“Don’t call yourself CRAZY, Zara. You’re not crazy!” an editor once barked at me after I pitched her an article about how my craziness is precisely what makes me so damn good in bed (facts).
“I’m crazy,” I responded. “It’s why I’m good at sex.”
“She is totally nuts. She’s legit crazy,” an editor who had been at the publication a little bit longer than the editor I had offended with my pitch, chimed in.
I smiled blinklessly into the thin air as I stuck my hand into my tattered Prada oversized tote bag and fished through a sea of hairbrushes, mints, love letters, and lipsticks until I found a bottle of Zoloft. I popped a 100mg pill into my mouth like it was candy and swallowed it without water. The editor stared at me, bug-eyed and alarmed.
“Don’t worry. It’s not hard drugs,” I assured her, in my sweetest voice. “It’s just Zoloft! It helps keep the demons at bay,” I roared with laughter like a psychopath.
“I just don’t want you to call yourself crazy,” the new editor gently said, holding on to her PC opinion for dear life, as new editors fresh out of J School are wont to do (They all lose their morals real fast though, babes. Especially in digital. Got to keep those numbers high if you know what I’m sayin’).
“I’ve reclaimed crazy. I’m putting crazy back in the hands to those of whom rightfully deserve the word: Us crazy girls! Crazy is only a bad word to you because you’re used to men using it to gaslight women. I refuse to let a man stop me from using my favorite word,” I purred, as I gazed critically at my chipped manicure. “I feel the same way about the word slut.”
The truth is, I’ve been called “crazy” many times, by men, by girlfriends, by coworkers, by friends and by the sex-partners I like to slut around with. I used to be wildly offended when called crazy, but now I like it.
Because, I, Zara Ann Barrie the f*cking first, realized I’ve always been called crazy when in the throes of a depressive episode, or after loudly discussing the harrowing side effects of my mental illness meds during a posh dinner, or after I publish a personal narrative about vomiting during oral sex. If being open about my mental illness and my embarrassing sex life deems me a crazy girl, I’ll take it, baby.
I don’t think being hyper-sexual or majorly-depressed or feeling lots of feels is a bad thing. So, therefore, I don’t think the word CRAZY is an insult. In fact, I think it’s a compliment. Purr. It’s sexy. And I think all of my crazy kittens are sexy, because to me, sexy is synonymous with being open and rebellious and horny. And women who are open and rebellious and horny are always called crazy by this puritanical society. So let’s not fight it. Let’s f*ck it. Let’s own it, sister!
So that being said, I am a crazy lesbian and I’m proud to be crazy because us crazy lezzies are teeming with life. We’re crazy because we’re sensitive, we’re creative and we’re hyper-sexual. When you have so many strong feelings swirling inside of you, of course, you’re going to act out from time to time. Of course, you’re going to be a little deranged from time to time. Of course, you might need to have your shrink on speed dial. It goes with the territory. But hey, at least we make the world a more entertaining place. At least we make this bleak world colorful. We’re like the sweet glitter that lands in your boring cocktail during a burlesque performance, you know?
Here are 37 signs you might be a crazy lez, like me!
1. You can swallow pills of any size without water.
2. You’ve definitely issued a restraining order against an ex.
3. An ex has definitely has issued a restraining order against you.
4. You have your therapist on speed-dial.
5. Your girlfriend also has your therapist on speed-dial.
6. Your friends refer to you as the “Jenny Schecter” of the group, despite the fact that you feel like more of a “Shane.”
7. Drag Queens stay out of your way. They can sense the crazy and even the most salacious of Queens is afraid of awakening the whacked-out beast within you.
8. You shamelessly discuss your sex life, your vagina, your mental illness, your dark depressive episodes, your meds, and your twisted family secrets all the time, to anyone and everyone with an ear. Animals included.
9. You have a reputation as a drunk, even though you don’t really drink. You’re just always loud, inappropriate and wild.
10. You have boundary issues so you’re on texting terms with your therapist, your gyneocologist, your waxer, and your hairstylist.
11. In fact, you have not only a therapist, a gyneocologist, a waxer, and a hairstylist, but also: an eyebrow guru, a guru guru, an astrologer, a spray-tanner, an eyelash specialist, a sex therapist, a couple’s therapist, a psychiatrist, an intuitive reader, a fairy godmother, a past life progressionist, a dog, a dog walker, a dog whisperer, a therapy dog, and seventeen mentors. The team it takes to keep operation YOU up and running is immense. This is why you have thirteen different careers at once. Being crazy is hella expensive.
12. You spill your guts to cab drivers and bartenders so often, they often gossip about you to one another.
13. You don’t know why, but you are overcome with an overwhelming feeling of comfort when crazy Jenny Schecter acts deranged on “The L Word.” Like, you get it.
14. You’re favorite Angelina Jolie was the young Angelina Jolie who collected knives and drank her lover’s blood.
15. You’ve completely memorized the entire movie “Girl, Interrupted.”
16. You just don’t seem to get embarrassed. No matter how hard you try.
17. You teeter between hating yourself and feeling like the f*cking queen of the world.
18. You’ve definitely bared your teeth like an animal to someone at some point in your life.
19. Friends always come to you when they suspect their lover is on drugs. They know you can expertly tell the difference between a high person and a person having a psychotic break.
20. You’ve had a fair share of psychotic breaks. Yeah, you’ve been institutionalized. No big deal.
21. No one took you seriously when you came out; they just assumed it was another one of your bat-shit crazy phases.
22. No one can match your intensity. And when they can, they’re deranged and the two of you embark on a toxic love affair that is very short-lived and erupts into a million flames.
23. You’re grateful you’re gay because no man would be able to handle your fabulous craziness. Only women appreciate a personality as bold and as wild as yours.
24. You don’t regret the twisted tattoos of your youth.
25. Being called a slut doesn’t bother you at all! In fact, it’s a wonderful compliment!
26. You have between one and seven prescription med bottles clanking inside of your purse at all times.
27. You weep over things no one else seems to weep over. Photographs of elephants in the wild. Pop art. Lesbian porn.
28. At least twice a month, one of your crazy family members or friends shows up at your front door and demands they get to sleep on your couch for a week. You always let them.
29. Sometimes you just need to take a day to cry the crazy out.
30. You, like, NEED to create because if you don’t create something, anything, it gets ugly.
31. You need to have sex all the time because sex is a fantastic outlet for all of your ferocious feelings!
32. Antidepressants don’t even numb your sky-high sex drive…
33. You either sleep for 12 hours or not at all. There is no in-between.
34. Republican men fear you. They don’t understand why they fear you, but they do.
35. Republican men don’t like their wives spending too much “time” with you.
36. The wives of Republican men are drawn to you, and often become obsessed with you and end up leaving their husbands for you.
37. You are fabulous, you are fierce, you have an unwavering thirst for justice, and you never do what you’re told. Sometimes people tell you that you are too much. Sometimes you want to numb the firestorm that’s raging inside of you with booze and chill pills because it’s hard and lonely to be different in a world full of sheep. But eventually, you realize that the people who can’t handle your heat need to get out of your f*cking kitchen. They don’t deserve to be in your kitchen or in your life or in your pants. And no matter how intense it all feels, pretty soon you’re going to learn to take those wild flames and channel them into killer art, magical love, mind-blowing sex and all the other glittery-yet-complex things that make this bleak AF life worth living! So don’t change, my crazy kittens. Take your meds as prescribed, see a shrink, talk it out with your friends. Take care of your beautiful, complex self, be kind to others, have lots of emotional outlets (like writing and dancing), but don’t you dare f*cking change. You’re perfect, crazy girl.
