Recent events have dampened any luster to leave the house . But, through osmosis, I am privy to trends of thought, clothing, social protocols, and other things. Sometimes osmosis leaves me alone .   I realize years later that I’ve stayed oblivious to things that should have been obvious.

For example: I missed out completely on the Gladiator Shoe craze . One day I found myself being browbeaten about it. “ You know the shoe. You’ve got to know about the Gladiator Shoe. The Sandal. You have to have seen this sandal?” 

 When I finally saw the shoe, there seemed such a divide  between being a real gladiator and wearing this Sandal.  

It took me months of seeing big eskimo boots on slim girls, in the dead of summer, to realize that the UGG boot is not so much a season inappropriate aberration, but  a full blown fashion  reality.

Until this very day,  I know there are some famous youngsters named Vanessa Hudgins and Blake Lively. For reasons , I can only guess at, I refuse to google them .  I don’t know what they  have done to have  achieved  name recognition.

  I only learned recently that Justin Beiber was discovered on YouTube and that a Spencer Pratt had done a Heidi Montag wrong.

Then, there are the more subtle  and dangerous trends that seep into the mass pyche.

Some amusing news  results from a particular and long lastist trend--

Rampant Armchair psychoanalysis with comorbid features of excessive diagnositicity.

 Awhile back, I read that Narcissictic personality disorder has been ixnayed from the DSM.

 I found that news interesting. It left so many without an easy comeback in so many fights.

In my experience, the term may apply to some ,but due to the wide distrubution of the DSM—it was being used willy nilly as a defensive mechanism or even as some rhetorical device.

Person 1: “Hey, you stole my bicycle.”

Person 2:“It’s not all about you, Narcissist.”

Person 1: Well, it my bike and I I … I … need it to get to work.

Person 2: “ What are you … Histrionic with Borderline co-morbitity issues?” Let it go. ”

Person 1: Well, I am sounding co-dependant. I guess I can get another one... But, you are acting toxic in that you won’t recognize how controlling it is that you just won’t return it.

Person 2: You are obsesed.

Person 1. . Have you ever wet your bed, killed an animal or set fires?

Person 2: Yeah, so? I am wasting my time. I am DONE. According to the checklist I filled out on “whatsyourdamage.com” you are the stone cold sociopath and you don’t deserve a bike. Get Over yourself Mr. Grandiose.

Person 1 goes home to get on their desktop . Does some googling. Is now sure that person 2 has a clearcut case of Antisocial personality disorder with premorbid latent bipolar 4, and... sticky fingers.

Or Person 2 stabs person 1,  and then calls the police on person 1 for Person 1 damaging his shoes by bleeding on them.

My belabored point is that we are being poisoned by fancy sounding platitudes. Such platitudes sneak in and stymie so much discourse. If you disagree with me: I will perch on my loveseat, heave the manual onto my chest, and thereby search for away to effectively disable you with labels.

I'm a  pro-social with Phase four  panic symptomology(with a tendency towards magical thinking etc.) And you?