HAPPY SAD

The temperature is perfect in the City tonight.
I bike to the MOMA to see the french film "La Belle Équipe" by Julien Duvivier.
Made in 1936, the acting is great, the direction and camera-work fresh.
Tonight it shows with two endings, happy and sad.
The happy one is the one that's mostly shown.
But of course, the sad one is much better.

A DEEP, DARK SLEEP

In the morning, I bike straight across 42nd street to Grand Central for my AT&T booking.
The recording studio is in the nearby Gray Bar Building.

I am late.

And I'm in trouble. I have forgotten that I move at the speed of a fragile old man. (I'm always on my bike).
I have planned my travel time with my former legs in mind and I realize I have a long way to walk through the station.

I lean into a marble archway and stare at the unforgiving crowds.
I watch the New Yorkers moving easily and quickly. I feel a cold sweaty depression.

And I observe all the gorgeous legs, their amazing mechanics, the genius of their grace, taken for granted.
Not one commuter striding through the station is aware of the beauty of their locomotion.

I am.

I'm an outsider. (now)

My undiagnosed disease forces me to walk carefully (like a person being held at gunpoint) careful not to make any sudden moves. (I might have had my hands in the air)

And SHIT!!!

I'm late! and there is not a damn thing I can do about it. I can't break into a loping jog! I'm stuck! Helpless!
It's that bad dream ... running and running and getting no where!!!

This is when it's the worst, when I can't escape what has been happening to me.

I think about what that neurologist at NYU told me when I tried to charm him into giving me a happy prognosis.

"I mean, I know there are problems Doctor Kumensksy,

(I said - chuckling- giving him my Richie Cunningham smile, like we both understood the importance of keeping a distanced sense of humor about the drama of one's health)

but I'll be okay... right?"

His measly reply?

"It is...

what it is."

turning my good natured chuckle into an open mouthed sneer.

And so,
there is nothing to do but shuffle slowly to my appointment.

It is, what it is.

When I get to the studio on the 19th floor, I'm twenty minutes late. (We get paid roughly $240 an hour. Being late is no small thing.)

Six guys on the production side of the the booth and two actors inside the booth, wait for me.

I see Joe, the director.

"Joe! I'm late. I'm sorry!"

"You ARE late! What happened?!"

"I got stuck!"

"What'd ya get stuck to?"

(ha ha)

I walk into the studio holding up my hand in a shy wave.

"Sorry I'm late."

"Charlie... Welcome!"

"Charlie is in the house!"

We record for an hour or two. I sit on a stool and do a cartoon voice they often request.
I play a football player named Tiny. We improvise. I laugh.

This production team is the best. They've got their pulse on the New York voice over talent pool. They use the same actors over and over and I am one of them.

And I love to act! Love to play characters. Love to be laughed at. Love to be paid good money for my goofy talent.

Later, I am replaced with another actor. This was planned. They were'nt sure how to cast so they booked both of us. AT&T has deep pockets apparently. I'm not phased. I retreat to the glamorous studio lounge/kitchen. Six different kinds of coffees all ready. Piles of bagels and danishes. Colorful happy sodas! Is that an intern preparing some sort of pasta dish for anyone working at the studio today?

I grab a coffee and run into my friend who is also named Charlie!

This blond handsome younger Charlie is holding his two month old baby in the crook of his arm. We always discuss the fact that we're both named Charlie! We take delight in this shared feature, like we just found out we're second cousins or went to the same elementary school. Hey Charlie! we say to each other suppressing a little grin.

Charlie and I talk about his baby. I always have the impulse to ignore people's babies because talking about their baby is your only option. You can't ignore the baby and say, "Hey! I just got hit by a cab"' you have to say," OH my gosh look at that baby! he's so cute, by the way I just got hit by a cab." And if there is more than one person admiring the baby, there's an unspoken competition to see who can say just the right thing about the baby.

You know?

But after talking about his baby, (who really was cute) we move onto films and film festivals. Charlie has a feature film on the festival circuit (that he wrote). And he's a successful film actor too: Spiderman, the Station Agent, Suburbia.

Like Cindy Sherman, Charlie is blessed. (I think)

I ask him how my own short can get into more festivals.

"Getting in? it's political, people put their friends films in their festivals, or once you get into one important festival, all the other festivals beg you to be in theirs," Charlie says.

Political. Isn't everything?

