Because a little bit of press is coming my way, I'm trying to manage my online presence to be sure I am Sherri Bailey everywhere I need to be. Not OCD Chick. Not Sher Bailey. Not Navin R. Johnson. When and if anyone searches for Sherri Bailey, I need them to find me.
So I was asking myself today what it is exactly I want people to know about Sherri Bailey? That's kind of a big question actually because it assumes that I myself know something about Sherri Bailey. I'm not at all sure that I really do.
Have you ever asked yourself that question? Not about Sherri Bailey, mind you, but about yourself? When I stopped and gave sincere thought to who Sherri Bailey is, I realized three very important things:
My parents had no creativity whatsoever. It's my firm belief they realized every 3rd house in my small town had a child named Sherri, and felt it would be best not to buck the system.
Because I have OCD, I HATE the number that falls between 5 & 7 so much so that I try never to use it. How is it I only just realized today that Sherri has that number of letters and so does Bailey? I feel I should douse myself in holy water, but I was raised a Southern Baptist and the closest thing we have would be what comes out of the faucet at Uptown Baptist Church.
I suck at sincere thought.
Tell you what. When I figure out who the heck Sherri Bailey is, I'll be sure and let you know. Until then, as you were. (Unless you were doing something germy in which case, you should go wash your hands.)
Contact Sherri Bailey: humorwriter at gmail dotcom.
I'm writing words today instead of video taping words because the only way to describe how I look right now is 'putrid'. I've been sick for several days and while I'm taking a turn toward health, I still look and sound as though I couldn't even get hired as a meth whore.
In today's economy, meth whoring is even more a cut throat business than usual. There are standards.
Allow me to catch you up on what's new and important in my life. I'm working on an exciting, albeit somewhat stealthy, project with a couple people I'll call Rick & Sandi. Actually, I'll call one of them Rick Griffin and one of them Sandra McKenna. Those are totally made up names so don't bother trying to Google them. I'm in stealth mode and what not.
So Rick, Sandi and myself are meeting up in Tampa the weekend of the 17th to slap some brilliance on film. I know what you're thinking and no - it's not porn. That whole "OCD Chick Does Tampa" deal fell through. Something about me being in my forties. Stupid ageism among pornographers.
I'd love to tell you every single detail of what's up, but Rick threatened to beat me up. I know for sure he can't take me, but in my current diminished capacity, he might at least be able to put a hurtin' on me. I fear him at least enough not to spill the beans, but not quite enough to completely behave myself.
Besides, what fun is a Sher who does the right thing and makes good choices?
Therefore, hither to, and aforementioned - I will read your mind and respond to your questioning thoughts by giving you hints.
Does it have something to do with the possibility of TV?
It does in fact. Hopefully not the same channel that shows people shooting and tying up deer. Not that I'm judging or anything. What people do in camo in the privacy of their own bedroom is totally their choice.
Is Jon Gosselin in any way involved?
No. Not unless I somehow forget to clean off the remote in the hotel room with my Clorox Wipes and he was in the room before me. If that happens then the title of the show will likely be, "Jon & Sher Plus an Ass Load of Babies That She Swears She Conceived Just By Watching Channel 27."
Will you incorporate your love of getting married somehow?
Yes. Just as in my real life I try to incorporate that into everything I do, so goes this project. I will chase men, catch men, hog tie men, marry men, and divorce men. I have been very clear with Rick & Sandi that I'm not giving up my hobbies for the sake of work.
I am the owner of a large multinational corporation and I have giant vats of money lying around that I'd like to give you just for some awesome product placement in your super secret venture. How might I do such a thing?
Awesome question. The awesomest of them all actually. You'll contact me and I will put you in contact with Sandi. She is the go to girl for the thongs of people who want to throw money at us. Did I say thongs? I meant thongs. I will wear your company T-shirt, drink your Kool-Aid, ride in your car, wear your branded tap shoes and sing the praises of your fire baton fuel. Truly. The only thing I won't do is sleep with you for money, cause that would make me a prostitute. I have my morals.
