WRITER'S GROUP

I go to writers group in midtown at 7 pm.
I am in a mean and lonely mood. DESPONDENT. Although I am told this is not a good choice.

I have a new haircut which allows me some confidence.
I see David in the elevator and the chemistry of my body and mind changes because he is so funny and smart.

I’m glad that I made the choice to go.
I'd considered (seriously) lying on my couch and staring into space... in the dark!

But I am in a small theatre office around sunny hopeful writers in skyskraper in midtown. We are crowded in a mini circle, seven of us, as if around a campfire, our toes knock into each other.

I didn’t bring anything to read because I have no sense of how to write. I missed the boat entirely on writing. I have no confidence, no élan. At a certain point I thought, why bother? Let other people write. Now, I have no background, no history, no skinned knees or recovered ego from a maniacal writing teacher. And writing (it seems) may be the only thing that I am able to do. This is why I’m tapping out this nonsense that you are reading.

People pass out scripts and ask people to read. I am asked several times to read various characters. I am a good reader (usually), because when I was younger I was shitty, so I made a practice of doing hundreds of readings this past decade, I may have done a thousand!

But now my voice is weak and my tongue is tied because of my undiganosed disease that started with my feet. I want to apologize to the writer, to the room. But I've learned an actor never apologizes. And what am I supposed to say, "I have a neurological degenerative disease so … bear with me folks"?

Some of this writing is really good. Normally I could have sold it.
Make it sing. But tonight I struggle. I have no sound, the muscles that control my tongue are weak.

My brain, however, doesn’t feel doomed. There is no siganal of despair.
My brain tells my body and self that this is temporary. It feels like I’m shaking a bad cold that has left me tuckered out. With enough rest and orange juice I’ll be whistling as I walk.

I have to remind myself that this might be the best I’ll be... from now on. I have to remind myself that I have a terrible disease.

During the discussion of a short play (about a man who dreams he is in his ex-girl friend's tear drop) I lose focus.
I wonder what I’ll do with myself.
Will people take pity on me and hire me in an office even if I can only whisper and shuffle across the floor?

Back to the discussion.

This writing is good. I never had the talent to write (I think). Shoot.  Now writing is how I will have to create.

There is a super handsome young man who sits across from me. His skin is flawless and his bone structure like the Michaelangelo's David. I feel so far away from him. How could anything possible go wrong for him?

His handsome skin and bone structure will take him far and protect him.

WAITING FOR DIAGNOSIS

So I sit and wait for a call from Doctor Ranjan.
I don’t want the call. I want to continue in the warm bath of ambiguity. If I don’t know, it’s not really happening. Mostly I feel like it’s not really happening.

When I see those doctors (doctors like Dr. Ranjan) there is some private, stubborn, proud part of me, telling me that they are wrong, I am fine, I have been in scrapes before and it’s worked out. I am a loner, a survivor, self reliant even if it hurts me. It feels better (in the end) to be able to be bitter if I choose. No studied gratefullness here.

Dr. Ranjan and the other doctors seem to be almost excited by my symptoms, like I’m a rare species that a graduate student in anthropology has the opportunity to witness... at last! (Or) like I’m a lazy participant on "the Antiques Road Show" with a unique piece of pottery worth thousands, yet it has no interest for me. Kindly take if off my hands and let me get out of here.

When I visit Dr. Ranjan (up at Columbia Presbertian on 168th Street in upper Manhattan) the building is tired and smelly and depressing. There is a support staff of irritable African American New York City girls who take zero pity on me, which I enjoy. The white middle aged doctors that walk by give me a solemn warm closed lip smile that offers, I know why you’re here, I’m sorry you’re here, but… welcome youngish victim.

I think... (I have no interest in your kind politeness).

Like naive criminals on their first day in jail I think, (you don’t know me. You think I’m going to be sticking around here? I live to be unstuck).

My brain. My spirit? My ethos. Whatever is that makes me, believes all of this will go away.

I want to make plans. I'm of course. overwhelmed. If I was confused about my life before, I am now so puzzled all I can think to do is... pick up after myself, read novels, and eat.

I had been drinking wine (nightly) but I realized that it was exhausting me. I always drink too much.
It used to be the hang overs. Now, I just can’t seem to get out of a funk of sleepiness. So wine is not a good choice.


I went to see "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" last night. It was enjoyably dopey, hollywood clichés and derivative, especially apparent when you look at the original short story (I skimmed it online late last night). But Brad Pitt is gorgeous sometimes. And all those millions of dollars to make pretty pictures. (The old age make-up just kills the purity of the film and story telling).

This is a movie that may find an appreciative audience, years later.

I did relate to the Benjamin Button. I feel like an outsider who is aging the wrong way and is doomed to a sad and lonely ending. (And like the character of Benjamin I like a good adventure). I loved seeing Brad Pitt get better and better looking, and the love scenes on the beaches of Key West were hot. Brad is appealing because he is gorgeous and so available to women. He is a cute, manly, charmer that only a girl could truly appreciate. He represents the best of the fantasy of having (a sexy boyish available boyfriend). He can’t help how well he moves, or how his expression might contain just the right amount of manliness, vulnerability, cool charm and sweet sexiness. He's channeling Paul Newman, Robert Redford AND Steve McQueen.

I think that Brad Pitt is a bit studied in his behavior, if he hadn’t become a movie star, he might have been just a cute, twinkly eyed dad. But maybe ALL those stars are making up that super, cool, handsome behavior.

As I sit in the movie theatre watching Brad (who I met once before he became a big star... he was nice) I have the foolish idea that I could be him with just the right diet, work-out guru, and glamorous circumstances. In a rough hewn cottage in the Keys, my shoulders would widen, my smile would charm, MY FEET would slip over a motor cycle just like Brad's.

I have to remind myself, I have to REPEAT to myself that I have a disease.
And it’s a terrible disease.


I might go to the Keys and act like Brad Pitt, but then (later) my life will be shit.

Maybe that's why the movie was giving me comfort, the idea of seizing adventure and living for the moment because (after all) we ALL end up reduced to diapers. In my case, my aging is speeded up not going backwards like it did for Benjamin Button.

Still, there IS the doom, the feeling of knowing that it will be difficult.


For now, thinking about it doesn't much move me, because I still have to figure out a way to pay the rent, to enjoy my surroundings, to nurse my resentments. To figure out... what?

I guess I could call Dr. Ranjan to make an appointment to see them.
They must have the results from my spinal tap, it’s been over two weeks.
But I want to deny this thing.


I have a problem taking on stressful confrontations because the results seem so finite to me.
And because the results may be stuck in my head (running round and round) for years.

Months?

So I wait for them to call me. As if it is an act of aggression on their part.
And what’s the big idea anyway? There's no treatment so why is there an entire floor devoted to it at Columbia Presbyterian? I guess there are other diseases they work on, but still, who are these people that want to study it?

I wonder if they must be a tad gleeful to get new clients into their empty offices.

When I go to their offices on 168th street, I'm the only patient in the hallways, their shabby examing rooms... for hours. And Dr. Ranjan seems to have this terribly, flexible schedule. These hyper special neurologists seem to have the opposite problems of other doctors, time on their hands.

A friend suggests it's because the disease is so rare.

I am a rare bird.
A rare bird who is "not to get down or despondent".