Tag Archives: memoir

Manic Panic

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As you know, I’m bipolar, specifically, bipolar 2. That means I’m depressed more often than I’m anything else, leading to misdiagnoses of clinical depression. I have been on all the depression drugs, from Abilify to Zoloft, which has led to discussions that go like great scene in Silver Linings Playbook where Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence discuss the medications they’ve tried the same way Comic book fans talk about their stashes. What I’m trying to say is that I have lived my entire adult being miserable, except for brief breaks where I’m actually myself, or I’m hypomanic. 

Being hypomanic can be a lot of fun. It’s like having a couple of drinks, and you’re funnier, better looking, and more charming. I’m pretty sure every woman who’s fallen in love with me has done so when I’m hypomanic.

Also, I’m irritable and downright angry. I can’t stop talking, and I’m grandiose. I regret so much of what I do when I’m manic. There is a member of my pantheon of fictional characters who is based on my mania. His name is Max. (Same first two letters—see what I did there?)  Max is an asshole. When I’m hypomanic, I become an asshole.

I spent the least amount of time being normal, and it was tough to tell if anyone actually liked the real me. I wondered how I could be an asshole a third of my adult life without actually being an asshole. Or if I spent six months miserable, did that mean I was just miserable?

Fifteen years ago, my brilliant doctor and I figured it out. It wasn’t some sudden eureka moment. (DOCTOR: “It’s a great day to come to the zoo and see a polar bear … wait. Polar! That’s it!”) He isn’t House. He’s actually like this guy I met in North Jersey who used to hang out with my Uncle Larry. But I digress. It took months of experimentation and patience for us to reach an accurate diagnose because psychiatry isn’t a science, it’s art.

We found a cocktail that worked. I know it worked because I went to bed depressed one night, and I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed, but not manic. I was myself, and I’ve been myself since 2017. The downside is that, when you’re on enough lithium, your emotions are muffled. I’m like a cruise ship: when the waves slam into me, I may tip for a second (I have a bad temper), but I return to normal pretty quickly. This may be one of the reasons Kate divorced me.

There have been a number speed bumps along the way.

Sometimes, when you have a mental illness, and you are relying on drugs to function, they stop working. You have to start from scratch. It happened to me in 2015, and took over a year to right myself. I brush my teeth, get ready for work, work, come home and pet my cat, write and draw, make dinner, and go to bed, all the time being aware this will happen again.

Sometimes, I’ll get hypo-depressed, where I can’t sleep, but it’s all I want to do. It doesn’t make me feel sad and worthless, but I experience a lot of the physical symptoms, like aching joints.

Sometimes, I’ll get hypo-hypomanic, which is the good parts plus some crankiness.

I don’t tell my doctor about either of these because I don’t want to mess with my medication. We have been polishing this cocktail for years, and I’m afraid to live without it. Also, if I’m being perfectly honest, it’s kind of nice to be hypo-hypomanic.

Otherwise, the real me is a hermit, and I haven’t made any long-term friends for a very long time. When I’m hypomanic, the relationships may last minutes, but they’re life-changing.

Weeks ago, when I started getting involved with the community theater and having great conversations, and meeting protestors and hanging out, I wrote ten long blog entries over two weeks. I was clearly hypomanic. I hesitated to call my doctor because I was enjoying myself. It’s so easy to go from manic to depressed, and I didn’t want to rush that.

I melted down at work on a Thursday, and again the following Wednesday. I missed a train and screamed “Fuck!” in a crowded platform. I feel like a cat on stilts. If the internet cuts out, even for a minute, I’m going to throw my laptop out the window.

I called my doctor, and he prescribed me an emergency supply of an antipsychotic to keep me calm and he helped me sleep. He told me to take the next week off work and to stay home and sleep as much as I can. I’m need to lay off my ADHD medication because it’s all stimulants, as well as the devil weed, which is a mild hallucinogen, and it would stimulate me. I am to stay in my apartment with two exceptions:

One exception is my commitment to the St. Mark’s Players. After a long Day One under house arrest, I had to pull myself together and be around other people when I keep losing control over myself.

For example, I was pleasantly surprised to see my favorite eccentric, platinum blonde theater volunteer, Elizabeth. She remembered me and was genuinely excited when she caught my attention. I said, “You look great! Really great!” She assured me it was just work clothes, but I reiterated how great she looked. And she did, but still.

I did not want to do that. She is half my age. Even though my motives are pure, and I genuinely wanted to compliment her, there are rules, and I was stepping over them. My body wanted to keep talking, but I tried to reel me in, resulting in words that sounded backwards. It happened again when I was trying to give directions to my favorite bar in New York, which is probably not there anymore.

