Tao of Pauly

Monkey in the Window

"Do you think I'm crazy?"

She asked me out that question of the blue. I had been rambling on about an episode of Dawson's Creek that I had been watching in between inhaling early morning bonghits and playing a tournament on Party Poker. My cell phone was having one of those drop-every-fiftth-word moments. I thought she said, "Do you think I'm lazy?"

"Of course I do," I joked, "Get off your ass and do something about it."

"Would you be sad if I killed myself?"

I laughed again. Of course I got a mixed message. On my end I heard, "Would you be sad if I kissed myself?"

"Kissed, diddle, grope. Do what you want. I like to watch."

I was preoccupied. Multi-tasking is usually my forte but I was seriously distracted. I had pocket Jacks and some loose guy reraised me all in preflop. Should I call? Joey and Dawson were having one of their heart-to-heart talks and I love how the corners of Katie Holmes' mouth curl up when she's nervous. Should Dawson kiss Joey? I would.

"Something inside of me clicked. And I thought how I need to stop that lonely feeling that haunts me every day I walk down the street," she muttered in an unusally soft tone.

I'm not her therapist but I watched Dr. Phil three days a week and I got an A- in Abnormal Psych. I blurted out something that sounded deep and insightful, but I was pretty much making it up on the spot.

"Stop being paralyzed by some romantic notion that one day everything in your life is going to finally gel and the world will make perfect sense. That will never happen. The sooner you drop that, the better off you will be. I used to experience life through a window. Some days that window was dirty and I struggled to see the world through the filth. One day I smashed through the glass. I made a mess, and cut myself up pretty good, but I finally got to feel what it was like to be in the moment instead of watching someone else in the moment. Someday so will you."

"What if you encase yourself in glass all the time? And on purpose?" she persisted.

"Well," I said glancing at a bad commercial for Jimmy Dean sausage patties, "sounds like you're pretty much fucked."