Wishful Drinking

by Carrie Fisher

I not only feel better about myself because these people are also fucked up (and I guess this gives us a sense of extended community), but I feel better because look how much these fellow fuckups managed to accomplish!

I didn’t necessarily feel like dying—but I’d been feeling a lot like not being alive.

That’s what can take simple sadness and turn it into sadness squared. It’s what revs up the motor of misery, guns the engine of an unpleasant experience, filling it with rocket fuel and blasting into a place in the stratosphere that is oh-so-near to something like a suicidal tendency—a place where the wish to continue living in this painful place is all but completely absent.

Electricity as opposed to game over. I decided to ride the lightning instead of extinguishing the light of life that had once shone out of my eyes.

If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable. What that really means, other than what it sounds like, is, let’s say something happens and from a certain slant maybe it’s tragic, even a little bit shocking. Then time passes and you go to the funny slant, and now that very same thing can no longer do you any harm.

I tell them that it was Oscar time in Los Angeles (which is sort of like New Year’s Eve for the vapid).

I eventually did get those big breasts, and now I’m sorry.

but because he was wealthy and well-groomed he was said to be distinguished looking. That’s ugly with money.

“FROM WHAT I CAN SEE OF THE PEOPLE LIKE ME, WE GET BETTER BUT WE NEVER GET WELL”

Samuel Johnson once said that remarrying (and he’s not talking about marrying the same person here, just remarrying) is the “triumph of hope over experience.” So for me, remarrying the same person is the triumph of nostalgia over judgment.

But no matter what the dictionary says, in my opinion, a problem derails your life and an inconvenience is not being able to get a nice seat on the un-derailed train.

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.

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.

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.

I named my two moods Roy and Pam. Roy is Rollicking Roy, the wild ride of a mood, and Pam is Sediment Pam, who stands on the shore and sobs. (Pam stands for “piss and moan.”) One mood is the meal, and the next mood is the check.

Saying you’re an alcoholic and an addict is like saying you’re from Los Angeles and from California.