Upon examining this featured picture taken two days ago, I came to the sudden realization that I am a deity.  There is a light over my head.  At first, I thought my

HAIR WAS ON FIRE

but it wasn’t.

What does this have to do with the 5 reasons that must adjust your attitude?  Absolutely nothing.  Except maybe the deity thing.

NUMBER ONE:  NOT GIVING A SHIT

You do not have the energy to give a shit anymore.  I mean, take this from someone who knows.  I stabbed my pillow earlier this week.  Anger gone, the feathers, dust, bread crumbs, unfinished taxes, and my unreasonablenesses are everywhere.  And they can bloody well stay there.  I’ll just keep eating anti-histamines.  If your guests complain, say nothing and never invite them back.

YOU ARE TOO GOOD FOR THEM.

NUMBER TWO:  NO MEANS NO

Someone invited me to go water skiing once 17 years ago.  I had a smile on my face so they figured I was ok.  Maybe I did too.  After slamming into the water and receiving several unnatural enemas….ok enemas are inherently unnatural, I was bruised and my COLON HAD PTSD.

On the road trip home, I screamed incessantly at my driving partner and woke up out of what I thought was a dead sleep (I don’t sleep dead anymore) and screamed

WILL YOU STOP SINGING?!?!

After enough experiences like this, a combination of Reason Number One and Reason Number Two will organically teach you to set up

UNHEALTHY BOUNDARIES

by telling them that they don’t understand you and you are not going to tell them what’s wrong with you because you don’t even fucking know.  Then tell them to stop assuming you are going to get a life, lose weight, eat healthy, or get a roommate.  The last roommate I had is still in my storage closet.  For some reason, she isn’t moving or responding to commands.  If you really think that what I said about my non-existent roommate is true, I am JOKING.  I have learned well from Reason #1.  Listen, after 26 years I know how to say NO.  And I’m 42.  So listen up.

NUMBER THREE:  NONINDENTURED SERVITUDE

Laundry.  Because you can’t breathe after doing laundry because of allergies every specialist says you don’t have.  Because you are hot, sweaty, and have used up all of your energy for the next week, you decided to lie in the middle of the apartment hallway with your head on the two clean towels you laundered to take a rest.  Friends and family (which are few) are now

YOUR SLAVES.

People do shit for you once you realize that laundry isn’t worth doing, you’d rather go for 2 months without showering, and 3 months without eating rather than go grocery shopping. People tend not to come around anymore when you look and smell like the inside of a dirty sock.  And you are jaundiced because you haven’t had a piece of fruit in 20 years.  I’m sure that is not medically correct.  Fruit requires washing, cutting up, same for vegetables.  It’s better if someone else does it.  I only have one knife and it is so dull it wouldn’t pop a balloon full of water.  And it is being used only for dramatic purposes.

NUMBER FOUR:  DOCTORSPEAK

After having been very sick with no diagnosis for many years, you are very savvy at talking to your  doctor.  I don’t mean going from doctor to doctor to stock up on oxycontin.  That is NOT what I’m talking about.  Besides oxycontin is too expensive, and most importantly, you don’t have the energy to go from doctor to doctor.  And drug dealers will eventually kill you.  I read that in a book somewhere.

Since you have no medical professional willing to hear your concerns anymore, you go to your physician and be

NICE.

Do not, under any circumstances, NOT be nice to your doctor.  You have seizures, but no epilepsy.  Your doctor doesn’t believe you when you say you have seizures.  You are just as tired upon awakening as when you went to bed.  Your doctor has told you to eat more vegetables and go for a walk.  The receptionists at the doctor’s office never remember you even though you’ve been coming there for 10 years, and they have the personalities of cardboard boxes.  They hate you because you no-showed for an appointment five years ago.  Control your temper mofos.

So here is what has worked for me.  I once said “I just can’t seem to sleep.  While trying to get to sleep, I find I twitch uncontrollably.  I have night terrors.  Often I wake up on the floor.  Is there a low-dose, non habit forming medication out there that has both sedative and anticonvulsant properties?”  And the doctor suggests a medication that I had just researched in the big drug book that looks like the Sears Catalogue.  And he thinks

IT WAS ALL HIS IDEA.

You are welcome.

NUMBER FIVE:  JUSTIFIABLE AVOIDANCE

You may avoid activities which you despise because of reasons that nobody cares to hear about.  I have conditioned the people in my life to identify me as a “shut in” and that any activities which take place outside of my home will result in me constructing a pillow fort in my bedroom and not coming out for days.  I might die of dehydration or starvation in the process.  Here are some hypothetical activities you may want to avoid:

Church and bible study.  Church people are very nice.  But they are just as incapable of not understanding you as everybody else.  You might not want to go.  If you want to go, then go.  Christians are nice.  But you might not want to go to church.  You already have few friends.  Stay home and watch hate mail that Christians send to Richard Dawkins (on YouTube) instead.

I can’t think of anything else right now.  Please post some avoidable activities for me.  Not because you are my slaves but because you are my friends and I need some.  I love all of you and want a big group hug.  And I want Stephen King to reply to my tweet.  I am, after all, reading one of his books, so it’s only fair.