Citizen Anxiety

70. Fear that The Purloined Letter was written by Poe, not Conan Doyle. It was.

71. Fear that no one actually believes that you’re going to join a gym. Or take boxing classes.

72. Fear that you now know the ending to Million Dollar Baby. Allayed by the newfound knowledge that you would have hated that movie.

73. Fear that if you can’t get it together enough to send pertinent information to writers of recommendation letters, going back to school won’t help you.

74. Fear that your desire to be nice to people would be more easily fulfilled if, rather than worrying about others overhearing the snarky things you say about them, you just didn’t say them.

75. Fear of a Veronica Mars/Logan Echolls breakup. Deeper, far more unsettling fear that you don’t actually care anymore. Congratulations, Rob Thomas!

76. Fear that everyone thinks your hair is too long. Fear that being “the Hermione” of a given group requires more than just long hair and a misleading air of superiority.

77. Fear that you don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables. How is that possible?

78. Fear of looking like a sucker.

79. Fear that you should go back to eating fish before there are no more fish. It’s a confusing fear.

80. Fear that you would not in fact make a good celebrity ghostwriter.

From the Department of Ships that Have Sailed:

81. Fear that an unkind note—writer, you—will be left where it might easily be found by its subject.

82. Fear that, this time, your room will never be clean again.

. . . allayed.

83. Fear that, after record numbers of voters show up at the polls, you will be turned away and told that they’ve “already collected enough votes.”

. . . dismissed.

84. Fear that your return to blog-writing will only be temporary—your absence having been a source of guilt for months—and that you have exhausted your stock of anxieties.

. . . unlikely.

To Be Continued

Kiss Me Anxiety

1. Fear that you are about to make a life changing decision. Fear that it won't turn out well.

2. Fear that you are everything people have ever accused you of being.

3. Fear of deluding yourself.

4. Fear that you left too small a tip and that nice waiter will hate you forever.

5. Fear that you left too large a tip and that nice waiter thinks you're an idiot.

6. Fear that you've something very important behind.

7. Fear that the Veronica Mars finale will not feature a Veronica and Logan reconciliation but instead a horrible secret about Beaver and a little tag at the end saying "This episode has been the last in our current series."

8. Fear that you forgot your best friend's birthday. You did.

9. Fear that people will be disappointed in you.

*Myfie*

A Nous la Anxiety

New Feature!

Sources of Anxiety that Ought to Be a Bit More Common:

1. Fear that if you call up your daughter and say in a grave voice, “You heard about what happened to your sister?” without a preceding no-bodily-harm-in-this-announcement disclaimer, she might become anxious. Of course, this same principle can be applied to many situations—I witnessed this as a child, when a girl scout shrieked at her mother, “My stick was on fire and I moved it near my head and look what happened!!”

- Caitlin

Gentlemen Prefer Anxiety

60. Fear that your bus seat is damp because someone peed on it. There’s actually a visible leak in the roof where leftover rain has been dropping down, but what if someone chose that seat to pee in for that very reason?

61. Fear that you should have made the following note to self. “If pee theory is proved false, acid rain? Be careful.”

62. Fear that leftover raw tofu, having been stored in tap water, had all night to soak up toxins like a sponge. Too bad you already ate it.

63. Fear that your teeth are shifting.

64. Fear that you wouldn’t become so irritated if you were a more compassionate person.

65. Fear that you’re not getting your money’s worth out of Netflix. File this one under “fears, haunting.”

66. Fear of being thought of as needing to be the center of attention. Fear that telling people how, at one of your birthday parties, you stood on a chair and yelled “shut up!” at your friends still doesn’t strike the right note of faux self-awareness. “Oh, she knows her failings! How she’s changed!” No one’s saying that.

67. Fear that this whole “second person pronouns” thing is ill advised.

68. Fear (confirmed) that you missed your chance to do a birthday post.

69. Fear that you lack the necessary skills. Not for your current job, but someday you’ll know that that free time you have could have been better spent. When you see a job listing that ends, “Must be able to ride bike, tell time.”

