Tessa had a bit of a meltdown today over finances, and as much as I want to help her, I feel like this is one area in which I can offer naught but a friendly shoulder to rest on thank god that's usually enough. I have several solutions about getting out of debt, but they involve changes that we may not necessarily want to make. Besides, one thing I've noticed in my 34 and 11/12ths years knocking around on the planet: sure, "life is short" and all that, but life as you live it tends to be rather long, and things work themselves out in ways you never could have predicted (or perhaps could have predicted, but would have subsequently been accused of bad storytelling). One thing that therapy is teaching me is that denial can be a really healthy thing – my problem is that I like to push myself to see how anxious and/or depressed I can get. It's sick, perverse, macabre and joyless, but that never stopped me before.
We're supposed to be at the farm tonight, but at the last second I planted the idea in Tessa's head that maybe we should stay in town. The movers never called back about the pool table - which is the main reason we were going up - and if I stayed, I could really get my act together in Brooklyn. After stewing on that for a while, Tessa also agreed it was the best thing for her as well. I looked at the weather report upstate and it said 71 and sunny for Sunday, which lends credence to my hunch that we're deliberately trying to miss all the good weather at the farm.
More people keep falling into line for Memorial Day weekend, speaking of which, so I'm going to have to get creative with living spaces. I can put two of the single beds in the carriage house, and I can build a day bed for the living room, bringing the total number of people who can sleep in the house to 15, which ain't bad. Throw down some air mattresses and the futon, and you've got around 20, except that you might step on human flesh on your 3am trip to the bathroom.
I'm suddenly reminded of the place on Freret St. in New Orleans where we all stayed for Mardi Gras '92 ("The Best Mardi Gras Ever"). As I recall, every single inch of floor space was taken up, and that includes hallways and one of the staircases. There must have been 35 of us packed into that shotgun house. And worst of all, I slept on the floor between the two twinjuns, and during the night, the keg leaked into the carpet, traveled by transference up into our sleeping bags, and we woke up sopping with awful beer. Auch, the humanity.
Did you know that the first air conditioner was built into the White House so that James Garfield could recover from an assassination attempt? They blew air over 5000 tons of ice so he wouldn't expire from the humid, putrescent Washington weather, and it reduced the room's temperature by 20 degrees. He died anyway, of course.
The Celextant, May 3, 2002
The fatigue waned a bit today, as did the headaches. I don't think I took any aspirin today at all, strangely enough. Still capable of an incredible amount of rage (like when I left Tessa's bag across town) and depression (everyone's bleak financial situation engendered a powerful hopelessness). So I wanna know: when do I start skipping down the street singing songs from "Carousel"?
So, I went to the Tapehouse screening of our footage today and felt sluggish. Then had a therapy session and battled fatigue. Then played hoops for two hours tonight and could barely keep my eyes open afterwards. Could it be
The Celextant, May 2, 2002 ?
Because I recall feeling like I was hit by a truck after a few days on the half-pill of Celexa, and now the same thing has happened after a few days on the full dosage. One might say it is tired-making, or even somnambulantic. All I know is I can't go back on the Red Bull this better be temporary.
"This better be temporary" why does that seem like a punchline to a really bad joke?
I read this today: basically, two burglars, unhappy with the contents of a Starbucks safe, went ahead and worked there for a half an hour and pocketed the proceeds. Police say as many as 18 Starbucks patrons were serviced by the crooks before they fled.
Obviously if you do the math, they couldn't have made more than $100 off the customers, even with a couple of grande lattes and mocha frappucinos thrown in. But what's more interesting is that the burglars knew enough about the place to keep it running. It's more evidence of what Andrew Wood at San Jose State calls "omnitopia," which are workplaces of "ubiquitous, ever-present environments" - we've all seen people make the same damn coffee drinks in about 4000 locations all over the country.
I mean, I know where McDonald's keeps the Hot Mustard sauce at their location on the corner of Sunset and Highland in LA, and on Hwy 90 outside Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. I've seen so many tall lattes made over the past five years, I could do it in my sleep. Tessa mentioned that the espresso machine might be a little tough, but maybe the burglars fudged that one. It makes sense that crooks have a home in Omnitopia: find one safe, and you've found them all.
On the way to sushi tonight, we ran into Bridget R____, now Bridget L____, except that she isn't L____ anymore either. It was amazing to see her in this environment, or really, see her at all I think I haven't laid eyes on her since 1997. She and M__ got divorced, and she's about to start a photography class up in Montana for the summer. I'll give her one thing, the girl's a survivor. I wonder what her marriage was like, but that's the sort of thing you can never know.
