I’m on vacation. And I try hard not to do any real work while I’m on vacation. Which, I’ve recently decided, includes blogging about working.But my new best friend Tei — who is a real person but who hasn’t actually agreed to be my best friend — emailed me the link to her recent post on why freelancers should have imaginary friends. And since I’ve selfishly decided the entire point of her post was to spark my ass back into some semblance of a better blogging routine (by pretending she’s listening when I’m talking to myself out loud from several states away), I had to get to a real computer to blog about this. Otherwise, I’d forget.

If you’re new here, let me catch you up: I am batshit crazy. In addition to other more serious life-debilitating diagnoses, I have OCD with ADHD tendencies. I deal with work, my inbox and blogging all very much the same way; I’m either all over it or I’m hitting the delete button. I get bored in 2.3 seconds, and I have no patience for anything I’m not passionate about. Regarding work: if I hate you or your project, or you piss me off more than once a week, you will be outsourced. Regarding life: same general principles apply, except substitute “outsource” with my showing you the pretty little non-revolving door I mentally pushed you out of last Monday. Either way — I assure you — it isn’t personal. You’ve heard the “It’s not you; it’s me” line from every lover who kicked you to the curb? Well I didn’t sleep with you, but I really mean it. I blame my gene pool and childhood conditioning. I’ve paid approximately 407 therapists over the past decade to tell me so.

Which brings me to my next under-caffeinated, slow-to-reach segue: Imaginary Therapist Syndrome (ITS). I liked Tei right away, because she posted something someplace in the comments of some post here that her therapist is imaginary. This sounded practical to me, so I took it upon myself to stalk her blog. I was not altogether surprised to learn that she has the same first name as my real best friend — who is NOT imaginary and who DOES know she’s my best friend, much to her detriment most days.

My real best friend Taylor’s primary purpose in my life is to keep me from doing stupid shit. She exists to convince me that 3am is NOT the best time to start a new blog just because I’m on a roll. She keeps shiny objects like paperclips out of my reach after midnight, because she knows otherwise I will spend several hours stringing them together or twisting them into stickmen rather than finishing the thing I’m up late to finish. She is the part of my brain I’m missing; the part that knows a pile of rubber bands can exist on its own without having to become a rubber band ball. Without her, I’m all Les Miserables On My Own. This was proved by the “Tay goes to visit her parents and leaves Amy in a heightened state of crash-and-burn workmode” case study I had going on last week. I got 47 things half-finished, fucked up 24 others and had 9000 new ideas I thought were brilliant at the time but have since forgotten because I didn’t write them down.

But now, thanks to the lovely Tei, I too can have an imaginary therapist. I know Taylor will love this, because now she can go visit her mommy out of Jewish guilt without feeling Jewish guilty for leaving me home alone. Tei’s guide is brilliant. Kind of like Be Your Own Boss, but it’s Be Your Own Guru. Read all about it. Or, if you’re super lazy, here’s my favorite part:

“You don’t have to talk to an imaginary person. I understand I am the only person wearing that particular brand of crazy. Try just talking to yourself. Say what you’re doing out loud. It will keep you from going on random tangents, because those thought-jumps make sense in your unconscious mind, where nothing has to be articulated, but once you start saying things out loud like, “I wonder how many pairs of black underwear I actually have. I am going to go look in my underwear drawer right now,” you will pull yourself up short.

Seriously. Try it. If it sounds stupid out loud, it is probably not something that needs your attention.”

And now, dear friends, I resume my vacation mode. At least until tomorrow.