Love on Wheelz

It’s official. I’m now a full-fledged writer for Rudius Media. I even have a cool little Love on Wheelz button on the blogroll to the right. To celebrate the occasion, Dr. Rob and I collaborated on a little Q & A. I guess you could call him the welcome wagon. I just wish he had boobs and a vagina. Then we could record and post an amateur porno for the loyal readers, but alas, biology is against us. The following conversation will have to do, at least until someone springs for a sex change. Either way, here it is. Enjoy, and stayed tuned to Shrinktalk for Part 2.
Dr. Rob: At a young age I developed a knack for poking fun at myself without sacrificing dignity. I was lucky enough to know that I’m inherently flawed in many, many ways, so I thought by acknowledging my imperfections and having fun with them I could take away their potency. Ironically I think it helps my self-esteem. I always grapple with people who are elitists and narcissists because I’m constantly thinking, “everyone, except you of course, knows that you’re just as fucked up as the rest of us. Why can’t you see that?”
When I sat down to write ShrinkTalk.Net, I kept in mind a few golden rules about writing: write about what you know and be emotionally honest. And what I know most is that life tends to be a series of mildly good times and minor hassles. There aren’t all that many colossally high points or catastrophes. So if things are kept in perspective you can strive to find more good times while making it difficult to be depressed.
Some might argue that your situation doesn’t fit the model I describe. And yet you manage to bring humor and a very light-hearted take on your life to your writing. How do you do it?
Hotwheelz: I agree that my situation doesn’t quite fit the model you’ve laid out. Obviously the stakes are much higher on a day to day basis, but I also cherish the excitement in life. I don’t have to look that far for inspiration, even in house we have Bunny, Philalawyer, Tucker Max. Their philosophy seems to place emphasis on the exciting times. It may be good exciting, or bad exciting, but it’s exciting nonetheless (can I say exciting any more?).
I see this in my own life as well. Sure, it has its fair share of dull moments like any one else’s, but the highs and lows are much more pronounced. The weird thing is, contrary to what you might expect, my highs and lows are almost always caused by my own thoughts rather than life-altering events. For example, my most recent low was when I was reduced to tears due to sexual frustration. I felt hopeless in my state of forced chastity, and powerless to change it. I teetered over the emotional edge and I had to hang on by my fingertips, lest I fell into the chasm. In contrast, one of the happiest days was going on a road trip to LA. Whenever I have the lows I have to remember that there will be better times. So I let the emotion overwhelm me, and, keeping things in perspective, I let it fill me. Then I let it go, move on, and try to fix the cause. After that, I write about it and post it for the world to see – because, hey, you might as well profit from your suffering.
As for how do I write about it? I just mash the keyboard until coherent sentences appear on the pretty glowing box. Truth is I try to be as honest as possible. I throw in a joke if I think that the story is getting too heavy. I also never take myself too seriously and work to be as objective as possible. My biggest secret is watching Buffy while writing. She and Allison Hannigan are my sexy, beautiful muses.
I’m curious, do you get many disabled patients?
Dr. Rob: I will definitely agree with you about Buffy. She can do a guest piece on my site any day. She really blew it when she picked that Prinze Jr. dude over me. But make no mistake: one day she’ll regret it.
You bring up a fair point about life, but I think George Costanza said it best: you get up, you go to work, you eat, you read, you eat some more, you read. Or something to that effect. If you break down the day into coherent units there’s a lot of mundane qualities to it for most. Many can relate to Bunny and Tucker because of similar experiences – and anyone who has hated their job knows how spot-on Philalawyer is – but their non-blog lives have a similar element of “a bunch of kind of mundane stuff happened today.”
I have seen a number of disabled people in my practice. Some of them have conditions that can be treated through surgery but not all. Those people, without realizing it, help other people in my practice. When they come into the office, clients who see them often re-evaluate their problems once they sit down with me. I very often hear, “I can’t believe I’m bitching about my wife when your next person has real problems.” This is not to say that people shouldn’t be validated for whatever it is they are experiencing, but for better or worse, my disabled clients unwittingly act as what I call Unplanned Therapists.
Does that phenomenon ever apply to you? If so what do you think about having that role in your life?
Hotwheelz: You’ll get Buffy the day I walk. And, let’s face it, if that happens she’ll come running into my arms.
That phenomenon does apply to me, and frankly, I don’t like it. For two reasons: One, it can sometimes make friends hesitant to tell me about their problems. They tell me that they feel bad telling me about their problems because they seem insignificant compared to mine. Then they feel worse. Just because mine are… different doesn’t make theirs any less significant.
Second, I don’t like it when I receive special treatment because of my condition. It does have its advantages (for example, no girl ever suspects I’m undressing them with my eyes), but I could do without them. It often affects my social life. Not only because of other people’s thinking, but because their thinking, or at least my perception of it, fucks with my head. I freeze around new people because I try to say the perfect thing in order to impress them. That’s the source of a lot of my social anxiety and related problems.

Part 2 coming soon to a website near you…

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