Charlie can't help but ask me about my walk. I am elusive and say, "I 'm working on a few issues with a PT."

I leave the Gray Bar Building and bike to Madison and 39th to pay my AFTRA dues.

On my way there, I get a call. I answer my iphone surrounded by noisy traffic.

It's Johndon. He wants to know when he can help me put shelves in my closets.
Johndon is a former actor and now a major player-builder in Jersey City.

Hearing his voice forces me to spill a mess of emotional angst...
Being late to the booking because of my slowpoke walk, this other successful Charlie, worrying about my next doctor appointment.

"You don't even have a diagnosis, I thought" Johndon interrupts,

"Yeah, but I'm seeing a specialist for ALS. I mean..."

Poor Johndon got more than he bargained for. He's busy at work, and when I end my rant, he says,
"well the whole thing just sounds bizarre."
I need emotional support but Johndon is in business mode.

At AFTRA, I am so overcome with exhaustion that I audaciously ask the receptionist,

"Might there might be a room I can nap in?"

"NO" is the answer.

So I get permission to nap on the stiff orange couch in the reception area.

(The African American receptionist is talking heatedly on the phone with her girlfriend about this guy she's trying to date. Sometimes she's interrupted by an AFTRA member (where do I pay dues? May I have the key to the ladies room? or her boss will pesters her with an annoying piece of business) These interruptions clearly annoy her. She's on the phone talking about a relationship that could change her life. Relationships can be enormously key to one's survival. This job is messing with her future. Her annoyance makes complete sense to me and her one-sided conversation lulls me into sleep.

A deep, dark sleep.

I sleep a solid half an hour.

When I wake up, I shake off my sleep and greet an actress I know from NYU (also paying her dues).
She just finished working at the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia!

Manhattan can be a small town for me. Everywhere I go, I run into someone I know. I've lived here (mostly) since 1985.

(Next) I bike to the West Village for my Feldenchrist session with Mattie.

I tell her that I feel like giving up. What am I trying to achieve? This undiagnosed disease seems unstoppable. I don't want to spend my life adjusting to it. What kind of life is that? The doctors at Columbia Presbyterian seem so apathetic. I mean, what am I doing, really?

Mattie resists this conversation and reminds me to not to be a statistic. Doctors see patients as part of a group. I am an individual.

We research a more radical neurologist who works in Naples Florida. I'll try to see him when I visit my parents.

I bike to SOHO and eat pizza at "Bens's Pizza" on the corner of Spring and Thompson (their famous square pizza for $3.

I marvel at the rich well dressed young people marching through lower Manhattan. Ten years ago, they would be at the Stamford Mall but here they all are now, in tamed (mall-like) lower Manhattan.

At church, I worry that Christian Science may be too unbending. They are serious about their faith!
I'm afraid to bring up my health issues with the other members since Mary Baker Eddy suggests rejecting them.

(But) they have a chapter at the Gay and Lesbian Center so how unbending can they be?

I will call a practioner. Soon.
God is good. God is perfect. We reflect god. How could anything be imperfect with us if we reflect God?

I am so tired by the end of the service that I leave without saying hello to anyone. I take the bike path along the scenic Hudson River.

During my bike ride, I fantasize about moving to a small, leafy city, where there is plenty of room to create, cook, write and love.

At home, I sleep.

A deep, dark sleep.

BEST

I have managed to intimidate my fake boss, and it feels wrong. I want to take it back.
I realize that my fake boss- who is a good decent guy- is worried about being disliked.
I get this. From directing, it's a horrible when people reject your authority. But he was over the top in his badgering me.

Today he seemed flushed. He kept shaking my hand and saying. we're friends now, right?

I feel bad. And I apologized to him for being so emotional. I explained that I was going through a lot.

I think my instinct is right. Everyone is good. There is no point confronting people because everyone is doing their best.

RANJAN

Hello Mr. Roberts,

The May 29th visit would be a routine clinic follow up visit to see how you are doing and address any new issues that you maybe facing. You will be seen by our ALS team, i.e. the physical therapist, nutritionist, nurse co-coordinator and us (Dr. Mitsumoto and I).

As for the lithium study, this was published in February 2008 and indeed created a lot of excitement in the ALS circles. While the study results were rather dramatic, the study design itself was somewhat unclear. Since then, many patients have gone on Lithium and multiple centers have run small studies to see how patients tolerate the medication. The general feeling (and this is not a controlled study result!) amongst patients and physicians is that Lithium is not an easy medication to take and has not shown any dramatic change in patients who have been on the drug for many months.

