Don’t dream it, be it in 2023.

At last, the end of 2023. While it would be too much to hope we begin as a society to pivot away from infamy, manipulation, greed, and gaslighting as being our principal motivators, we can aspire to at least be better people in our own spheres of life.

Until we return to the center of logic, patience, and intelligence again, I turn to the music of Richard O’Brien’s THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and “Don’t Dream It, Be It” from its legendary finale. There you will find my mood board for 2023.

“Whatever happened to Fay Wray?
That delicate satin draped frame
As it clung to her thigh, how I started to cry
Cause I wanted to be dressed just the same

Give yourself over to absolute pleasure
Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh
Erotic nightmares beyond any measure
And sensual daydreams to treasure forever
Can’t you just see it?

[Chorus]
Don’t dream it, be it
Don’t dream it, be it
Don’t dream it, be it
Don’t dream it, be it

Ach! We’ve got to get out of this trap
Before this decadence saps our will
I’ve gotta be strong and try to hang on
Or my mind may well snap
Und my life will be lived for the thrills.”

Time to find the thrill in living for a better self, a better world again.

Happy new year, mi gente.

Lady G’s fake indignation is tiresome.

Lady G’s fake indignation is tiresome.

I’m killing myself slowly.

It was around 8pm on a Saturday night in early March. I was in bed, watching my umpteenth rerun of “The Golden Girls” on Hulu.

That was when I noticed a missed phone call from the One Medical group, my medical provider. My iPhone was set to send all unrecognized calls to voice mail. Needless to say, this was one phone call I should have answered before the second ring.

Early Friday, before I made my commute to work. The one that feels like a living documentary? Yeah, that commute. I stopped by to see the phlebotomist at One Medical’s DTLA office as ordered by my physician. Nothing out of the ordinary, unless you factor in the day I slurred my words after a family lunch. (I don’t drink.) How about the interview where it took an effort to get full sentences out while I was in Atlanta? (No one noticed that episode but me.)

It’s been nearly six months since I’d had my blood check for all those damn demons of mine. The results were predictably bad. Why else would the nurse practitioner call me on the Saturday night after my blood was drawn? No suspense music sting here.  I’ve written about my stratospheric A1C and triglycerides readings before. After steady declines, it only took me a few months, but I’m back to a 13 reading (A1C) and over 1200 (triglycerides). After speaking with the nurse practitioner for a few minutes and reading the lab results, I reclined on my bed, took a deep breath, and said quietly:

“I’m killing myself.”

Was it intentional, this act of self-murder? I don’t know. What I do know is that all I can say more often than I care to admit is, “I don’t care.”

I thought after Dad’s passing that some magic window would open and I’d find myself on a new path. We’d spent so many years making sure he’d never feel like a “sick person” because of his Alzheimer’s, my siblings and I literally hit the Pause button on our lives to give him our undivided attention. That hasn’t been the case. Even my younger brother moving on and out of my apartment didn’t manifest itself into some giddy “Space Unicorn” moment.

No, I’ve opted to kill myself because I can’t handle the loneliness and anger that has me in a vice grip. I turn 53 this year, single, not caring to mingle, and determined to live out some “Leaving Las Vegas” agenda. I will literally eat myself to death. The truth is, though, I don’t know if I really want to die right now.

My family, extended and otherwise, is a shambles right now. We’re a microcosm of the world, never happy, always critical, and aggressive in terms of how we express our feelings. We eat. We criticize. We eat some more. We laugh for a bit. We eat a bit more. Someone gets hurts feelings. Someone leaves. Eat. Speak. Yell. Slam. Repeat. We are better is small groups, but it has to be a certain combination of temperaments. I can weather it just fine on some days, but most of the time I find I want to be left alone. That mindset has been the catalyst for some serious health issues.

I’ve felt broken for a long time, a total relic in this modern age of “Notice Me Now!” Flirting with pancreatitis is not romantic, neither are the signs that my body is no longer coping with inactivity, which are visible and painful. I’m in trouble, folks. I don’t think I’ll withstand another episode like the one 10 years ago where it felt as if I was in the throes of a heart attack. I want to send out a search party for my will to live and to care about life, myself, anything. It’s been gone so long, I don’t even know if I’d recognize it, but I know it exists. Will is what keeps us from falling into the gaping maw that appears so inviting, but is only out to destroy you.

