Gift giving

Gift giving

Real Frauds don't give or get gifts. You don't give them because the anxiety involved in picking out something and hoping it's sufficient, original and most of all, thoughtful, is utterly excruciating. You don't get gifts because, well, frankly you don't deserve them. 

So what do you do when you're forced to do this for either an office party or some family obligation or even worse, you have a new significant other? First of all, if you have a boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever, you've already gone wrong somewhere. Think about that.

Gift certificates are the easiest and least thoughtful thing you can give someone. So if you're forced to give gifts, this is a great option. You can even get them from Target and give the same gift to everyone you need to give a gift to, because who doesn't need something from Target? They have food, clothes, electronics and hair care products. That pretty much covers everything.

You can go for a gag gift if you're really feeling creative. But remember this: the money you just spent on that joke is gone forever and the person you gave it to will likely laugh and then discreetly throw it away. Was that laugh worth the $15? Better to take that person out to a nice dinner at Chipotle.

If you're given a gift, this is the worst. We both know you don't deserve it. And now whatever's inside that wrapping has to evoke the desired reaction in your face. All the pressure is on YOU now, baby. You better muster up that perfect look of surprise, elation and gratitude. That's right. All of those. In one face. At once. Sound impossible? That's because it is.

This time of year, I find the best present to get and give is the timeless gift of 364 days until you have to deal with this again.

Christmas time is here

Christmas time is here

Yeah, it is. 

More than any other time of year, this one offers some of the best opportunities for fraudulent living. It also affords an occasion to think about what it means to be alive, fraudulently.

If you're like me, you have no home to go to for Christmas. Or if you do, then it sucks in so many ways. Problems with your parents. That deep dread of having to sit through stories about times past from the uncle with the weird breath. And, of course, inevitable fights. Because how can all these people come together under one roof with all their various lives that used to be intimately connected but now don't share much in common except a last name and expect to regain some non-existent Christmas moment from the past? This is a fucking five-star recipe for strife.

The number one most important thing you must, MUST remember about Christmas, whether you spend it alone or you go back home, is that you should not be able to drive or operate any heavy machinery legally. You should be out of it. Somehow. Most people use alcohol. This is pretty common and accepted and can be done right out in the open with the rest of your self-medicating family. If pills are more your poison, go for it, but be discreet. The worst thing that can happen is for Aunt Ida to smell them in your pocket and then corner you as you come out of the bathroom, shamelessly blackmailing you and sucking up half your stash. You already have enough reasons to hate Aunt Ida.

Dinner should come and go pretty easily since you probably won't be able to eat much. You may get some "What's wrong with you?"s  or even some "Please wake up, your hand is in my food"s, but this is a small price to pay to be able to get through a horrific family dinner without so much as a memory.

But this is all for the people with families to go home to. What about the rest of us who are hoofing it solo on C-Day? Well, it's pretty much the same story. You'll be tempted to feel extra sad on Christmas day, mourning the loss of everything that's good in your life from when you were a child. Just remember that, for the most part, childhood was utter shit. You remember certain things fondly, but mostly just because you didn't have to pay bills and your main worries of that time seem frivolous and, frankly, desirable to you now. Resist this. You were fucking miserable as a child and you know it. So quit pining for some perfect life you never had and that no one ever has. 

You need to get out of your apartment. But first have a drink.

Then, slap yourself, put on some clothes and pretend like you're jewish. Unless you really are jewish. In which case none of this made any sense to you at all.

P.S. God

If you ever need a prayer to lull yourself to sleep, it should be this: Even though god does not exist, He is a total shithead for making me who I am.

God

God

So, any good Fraud has to have some kind of conflict about God.  Usually it involves being pretty certain in his non-existence but vehemently hoping you're wrong because your fear of death is rivaled only by your hidden desire for it. Fraudulent living is complicated.

