Furiously Happy Page 5

  ALPHA INTRUSION: When you’re asleep you’re supposed to have delta brain waves, but apparently my brain is constantly getting interrupted with alpha waves, so I’m flooded with awakelike brain activity while my body is asleep, which means even when I’m asleep I’m still awake. I suspect my brain is working in collusion with my legs and my whole body is forcing me to do algebra and work out while I’m asleep. It’s no wonder I’m so damn tired. And now that I think about it, alpha intrusion is all about part of you being asleep and the rest of you being awake … JUST LIKE MY ARMS THIS MORNING. * BAM. * It’s like my brain just did a mic drop there.

  When I told Victor the results he didn’t take them very seriously until I pointed out that most people with alpha intrusion die. Then he looked concerned and I felt bad so I admitted that they actually don’t die from alpha intrusion. Just, you know, most people die. Eventually. I can’t imagine the intrusion helps though.

  Victor sighed and assured me that “no one ever died from not enough sleep” but I’m pretty sure they have, and he paused and corrected himself. “Maybe it’s ‘No one ever died from too much sleep,’” and I was like, “I think you just described a coma. THIS ISN’T HELPING.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Everyone has to die of something but you’re probably not going to die of sleep.”

  And he’s wrong because best-case scenario I die in my sleep. I’ll go to bed and then I’ll never wake up. Worst-case scenario? I’m eaten by clowns.1

  A footnote on Rory: There are actually two Rorys: Rory and his stunt double, Rory Too. The first time I saw Rory was on the Internet and I fell in love and told his maker, Jeremy, that I had to have him. I explained how Rory perfectly displayed that furiously happy smile and Jeremy agreed. Sadly, in between my falling in love with his photo and actually paying for him, Rory was involved in a tragic roller-coaster accident in Las Vegas. This sounds like something I just made up, but I assure you it’s true. Rory’s temporary guardians had taken him on a debaucherous Vegas weekend and he’d broken a few limbs. He’d also left all of his fingers and toes behind, proving the old adage “What happens [to break off] in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Jeremy was furious and broke the news to me gently and he vowed to make me another Rory (better, stronger, and with wires inside so he was posable and could more effectively ride on the cats) with a raccoon corpse he had in his freezer.

  “How does the first Rory’s face look?” I asked.

  “Still pleased as damn punch,” he admitted. “But the rest of him is a hot mess.”

  I considered it for a moment and decided that a broken and tattered but still ecstatically happy Rory was pretty much exactly what being furiously happy was all about. After all, the most interesting of us have been broken and mended and broken again.

  “I’ll take him,” I said. “Hell, I’ll take them both.”

  And that’s how I came to own two furiously happy raccoons. And I love the flexible perfection of Rory Too (who is slightly larger, but you can’t be picky when you’re only dealing with roadkill raccoons) but Rory I is the one who makes me laugh every time I look at him. Jeremy had mended his broken arm and leg, and my father spent an afternoon sculpting new fingers and toes for him. Rory still looks a bit “off” but in a good sort of way and I’m currently looking for infant-sized adamantium Wolverine claws for him.

  But even without the claws he’s lovely … broken and flawed and so strange that even people who like taxidermy still think, “What the shit is going on here?” even as he’s bringing joy and laughter into their lives. That raccoon is my goddamn role model. He is the worst and best Patronus ever, and I want to be just like him when I grow up.

  Yes. Yes, they are.

  How Many Carbs Are in a Foot?

  I think I’m the last person left on earth who hasn’t eaten kale or quinoa. People keep raving about their being the next big thing, but I’m still all frightened-rabbit from the time Victor made me the last big thing and I was like, “This rice has gone bad and I didn’t even think rice could go bad.” Then Victor explained that it was risotto and I was like, “The stuff Gordon Ramsay is always yelling about? This is very disappointing. It’s as if risotto doesn’t know if it’s mashed potatoes or rice so it just decided to be both. But badly.”

