Lonely Planet

Let’s start today [and every day!] with a joke:

Mickey Mouse filed for divorce from Minnie. The judge peered down from the bench and said, “You can’t divorce her just because you think she’s crazy.”

Mickey stood and said [and when you tell this joke, you have to use your best high-pitched super rat impression voice...], “I didn’t say she was crazy, Your Honor. I said she’s fuckin’ Goofy!”

I often feel goofy — not because I’m getting action from a cartoon… or from vermin… or, well, never mind that now — because I am awkward.

[Awkward is an awkward word, isn't it? That double-u-kay-double-u is like a visual speed bump every time I see it....]

I wonder sometimes if awkward is the direction my life travels. Some move forward. Some move backward. I move awkward. It’s sort of like one step up and two steps back [cue the Bruce Springsteen tune] but with a half-step to the side and a partial twist. [Cha cha cha.] No wonder I keep falling down.

I am physically awkward. I am socially awkward. I am goofy [not Goofy]. I’ve never been completely comfortable in my own skin. I think we all have days, especially as we get older, when we look in the mirror and wonder, “What the hell?” [Or "Who the hell?"....]

But I’ve had a long time to learn how to hide my awkwardnesses, my goofinesses, and come to terms with it. And I’m getting better. More balanced.

I know that most people that meet me would not call me goofy [or Goofy] — unless, of course, I’m being silly on purpose. [All part of my boyish charm, don't you know.] This is my perception of myself. And for someone like me, shy and private, it means that I’m succeeding in keeping the real me hidden.

No one else calls me goofy, but I have been compared to Pluto — the planet, not the cartoon… small, cold, hard, distant — but that’s another post.