Your hypochondria has kicked into overdrive. You are absolutely certain you're going to die in a month or a year of your brain tumor or hepatitis C. What's the next logical thought? That's right. Where am I going? What is going to happen when I die? What will it feel like? Will anyone care?

Though your brain tells you there's nothing beyond death, your fear tells you not only is there nothing but that the nothing will probably really suck bad. It tells you that "nothing" will likely be you, alone, in a pitch dark room with nothing to do or look at for eternity. Just you and your thoughts. Alone. Forever.

"Nothing" is actually "hell", turns out.

So you start to pray to a God that you don't believe in just because you somehow think that he won't be able to see through your little ploy and will grant you a cure from your brain tumor or admittance into heaven or that the student loan database will have a glitch and erase your $30,000 debt. There are so many reasons to fraudulently pray to God when you really need Him. It's best to say these little prayers and then when things turn out to not be as dire as you thought or somehow something goes in your favor to completely forget that you ever prayed to any "god" and continue bashing the idea of religion or a higher power to anyone who will listen.

There may be no atheists in foxholes, but there are plenty in cubicles.

Hypochondria and OCD

Now, hypochondria is not only a great tool for fraudulent living in itself, it also mixes really well with other disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. The two of them are a devastating combination, like Jack and Coke, and should leave you reeling and in a half-comatose state most of the time. It should also be noted here that obsessive-compulsive disorder is a must-have tool if you want to achieve fraudulence. You must have it. If you don't, you must acquire it immediately. You must acquire it immediately. You must acquire it immediately. You must acquire it immediately.

These two disorders have a brilliant symbiosis, and it's really better to experience it for yourself, but in essence, what happens is this: You convince yourself that you have a horrible disease or condition, like, say, a brain tumor. After convincing yourself of this, the OCD will kick in, and you will begin to, for example, repeat a certain phrase to yourself over and over again and convince yourself that if you say it, the tumor will go away. Or you'll breathe in a certain way. Or blink a certain number of times. And then you will convince yourself that you're doing this because you have a brain tumor. So you'll stop, because you think if you stop, it will mean you don't have a brain tumor. And then the OCD will create a tension in you that makes your head want to explode until you do all these things again. And then the funny breathing and the blinking will make you lightheaded or at least give you a headache, once again convincing you that you have all the symptoms of a brain tumor.

And then, in the midst of this, if there is a god, you will be smote by lightning, because He will want to put you out of your misery. If not, then you finally have proof that god doesn't exist, because why would He let this happen? (P.S. God is a separate blog post. God probably deserves at least one Post all to Himself.)

More on Hypochondria

More on Hypochondria.

We've already talked a bit below about how and when hypochondria should strike in a normal situation. It also merits discussing a little bit about how you can keep it going to ensure you remain in a hypochondria fear spiral for as long as possible. Maybe even indefinitely.

When you notice that you're dying of an illness because you read about it on Wikipedia or heard second-hand about someone who had it, some very important things take place in your body. Let's take the example of an inoperable brain tumor. Once you decide you obviously have one, your body will back you up by giving you things like headaches, vision problems and the inability to think coherently. It doesn't matter that these symptoms are caused by the stress you're putting yourself under by planning how you're going to tell everyone that you're dying, these symptoms should line up pretty much identically with the ones you read about on WebMD. (Note: WebMD is a MUST-HAVE for all hypochondriacs and should probably be your home page.)

When the actual physical symptoms start rolling in, this is the perfect time to indulge them and start taking your body temperature at least 8 times a day. Anything above or below 98.6 degrees should deeply alarm you and also confirm your self diagnosis. Feeling your glands in your neck at least 15 times a day is also really crucial, because the more you massage them, the more inflamed they become. If you have a slight cold, this is even better, because your glands will stay inflamed sometimes for months just by rubbing them every spare chance you get. Rashes are also a great thing to flip out about, because they are also a key indicator of viral infections. (It's true, look it up. Go on. You know you want to.)

