Losing control

Most modern psychologists will tell you that a major source of human anxiety and the drain on the national supply of Xanax is a "perceived lack of control." Like losing one's brakes during rush hour on the GW Bridge or getting stuck in a spiderweb as you flee from a huge man-eating spider...thinking that you've lost all control is something that makes a lot of people shit their pants.

I've managed to keep my pants clean and dry, but I can't help but find it supremely uncomfortable when I am force fed my own ineptitude: i.e. when I feel like a complete moron.

Like two days ago, for instance. I was trying to take a bus downtown to my agent's office. I usually take the train, but I didn't want to walk a mile from the subway in the subzero frozen tundra (that looks astonishingly like a big city). I've always felt confused by the tangle of bus lines on the metro maps, but I figured if I get a bus that's going the right way down a one-way street, I'll probably end up heading in the right direction. My journey began with a frantic search for the actual bus stop. Of course, there were no signs and no indications that a bus has ever stopped there in the history of the city's public transportation system. The only person in sight was the bum selling papers on the street corner, and I think he actually took pity on me. I know this because he did not ask for money after pointing out the bus stop three yards from where I was standing. The bus arrived shortly thereafter, and I got on without incident. My cheeks barely had time to warm when it was time to transfer to a crosstown bus. I pulled the cord that you're supposed to pull to indicate that you'd like to get the hell off the bus, and stood close to the front doors as the bus driver pulled up to the stop. The doors didn't open immediately after the bus stopped, yet the driver gave me a look that said, "why are you still on my bus?" Crap, was I supposed to get off at the back of the bus? Are there some unwritten (or perhaps clearly marked) rules of which I don't have cognizance? So I bounded to the back of the bus to find those doors locked tight. Then I looked back at the driver, who calmly and slowly opened the front doors with a smirk. I ran off the bus and croaked out a "thanks." It took me ten minutes to find the next bus stop, which was literally in front of me as I exited the first bus. Just before I boarded the second bus, I realized I had just been walking around like a drugged schoolgirl in one of the city's more dangerous projects. When the doors whooshed shut behind me, I couldn't shake the depth of my idiocy for many blocks.

I suppose things could have gone much much worse...Like yesterday, for instance, when I spent three hours transcribing the wrong interview.

But there is an upside to the anxiety. If I were in control of everything in my life, I wouldn't have the fodder for self-deprecating humor. And without that, we wouldn't have any funny people in the world.