Tomorrow, Will It Really Come? And If It Does Come, Will I Still Be Human?

PART SIX:

I said yes.

_________________________________________

After swallowing the first pill, I took a long, hard look in the mirror.  Then I popped some zits.  

I braced myself for a possible year of attempting to figure out the best synthetic seratonin enhancer that wouldn’t fuck with my head more, or make me gain weight, or not want to have sex, or get adult acne, or make me actually follow through with the plan that was not *really* a plan, but any day now it could have been one, maybe.

Two weeks later, I was picking up my prescription for a higher dosage of the same medication.  The past 14 days had proved to be inconsequential.  I felt better, I hadn’t had any thoughts, no negative side effects as of yet, so Doc set me up with a three-month prescription three days before my insurance ran out.  Thank you, Doctor!  

As of now, it’s been approximately 7 weeks I have been faithfully altering my brain chemistry with a pharmaceutical every morning.  I was almost morally against it for a long time.  My friend Michele said something that really helped get me over the summit:  “With eating right and exercise, you have this much wiggle room.” She stuck out her index fingers a couple of inches apart.  “With anti-depressants, you have this much.” The space between her fingers grew to a foot.  

It’s all well and good to have the intention to take WAY better care of yourself immediately, but it’s hard to look at mental illness as the cancer it is and really believe if you don’t turn your shit around, you’re gonna die.  Especially when it’s so easy to help yourself out with meds. I’m over the self-righteous “natural” mood lifting devices; I needed a fix.  I waited long enough.

Seven weeks.  And I am absolutely floating on Cloud Nine.  I mean, I’m not head-in-the-clouds, but it’s like... nothing is wrong right now.  I admit there is a subconscious defense mechanism that has me waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I mindfully pull myself back into the here and now and look at all that is happening to me that feels amazing.

I recently saw a picture on Facebook of a sandwich board outside some establishment and written in chalk was something to the effect of:  “Be grateful for what you have because yesterday it was what you wanted.” 

And I take a step back and look at my life right now:  I am living with a loving, supportive man who is open to me loving and supporting him through his speedbumps, we have an amazingly sweet and loyal dog, my cats are healthy (and not killers... yet), I have a roof to protect me from the rain, I have a luxurious bed, I have air conditioning, I have my days free now, I’m auditioning, I’m interacting with many different people each day, I have time to make art, and I have written these six entries, 2,881 words at this point, the most I have written in two sittings for a long, long time.  I have the creative partners I have wanted, I am surrounding myself with artists I admire and want to learn from, and I am creating the art that connects with me.  I am being me.  

I am effervescent with possibility.  I am rife with ideas.  My brain is shifting and relaxing and bathing in the shallow fluid by which it’s surrounded and doesn’t feel clenched tight like an adrenaline-filled fist.  Life is good right now.  And if something bad happens, which something bad will, I can only hope that I am able to handle it.  That is the last test. I hope I honor it properly when I encounter it. 

So, PHEW, I was gettin’ all Shakespeare or some shit in there.  “Honor?”  Someone call the Starks!  My point is, great things are a-brewin’, including this blog, but also including some other stuff I think you’ll love if you’re not into narcissistic confessionalism (see, I already said it was “narcissist,” so now you can’t because it’ll look like you’re making this big observation, but I’ll be all, I already SAID that, jerk!  So, just... nevermind).

My real point is... stay tuned.  I have a whole new brain now.  Who knows what will come out?

(I promised myself I wouldn't take 1000s of pics for the right one and would just post the first.)

end.  

Happiness Hit Her Like A Train On A Track

PART FIVE:


So.
_____________________________________________

Once I got the job at Amsterdam, I knew my days of cheap health insurance were numbered.  

OH WAIT.  I forgot a very important part of the story.  I left the internet for a while.  I Tweeted and Facebooked less (and hello?  Crickets in this corner). I shied away from sharing anything. Because I discovered someone tattled on me for a couple of flip comments I made on Twitter about my place of employment (the second admittedly more alarming, but anyone that knows me knows it was a joke and this person knew me: the tattler relayed to my employer stuff about me that I have told few people).  I was reported to the office that deals with such reportings.  Twice!  The first time, I was lightly reprimanded and the second time a little more, but still left my bosses’ office laughing.  Both incidents he and I knew were ridiculous, though serious on some level.  Serious for my job and my well-being.  I have an idea who may have reported me, but no proof.  I shall just trust that karma does its magic if it is so warranted.  

Guh.  I felt a little like how Daniel Tosh might have been feeling a few weeks ago. No, not smug; gun-shy. Maybe. I don’t know his style. I left the internet and I wasn’t interacting much with others (no really, those are just “likes” on Facebook, not interactions), I pretty much ceased most Tweeting, and I hardly did any G-Chatting.  (Me, in 1990: “What in the Jesus Jones is she talking about?”)

