Thank you, Tommy; you were right, of course. I needed to read this. All writers need to read this.

William Faulkner's Nobel Prize Speech, delivered in Stockholm, Sweden
on December 10, 1950

"I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work--a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

"I could never send you poo. Ever." -Arthur to Ruth, Six Feet Under

Recently ran into a rerun of this episode and realized I miss the Six Feet folks.

Poor, dear Arthur. He really did love Ruth. He was kind and simple and childlike in his affection for her. However Oedipal their relationship might have been, he clearly understood an elegant truth: love doesn't involve the anonymous delivery of fecal matter.

More televisionary wisdom to live by.

AlI that's left of my brain is right.

“The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind - computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind - creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people - artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers - will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest gifts. Thanks to an array of forces - material abundance that is deepening our nonmaterial yearnings, globalization that is shipping white-collar work overseas, and powerful technologies that are eliminating certain kinds of work altogether-we are entering a new age. It is an age animated by a different form of thinking and a new approach to life - one that prizes aptitudes that I call ‘high concept’ and ‘high touch’."

-from A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink

My New Personal Ad

About Me: I hail from Hades; Persephone is my second cousin once removed. I love my friends, especially the ones who remind me to get dressed before I go out. I have walked the earth for centuries, but everyone says I look 39 -- 41 tops. I can be a raving cunt, but it takes too much out of me. I love Seinfeld reruns and things that go "moo." I'm big on brutal honesty, especially when it comes to nose hair. I like Splenda in everything, the smell of flower shops, holding hands and inside jokes. I'm sober and there's nothing you can do about it. I want to travel to exotic lands, like Iceland and Luxembourg. I don't like being kept waiting more than 30 seconds unless someone's death is involved, preferably not mine. I am a social hermit. David Letterman is my late-night comedy hero. I don't take things as personally as everyone thinks. I am a fantastic kisser (references available upon request). If I were a superhero, I'd dress my dog in a matching outfit. Sex is always an option, but I watch cable porn for the intellectual stimulation. I most hate living alone when I run out of toilet paper while already seated. Cheetos is (are?) the perfect depressed-white-trash food; if you see me with orange lips and fingertips, you can be certain I've been battling my lifelong fear of Disneyland. I don't live at the beach because sand fleas give me the willies. I will love you madly when we're together and completely forget about you when we're apart. My favorite words are "lobster" and "kumquat."

Most of this is true. It won't cost you much to find out.

Insomnibabble, Part One

Lulu and I are taking the Camry in for its 15,000 mile service tomorrow -- this -- morning. Miss Pooch is all a-snooze, but I can't seem to join her.

Instead, I'm
resisting the rest,
rehashing last Friday night's phone conversation with a beloved friend,
reworking a scene in the script I'm revising,
reliving a sexy Sunday afternoon last May,
remembering the last telephone number I had in New York (212.582.6598),
rewriting the previous blog entry,
regretting the "venomous" words I was recently reminded I spat at aforementioned beloved friend,
reviewing my schedule for the week,
resigning myself to the daily onslaught of change,
reciting the alphabet in French and Spanish,
restoring myself to sanity,
relieving my bladder...

...it's really quite impossible to get a good night's sleep when you're relegated to re mode.

"Half the truth is often a great lie." -Benjamin Franklin

I learned to deal in half-truths early in my life. I heard my parents tell them, to each other, to their friends, to me. My alcoholic father, my child-of-an-alcoholic mother, were brilliant half-truth-tellers. I learned to obfuscate and fabricate, I learned the art of denial and secrecy, at the feet of masters, who learned at the feet of masters, who...well, you get the picture.

But it wasn't my true nature. I have always had an open, trusting heart, an almost perverse willingness to lay it bare, get it out, let it in. And in limiting personal boundaries, I have hurt and been hurt, I have disappointed and been disappointed, been both foolish and fooled. But, in the words of Pete Townshend, I won't get fooled again.

I want the whole truth, nothing but the truth...or nothing. It's the only way I can make a clear choice. It's the only way I can operate in integrity. It's the only way I can trust, and be trustworthy. It's the only way I can make the progress I want to make, to become the woman I think I am.

I know it's hard. I really do know.

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." -Leonard Cohen

It's also how the energy seeps out.

But that's just glass-half-empty thinking, and that's not my true nature. Especially not in light of the fact that the neurologist left an "everything is good" voicemail this morning. She says my MRI scans showed nothing more than a few "unidentified white objects" that are indicative of migraine, and are "within normal limits."

I've never thought of anything about my brain as being "within normal limits," but who am I to argue with an expert?

I got my little butt kicked in the stress echocardiogram yesterday, but it was worth it -- so far, sez my internist, that all looks good, too. A more conclusive report from the cardiologist comes back next week.

Cool. Now, back to kicking a little butt of my own.

"We boil at different degrees." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Keep me occupied with those things in life that challenge and edify, that call upon my creative mind to think unpackaged thoughts, that make me reach eagerly for my wand of manifestation, that offer opportunity, that abandon apprehension, that heal hearts and demolish depression. Keep me graceful under pressure. Keep me in nimble search of the miracle, the gift, the truth.

Because if I am allowed extra free time, I am invariably tempted to overthink, a condition which begets the nearly irresistable idea of telling someone I actually care for to fuck off.

"I had a brain that felt like pancake batter." -Jack White

Sleep eludes. Is it because I'm still waiting for MRI results from last Friday, and it seems like I should have heard something by now? I'm less concerned when I consider that the doctor would have contacted me sooner with bad news than with good. Can't help but wonder if the Century City neurologist will call with, "This is your brain. This is your brain hot off the griddle, slathered with butter and swimming in maple syrup."

Tomorrow (well, later this afternoon) the body gets tested again, running on a Beverly Hills treadmill with sticky patches all over my skin, connected with wires to a machine that will measure my heart. This is what happens when your father dies of a myocardial infarction in his mid-50's: you are automatically added to the high-risk list. From the time I turned 30, they've reminded me of The Risk. Forget the fact that I've been at a healthy weight for 7 years straight, never mind that I don't drink or smoke or use drugs. No matter how often I work out or how much oatmeal I eat...

Dad was an obese, hypertense, depressed, whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking insomniac.

I'm a 5'3", 127-pound, 110/65, sober non-smoker. But I should probably cheer up and get some shut-eye.

Thank you, Cool.