Friday in a nutshell
"But I'm bored... I am suicidally bored. Life is pointless."
I wanted to spend my day off pantless and in bed. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of telling A. on Wednesday that I might be taking Friday off. He called me six times before finally showing up at my place, supposedly clinically depressed by the pointlessness of his existence. He then fed me three pot brownies in an effort to induce a more positive attitude toward our writing project. I have never smoked pot before but if the experience is anything like pot brownies then it will just make me really tired. A., however, needs little to supplement his nigh-psychotic paranoia and fell prey to my innuendo that I may be having sex or have had sex in the past with the married woman who currently serves as his focus for obsession. I went so far as to feign rather abruptly terminating a whispered phone conversation the moment A. exited my bathroom. He spent the majority of the evening completely flipped out by the possibility that the woman he can never had was possibly had by me (I refused to confirm, deny or even directly suggest such a thing).
At dinner, B. called me about Survivor Sunday (apparently, I am on my own for dinner), but A. freaked out that it may have been her--his unattainable. He fell into a serious funk, refusing to engage in the gorging that so typically characterizes our trips to the chinese buffet. The whole time, he actively demanded that I tell him who had called me, but I refused. I was quite maliciously entertained by his psychotic breakdown, but at the same time making a very valid point. If he claims to be over this married-with-child woman who can never be his, then he should not care whether or not I have slept with her. If the very thought that his monogamous, involved-via-long-distance, openly gay friend may have screwed this chick fills him with such hatred that he is talking about not being able to sleep and no longer being able to look the three of us (her, her husband, and me - her lover) in the face, well, then... he is more than a little crazy.
I do not know if it helped that this was all taking place at the same time as a gathering of more than twenty-five (by my count) Russian Jews in their late sixties or early seventies. The chinese buffet was awash in drunken septuagenarians delivering guttural toasts in what I believe was a mix of Yiddish and Russian (I know enough of the latter to realize I was recognizing very little of it). They must have provided the management with some sort of soundtrack because the usual mixture of chinese pop and bad eighties tunes had been replaced by something low, droning, and somewhat depressing.
When A. and I left the restaurant, I finally managed to make some sort of breakthrough with him. I was a little concerned returning to my apartment alone with him because he was so sullen and laconic that I could not rule out some irrational burst of rage terminating in attempted murder. However, I think I broke down his remaining defenses through my tried and true methods--psychological torture and humiliation--and have him finally consenting to begin sharing some of the truth of his life, constant depression and crippling paranoia with his therapist instead of dumping it all on me. The hope is that a trained physician will prescribe something a little more leveling than A.'s current regimen of paranoia-enhancing dope (he claims to need it to kill his rage). We jointly came to the conclusion that what he needs are meds more tailored toward maintaining sanity, rather than distorting his perceptions.
After having spent some four hours (yes, four hours) talking about his obsession with this married mother of one, his lifetime of crippling paranoia, and whether or not it is feasible that I could have had an affair with the woman of his dreams, we did some fabulous brainstorming for the next murder mystery party (to be held two weeks from today, I think). It involves recasting the birthday boy, L., as a supervillain intent on killing all the party goers--each of whom is a figure from his hidden, shameful past--by trapping them at the reading of his will in a locked house with an atomic bomb. A. and I will play his minions and regulate the game, which will largely consist of party-goers trying to glean clues as to the bomb's location from the birthday boy's video-taped will as well as via assorted key bits of information hidden in each person's background. It is sort of This is Your Life meets 24 (only with a twist of James Bond villainy). Among the fictitious characters we have inserted into L.'s past are his pimp, the alien who has probed him for the last thirty years, an imaginary friend who insists that L. is actually his imaginary friend, and Titania, Queen of the Faeries, whom L. has long sought to destroy since she took up residence in his tomato garden and began stealing his sweets. I am excited because once again I get to dress impeccably, this time as Lester Murder, L.'s deadly assassin and personal masseur with an admixture of intermittent Cockney and Australian accents (I have problems consistently sticking with one or the other). It should be charming.
Just to round out the rather entertaining evening, we spent some twenty-minutes standing amidst the gathered crowds of the Reston Town Center. We had been evacuated out of our movie theater (as had the rest of the film-going throngs) by some sort of fire-related emergency. Happily, the incident took place just as previews began so the interruption was hardly unwelcome. Identity was rather charming, though not terribly great. I was more than a little worried that, when I discerned the plot at the twenty minute point, the flick would be ruined for me Sixth Sense style. Happily, they expose the first twist entirely with some twenty minutes to go and still make an effort to keep things interesting. The timing of A. and I attending a movie in which a hearing to ascertain mental competency plays such a major role is... well... just precious.
As he drove me back to my apartment, A. was gleaming. He announced, "Just three hours ago, everything seemed hopeless. But now I'm in a great mood! The funny thing is - nothing has changed... Just the chemical imbalance within my brain!!!"
Funny indeed. I lay odds that by Thursday's appointment he will have completely forgotten our plan, look his therapist in the eye, and continue concealing every maddening bit of his perpetual lunacy from her.