But, on the other hand, if you're offering free travel miles, send me a proposal. I said I have morals - not that I'm a friggin' saint.
Here is a list of things I will give up as a sacrifice if you will please fix the broken man in my house and not let us slip into poverty in the meantime.
I promise to stop having business meetings at The Cox Motel. Ummmmm. Allow me to amend that promise just a tad. I, the OCD Chick, do solemnly promise to stop calling them business meetings. I promise to stop putting on make-up while I'm driving. Wait a minute. That's crazy talk. My not wearing lip gloss in Wal-Mart would cause some sort of public panic or full on newsworthy event as my lips are utterly gloss-less. How about I promise not to curl my hair while driving? I promise to stop hugging up on random men. I'm sorry. That's a lie. How 'bout we agree that I'll stop hugging and/or humping more than ten men a day. Fifteen men a day is plenty. Physically accosting twenty-five men a day for no good reason is more than enough for any decent woman. I promise to stop drinking. Guess what? That's a lie and I'm sorry. If I quit drinking, what would I do for breakfast? Tell you what I WILL do though - I'll stop drinking beer from a can and tequila straight from the bottle. From now on, I'll pour it right in a glass. That's how much this means to me. I am willing to stop roasting gummy worms over an open campfire. Even though I really like it. A whole, real lot. Dammit. I do so enjoy a nice, roasted gummy worm. I promise to stop getting married. OH-MY-GAWD!!! Can you even believe I tried to say something like that with a straight face? Damn I'm ballsy. Tell you what though - I promise to never get married again - while holding blue flowers. To a man named Mark. Who is wearing a US Army uniform. Outside. When I'm nineteen years old.
OK now. I've done my part. Make sure you do yours, Universe.
What? Can't a girl not vlog for a minute? If you need a vlog hit just to get you through the day... scroll on down. And no worries. A new vlog is in the works. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I can't move. I can't go forward. I can't go backwards. I can't stand still.
I woke up this morning early after sleeping roughly 87 hours yesterday. I made a mad dash for the coffee pot, filled my big gulp coffee mug to within an inch of its life and turned on Priscilla - the world's cutest computer.
Good so far.
And then BAM. With the grace that I'm widely known for - I knock over my giant coffee cup. Everywhere is where it went. Covered is what it was. Pissed is the crayon color you'd want to use when depicting my face.
"You are an idiot," I said to me. I'm a total bitch sometimes, especially where I am concerned.
I spend no less than 42 minutes cleaning up coffee all the while telling me what's wrong with me.
"You don't think," I said to me. "You try to do too many things at once. Why don't you just slow down and do one thing at a time?"
I didn't answer. I knew it was a rhetorical question. I also know when I'm like that it's best to ignore me or risk my hot Taurus temper. I once made a grown man cry using nothing but my words and a stern glance.
And a whip.
The long and short of it is that I wound up in a big ass argument with myself during which at one particularly low moment, I told myself I was no longer going to speak to me. I started to cry until I remembered that I don't cry - cause I'm a bad ass and what not.
So here I am. Frozen like the peas that insanely hot guy with no career ambition stocks at Wal-Mart. I have much I should do today, and none of it I want to touch. I feel inept. I feel powerless. I feel confused. I feel like I think spaghetti must feel when I throw it up against the wall to see if it's done and it doesn't stick.
That's me. I'm a spaghetti noodle that doesn't stick. I'm sliding down the wall, telling myself I should have stuck because only the noodles that stick make "the show".
When is the last time in your whole long-legged life anyone told you they feel like spaghetti that doesn't stick? Or frozen like peas? I know, right? I'm your first.
I'm off to pretend to do stuff. I figure if I at least make an attempt to be productive, I won't bitch me out.
Yes... I'm writing real words today rather than vlogging. If you're looking to take the easy road by watching rather than reading, just scroll down. But I have to tell you, I'm disappointed in your laziness.
"Dearest Sher," said the man in the white coat with the letters D & R in front of his name, "as you are about to begin cognitive behavior therapy for your OCD, I'm going to give you Zoloft in the hopes that it will make the misery that is therapy easier."
