Overhearing some millennials talk about the Astoria/Queens street naming grid and thinking I could really work my magic on these youngsters. They actually seem genuinely interested in the vagaries of how the rogress of Avenues are intruded upon by Places and Roads. I should butt in and ask if they know where 40th Street went. It would be love. But I am too tired and even at full alertness I would not be smooth like that. Plus, they look like they are 15 years old. They are studiously ignoring me but as the liquor flows I expect to become more interesting to them.
But by then I will be gone. Whoosh.
I told the therapist I needed two weeks off. I am nervous about it, for how valuable these sessions have become to me, but I am also feeling that they have run their course. I want to know what 2 weeks without them feels like. I expect to return the day after Labor Day saying that I am ready to move on. I really need the time. These meetings are only 40 minutes but they have a way of taking up my whole day. Most meetings I came away feeling like I had just given birth to a giant writhing turd. But lately it’s felt boring and monotonous. Ironically enough I think it because all we talk about is me. But not me me but my work and so-called professional life. We’ve become friends. That’s kind of weird but also nice to know that she sees in me someone who is not threatening or ready to violate professional boundaries.
Oh but hell she said something entirely strange today. Entirely whatthefuck. She said she remembers me from when I worked at Tower Records at Lincoln Center. “I thought there was something familiar about you.” Stuff like that makes me think we can’t really work together any more. She was saying she remembered talking to me about classical music. I have no memory whatsoever but why would I.
She said today that she does not think I am really bipolar. I forgot what she said next but her comments echo those of the angry counselor at Bellevue who condescendingly assured me “YOU’RE NOT BIPOLAR!” as if I had taken pride in the diagnosis. I can’t hear people through anger. It is such an alien means of expression to me.
I thought of that today after seeing a billboard of Judge Judy. She’s such a hateful, angry presence, and yet she gets treated like royalty first because she is a judge and second (I think) because she is a woman.
Jusges, as Bugliosi lamented, are a paradox in our society. We rank politicians and lawyers on the same level as used car salesmen and squeegee guys. Judges, who are nothing but a combination of lawyer and politician, are somehow elevated above all.
Hokay, going home, it’s getting loud here.