  Victor argued that it was really more like grits, but grits you can smother with cheese and butter, and that’s pretty much cheating. I’d eat a human foot if it was smothered in enough cheese and butter. Then Victor called my bluff, saying, “You would not eat a human foot. You won’t even finish the damn risotto.” I’m not sure if that was a dare, but it didn’t matter because he’s right. I’m way too lactose intolerant. Everyone else at the dinner party would be tucking into their cheesy-butter foot, and I’d have to eat my foot parboiled and plain. That’s my struggle. And it’s very real.1,2

  Pretend You’re Good at It

  It wasn’t enough blood to be worrisome. Not even enough to demand a stitch. But it wouldn’t stop dripping unceasingly from my swollen foot.

  I was in New York in January, to record the audiobook version of my soon-to-be-released first book and to attend a prelaunch lunch held to publicize my book. This is fairly normal in book publishing but I was new to it and I was terrified on both accounts. The invitations to the luncheon were nicer than my wedding invites and everyone came. People from The New York Times, CBS, O magazine, and others I didn’t even know. My agent and publisher did their best to keep me unaware of the importance of this luncheon, as they both knew that my anxiety disorder could be crippling and I’d already warned them (only half joking) that I might spend the lunch hiding under the table and they would have to just find a way to explain that writers are notoriously eccentric. And they are. But I knew I was more than that.

  Mentally ill.

  It’s a phrase that once scared me, but now I wear it like an old jacket, comfortable but ugly. It keeps me warm when people look at me as if I’ve lost my mind. I haven’t. I’m mentally ill. There is a difference. At least to me there is. I am very aware of the fact that I’m not right. I know hiding under tables and in bathrooms isn’t normal. I know that I’ve carved out a life that lets me hide when I need to because I wouldn’t survive any other way. I know that when my anxiety attacks hit, my body isn’t actually going to kill me, in spite of how it feels. I know that when I get suicidal thoughts stuck in my head I have to tell someone else who can help because depression is a cunning manipulator. I know that depression lies to you. I know that the few weeks a year when my face feels like a stranger’s mask and nothing but physical pain can bring me back to my body there is a limit to how much I can hurt myself and still be safe in my own bed. I know that I am crazy. And that has made all the difference.

  The luncheon went well. I mingled somewhat unsuccessfully with important people but I managed to intrigue them enough that they wanted to interview me for important pieces that might help the book I’d been writing for the last ten years. The book was a sort of dark comedy, and the cover featured a small, taxidermied mouse dressed as Hamlet and holding the skull of another dead mouse in his hands, as if it were a tiny Yorick. I’d asked my publisher to put my dead mouse, Hamlet von Schnitzel, on the cover of the book as a joke, but we could come up with nothing better for such a strange little book and that’s why I was constantly apologizing to the sales team for making them have to sell a book with one and a quarter dead rodents on the cover.

  After the first set of drinks was ordered, my editor, Amy, had a small but perfect speech, which would have been nicer than any speeches given at my wedding if I’d actually had friends when I was married who knew me enough to give speeches. Then she called me up to say a few words and I shakily welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming on this strange journey with me. And then I panicked a little because I couldn’t think of how else to end the speech and that’s when I found myself pulling one (and a quarter) dead mice out of my purse in the middle of a fancy New York restaurant. The waitstaff looked a little stunned and I think
I might have hidden my face behind the tiny rodent and said something in a squeaky mouse voice about the importance of being true to yourself. Most of the people in the room knew nothing about me and even less about Hamlet von Schnitzel, but my vaguely panicked agent smiled encouragingly and so everyone else smiled along with her.

  The whole luncheon was fuzzy but I think it was successful. My favorite part was when everyone was leaving and one of the waitresses snuck in to tell me that she was a huge fan and couldn’t wait to read my book. I suspected my editor had paid her to say that but I saw her nervous, wild-eyed look barely masked by a skin of propriety and I realized she was part of my tribe. I hugged her tight and thanked her. She probably never realized how much I needed her right then … a keystone to keep me steady in a sea of normal semi-strangers.

