
Day Five (Tuesday): I stay at 30 mgs. I am somewhat tired, and find it hard to get out of bed—but that may be because I took a melatonin to sleep last night. As the day progresses though, I feel very good. I feel extremely happy, facebook-status-updating happy. Nothing in particular happens, not really, but I feel so blessed and lucky: lucky to have this child who runs up to me and says “I love my mommy!” and to have my health, which is really something after all. I feel somewhat focused on my current writing project and I have a little bit of time to work on it, and that makes me happy. Or content. I also feel very happy to see an old friend, someone I’ve known for nearly 20 years and have had a difficult but intense relationship with—from periods of not speaking to periods of obsession—achieve a certain success. He is wildly talented, and I’ve been his biggest fan since we were 18 and he first starting giving me his stories to read. I’ve also seen him struggle, really struggle, in the way that artists/writers must in this corporate American culture, particularly those of us who come from messed up families, and so it is beyond satisfying to see him, say, profiled in the New York Times or in the (gulp) New Yorker. It’s surreal and bliss. It is not as Gore Vidal said (Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little) not at all, though I understand that response. It is rather this confirmation that something is Right In The Universe, that something worked, dammit! It renews my faith in art, in struggle, in expression. He is my hero and inspiration, all over again. I cried when I read the New Yorker piece, written by the lovely Hilton Als, which seemed to aptly and critically assess who he is as an artist and a person, to truly key in on his self-invention. It is all too much, the way I read this and then recall him, the two of us so lost, all those various times we were both suicidal, when he was at Sarah Lawrence/ I at Barnard or when I was in my illegally sublet 5th floor walkup on MacDougal and he was in Brooklyn. Somehow he knew Wally Shawn also lived on MacDougal street, above Houston, and we used to play ding dong ditch with the buzzer on his townhouse. I’m not sure why but we loved Wally Shawn. Once he came over and we read Marie and Bruce together, just for fun, but he kept directing me on how to be Marie--I wasn't crazy enough, or flat enough, or something enough. I think it was that MacDougal summer that he said he would write a play called John Simon/John Lahr. We were constantly seeing theater, reading reviews and talking about how these two playwrights represented opposite extremes as critics: the caring loving enthusiastic and supportive father (Lahr), vs. the cruel, attacking, cold and distant father (Simon). And then, most incredibly, the other day Simon writes a nasty but ultimately HILARIOUS review of his play.
Day Six (Wednesday): I continue to taper incrementally; I’m back down to 28mgs-ish. I’m thinking I should get on with it, maybe go to 20 tomorrow, but I’ll wait till I see Domrab. I haven’t had any more Brain Zaps or Didionesque-headaches. I’ve caught Goo’s early summer cold, which is a drag, but other than that, I’m you know fine*. I’m writing. See ya.
*Goo has this wonderful new obsession which goes like this. He says, “Hi Mommy. How you DO-ing Mommy?” To which I say “I’m fine. How are you?” And he replies, “I’m good.”
The funny thing; I’ve tried to alter the script, but discovered that is NOT allowed.
"How you Doing mommy?"
"Oh, I’m okay, a little tired." OR "I’m really hot."
He looks at me and then shakes his head. “No, no mommy.”
“What?”
“You’re fine, Mommy.”
“I can’t be tired?”
“No, no tired, Mommy.”
“Okay. I’m fine.”
“Mommy's fine. Mommy's good.”
(He’s a little fascist, this guy. Adored, of course, by every woman.)
And so there we go: we are all, always, fine. And good.