I wanted to spend my day off pantless and in bed. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of telling A. on Wednesday that I might be taking Friday off. He called me six times before finally showing up at my place, supposedly clinically depressed by the pointlessness of his existence. He then fed me three pot brownies in an effort to induce a more positive attitude toward our writing project. I have never smoked pot before but if the experience is anything like pot brownies then it will just make me really tired. A., however, needs little to supplement his nigh-psychotic paranoia and fell prey to my innuendo that I may be having sex or have had sex in the past with the married woman who currently serves as his focus for obsession. I went so far as to feign rather abruptly terminating a whispered phone conversation the moment A. exited my bathroom. He spent the majority of the evening completely flipped out by the possibility that the woman he can never had was possibly had by me (I refused to confirm, deny or even directly suggest such a thing).
At dinner, B. called me about Survivor Sunday (apparently, I am on my own for dinner), but A. freaked out that it may have been her--his unattainable. He fell into a serious funk, refusing to engage in the gorging that so typically characterizes our trips to the chinese buffet. The whole time, he actively demanded that I tell him who had called me, but I refused. I was quite maliciously entertained by his psychotic breakdown, but at the same time making a very valid point. If he claims to be over this married-with-child woman who can never be his, then he should not care whether or not I have slept with her. If the very thought that his monogamous, involved-via-long-distance, openly gay friend may have screwed this chick fills him with such hatred that he is talking about not being able to sleep and no longer being able to look the three of us (her, her husband, and me - her lover) in the face, well, then... he is more than a little crazy.
I do not know if it helped that this was all taking place at the same time as a gathering of more than twenty-five (by my count) Russian Jews in their late sixties or early seventies. The chinese buffet was awash in drunken septuagenarians delivering guttural toasts in what I believe was a mix of Yiddish and Russian (I know enough of the latter to realize I was recognizing very little of it). They must have provided the management with some sort of soundtrack because the usual mixture of chinese pop and bad eighties tunes had been replaced by something low, droning, and somewhat depressing.
When A. and I left the restaurant, I finally managed to make some sort of breakthrough with him. I was a little concerned returning to my apartment alone with him because he was so sullen and laconic that I could not rule out some irrational burst of rage terminating in attempted murder. However, I think I broke down his remaining defenses through my tried and true methods--psychological torture and humiliation--and have him finally consenting to begin sharing some of the truth of his life, constant depression and crippling paranoia with his therapist instead of dumping it all on me. The hope is that a trained physician will prescribe something a little more leveling than A.'s current regimen of paranoia-enhancing dope (he claims to need it to kill his rage). We jointly came to the conclusion that what he needs are meds more tailored toward maintaining sanity, rather than distorting his perceptions.
After having spent some four hours (yes, four hours) talking about his obsession with this married mother of one, his lifetime of crippling paranoia, and whether or not it is feasible that I could have had an affair with the woman of his dreams, we did some fabulous brainstorming for the next murder mystery party (to be held two weeks from today, I think). It involves recasting the birthday boy, L., as a supervillain intent on killing all the party goers--each of whom is a figure from his hidden, shameful past--by trapping them at the reading of his will in a locked house with an atomic bomb. A. and I will play his minions and regulate the game, which will largely consist of party-goers trying to glean clues as to the bomb's location from the birthday boy's video-taped will as well as via assorted key bits of information hidden in each person's background. It is sort of This is Your Life meets 24 (only with a twist of James Bond villainy). Among the fictitious characters we have inserted into L.'s past are his pimp, the alien who has probed him for the last thirty years, an imaginary friend who insists that L. is actually his imaginary friend, and Titania, Queen of the Faeries, whom L. has long sought to destroy since she took up residence in his tomato garden and began stealing his sweets. I am excited because once again I get to dress impeccably, this time as Lester Murder, L.'s deadly assassin and personal masseur with an admixture of intermittent Cockney and Australian accents (I have problems consistently sticking with one or the other). It should be charming.
Just to round out the rather entertaining evening, we spent some twenty-minutes standing amidst the gathered crowds of the Reston Town Center. We had been evacuated out of our movie theater (as had the rest of the film-going throngs) by some sort of fire-related emergency. Happily, the incident took place just as previews began so the interruption was hardly unwelcome. Identity was rather charming, though not terribly great. I was more than a little worried that, when I discerned the plot at the twenty minute point, the flick would be ruined for me Sixth Sense style. Happily, they expose the first twist entirely with some twenty minutes to go and still make an effort to keep things interesting. The timing of A. and I attending a movie in which a hearing to ascertain mental competency plays such a major role is... well... just precious.
As he drove me back to my apartment, A. was gleaming. He announced, "Just three hours ago, everything seemed hopeless. But now I'm in a great mood! The funny thing is - nothing has changed... Just the chemical imbalance within my brain!!!"
Funny indeed. I lay odds that by Thursday's appointment he will have completely forgotten our plan, look his therapist in the eye, and continue concealing every maddening bit of his perpetual lunacy from her.