There are two major trials ongoing in the US as well as multiple other trials in Europe to attempt to answer the question of whether this drug really is effective in slowing the progression of ALS. None of these trials are completed as yet so we don't know the results.

I hope that answers your question.

Look forward to seeing you in the end of May.

Sincerely,

Ali A Ranhan, MD

CLEAN SPIRIT

Saturday night I stay in and drink half a bottle of wine.
Sunday I am too late and tired to go to church. And it's raining.
So, I go to the Cupcake and read about Christian Science.

Sometimes it's hard for me to follow. But I DO get inspired. I do believe that G-d is the good. CS believes that you connect to the GOOD and reject the bad, talking about your illness is idle gossip. G-d only wants good for you. The disease has nothing to do with GOOD so reject it. Ask G-d for his/her wiil to be done.

We are spirit. This is true. And the body is temporart vessel.

I worked on my apartment all day and night. I haven't cleaned in about 7 months.
Papers and junk stuck all over the place. Dirt and cat hair scrubbed away.

I DO feel better stronger. My legs feel better.

I am taking royal jelly. I need a leg up. I need a platform of strength.

SPEECHLESS

I sit on my lumpy sofa with a glass Cabernet from Chile and my new laptop.

My body feels beat up with pieces of glass stuck into it.

I have made chicken breasts baked in onion soup with cut up yams, red onions and pieces of garlic in my new Crate & Barrel casserole dish.

I am doing laundry and straightening up! Cleaning up my apartment is huge.

To clean, to move things, to fold, to put away... my body throbs from overuse.

I shouldn't have gone to work today but work can be fun. An escape.

Sally and I talk about Mark Cohen the famed art collector in Greenwich. She's writing an article about him in ART magazine.

"I just read something about him in Details" I tell her.

Sally is great. I learn she is the middle child of nine catholic children.

I tell her, " I know about you big Catholic families. I grew up in Conn. You all stick together, unlike the isolated, depressive, fragile protestants. (my clan)

I catch handsome Jason stealing a look my way.

Dan, my cubicle neighbor, has been out until five this morning drinking vodka at a club in the east fifties, slept at his girlfriend's, got up at eight to help a friend move, took an hour nap and came to work hugely hungover with a poised twentyish smile on his tanned face. Young Dan is superman.

(I sometimes pondered (what it would feel like) to have a cranky aging body because my body has always felt so magically young. Springy and easy)

After lunch,

(however)

there is nonsense at work.

My pretend boss orders me into a conference room to dress me down for staying on the phone while he made an announcement.

(I was talking to my eighty year old mother about my "situation", my mother wants to pretend i have a foot problem. I STRESS to her that it is not JUST a foot problem. I am ruthless. I feel guilty. The conversation is intense and meandering.

My mother loses color in her voice when you pull out the bald facts. Like you're disregarding the rules of manners or you're accusing her of something.

So,

My pretend boss tells me it is disrespectful to talk on the phone when he is talking.

(I didn't hear him) and he's not really my boss.

Never the less, I am so outraged at this silly pomposity, I am speechless.
I can't make a sound with my vocal chords

I open my mouth, my throat closes up.

It might appear that I am having a heart attack.

Pretend Boss is frightened and concerned. Like he is not sure if he's supposed to administer the Heimlich maneuver.

But, I manage to eek out... "NO! I was talking to my mother. Any person in this office would not hang up on their mother to hear some announcement."

(these announcements are continues)

Pretend boss is worried that he looks powerless in front of me. (I think)

He suggests that next time I call from a conference room.

I nod okay and walk out with out saying a word.

I am so angry (and now surprised) at the immediate drama lodged in my throat, I can't concentrate.

I couldn't make words.

Pretend boss (to his credit) is worried about the exchange and (perhaps) ashamed of his posturing, and he stops by my cubicle and apologizes.

Flummoxed, I leave my iPhone at work.

LETTER

Hello Dr. Ranjan,
I am well. I hope you are too.

My next appointment is May 29th. Since I haven't had any new tests, I was wondering what to expect from this appointment.

Also, I was wondering about your thoughts about this...

