I saw one of my favorite writers, Augusten Burroughs, at a book signing the other night. His latest book is called This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike. I obviously would be reading this book even if a nobody from nowhere wrote it, just based on the title alone. But because Augusten wrote it, I am all over it. It’s a self-help book for people, like me, who hate self-help books and don’t like being bossed around.
Augusten was one of the first writers to take his harrowing, nightmare-of-social-services childhood and turn it into a funny, irreverent story (and make zillions off it, touché) with Running With Scissors. This was inspiring to me, and because the book takes place in Northampton, Mass, which is basically where I grew up, I related to it even more. I don’t think it’s dramatic to say that Augusten Burroughs is a literary hero of mine.
So, meeting him was exciting. And, like all exciting moments in my life, I panicked and shut down. In fact, after he did his book reading, I tried to sneak out the back door, but fortunately/unfortunately, my friend Leslie was there to force me to stand in line and have him sign my book. Here’s how it went, more or less:
Augusten: Hi
Me: Hi (looks down at shoe)
Augusten: What’s your name?
Me: Joslyn
Augusten: I’m sorry?
Leslie (standing off to side): Her name is Joslyn.
Leslie: You and Joslyn have something in common.
Augusten stares at me patiently while I turn beet red and break out in panic hives.
Augusten: What is it?
Me: We both grew up in the same part of Western Mass.
Augusten: No way! That’s so awesome! What town did you grow up in?
Me: (still avoiding eye contact) Ashfield. You probably haven’t heard of it.
Augusten: Of course I have. That’s so great!
Me: (takes book and shuffles away awkwardly)
There is something about standing in line to get a book signed by an author who I worship that makes me very, very nervous. The same exact thing happened to me when I had Miranda July sign my copy of It Chooses You and when I had Salman Rushdie sign my copy of Luka and the Fire of Life.
But listening to author talks is one of my favorite pastimes, along with going to Porchlight storytelling night and hanging out at the library. And Augusten was one of my favorites so far. At one point, a clueless audience member raised her hand and asked Augusten, “Are you happy?”
He was nonplussed. He looked at her with the deadpan eyes (which are different from the dead eyes, and quite different from the Marin County Glassy Eyes she herself was sporting). “Happy?” He said, “You know, I am often interested, or curious, or engaged, or stimulated. And yes, sometimes I am happy.” But, he went on to say, for him, “happy” is not an abiding state of being as much as it is an EMOTION. And emotions, as we all know, are fleeting.
Here in California, when someone says to you “Are you happy?” they are not asking a question about your current transient emotional state; they are making a demand on your ability to see life through shiny, rose-colored glasses all the time. There is only one correct answer to the question “Are you happy?” and if you don’t get it right, well, there is something deeply, deeply wrong with you. Personally, I cringe when people ask me this question. Like Augusten, I would never describe myself as “happy” in a blanket statement sort of way. Sometimes I feel happiness, yes. Particularly when I am cuddled under my red sleeping bag late at night with a delicious, elaborate dessert I spent an hour making for just myself, or when out on my mountain breathing fresh air, or while reading a really good passage from a book, or when completely absorbed in a scene from a riveting movie. Sometimes I feel happy when my cat deigns to honor me with her presence in my lap and actually purr for a second. I feel happy when someone gives me flowers (or lottery tickets; thanks, Leigh). I feel happy when something blooms in my garden.
Equally, if not more of the time, I feel other things like: bored, gloomy, melancholic, despondent, ragey, sorrowful, self-pitying, anxious or complainy. I also, like Augusten, often feels things in the range of fascinated, engaged or fixated. Sometimes, I actually feel nothing at all.
But “happy” is not a word I would use to describe my life as an abiding state. “Happy” is an emotion. Anyone who tells you that they are “happy” as a general, sweeping statement is lying. Or lobotomized.