"Well then bring the shit on," said Me, "cause cognitive behavior therapy is gonna suck goat's balls and that's not fun for me."
At 45, I decided after watching too much Oprah and touching the burners on the stove one too many times, that I was going to put myself in CBT. If that TV doctor can cure OCD by making crazy people lick dirty stuff, them by gawd, I was gonna get me some of that mental wellness.
Although I have an aversion to meds of almost any kind, my level of crazy had reached such a point that I thought, "What the hell? If that pretty pill can make this misery any less, then I'm all about it."
Having now been on Zoloft for roughly 5 or 6 months, I have to confess that it's truly helped the OCD. I am able to do some things that would have been completely impossible a year ago and the cognitive behavior therapy is at least somewhat tolerable.
But today, I got the wake up call that only a woman can appreciate and it has convinced me that I'd rather suffer the CBT without aid of meds. Check it out y'all. Exhibit A...
My face is as big as Seattle and I have more chins than a Chinese phone book. (Yes I know that's an old joke but I'm distraught for godsake. Shut up.)
Of course I've realized my clothes are getting increasingly tighter and that the scale is becoming more and more my enemy. But somehow, I've managed to trick my weak brain into believing it was no big deal.
Really, Sher? Really? You thought this was NO BIG DEAL??? For godsake, look at my stomach! And who did I think I was fooling? Apparently myself. It seems I was actually fooling myself about my own ginormous face and ass.
Sweet Lord!
So tomorrow we begin tapering off the magic Z before Z is the size pants I have to start buying. Yes - cognitive behavior therapy is gonna kick my ass ten different ways and I'm NOT going to like it. I think I like my ginormity a whole lot less though.
I know. I'm writing words. The hell? I'm sure you all thought I had forgotten my alphabet. Trust me when I say I would rather vlog but as it's after midnight and I'm in bed, that would mean you'd see how completely forty-five years old I am and there is just no damn way I'm having any of that.
So I'm not sleeping for two reasons.
Number one - the little bastards outside have not yet come to grips with the fact that it's officially NOT the 4th of July any longer. It's my firm belief at this point they are just blowing shit up to piss me off.
Mission accomplished, Blackcat Firecracker Guy. I hate you more than Michael Jackson hated vaginas. (Forgive me Tito. I'm not myself right now.)
And reason number two I'm not sleeping - I'm planning my funeral.
So far I've only told a very limited number of people, but there is another friggin lump in my breast. I wasn't going to tell anyone because once I say it out loud, there it is again. All out loud and real and what not. Plus I didn't want to sound like a whiny, lumpy breasted, cry baby.
Which I am. Except for the crying part. Which I'm not. Because I almost never do. What with me being a bad ass and what not.
Which I totally am.
Sure, the lump is likely nothing more than me forgetting to chew my peanut M&M's again. It wouldn't surprise me a bit for the mammogram to show something yellow and delicious in my left girl. After all, they do melt in your mouth - not in your boobies.
But telling me that is NOT going to do anything but piss me the hell off, so don't say that to me. Don't email it; don't send me a greeting card with it; don't write me a poem about it; and in the name of all that is titillating; don't spray paint it on a cat and send it to me.
I do not enjoy cats and I especially don't care for message cats, what with their poorly written graffiti and aloof personalities.
Here's the thing, peeps. My factory-second brain goes right from lump to hospital to mastectomy to chemo to hair loss to yellow pieces of rubber around my wrist to Oprah to Mr. Man showing up at the morgue with my laptop because the only way you can get in it is with my DigitalPersona fingerprint and no way he's gonna let 'em plant me until he cracks my super secret code.
Truly, I've gone from zero to dead like 1000 times since I found this stupid thing. When Doctor felt me up for fun and profit last week, he made that, "Oh I'm sure it's nothing but we'd better check just in case" face - which looks eerily similar to that "Good night nurse! This chick has a peanut M&M in her boob!" face.
He told the nurse to get my mammogram scheduled STAT!