Best,

Mr. Roberts

Number 153 of Nov 23, 2007.
>
> “Lithium "to slow down, with a certainty in excess of 95%, the progression of ALS". These exceptional results came out from an Italian study on 48 ALS patients, 32 treated with standard therapy of riluzol, 16 treated with riluzol and lithium. These results have already been submitted to a well-known international journal that is now verifying the data and may publish the report shortly. "15 months after the start of the study, 30% of the patients treated only with riluzol died. In the second group there were no deaths, even though half of the patients in the group had the most aggressive form of ALS, that is bulbar". This is what one of the Italian researchers, experimenting with the use of lithium against ALS, Francesco Fornai, associate professor of the department of Human Morphology and applied biology at the University of Pisa, stated. Furthermore, utilizing parameters from the neurological scale to measure progression, there was no significant
> deterioration of the ALSFRS-R, while the decline was evident within 3 months in the other group. At the end of the study the decline was measured at 50%. A preview of this study was given on Nov 8, 2007 during the ***IV LIMPE Congress, the Italian league in the fight against Parkinson's disease.”
>
>

CRACKER BARREL

I meet Dustin at 7:30 in the morning in the dirty (in between) at Port Authority.

We sit and smile on the bus to the airport.
We have fragmented hopeful tidbits of conversation like two kids excited to go back to camp.

We pick up a rental car at Newark and drive ten hours to Athens Ohio by way of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and finally Ohio.

The drive there is fun and tiresome. But the landscape on the way there is decorated with trees in various stages of bloom. There are tons of different shades of colors for he emerging Spring buds. We talk about a recurring purple tree that we never did find out, the name of.

Whenever I drive out of the city I am reminded that the land outside of the city is quiet and more open and easy and also somewhat boring.

New York is the emerald city.

Dustin and I have dinner at a Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel is an amusement park style restaurant. The wait staff is cast as county folk and it has a large gift shop selling the myth that Maryland is really just like "Hee Haw".

Our 82 year old hostess Zoey is tiny and humped over with large teased up blue hair and war paint on her sunken face.
Zoey has clearly suffered a stroke.

I ask if she'll be our waitress, and she replies with worldly self knowledge, humility and kindness,

"Oh no, Oh, I'm too awkward to be your waitress."

(She understands these out of towners might be laughing at her, egging her on for a good show and Zoey is game.

CASE WORKER

“If you have some daily anguish from some cause that’s not really your fault — a rotten family, bad health, nowhere looks, serious money problems, nobody to help you, minority background (I don’t have that — a WASP — but I had other things), rejoice! These things are your fuel!

- Helen Gurley Brown

I read this quote from a review of a Helen Gurley Brown biography in the New York Times. I feel better. It gives me a lift. Like a strong cup of coffee.

I bike down to 1 800 Postcards near Canal street. We need more post cards for our short film!
I'll be driving to the University of Ohio on Friday to see a showing of the short.

A road trip to a Midwest University in Spring. I'm excited.

Another Feledenchrist session with Matty.
(By being in touch with your body and breath, you experience the moment with more clarity.

At work NYU calls about doing paid classroom work and...

I call that registered nurse back. I find out he's a case worker.
I find out it's a good thing to have a case worker. They help you organize your thoughts and help you come up with plan of action. They have access to resources.

When I get Richard on the phone,he tells me that he doesn't think I need a case worker quite yet (if I am going to work and biking around the city).

Now I'm trying to win him back.

He asks me about my walking and my living situation and my finances.
I'm plain and upfront.

My situation must sound pretty dour because he quickly agrees to open my case. Richard handles complex cases. He was going to push me off to a less serious case worker but after our mini-interview, he decides that he should be my case worker.

It concerned him that I live alone and have no immediate family near by. That I'm single.

(I find out Richard (who is calling from California) has never been to New York.

We decide that my next order of business is to get my living will in order. A priority.
He gives me the name of the website to go to for New Yorkers. yikes.

And, to get back to a PT. One that is in my network so that no extra charges are incurred.

I flirt with Jason at work, (a little). I take time out to do my foot exercises. I read The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene.

I bike home and open my new laptop that came in the mail today and take that medication for the second night.

GUEST OF CINDY SHERMAN

In the morning I look over "Eric is Winning" on the web.
It makes me anxious. The little I read is all about toxic metals in products and living organically.
My apartment building was built over a chemical dump.

They still do testing for toxins.

