Yep, I've Always Been This Crazy

Yesterday I had to venture into the dusty Archives, the ones stowed away in the land of Deepest Darkest Garage. I was on a mission to find a greeting card that I remembered someone giving me in 1985, one that I will need for an upcoming blog entry.

Getting to it was no small feat. I had to push aside not only cobwebbed boxes but also yank out pale morning glory vines that were again twining their way through the dim light. (That's right; by the hammer of Thor, the vines are back.) I stomped and stretched to get to the box. A cricket skittered under a tool chest, startling me momentarily. But at last, I reached my goal: the box containing the 1972-1989 archives.

Setting it down with a plop, I opened the white box and immediately snatched up a manila envelope with "1985" neatly printed in the upper right corner. I upended the contents on a pile of vintage fabric and picked through it to find the greeting card I was looking for. Along the way, I found other things, like:

• My 1985 Celestial Guide with dental appointments and company bowling events clearly annotated next to the dates of mercury retrograde
• A handmade paper wheel (Alexandria's 1985 GIFT-O-MATIC) I made showing what you could get me as a gift in any price range
• A list of titles for books I thought I should write, written on a narrow sheet of micro-graph paper torn out of the back of my Daytimer

While I wasn't looking for the last item, I couldn't resist taking it inside with me. I was fascinated to see that even at age nineteen, I was scribbling down titles just for the fun of it. I didn't remember that and was curious to see what kind of list it was.

Well, as it turns out, I've also always been irreverent. Printed carefully in four colors of ink was this list:

The Bitch About Karma

From Here to Virginity

When Good Things Happen to Bad People

A Tendency for Dependency: Overcoming Female Socialization

Bluff Your Way to Ultimate Truth

The Cosmopolitan Lesbian

Bowling through Intimidation

Erotic Professionalism

A Touch of Crass

Unstudied Extravagance

Bully Your Way to Mental Health

And my favorite...

I'm not Bitchy; I'm Just Right

Uh-huh.

I must have been on a roll after that list, because after planning my literary career, I apparently did a quick sketch of the car I planned to design:

Introducing...the Conversible Dialog!

Wee!

(I will say that when I bought my convertible 10 years later, regrettably they had accidentally renamed it the Chrysler LeBaron. And it is not so pointy in the front. But I do look just like that while driving it.)

I'd better get started outlining Bluff Your Way to Ultimate Truth; that's sure to be the winner that will get me on Oprah. And at age 41, I think I finally know what to write for that. If I don't, that's okay. It'll come to me!

P.S. And what did I want for Christmas 22 years ago? Garter belt and stockings. IBM-compatible motherboard. So Long and Thanks for All The Fish by Douglas Adams. A charcoal gray business suit. 5-1/4-inch diskettes. Chocolate truffles. Computer RAM.

Yeah...the usual.

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