Manic Monday

One of the questions "they" ask when diagnosing Mania is "Do you have Great Plans for the World?" and I have to admit that I do. More on that later.

I am beginning to think that in a small way I may actually have manic-depressive tendencies. I seem to be happy right now, but this happiness is just as inexplicable as my ash-grey despair of a few months ago. Not to mention the fantastic despair I experienced 2 summers ago - for at least 2 weeks I really had a hard time picking myself up off the kitchen floor and managed to survive despite a very limited diet of Twizzlers and scotch. In the end I learned something very valuable - that sometimes a good Sandwich can alleviate the symptoms of even the darkest depression. At the point where I really did think "if I don't get up off this floor and find a sandwich I will probably die - how do I feel about that?" I decided to drag my sorry sad ass to the grocery store to pick up a few things. I will say that this is probably the most difficult thing I have ever had to do in my life. And my life is FRAUGHT with difficulties...

At any rate, I had a good meal that night, and afterwards I discovered that I was still just as sad as I was before - I just didn't care as much. It didn't seem to matter. And at least I was able to derive pleasure from things again. For a while I was walking around like that little cotton ball guy in that Zoloft commercial - you know, where he sees the little birds that he usually loves but just doesn't enjoy them anymore? That was me. In fact I still cry when I see that commercial. "I know exactly how you feel!" I say to the unresponsive TV screen. Only when I no longer seemed capable of feeling pleasure, or pain, or anxiety, but just wandered through life leaking a constant stream of inexplicable and silent tears, I thought I had reached a kind of Buddhist Enlightenment: the abolition of desire. I no longer Wanted. Anything. I now know that I was just depressed. Probably suffering from a chemical imbalance of some kind. I know a guy who would argue with me that there were real reasons for my suffering. Ironically, that same guy would be the primary cause of my suffering as I knew it at the time. But even then I couldn't help thinking that there had to be more to it than that; surely this engulfing sadness - this endless dark and chalky emotional landscape - couldn't be just because of HIM. That seemed to allot far too much importance on one guy and one failed relationship. Even in the black talon-grip of depression that seemed irrational.

But that was then, and this is now, and as I say I feel quite good about things. And I have no real idea why that should be. After all, for a good portion of September - December I was, well, let's say High Strung about things. I was literally quivering all the time. I was under a good deal of stress and probably exhausted, which caused me to see and hear things that weren't there and to feel random parts of my body vibrating. I was like a horse crammed in the gate just before the gun goes off at the Kentucky Derby, eyes rolling back in my head, frothing at the mouth, all tensed muscles and quivering nerves about to explode.

Then I went home for the Holidays for what I like to call "Long Night's Journey Into an even Longer Darker Night." And then I wound up with a three day migraine in a dorm room of a foreign country. But somehow on my return I was no longer High Strung. I felt calm and peaceful. The only real thing I can link this to is:

1. I bought groceries on my first day home.
2. I cleaned my apartment on my second day home.

Subsequently I felt an extraordinary rising feeling of happiness; a peculiar tide on which I continue to float. Can it really be as easy as this? Is happiness truly as simple as a good Sandwich and a clean apartment? Well, as long as it works for me I can't complain. And I won't. Although I remain slightly suspicious.

Nonetheless I really do have Great Plans for the World. I feel a little like Dr. McCoy on that ancient episode of Star Trek where he wore this Helmet of Knowledge which gave him the strength and confidence to re-install Spock's Brain into Spock's Skull. In the episode Dr. McCoy, under the influence of this temporary brilliance, has eyes wide as saucers transfixed in a kind of mad stare as he foams out, "Why couldn't I see this before? It's so easy a child could do it!!! Replacing a brain - it's child's play!" And so this is how my brain feels now - lit up like an amusement park after nightfall, synapses firing wildly, telling me I too could be Rich and Famous if only I had a way to wake up the world to my brilliant ideas, such as:

1. Selling liquid hand soap in bulk at the local grocery store. Face it - we all love those little antibacterial bottles in the bathroom. Unlike bars of soap there is no buildup of hard soapy ridges on your sink ledge or boggy soap residue in the dish. But dammit! Every time you solve one problem (messy soap scum) you create another (environmental waste in the form of plastic bottles) Why has no one ever thought before of selling liquid soap in bulk? I see a big truck with a hose pulling up to the Co-Op and filling up great tanks of the stuff. We consumers could come to the grocery store and fill up our little bottles of hand soap much the same as we would big jugs of water. It's so easy a child could have thought of it! But why does no one do it?

2. Okay, I've forgotten the others. It's true - I come up with a few Brilliant Ideas a month and then promptly forget them as my hard-disk-brain-space is taken up with minutiae of the day.

3. Most of my Brilliant Ideas are related to my work field: the Arts. I have a list of at least 7 Brilliant Plays I have yet to write on my white board beside my desk. Why does no one else recognize how great these ideas are? i.e.:

a) a musical about Medieval Viking Lifeguards patrolling the fjords which I would call Beo-Watch.

b) a One Man version of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People.

c) a historical play based on a famous turn of the century murder-suicide case that happened down the street from me at a house that is now an Esthetics Salon called "The Magic Room."

d) a play about Sigmund Freud and Cocaine, with which he self-medicated regularly, and while under its influence promoted it as a cure-all.

e) a 3 man adaptation of La Dame aux Camelias reset in New York in the Roaring 20's.

f) a solo show based on my experiences on the road last summer called RoadKill.

g) a solo show called Short Leash about a Nurse, an aging cabaret singer, and a lapdog.

h) a short skit which recasts a climactic scene in MacBeth between the title character and Malcolm, with MacBeth and Malcolm X. Or MacBeth and Malcolm in the Middle.

I also have Great Plans for the theatre in general. I was recently convinced that starting up a theatre company from the profits of a grow-op would be an incredible marketing manoever. Sure, someone would get arrested eventually, but think of the PUBLICITY! We'd get in the Globe and Mail for sure. Imagine the angles - especially with a couple of Moms in the group. "We just wanted to put on a play," would be the headline for the article detailing how cutbacks to arts funding in Alberta have forced nice normal folks to resort to criminal behaviour just to support their arts jones. We could sell out a couple of seasons in advance by bringing in shows like "Reefer Madness - the Musical" and recent fringe hit, "The Reefer Man." Follow that up with my Freud/coke play and you've got a hit company.

However, no one seems convinced enough to support me in these causes.

Nonetheless, if anyone hears of a way to get bulk liquid hand soap on the market, please let me know.

Meanwhile, I'm just going to enjoy this little random wave of Happy while it lasts. Won't be long before the tide goes out again.

- Falcon.