THE BELL TOLLED. I THINK
I woke up at 5am a week ago today, in the midst of a waking dream about drinking a lot of water. Maybe Diet Coke. It was liquid, and I was thirsty, and all of this felt wrong.
I don’t wake up thirsty. I don’t wake up, usually, because I have to visit the bathroom. And I definitely don’t wake up spontaneously at 5am when I tend to hit the sack on the south side of midnight these days.
So I was dehydrated, which can happen but doesn’t. I got up and drank a big glass of water, went back to bed, rolled around for a couple of hours, drifting in and out before it occurred to me, like a headless chicken finally realizing its fate, that I was sick.
My wife had been sick. Once the holidays were over and the short extension of Zooming during the surge was finished, she was back in the classroom and it felt imminent. If Omicron was as transmissible as we were told, all it would take would be a decent viral load and a frayed corner of a mask. “We’re all going to get it!” is an annoying pandemic trope, given everything, but there’s truth there. The numbers don’t seem to be interested in lying.
That said, we both tested negative. And even as I (in particular) had pretty classic Covid symptoms, I didn’t have the most common and it wasn’t that big of a deal. I had one day of epic bathroom visits, also Julie’s fate, so it’s definitely possible we just passed around a pedestrian bug or a mild case of food poisoning.
I have no idea, really. I actually suspect Covid just because of the constant headache and the remarkable fatigue for four days, but at any rate it just knocked me out of the rat race for a few days. If it was Omicron, those vaccinations kept it mild and inconsequential, and apparently I’m now super immune if you read the latest.
I’m not counting on any of that, or even thinking much about it. It was more intriguing just to feel significantly ill for a few days, first time in a couple of years. Now if I could only manage a haircut.
I’ve had an interesting relationship with celebrities throughout this. My pattern on social media had always been to follow someone I got interested in for some reason (saw a film, saw a show, heard a song, read a book, etc.) until I get less interested. Sometimes they so rarely post anything, or I’m so rarely on the platform, that I forget about them. Other times, I eventually dump their feed because you know. Celebrities. They always have a goal.
But if there was a patina of respect and affection, achieved after years of admiring their work, it mostly got scrubbed off along with our Amazon packages. On one hand, for a lot of these famous people, success had been fairly recent and they were certainly looking at an uncertain future. Alternatively, just saying, if it were me I might just sell four or five cars and live off of that for a few years. If it were me.
So I downsized from the lives of the rich and famous, although I still have my eyes on the young ones trying to get careers off the ground. It sounds awful, to be honest, actors now apparently stuck with doing home video auditions for maybe forever, still oppressive (if necessary) Covid precautions on sets…and fewer sets. I have sympathy, I have tremendous sympathy, and that’s before I start in on the musicians, my people (OK, actors are really my people but I know very few professionals personally anymore. I know a LOT of professional musicians).
And for a while, I didn’t know what to think about Cameo. Now I will tell you.
You probably know about Cameo. It was created in 2016, a spontaneous idea by a sports promoter who got an athlete to record a selfie congratulating a new parent. Video is the new autograph, was the idea. It was a really good idea.
I wasn’t sure what to think. I don’t have a jaded view of celebrity but I definitely like to keep my distance from those people. It can make you weird, particularly if it also doesn’t make you rich enough to mitigate the downsides.
I noticed famous people doing these videos in a sideways manner, noticing that a famous actor had mentioned it in a tweet. It sounded like this person was doing these for charity, and I got that part right away. Donate to a cause, get a little video from a person whose work you admire. Easy to understand. Not really for me, but it looked like a good idea.
And then I read some more, and understood the business model, and my jaw dropped a little. The celebrities pocketed most of the fee, I saw, only fair and right, but I suddenly realized it was a side gig. Like the actors who get on a fan-favorite show and eventually are relegated to conventions and signings, this was how you make your chosen (incredibly uncertain) career last a little longer. And pay the rent, etc.
I like that. I’m not inclined to help out, but we’ve all got phones now and video is easy. I’ve seen a couple of these and people seem overwhelmed to get them. I’m in favor of a little happy overwhelming. Thought about whether I might do it as a gift for someone but I dunno. Hard to imagine someone really appreciating it, and the price can be reasonable but get way up there quickly. I figured I’d pass.
Now the rest of the story. But super quick. This is already too long.
My son John has Autistic Spectrum Disorder, as most of you probably know. He’s lived with us for the past 32 years. He’s spent the last two terrified of us getting sick, but also appreciating that he can wear a mask around people and that he’s supposed to avoid social situations, his biggest problems. So it hasn’t been a bad pandemic for John. Life has stalled but it was kind of stalled anyway.
We’ve always been a Star Trek family, and both of my kids were raised with one of the shows on in the background. When Voyager started in 1995, it became John’s show (it began in January, just a month before he turned 5). He was the only one who religiously watched it through 2001, when he was 11 and, you know, maybe more drawn to certain characters than others by then.
Prepubescent, though, and being a stranger in a strange world himself, you can’t blame a kid for paying attention to the artificial life form.
Minor side note: Being a acting student in the late 1970s, I was always aware of young actors making headway in Hollywood or in New York. So I knew about Robert Picardo, who was costarring with Jack Lemmon on Broadway in “Tribute” and had been in Bernstein’s Mass. I knew all of these guys, wanted to be them.
So I knew who The Doctor was as soon as Voyager started. And he has, of course, an impressive career far beyond his Star Trek work (e.g., The Wonder Years). But after John persuaded me to give Voyager a try during the pandemic and I began to understand his affection, I noticed that Picardo was on Cameo and got a notion.
This is the notion. I could tell you wonderful things about what I think about how this man handled this request, but you can watch for yourself. And happy birthday to John, who turns 32 today and for some reason will not forget this one.
https://youtu.be/L4srjS-2FUA
(can’t imbed, click
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My falling anvil was actually what happened after I got sober, and I read my own book the other night again, or maybe for the first time. I don’t know why. But it’s good. It really needs an editor and whole chunks excised, and rewriting and so on, but it’s a good story. You should read it if you’re interested. If I know you and you’re in my area, I think I have three copies here, you’re welcome. Otherwise it’s only a few bucks, cheaper on Kindle.
But it felt like a failure at the time it was published, a last gasp of nothing, and also a little ironic itself. It was supposed to be about perseverance and luck and trying to do hard things just to see what will happen, and making it through adversity without going backwards.
Which happened, of course, and then as the book was set to launch my grandson was rushed to the hospital with diabetic ketoacidosis. Like, the day it was published.
And you know what I think? I think after 25 years of trying to help an autistic child grow up and stay safe, after years of lonely, soul-sucking deadly dull work at home to pay the bills, after sinking into alcoholism and depression, after struggling to find a way out of that and getting lucky, then dealing with massive trauma surrounding my son that lasted a solid year, then my wife diagnosed with a brain tumor, then a heart attack, then breast cancer over nine months, that was the one.
I can’t explain it, other than that, and I don’t even have the energy to apologize for what surely must feel like self-pity because, c’mon. Stuff happens. To all of us.
It’s not like I was broken. But I felt something tear.
Anyway, read the book if you’re of a mind to. Skip the parts about high school, maybe. The chapter about the broken glass is really the heart of it.
All is good at the moment. My grandson is thriving, his diabetes a minor concern. A large part of my life is focused on him now, which makes sense. He is what’s left after the anvil dropped. He’s the context for continuing to swerve, and I will see him next month. You can say congratulations now.