Colleen, a long-time member of the ASU West community, aspires to the writing life. She serves as an IT director, teaches technology classes, and writes plays and skits for campus events. Off-campus, she has written and sold many short industrial films and has finished (but not yet sold) three screenplays. Recently, she was chosen as a National Learning Infrastructure Initiative Fellow for 2002, and she will be with ASU West half-time during that period.

Good is the only option for Catholic girls. Bad is sin, and for as long as I have known about sin, I have practiced avoiding it for fear of disappointing Jesus, Mary, Joseph and my dad. Original sin: I’m in the clear. Dad took care of that. Catholics are exempt, and I’ve got one less worry.

Mortal sin, that’s out of my league. It takes courage to be that kind of bad. That kind of courage was beaten out of me by the penguins before I ever considered the options. Bad is very different from just not being good. But I’m here to tell you from long experience, good is exhausting.

Not that I don’t try. I smother anger. I hide disappointment. I eat discontent until it transforms into giant gallstones that attack in the night. I work overtime and play seldomtime. Still I fail at my quest for perfection. We who were not called by God to become missionaries in deepest, darkest Africa settle for failed perfection. And oh, I fail. Daily, hourly, in the moment, all over the place.

Venial sin I just can’t help. It’s fun and naughty, and venial guilt has great feel-good moments. Temptation is all around, calling my name, and inevitably I succumb, for this is the new millennium and I do have cable. Mea culpa, but I try so hard to be good.

So, how does a good girl handle the cycle of failure? Hope to do better, ask forgiveness, accept instant blame, let people walk all over you, move on. You make a new vow, read a new book, start a new diet, write up a new affirmation. Draft a mission statement. Hone your saw and state your vision. You start again. And again.

I’m tired. Although I left the church years ago, I still carry the baggage, like Sisyphus with his rock. Bear with me if you’re Episcopalian and weary of my incessant blame of Mother Church. Religion comes in many flavors. Yours is golf, mine is guilt. I need the guilt to be good.

I don’t leave my bed without this burden. Being Catholic, I won’t even mention guilt in the bed. Guilt. Goodness. Perfection. That which defines me. I often try to hand it over to loved ones for safekeeping, but it sneaks into my shoe like a pebble, into my thoughts like the strain of an old Bee Gees song and into my dreams like a branch scraping my window in the rain. I am a recovering Catholic (Hello, Catholic!), and I will live with that therapy-seeking missile of hell for all my days, but I no longer want to be so good. Someone help me stop.

I am the privileged. This is not Kosovo, this is Paradiso. America. I eat well, live well, dress well, have my career. OK, I work at least 50 hours a week and think about it constantly. I don’t sleep well anymore. My medicine cabinet is a buffet of painkillers, digestion aids, and muscle relaxers. I have a permanent crick in my neck. I stress like a pro. Have I mentioned gallstones? I seldom call my friends. Why would I? They’re never home. They’re at work. We say we’ll get together, but who has the time? My family is distant and far away. OK, maybe I am angry. Privileged, safe life, great family, challenging career, good friends, and a little angry.

I need to fix this, for my M.O. is to fix everything. I don’t see my friends. Fix that. I don’t know my neighbors. Fix that. I often see their faces as our automatic garage doors open. They smile, I honk. The garage door closes and we disappear behind the tall walls of the Southwest. I am lonely. I search the faces behind the car glass, putting out the trash, clipping the hedge.

No one in my neighborhood responds. Hardly anyone in my office will drink beer with me. Seldom after work and never at lunch. One day, we looked up and everything had changed. It just isn’t done. Frowned upon. It would be bad.

Well, guess what? Fix that too. I want to be bad. I put out this note to all who hunger for the days of rich food, good booze, and wicked silly politically incorrect fun.