Whatever Happened to Just Being Sad?

News moves at a blistering pace these days.

Soundbytes. Blips. Thumbs moving at incredible speeds on teensie QWERTYs. Tweets. Updates. Messages. Blip. Bling! Glang. Streaming tickers on the HD flatscreens in front of the elliptical machines at the gym. NPR. FOX. Everything in between, and everything beyond.

We're practically gagging on information and spin and doctrine and palaver. No, we are gagging. And, yet, we are anything but gagged. All of us, spewing and spouting, our mouths hundreds of paces in front of our minds-- left in the neuron dust. Bye-bye, brain. Won't be needing you very much today.

Googling "Gabrielle Giffords" at 4:35pm on Monday afternoon yields 76,900,000 hits. Approximately. Unbelievable. Incomprehensible. What is all of that? Is it information? Is it what we need to know, or want to, or dare to? What it is, I don't know. Now, after I hit "Publish," it'll be 76,900,001 (approximately) and I am disgusted with myself, almost to the point of wretching, for contributing to this profane noise, this internet abuse of a woman in a medically-induced coma, abuse of the corpses and memories of the victims of this appalling tragedy, this obscenity.

Hi. Here I am, another lout, contributing to the bloody mess. What a punk.

I swore up and down that I wouldn't. Of course I did. After all, it is just my style to eschew and reject what "everyone else" is talking about, as if I am some sort of badass, counter-culture barometer. Please-- what a fucking, very unfunny, very transparent joke. I promised myself I would write about something silly, maybe about different uses for bras (put one in the freezer overnight and then set it on the coffee table, fill it with candy. Haha-- what a comic genius) or some commentary about-- I don't know, inane food products or the way people look at you after you exit the restroom at work. I thought, "Yeah, well, that's what my readers want or need right now-- some levity to distract them from saturating over this deplorable situation." Like I'm going to come save you from the New York Times. Like I'm Chevy Chase, falling over a ladder.

Please.

I guess I realized that I ought to stop horseshitting myself, and you, and accept that there was, in fact, something about all of this that I wanted to say. It hit me while I was listening to Terry Gross interview some schlocko journalist about the very loose gun laws in Arizona, and, "would stricter gun laws have maybe prevented this tragedy?" She asked him questions about concealed weapons, and whether or not the Glock semiautomatic handgun would have been outlawed under this provision, or that, and how this "alleged shooter" in this incident did purchase his gun legally, but didn't have a concealed weapons permit and under what circumstances could a police officer (if one had been at this event) have stopped the suspect and frisked him after seeing that he had a concealed weapon, and I got so fucking furious I wanted to scream:

TERRY: IT IS CALLED A "CONCEALED WEAPON" FOR A FUCKING REASON, THAT REASON BEING THAT IT IS CONCEALED ON YOUR PERSON AND OUT-OF-VIEW OF OTHERS, LIKE, SAY, A POLICE OFFICER, EVEN A NON-EXISTENT, FICTICIOUS, HYPOTHETICAL POLICE OFFICER WHO WAS NOT EVEN AT THE SAFEWAY WHERE ALL OF THESE PEOPLE WERE SHOT.

Then she pissed me off even more by asking, "Well, what about unconcealed weapons? What sort of questions would a police officer ask someone who had an unconcealed weapon?" This stumped her guest.

"Well, I don't know, maybe they wouldn't ask anything."

I was very upset by this point. How ridiculous was this conversation? I just couldn't take it anymore.

Was it the fault of the store that sold the gun?

Was it the fault of the second Walmart that sold the ammunition?

Was it the fault of the parents for not notifying authorities of bizarre behavior?

Was it the fault of mental health practitioners for not notifying the state or the criminal justice system?

Was it the fault of the court that threw out the arrest for drug paraphernalia?

Was it the fault of lax mental health reporting duties?

Was it the fault of law enforcement for not adequately stationing officers at the scene for VIP protection detail?

Was it the fault of the Secret Service and/or the FBI that does not provide routine protection details state-level politicians?

Was it the fault of Sarah Palin and her stupid fucking little target symbols on that map that I can't stand to hear another word about on Facebook or anywhere else?