Well actually he didn't really say STAT, but it's a life long dream of mine to hear someone yell it in my presence, so I just made that part up to make me feel all flittery in my down there.
That was horrible and I'm sorry. I shouldn't be thinking sexy thoughts when I'm facing the possibility of an M&M biopsy - and/or death. That's just morbid, not to mention stupid. The last thing I wanna be doing right now is attracting undue attention from the Man upstairs for being a foul-mouthed woman with loose morals. And yes I'm well aware that he is omnipotent and omnipresent and omniawesome, but I've felt reasonably secure he's not seen me be bad recently as he's been distracted by all this Michael Jackson coverage.
Anyway, that's that and this is it and there you go. I'm back in boobie trouble again and I'm unhappy about the whole kit and caboodle.
I have no idea what that means honestly and I'm pretty sure it's not spelled correctly but you're not gonna correct me even if it's not because you feel sorry for me and my M&M breast. So there.
Suck it.
Dammit. Inappropriate and unintended sexiness again. I hope God is watching CNN right now.
That's right kids. Sher's first vlog. Please try to contain your joy. Also please refrain from harsh judgments of any kind. Yes - I look like your Grandma. Yes - I inadvertently cut off the video pretty much in the middle of a sentence. Yes - I look like I'm wearing a purple mom-moo. But it's my first. It's just like junior prom all over again.
I have deep thoughts on a pretty regular basis. Today is no exception. While I was on my hands and knees in the bathroom with a butter knife trying to install a new toilet seat, I had one.
A deep thought, that is.
Several even.
The first was, "I wonder if rich people change toilet seats or if they hire professional toilet seat installers?" After mulling it over I came to the conclusion that rich people don't go to the bathroom, so my spending time in deep thought over it was kind of a waste. (That was punny.)
Then I wondered if anywhere in all the world at the very same moment there was another person using a butter knife as a tool in, on, or near their toilet.
Then I starting thinking about why I'd used a butter knife to install a toilet seat in the first place when there are perfectly good tools in the garage.
Which is about the time I began to realize that I'd used an eating utensil to touch a thing that no eating utensil should ever go near while at the same time remembering that I have obsessive-compulsive disorder.
And then I decided to boil myself.
But I starting thinking about the time I burned my tongue after I got the bright idea to microwave my coffee that had gone cold and how I talked like a four-year-old who couldn't say anything with an "S" in it for like a week because it hurt so much. So I didn't.
Boil myself, that is.
Besides, at this point I figured I was too far into the game to quit. If I stopped now not only would the toilet be seat-less, but I would have lost a perfectly lovely butter knife for absolutely no good reason.
Which got me to thinking about waste again, only not the kind of waste you would guess I was thinking about as I hovered over a toilet with a butter knife.
The kind of waste we all have. Which I guess could also be the other kind of waste but I'm a Southern woman and we almost never talk about the kind of waste you keep trying to get me to talk about because we are far too genteel to even whisper such things.
I'm talking about the stuff in our houses. The stuff in our closets and garages and cars and cabinets and drawers and everywhere. The stuff we bought because we could or because we wanted it or because we were feeling sad and needed something to fill up the hole. The stuff we were given that we loved at the time or never loved but didn't know how to say we didn't love it so we kept it thinking someday we'd have some kind of use for it.
But we never did because it's an ugly piece of crap.
Now times are hard. Harder than most of us have ever known in our lifetimes. Doesn't matter much who you are or where you are, chances are you're feeling it to at least some degree. It's just the size of your thermometer that makes the difference. Some can't buy food. Some have to sell their big houses. Some are learning for the first time that want and need are very different. Some lose sleep, cry in the shower, and live in fear of what else may be around the corner.
Maybe most do. Most of the people I know do anyway - and that makes me sad.
So I asked myself, "Sher," because that's what I call myself, "if you have stuff that other people might need, what the hell is it doing in your house?"
I couldn't answer myself. I think it was because by this time I was straddling the toilet seat backwards trying to get that screw thingie in straight.
