Wishful Drinking (7 page)

Anyway, armed with my understanding between a problem and an inconvenience, I realize I’ve been blessed with very few problems in my life. Let’s face it, to complain about my childhood or even a sizeable portion of my life would be as unattractive as it would be inaccurate. I had a very privileged life growing up. A beautiful, loving, eccentric mother; an even-tempered—and consequently odd to me—bright, kind, religious brother; a charming, handsome, womanizing yet virtually absent father; lovely grandparents; and a series of dogs and a bird. I mean I had it all. Which is to say a hearty mix of good and not so hot like so many people.

Right after I got sober (the first time), an interviewer asked me if I was happy, and I said, “Among other things.”

Happy is one of the many things I’m likely to be over the course of a day and certainly over the course of a lifetime. But I think if you have the expectation that you’re going to be happy throughout your life—more to the point, if you have a need to be comfortable all the time—well, among other things, you have the makings of a classic drug addict or alcoholic. Which is obviously what I became. But actually, through therapy and exposure to the wisdom found in twelve-step programs and beyond, I’ve gotten an enormous portion of my compulsion for comfort under control.

One night I had to go to a meeting—this three-hour meeting I’ve gone to every week for the last ten years. (By the way, no, I haven’t stayed sober that long, but my failure to achieve long-term sobriety is just that—my failure—not the failure of “the program.”) I first started going to meetings when I was twenty-eight, but it was at this particular three-hour meeting that I heard someone say that I didn’t have to like meetings, I just had to go to them. Well this was a revelation to me! I thought I had to like everything I did. And for me to like everything I did meant—well, among other things, that I needed to take a boat load of dope. Which I did for many, many years. But if what this person told me were true, then I didn’t have to actually be comfortable all the time. If I could, in fact, learn to experience a quota of discomfort, it would be awesome news. And if I could consistently go to that three-hour meeting, I could also exercise, and I could write. In short, I could actually be responsible.

But I didn’t learn this until after three of my three-and-a-half problems had occurred—the overdose, the bipolar diagnosis, and the man that got the man that got away.

It seemed like a lot of my trouble showed up in sex, it being the alleged road to love and all. In almost—well, I won’t say every other situation, but in a lot of situations, you can hardly tell that there is anything really wrong with me—I just have basically too much personality for one person and not quite enough for two. But in the area of romance, Boom!—you know right away.

When I was little—about seven, I guess—I remember getting in the car with my mother when she picked me up from school and telling her that I’d seen the word “fuck” written on the handball court at the playground and I wanted to know what it meant.

And she said, “I’ll have to tell you later, dear—when I can draw you diagrams.” Well, needless to say “later” never came and neither did—I’m sorry to report—those promised diagrams. Which is a shame, really, because I think they would’ve come in pretty handy from time to time. Armed with my mother’s diagrams I might’ve moved through the world of dating in smooth easy motions, like a queen, with that straight-backed certainty that comes with being entitled, cared for, and wearing crowns. But without those diagrams—I shuffle around like some street person, clumsy and stooped with the car riage of someone who picks through the trash, shopping for dinner.

But let’s face it, the world of sex is weird no matter how you look at it. I mean—fourteen hours after you’ve had your face smashed into someone’s genitals, you’re walking down the street with the boy as though that were all “just fine, thank you, how are you!”

The first crush I ever had was on a boy called Willie Breton. For some reason, my friends and I used to try to say his name without using our tongues, which for whatever reason, was highly enjoyable. I can’t recommend it as an activity highly enough. Feel free to try it when you’re really bored.

Anyway, as it happens, Willie is now an orthodox rabbi living in Israel with his wife and ten children.

How often have I wistfully thought to myself, “Ahhh, if I played my carnal cards right that could’ve been me

”

—Actually, never.

Many years later, when I was in Jerusalem on my honeymoon with Paul, we met up with Willie (now-Rabbi Willie) and his wife for lunch. Willie and Paul fought ceaselessly—largely about the deportation of the Arabs from the West Bank (Rabbi Willie for; Rabbi Paul against). I never realized how fun it could be to get a current partner and a past partner together and then pit them against each other. I mean, if you can’t find a good book to read.