I get a continual trail of smog-dirt from the Lincoln tunnel.
Should I get the hell out of here?

I call my friend Merrill and ask her if I should leave?
She is mildly irritated because I have always wondered about New York.
(After 9/11 I became a lifelong citizen)

We talk it out. I'll go to Key west for a couple of weeks to decompress. Drink herbal tea.
It's near my parents. I can do both in May.

At work. I am done with work. It is tiresome and stupid.
But Sally shows up and we smile and talk about art.

She tells me she saw the documentary, "Guest of Cindy Sherman" in the Village. It is finishing it's run this week.
I decide to go after work at 10pm.

I mean that’s why you live in New York, right?
You can go to a film at any time of night in any neighborhood and eat any kind of food.

I bike to the wrong theatre at 12th and 2nd but I have superb dumplings at Plump Dumpling on East 11th for $6.

I bike to the correct theatre on University and 12th.

"Guest of Cindy Sherman" is right up my alley. It's dishy, entertaining and mildly educating.
The movie reminds me that the city is a scene, and you either join the scene or you don't join the scene.

It startles me that what passes for glamorous New York City nostalgia is my recent past history.

Turns out, the art world is nonsense. Cindy Sherman is blessed. Her artwork is good but it is only AMAZING (to me) because the art scene made it iconic. When you see her work. the recognition factor warms your insides and you feel good and well fed. Because you recognize it. But her work is hit and miss (for me).

However, she is pretty and charming. Merryl Streepish in manner.

She followed her artistic impulse. This fires me up. No more trying to fit in. Create my own vision.

I begin taking the drug last night. It wasn't a problem. Just makes you sleepy.

MY GARDEN OVER THE LINCOLN TUNNEL SUNDAY APRIL 19

BREAK A LEG

On Tuesday, my agent leaves a message for me.

"First of all, I want to know how you are. Are you feeling better? And the next I want to know is if you are well enough to see the casting director for AT&T tomorrow at 9:30 in the morning. They want to match you up with a guy but he's in rehearsal for a movie so they want to read you early."

I'm at work. The message manages to neutralize and subtract the entire office.

I ask (someone) if I can use a conference room to make a private call?

The conference room is like a movie set. One entire wall is a window facing the lobby. A black (one way) scrim can be detonated at one's discretion. I push that button and I'm in a hushed vault.

There is a long elegant birch wood conference table with a black phone unit in the middle, surrounded by eight swiveling black leather chairs.

Recessed lighting pours eight equal columns of theatrical light.

It’s freezing.

I sit in the center chair alone.

I think of what to say to my agent.

I consider not calling back but I remember that there is no parent or supervisor or partner or wife to fall back on. I am alone in this. I decide the only way to go, is to be candid without sounding pathetic.

My agent takes my call right away.

"Hey sweetie, how are you?"

I tell him-

"I'm good!"

in my clear forced upper register.
And it is not true.
My voice is taking on characteristics described on the web. Yikes.
Sometimes (to me) I sound drunk. I have to take several breaths to get one full sentence out. (Not always) I have a hard time saying anything quickly. I sound nasal. (Sometimes).

But,

I tell him- "I'm up for anything but how much do they know?" (about my odd situation).

See… a few weeks ago I spilled to this agent. I told him everything on my iphone in the bathroom at the Cupcake Cafe.
I was on hold for a different spot. I'd been evasive. Booking out.

So he knows a lot but not everything.

" It's neurological, and I've been tested a million times. They don't know what is it is, really" (I emphasized and still hold onto hopefully).

So NOW my agent tells ME,

"all THEY know is that you aren't feeling well these days. I think the whole thing will be easy. A goofy spot. A couple of lines. Meet tomorrow and if it IS too much, it will be clear to you and you can get out of it."

Here I am exposing myself to my agent. I've actually told my voice over agent that I have trouble speaking. I also tell him that this production house is like a family to me in some ways. I am WAY over exposing myself, but once I start talking, I simply don't know how to stop.

I set my alarm for 7 am for my 9:30 appointment on Thursday.

Getting up, is like going to bed at midnight and waking at four to go to the airport. Even with coffee, I feel feverish and exhausted. I slept seven hours but these days I sleep ten.

The pre-booking audition goes well (I think). I read with a guy in a small booth on 36th and Ninth Avenue. He sounds like the younger brother from EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND. And I sound like... I'm not sure, but I KNOW I sound different from him which might create instant comedy? We record the spot several times. It could be a lucrative job. 32 spots for AT&T. And they're only reading us.

