Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr. Ding:
I hope to Goddess you can help me.
I practice Wicca and have done so since my early teens…I work as a receptionist/transcriptionist in an office where we’re supposed to be in the business of helping people with drug and alcohol problems. (I have noticed that some of your other “Dingers” whove wrote in work for these kinds of agencies, so maybe they could comment too for added input - I would totally welcome it!!) I am 28 years old, have a college degree in theater, and as I mentioned I am a practicing pagan, and not just on weekends! I am not what you would call a fluffy bunny pagan. I don’t advertise my faith, but also I don’t keep it a secret. There are a couple of inconspicuous altar items on my desk, and sometimes I wear faerie earrings, but other that those things, you’d really have to look hard. I take Goddess-worship seriously, I don’t do it for fashion reasons or to show off my feminist cred.
My problem is that my boss — a recovering alcoholic with like (more…)
Dear Dr. Ding
Hello Doctor I’m glad you’re some better. Diet 7-up is what I do too.
So I wondered if maybe you’d ponder on Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears and
post-modern zooming towards self-destruct. Are they the cultural dark anima
and shadow side of the lighter anima? I mean you’re right there close to
the Jung Center and all. Are they pointing out how our cultural beliefs
are so whacked? I’ve been reading Kunstler too much maybe again but
really…you’re in oil central and maybe you can wrap your brain around it
in such a way, I bet, that I’d like to hear your thoughts anyway…
I lived in Montrose some back in the 90′s and one year I actually taught
high school in Cy-Fair….talk about your Kunstlerian nightmare….
Anyway bye-bye and hope you feel better and have lots of fun in New
Orleans….
Lerel
I Tell You I Can’t Live In Service
Rudie Can’t Fail!
Fuck!! I traded London Calling, and now I’ve got ole brew-drinking Rudie.
Well, enjoy Joe Strumner and the Mescaleros version. For some reason, this song has always made me want to 1) dance and then 2) possibly punch someone who desperately needs it, or maybe just blow up a building. Only a small one, though.
All Hail To Jen!
Loyal reader Jen just posted comments in this post and Dr. Ding is most pleased with her efforts, which resulted in a most nifty link to Jellinek’s awesomely retro “V-chart” of the progression of the disorder of alcoholism, which has since been bogarted by pretty much every serious addictions researcher since the 1940s onward.
For years, as a peon graduate student, I thought that my advisor had been erroneously saying “Jelly Neck” when referring to Dr. Jellinek, but apparently this is how one is supposed to roll.
Thanks again Jen, Most Diligent Web Researcher of Antique and Scholarly V-Charts that you are.
Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr Ding,
Is it okay to live with my husband after our separation because neither of us can afford to move. I don’t have a car or a job and he babysits the kids sometimes when he remembers to come home from the bar. Any advice you have would be helpful.
Thanks, All Brokeup in Baltimore
Dear Brokeup.
Holy crap is your life ever fucked up. I mean….wow. Let’s review:
- 1. You’re separated, with two young children.
- 2. You can’t afford a measly $39/day U-haul.
- 3. No car, no job.
- 4. Hubby is a boozehound with incipient pseudo-Alzheimers. Or, alternatively, an asshole of truly epic proportions.
I’m also presuming you have no one to help you with babysitting or respite care (such as, oh I don’t know… the local YMCA, a friend, a relative, any number of social service agencies), have two broken legs, and lack the ability to take public transportation or ride a bicycle in order to go looking for a job. No? Massive brain damage, then, or some kind of debilitating palsy. No? Hold the weddin’! I think I’ve got it.
See, Brokeup, you’re not really writing me in order to ask permission to live with your husband until you get your life sorted out.
You’re asking Dr. Ding for forgiveness.
You’ve already made your decision. Otherwise you wouldn’t be writing me asking if it’s ok. You’re like the co-worker who once put Dr. Ding on the Holiday Party Happy Fun Times Committee sign-up sheet and asked me if it was ok only after the boss had approved it. In other words: it’s a done deal.
So. Your immediate problem isn’t what you believe it to be, for you can easily go donate some plasma a few times and scrape together that $39 for the U-haul. Moving out isn’t the issue.
Your problem is that you THINK you have no other options, that you’ve essentially got to sit there on your ass and wait until Fortuna turns the wheel of the seasons and you’re suddenly, magically, living in a tidy condo, the kids are on the honor roll, and you’re at a job with health insurance and a 401K. But life ain’t like that, darlin’. You, Brokeup, despite how helpless and confused you might be feeling, need to think of your children first. What’s best for them? They are the voiceless and the powerless in this situation, not you. You’re the adult. You may not feel like one, but you need to get those ovaries in gear and take action.
How To Throw A Party
Notice I didn’t say: How To Throw An Upscale New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Party. I also didn’t say How To Throw A Fabulous Party With Stylish Decorations. Blah blah. Check that kind of shit out at Martha Stewart’s website, or better yet, just spend the next six years of your life reading books on the topic.
Ooh. Snark.
1. You will need twice as much booze as food, or, in the event that you’re hosting an alcohol-free evening, twice as much soda/coffee/tea. Also, ice.
2. Don’t plan a bunch of stuff, such as a “guest list” or a “menu”. If you want to have a stilted, office-type party where everyone, meaning all three anal-retentives who showed up at exactly 6 p.m., admires your fucking placemats, well, bombs away. But allow for some interesting diversions.
3. Invite a wide variety of people a couple of weeks ahead of time very vaguely, in a “save the date” way, and follow-up a week after. The day before, try to get a head count. 2/3 of that number will be who shows up. Dr. Ding knows this contradicts #2, but you’re smart enough to interpolate.
4. For Girl Jesus’s sake, don’t run out to Bed, Bath & Beyond and get a bunch of matching paper napkins and plates. Nobody gives a rat’s rectum if your toothpicks coordinate with your curtains. Use real china, real flatware, real glasses. If you run out, appoint someone to wash dishes. Usually the drunkest person will be best-suited for this role, and it allows them to quietly barf into your Dispose-All, undetected.
5. At all costs, avoid red plastic cups. They not only look tacky in photographs, but martinis taste funny in them.
6. If you must serve food, make things that can be eaten while standing up and also while lying underneath the coffee table, crying to the strains of Bob Seeger’s Night Moves at 1:00 a.m. Lushes need nourishment, too. I highly recommend store-bought appetizers in industrial-sized quantities purchased from Costco or Sam’s Club-type places. Many IKEA stores also sell killer Swedish meatballs which look really retro-classy speared with a toothpick that has curly colored cellophane on top.
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