Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr. Ding,
I just wanted to get your opinion. Recently I was scheduled to attend a
large family dinner over the Memorial Day weekend. Along with the dinner a
trip into the country to visit various family graves in small cemetaries
located out in a field was scheduled without my knowledge. I had to travel
several hours to get to this family function and stay with those who still
reside in the home town area. After driving for several hours I then had
to ride around in a car for another four hours. Would it have been
inappropriate for me to excuse myself from this part of the family holiday
plans? Along with the grave site tour we spent a great amount of time
touring down gravel roads stopping to see places where relatives had once
lived. Some of my cousins insisted on getting out of the car at each site
to take pictures of holes in the ground where a house used to stand or
barns leaning to one side with only half a roof. I myself do enjoy things
like studying family history but to me this did not seem to be informative
at all. I would much rather sit at the actual family dinner and listen to
the elders in the family tell stories about each other and what it was like
to live through their experiences. Am I a bad member of the younger
generation?
The BAD Daughter
Dear Dr. Ding
I need you
r wisdom Dr. Ding. I have had a very weird dream this week that
is confusing to me. I shoot myself in the head about 4 times. It
doesn’t hurt and I am fine. The only thing I remember being concerned
about is that one of the wounds was on my forehead and others would see it.
In the dream I was worried about what I would tell others about what had
happened.
I don’t re
member feeling depressed or anything that would
make me want to hurt myself. I don’t think the process of shooting
myself was about killing me becuase that just doesn’t resonate with me.
I can’t figure out what it means. What is your intrepretation?
Hard Headed
Dear Hard Headed:
You think Dr. Ding has actual wisdom? May the Lords of Kobol and GirlJesus™ Herself bless you, but I suspect this assumption explains like 90% of your issues right there. I’ve got plenty of the following things: hair products, black clothing, red thumbtacks, the perfect moue of distaste when confronted with people that don’t think feminism is a good idea, KFC “fixin’s” and withering sarcasm. The whole wisdom thing is debatable and varies according to my mood, the planetary alignments, and whether or not I’m getting my fill of words that haven’t been used since Agatha Christie bought tampons.
Some Seriously Boring Shit
Chirrens. Over the last couple of months it has come to Dr. Ding’s laserlike attention that I don’t tweet very much on Twitter. For those of you who don’t know, Twitter is basically a social media service that allows “microblogging” aka posts that are 140 characters or less, but lately this claim is becoming a bit more theoretical. Let’s just say that Twitter’s great when it’s sober.
Twitter is sorta like haiku written by folks with ADHD….or perhaps it’s more like a sprawling stream-of-consciousness conversation with a few hundred of your closest friends whose faces you wouldn’t recognize.
It may also be more like a bunch of standup comedians delivering endless one-liners. Or a series of animated but one-sided conversations with an imaginary audience. Or a walk through a hauntingly beautiful photography exhibit.
Or…for some, Twitter could be a convenient method of updating one’s social/professional circle on exactly what your ass looks like when the other end has been drinking too much. Like most interwebby constructions, it is a tool that can be used for good, or for well….showing your existential bunghole. The choice lies within the user.
If I Twittered more, here’s what you would be subjected to:
- 7:17am Brushing teeth. Heading out to walk Pooperella.
- 8:01am Driving to work in East Jesus Junction. Drinking crowbar-strength latte.
- 9:25am-4:15pm At work. Confidential. Lunch. Peeing. More coffee. Attempted to twitter from Crackberry, but interrupted by a resident attempting to elope from locked unit.
- 4:15pm-5:01pm Confidential progress note writing, phone call-returning, consultation.
- 5:05pm More driving. More peeing. A little schwitzing. Diet Dr. Pepper.
- 7:00pm Home. Walked Pooperella. Ate food. Talked to The Beyoncé some. Writing.
- 8:37pm Posted something to Twitter from blog.
- 9:00pm Peeing some more. Talking on phone. Drinking herbal tea. Pretending to exercise. Finishing laundry.
- 10:30pm Lying in bed, reading.
Something like 14+ hours of my waking day are either a) untwitterable due to confidentiality constraints, or b) extremely or perhaps nauseatingly mundane. To illustrate: just now I was very nearly overcome with a powerful urge to stab myself in the eye versus continuing to read about my own life. Ah much better.
That’s some seriously boring shit there, people.
Damn Right
Evidently, I am powerfully awesome what with my Southwest Airlines discounts and all.
Thanks to Epiphenita
I <3 Mopey British Guys From 1984
Lords O’ Kobol, people. Dr. Ding has had this silly Ultravox song playing inside her capacious head for the last three days. Somehow, when I post these memoria dæmonii here, they cease sucking the mental energy out of my prefrontal cortex, thereby allowing me to concentrate more fully on more constructive intellectual pursuits, such as my continued bid for world domination using only my wits, a half-drunk cup of latte, and exactly two* rusty ninja throwing stars.
Just so you know, this afternoon I’ll also be constructing an elaborate but totally superfluous system of levers and pulleys inside my clothes closet for the appeasement of the Wee Folk who live therein. Evil Manservant Jeebes will hold my purse with quiet, wounded dignity as I toil.
It’s a rich, full life.
*One for the single inept guard, one to cover up my hoo-hoo. It’s really best you don’t ask any questions at this point, it might throw off my whole diabolical scheme.
Dear Dr. Ding
Ed. note: By the Sacred Silver Go-Go Boots of GirlJesus™, Dr. Ding is delighted to take a break from her strenuous biweekly posting schedule featuring mostly YouTube videos, tiny monkeys, and random pelvic thrusting in order to respond to reader mail.
Dear Dr. Ding:
Why don’t you write some posts about all your interesting (or “clinically significant”) adventures at work, the crazy things your patients do? I know you, girl. You’ve worked in max. security prison, drug treatment, a pain management clinic, private practice, inpatient, outpatient, impatient (see I can be funny too), and now you work in long-term care. I know you must have some really funny stories in there. Dish.
You Know Who
Dear You Know Who:
Le heave. Le sigh. Dr. Ding most assuredly DOES possess a vast reservoir of highly clinically significant and/or hysterically funny anecdotes from her varied career to date. However, this stuff just isn’t cricket for me to offer up here for reader amusement. We can talk about my loathing of paradoxical intent, my delight in rediscovering Ericksonian hypnosis for pain control, and the fact that I find it disproportionately hilarious to call managed care “damaged care”…but I view the confidential bond between shrink and shrinkee as not just an ethical precept, but something inviolable, something actually sacred.
I know, I’m totally harshing your humor buzz, You Know Who. And I know you’re going to be annoyed with me personally, kind of like that time I spat out that hellish swill you call a well-made gin martini. But I just can’t talk about specifics. Can I speak in generalities about some rather uh whimsical social trends I’ve witnessed over the last couple of decades? Sure. Can I reveal the cure for aging in a scabrous yet silly way? Sure. But it ends there.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some go-go boots I must needs attend to fortwith. Chi Chi’s doesn’t take reservations after 7:00 p.m. you know, no matter whose spiritual posse you’re rolling with.