Did you ever wake up one day and realize that “hey, the last 3 months have been entirely too insane”? And maybe you thought about taking a break or building that tiki bar in your back yard so you could watch all the games during March Madness pretending you were on the beach in those beer commercials, but you got caught up in hoo-ha that might mimic what Dante envisioned in the various levels of hell.

Or, alternatively, you realized that you were living life in a Dali painting. Like maybe the one at the other end of that link there. Everything seemed outta whack, but you kind of recognized some of the elements of it all because they looked remotely recognizable. They just weren’t quite…right.

And because you woke up in some Spanish surrealist painter’s dreamscape, it makes perfect sense to go Yeti-hunting and then do a little fishing in Loch Ness. Why the hell not? Maybe even try a little golf on the Moon while you’re at it.

“Trippin’” thus can involve multiple meanings. One, you’re, like, TRIPPIN’ and you totally need to chill. Translation: your perspective is way skewed, dude, so let’s assess. Or two, you’re taking a trip somewhere. Like maybe to the Himalayas to get a picture of an elusive hairy creature that roams the upper reaches of the icy, windblown, largely inaccessible but somehow alluring mountain crags. And three, things are so entirely freaky that you just stop one day and think: “whoa. I’m trippin’.” And yes, it’s entirely possible to trip in different ways all at once. If you can do that, you, too can be a surrealist painter.

I bring this up, dear readers, because as spring…well, springs, I strongly recommend the number two option above with regard to trippin’. That is, travel. Go somewhere. If you can’t/won’t, try something new and different where you live. Turn your stereo on really loud and have a dance party on your porch. Teach your dog a new trick. Teach yourself one. Buy that leather jacket you’ve been thinking about getting. Or get that tattoo that’s been calling you. Watch a sunset and then read a new murder mystery.

GO trippin’, rather than BE trippin’. That’s an important distinction. Make your verb active rather than passive and open some possibilities. Like, say, that fishing trip to Loch Ness.

But dance parties on your porch are nice, too.

Posted on March 23rd, 2008 by Andi
Filed under: Freak Shack, Therapy Corner