Ultimately Paul and I went our separate ways. He went on to marry someone much younger than he was (twenty-five years) and from the south (Edie Brickell), and so, not to be outdone, I found myself a mate younger than myself (four years) and also from the south. The only difference between our two choices

well, was that his was a girl and mine was a boy, but my choice forgot to tell me he was gay. Well, he forgot to tell me, and I forgot to notice. Hey, it could happen—you know when you’re first in love and you’re grinning at each other like goofballs and making out all the time (everything looks better when you’re infatuated, doesn’t it?) like it’s lit from within and you’re telling each other everything like “I’m a Libra

I like fireflies on a warm summer night

I like long moonlit walks on the beach on acid—oh, did I forget to tell you I was gay?”

“I should have had a V8!”

Actually, he told me later that I had turned him gay

by taking codeine again.

And I said, “You know, I never read that warning on the label.”

I thought it said heavy machinery, not homosexual ity—turns out I could have been driving those tractors all along!

Turning people gay is kind of a superpower of mine. It’s not called upon a lot, but when it is, I pick up my little pink phone, I put on my rainbow-colored cape, and I’m there like a shot!

You know, I was probably turning people gay for a long, long, long time without even knowing it. Because I took a lot of codeine—and I traveled. So there are probably pockets of homosexual communities all over the world started by me. You may have seen some of my handiwork.

My doctor told me that codeine stays in your liver for seven years. I mean unless you have a good lawyer. Well, I don’t. I do not have a good lawyer, so what I’m trying to say is, there’s probably still some codeine in my liver. So, if you find yourself on your knees in front of someone of the same sex—nude—and that’s not where you usually hang out

Happy Chanukkah from all of us at “Wishful Drinking”!

BRISK AS A BULLET SHOT THROUGH THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING

I was probably rebounding from Paul when I met Bryan (a week later), but Bryan is really, really attractive.

When I met him, he had hair. Actually, I do that, too—I make them bald, I turn them gay, my work is done!

But, Bryan took really, really good care of me, and this was the first time a man had ever done that. You know, my father left when I was two (oh, poor, sad Carrie!), and Paul and I were the two-flower thing, so this was the first time a man had ever taken care of me. I mean, he used to give me baths (like I was a Labrador).

Bryan took such good care of me that I thought, “this guy will make a good father.” And I was right, he made a great father—and he still does. So fearing now that finally everything would be all right, nine months later our daughter was dragged from my body as though it was a burning building. And once this well-fed, round creature was rescued from the rubble of me, I sent out a birth announcement which read:

Someone’s summered in my stomach,

Someone’s fallen through my legs,

To make an infant omelet,

Simply scramble sperm and eggs.

So, Bryan and I named our adorable omelet Billie. Billie Catherine Lourd. So, a year later when Bryan left me for Scott—well naturally, I was devastated. I loved Bryan—and I really liked those baths. But my mother was fantastic to me during this time. I mean, my mother

she’s

well, she’s like a mother to me and she said this great thing.

She said, “You know, dear, we’ve had every sort of man in our family—we’ve had horse thieves and alcoholics and one-man bands—but this is our first homosexual!”

Anyway, having nothing to do with Bryan, about a year after that, I was invited to go to a mental hospital. And you know, you don’t want to be rude, so you go. Okay, I know what you must be thinking—but this is a very exclusive invitation.

I mean, hello—have you ever been invited to a mental hospital?

So, you see, it’s very exclusive. It’s sort of like an invitation to the White House—only you meet a better class of people in the mental hospital.

My diagnosis was manic-depression. I think today they call it bipolar—so you might say I swing both ways. But unless you say it really, really loud, I probably won’t hear you.

Oh! Before I forget! My mother wants you all to know this comes from my father’s side. She’s as normal as the day is long.

But imagine this though. Imagine having a mood system that functions essentially like weather—independently of whatever’s going on in your life. So the facts of your life remain the same, just the emotional fiction that you’re responding to differs. It’s like I’m not prop erly insulated—so all the bad and the good ways that you and most of the people in adjacent neighborhoods and around the world feel—that pours directly into my system unchecked. It’s so fun. I call it “getting on my grid” or ESP: Egregious Sensory Protection.

