xtcian

MMIV précis

1/3/05

Like I said last year around this time, years have their flavors, and you never know quite what that flavor is going to be until you're a long time hence. I have a feeling that 2004, for us, will seem like "The Time Before the Baby™" and have the patois of Unthinkable Freedom. At least Tessa and I got through eighteen months of being married, and we still laugh in the car, so we're doing something right.

Career-wise, it was fascinating, if you are fascinated by the various forms of failure. I like to think I failed at every big form of media there is: we had the funding for our motion picture ripped out from under us; our sitcom was universally-lauded, but we were still ultimately told to go home; I was up for a big-time book deal that dissolved; we auditioned for a gig at the NYTimes that we didn't get; and I had a can't-miss comedy play that, apparently, is going to be missed. The only art form I didn't fail at this year was sculpture, mainly because I didn't attempt any.

However, this is the important thing: we are failing at HIGHER and HIGHER levels each time. We aren't making any money, but the amount of money we aren't making is more every day. If, like many actors say, the life of a successful artist is getting rejected at a higher level, then we're doing much better than last year. Plus, nothing is for nothing; we were signed to a major agency, our TV spec scripts kick ass and I have another, better book idea on the table. Nobody fails forever, not with THESE love handles, baby.

And here's the real deal - at some point in late July or early August, against all odds, the collective luck of 2.6 billion years of single-cell amoebas, amphibians, primates and humans came together to produce a little baby that Tessa likes to carry around in her belly. It is hard to think of ourselves as anything but absolute winners when we know we're capable of such magic.

Despite unending weeks of frustration, I think I know the flavor of 2004 already, and for us, it was a toasty hazelnut. We got to see a lot of our favorite people often; I ate at Salem's restaurant in Georgia three times, I ate at Mama Dip's twice. I got to see Sean and Jordana in "Lucretia Jones," and I got to bike the Santa Monica pathway. Hell, I even saw the Budster twice. Some of our friends had babies; others got pregnant when they were given no chance. Three gay couples got married; so did three straight ones.

My mood is curious, even to me. That fucking punk-ass chimp was re-elected in November, our government swayed even more to the right, 140 thousand people died in tsunamis (so many I can't even comprehend), and the world seems more dangerous, arbitrary and cruel than ever. And yet, I feel content. Angry, but resolved. Venomous, but magnanimous.

Perhaps 2004 is when the Celexa really kicked in.

at Chip's wedding, New Year's Eve