You know, quite frankly I'm sort of sick of the way the world's been working anyway. I'm hopeful that we're approaching a time of giving - and not the kind of giving that's all about writing a check once in awhile. The kind of giving that's about "I have something" - a skill, a thing, a whatever - "and now you can have it because I don't need it and oh yeah by the way, because no man is an island."
That's my deep thought for today. I have to go find a gas station that looks clean because trying to sit on my toilet seat is like trying to pee on a Disney ride. Apparently the butter knife was not the way to go.
I don’t know if it’s everybody or just me, but I worry about death a lot. When you’ve been obsessive-compulsive as far back as you could count to three (over and over and over again), you never know if your thoughts are different than those of all the normal people surrounding you.
I worry that I’m going to die which when you think of it is really nothing to worry about because I am. It’s not like worrying about it is going to keep me from being dead at some point. Unless these scientists stop wasting time on global warming and start focusing on curing death, I guess I’ve got no choice in the matter.
It’s sorta like my North Carolina Daddy says, “I want to go to Heaven but if theys a getting a bus load up to go today, I reckon I’d rather wait on the next one.”
Speaking of Daddy and dying, he called a couple days ago to tell me somebody back home did. I can always tell in the first sixty seconds of our conversation whether somebody’s dead. It isn’t that he sounds sad or anything. It’s that he leads with, “you remember old Robert Joseph from down around Caroleen?”
“You mean Bobby Joe? The one who used to open Coke bottles with his teeth?”
“Yep. Well he’s dead.” No sense in beating around the bush.
This time the man who passed had been a friend of my Father’s for longer than I’ve been alive and I hated to hear it. He wasn’t but fifty-five. Dropped dead at work. Pop said they put him on life support long enough so his sons could make it home to say good-bye and then they pulled the plug.
“Have you got a living will, Daddy?” All the magazine articles say this would have been the perfect time to ask a question like that one. It was supposed to open up a dialogue about a sensitive issue.
“Yeah I got a living will. I plan to keep on living. That’s my will.”
“But what if something would happen to you and we had to decide whether to pull the plug?” I like to be prepared.
“I don’t reckon I wanna give anybody that much control. What if they had a bad day? What if they was to say ‘Old Ralph wouldn’t wanna live like this’?
“Besides,” he continued, “your Uncle Billy was in a coma for a long time. Months and months he was out. And then he just woke up one day. What if we’d a pulled the plug on him?”
“Pop, Billy sews extra pockets on his pants. Big pockets, little pockets, pockets on top of pockets. I’m not sure I’d wanna be living if I felt like the highest and best use of my time was to add pockets to pants that are already by any reasonable person’s standard, fully pocketed.”
“Let me tell you something, before I forget it.” When Daddy ends any sentence with ‘before I forget it’, you’re about to get told.
“Ole Billy’s up there a chasing them women all over that nursing home so I reckon he’s having a pretty good time as far as he sees it.”
I was beginning to get the message. Daddy wants to be sure that not only do we NOT pull his plug, he wants a back up generator. I promised him I’d make sure we get him plugged into a surge protector if he’d promise not to let Mr. Man pull my plug some day.
“If you hear Mr. Man telling anyone that I would not have want my family to see me like that, it’s a dang lie. I want as many plugs, tubes, batteries and hoses as is necessary to keep my chest pumping up and down forever and ever. In fact, I want the plug put in an out of the way place so he can’t “accidentally” trip over it and yank if from the wall.”
I’m gonna say this column will be evidence of a living will for both my Daddy and myself. If y’all happen to notice Mr. Man on CNN fighting to have me unplugged, please print this and mail it immediately to Anderson Cooper. I plan on being plugged in until they come up with a cure…or until Elvis comes back. Whichever comes first.
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.
Chick. Not Sher Bailey. Not Navin R. Johnson. When and if anyone searches for Sherri Bailey, I need them to find me., I HATE the number that falls between 5 & 7 so much so that I try never to use it. How is it I only just realized today that Sherri has that number of letters and so does Bailey? I feel I should douse myself in holy water, but I was raised a Southern Baptist and the closest thing we have would be what comes out of the faucet at Uptown Baptist Church.