I had two more conversations like this at the theater. On top of that, I had to call eleven pharmacists earlier to find the antipsychotic he prescribed, but I still couldn’t find it. I was an asshole to every one of them. I didn’t want to be, but I was. I was telling my mouth what to say, and my mouth was being a real dick about it.

That’s just words. I want to assault people for moving too slowly. I want to beat my desk to death with my ergonomic chair. I am holding myself together with all the energy I have. As I told my boss after my second meltdown, that was me holding myself together.

I don’t have control over my own body. This has been my constant thought since my first meltdown. What happens when I have low blood sugar, and I can’t keep it contained? What happens when I stub my toe, and the bad me gets loose? And there’s nothing to stop my mouth from saying something it shouldn’t. I can’t even regulate my thoughts.

I can see treating this creepy asshole as a separate person, like the Hulk. But it’s not. It’s my voice. It’s my body. It’s my mind. Unlike a cranky Bruce Banner, I don’t get to black out when I’m being destructive. I have to watch myself do it and live with the consequences.

I have to go out to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church again tonight, with all those people, and Elizabeth (who, at least, didn’t act creeped out the rest of the night), and maybe something that’s going to set me off.

I don’t know what I’m going to do or when I’m going to do it, but I’m awaiting this next fuckup, as I have been for over a week. I’m scared. I’m in an ongoing state of vigilance, and I’m so, so tired.

Eggsistential Crisis

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I love my apartment, and I love my roommate, but I have to say I miss the old place. The idea of separate rooms at all is one I once enjoyed, and we had a backyard for Newcastle to poke around in. We also had a great neighborhood. In the spring, all of the bushes became soft and colorful.

It’s a mile walk to the 7th Street Hill Café, which I’d long ago adopted. On Saturday mornings, I liked to sit in an easy chair, sip a latte, and watch them assemble the Eastern Market, a cross between a crafts fair and a Farmer’s Market.

I came to the 7th Street Hill Café, located on North Carolina Avenue, on Saturday to do just that. Riding high on bipolar disorder, I needed to get out of my apartment and experience the world. I settled into the chair, pulled my markers out of my bag and eat my breakfast sandwich, resisting the urge to devour the whole thing in two bites.

After I returned it to the end table, the old man in the opposite chair said, “You have egg on your shirt.”

“Gross.” I plucked the solid yolk and dropped it onto the plate, keeping it far from the last bites of my sandwich. I said, “Speaking of eggs, I saw a Cybertruck downtown. I’m gonna crunch some numbers, and I’m gonna get a second job, and I’m gonna go to the bank, and I’m gonna get a loan, and I am going to egg that piece of garbage.” (It’s one of the funniest jokes I ever made. I’m going to use it until I run out of people to say it to.)

“Or,” the old man, whose name was Glen, said, “You could fill up two—no, three—no, two coffin coolers with eggs and sell them at the farmer’s market. That’s what Dan did, you know Dan?”

It was 8:13am, and I accepted that I was going to be in this conversation until the Post Office opened at nine. “No.”

“Dan used to sell eggs here at the Eastern Market. I used to truck them in from his farm. So many eggs. Dan died of a stroke. Not kidding, he just keeled over and died. That’s why nobody’s selling eggs at the farmer’s market anymore. Do know that you can tell what a chicken ate by looking at the color of its yolk?”

I gasped. “No!”

The old man chuckled and looked a bit smug. “Oh, yes. If the yolk is this deep amber, orange color, it ate a lot of marigolds.”

He smirked at me through his beard and waited for my reaction. I had to formulate one, and the only way I could prove I was paying attention was to ask a question. “You feed them marigolds?”

The old man chuckled. “No, no, no, they’re free-range. They can eat whatever the fuck they want. And if I ever want to eat a chicken dinner, all I need to do is grab a rooster who’s getting too big for his britches and hold him upside down and slash, motherfucker! Decapitated! Heh-heh!”

I didn’t know what was going on, but I buckled the fuck up to see where it was headed. It was difficult to follow along, but not because it was a bumper car of thought. No, Glen stubbornly clung to one subject until he veered off into a completely different direction, like he was jumping from train of thought to train of thought at a crowded depot.