I am social by nature.  I have a ton of friends, even though I’m not particularly close to many of them, I would help them out of a bind or connect them with a potential partner or collaborate with a grip of ‘em.  Sitting at a desk around only 1-5 people for 8.5 hours a day (desk lunch, HAYOO), 5 days a week has to be supplemented by my 1600 friends on Facebook and Twitter.  I postulate I just need the interaction.

So with my self-grounding from the internet, I was alone.  I live with my boyfriend, but there was a hole in me that he’s not big enough to fill.  He fills his hole very well though.  I don’t totally mean that to sound dirty, but, well, sometimes I’m predictable and cliche.  And I am okay with that.  But I do mean his hole in my soul.  (D’AWWW) But he can’t always make me LOL with 140-character quips in all caps.  

I started shelling up.  Well, more.  I had been shelling up for almost two years.  And now I felt like I was encased in a cocoon of Nobody Knows The Troubles I’ve Seen.  Finally, I went to a doctor.  I took an evaluation.  I was depressed for sure.  I know how I’m going to kill myself?  Okay, it’s progressed to orange on the self-terrorism alert advisory system.  “Let’s get you on anti-depressants,” the doctor who lets you call her by her first name said.  And after years of refusing to go that route because I knew, I just KNEW, I could solve myself through yoga or macrobiotics or meditation or just doing my art regularly... I said yes.


to be concluded...

There's A Party In My Head And No One Is Invited

PART FOUR:

But the whole time, and though gradually fading to the backgroun, I had those words streaming through my head.

____________________________________________

And other words too.  There were many words fired in my direction that made me feel incapable, shameful, hopeless.  After a year of my subconscious sponging this up, I really believed a lot of it and sitting at my desk at my day job staring into the computer was as far out into the future I could see.  The thoughts returned.

And this time, I knew how.  I just knew how I would do it.  I won’t tell you because that’s not important.  Me, Courtney McLean, a person I know is seen as funny and happy and friendly (for the most part) from the outside, wanted to end her life because she felt like her life meant nothing.

OKAY, DRAMA.  Man, is it heavy in here, or is that just my diaper?  Sorry y’alls.  I mean, I’m not sorry.  Obvy, if you weren’t into this narcissistic dumping, you wouldn’t have read past Part One.  But let’s just have a break for a second.  Hmmm... Did I tell you my cat bit me and I went to the emergency room?  That’s not a perfect palette cleanser, but the bottom line is, I’m totally fine, so there you go.  

(What a little shit.)

How about that I am going to get to hang with my friend Emily from Iowa in a little less than an hour and she’s been lending me her sweet ride for a few days?  I’ve been blasting the EP of Fort Wilson Riot (mostly track 2), an awesome local band I saw the other day at my work (Did I mention there’s live music EVERY NIGHT?  I get to hear new local bands all the time.  I already bought 5 CDs in the month and a half I’ve been there, which is monumental for me.  I rarely buy new music these days.  BITCH-FLIP!).  And the performances lately have been curing people of cancer, I swear, we've been getting so many laughs.  

So.

to be continued...

One Pill Makes You Smaller...

PART TWO:

Previously, on Mermaid Twang: 

Of course, the best fries in the Twin Cities are the one step back for my two steps forward, but they're SO "DAM" GOOD.  (See what I did there?)  Anyway, it's working.  

______________________________________________________

The main reason I quit my day job was to act more.  Yep.  I did that thing they all say not to do.  Well, those people just don't want the competition, IMHO (they are the ones that don't realize there's room at the top.  And the top is wherever you want it to be).  I have opened up my days for auditions and gigs and limited my nights of performance.  Kind of.  But this is good.  I feel it is promoting focus and discipline.  I’ve lived many years without either of those, so this may take a while.  But the proverbial ball has begun to roll. 

The awesome thing is, I’ve had three auditions in the past month and a half.  It’s not a lot, but after being called for three things in the past year before, it’s a step in the right direction.  

I also realized the other day that I have virtually no time to see my Mon-Fri 9-5 friends now.  It’s bittersweet.  I love those friends, some are my besties, but as a creative who has to create and an extrovert that wants to... extrovate?  Well, my louder, more obnoxious side is a bully.  And often shows up in my creative side’s output anyway. My free nights are taken currently by voiceover class or rehearsal.* So, I don’t have a lot of time for those friends now.  That’s the bitter. 

*(Rehearsal for WHAT you ask?  Why, for this:)

click the pic for all the lovey dovey wovey details.  

The sweet is that I have time to see the other friends I have missed because of day job/night creativity.  And that there are less of those friends, so I have more creative time.  And I’m totally a daytime creative person; I can rehearse and perform at night, of course, but writing and crafting happen with sun.  I love my friends, but my soul fuel contains a slightly greater percentage of making art.  Luckily, I get both consistently. Not as frequently as I should, but leisure time is a close third anyway.  

