At this point, I know all too well I suffer from body dysmorphic disorder, or BDD. People with BDD obsess about a perceived flaw for at least an hour a day, and symptoms frequently include picking at one's skin, exercising obsessively, and feeling anxious or self-conscious around peers. Before I knew about BDD, I assumed I was just vain; it was not unusual for me to stand naked in front of a mirror and berate myself for whatever physical imperfections I had felt deserved the most criticism that day. But when self-loathing extends to one's nose, cheeks, eyebrows, chin, lips, arms, chest, navel, feet, calves, thighs, butt, fingers, forearms, biceps, complexion and hair type -- well, let's just say you have a problem. I have a problem. And there's a name for it: body dysmorphic disorder.

The tricky thing with BDD is that the obsession normally reserved for condeming your body can be displaced -- either purposefully or accidentally -- to other areas of your life. Do you mercilessly mock others for no real reason, other than that you disapprove with the way they look or act? Do you look down upon minority groups with condescension, expressing little sympathy for their unfortunate and unjust disenfranchisement? Do you "joke" with your friends about how gorgeous you all are compared to other people -- when meanwhile, you're the one who compulsively spends all of his time in front of a mirror? If you answered yes to these questions -- as I would have a few months ago -- then you might have BDD.

The reason I'm boring you to death with the details of my irrelevant psychological disorder is because BDD has now infected my blog. I call it "blog dysmorphic disorder." And girl, I got it reeeal bad.

Yesterday, I must have checked my emails at least 30 times. I monitor my hits throughout the day. I pour over my web site's statistics, comparing today's traffic to that of a week ago, a month ago, a year ago -- you get the point. I follow each referral to see in which context a fellow blogger linked me. Did he praise an entry? Does she say I'm cool? Is he talking shit about me? What the fuck, he said I'm an alcoholic! This complete stranger accuses me of being lonely, of being self-destructive! He rips into Agatha, too! They're saying I'm a shitty writer! That I have no talent! That I'm ugly!

Do you see where I'm going with this?

I understand it is difficult to treat bloggers with the same respect and civility you might afford to the sales clerk at J. Crew, to your mailman, to a woman you bump into on the street. After all, those people exist in the flesh; I, on the other hand, am merely text on a screen. And so it is tempting -- awfully tempting -- to rip into me on your web site. To leave nasty comments that insult and attack me. And then proceed to not care that your words might find their way to their subject, hurting his feelings and making him wonder why he even bothers compromising his privacy to garner a few laughs or a smile. You'll never see me as a real person because all I write about is binge drinking and, um, well, that's about it -- so cleary I have no one else to blame but myself. I understand this completely.

That said, I am hereby officially not giving a shit about what you think of me or what you write about me. Think I'm a drunk? Fuck you! Think I'm not funny? Fuck your mom, too. I don't give a shit. Not one bit. Not even a little squirt of diarrhea. Nope, I officially do not care.

If you think I'm being dramatic, or hypocritical, or pretentious -- whatever. During her performance at my school last weekend, Margaret Cho said something profound, and I agreed with her: "If I don't make it a point to consistently cross the line, to go too far, then it's as if I never went anywhere to begin with." So let me be frank: I'm going places, baby. Get used to it.

P.S. On a much lighter note, I'm going to publish all of the disturbing anti-Toby rants in a special section on my site. If you've read any ramblings you'd like to see added, send me an email.