Glen once punched a “shepherd bitch” (a dog) in the head, and she was nice to him after that. He recounted why you should never piss him off through the parable of a tense standoff with the owner of the Eastern Market. He already had his Halloween costume ready to go. (Hooded cloak, Goblin nail extensions. A paper machê Satyr mask a friend in Venice made for him.) He couldn’t remember why he didn’t exchange a word with his half-brother for two years while they shared a house. He kept me up to date on the lifespans of his siblings, including his “bitch sister” (a person), who is still alive. For a coup de grace, he unloaded on me how people are always on their “fucking phones” all the time. He could tell you how to get from point a to point B. “You know how? Not through your fucking phone, that’s for sure. Not on a map.” He tapped his temple.

Suddenly, he was gone.

I finished my drawing in peace.

I packed up and wandered off, my first destination being the Post Office to mail a package I’ve been meaning to mail for six months (sorry, Donna). I made it halfway up the block before the generous application of the color orange, my favorite, caught my eye. I’d walked past it on impulse, but I yanked my emergency brake and skidded over to the side to see more paintings.

They were collages coated in a thick layer of shellac, and a figure, bald, faceless, and strangely sexy, appeared on many of them. She said, “I love watching people come in for a second look.” We talked about color, I told her everything I liked about her art, and I bought a piece. She told me her name was Quest, and she gave me a big hug. The visible part of Quest’s hair was made of gray feathers, and she wore a robe, not a dress. I don’t think she was human. In a good way.

I was in and out of the Post Office at the speed of someone who’s done it a lot.

Even though I have Ember’s number, I decided to walk the ten blocks to the House of the Devil to see if she was standing up for us. On my way, I acquired a lava lamp, and I attempted to take a picture of a street called Justice Ct. until a Latinx man accosted me. He knew English nouns, and that was it. He shouted at me an incomprehensible string of them that told the story of an immigrant succeeding in this country, and something about that was making him angry.

A middle-aged couple across the street, surrounded by Chihuahuas yelled, “Sir, can you help us with our dogs? Sir?” I realized who they were talking to me, and I separated from the loud man to join them.

The woman yelled, “Thank you for helping us with our dogs!” The angry man continued ranting, impossible to understand. I never got the names of the couples, but I thanked them profusely.

Ember was not at the Pit of Despair. She later told me she was taking the weekend off. She’s earned it for sure. I look forward to resisting next week.

Exhausted and overstimulated, I headed straight home. But first, there is a big sign at the stop before mine labeled “Arts Walk.” I’ve been meaning to go there for at least two months. I hopped off the train to check it out because I was still jittery. It was okay. It was no Eastern Market. I bought a belt made of an old bicycle tire.

Also this weekend, a relationship that lasted well over a decade came to an end. I’m not going into details because I like to keep it classy in this joint. Also because it was enormously frustrating.

Culture doesn’t put as much value on a friend breakup as it does a romantic one, but they still hurt. You’re closing the door on all that history and intimacy, even if it ended badly. You have every right to mourn.

The truth is, we’d broken years ago, and I just wasn’t ready to let go. I already mourned.

Sunday, I dedicated my day to my project, the fruits of which you’ve seen yesterday. I’ve received no feedback on them from any of the St. Mark’s Players, and now I’m frightened to go to the show on Thursday.

My next project is finding a light bulb for my lava lamp.

General Grievance

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I tried to work through the manic episode, but it was an unusually social day at work. I was trying to do my job because my morning hours are precious vis-à-vis my productivity. Past editors-in-chief of Blood and were getting their pictures taken with the Research Council, and they loved to laugh in front of the elevators, which I sit near.

I hid in a vacant office and finally got some work done. Unfortunately, our laptop batteries last only about an hour, and nobody on my floor could locate a cord. I tried taking a walk, and it didn’t work. If I didn’t start my day two hours before everyone else, I wouldn’t have finished anything.

When agitated, some will sputter something that sounds like English but seemed to be a forgotten dialect. That was me telling my boss I had to go home. It must have scared the crap out of her.

The walk to the Metro was calming, and I breathed through my commute in a half-empty subway car. I got home, didn’t play with Oscar, laid down, breathed for twenty more minutes, and finished my work for the day, except for one thing.

I had to bring myself down before the show, but I also wanted to hang out with Ember and whoever she had collected since I saw her last. That person was Steve, a chatty, retired man carrying a sign that said, “Nazi HQ.” Steve’s girlfriend works in the Capitol and may be a legislator.

Immediately after I introduced myself, an older man on a bike in the Cadillac of MAGA hats wheeled over on one of those rental bikes. Everybody was calm. Ember didn’t engage, she just waved her sign. Steve and the man traded talking points, which were deflected by the target’s stubbornness. Nobody got angry, but we thought he was stupid, and he thought we were stupid.

When I had arrived, she wasn’t sitting in the path of the douchebags because they had parked their Escalades in front of her. Off to the side, she waved one sign as high as she could (which wasn’t very high) and wore one around her neck.

