Lofty Educational Goals

My business degree is fine and all, and I narrowly avoided following it up with law school by sheer prescience. Other grad school options seemed a terrible waste of time and money. After all, I would have a good, solid day job and work on my writing in the off-hours. Brilliant!

A notable symptom among those of us with bipolar disorder is our tendency to go overboard with temporary enthusiasms. Think: distracted by shiny objects, then buying a roomful of said shiny objects to stare at until they begin loudly plotting against you, at which point you cry your eyes out and sell the damn things on Ebay. Or take them out back and shoot them.

Luckily, it only took two years for me to figure out the treatment was superior to the disease. Now that I am well medicated, I can still get excited about strange and wonderful things, but I forget about them a few days later.

Which brings me to my new, lofty educational goal: sniper training. If I raise enough money, I can go here and learn the finer points of stealth marksmanship. Fundraising: Maybe a bikini car wash? A charity (me) golf outing?

I've always been fascinated by guns, and not in a gangsta rap way or other felonious scenarios. More of a Wild West Show thing. A friend of mine in Colorado is in law enforcement, he took me to the range one day after I bugged him about it a billion times.

The people (mostly men) in the range were pretty shifty looking, and they looked at us (he, 6'7" and me, short and female) with extreme suspicion. Good times. After instructions were repeated to me five times, I finally slipped on the huge earphones and picked up the Glock. It's a bit heavier than it looks, sleek and cold to the touch. I held it as instructed, my friend Lurch's (not his real name) giant paws holding me steady. I fired at the target. Between the kick-back and the noise, I thought for sure I'd shot myself. But it was exhilirating!

Before you start running in circles, shouting "Trouble's a gun nut! Trouble's a gun nut," remember the momentary enthusiasm thing. Going to the shooting range cured my violent obsessions at the time, with one noisy, off-target shot. Do I advocate handing a gun to mentally ill people with violent obsessions? No, stupid, I don't.

It was a safe environment, and I was surrounded by people with a healthy appreciation for gun safety and a love for life. It's a skill. I want to master this skill. By this I do NOT mean I want to become a gun for hire. Rather, I just want to show off my mastery at some point, Annie Oakley style.

I mean, really: if I want to take out my enemies, I'd just train to be a ninja. Duh!