Deana, the casting director, seems pleased. She is super nice and super supportive to me.

Later, she tells me she can see I'm walking oddly but she says I sound fine.

(It was supposed to book Friday, I never heard anything).

After the audition, I bike home. I get a flat. So I walk my bike home.
But I feel good and hopeful because I pulled through. (I'll concentrate on voice-overs!)

I'm drinking coffee at home (staring at piles of dirty laundry and dishes) and I get a message from my insurance company.

Anxiety.

I call back right away. I worry it's about a delinquent payment or maybe its about my request to up my therapy visits.

"Hello? is this Richard at Blue Cross?"

"Is this Mr. Roberts?"

"Yep."

"I was given your number by Columbia Presbyterian. How are you feeling today?"

(He's syrupy nice and understanding. I am suspicious. He sounds like he's trying to soften "the blow". I assume he's going to tell me that they 're terminating my insurance.

"I'm okay... I'm GOOD!" I say trying to sound like I've got troubles but I'm toughing it out. Trying to sound like someone you might admire.

"Well good" Richard says. "How are you getting around these days? Let me explain. I'm a registered nurse and your Doctor felt it might be a good idea for us to meet."

(shock)

"Oh. Well. How am I doing? I just got back from an audition and I got a flat on the way home so I had to walk my bike home and later I'll be biking to work like I do every night. So. I'm fine.

I mean... my feet are tired ... but I mean ... I don't need a nurse."

"Oh well, good. Hey why don't we do this... why don't you take down my number..."

I interrupt.

"You know, the thing is, the thing is, is that I don't have a diagnosis yet so ... I'm sort of counting on this not going anywhere."

"Of course, of course. Well. You know we work with Screen Actors Guild all the time so... I guess.. break a leg. Do they still say that... break a leg?"

"Not really." ( I lie for some reason) They DO still say break a leg... but I guess not really for voice over auditions.

I hang up and feel nervous.

I remember the doctors and the nurses saying...

when I ask why no-one offers any hope for my improving- the kind and gentle PT told me,

"it's because we've experienced this thing going a certain way."

Hmmm.

Later that night I go to church and am reminded that as a man I hold dominion over my health.

I decide.

Thursday afternoon, I get a call from my (on camera) agent. She wants me to go out on a Vitamin commercial. Network. Friday morning.

I decide to go.

Friday morning. The audition room is crowded with four or five casting people.

I'm supposed to pick the vitamins off a shelf, remember what it felt like to feel young, and then jump onto a grocery cart like (a little boy) and glide off camera.

I feel like I'm in my bad (made for TV)-(disease of the week) movie.

The bald irony of the situation is pitiful.

I look at the grocery cart like it might kill me.

"Um. Do I have to actually jump on the cart? Now?"

"Uh, yeah. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Well... my foot hurts."

" You'd be fine at the booking. Right?

"Sure".

I do the spot a few times (without jumping on the cart) and I'm terrible. Wooden. (Let's get it over with) is my motivation.

I almost call my (on camera) agent afterwards to tell her my whole saga. (I want comfort and sympathy for my poor performance) BUT. I think... no. wait.
Tell her later, when you're feeling more okay.

I stay home Friday night and drink wine and create a group page on Facebook for my short film.

Saturday morning I go to work. It is a glorious (mountain air) New York day. There are only a few each year.

Work feels easier because of the stunning weather.
And I realize that there are two people interested in me; a woman Sally, and handsome Iranian Jason.

I can tell. I know.

Sally is a magazine writer and has brought me samples of her work.

Jason is way too attentive to me and at the end of the day he waits for me to leave. He times it. So we can walk out together.
But I still have more work to do so I rebuff him.

I feel like I look like I'm eighty years old. So I'm delighted and surprised at the attention.

And I wonder if I'm more attractive because I have zero energy and am so passive.

(You know?) like when people lose their voices, they get these weak scratchy voices, and (all of sudden) they seem sexy and more dynamic?

Maybe I have an attractive, humble, low voltage glow of illness about me.

TEN MINUTES

Wednesday.

I am going to be late.

I have an appointment with Matty. She's a good friend and former dance partner. We created a dance piece set to the music Juego Zagat called "Spies in Love" (many years ago). Everyone loved it. We performed it often.