Was it the fault of the vitriolic state of political debate in this country?

Oh. My God. Oh, my God.

Please.

We are so thirsty for answers, to insatiably horny over assigning blame, so unstoppably greedy when it comes to our relentless, pounding search for scapegoats and reasons and division or healing that any reason, any dignity, any sense of proportion or pause is just thrown right out the window. Mr. President, a moment of silence is a good start, but it's hardly sufficient. Maybe you should have ordered a day. Or a week. Could you, sir, have ordered us some time to just be sad?

What the hell ever happened to just being sad?

Always a Little

There's a film I love very much called "The Impostors," starring Stanley Tucci and Oliver Platt. It's a delightful, loud, boisterous, silly farce, a tongue-in-cheek nod to the films of yesteryear, where big hats and bigger reactions ruled the screen. Of course, even in a film that is so desperately funny, I tend to look for the quieter, softer, more sullen moments.

I'm just that way, I guess.

There's a scene towards the end of the film where the first mate of a ship approaches the Captain, played by the wonderful Allan Corduner. The scene is a lavish party on the boat, given in the captain's honor, with lively swing music playing in the background and all the elite ship's guests dressed to the nines. The first mate observes the captain for a moment and he says,

"Sir, you look sad."

The captain looks listlessly off into the distance and, almost casually remarks,

"I am always a little sad."

That bit of dialogue, lasting for maybe four or five seconds, is my favorite part of the film, and I suppose it is that way because we love what we feel instinctively is truth, and, for me, that's what that is. There's just those tiny, fleeting, almost absurd moments where you identify. Where you acknowledge. Where you catch yourself almost whispering out hoarsely,

"Me, too."

Back in college, when I was seeing a therapist once a week, I delicately broached the topic of anti-depressant medication with my therapist.

"Well," I said, "it's been a year-and-a-half, and I guess you know me well enough by now. What do you think?"

Rick sat across from me, curly carrot-topped, snowflake sweater, ruddy cheeks, content in his gayness and his charming, gap-toothed grin. His eyes crinkled as he crossed his corduroyed legs and said,

"What do you think?"

"Jesus, Rick," I said, "do you have to be such a fucking therapist all the time?"

He laughed. Which, of course, is just what I wanted. My own private audience for my weekly one-man show. And you couldn't ask for a better audience of one than Rick. He was, quite simply, to die for. And he thought the same of me. It was almost unhealthy.

I told him that I felt I ought to be farther along than I was, that I thought I had all the insight I was going to have and my mood wasn't changing, my writing was still intractably dark, and I was still bitter and angry and sullen about the same things I was bitter and angry and sullen about years before.

"I don't know," he said, "part of me thinks you're exactly who you should be right now. But you're never going to stop wondering, I suppose, so I'll give you a referral to a psychiatrist. Mostly to shut you up."

The next week, I found myself in a strange-looking, uncomfortably dark office on the other side of town, and in wheeled a quadriplegic psychiatrist in a motorized wheelchair, mouth-operated through a blow-tube. I talked to this guy for an hour. "Don't stare at his legs, don't stare at his legs, don't stare at his legs" I repeated to myself in my head, over and over. He diagnosed me with chronic, low-level anxiety and depression and told me about medication he would prescribe to me, if I wanted it.

Turns out, I didn't want it.

And so maybe that's why I'm always a little sad. Maybe things would have been different if I had called up Dr. Hot-Wheels and said, "Hey, let's get those prescriptions filled." But I kind of doubt it. After all, they're pills, not pixie-dust.

I don't know why my brain is wired, or cross-wired maybe, the way it is, why it ventures into dark places sometimes, why it can't shut off at night sometimes, why it broods and obsesses and why it finds the sick and depraved funny, and why my lip trembles when I'm driving in my car sometimes.

Of course, the miscarriage didn't help.

It's been over a year, and the searing, shattering pain has worn off, but the cold, flat ache remains. The uncertainty about whether we will get pregnant again persists, and I hear it in every silence that passes between us, in every off-hand remark, in every sigh and in every cough. I hear it and my ears bleed.

But at least now I know why I am always a little sad.