  I went straight from the luncheon to the small studio where I was recording my audiobook. I’d had to convince them to let me narrate my own book because most audiobooks are read by professional, velvet-toned actors, whereas my voice sounds like if Minnie Mouse were sick and spent too much time in Texas. I was terrified, certain that the pounding of my heart would be heard on the tape. They could literally pick up every rumble of my stomach. How could they fail to hear the terror in my voice?

  The answer is, they couldn’t, and so they’d stop me every few seconds and ask me to try the line again. Eventually they told me to take a break and clear my head and I left so that they could probably call Betty White to see if she could take over and that’s when I realized how much I wanted to read my story in my own voice. I hid in the bathroom and sent out a frantic text to my friend Neil Gaiman (a brilliant author and narrator) telling him that I was panicked and was just about to lose the chance to tell my own story because my voice betrayed just how weak and insignificant I knew I was. He sent back a single line that has never left me:

  “Pretend you’re good at it.”

  It seemed too simple, but it was all I had so I scrawled the words on my arm and repeated it as a mantra. I walked back into the studio pretending to be someone who was amazing at reading her own story. I finished an entire paragraph without interruption. Then I looked up and the producer stared at me and said, “I don’t know what you just did, but keep doing it.” And I said, “I just did a lot of cocaine,” and she looked a bit aghast and so I said, “No, I’m just kidding. I just got some really good advice from a friend.”

  The next day of recording was just as nerve-wracking as the day before, but I looked at the words on my arm again (“PRETEND YOU’RE GOOD AT IT”) and took a deep breath and pretended up the confidence I needed. Then I said, “You know what this audiobook needs? MORE COWBELL.” And I sang the theme from Annie because I’d always wanted to sing on a New York stage and I figured that this was as close as I’d ever come. Then I suggested that they hire James Earl Jones to read the rest of the book. Or a Darth Vader impersonator if he wasn’t available. They laughed. I laughed. I felt better. And I pretended I was good at it. And somehow? I was.

  * * *

  I write this mantra on myself every single time I have to get onstage or do a book reading. “Pretend you’re good at it.” I’d like to think that one day I’ll be able to leave off the “pretend,” but for now pretending works just fine. It gave me the confidence to finish the audiobook that day, and to be able to laugh and enjoy the experience instead of cowering in the bathroom.

  But later that night in my hotel room I was hard-pressed to find something to laugh about. It was two a.m. and I was in the midst of a medium-sized panic attack. The kind where it seems like there are wild hamsters in your heart and you can feel the dread pressing down on you but you don’t quite feel like you’re dying yet. I took some antianxiety meds and tried to snap myself out of it by pacing, but the bitter cold had made my feet and hands swell from my rheumatoid arthritis and one foot was so swollen that the back of my heel split, seeping blood into my slipper. I sat with my foot in the bath, watching the water turn red as I waited for the bleeding to stop. I took deep, measured breaths and I tried to convince myself that being trapped in a tiny hotel room half of a country away from my home was fine … it was an adventure. One I was taking with a dead mouse and a foot they might have to amputate. And just when the panic attack got strong enough that I thought I might scream, I looked outside and saw the most amazing thing.

  I saw snow.

  To most people, snow is not a big deal; it’s a hassle at best. To a girl born and raised in Texas, snow is magical. The giant snowflakes came down in enormous clumps, gleaming against the dark brick of the building my window faced, and it was lovely. And calming. I tried to open the window to stick my hand out but it was painted shut and I cursed silently. I watched the snow fall for an hour as I waited for my foot to stop bleeding and I wished it was light enough outside for me to go play in the snow. “IT’S SNOWING, YOU GUYS,” I tweeted to everyone in the world, who honestly didn’t care.

  And then, at four a.m. I decided that the only thing that would cure my insomnia/anxiety would be a long walk. In the snow. I pulled a coat on over my nightgown, slipped on my flats, and went downstairs. My foot was killing me as I tiptoed outside, nodding quietly to the confused man at the night desk, who looked puzzled to see me leave in my pajamas. Then I walked out into a New York night, which was muffled by snow, a thick white blanketing of powder that not a single person had put a step into. I could hear a drunk yelling for a cab down the street but it was comforting to not be the only person out in that weather. Sure, I was in my pajamas and I had been stabbed in the foot by arthritis, but at least I was mostly sober and not too far from a warm bed.

