GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS

I buy Elliott breakfast at the hotel restaurant.

Elliott has huevos rancheros and I have eggs Benedict.
We read the Washington Post. I drink coffee and forget I'm here for an ALS conference.
There's a review of an Allen Ginsburg exhibit at the National Gallery.
I'm all over it.

Elliott has to drive home, but before he goes, I ask him to go back to my room with me to make sure I can do all the things he was doing for me. Getting in and out of the room seems most important. We come up with an emergency plan if I fall on the floor.

Before he goes, we take a quick ride around the neighborhood. We get a quick lunch at "Ollie's Trolley".  I have chicken salad. Elliott orders a burger.

We pass the Christian Science Reading Room. There will be a reader this Tuesday at one. I make a note  to make my way back, if I can.

We pass the National Theatre.

The last time I was here, I saw Peter Falk in the national tour of "Glengarry Glen Ross". Whenever I've walked by a theater, in the past, I've felt a pang of angry guilt - there were actors hard at work, I should be hard at work. Today I feel none of that. I've let all of that go.

__________________

We get back to the hotel. I spot a person in a wheel-chair, and then another, and then still another - like the first few snowflakes before the storm. It's time for the conference to begin.

"Shall we head down to the ballroom?" Elliott asks.

But when we get to the elevator bank, I say,

" I think I want to go alone."

Elliott is a good sport. "Okay."

We say goodbye and I feel butterflies as the elevator lowers me down to the conference.