If at all possible, call out from work during these episodes so that you can spend all day pacing your apartment in fear. If your primary care physician tells you that he will no longer draw blood from you to test it for AIDS or liver cirrhosis, remember that there are free clinics that will do this for a lot longer before they catch on to your abuse of the system.

And always, ALWAYS remember that SOMEONE has to be that 1 in 100,000,000 who gets the disease that way. Why can't that someone be you?

Hypochondria

This topic is crucial in fraudulent living and will require many, many posts. It may even deserve its own blog. But at F. Living, it's painful enough trying to get one measly post done a week, so clearly it is too much of you to ask for another. So stop asking. Like wolves, you are, with the asking.

HYPOCHONDRIA

So...hypochondria. Hypochondria is a key step to failure. It generally should kick in when you're close to reaching a lofty goal, or perhaps when you've already, briefly, reached it and experienced the glory that can be your life. It's at that moment, when living seems most golden, that you will probably see a headline warning that AIDS has increased 30% in the past two years, and you will suddenly convince yourself that yes, you have AIDS. And everything is over. Even worse, by already having shared a sundae with friends, you've spread the disease to everyone you care about.

And now you would kill for last week, when everything was briefly beautiful, because now all you can think about is the fact that you have an incurable disease, and everything you've nearly accomplished is tainted by this fact. In fact, everything that was good is now a slap in the face, because its joy been so deftly taken away.

The best part about being a hypochondriac is knowing that you're a hypochondriac but submitting to its wiles anyway. Because of course this is going to be the one time that you're not making it up. Yes, you're clever at fooling yourself into disease, but the fact that you're ASYMPTOMATIC obviously means that you are in the early stages of the disease. Also, you cut your lip the other day, and it is NOT HEALING. Because your white blood cells are fucked. You are fucked. Who the crap cares if you're in the finalist stages of the short story contest when you've shown who you really are by contracting a deadly disease? No one is going to be talking about your successes at your poorly attended funeral. They will be whispering to each other, "Is it true he died of...?"

And yes, it will be true. Because this is the one time it's not in your head.

Speaking of weekends

As was mentioned by my fraudulent counterpart, weekends are a double-edged sword.  You might be happy to not have to toil at work, but now you have 48 hours of opportunity to ruin your life. If you work it out correctly, you should wake up on Monday morning with enough guilt about the weekend to consume almost half your next week.

Drinking is key. If you can think or talk or look at a bright light or walk without falling over or do not wish that you were dead on Sunday, then something went wrong on Saturday. Horribly wrong. Sunday should be spent sleeping/drinking away your hangover. How can you do that if you don't have one?

Go out on Saturday night. Even if you don't feel like it. And if you're too poor to go out, find someone who's rich enough or lonely enough to take you out. Or if you're not into going out, then grab a bottle and sit on the couch with a box of tissue and a guitar. Don't let this night go to waste. Instead, lay waste to it.

On Sunday, you should wake up in a cold sweat and not be able to function until the evening. At which point you will have successfully passed the entire weekend.  Eat some greasy food and wash it down with a swig of regret. You deserve it.

Starting Your Day Counterpoint

Starting Your Day. Part Two.

It's true, what you've been told: Starting your day is really an incredibly important part of starting your day. And there are so many ways to do it the fraudulent way. Let's define a standard weekday morning. (The weekend morning is critical in its own way and deserves its own section. That will come later. So calm down, you.)

The most crucial thing about starting your weekday is waking up, and the best way to wake up is by failing not to think immediately about something that really, really annoys or frightens you about the day ahead. Or existence in general. Do this before you even open your eyes. Think about that special someone who f***ed you over last night, or about the presentation you have to give your boss tomorrow that you don't even know what it's about, and why the hell are you supposed to give a presentation but if you don't you will never ever get a raise ever in your life. Think about that.