The Celextant, May 1, 2002
I got my prescription filled today to the delightful little health-care-insured tune of $25. It was so much less than expected that I splurged on discount nose-strips. God, the things I find myself saying. Anyway, for those shopping for nose strips, I think you should go ahead and get the Breathe-Right strips, because the other ones feel like a Band-Aid.
Today was a rare day apart from Tessa, and I spent a good part of it wandering around a very cold, dreary, rainy Manhattan, having gone to the psychopharmacologist to attempt to explain why my life has been so fucked up. I think I did an adequate job describing my youth, family and current circumstances, although I am feeling a bit scripted after doing it for the sixth mental health care professional in three months (2 interns, one bad shrink, one bad psychiatrist, one great social worker and now one awesome psychopharmacologist). Sometimes I think I overplay the worst parts of my youth because it makes the story better, but the truth was, I was pretty anxiety-ridden and friendless for the first fourteen years of my life. One of the reasons I'm so close to my family now is that I appreciate how insane I'd be if they hadn't been there in 1979.
Dr. Gorman wanted to know a lot about my family's mental history, and so I told her as much as I knew about my parents and siblings there must be an incredible genetic predisposition to this stuff. Overall, I think our meeting was designed to make sure I wasn't some glue-sniffing moron hoping to crush up some Welbutrin and make strawberry seratonin shakes for my Camaro-driving friends. I think Dr. Gorman does it right; she gets to know the basics of her patients' problems so that each person doesn't become another disembodied head on an assembly line. I imagine there is a real career fatigue that sets in as a psychiatrist, simply popping pills into an endless supply of gaping maws.
One could wax invective about the ethics of chemical-altering mood drugs and how this country is becoming too dependent on them, but the person doing so can't be holding either a liquor drink or a cigarette.
Tonight we attended the Naked Angels continuing "Tuesdays at Nine" series at Here and sat with Matty Dawson and Michael Mastro. There was a lot of good work to be seen, and I was impressed with everyone's ability to "cold read." Sean would be amazing as a part of this crew, but I suppose he's got his own fish to fry with Gideon, who unfortunately just got shut out of the Fringe Festival. They rejected one of Mac's plays about a post-terrorist apocalyptic set-up, and while my fragile psyche couldn't possibly deal with the subject matter, the Fringe should have taken it. Michelle's band of Union Square boneheads got in with some ham-bone skit about Jesus' roommate. Maybe the Fringe wanted to go with what Zack Ward called "The Funny" this year.
The Celextant, April 30, 2002
So I asked Dr. Gorman simply, "If I hadn't already started taking Celexa before I got here, what would you have put me on?" She replied, "Celexa is a really good drug." So I feel as though I didn't do anything too hasty (or at least I did do something hasty, but I lucked out). According to her, however, the 10mg I'm taking isn't enough, and she gave me samples amping me up to 20mg, adding that most people don't feel anything for six weeks. The higher dose makes sense: if I'm going to do this drug right, I might as well take an adult dose and get the fuck off it as soon as I can. She also said that there's a new Celexa coming out this summer with less side effects, which is just fine by me, because I'm already having trouble with, well, you know. Not the starting of you-know, but the finishing. You know.
Why do I get the impression that this diary will ruin my bid for the Senate?
I just re-read draft 3 of "The Pink House" (keep in mind that the shooting script was draft eleven) and I was struck by how indisputably over-written it is. I mean, people ramble on in lugubrious endlessness until you want them to shut the fuck up already. And this was in draft 3! I'm so lucky to have had some great Carolina grads in the first reading that night in August 1999 they applauded at the end, and everyone left with the feeling that I was on to something. Little did I know I was ten more drafts away from something remotely digestable.
What strikes me are the passages that actually made it from the first drafts all the way though the complaining, the editing, the fighting, the input from producers and actors, the self-censoring, the I'm-starting-this-damn-thing-over-from-scratch, the offline editing all the way to now. Little stretches still survive, like those eerily casual, conversational patches that slip out of the Middle English of "The Canterbury Tales." Not that "The Pink House" compares with The Wife of Bath's Tale or anything, but it's still interesting to act as your own literary paleontologist.
Making a movie teaches you immediate humility, and if it doesn't, you shouldn't be making any more movies. If someone reads something and they don't get it, it's not their fault, it's yours. My advice for would-be screenwriters is to give your screenplay to the simplest person you know, then take their criticism very seriously. The things I learned from people I half-respected Jesus, I could write a novella.