I’ve been staring up at this mountain of issues, feelings, and tasks for so long. It’s all I have been able to do for years now. Wedged in between are this selfish rage, apathy, fear, and other wickedness. Sigh. I have seen doctors. Meds are being replaced with other chemical life preservers. Anti-depressants are back. A visit to Overeater’s Anonymous is in the books. The search for the appropriate therapist is also in full motion.

I know how this may look and sound to some people. I can’t worry about it. More, I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. No one wants to look weak or vulnerable to the people they love. Yet, at what point do you be strong for the person who needs you the most? Yourself. At what point do you stand facing your image in a mirror and say “I love me?”

That’s what I intend to find out.

Quotes, Pedro Almodóvar Edition

“People have stopped surprising me so much, they’ve stopped exciting me as much. And secondly, there’s the pain.”

He paused.

“Pain is not something you can share with other people.”

Oscar-winning filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar on his latest film, “Pain and Glory.” Quote from Kyle Buchanan’s interview for the New York Times, Sunday, 10/16/19

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEjFOkCKb3g&feature=youtu.be

Quotes, Stephen Sondheim Edition

“I’m interested in the theater because I’m interested in communication with audiences.”

Sondheim (left) wrote the lyrics for West Side Story; classical-music superstar Leonard Bernstein (center) was the composer, Jerome Robbins the director and choreographer. The story of the show’s genesis is told in the special NPR series 50 Years of West Side Story.

Otherwise, I would be in concert music. I’d be in another kind of profession. I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry — just making them feel — is paramount to me.

The process of putting something down on paper is very important in keeping the stuff alive in your head. You can improvise and think, ‘Wait, that A-flat doesn’t sound right,’ and you change things as you go along, even though you’re just sketching.

From Stephen Sondheim‘s interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” February 16, 2012.

Quotes, Janet Mock Edition

“I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act.”

Janet Mock on the set of Pose. Photo: FX Networks

It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion, and violence. It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence, and community. I hope that my being real with you will help empower you to step into who you are and encourage you to share yourself with those around you.”

― Janet Mock, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More

Quotes, Margaret Atwood Edition

“I’m a writer. I figured that out young, and writers write.”

They speculate. Engage ideas. And at that moment in time, in the ’80s, I was hearing a lot about what people would like to do if they got into power, and having been born in 1939 and been through WWII and its aftermath when we were all trying to understand what happened, I knew Hitler spelled it all out in the 1920s, in his book, what he would like to do if he got power, and people did not take that seriously.”

So I believe if someone says they will do certain things, unimaginable things to many, they will, in fact, do them when they get the power they’re after. That is what you’re seeing now. What’s going on now with those in charge in this country was forecast then and since: They told us what they were planning and now it’s in progress. We can’t say we’re in a totalitarian state now, not yet, because we wouldn’t be talking—I wouldn’t be talking as much as I am—I’d be in jail.

Margaret Atwood on writing “The Testaments.” Interview by Amy Grace Loyd for Esquire.com, 9/24/2019

Quotes

“I didn’t know how it was going to take shape I never know. I just kind of have an idea and have a few moments that I need to get to, and sometimes I know what the end is, weirdly enough.”

I wrote it pretty quickly. I was really in the free-fall — that’s a word we used to have in the play that we cut — in the free-fall of the writing.

Is the feeling as you write the same?

Not the same. For a book, it’s more meditative and controlled, and I feel like can return to it. I feel like an adult. When I’m writing a play, I just feel like an adolescent.”

Writer Adam Rapp, with Mary-Louise Parker, on writing his new play “The Sound Inside,” opening October 17 on Broadway.

From the New York Times, September 29, 2010

Quote, part II

“The writer is situated in his time. Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.”

Jean-Paul Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic.

He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism.

Sartre’s work has also influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines.

Quote

“All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening.”

Alexander Woollcott (January 19, 1887 – January 23, 1943)

American critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine, member of the Algonquin Round Table.