Funny Feelings
Tarah DeWitt
PLAYLIST
Could Have Been Me - The Struts Shelter from the Storm - Bob Dylan Song 6 - George Ezra
It抯 Called Freefall - Rainbow Kitten Surprise 100 Bad Days - AJR
Take A Chance On Me - ABBA For Me, It抯 You - Lo Moon Wait - JP Cooper
Fool抯 Gold - One Direction Run - Taylor Swift ft Ed Sheeran (Taylor抯 version) Stone - Alessia Cara, Sebastian Kole Crowded Places - Banks
The Sound - The 1975
Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes There She Goes - The La抯 Only Love Can Hurt Like This - Paloma Faith Alone - Jessie Ware
Never Let You Go - Third Eye Blind Simply the Best (Acoustic) - Ben Haynes Rainbow - Kacey Musgraves Stand By Me - Ben E. King Don抰 Worry Baby - The Brook & The Bluff Just a Cloud Away - Pharrell Williams
This book is dedicated to all the women who抳e ever been told that they抮e Too Much. Maybe you抮e too loud, too crass, too open, too bawdy. You overshare too often, say too many bad words, you抮e too weird, or too emotional.
To the women who, in their quiet moments, still think back on their social interactions and wonder if they really are too much, if they should feel embarrassed, or ashamed.
You are fucking incredible. You are my people. Don抰 you dare dilute yourselves to make yourselves more palatable. You are all heart and fire.
AUTHOR扴 NOTE
This story felt like an important one for me to write. It was partially inspired by what it felt like to write my first book and have it be out in the world, what it feels like to create anything for anyone else抯 consumption.
When you put something into the world for others to judge, especially when you hope to entertain and elicit some kind of feeling from them, you know, logically, that it won抰 be 揻or?everyone. Creating something that does connect to someone, though, is an absolutely irreplaceable feeling. It抯 an addictive feeling. Writing somehow made me feel more myself than ever before, while simultaneously making me more deeply self-conscious than ever before. It was this rush of joy that was often swiftly followed by a dark downhill tumble into Imposter Syndrome.
So, in this particularly low period, I utilized one of my go-to mental health tools; I reached for a way to laugh. When I have blue periods (notice I said blue, not depressed) in life, one of my favorite things to do is to watch stand-up comedy. I put funny stuff in my face. I allow myself to sit in the feelings and acknowledge them, and then I do something good for me: I laugh. Don抰 get me wrong, I do the other, less sexy work to keep my mental health in check, too, but partner it with finding a laugh. Because I can tell you this: The last thing I feel like doing when I am feeling low is a mental checklist of my blessings and telling myself that I抦 being ungrateful, or that I抦 wrong for feeling bad. It only leads to me feeling worse about myself. So instead, I have often found that comedy can be a truly healthy coping mechanism for me.
Comedy has educated me, has helped me see a new perspective on many things in my life. Comedy can be so profound.
That being said, something touched me deeply one day when I realized that often, the comedians in our lives, not just the ones on stages, are the ones who are privately struggling the most. It really clicked for me that you should never dismiss a person who is willing to lay a piece of themselves before you, in any art form, even if it抯 just to make you laugh.
When I received a message on my personal Instagram from a random woman telling me that I should be ashamed to have written such trash, especially when I have two little girls who will undoubtedly grow up to be as foul as me, I knew I needed to write Farley. I set aside 30k+ words in another book and started to write this one.
I wanted to write a woman who has a 揻oul?mouth, who tells sex stories to the public, who is loud and obnoxious and willing to be self-deprecating and even makes a living out of it. I wanted to write a character that makes silly, stupid jokes, but is deceptively brilliant, driven, and feels deeply.
I wanted to show her softer side.
Because even the most sarcastic, irreverent people in your life have intensely sensitive sides, as well. Trust me on that.
I wanted to write a man who saw all of this and accepted every bit of her, who still struggled with his own mental health, but was deeply self-aware and just as loving.
While the characters in this book work in comedy for a living, I as a writer don抰 fool myself into thinking that I can write an entire stand-up set. So, this story is probably the least 慸one-for-laughs?that I抳e written so far, and a few of the stand-up specific jokes told are inspired by certain comedians who helped me in some low periods, all of whom I will list. Of course, I was sure to still make the jokes my own, but I refuse to not at least acknowledge inspiration and give credit where it抯 due.
BUT, most importantly, the characters in this story have safe harbor in each other, so we see their sensitive sides more than anything else, and it is not entirely comedy-focused.
Content Warnings for this story: -Death of a loved one is mentioned in two scenarios, with the deaths happening off page.
-Strong language -Sexually explicit content -A toxic parent/absentee parent
Just like I won抰 claim to be a comedian, I抣l also never claim to be an expert at mental health. I recognize that my blue periods are not the same as someone else抯 true medical depression, and I would never seek to advise anyone on how they should handle that, nor would I expect them to solve it with some funny Netflix specials. But this is my homage to a tool that happened to greatly help me.
Lastly, to anyone who decides to take time out of their day to create something for someone else?What you do matters. Even if it's silly memes or videos or dances or jokes, or pictures of books with reviews. Even if you don抰 see a dime from it, just know that it likely brightened someone抯 day.
Comedians that changed my life: Ali Wong
Iliza Shlesinger Greg Davies
Russell Howard
Aisling Bea
Deon Cole
Bert Kreischer
Nikki Glaser
Tom Segura
Christina P
Michael Che
Trevor Noah
Jo Koy
Jenny Slate
1
揧ou抮e only given a little spark of madness. You mustn抰 lose it.?- Robin Williams
FARLEY
The diarrhea joke splatters.
The bit was a gamble, I knew this, as most comedians do. Sometimes you are absolutely certain a bit is going to kill, and instead it dies a slow, lackluster death: the equivalent of a whoopee cushion blowing around the room. And then there are some bits that you think are just fillers, setups for some epic call-back to come later, and those are the ones that deliver. I have learned this from experience, but I still falter at the crowd抯 response, just slightly, before pressing on.
I suppose drawing an insightful comparison between the fruits of a misguided dairy binge and the works of Jackson Pollock was quite possibly Too Much. The only laughs I get are generally uncomfortable ones, some heads rear back and some eyes close, shuddering. This is why I抳e prepared another self-deprecating piece to segue into, this one a little more 揙h, that poor funny girl, that抯 just sad. But look! She抯 joking about it, so it抯 okay for me to laugh. Yes, I抦 laughing because I can laugh at her. This is what I paid for.?It is also one of those bits that抯 based very closely on my personal truth, so?yeah, those ones tend to murder.
The shitty (haha) joke is quickly forgotten, and I抦 back to being a conductor in my masterpiece. It抯 a symphony of laughter around me that I stir and tickle and prod. I work one side of the room with my sad, weird, awkwardness. I spin a tale about some delightfully aloof (nonexistent) men I抳e dated and the ill-begotten adventures of my sex life, before my yarn gives way to an impression that has me lemur-walking to the other side of the stage, coaxing the room into a legato of laughter.
It抯 beautiful, glorious, overwhelming; it抯 warm and it fills me, fuels me. I feel like a spark that抯 been begging for tinder, and this room is one of those old-timey blowers that puffs and fans me until I抦 ablaze.
With each crescendo I think I might really make it, I am f-u-n-n-y.
The applause is magnanimous. And then it抯 over.
It crashes.
I fizzle out.