Letters to Louis: Doo Wop (That Crazy)

Still waiting for that sophomore Lauryn Hill album like the rest of us? Guess what! It's going to be released! On Neptune.

Dear Louis,

What ever happened to the Crazy? Britney's doing better; so is Lindsay - who's even left anymore? Winehouse? Yuck. You miss the Crazy as much as I do?

YOURS! - Nat

Dear NAT!

You know, Nat, I can't really miss the Crazy if I'm surrounded by it every second of the day. Which I am. The Crazy's not something we just scan in gossip blogs - it's in our lives, all around us, bombarding us, like oxygen or Scarface posters. Also doesn't help if we generate the Crazy ourselves, constantly - which I certainly do. It's my way of recycling. I'm talking about that internal, maniacally scheming, Fatal Attraction-style obsessive streak, which came into vogue in the early '90s, when actress Sean Young dressed up as Catwoman and stormed a movie set to persuade Tim Burton to cast her. Even Sinéad O'Connor was like, "She needs help."

The Crazy on a micro level is just as frightening. Take, for instance, my divine ability to think and rethink about degrading comments my gymnastics coach hurled at me when I was 8 (domineering Lithuanian men still make pee a little) or how hot I'd look if only I removed half of these pesky ribs. See? Scary. Let's figure out where the rest of you can find ample dosages of the Crazy, because you apparently can't drag it out of yourselves. P.S. Sanity is for pussies; you all make me sick.

Rapping females: The barometer of Crazy shoots up like a sunflower-steroid hybrid whenever a rapping lady enters the room. You might remember when Lauryn Hill sang about the "Ex-Factor" or how "Everything is Everything." Since that time, Hill has advanced on her storied "Miseducation." And by that I mean she's currently studying abroad on what must be a spaceship. Little over a year ago, Hill unveiled a new "look," featuring what sure seemed like silver eye makeup (puffy paint?), an Afro, and a tin-foil alien bodysuit - killing us softly with her ray-gun, if you will. With all the Reynolds-wrap and Martian imagery going on here, I sense a remake video of "We Built This City" on the horizon, so look forward to that. Lauryn's main combatant in Crazy is, obviously, the lovely Ms. Lil Kim, who likes to spend her un-incarcerated time collecting plastic surgeries like so many Pokémon cards. I could revel in this Crazy all day, except these ladies carry weapons, so let's book it.

Residence Life: Not positive your university life abounds with enough under-medicated spontaneity? Looks like your time has arrived to become an RA. Check it: I'm an RA, and guess how I feel? Fluent in Crazy. I'm speaking it to exchange students by now. The day-to-day beat of a resident assistant involves only the finest of life's challenges, like stopping that thousand-pound freshman from punching pedestrians or getting called at 4 a.m. to help clean Tina's puke off her roommate's thong in the hall. If you ever wanted to take part in the show "Cops" without committing to all of that … Kentucky, become an RA. You're on staff with superschweet, sensible people, and you'll need them when a wobbling, crying 18-year-old pulls the fire alarm because she got scared when Tina started puking on everyone's thongs.

Exes: Part of enjoying the Crazy means construing others as crazier than us. It's validating. Talk about "Ex-Factor," the exercise re-evaluating our most diagnosable exes gets more fun with each attempt. Truly, I wish I was deranged enough to make up my three personal favorites, because I'd be making James Frey-style bank right now: 1) My high-school beau whose hyper-Catholic father blessed him with holy water every time I came over. For real. Still debating an Opus Dei connection. 2) The batshit-bonkers 25-year-old who claimed I spread rumors that he had AIDS and "wore his bandana all the time because of the AIDS." You know. Bandanas. Those international AIDS emblems. And 3) The affable 21-year-old I met in March who (get this) claimed to have sex dreams where I read "Letters to Louis" to him as we did the nasty. See, this is why we need to legalize gay marriage … so I can arrange for this flattery in all my days.

Facebook: Um, Nat, we haven't yet spoken about our demented mutual friend named Facebook. Crazy basically lives in a high-rise on Facebook, though it owns condos on MySpace and most fan-fiction sites. Just look at these pearls, from the compulsive overachievers who post stilted profile pictures from meet-and-greets with Hillary Rodham Clinton or Mitt Romney to that uncombed recluse English grad student whose only listed interest is either "fire" or "Morrissey." Bless your madness, Mark Zuckerberg.

One last note about the Crazy: I'm set to swivel in it for life since, er, my college education ends next week. Cue the Simon & Garfunkel harmonies, Anne Bancroft legginess, and snorkel adventures at the bottom of the pool. Oh yeah, and cue the excessive tears, my newly aimless life, and comfort-food gorging -- did I mention I was crazy? Keep checking the police blotter for my future ambitions.

(Image: Getty)