  My foot ached. As I took a step the sharp pain shot all the way up to my spine. And that’s when I just said, “Oh fuck it,” and carefully stepped out of my shoes into the gleaming white snow.

  It was freezing, but the cold effortlessly numbed my feet and aching hands. I walked quietly, barefoot, to the end of the block, leaving my shoes behind to remind me how to find my way home. I stood at the end of the street, catching snow in my mouth, and laughed softly to myself as I realized that without my insomnia and anxiety and pain I’d never have been awake to see the city that never sleeps asleep and blanketed up for winter. I smiled and felt silly, but in the best possible way.

  As I turned and looked back toward the hotel I noticed that my footprints leading out into the city were mismatched. One side was glistening, small and white. The other was misshapen from my limp and each heel was pooled with spots of bright red blood. It struck me as a metaphor for my life. One side light and magical. Always seeing the good. Lucky. The other side bloodied, stumbling. Never quite able to keep up.

  It was like the Jesus-beach-footprint-in-the-sand poem, except with less Jesus and more bleeding.

  It was my life, there in white and red. And I was grateful for it.

  “Um, miss?”

  It was the man from the front desk leaning tentatively out of the front door with a concerned look on his face.

  “Coming,” I said. I felt a bit foolish and considered trying to clarify but then thought better of it. There was no way to explain to this stranger how my mental illness had just gifted me with a magical moment. I realized it would have sounded a bit crazy, but that made sense. After all, I was a bit crazy. And I didn’t even have to pretend to be good at it.

  I was a damn natural.

  George Washington’s Dildo

  The First Argument I Had with Victor This Week

  ME: Hey. Are you busy?

  VICTOR: No. What’s up?

  ME: Are we … fighting?

  VICTOR: Why? What did you do?

  ME: I didn’t do anything. I was just at my computer and then I remembered that you were talking to me in my office and then I realized you weren’t there anymore.

  VICTOR: That was like … an hour ago.

  ME: I know. But I couldn’t remember you leaving and I thought maybe you stormed out on me because I wasn’t paying attention to you, but then I didn’t n
otice because I wasn’t paying attention.

  VICTOR: You don’t remember me leaving?

  ME: No. It’s like when you drive home but then you can’t remember driving home once you get there.

  VICTOR: Huh. Yep, we’re fighting.

  ME: Hmmm. Were we fighting before I brought all this up?

  VICTOR: Nope.

  ME: Well if it makes it any better I was coming in here to say that you were right to storm out because clearly I was not paying attention, and so technically I think you have to accept my apology. Especially since it’s for a fight that never actually happened.

  VICTOR: No.

  ME: BUT I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG AND I’M APOLOGIZING FOR A FIGHT WE NEVER EVEN HAD.

  VICTOR: You didn’t even realize I wasn’t in the room until an hour after I left.

  ME: Ah, but you didn’t notice that I didn’t notice. And I’m the one who brought that to your attention. So if anything you should be thanking me. I’m like the George Washington of marital fights.

  VICTOR: Wh—

  ME: Because he told on himself for chopping down that tree and everyone was all, “Good job, George!” and then that probably turned him into a tagger because the greatest praise he ever got was for vandalism.

  VICTOR: What are you talking about?

  ME: A tagger is a graffiti artist.

  VICTOR: I KNOW WHAT A TAGGER IS. It’s what kids call a vandal.

  ME: “Kids”? Are you implying I’m childish?

  VICTOR: Of course not. You’re the George Washington of marital aids.

  ME: Ew.

  VICTOR: You’re the one who said it.

  ME: No. “Marital aids” are sex toys. You just called me George Washington’s dildo.

  VICTOR: I’m pretty positive I’ve never called anyone that.

  ME: Well, you implied it.

  VICTOR: Stop talking.

  ME: I can’t. The marriage books say you’re never supposed to leave a fight unresolved.