As I write this, Sean is filming Dani's movie underground at the end of the F line, 179th St. in Queens. I'm mindful of how our shoot had the incredible advantage of a bit more money, which solves almost every problem in a movie production. Dani is definitely doing it lo-fi, using a PD-150 (which I call the Volkscamera) and most likely looping all of his sound later. I think he's a bit of a crooked genius, and his social skills remind me of Jay Murray he has long since realized that he is known for taking advantage of his friends, so he stopped being sensitive or disingenuous about it, and just plowed ahead with his agenda. I think it's actually an honest way to live, really; you know what you're getting with both Dani and Jay, and after rough patches, I've come to respect them both. When Jay asked Scott Bullock to buy him three hamburgers at McDonald's, Scott was so flabbergasted that I think he actually did it. The world is a commune – buy your friends burgers. If I had money, I'd give it to Dani's shoot, even if I didn't like his project.
Sean tells me he shaved his head. I'm always amazed at some actors' dedication to the craft. It's a weird combination of vanity and guilessness.
Today we met with the dude from Tapehouse, who described his company's "proprietary software" that meshes DV into a filmable format. He seemed cool enough, and Tapehouse is becoming The Place to Go for good indie DV projects, so I hope we can raise the cash to go there. Afterwards, I went to Chelsea Piers and wasn't picked for two games of basketball, causing me the kind of elementary-school rage that used to make me want to put my fist through the fucking wall.
But of course, that was before my course was charted by
The Celextant, April 29, 2002
Okay, I have to eat something in the morning. My intestine-churning habit of waiting until 1pm to eat is causing me some massive headaches on this drug. It's also apparently really stupid anyway, but the fact is, I just don't like eating first thing in the morning. It all tastes disgusting unless it's my mom's waffles with orange sauce but if I had that every morning, they'd need a crane to hoist me out of the house.
Would have loved to play hoops this morning, but another huge storm rumbled across the region, leaving us naught but the hope the drought will soon be abating. Already Tessa and I have stopped flushing the toilet very often (to occasionally disastrous results) and we drink bottled seltzer water. Although I'm not half the enviro-nazi I was back in the early-'90s Susan Comfort days, I think we do a pretty good job of being responsible. If you don't count the Land Rover getting four miles per gallon, that is. Christ, for the amount of gas that thing guzzles, we should have a soft-serve ice cream dispenser in there.
Colin trekked from his suite in Central Park to see us this morning, full of more stories about the party we apparently left too early to see Heather Graham, which would have been interesting. I kinda think she's the Big Lie, but it can't hurt to do some sociological research.
One of my grails was grasped this evening as I finally got our phone system up and running: three lines, two of them with DSL (don't ask) and one as a "rollover" line, since Tessa has some deep-seated issues with Call Waiting. Personally, I think Call Waiting joins ATMs, VCRs and answering machines atop the list of Great Stuff that Wasn't Around When I Was a Kid. Go ahead and add cell phones and the internet to that list too, while you're at it.
Shit, what did people do back then, just sit around and drink??
The Celextant, April 28, 2002
I am feeling this drug barring and gently locking the basement door to the worst parts of my depression. It just won't let you go down there, and better yet, it casually suggests, in an offhand sort of way, that you stop thinking about it.
The verdict is in, and it is thus: I really need to start writing these things earlier. Something that would have been brilliant at midnight, clever at 1am and vaguely interesting at 2am turns to outright mush at 3:41am as I write this. By now, fatigue turns otherwise complicated thoughts into bivalent minutiae.
Suffice to say this: we drove back to Brooklyn today (on what turned out to be, most annoyingly, the prettiest day to have stayed at the farm) in order to attend Andrew Cohen's party for Colin Soloway. Tessa remarked that it was very old-school and proper in a delightfully WASP-y sort of way that Andrew felt the need to give a party in the returning conqueror's honor. There was great food (sushi, roast beef on spicy bread) and drinks, and the scenery was interesting in that New York literati sort of way. All the women were fascinatingly high-maintenance, and I must still be a rou, because I can't remember any of the guys.
Michelle came with us, and Kim Ludlow met us there. Late arrivals included my agent Jenny Bent, who is more properly Colin's agent until I get my writing act back together. I wore an all-black outfit with those stupid clown shoes Mom bought for us in California. They make me about 6'4", but any height advantage is nixed by self-mockery and early-90s fashion trendlessness.
The Celextant, April 27, 2002
I was plowing through a bourbon & coke and a really bad cosmopolitan before I remembered Tessa talking about how bad alcohol is for SSRI's. I recalled how beat-up I felt in Los Angeles after a night of vodka chased by Prozac, so I left the cosmo on the radiator and stuck to the soft stuff. Usually I can feel a drink about 3/4ths the way through, but not tonight Celexa must have that whiskey-dick way of prolonging sobriety by making your everyday existence somewhat drunk. There is something impenetrable about the drug, that's for sure, like a space-age polymeric sheath that is translucent yet virtually puncture-proof. A clear condom, perhaps, which is a metaphor that might be too close to home.