But ultimately I feel I’m very sane about how crazy I am.

But periodically I do explode. Now the good thing about this is that over time, the explosions have gotten smaller and the recovery time is faster, but what is guaranteed is that I will explode. So what I do, because I’m a good hostess (except for the Greg thing)—I provide my guests with bibs. So they don’t get my crazy juice all over their nice clothes.

You know how most illnesses have symptoms you can recognize? Like fever, upset stomach, chills, whatever. Well, with manic-depression, it’s sexual promiscuity, excessive spending, and substance abuse—and that just sounds like a fantastic weekend in Vegas to me!

Oh! This’ll impress you—I’m actually in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. Obviously my family is so proud. Keep in mind though, I’m a PEZ dispenser and I’m in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. Who says you can’t have it all?

But when I was told about the textbook, I was told I was in there with a photo.

And I said, “Huh? What photo???”

It’s not like anyone ever called me and said, “Have you got a little snapshot of yourself looking depressed or manic?” (Like from my show, for example.)

So for years I wondered—what picture?

Well, I have excellent news. Recently I found the picture, and rather than describing it to you, would you like to see it? Because I really want to show it to you.

So I’m not crazy, that bitch is. Anyone who would wear a hairstyle like that has to be nuts! Right?

Having received word at an early age that the rest of my life was going to be challenging (at least at very odd intervals), I started seeing a shrink when I was fifteen. The first was recommended to me by Joan Hacket, and he was a psychologist and not a psychiatrist. (Psychiatrists are medical doctors as well as the rest of the psycho stuff. So they’re better trained to diagnose mental illness and—oh so much more importantly—prescribe medication for it.) In any case (so to speak), this doctor failed to diagnose my manic depression. Though one day, after I’d been seeing him for many years, he suddenly asked if I’d been hyperactive as a child. Yeah, right

and I’d just somehow forgotten to mention a little thing like that. I mean, it wasn’t as if I had an endless supply of life struggles to discuss with him at that point. Although surely adolescence is a struggle in and of itself—but not so much so that I’d somehow forgotten to mention my hyperactivity. But I think that my first doctor saw something in me that was amiss but as to what that something was, for that moment, would remain a mystery.

My second doc knew exactly what was up (and down) with me. And though generally it’s useless to di agnose someone as bipolar who is engaged in ingesting large quantities of drugs or alcohol—which I was—because drug addiction and alcoholism, done properly of course, classically mimics the symptoms of manic-depression.

So when I was twenty-four years old, Dr. Barry Stone told me that it was his utterly professional opinion that I was hypomanic, also known as bipolar one, which is the lesser version of manic depression—excessively moody—as opposed to bipolar two—excruciatingly moody, which includes the occasional hallucination and lockup ward visits. As it turns out, I was ultimately determined to be the latter (excruciatingly moody) but from where old Doc Stone sat, I was simply excessively moody. Hey, maybe the whole show hadn’t kicked in yet. Or better still, maybe the drugs were suppressing my symptoms to a certain extent.

I mean, that’s at least in part why I ingested chemical waste—it was a kind of desire to abbreviate myself. To present the CliffsNotes of the emotional me, as opposed to the twelve-volume read.

I used to refer to my drug use as putting the monster in the box. I wanted to be less, so I took more—simple as that. Anyway, I eventually decided that the reason Dr. Stone had told me that I was hypomanic was that he wanted to put me on medication instead of actually treating me. So I did the only rational thing I could do in the face of such an insult—I stopped talking to the Stone, flew back to New York, and married Paul Simon a week later.

Jump-cut to two years after that and you’ll find me overdosing. Not that that was my intention by any means—that was simply the amount of drugs that had become necessary for me to take to get where I wanted to go. My destination being, simply, anywhere but here. But somehow en route to that numb place, I’d overshot my mark and almost arrived at nowhere but dead. Well after that happened, I was quite naturally upset and terrified. I had in no way intended to risk my life. I just wanted to turn the sound down and smooth all of my sharp corners. Block out the dreadfully noisy din of not being good enough—which on occasion I was actually able to do.