"Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops."*

   I’m on drugs again.

   You know what I mean…the sanity kind. Not the needle or powder kinds. In case you were wondering. Or are prone to conclusion jumping. My life hasn’t torpedoed quite that drastically (yet).

   I went cold turkey on the sanity pills for two full months before I realized that I’m just not a worthwhile human being without medication. In some ways that fact makes me feel sad and inferior. But these new Steve Austin pills make me better, stronger, faster…and maybe a little bit…what’s the word?...sane? Ouisa suggested that instead of looking at it as though I’m inherently flawed and require medication, I should think of it as if I’m really great and the meds bring that out in all its beautiful nuances. She’s really nice. She should be in PR.

   So but anyways, during the in-betweens time (between being un-medicated and then medicated again), I felt like my brain was the open, abandoned farmland for a scary carnival, replete with all the things that scare me: clowns, spiders, mirrors, axes, etc. Like my brain was the perfect setting for a horror film or Stephen King novel. I drew a picture of my brain for you:

A Rorschach image of the inside of my twisted brain.

   I can’t begin to explain how much this picture is nicer than the place inside my head,

   Am I scaring you?

   Sorry.

   And I don’t want to be weird, but I keep hearing Tom Petty’s “Free Falling” every time I turn on the radio. How is that possible? I do not exaggerate when I say that I’ve heard that song at least once a day on the radio (on different stations) since I’ve been in Omaha. It can’t be pure coincidence. But then again…if the universe is sending me a sign, it’s a bit on-the-nose, don’t you think? Okay, yeah, I get it, Universe, I’m free falling. Good grief. Try to add a little mystery to the symbolism, would you?

   So, yeah, anyhow, I’m trying to put my proverbial ducks in a row and write on the regular, but when you’re busy free falling and entertaining circus folk in your brain there isn’t a butt-load of time for that kind of shit.

   But I’m gonna shoot for a more regular schedule, now that the clowns are dead.

*Arsenic and Old Lace: Frank Capra, 1944.

"He's just acting depressed because he thinks it's cool."*

   I'm kind of (a lot) depressed lately.

   Here is a picture of how I feel:

This is a sad unicorn pooping a rainbow. (Lacey 2012)

   I'm so down in the dumps (no pun intended: that's clever as you will see in the second half of this sentence) that I'm not even going to sugar-coat it: I have had di-di for the past two days. I don't care what you think of me. It makes my stomach feel really bad and it makes trips to the bathroom feel like they don't even matter anymore. Nothing productive happens in there and my guts still feel angry.

   And on Hulu Plus I keep seeing ads for "The Signs of Suicide" which feature a paunchy man at a barbeque with his friends and the slogan, "Surrounded by friends: never felt so alone." Really? Why would that ad play every commercial break during The Mindy Project and New Girl? These are half-hour situation comedies! Why would we want suicide ads when we're trying to feel happy? And why would a suicidal person feel hopeful after seeing that ad?

   And why am I talking in the "Royal 'We'"?

   Probably because I'm full to the brim with self-pity.

   And I'm spending my time drawing sad clowns and nuns and trying to make the drawings look like sad mugshots or grainy photos from Coney Island during the Depression. It's more artistic that way.

Two of my worst fears. Sad. And scary.

   Sure, it "never rains in southern California" of course, but it sometimes does. It's actually rained in LA for the past 5 days, and I'm sure that's making me have S.A.D. In every way imaginable.

   Here are some more drawings I did and then tried to turn into old-school photos (I also bought a collage app that I suck at but will be busting out all the time in the future):

Terpsichore and Melpomene: the Muses of "The Drama". Also, happy and sad emoticons.

   I'm going to dump out my change jar tonight and feel really sad about things. And maybe take a rape shower. Don't worry about me...I'll be fine. I just want to wallow in it for the moment. Or three weeks.

*Murray talking about Jemaine in The Flight of the Conchords.

"It's getting awfully hard to have a good time. Even smiling makes my face ache."*

    I am easily frightened by bogus stuff (like surfer lingo and the word "nipple" and spiders), but sometimes I think that many things are scary that aren’t supposed to be. When I get thinking on this too hard, I start envisioning a vast conspiracy of twisted, freaky adults (mostly corporate executives wearing capes, for some reason) with too much time on their hands sitting around in conference rooms and plotting the demise of the psychological health of children (or impressionable adults).

    So because I got a mysterious vampire bite ON MY ANKLE, I decided I should put it out there, and request feedback on remedies. So far, I’m still visible in the mirror and my skin doesn’t shimmer like a disco ball. But I’d also like to provide a short list of things that are terrifying and (unlike vampires) probably shouldn’t be.

