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<\/a><\/p>\n\n— It is now a year since I got diagnosed. I can hardly believe it. It’s weird, last year feels like a lost year in some ways. I keep thinking of events in 2012 as “last year”. But that’s just because 2013, with all of the great things that happened (Roger Ebert hiring me, for one), was about getting better. I am proud of myself for facing that Dragon, or being forced to face it. It’s hard work, staying well, but I have tons of help. I need it. I have been afraid that getting healthy would somehow dim my intensity, which I honestly don’t know how I could live without. I’ve been this intense my whole life. But no, that has not happened. I am still intense. I just get more sleep. Ironically, getting more sleep makes it feel like there are MORE hours in the day.<\/p>\n
— My awesome cousin Emma has a cameo role on Girls<\/i> this week. Tune in! I’ve written about Emma before<\/a>. She’s wonderful. I can’t keep up with her, but I’m super proud. She’s a great person. But then, she’s always been a great person<\/a>. She deserves all good things. <\/p>\n — Tearing my way through Mark Helprin’s latest novel, In Sunlight and in Shadow<\/a> — I saw Blue Jasmine<\/i> finally. Not my favorite Woody Allen, but Cate Blanchett is quite good. I am not a fan of hers, but she is excellent in the role. You understand why this woman, a fantasist, really, would crack up when the illusion of her life shattered. But I can’t help but compare her to Gena Rowlands. Gena would have made the film positively unbearable<\/i> (in the best sense) if she had played that role. It is an unfair comparison, but whatever, life is unfair. When the bar for madness has been set as high as Gena Rowlands set it, you don’t soon forget it. I thought Andrew Dice Clay was great. (If you had told me last year I would ever say that sentence, I would have thought you were nuts.) And Bobby Cannavale was superb (no surprise there). His breakdown in the grocery store was visceral, it came from a very real place. Alec Baldwin was great, too. One of his best scenes was a purely reactive<\/i> scene, when he basically comes clean about his affair with the au pair, and Blanchett loses it. Her panic and temper tantrum is so extreme it takes over the film, and watching him deal with it, watching it unfold, helplessly, was really good support-staff playing. Most of it takes place in a one-shot, so you are actually watching them deal with one another, without the interruption of editing. It’s a great scene. I also loved where Blanchett placed her voice. It’s phony. It’s perfect. This woman is a construction<\/i>, not an organic human being. There is no “self” there. It’s all made up. Which, of course, is perfect. Like I said, I have some issues with her work in general, but I thought she was excellent. <\/p>\n — It’s a cold windy day. I have writing to do and I’m going to take a run. Get to bed early. More work tomorrow. And a busy weekend of writing. The only way I can keep up the pace is by keeping on with the sleep regimen as well as the exercise regimen. Writing so much is invigorating but it is also solitary and stationary. Balance! Getting out there and getting the blood pumping, the muscles working, the sweat going \u2026 all of that is an essential partner in living what is mainly a cerebral life. At least that’s been my experience. <\/p>\n — For some reason, there was a thread on FB yesterday about euphemisms for private behavior, like going to the bathroom or masturbating. People were sharing their own euphemisms and it was hilarious. My euphemism for the second one is “dialing zero”, which I have always thought was hysterical. I picked it up from M., the crazy black-haired tough-guy boyfriend who used to climb through my window just to say Hi<\/a>. He’d say, “So when you’re dialing zero, do you think about me?” So stupid.<\/em> Once he realized it made me laugh, he’d throw it into conversation left and right. Because he loved to make me laugh. I realize the euphemism dates me, since it requires knowledge of rotary phones to even get it.<\/p>\n — The other day, on my run, I came across a group of people waiting for the bus. In that moment, I realized I had been watching far too much Supernatural<\/i> because I looked at what was a totally benign scene, and thought, “Damn. They look like Reapers.”<\/p>\n \n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" — My new nephew is now here among us on earth, and I haven’t met him yet, but I have seen pictures and have received no less than 152 texts in the last four days from my brother to all … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n