TIM GUNN TACKLES TOXIC TALK

ME: That's it!

TIM: What now?

ME: I have had it! No more news shows. No more listening to mean people. No more toxicity. I'm done. Over. Fin.

TIM: Hmmmmm. Who put the bee in your bonnet today?

ME: I can't deal with the toxicity in the environment. This is my new soap box issue. Everyone is so hateful! They're so mean spirited and full of guile. What the heck?

TIM: Excuse me while I look below at some previous posts...hmmmmm....yes, I see, no complaining there....

ME: Sarcasm noted.

TIM: What has brought this on?

ME: I don't know. Everyone is getting sicker and sicker. We're all fatigued and grouchy and we all have weight issues, blah blah blah, and I think it's the toxic times we live in.

TIM: I'm not fatigued. I'm not sick. I don't have weight issues.

ME: You're imaginary Tim. You'll be perfect forever.

TIM: I still have to live in your head and believe me, it's so NOT therapeutic in there sister. It's a tribute to my resilience that I'm even remotely normal after spending down-time in that hell hole.

ME: HEY! Where's the love? And yea, you're remotely normal....

TIM: Deborah, people will always complain and moan, and sometimes it will be about you. You're preparing to enter a very public arena; teaching and possibly publishing. You think you're hearing a lot of criticism now? Just WAIT until you turn your back and they start on YOU! Get used to it. Do some yoga because you'd better be flexible enough to roll with THOSE punches and that skin?...forget the wrinkles, you'd do better to make it thicker to avoid getting your feelings hurt. Caa Caa happens my dear, and then it hits the fan. And when it does, don't finger point, just finger paint. Make it work!

TIM GUNN GETS REAL ABOUT TEENAGERS

TIM: Eww

ME: What!

TIM: That scowl of yours. I'd jump back into your head but I'm afraid of what you must be thinking to put that scowl on your face.

ME: Oh. Sorry. Teenagers.

TIM: Ewww. Yes, scowl justified.

ME: What is the deal with them? Are they retarded? Why don't their minds work right?

TIM: I'm sorry. You said your field is psychology?

ME: I know, I know! I'm at a loss myself. I can't explain my total lack of understanding, insight or compassion.

TIM: Didn't you raise four of these creatures yourself?

ME: Yes! But mine were deliriously easy, funny, bright and loving. They were a joy.

TIM: Are you remembering things correctly or has time rosied the lens?

ME: Well, maybe a skosh, but even after taking the rose-colored glasses off, they were overwhelmingly great people and the experience was a blast. We laughed every day! I mean, look at you and I, we laugh every day and you're imaginary! Can you imagine how much fun I had with real people?

TIM: There's no reason to be hurtful.

ME: Sorry.

TIM: Does the particular teenager who's causing so much menopausal angst have any good points? And please don't make any pointed-head jokes.

ME: *silence*

TIM: Unlike you, I'm not aging but even I have a time limit, can you come up with something before, perhaps, breakfast tomorrow?

ME: I'm thinking. Oh! In June he'll graduate from high school and...and...um....probably won't go to college...probably won't hold down a job....ehhh....um....

TIM: Okay, forget the "good points". Look. He's there. Period. Learn to love him. You probably do. I know you. If he wasn't there for you to pick on, you'd be bored out of your mind. Doesn't this young man watch Project Runway with you sometimes?

ME: Yes. Yes he does.

TIM: He seems to enjoy it. And even if he's just acting like he enjoys it, isn't that rather nice of him?

ME: Stop it. Don't make him human.

TIM: Okay. Now you're sounding like a serial killer.

ME: Okay okay okay. The kid's okay. Fine. Look, we didn't start out together. I didn't teach him how to walk. I didn't feed him his vegetables. I wasn't there for his first day of school. I get it. I was there for his first day of high school. I'll be there for his last day of school. I guess that's something. Oh, quit looking at me like that.

TIM: Like what?

ME: With that insufferable smile. Oh my gosh, are you wiping your eyes? Are you crying?

TIM: Look at you....you grew up so fast. *sniff*

TIM GUNN ROCKS THE CONVERSATION...

TIM: Stop that. You're doing it again.

ME: Stop what?

TIM: That incessant rocking back and forth. It never stops.

ME: Tim. I rock. It's what I do.

TIM: Well, it's starting to get on my nerves. You're not even sitting in a rocking chair.

ME: I don't need no steenking rockeeng chair.

TIM: Why do you rock all the time?

ME: Don't know. Always have. Ever since I was a baby. Even before I could sit up, according to family lore, I bounced on my belly.

TIM: Did they perform neurological testing? X-rays? Evaluations? Therapy?

ME: Oh sure Tim. Our middle-class, suburban, Ohio family was all about that in the 50s and 60s. They really wanted to get to the bottom of the weirdness instead of just hiding from it. We were all about "getting real" back then. Can you hear the sarcasm in my voice Tim?

TIM: Not so much, it's being drowned out by the pervasive and penetrating hypnotic motion of your swaying. You're like a King Cobra ready to attack.

ME: King Cobra....hmmmmmm....I like that....

TIM: It wasn't a compliment.

ME: Well, what are you going to do Tim? Go back into my head and sulk?

TIM: Not likely. I get seasick in there.

ME: So, you're going to stay out here and play?

TIM: I'll stay out here with you, but I'm going to nail you to the back of your seat!

ME: Tim.

TIM: What.

ME: You're swaying.

TIM: I am?

ME: It's okay. It happens to just about everyone who hangs around with me long enough. It's unconscious. People tend to other-than-consciously mirror other people and it's true in this case. I notice it all the time. It's become almost a hobby. I see it a lot. It's like yawning. Once one person does it, it become contagious.

TIM: Well, I don't buy it. I'm imaginary. I don't operate that way. Have you ever seen me yawn?

ME: Well...no...but I haven't really looked for it. But you are swaying.

TIM: Stop saying that!

ME: Swayer.

TIM: What is wrong with you? What are you, like 12?

ME: Hmmmmmm...must have been that open, authentic, getting-real upbringing in 1960s Ohio.....

TIM: Forget I said anything about your rocking.

ME: My what?

TIM: Exactly.