I wondered if she was acting weird around me for some reason, but she’s really just weird in general. Thursday, she had painted Celtic knot-work on DMT onto her cheekbones. Her glasses were amber and the shape of sunflowers. Her baseball cap was covered in metal studs.

Speaking of DMT, we talked a lot about it. In fact, she had a recipe for extracting it from tree bark because “it comes from nature.” No thank you. The last time I tried a hallucinogen, I had a bad time, so never again. The last time Ember did, she saw a blue goddess who said she was ready.

I asked her how long she’d been doing this, and she told me two weeks. I asked her how long she lived in the DMV area, and she told me two weeks. Something called her, she didn’t know what. I tried to explain that I didn’t believe in the supernatural, but I was fascinated by it, but I lost control over my words and turned into a sputtering mess. We changed the subject.

She had been living in Vermont as a cook. Apparently, she has a bachelor’s in psychology but without a masters and doctorate, it’s a useless degree. She couldn’t find a “real” job, so she did some factory work while her soul died. She quit the kitchen when her calling found her, and she came straight here, where her cousin lives.

Ember is inspiring and brave, as well as being cocky and full of life. It’s impossible to believe that she came from the parents she later described to me.

The sidewalk, a block from Union Station, is prime hunting grounds for people-watchers, like myself. Except for the guy on the bike, most people, ignored us after I arrived. As the day went on, though, people thanked us, took pictures with Ember (She had the flashy signs), and chatted with us.

For example, while his family waved at us with enthusiasm, a dad told his eight-year-old daughter, “They’re protesting. If there’s something you don’t like, protest.” An older gentleman walked past us, spun around, middle fingers extended, and yelled, “Fuck the Heritage Foundation! I used to work for George W. Bush!”

I was there for an hour when we were approached by two people Ember already knew. They were federal workers, so they wore Covid masks to hide their identities. Though they did tell me their names, though: Brandy and Dani.

Brandy (plot twist: he’s a middle-aged man) paced the sidewalk, a tiger in a cage, with his own sign. He’s a veteran, who are another demographic the government is screwing.

Dani brought a slide whistle, playing it every time someone entered or left the building. She lives in Takoma Park, the same town as all the coffee shops I like.

Next, we met Carrie. Carrie was passing by on her way to Union Station, wearing a Banksy T-shirt and a red headscarf. She needed to plan tonight’s White House protest, but she stuck around for half an hour, discussing the resistance. While Dani played the slide whistle, Carrie booed.

We later found out this is illegal, as Ember explained to me slowly and carefully so as to avoid misunderstanding.

I left after about two hours, when it had gone from a single fiery woman to a small movement. As I pointed myself at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Dani spread her arms. I generally don’t do hugs, but I let her wrap her arms around me this time. It felt right.

If I needed any proof this was an episode, and a particularly bad one, it could be found in the way I kept up with Steve. And with Jane from the play, with her delighted, effervescent charm.

I suggested an idea for how to increase ticket sales for Thursday shows to the producer. I pitched my artistic services to the same producer. I teased some of the actors who’d never spoken to me before. I started so many conversations, and I invented the word “DOGEbag.”

The problem with hypomania is that it’s not as destructive as regular mania, so it feels like a lot of fun. However, as my morning in the office proved, it’s not great. I probably need to talk to my doctor.

I also got three phone numbers.

Portrait of an Artist

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I still think of my friend several times a day. He’s been gone since the first week of November, and it doesn’t feel like it’s been almost four months. I can’t bring myself to look at a photo of him. I wrote a chapter about him in my premature memoirs (which he read) three years ago, and I can’t bring myself to read it or edit to include the conclusion.

However, I’ve included him as a secondary character in the novel I’m writing, and I’ve done my best to capture what made his personality shine. It helps fill the void he left. It breaks my heart that I can’t share it with him, because there are parts I know he’d laugh his ass off to, and I miss his laugh.

I have wanted to draw and/or paint a picture of him since his death, but it hurts too much. I did this last weekend, and it’s not great. I really screwed up the arms and the color of his hair. Baby steps.

Ranger Things

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I received a text from Maddy on Saturday morning, reminding me to watch the door to the auditorium when I worked the play without her that night. The reminder came not because she didn’t trust in my ability to remember, but because a woman almost got clocked on opening night.

They tried to warn her, but she didn’t listen (or hear at all), and she got lucky. With the first half of Maddy’s text, she was telling me that I might have to dive in slow motion to take the hit.

The second half hinted that the Olympic-level quick change at the end of act one almost failed. She put scissors on the prop table in case it came to that. I had a lot to look forward to in the evening.

