Climbing Up and Out

In the 80s, there was this great HBO comedy special called the Kathy and Mo Show.  It was absolutely hilarious.  Absolutely.  You don’t hear much about it, but it sticks in my mind as a watershed moment not only in comedy but also in women’s rights.  They were saying things that people only thought, that I only thought. It was put on by Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney. 

One skit had no dialog.  It was Mo pantomiming a woman getting dressed in the morning.  Hilarious. Another, which I’ve put below, was two angels figuring out how to have humans reproduce.  But one that sticks in my mind is a typical bar scene.  Kathy plays a drunk and Mo plays a bouncy cocktail waitress.  There’s some funny banter, but then Mo looks at the camera and talks about how awful the life of a waitress is.  She says something like, “It’s the goddamn shower.  Every day, I have to get up and take a shower, but I think, what’s the point.  Tomorrow, I’ll just have to take another goddamn shower.”

That’s exactly what I’ve been feeling lately.  Yep, depression, part of my long-cycle mild manic depression. I think I get it every year at this time. Which is funny because I love the fall.

The symptoms are that I am just so tired that I don’t feel up to doing anything or facing anything—whether it’s taking the kids to another event or even just returning an email from a friend. When I’m in that state, the emotional energy it takes to read an email and respond feels like too much, and I avoid my email and the internet and Facebook.  I get a little phobic about it.

Which doesn’t mean I don’t get things done.  In fact, I’ve been busier than ever.  I love my day job, and it’s a great place to work, but I simply haven’t been able to keep up lately.  I have so many small things to do that the big things, like writing longer pieces, keeps getting shoved back until I feel overwhelmed with the big things I HAVE to get done.  So I have to shut my cube door to get one big thing done and then all the little things pile up.  Emails asking for this and that, oh, and that thing I asked for last week.

And then the ranch part of me says, just get a grip.  What are you whining for?  I watched a great documentary over the weekend called The Boy Mir.  It was done by the British filmmaker Phil Grabsky, and I watched it via this fabulous new service called Fandor. (I’m sure I’ll be talking about it more.) It’s this amazing 10-year look at a little boy who grows to a man in rural Afghanistan.  One of the many things that strikes me is, once again, what in the world do I have to complain about, for heaven’s sake?

And I haven’t been getting a lick of my own writing done.  Lots of work writing, but no personal writing.  Obviously not even this blog.  And I’ve been behind on posting my own photos.  My creative facility has just been tapped out. I’ve had nothing left.

But I’m feeling better now.  As you can see.  Climbing up and out.  So, hey, hi.

And, without further ado, the incomparable Kathy and Mo.