Life This Week’s Issue of The Stranger Was Brought to You by the Letters M, E, G, A, and N
posted by on November 22 at 8:46 AM
If you’re sitting there having a depressing holiday and you don’t know what to do, you should read Megan Seling’s essay about wintertime depression.
I don’t know why I find comfort in grocery stores at times like this, but I do and I always have. I’ve spent hours under the fluorescent lights at QFC, Haggen, sometimes even Target. Safeway is my favorite because it’s open 24 hours and by 1:00 a.m., no one is really around to ask me if I need help finding anything because, let’s face it, I don’t want to find anything.
She ends up by the magazines and picks up Martha Stewart’s Holiday Cookies, which has 106 recipes in it—suddenly she has 106 things she could do.
By the time I got home, I’d decided I was going to make every single cookie in that fucking magazine.
From there, the piece goes in a bunch of weird, dark directions.
While I sliced rings of Granny Smith apples to set on top of the unbaked globs of sticky dough, I heard whispers in the hallway about “the body” and not letting the wheel of the gurney get caught on a step.
It’s a fantastic piece of writing, and the longest thing Megan’s ever published. And, just to make the rest of us look bad, she also has an article about rock stars’ Thanksgiving memories (“Rock stars live more exciting lives than you”), her Underage column (it begins: “Ska has died how many times now?”) and two Up & Comings (including one that begins: “How so un–punk rock of me to suggest you buy something the day after Thanksgiving”).
Total number of words by Megan in the current issue: 6,428.
Don't be depressed. I am having a pick me up by reading a book on Henry I of England. I love those classy middle age kings. Such class, such manners!! They knew how to party like it was 1099 AD!!!
Great article. Thanks, Megan.
That was very well done, Megan. Thanks for sharing that. Moving and funny. This line made me laugh:
That was lovely. Some parts of your story ring little bells attached to parts of mine, nearly thirty years earlier. Curing depression by living in a small empty house in the middle of nowhere, for instance. I did that. I ended up back on the psych ward that time. And the Zoloft, I remember that one. And the grocery-store wandering. You've taken a couple of knocks there, with Lacey and Todd. I hope you're doing better; you've got a lot to look forward to, especially if you can turn out pieces like this. Great stuff.
Megan, What a great story. I've been there - its been awhile, but I remember it well. Here's to your continuing recovery.
Megan-- it was beautiful, some of the best writing I've seen in the Stranger in a long time. I actually did go out and buy that damn magazine when you started the experiement, but never made a single cookie. Loved the grocery store wandering. Mine goes up exponentially when it starts getting dark before 6 p.m.
It was a brilliant article. Kudos, Megan!
As a woman who also has faced depression, I empathized fully. I also encourage ANYONE who is depressed to talk to a good psychiatrist and accept antidepressants if they are appropriate. I am still here thanks to lexapro.
Really great essay, Megan - one of the best things I've read. Thank you for sharing.
That definitely brought back for me the times before the Year of Lexapro - all those nights where hours were stretched out before me, and I had no clue whatsoever what to do with them. Or any particular desire to do anything with them. Lots of wandering around at midnight, indifferent web surfing, too much time pondering whether I could ever accomplish anything of consequence ... that sort of thing.
Yeah, great piece.
this article was really, really fantastic. the best piece of writing i've ever read in the stranger. fact.
I read it this morning and I was actually going to write to say how much I loved it. Thank you, Megan, for sharing it.
Thanks so much, Meagan.
beautiful
I'm too depressed to read the article. But it sounds promising.
Megan,
Your essay was so personable and so enjoyable to read. It really moved me, thank you so much for writing it.
So now I know why I get obsessives about sewing which I'm really not to good at anyway and cooking for huge amounts of people. I just got a bit compulsive about cookies recently.
I think sometimes being able to share those things just makes you feel better as long as it's not your only hope or focus : )
Thank you Megan
Funny; moving; beautifully written. Made me think of an old friend I worry about and seldom see.
Brave article, Megan. Thank you for writing it. While I don't suffer from clincal depresssion I've edged closed to that edge; your piece connected to those who suffer from real depression and also to those who only just don't.
thanks.
Actually, that's an opinion. One which I may well share, to be sure. But an opinion nevertheless.
From everybody all over the city like myself who, after reading your piece, closed the paper...took a deep breath...and felt calm.
Thank you so very much.
Megan, your writing was completely amusing and(at the risk of sounding like a critic);brilliant! I only wish it was a book so I could lay in bed, read your book and eat cookies while while waiting for my antidepressant to kick in. Thanks so much
This was a very well written article. Megan did a fantastic job.
I wish she'd make cookies for me.
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