A Little Fall of Rain or How to be Maudlin in the Desert and Emotionally Cut Yourself

It’s been a long time comin’ really. If this were a country song I’m pretty sure Dolly Parton would have written it, someone like Whitney Houston would sing it, and we all be in tears by the end wondering when Kevin Costner became a viable romantic interest. I’ve been reading for my big tests you see and this causes stress, but also (and more importantly) takes a significant emotional toll.

The problem is that everything I have to read is sad. And not Nicholas Sparks sad either where you can’t help but feel a little depressed but you’re as likely to control your reaction as not, while simultaneously feeling pissed because you’ve been emotionally manipulated. No, we’re talking indie-film sad where it’s all you can do not to ball like an infant in the theatre and embarrass yourself. But that alone wouldn’t be enough to get me down normally; books generally don’t move me like movies do-at least not in the same ways. But the sheer volume I’ve had to read and due to time constraints the necessity of immersing myself in these stories has removed whatever small flecks of joy once sparkled in my slightly smoggy atmosphere. On top of that pile back-to-school blues and various personal tragedies and we have the makings of a first class sulk.

So I do what I always do; I overdose on tragedy. First I drove out into the desert and parked. There was a storm rolling in and it was something to behold. The sheer ability to breathe in air with moisture here is so rare that some part of my soul un-shrivels when it happens. Feeling particularly melodramatic I took full advantage and stood in the rain letting a mixture of water and sand pelt me. It always seems like a silly thing to do at first, even more silly to admit to doing, but I can honestly say you can’t beat it. If I weren’t worried about things like, oh, death, I would wander off into the desert for the full experience. But my plan is to feel relieved--not inadvertently bring myself to some Shakespearean end removing the story of my life from the comedy section and placing it amongst the tragedies.

But I wasn’t wholly better yet so I went for the M.K.O. (movie knock out) I started with Mysterious Skin, a movie about two boys who are sexually abused when they are eight. One blocks it from the memory and the other becomes a male prostitute. It wouldn’t be described as an upper. I followed it up with (wait for it) Wit. The movie where and English professor dies of cancer. That’s right. When I take a razor to my emotions I don’t slice the wrong way; oh no, I cut long and deep--I think this time I severed a tendon.

But--I have a plan and it worked! To put it into Star Trekian terms everyone knows the best way to escape a black hole is to eject your warp core and detonate it. The resulting explosion (theoretically) pushes you out past the gravitational pull, thereby allowing you to escape. Or, for those of you not cool enough to watch Star Trek, I smoked a whole carton of cigarettes in five hours today to kick the habit.

Now, this emotional regimen does come with a warning: if there is any chance you are genuinely unstable as opposed to melodramatic, maudlin, or melancholy do not, I repeat DO NOT, try any of this at home. Possible side effects are blacking out, uncontrollable sobbing, or complete mental breakdown. If you can survive two movies like the ones I just watched, however (pick movies that eerily mimic your life for full dramatic effect) you will come out on the other side feeling better. Even if it is only because you couldn’t actually feel any worse.

Take that Nicholas Sparks. I’ll show you a message in a bottle written in a notebook on a walk to remember. Loser.

Gerard Butler’s new movie needs to come out soon. I seriously need to watch beautiful men blow things up while saving civil liberties and their wives. I LOVE it when they do that.