Attempting Normal

by Marc Maron

We all have the right to cherry-pick the advice given us in order to do exactly what we wanted to do in the first place.

Doing a Google search to find out things about your ex is similar to googling cancer when you think you have it. Depending on what you find, it can confirm in a moment that you are dying inside and there is nothing you can do about it.

That is the power beautiful women have: They are portals into the timeless, into other worlds. And I had needed very badly to get out of this one.

Some people don’t even realize they’re bitter. If you don’t know whether you are or not, here’s a quick quiz you can give yourself. If you ever wake up in the morning and the first thing you say is “Oh, fuck, not again,” you might be a little bitter. If you find yourself in conversation with someone you know and that person brings up someone you both know and before he says another word you mutter, “That guy’s a fucking asshole,” you might be a little bitter. If you find yourself dismissing universally acclaimed landmark achievements, saying, for example, “The Godfather is an okay movie,” you might be bitter.

He was a collage of sartorial attempts at evading himself.

I did not scream, not yet. I had a series of odd thoughts as adrenaline blasted through my body. “Do I want to die to this song? It’s a good song but do I want to die to it? What song would be a good song to die to? I should make a death playlist for my iPod for when I have time to decide before I die what song I want to hear. I’m an older guy. I could be on a treadmill and feel a pain shooting down my arm. Better pick a tune, fast.”

I have a short menu of compulsive behaviors now that alcohol and drugs are out of my life, but the key is that something has to be going into my mouth or touching my body every waking second. I can eat compulsively, I can masturbate compulsively, or I can nap compulsively. I know compulsive napping sounds like a contradiction in terms but it is not. I also call them panic naps. A panic nap usually comes on with an exacerbated declaration of: “Fuck, I gotta … goddamnit … I can’t think about … shit, I’m tired.”