Just What the Psychiatrist Ordered

As you might infer from my numerous postings on the 2006 Olympics, I have a dependency problem. My name is Violet, and I am addicted to the Winter Games. As I told Ani, watching the Olympics is kind of like working at the post office: you're never really done. While exciting, the last couple of weeks have passed in a blur of scores, falls, triumphs, injuries, artistry, and national pride (or, for some, ambivalence). And, on my end, I've neglected work, laundry, and grocery shopping such that I'm reduced to making cafe mochas in own my kitchen...with powdered milk.

Fortunately, as the ending ceremonies approached, I found solace in my old friend David Rakoff. I was a bit slow in buying his latest work Don't Get Too Comfortable but only because I wanted to save it for a really important occasion, like - I don't know, Olympic rehab. Let me just say that I love this man. He is my voyeuristic/ minutae-loving/self-effacement/wordsmith soulmate. Here is a sampling of his writing:

But unless Al Qaeda has some extra-special religious proscription against the idiotic and sophomoric, I'd be hard-pressed to count Puppetry of the Penis among those transgressive things that make us glorious and free. As a work of degenerate art, it is neither. It's harmless. The embarrassment I feel as I exit the John Houseman is not in having a penis of my own. It is in having retinas.

I feel underutilized and I haven't even begun, but it it's benevolent omniscience they want, then I will be the self-effacing, eagle-eyed mole of their dreams, pervasive and invisible as a gas leak. Nothing will escape my purview. Unsolicited birthday cakes arriving at hotel room doors? Kid stuff. I will save marriages by discreetly whispering into a husband's ear that perhaps he might like to wish his wife a happy anniversary while I slip a thoughtfully purchased necklace of black freshwater pearls into his hand...

Sigh! This book has had me gasping through laugh-gasms of ecstasy, alarming cat and neighbor alike. That said, I recommend it for your generally reading enjoyment (especially if you've tried, and liked, David Sedaris's work). More importantly, though, as an unlicensed therapist, I suggest it for any desired psychic breaks in routine. David will take the world apart for you. And, when he puts it back together, you'll feel grateful to be there.