- Caitlin

The Rocky Horror Anxiety Show

1. Fear that one day your doctor will tell you that you can no longer eat grapefruit.

2. Fear that one day the grapefruit crop will fail and no one will be able to eat grapefruit.

3. Fear that the back of your ankles will be sliced open. (Thank you Kill Bill, this new terror is most appreciated)

4. Fear that the rice you are eating has maggots in it.

5. Fear that the last lines of your anecdotes say more about you than you would like. (i.e. 'so that's the time I was attacked by a rottweiler' or 'and that's when I realized that I was completely soaked with freezing water, dusk was coming on and it was deer season').

6. Fear that your amazing feat of delivering an envelope with a two cent stamp wasn't really an amazing feat afterall. Fear that the fact that you think so makes you a pathetic person.

7. Fear that you sound self-centered in conversation. Fear that this is because you are self-centered.

8. Fear that you will use a word in conversation that you understand but can't specifically define verbally and that someone will ask you to explain its meaning. You won't be able to and they will think you unintelligent and annoying.

*Myfie*

(Note: I have since decided that my envelope delivery was, in fact, an unquestionably amazing feat regardless of whether this makes me a pathetic person or not. )

Tales 13 & 14

The Good, The Bad & The Anxiety

1. Fear that when you open your eyes underwater there will be a large animal (i.e. shark) swimming directly at you.

2. Fear that for no reason you will burst out crying in a public place (like that time in sixth grade that made everyone in the lunchroom think you were mentally unstable or that other time, also in sixth grade, that led to you getting into an arguement with your teacher and walking out of class).

3. Fear that using outdated slang such as gee willikers in conversation makes other people hate you.

4. Fear that you are listening or singing the lyrics to a song that means exactly the opposite of what you think it means.

5. Fear that the things you are saying in a foriegn language you don't understand are either racist, sexually explicit, cause to begin an international war or just plain stupid.

6. Fear that something will happen to your precious new computer like you know what happened to the last one...the one that you DESTROYED!

7. Fear that you will never be able to build that time machine you've always dreamed of. Fear that despite those dreams, you wouldn't really know what to do with a time machine if you had one.

8. Fear that potted plant baskets are really boa constrictors coiled around in a clever disguise.

9. Fear that you will make an impression on someone's parents that will haunt you everytime you go to their house, such as the time you were first introduced to a friend's family by handing their parents a box with a dead bird in it. This wouldn't have been so bad if you hadn't promptly run back to your car and gunned it backwards out of their driveway into two-lane traffic, possibly going over thier new lawn in the process.

10. Fear that others nearby when you are talking on the phone find you unpleasant and annoying because you are often loud and fakely pleasant to people when you don't have to speak to them face to face.

*Myfie*

Casque d'Anxiety

49. Fear of being told that you look like someone, then seeing that person and feeling only horror and disappointment. In the past, I have expressed unhappiness over my alleged (by self) resemblance to the following people:

Emily Dickinson
Al Sharpton*
George Washington*
Agnes Moorehead

*Hairstyle only.

50. Fear that people don't respect you.

51. Fear--a fear that has been realized--of happily noting the presence of a bolt on a door leading to a dark crawlspace, only to find that it sticks.

52. Fear that your lack of manual dexterity leads people to think that you are breaking into your own house.

53. Fear induced by the fact that, for you, the effort of thinking is apparently so demanding that people around you--"reflective" you--need to ask you if you're okay.

54. Fear that, because you missed a Rushmore reference on Veronica Mars, you will never get to meet Wes Anderson.

55. Fear that if you had listened to Ricky Gervais's podcast from the beginning, you would have sent him an e-mail of great wittiness, but that having failed to do so you will never marry Stephen Merchant.

56. Fear of sounding defensive.

57. Fear that people will think you are going out of your way to be artificially friendly and condescending, when you in fact sound artificially friendly and condescending all the time, whether you are being sincere or not.

58. Fear that in shaking hands with people you repel them.

59. Fear of telling someone to stop humming. It seems too personal.

- Caitlin