Is it really the crazy things that keep us sane?

Lately I've been thinking about all the crazy things people do so we don't fall apart.

I think a lot of people are a little bit obsessive about one thing, or two, or several but will never admit it.

My friends do.

One of my friends has to find patterns in everything. If something is close to an ordered pattern, but isn't quite there, she will go nuts trying to find a pattern. For instance, we just had a reading of Sarah Ruhl's REALLY GOOD PLAY, "Eurydice," and the actors just happened to show up wearing coordinating tops. Green, blue, burgundy, green, burgundy, white, green, blue, sitting in that order. That's not a repeating pattern, and she fixated on the irregularity for two minutes.

She also counts. She hates uneven numbers, except for five.

I can understand this. I used to count the syllables in phrases when I got bored. I'd just read or listen to someone talk and count the syllables on my fingers, and I was pleased if it added up to a multiple of five. If it didn't, I would try to phrase it differently so it did.

A guy I know cannot stand spinning. If you spin to the right in front of him, he will look extremely uncomfortable unless you "unspin" yourself by spinning to the left. I'm sure he hated last semester's major dance musical.

So, what do you obsess about?

And then there are the crazy things that make us crazier. Like eating disorders. You can not eat as a method of keeping yourself sane, but all that does is initiate organ failure.

And then there are the sane things that make us saner. Like knowledge or religion. Or crazier. Like knowledge or religion.

I was talking about absolutes today with one of my best friends. It's hard to not believe in absolutes, because you cannot say "There are definitely no absolutes" because that is an absolute and you can build other absolutes off of that. That made her head hurt.

It didn't make mine hurt. I don't believe that there are no absolutes. I think there have to be absolutes. And until I can find them all, and be sane, I'll probably be counting on my fingers, looking for multiples of five.

(Just in case you were wondering, that last sentence was a multiple of five, and this sentence is, too.)