Benchmarks

You know how there are those popular delusions in mental illness? Like the delusion the phone company is after you, the fear that tiny insects are living in your pores, that you are actually married to a celebrity?  (Not that any of you would have personal experience of these things.)

I'm wondering if there isn't some type of mental illness that keeps a person (like, say, me) from painting her toes. I can't paint my toe nails again until all the nail polish has grown out. I have just the faintest edge left, just on the end. I can NOT just grab the polish and paint my toe nails. I can't take the old polish off. I can't paint the new summer toe nails until last year's grow out. It's the RULE. I didn't have this issue last year, but I think I had the sense to remove the old polish the previous fall.

I also can't paint my master bathroom until November 2007. I've painted every other room in the house, some multiple times. But the bathroom will just have to live with the old builder's paint until 11/07. That's the month the house is paid off. That bathroom will have gone through 20 years without a touch of paint. For some reason, I have made this rule and I can't break it.

I first thought this was all about painting things, but Mom says it's all about benchmarks. This came up because I noticed today that my visitor stats are at 2954 visits. 46 visits to go to get to 3,000! I thought briefly about making 46 visits in quick succession, but that would be cheating. And THAT is against The Rules.

This benchmark psychosis also influences my taste in television. My favorite show of all time has got to have been "The Most." It was on the Learning Channel, or something, and it was of the Short Attention Span  genre. They had little segments on "The Most Circus Freaks Rescued from an Avalanche" and "The Biggest Train Derailment Involving Little People ." This is why I scan the listings on the TiVo starting with the numbers so I can see all the "100 Worst Airplane Crashes" and "40 Best  Red Carpet Earthquakes" and so on.

It's a sickness. I think it's genetic. I think I got it from my technical father (my new term to differentiate my father (from ages conception to five) from my step-dad who took over from there). Mom says he took up the guitar and learned to play exactly one song. ("Goodbye Old Paint.") Then he stopped; he was done. I'm honestly afraid that will happen to me; that's why I'm determined to move on to a new song as soon as I get close to mastering one.

(Oh God! I'm like that crazy woman who was convinced she would die if she ever stopped building her house. That was on The Most too. There is no hope for me!)

Comments

[Catherine]

Any show that has a title with a superlative in it is a show for me. Those are awesome!

And I really want to go to the Winchester Mystery House one day. I see it occasionally when I am up north visiting family, and it's yooge. Bonus: it's haunted, and I love all things spooky. Second Bonus: on Halloween and on every Friday the 13th, the people in charge let visitors wander around the house in the dark armed with just a flashlight! Creepy! LOVE.

[TheQueen]

Then may I recommend "Most Haunted" on the Travel Channel: http://travel.discovery.com/tvlistings/series.jsp?series=118072&gid=13881&channel=TRV
I don't know if it's any good, but it does have a superlative and "haunted" in the title.

[Catherine]

WHOO! I haven't watched 'Most Haunted' yet - I'm more partial to 'Dead Famous' as it covers my love of all things creepy and entertainment stuff in one fell swoop. Thanks for the suggestion!