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Apparently there is some nonsense called “doctor-patient privilege” that prevents E.S. from telling me the most intimate details of his patients’ lives. Nevertheless, as long as he withholds identifying information, he can tell me vague stories every once in a while.

The recent upshot of all this is that, as fucked up as my brain chemistry is, I’d still rather be me than somebody who thinks he’s a fish.

Everyone must go here at once to see “Fashion Highs and Lows of the Westboro Baptist Church.” C. Monks, whoever you are, I think I love you.

Thanks to her for the link.

When I was eleven or twelve, I wandered into a Walden Books and picked up a copy of The Necronomicon, a book ostensibly written by the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, a character from the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The Necronomicon purported to contain instructions on opening a gateway to other dimensions, other worlds populated by the Elder Gods, Old Ones with names like Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth who, if begged with the proper humility and terror, might deign to show up suddenly and eat us all.

Naturally, I began making the necessary preparations immediately.

Unfortunately, the instructions were somewhat vague, consisting in large part of lines like, “I have smelled the vapors of that Ancient One, Queen of the Outside, whose name is writ in the terrible MAGAN text, the testament of some dead civilization whose priests, seeking power, swing open the dread, evil Gate for an hour past the time, and were consumed.” This was very exciting to me–minus the confusing shift in tense, of course–but somewhat lacking in specifics. Was the “cruel gibbering” that needed to “pour forth like vomitous bile from my mouth” supposed to be in English? If not, could I do it in grammatically correct but unidiomatic French, or did it have to be Arabic? Or something else? I was happy to put forth the effort to study any language necessary, but the opportunities, in South Carolina in 1985, were doubtless few and far between.

In the end my efforts were stymied by my inability to gather the appropriate materials. Coal was no problem; neither was a stick of yew wood two cubits long and as big around as my thumb. But when I actually sat down with the newspaper and looked at the price of gold, I realized that buying enough to beat out a thin sheet as big as my palm would take months and months of my allowance, and that was money I simply had to have to buy stickers for my sticker books.

One of my favorite things about E.S. is that, since he is a psychiatrist, he can and does diagnose people at the drop of a hat. Other people on the subway, people we pass on the street, my friends. But the best is when he diagnoses characters on TV shows. He does this not only with Law & Order, since crazy people are a regular feature on that program, but also with fantasy shows like Wonderfalls, whose heroine (according to E.S.) was experiencing first-break schizophrenia, and even with cartoons. He claims that Stewie on The Family Guy has an anxiety-spectrum disorder.

But E.S.’s ability to diagnose people even when they are pixillated and three inches tall is what allows me to tell you that Tom Cruise, who recently exposed himself on Oprah and Access Hollywood, is bipolar and has gone off his medications. It’s true; my psychiatrist boyfriend says so.

Note to self: after mincing jalape

Because of the dreadful weather, when I showed up to teach my step-and-sculpt class, there was no one there. Delighted that I might have the hour free, I decided nevertheless to wait fifteen minutes before going home. I was about to turn the lights off and leave when a woman came in to do the class. She had a foreign accent and turned out to be from Paris. She was very considerate; she said there was no point in doing the class with one student, as it would be just as easy for her to go and lift on the machines outside. But, full of bitterness, I told her that if she'd come for the class we should do the class.

And it was a total blast. First, because it was great to be able to focus my teaching on one person's specific needs, and second, because I did the class in French.

Actually, that's not completely accurate, as my French wasn't quite up to translating sentences like "give me some hip!" and "I know you've got more attitude in you than that!" idiomatically on the fly as I danced around a plastic platform.

But when it came to shouting "rétez trois fois!" and "magnifique, vraiment magnifique!" I was smoother than Maurice Chevalier.

The worst part of the training I wrote about yesterday was that, even though nobody wanted to be there, some of the other people in attendance took the attitude that they ought to make lemonade out of the lemons they had been handed.

This was fine on principle, except it meant that they shared.

“Who can tell me what they think an optimal experience is?”, asked the leader of the session.

Silence for a brief while. Then, from somewhere in the room: “The BEST!”

“Good, good,” said the leader. “Anybody else?”

Silence for a briefer while. “An experience unencumbered with frivolous baggage!”

The trainer was taken aback for a moment, but then recovered himself. “Excellent! That’s definitely a very specific definition. An optimal experience is . . .” and kept on talking.

It got worse; people started raising their hands unprompted and contributing anecdotes from their own personal experience. “The other day, I had an awakening,” they would begin, and then they would describe the tedious awakening.

And I was like, excuse me, don’t you realize that the more we talk, the later we’re going to go home?

But by the afternoon, I was so beaten down and demoralized by the whole experience that I actually started to buy into the rhetoric. I saw what the trainer was doing and yet, despite all my efforts to resist, I felt motivated. “Gee,” I thought to myself, “that does sound good. If I do a really great job [which my mind refused to translate consciously to ‘if I sell more of our product’], the clients can feel understood and be happier and I can be happier too.” I was revolted to find myself thinking such thoughts, but I was powerless to stop myself.

Thank God I was locked out at the beginning of day two. Maybe I should quit the gig while I’m ahead and count myself lucky to have escaped relatively unscathed.

Over the weekend I was forced to attend a group training session for a company for which I do some freelance work.

On the first day (of three) I walked into the room ten minutes late, only to find that all the people there–sixty or more–were introducing themselves to the rest of the group.

Oh, dear God, I thought.

Then I looked up at the board in front of the room and saw this written there:

“Expectancy determines outcome.” –Deepak Chopra

Oh, dear God, I thought.

Once the excruciating process of introductions was finished, the session leader–who was actually pretty cute–got up and said, “Okay, so I have this thing written on the board, ‘Expectancy determines outcome.’ Who can guess what it means?”

God, I begged, please strike me down now. Better locusts should consume me from within than that I endure this.

God did not comply with my request. Eight hours later, the first day finished, I stumbled out into the street, a broken man.

The next morning I was eighteen minutes late and when I got there they had locked the door and wouldn’t let me in. This means I have to go back the next time they offer the training and take the second two days.

Unless they make me take the first day over again, in which case I’ll quit or perhaps go on a killing spree.

It’s one thing for a collaborator of yours to win the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical.

It’s quite another for her to look so fucking gorgeous accepting it.

Sometimes there is justice in the world.

The other day, after wrestling for an afternoon with a thorny passage in something I’m writing, I finally came up with the perfect way to solve the difficulties it presented. Full of pride at my own cleverness, I told E.S. about it. Then we had the following conversation:

E.S.: That’s great, honey.
FAUSTUS: Aren’t I really smart? Aren’t I a terrific writer?
E.S.: You are a wonderful writer.
Pause.
FAUSTUS (dangerously): And?
E.S.: Oh. And you’re really smart.
FAUSTUS: That’s better.
Pause.
FAUSTUS: Don’t you love dating me?
E.S.: Um . . . yes?