed for a flick that would address my questions with a modern sensibility. Let's see what my readers think about it, shall we?

Oh wait a minute! You sent me a link and yet told me not to put the link on my blog. While I do practice mind control techniques at home, I'm not sure whether my powers are solid enough yet to direct my readers to do what I want, but I'll try.

This is me trying. Even though you can't see me, rest assured I am making a scrunched up face and wiggling my eyebrows in hopes that my readers will get the URL I am sending them.

One more thing - Are hypnosis, love, danger and every imaginable taboo French words for porn?

Sher, hon',

I absolutely LOVE your new picture! And you look good in it, too. ;-

Dear anonymous person whose real name is Jami,

Thank you, Darlin.

Dear Sher,

I just wanted to tell you that we went to the kickoff of Michael Buble's tour in Reno two weeks ago. It was great. I hope you get a chance to catch it. Keep up the good work.

Dear hateful, hateful person,

I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

I hate you. I...hate...you.

Signed,
Incredibly Jealous in Seattle

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This, Gentle Readers, is the ONLY time my first name has ever been cool. Imagine my insane joy when this one came out.





Copyright © 2004-2007, Sherri Bailey
This blog may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.

Tell me you love me at: HumorWriter@gmail.com

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Take me there.

I love knowing about people. I love knowing about their secrets, their daily lives, and anything in between. Even the absolutely mundane is interesting to me.

I often wonder if anyone else's life is like mine and if it is, exactly how so? How different are we really?

Am I the only one who wakes up mad every morning because I didn't set the automatic timer on my coffee pot the night before? While I posses the Wal-Mart technology necessary to have piping hot java waiting for me when my eyes fly open, I choose to just get pissed off at the start of every day instead. Gets the blood pumping.

I eat a handful of shredded wheat for breakfast pretty much every day, but never with milk. I find the addition of milk to my favorite morning treat creates a substance not unlike chunky mucus.

You're welcome for the image of chunky mucus that will now stick in your head like... well, chunky mucus.

Some days I go to work in an office with a desk and a computer and silly desk toys that people who visit me like to play with while we all pretend to be grown ups and say things like "contractual" and "market analysis" and "peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers".

I say some days because I actually do several different jobs and depending on which I am doing, I may or may not wear heels and high hair. Sometimes I wear shorts and a t-shirt and work from the comfort of my own home.

Or someone else's home if they happen to be on vacation and were foolish enough to leave the key under the mat.

Unlike much of America, I actually really like my boss. She is my second husband's wife. She's very funny, very blonde and very smart. I submit the fact that she hired me as evidence of her smartness. Most people who find out I let my ex-wife-in-law boss me around typically repeat the same question again and again for a solid fifteen minutes.

"Now let me get this straight. You were once married to her husband and yet you work for her, right?"

When I'm not working for people who should legally hate me, I frequently play board games while simultaneously listening to my thirteen year old tell me that I couldn't win a game of Blokus if my life depended on it. I don't know where he gets his competitive spirit. Maybe I shouldn't have threatened to give him up for adoption when he was eight if he didn't hand over Boardwalk.

Mr. Man and I like to sit outside around our fire pit thingie on nice Friday & Saturday evenings and listen to blues and/or jazz on NPR. Even though I occasionally lull myself to sleep at night imagining how many male prostitutes I could buy with the spousal support I would certainly blackmail out of my husband, I realize that when you find another person who likes the same nerdy things you do it's often best to stay put.

On a really good mundane day, I get a call, email or text from a friend. More often than not it's the Evil Red-Headed Berta Lou reminding me that I'm her rock solid alibi for yet another of her "victimless" crimes. Sometimes she asks me to drop what I'm doing and calculate the amount of lye needed to dispose of a rat in a shallow grave just across the state line.

If I had a nickel for every time I've had to bleach the carpet in my trunk after one of her rat burials, I'd have enough to bribe someone to be my new best friend.

Today Deputy Pretty called as did my friend LT Poet and since I love them both awful, it made my afternoon. While neither of them asked for money or sexual favors, I think the fact that they called within minutes of each other indicates a plot of some sort. Perhaps my two best badge-wearers are finally onto the Evil BL and are trying to get me to turn state's evidence.

(Listen boys, I'd sell her down the road in a minute if I were interrogated correctly. And by correctly, I mean by a firefighter with no shirt and big, manly suspenders.)

At bedtime, I put on Mr. Man's boxers and watch Scrubs until I can fight sleep no more. I hate the idea of being unconscious for hours because my OCD factory second brain has me convinced someone will come in and kill me dead.

(PS: If I do wake up dead one morning please let it be noted that I do not routinely sleep in lye. I believe you know where I'm going with that.)

So that's my typical day. Mundane, boring, not exciting in anyway. Now it's your turn to tell me all about your mundane day. Take me there.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Listen to "Take Me There" by Rascal Flatts. There is no way a guy wrote this song. This is what every chick wants to hear...therefore impossible for a man to comprehend.


Copyright © 2004-2007, Sherri Bailey
This blog may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.

Tell me you love me at: HumorWriter@gmail.com

Tell me you hate me at: Yeah. I'm so sure I'm going to make that easy for you.

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