I had a couple of awkward exchanges on the internet before I headed out for the rest of the day. I missed my Metro train, and I had to wait seven minutes for the next one, so I was almost on time to see my ex-roomie. This was bad.

A habit I had picked up from my Nebraskan ex-wife was to show up early. As they say on Letterkenny, “If you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late.” I was running late.

After I bought a coffee for the lone protestor at the Heritage Foundation, I became actually late. I became even later when I walked down the wrong street, several blocks past our meeting place. I had a missed call and a text from Nicole, who was worried something terrible had happened to me.

My ex-roomie was telling me that she hadn’t been to the Suffrage Museum, where she volunteered for years, in an age. She is worried, reasonably so, it will be shut down by the president’s boss. I suggested we go this weekend.

We were met by a ranger, a friend of ex-roomie, who took us through the building and showed us everything that had changed since ex-roomie had been there last. They even had her old name-tag.

They were catching up, so I was a third wheel and kind of bored through most of it. While we were hanging out in the gift shop. The ranger pointed at one of their displays and mentioned that no one ever bought the Suffragette Soap. I have a habit of purchasing interesting soaps, so I picked up a bar.

The other ranger, an unusual person with an unusual accent and unusual glasses, cashed me out. I told her that I was excited to smell like oranges, and oh, my god, she loves oranges! I picked up a mini equal rights pin and told her that I want to start a gift exchange with a crow and explained what that entailed. She asked if I like birds, and I told her that I liked owls, and oh, my god she loves owls. I told her that the only owls I’ve ever seen in real life were burrow owls, and oh, my god, she loves burrow owls. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was flirting with me. Her name was Jess

Upon the park rangers’ suggestions, ex-roomie and I went to the Folger Shakespeare Library across the street and looked over some amazing old manuscripts. They were always open to their illustrations. However, as with all medieval illustrations, I had no idea what was going on.

She and I tried to get lunch at the café, but it is apparently the most popular study place for college students. We found a seat, but she had to leave for an appointment before her food arrived, which meant I had to eat it.

Maddy had completely reset the props before she went home Friday, so there was nothing for me to do until it was time to relocate the weasel. I wasn’t needed until about a half-hour before curtain, so I sat in the Baxter Room with the cast, and I illustrated Jess.

Lisette and Lucille each breathlessly gave me their accounts of the costume-flip nail-biter. The issue wasn’t the corset, but rather the second dress. It had an extra layer, so Lisette and her petticoat kept getting caught in it. She hung up the dress in a way that she could step into it, and I asked her if she were going to practice. If she went down during the performance, it was all over.

What struck me about the exchange was that she was coming to me as an expert. I hadn’t done theater since early high school. I can barely dress myself. On the other hand, my façade of authority allowed me to talk her out of the hanger idea, which might kill her, and into something a little more reasonable, like safety pins.

That did the trick. At the end of the first act, after I rescued the weasel, Lucille and Lisette were a well-oiled machine. I got to hold the flashlight. Apparently, I did that well because Lucille gave me a double thumbs up as Lisette stepped onto the stage.

After the show, we had to break down the set and the seating so the Episcopalians could worship in their own damned church. Ernie from load-in directed us with military precision. Within forty-five minutes, the set was in the closet downstairs, the risers had been relocated, the prop table wrapped up, and the boulder put into a very large plastic bag. All the chairs and the piano had been restored to their original positions.

It was like we weren’t even there. It’s guerilla theater.

Also, it wasn’t until the fourth time I listened to this play that I heard Lisette say to Lucille, “All tits on deck!”

Despite All my Rage I’m Still Just a Weasel Onstage

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The end of Tech Week (https://jrmhmurphy.com/tag/theater/) started out with smarm. Specifically, I arrived at the church and stepped into the empty nave before a slick man in a suit appeared somehow without opening the door. He asked if he could help me. I said I was with the St. Mark’s Players and we were meeting at six. He said, and I quote, “It’s not six yet.” It was 5:57.

I quickly found them in the Baxter room, which was the kind of place you could hold a wedding reception. We’d been using it as a dressing room and a place for the cast to hang out.

I want to give mad props to Arianna, the costume tech. I have a lot of respect for people who sew theater costumes (I dated one) because they are some of the craftiest people you’ll ever meet. Looking closely, you can see that the costumes were purchased off the rack, but they have been seriously altered.