Then open your eyes. The day is already a real poopcake, and you sort of want to die. This is the correct way to start your day. Then you go to work, and the rest of the day is poopcake too. That can take care of itself. You don't need our help there.

Weekends.

Weekends have an awful specialness all their own. Yes, there is the inherent joy that comes with knowing you don't have to wake up for work. But in its place is the knowledge that you have to fill an entire day on your own. If you do it correctly, you will wake up well past noon, automatically making you feel like a failure for wasting most of one of the two free days that you wait for the entire week. Your head should be reeling from too much sleep, and you should spend at least an hour staring at your wall wondering if you should fall back asleep. But waking up should already be the worst part of your day. You'll only confuse things by having to wake up again.

Stumble to the coffeemaker and take a minute or two to lean against the refrigerator, unable to keep going because the weight of existence is burdening you and only you. Then sigh out loud and continue on making the coffee. The coffee is important. It's free at work, so you're addicted to it, and if you don't drink it, that awesome headache will come. So do it, you. Make that coffee.

By now, it should be well into the 3:00 hour, and you've done nothing but make coffee and possibly stare at the walls. To anyone else, this would be an utter crapstyle life, but to us, you and I, this is success. Because we're not dead. Yet.

Starting Your Day

Starting Your Day.

So today we're going to look at how you get up in the morning/afternoon and what you can do to try to improve your day from its beginning. These first couple of hours after you slide out of bed or off the couch or from the bathtub are the most critical of your entire day. The decisions you make at this point are going to affect you (and those around you) for the entire day. It's important to take some time to evaluate routines and make sure you're building a solid, sturdy foundation.

After you snooze your alarm several times and finally face the sick truth that you're probably going to have to wake up, what's the first thing you do? It's probably smoke a cigarette, right? I want to first suggest that you consider holding off. I find that if you go to the bathroom first, you avoid the chance that the early-morning cig will work its digestive-track magic and cause you to soil yourself. While shitting yourself is almost never fun, it's an especially awkward way to begin your day.

After you use the bathroom, feel free to light up that delicious morning cigarette. If you don't smoke, then you might want to consider starting.

Now, it's time to eat something. A lot of people just drink coffee in the morning and expect this to sustain them until lunch. This is pretty flawed logic, though, considering that you haven't probably eaten in hours, or even days. They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Usually they're completely wrong, but in this instance, they're right. Eat something. Something big. Take a little extra time in the morning to cook eggs, toast, pancakes or a pie. You may be late to work habitually because of this, but let's be honest, you were habitually late before this and work has likely gotten used to it by now. They'll probably thank you when you come in more energized and smelling of bacon instead of vodka.

What about the shower? Do you do it in the morning or at night? I suggest the morning. Going to bed filthy isn't fun, but going to work without a shower is just going to turn your already miserable day into one that's also physically uncomfortable. Itching your filthy, oily skin under your dress pants or Burger King uniform is only going to get you weird looks from coworkers and customers. And not weird in a cool, David Lynch way, but more of a Michael Jackson's face way. 

If you take a car to work, you should really start taking the train/bus/whatever you have in your city. Relying on public transportation will provide you a good few excuses for being horribly late to work. Also, you'll get that sort of respect from your peers, especially if you live in a city with shitty public transportation, like LA. They'd never do it, but they're happy that you are. This is the kind of goodwill that can be banked and used against them later.

And when you get to work, if at all possible, spend a good, long time doing nothing. Adjust to your new environment. This requires more coffee, banter with coworkers, surfing the internet, checking your personal email, shopping on Amazon, checking your personal email again, going to the bathroom to masturbate or stare at your face in the mirror for a really long time, or just sitting at your desk and holding back your tears.

When you're good and ready, jump in to work and get your day going. If you follow the tips above, you're sure to make it through your day alive enough to go out and get drunk and start the whole thing over again the next morning.

Hi. Welcome. This is Fraudulent Living.  Come here for advice, stories, support. Learn how to live from the masters.