On Being Unhappy (And Happy)

I’ve been pretty sad lately.

I don’t know exactly why. Maybe it’s allergies. Maybe it’s the awful weather. Maybe it’s because the only thing I can do half right is write and books are gone, gone, gone.

(FYI--I replaced the missing video in that link above, “La Seule Chose Que Je Peux Faire.” All the cool videos disappearing from YouTube is another thing I'm pretty sad about. -- Mark)

Maybe it’s because it’s been a long time since I’ve met a brave squirrelmaid.

Whatever. I’ve been pretty sad lately. It makes it hard to think straight, and it makes it especially hard to do blog posts that I enjoy. I hate doing posts (like this!) where I just ramble.


However for today I’m going to just ramble.


The last couple of times I was really happy were doing the little stop-motion animations that became “Hold Me Forever” and “The Librarian And The Painter.” I really enjoyed doing those.

And I was really happy doing “Where Did The Cows Go?” I especially liked that one because it was so short. I like the idea of doing something interesting and funny and quick, so it doesn’t impose on people, doesn’t take a lot of time to experience.

After I learned a little about doing stop-motion I started to make longer little films. But if I can ever get my thinking straightened out, if I can ever get not sad again, I want to try to get back to doing interesting short things, pieces just around a minute long.


Anyway, thinking about blog posts that have made me happy got me thinking about other times I’ve been really happy. I’ve talked about some of them. Meeting Cathy. Getting a new guitar after I sold my two guitars during my move a few years ago.


One time when I was really sad something happened to me that was extraordinary and for some reason I haven’t talked about it yet. So that’s for today.


When I was younger, a girl named Angel took me to see “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” When I lived on the north side, that became a kind of stand-by thing to do on a Friday or Saturday night, if nothing else was going on.

Then, for a long time, I didn’t go see it at all.

Then, after not going for many years, one Friday or Saturday I was feeling pretty sad—kind of like I’ve been feeling lately—and all by myself I walked over to the theater and took in the midnight show.

As it happens, when the song “Over At The Frankenstein Place” came on, the girl dressed up as Magenta and singing along in the theater walked all the way up the aisle and took my hand and I stood up and we sang the song together, along with the movie.

I stopped being sad for a while. It’s impossible to be sad singing along with a beautiful girl dressed up as a wacky character in an absurd film in a theater full of people who all share the same kind of affection for the stupid film.

There’s a scene in that movie I always think about when I’m sad.

Riff-Raff zaps Frank and Rocky, and then Magenta looks at him and says, “I thought you liked them. They liked you.” And Riff-Raff looks away all sullen and shouts, “They didn’t like me! They never liked me!”


When I’m sad, I remind myself not to think like Riff-Raff.


I’ve had some pretty fun times. And—although I don’t understand why and although I am usually totally opaque to the experience—I know that some people have kind of liked me.


It seems like it all happened in a different world. Now books are gone. And now, to be honest, movies really aren’t what they used to be, either. This world is all about the television.


Anyway, I’m going to try to stop being sad in this world.


Somehow.