Now Matty is Feldenchirst practioner.

I bike down the west side highway. The wind is blowing north (against me).
I take it personally.

There's a Housing Works thrift shop across the street from Matty's apartment building in the west village.
I love thrift shops.
Matty finds me there.

We scale the 4 or 5 flights or her building. The rickety building consists of tiny studios with non-working fireplaces all renting for $1500.
I climb the stairs like a toddler. My hands out in front of me. Paddling up the stairs.

Matty's work with me is microscopic. Feldenchrist is about teaching and listening to your body. It's intuitive.
When you make a small movement with your arm or foot or leg, observe how it effects the rest of your body, your breath. your thoughts, and later I realize, my voice

We talk about how learning through the discipline of lonely focused self discovery is (really) the most powerful.

In all disciplines.

It is that lonely commitment to being by your self and shutting out the rest of the world. The RISK! That this lonely work is worth it. It takes confidence and a leap of faith. Belief that the solemn alone time working on your body, your mind, your writing, your crafts, your piano skills, your book keeping, is just as valuable and worthy as the colorful, loud parade outside.

I bring Matty a portion of a chicken casserole I made in my new (Crate & Barrel) casserole dish.
She gives me an herbal helmet that has been found to be effective with MS and Parkinson’s.

She had given me the literature-instructions weeks ago.

I still have it.

Where?

Taped into a scrappy (to do) book? Shelved in a box? or a bookcase behind a stack of magazines I still to need to read?
(that New York Times magazine with the Neil Labute interview), The New Yorker, Men's Health - this year's 100 Things To Do! (to look your best and be your healthiest!)

Ha!

These sexy headlines don't hold sway over me (anymore). Eat the right things and lose that gut!?

I'm trying to hang onto that gut!

You realize that all of those healthy magazines are terrible nonsense... because in the end it's about being gentle to your body, listening to your own individual needs. Those magazines are an excuse to stare at pretty people and sell ads.

Of course.

We go over (as we often do) the various therapies that could be cool. There is a Tai-Chi Gong workshop coming up.
Maio Facial, cranial, so many therapies to think about! (To be confused about)

(I think about my friend Janet who, when she was ill, kept receiving books from friends and relatives about alternative therapies for cancer. She told me that she wanted to tell all her well wishers, " How 'bout this? ... why don't YOU read these books and then give me an outlined summary.
So I gave her my SAG screeners and a book of photography)

Matty and I talk about the power of mediation. Ten minutes a day. Ten minutes is all it takes. And I realize that everything takes a solemn, focused, lonely, ten minutes a day.

Matty's next client arrives and I bike to S'nice on Hudson and eat broccoli and cauliflower for $5.

Then I bike to Soho and go to CAFE CAFE.
I have a small coffee and a sugary bannana walnut muffin for about $4.

The guy behind the counter (25-ish) notices my iphone cover. We have an intimate talk about iphone covers.

(I had this same iphone cover conversation in the elevator at work yesterday. And will have another one later at the coat closet at Church. We are all looking for easy ways to connect to each other. The iphone cover conversation is ideal and easy for making a connection)

When our conversation about the iphone cover is done (hard plasic vs. soft rubber), the counter person and I are embarassed, because he has to go back to being a counter person and I have to go back to being a paying customer instructing him

"I want SKIM milk, not WHOLE milk."

I try to soften the blow of my damands because we're fellow iphone owners with concerns about the iphones covers. We've bonded.

At CAFE CAFE, I read a book about the wonders of guided imagery for people with HIV and cancer.

Another lonely, focused, 10 minutes (to add to my day).

Directly across the street, Uma Thurman is shopping at a super glamorous kitchen store.
There is a gaggle of photographers waiting for her outside.

I take pictures of the photographers (taking pictures of Uma) (with my iphone). They enjoy this.

I meander around Soho and marvel at the new construction.

I love Soho.

I've never been one to shun wealth.
And Soho reeks of rich, (well to do) family life. It feels grand and old world. The stores have to (work it) to survive the rent down there. I appreciate this.

At Church. Christ heals. All is perfect. No errors.
The power of G-d is always with you and G-d's power is a calm, peaceful one.

KILLING GIANTS

Tonight, I'm told the story of David and Golliath.
David didn't use a sword or armor to bring down the giant.

He used one stone and aimed well.

I already have what I need.