Arianna sewed snaps on the petticoat and dress for Lisette. This was useful because Lisette, as I’ve mentioned in the past, has a quick-change out of a corset and into the royal dress. Tuesday night, Jane and Maddy struggled with the removal part, so Arianna reduced the size of the string holding it together and turned a few fasteners into snaps and that made all the difference in the world. She had a minute and forty-five seconds to switch it over, and after a few rounds, Maddy, Jane, Lisette, and I managed to do it in a minute fifteen.

Another area of improvisation I was stunned with was how she handled Damis’s jacket. Because Arianna had sewn a cape onto it, it kept falling off, so she added backpack straps to the inside, and it stayed together.

I know you were all (both of you) anxiously anticipated the arrival of the metal codpiece. I am happy to announce that it arrived, and it was glorious. I asked if it was bulletproof, but Arianna didn’t know.

I forgot to tell you this, but act one ends with a pair of cast members bursting out of the nave, swinging the door with gusto. It’s my responsibility to wait in the lobby to keep people from getting smacked in the face with it. I’ll be honest, though, I kind of want to see someone get walloped, so if I saw someone approaching the door, I’m not sure I’d rescue them.

Maddie gave me a spreadsheet of my duties, and one of the items was “Fluff the Weasel.” Since that sounds like a full sentence, I had to ask exactly how to fluff said weasel. No, its name is Fluff. That meant I was singing, “Fluff the magic weasel, lives on the stage …”

Wednesday’s rehearsal went off without a hitch, including Lisette’s big change. Maddie let me do the work because I’m going to be by myself on Saturday, which means I will have to help them strike the set for church Sunday.

Meanwhile, I’ve been getting three or four hours of sleep, so I’m ready to collapse. I’ve been working, and with the help of my friend, Monsieur Adderall, I’ve been able to make it through, but I’ve hit a wall. I’ve had so much fun, I feel like a five-year-old after a day at the beach.

Metromaniacs opens Friday, 21 February, at St. Mark’s Church on Capitol Hill.

Taking the Bait

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When I was employed at the self-publisher in Indiana, a number of cool women worked the front desk. There was Leah, the Leah against whom all future Leahs have been judged. She was escorted from the building by security, and she cut off communication with anyone who ever worked with her, so that ended rather abruptly.

Then there was Isabella. Every photo of her I have in my mind, of her mocha skin and espresso hair, of the flowery sundresses she wore year-round, she is grinning. I don’t know what color her eyes are because I’ve never seen them. She loved meeting everybody, and she traumatized my introverted sister by tackling her in a hug and squealing in her ear, the very first interaction they’d had.

Everything was fun to this woman. She found something to love in everything she could see, hear, feel, smell, or taste, and in every person she met. Isabella was a genuinely sweet and happy person. She was a natural receptionist.

A side-effect of her exuberance was that she dominated conversations. I’m not much of a talker, but I do like to get a word in, so I didn’t hang out with her very much. Still, I loved her presence and her vibe.

That day, in the break room. Chris from HR was examining the crime scene, his assistant Stephanie at his side, poking at a PDA. The Phantom Puker had struck again, and Chris from HR was no closer to catching them.

The pukes had been happening all over both floors of this flat structure, and Chris from HR was going to crack this case. Too bad the Puker knew where all the security cameras were. I rose from my table and stepped out of earshot, catching the last bit of dialogue from that corner: “Find out who had ramen for lunch!”

Even in context, that was pretty messed up, but I was unprepared for what came next. In fact, my deathbed confession will be this sentence fragment, leading a long search for the person who doesn’t remember ever saying it.

Isabella hugged her can of Diet Pepsi and took a quick sip, creating a dramatic pause for her audience. I came in at the middle of the sentence, and she breathlessly said the words that oozed into my ear and soaked my brain.

Sheer momentum kept me going, and I couldn’t hear anything that might put that into context. I don’t remember how I made it back to my desk. Collapsing into my chair, the gears in my head were grinding together, as if you were driving a stick and jumping from first to third.

My Work Wife, Elizabeth, appeared, concerned. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Do you need to go home? I can tell Dave.”

“What does it mean?” I moaned. “Tell me what it means!”

“What what means?” she replied.

“I can’t tell you,” I groaned. “I have a nosebleed!”

“Oh my God!” she gasped, plucking a issue from the box at her desk. “What did this to you? You know you can tell me anything, Jeremiah. What’s the point of having a work wife if you can’t?”

I hoped not to pass the madness along, but I could live alone with this no longer. “She said.” I breathed. “She said, ‘and then she went back into the fish.’”

“Who was she?”

“I don’t know!”

“What was she doing before she went back into the fish?”

“I don’t know!”

“What was outside of the fish that made returning to it so appealing?”

“I don’t know!”

“What was she doing in the fish in the first place?”

