Visual Aids

It occurs to me this title suggests someone is dripping HIV out of their eyes.

Speaking of eyes, I have something called horizontal displacia, meaning I can't hold eye contact for any length of time. My eyes dart to the left and come back. I'm therefore unfit for most on-camara acting work, terrible at making conversation and am a shockingly bad driver. You can picture it, can't you? Eyes on the road, eyes to the left, eyes on the road, eyes to the left. . . add the fact that I fall asleep at the wheel and have terrible OCD and I'm more dangerous than Miss Daisy herself. I first realized I had a problem when I asked a boy to slowdance with me at my first boy/girl party. He looked to his right to see who I was talking to. He was like "Uh, Kath? There's no one standing next to me." Needless to say, I did not feel my first slowdance erection that night.

At one acting teacher's suggestion, I tried switching it up. Maybe instead of looking left, I could try looking right, up, down. As if I could control it. As if I'm clearly choosing to look like a tard. However, this atttempt also gets me in trouble. I end up looking at a girl's boobs or a guy's crotch or perhaps an especially pronounced and lovely adams apple, the boner of a man's neck, quite frankly.

My boyfriend has discovered my OCD. He accused me of judging him for mixing Codeine and alcohol. When he didn't believe that I honestly didn't care, I busted out my medicine cabinet: Ambien for insomnia, Lorazapam for anxiety, Effexor for depression and OCD. I said "See . . I mix one to three of these with alcohol on any given weekend. Believe me, I'm not judging you." He then proceeded to describe Nick Cage in "Matchstick Men" and his various and weird rituals: counting to three before opening a door of any kind. Somehow, that made me unplugging the coffee maker, iron and blender this morning before leaving the house much more palatable.

On a different note, I often count, probably too much, on my friends to distill any given emotion I may have. And each friend has a different area of expertise they dole out in their own special way. Tim is for not being dumb, under which many subsets fall. John is for a swift kick in the ass with a side of boyspeak translation. Nicole is for a no-nonsense approach tempered with sympathy. Shannon and I see each other through breakups and other assorted crises. And these are just some of my NYC friends. My Virginia friends ... whole other skillset based on seeing each other through puberty. Carol and I run the gamut from drunken calls to family bullshit and everything in between. And let's not forget Gabe . .. the ex now friend, good for witty banter in a pinch as well as telling me exactly why I may be fucking up my current relationship. Thanks, guys. This paragraph's for you. xoxo