Vampire fang marks on my ankle. I shaved for this photo, so don't give me a hard time.

1.     Ice cream trucks and their music. Actually I would like to break this one into three separate categories:

a.     The fact that ice cream trucks look a lot like big, white, child-molester vans.

b.     The fact that the “ice cream” in said ice cream trucks was most likely manufactured sometime in the mid-1960’s. That ice cream has no stamp of freshness on it, unless you note that sometimes it comes in the shape of Sponge Bob, so it must have been made at least as recently as 1999. Which still doesn’t make me feel better.

c.      The music played by ice cream trucks. Why does it sound like a jack-in-the-box is going to jump out and attack you?

2.     Jack-in-the boxes. (Jacks-in-the-boxes? Jacks-of-all-boxes?) Whoever invented this twisted “toy” is one sick puppy. So, you sit there and turn a handle while some creepy circus music plays (usually “Pop Goes the Weasel”) and at some point, unexpectedly, a scary fucking CLOWN jumps out at you? Fun. Really fun.

3.     Clowns. Come on. These aren’t fun or funny or even vaguely enjoyable. They’re gut-wrenchingly terrifying and perverted. And I’m pretty convinced they always have been, even before It was a book or a major motion picture. (A private thank you to Stephen King who was just saying what we were all thinking.)

Pennywise the Clown in a sewer drain in IT. Only redeeming factor: he was played by my beloved Tim Curry.

4.     My friend Colin suggested “hockey masks” as an addition to this list. I could not agree more (of course, part of that is due to Friday the 13th) but I’d take this one notch further: masks, in general, are terrifying. This dates back to even before Poe’s Masque of the Red Death and all the way to the time of those wacky Greek theatricals of 8 quadrillion B.C. But it remains utterly horrifying and real: masks are disgusting bastardizations of human faces. Think skeleton masks, Nixon’s face, or any of those ski masks people wear to rob banks or stab innocent campers.

5.     Characters in costume at Disneyland. Unless they’re dressed as princesses, they’re really not allowed to talk to you, but they feel totally comfortable rubbing your back or squeezing your neck or following you around with lollipops while you’re innocently trying to hit up the buffet breakfast. But all they can do when you confront them is shrug and try to hug you. I call shenanigans on that. It's just grab-assing while dressed like a squirrel. Shudder.

6.     Teddy Ruxpin: here was a teddy bear that talked to you and actually moved its mouth. I knew how it worked, because my sister had one and I was madly jealous and played with it all the time behind her back. It was just a cassette tape shoved in behind his vest (a creepy detail in and of itself). But that didn’t explain his random mouth movements that were unaccompanied by any vocalization. Or why he could still move when his batteries were dead...

One of Ouisa's many animatronic toys. She also had Go-Go My Walking Pup.

7.     Chuck-e-Cheeze. This place used to be called Showbiz Pizza (“Where a kid can be a kid!”) and my well-meaning Aunt Kris took me there when I was a young thing. All I remember was that as we ate our pizza in a booth, I grew increasingly fearful that an enormous bear or mouse or kangaroo was going to come sauntering up to our table. I was so convinced, that I could have sworn the floors were shaking and pounding with the footfalls of said animal, like they would in an earthquake. That may have been the only time in my entire life that I wasn’t completely immersed in devouring a pizza.

8.     Team mascots. Usually birds or tigers or bears. See number 5.

9.     Silly putty. A toy a lot like vomit. But unlike vomit, you can’t clean it up and you don’t feel better after you’ve done it.

10. Mall Santa Clauses. See numbers 5 and 8.

Perhaps the source of some of my neuroses: the back of the photo reads "Lacey and Billy Bear, 1983" in an adult's horrific penmanship or that of a very advanced 6-year-old. Notice how he's staring at me. And how I'm sleeping in a closet.

   So, I’ve had my vampire fang imprints for a good week now, and they aren’t getting better despite my liberal application of Neosporin and my near-constant scratching. Are vampire bites itchy? Because these itch like hell. To be honest, I wouldn’t care too much if I became a vampire. It would allow me a lot more time to figure out my life. And I enjoy the nighttime and darkness in general. I’m not a huge fan of blood, but I suppose that will change when and if it has to. And there’s always the chance for major stardom in the film industry, which is really loving our kind right now. And if everyone I love dies before me, I know I can just spray a little holy water on myself and end it all. 

*Rocky Horror Picture Show (Richard O'Brien, 1975). Words uttered by Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-n-Furter, a Scientist. A film that made truly heinous things wonderful and vice-verse. (This is sure to be the subject of its own post one day.)