My bloodshot eyes fixated on her as I grabbed her shoulder and shook her. “I! Don’t! Know!”

She brushed my hands off of her. “We’re going to get through this. Just remain calm. Maybe we can ask Isabella what she was talking about.”

“I don’t want her thinking of me as an eavesdropper.”

“Jeremiah,” she said carefully, “this may be the only way you can go on.”

I worked my way downstairs to the front desk, my head pounding, and I waved to get her attention, just in case she was on the phone.

“What’s up, Jeremiah?” she asked, as if Jeremiah gossip was the one thing she’d been waiting for all day.

“I kind of caught part of a story you were telling,” I tried to explain without being a creep. “And you said something that I can’t quite understand.”

Her eyes were wide and eager.

“You said, ‘and then she went back into the fish,’” he told her.

She frowned a huge stage frown. “I don’t remember talking about fish at all today. Sorry!”

I returned upstairs, to my desk, and rested my face on the keyboard. I would never know why someone would return to a fish. I could only speculate. The truth had died that day, and so did a part of me I will always miss.

Spilling the Tooth

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I’ve been lucky. I’ve always had great dentists. They’ve always taken care of me, and they and their army of hygienists have always been patient with me. This is a sharp contrast to growing up, because all of my dental hygienists were Navajo moms. For those who don’t know, the only way to survive an encounter with a Navajo mom is to obey.

My dentist in Bloomington was a great guy. I hadn’t been to the dentist for years, not since my wisdom teeth were hacked out of my head. He found some cavities, and I returned to get them drilled and filled.

One of the amenities of this dentist is that he had a TV strapped to the ceiling above the dental chair. Keep in mind, this was 2005. All TVs were CRT and had roughly the mass of a granite boulder the same size. If that thing broke free of its mooring, I’m not exaggerating when I say I would have died.

If I was going to lose my life to this TV, I may as well watch it. I picked up the remote and scrolled it to Comedy Central, where the dumbest show was on. The dumbest show next to Jackass. This was called Trigger Happy TV, and it’s a hidden camera prank show, but with actual wit. I knew, as I selected the show, that I might laugh and get a drill in my cheek, but it would be worth it.

Here’s an example of one of their pranks. The marks, a cute family of four, sits down at a picnic table in the woods. A man sits down at a neighboring table and eats his sandwiches. A trio of grown men in squirrel costumes burst out and drag the man into the woods, kicking and punching him.

However, it was the one where the nun got into a fistfight with a penguin that made my dentist, the drill running, laugh his ass off.

I turned off the TV.

Paint No Rest for the Wicked

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A couple of months ago, I volunteered to be an usher at a community theater production that in no way needed an usher. They told me they’d be in touch if they thought I could help out on their next production. Right before the holidays, a group email went out, rife with reply-alls, soliciting volunteers for set painting.

I like my life. But I need to get out. I need to have conversations with people who can answer me and don’t bite me at random. I’ll take one or the other.

There was a Saturday and Sunday slot. Because I greet the world like a vampire if you wake him up in the afternoon, I volunteered for the two hours Saturday, and not the four hours Sunday. My contact was Ruth, which is one of those wholesome old-person names that you rarely hear anymore. I had a picture of her in my head.

I arrived a quarter after because I timed everything badly. And most of the work had been done because the rehearsal ended early, and the cast had decided to attack the primered foam trees with rollers. They were baffled by me, I was baffled by them, until Ruth showed up.

Ruth was not an old person. Ruth was a perky, bouncy, thirtysomething, cute as a button, who threw herself into the work. She had no idea what was going on, but she was going to take point because someone had to. The woman with the plan was Kathryn, who was a hippie from the sixties and fussed like Piglet. She was what I thought Ruth was going to be like.

One of the volunteers was a house-painter, so he was available to coach, which he was more than happy to do. He didn’t even need prompting. He would just show up behind you and point out an uneven patch, then stroll away for the next tree trunk where they awaited his wisdom. He was a silver fox with no neck, a fitted T-shirt, and wranglers he kept pulling up.

He and I bonded over the Doors. One of their songs started playing on the radio station (I didn’t know they still had those), and he couldn’t identify it. I asked, “Want me to tell you?” It was “LA Woman.” He explained to his companion that the Doors were from the sixties more than the seventies because Jim Morrison died in the early part of the seventies. Was it ’71? ’72? ’73? He then rattled off a bunch of the Dead at 27 Club.

