I was having an argument with myself this morning. My Conscience and Ugly Thoughts were going at it like alley cats. This isn’t an unusual occurrence. Sometimes I need couples counseling for the interior of my skull.

You see, I discovered the humorist/blogger, The Bloggess, who is brilliant! She can drop f-bombs and talk about baby zombies and dead kitten mittens for the homeless with such finesse that even Stephanie Meyer stopped writing about sparkly vampires long enough to fly her Twigh-self to one of the Bloggess’s book signings.

Stephanie My-Characters-Wait-Until-Marriage-To-Have-Sex Meyer!

That is talent. In the hands of a lesser writer those subjects would just be offensive and alienate God-fearing people, such as Ms. Meyer.

Ugly Thoughts immediately reared its unattractive little head and said, “you need to loosen up and use more f-bombs. Make your writing more edgy,” to which My Conscience responded,

“yes, but the f-bombs aren’t what make her funny. You’re just looking for a short cut to funny, which is a cop out.”

“Shut up! You’re so judgmental!” Ugly Thoughts replied.

“That’s my job.”

“I hope you get laid off.”

I had to give Ugly Thoughts a time-out so it could think about cooperating and playing nice with others while I read some more of the Bloggess’s posts. As I read, I discovered that the Bloggess battles rheumatoid arthritis and takes copious amounts of Xanax for anxiety. These are both serious afflictions, My Conscience reminded me, deserving of some empathy (’cause that’s what civilized folk feel) and also admiration due to the fact that she can carve quite a bit of humor out of her situation.

Ugly Thoughts emerged from its time out and said wistfully, “If only you had a debilitating disease and took more meds, you’d be funnier,” to which My Conscience retorted,

“Don’t wish for a debilitating disease. No one wishes for a debilitating disease but a complete a-hole.”

“Asshole! You can’t even say asshole! That’s why you’re not funny!”

And then My Conscience and Ugly Thoughts got into a fist fight and I had to break it up.

It’s a full-time job dealing with those two. I barely have time to raise my children.

So then I wrote about my inner struggle on Facebook, which I use in place of therapy, only I misspelled debilitating as depilitating, which restarted the bickering.

“You can’t even spell your inappropriate thoughts correctly, which just goes to show you how wrong they are,” said My Conscience.

“Pipe down, it was funny.”

“It was funny until you misspelled it. ‘Depilitating’ disease. Now it’s just tragic.”

“Heh heh heh. Depilitating. Like depilatory.”

“What is that, a disease that makes your leg hair fall out?”

“Yeah, I wish I had that disease!”

And then they went off to share a beer and bond again.

“No actually it was the morning and drinking beer would’ve been inappropriate.”

“Suck it! I’ll ‘inappropriate’ you in the head!”

ANYWAY, that is why envy is dangerous. So is mental illness. But you can’t medicate envy, so avoid it even more.

 

***In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I’ve read all of the sparkly vampire books and may have even picked a team but that’s a-whole-nother ball of shame.