So here’s the gross part (but possibly "scandalous" confessional part):  I am infinitely happier.  A light has switched on inside. The me of yore that loved life and performing and writing and sharing has ceased scratching at the surface and is now poking her beak through the egg.  This is in no small part related to my change in money-making strategy.  I know making the job transition was integral to this, pun intended, bitch-flip.  

But another big part of it?  

Pills.

to be continued...

And after this, I'm giving it a rest.

My good friend just sent me this via email and another friend posted it on Facebook.  It's a joke, a pretty good one, IMHO, on the subject of rape.  Some of you, but more likely, none of you, may recall a post that Ye Olde Curls collaborated on that sparked a bit of controversy in the Twin Cities' comedy community.  I definitely don't want to re-hash the debate; I actually want to talk a little about what I learned from this whole thing, almost two years later.

I have started going to open mics again.  Stand-up comedy keeps calling me back and this time I'm making the commitment.  I'm a little sensitive when I run into the comics who were on the "other side" of my band's stance (sorry, I can't seem to find the original post even through Wayback Machine, but I'm not totally web savvy, so maybe you can find it).  I was at the same open mic as one of them last night and I couldn't help thinking, "Does he still think I'm a total cunt?" I hope we've both forgiven and forgotten, but I think there's wounds there that neither of us are responsible for on the other.  We were all really angry; our side wanted comics to be more sensitive (I cringe at nut-shelling it even like this), their side said comedy is subjective.

Which is where I concede that they were right:  comedy *is* subjective.

This is something that people who are truly comedians know.  True comedians know that not everyone is going to get the joke and though sometimes it's hard to brush off the audience that just didn't *get* it, I think that a true comedian (and I'm talking performers of comedy, not just stand-up comics) knows that some days the joke lands and some days it doesn't.  The joke that sparked this whole debate didn't land with me and so I said something about it.  And then I passive-aggressively put a post about it on facebook, which caused an uproar that was totally flamed by people on both sides of the fence trying to prove they were right.  Whatever.  I don't care about it anymore.  You can't control it. Where we hoped to bring awareness, I heard that rape jokes were at an all-time high in the comedy scene following the incident... because stand-up comics have a tendency to be a rebellious and self-righteous lot, gosh bless 'em.

I can't speak for where all those involved are nowadays, if they've reconsidered their original stances, like myself, and made concessions and maybe let go of some jokes that crossed the line (which is waaaay out there, if you ask me).  Of course, saying this, I hear Bill Hicks and Rick Shapiro screaming, "FUCKING CROSS THE LINE!"

So where am I right now?  Well, I have a rape joke that I've been using on and off for many years, since I started doing stand-up in New York.  My friend wrote it and let me use it on stage.  I let it go a couple of years ago, telling my friend I wasn't going to use it anymore, saying that ALL rape jokes are wrong, but now I want to use it again.  Because as Cristina Cordova points out in her piece commenting on our original post, I too would like to laugh at rape's expense.  Rape itself isn't funny.  But of course, it's totally possible to heal from being able to find the funny in one's experience with rape, whether direct or indirect.

Full disclosure:  I have been raped twice.  Not a whole lot of people knew this about me because it's not something I wear as a badge and because of the nature of these rapes, i.e., they were for the most part "non-violent" and with men I "knew," I never felt the need to be out about it.  I also didn't realize at the time what happened to me was, by definition, rape.  I also probably felt really ashamed.  But this is where my initial abhorrence for rape jokes was born... kinda like an anti-gay Senator who is so outspoken because he himself is a closeted homosexual.  Kinda.  Maybe not.  But I mean, like, I had to come to terms with what had happened to me to make laughing about it, being able to laugh at the subject okay.  Obviously, every person that's been raped is at different stages of her or his healing and anything can trigger a traumatic re-living of the experience.

However, just because not ALL rape jokes are not funny, doesn't mean that every rape joke works.  But then, you have to remove the word "rape" from that sentence.  Not every joke works.  And that's part of what being a stand-up comedian is all about, especially if you're one that aims to cross the line.  Hopefully, you're doing it for awareness and to shed light on a difficult subject.  But if you're not, that's okay too.  Because I can't tell you how to do your work... but your subsequent gaining of fans might.  If you're being completely true to yourself and sharing your soul with the world and choosing to make light of the difficult because you want to make others laugh, truly *laugh*, I just have a feeling that your natural humanity will come through and eventually, you can help others heal through a hard subject.  Or you'll just piss others off.  There's no wrong or right, I guess.  I won't come see the comic that just does it to piss others off, but that's because I don't find it funny.  I don't.

I've made my peace with rape jokes.  People are going to tell them.  People are going to suck at telling them and some people are going to really hit the nail on the head.  Like with any subject.  Like the comic who told the joke that set me off said, "how is rape more off-limits than racism or homophobia, etc" (or something like that).  I think I have an answer to that, but that's where subjectivity comes in again.  I can only speak from my experience.  I can't tell a comic how to do his/her job, but I can stop going to shows.  That's about as much power as I can have.