I spent most of my time in the storage closet with Ruth because it looked like someone emptied a giant junk drawer into it. The storage closet is about the same size as the one Kate dumped my stuff in after the divorce, which is to say it’s very small. The theater troop were there by the grace of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, with a Sunday school in the room the next day, so all the trees were going to have to be put away. Apparently, the stage had to be broken down and stashed every Saturday night for mass.

I have no spatial reasoning, so I don’t know how to make things fit, until Saturday night, when I was directing Ruth to move things into the best space. She laughed a lot, which was good because I was supposed to be funny.

When everyone went home, Ruth hung out with me while I waited for my Uber. She asked me my favorite part of community theater thirty-five years ago, and I told her working in the wings. I’m the first person who didn’t say acting, so she is going to talk to the stage manager, who might need an assistant, as the play is a farce.

I made it to bed and woke up the next morning to continue the project I was working on Saturday. I asked myself if I wanted to stay home all day like I’ve done for the past bunch of Sundays. I did not, so that afternoon, I headed out to St. Mark’s Church and met more people.

I arrived early because I overcompensated, so Ruth and I cleared up the chairs from Sunday school and learned stuff about each other. She told me her husband was a novelist, with one book self-published, and he was interested in trying out his hand with traditional publishers. I offered some tips.

She was very excited to introduce me to Jess. Jess is on “The Board” with her husband, and she’s an artist. When she was showing off the samples she wanted to do, she turned to me for my expertise, even though I explained I am not an expert. When I asked what kind of art she did, she sheepishly told me crafts stuff, as well as a large bus for a karaoke competition. She was way more of an expert here than I was. In fact, I did two things all afternoon. First, I attempted to sponge over the base layer in a way that looked like leaves. It did not work. I attempted to add highlights. It looked like Jackson Pollack had rolled around on one of his canvasses. The second thing I did was paint over it with the base color and left it to Jess, whose trees looked magnificent.

Meanwhile, Kathryn, who assured us she was no artist, singlehandedly added a level of depth to the tree trunks that was uncanny. Ruth painted the moon, using a video on TikTok for a reference, and Kathryn was there to help. But she was not an artist. No, sir.

When I showed up, I told them I could only stay for two of the four scheduled hours because I would need to return to my cave with my cat and shun the outside world. We were done within two hours.

Now, all I have to do is wait for Ruth’s email, and maybe I’ll be able to hang out backstage and juggle, while surrounded by weird people.

It’ll be fun.

The Power of the Dork Side

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When going through my photo albums, I seemed to hit the sweet spot for nostalgia. Most of my friends throughout my history have been larger-than-life, to the point where I sometimes think of them as characters. When it comes to thinking human beings with their own lives separate from me as characters, the one who demands it the most is Jeff.

If I had to sum Jeff up in two words, they would be “Sassy Nerd.” He was the first Hastings College student I met, and I immediately wrote him off. When it came to being geeky, he was only missing tape on his glasses. It didn’t help that his roommate and my first friend, Rick, declared war on him. On the former’s side were an army of Madonna posters. On the latter’s, Reba McIntyre, all fighting for supremacy.

I didn’t think much of Jeff until my family experienced a loss, and Jeff stepped up to help me out. He volunteered to meet me at the airport and drive me back to school, even though said airport was three hours away. Oh, and it turned out that he was hilarious. And really clever. And sincere. And dangerously unhinged.

His brand was Evil Genius. He literally carried around a checklist for conquering the world, and one of the items was, “Befriend Jeremiah Murphy.” He steepled his fingers with even more menace than Mr. Burns, and when he laughed maniacally, he committed to it.

He said things like, “When life hands you dilemmas, make dilemonade.” For a teenager, he had a lot of wisdom, but he usually delivered it in the snarkiest way imaginable.

He would pathologically not swear. This was part of his identity. As part of out schtick, he and I left movies together behaving like the characters, but after Pulp Fiction, he said nothing. No amount of anything could get him to say something profane.

Except once. Late at night, while I was sitting captive behind the Altman front desk, he approached without emotion, and he whispered into my ear, “Don’t fuck with me.” I fell out of my chair. He denied it for all of college, and if I’m guessing, he’d deny it today.

Though he swears now. I have receipts.

For a while, we were a matched set, despite that the two of us couldn’t be more different. We moved in together sophomore year when Rick fled and there was no way Hastings College was going to let me keep my single without paying for it.

It was not smooth sailing, especially because he could make himself even more irritating if he was mad at you, and I was an unmedicated bipolar, but we came out on top. When we went our separate ways, him still in the dorm, me to a college-owned apartment, we parted as good friends. I even called him at random after I’d had a very weird Halloween.

He’s bald now. He didn’t used to be.

Anyway, I’m not good at likenesses, but this catches the vibe.