Wednesday, March 23, 2005

And Now, a Bit of Fun

It’s nothing like where you live.  And nothing like what you imagine.  It’s an idyllic paradise - a wealthy, harbor-front community where everything and everyone appears to be perfect. But beneath the surface is a world of shifting loyalties and identities, of kids living secret lives, hidden from their parents, and of parents living secret lives, hidden from their children… clandestinely washing their hands exactly seven times, then drying them on a fresh towel, and then washing them seven more times.... always having the same breakfast in the same bowl, and then getting dressed and undressed five times in the same clothes before going out to surf before school, and then listening to the same insipid pop as they drive the exact same route to school, and if you make a mistake you have to go back home and start again.... looking like Abercrombie and Fitch models yet feeling compelled to straighten out things they see in public, like books on shelves or fruit in produce markets or people’s feet on the bus.... each beautiful, yearning soul crushed by a feeling of impending doom that pursues them through sun-soaked skies and over broad sinister beaches, just waiting for a crack in their regular patterns of behavior to create the kind of chaos that will suck them down and never let them breath fresh air again.... It’s the story of repetitive-behavior fathers and anxiety-stricken sons, husbands who can’t stop washing the car and wives who can’t sit still for five freaking minutes, and the unbalanced relationships between a group of fidgety teens in Southern California. 

It’s the OCD.