HEIRESS A MODEL FOR MANKIND!
I'm starting to wonder if these standard psychological exams aren’t perfectly useless! How could such a common exam capture the cuteness of dear little Nanette?
Nanette is living proof that not all young heiresses are spoiled, self-indulgent little vixens. Little Nanette is quite the opposite. And how she adores her therapy! Every Monday morning she flies in from Quebec, unpacks her gingham skirts and aprons, and is driven directly from the Peninsula Hotel to my office, arriving precisely at 10 o'clock. Nanette is heir to a French chocolatier fortune but she doesn't have a mind for business; all she really cares about is butterflies. She's such a pale, luminescent little butterfly herself, she makes my receptionist Petal look like Attila the Hun!
I’ve learned so much about butterflies from Nanette; it’s all we talk about during her sessions. What other kind of conversation could we possibly have? It’s not like there’s anything wrong with her and I don’t know of any psychotherapy designed for being too adorably precious!
Most reputable psychotherapists periodically perform a standardized psychiatric assessment of their patients. In Nanette’s case, it’s an event I always dread. As part of today’s exam I had to show her a picture of an ink blot and ask what it reminded her of. A butterfly, she sang! What a clever girl you are, I said and gave her a cupcake.
Then I showed her a picture of a car full of teenagers careening down a freeway on the wrong side of the road. These children, she said, must have heard that it’s butterfly season and they’re hurrying home to ask Mother if they may go to East Hampton with their binoculars.
“Well done!” I said. “And how about this one? What does this remind you of?” It was a picture of Picasso’s distasteful “Guernica. “
“Oh my,” she said, her sparkling blue eyes growing large. “It looks like someone left the cottage door open and a cow got in. Where’s the cleaning lady? What a silly picture! He-he-he! Tra-la-la!”
“You’re a perfect angel,” I said.
Then I showed her a police photo of the mass suicide at Jonestown. “Mon dieu!” she chirped with a small frown. “Oh my goodness. Those people must very tired from chasing butterflies!”
“Really,” I said. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Isn’t life grand?” she said, her eyes glittering. “Tee-hee-hee!”
“And how would you feel,” I said, “how would you feel if I punched you in the nose?”
“Dear me,” she smiled shyly, “I don’t think I should enjoy that very much! Tee-hee-hee! Tra-la!”
“And how about if I twisted your arm?” I said, reluctantly.
“Mon dieu, I should cry like a baby!” she giggled girlishly.
“Oh you would?” I said, guiltily.
“Most certainly, Madame. And then I would dance a tarantella! Wheeee!”
“Marvelous!" I said. "And how about if I chopped off your head and stuck it on a pole?”
“So that the butterflies could come and tickle my eyelashes!” she sang.
By this time I realized the only thing that should be stuck on a pole was that silly standardized exam. I had had enough of that foolish survey! "You have passed the test, dear girl!" I said. "You have passed it with flying pastels!" Just then a chime rang the hour. "I'm afraid our time together is at an end for today," I said.
"Very well, Madame," said Nanette, smoothing out her yellow apron as she stood up. "How I adore my psychotherapy! Have you any advice before I go?"
"Only these simple words," I said, walking her to the window and putting my hands ever so gently on her shoulders. "It's a wide world, full of wonder and surprise. Go out into it, little butterfly. Go out there and be perfect for the rest of us. Spread your wings and fly!"
And do you know something perfectly magical? That's exactly what she did!
UP FROM REHAB!
MEGAN has been released from rehab and will resume filming her romantic comedy tomorrow. She returned to psychotherapy this morning and, while she's no more neurotic than she was before her fall from the roof, I can't help but notice a significant physical change. Her big brown eyes move in completely opposite directions! Megan has not one but two wandering eyes! When I talk to her it's like talking to a mackerel. Should I say something about this ocular malfunction? Or is this just a cute thing that girls are doing nowadays?
During this morning’s session, I shifted my body back and forth repeatedly to see if her eyes would focus on mine but they never did. I swung my hands and feet around crazily to see if her eyes would follow, but she just looked confused.
"Why did you do that, Doctor?" she said.
I felt embarrassed and told her I was practicing some Twyla Tharp choreography, but I'm not sure she bought it. Her AnonyNurse chaperone sat in the corner the whole time, expressionless, ready to lunge if Megan picked up a crack pipe (I wasn't going to offer her one!).
AnonyNurse is a slender, stern young woman with short, brown hair and a plaid skirt. She's also a trained killer and possibly a “lipstick” lesbian. Or is she a lipstick killer and a trained lesbian? Either way, thank God she’s on our side!
*********************
Petal informs me, in so many words, that my little attempt at humor is lacking; this is a shame since I was going to give her a pair of Napa leather Bruno Magli high heels that I've only worn once.
*********************
Petal informs me that I'm hilarious.
MY AWFUL DREAM!
What a terrible dream I had last night! There were giant swarms of killer butterflies descending on unwary people, paddling them to death with millions of beautiful wings. Horrifying! I told PETAL about it just now and she says it would make a terrific movie, and I think she's right. She says it absolutely must be filmed in black and white, to enhance the stark brutality of the killer insects. Then I suggested the butterflies be changed to birds, since the poking and gnawing of birds would be even more terrifying! They could sit on telephone posts and fences and wait for unsuspecting victims. PETAL says she thinks Alfred Hitchcock already made a movie like that and that I'd have to introduce a unique element to make my version different. Perhaps my birds could attack on Tuesdays and Thursdays?
ALPHA AGENT'S ANGUISH!
Alpha Agent called and asked me to meet him at the marvelous La Cachette on Santa Monica Blvd. for a lunch/therapy session today (I recommend the baked Alaska!). He’s one of the busiest Grade-A talent agents, so sometimes he has to combine his psychotherapy with lunch or a pedicure or the endodontist. I always prefer the lunch version: discussing his paranoid schizophrenia is simpler in a restaurant than while he's getting a root canal!
.
And so we were sitting in sunny La Cachette, which was humming with a Monday crowd. Alpha Agent had just eaten an entire grilled swordfish in one bite and was glancing around suspiciously. “You see all these people?” he said. “They’re all out to get me!” His wedge-shaped face and flat-top make Alpha Agent look younger than his thirty two years, and the artful use of steroids gives him not only a certain swagger but considerable breadth in the shoulders as well (You need shoulders in order to wear a Thomas Pink striped linen shirt).
“They’re all watching us and listening. They listen everywhere I go,” he said, leaning into me. "The bastards are taking notes!"
“Who is they?” I said.
He squinted. “The other agents. They’re hungry. They all want what I‘ve got. They want to be me! They'd love to steal my clients. They've bugged the elevator in my building and they try to open my mail before I get it. I don‘t let the mailroom touch anything with my name on it!”
“I see,” I said. “And have you been taking your medications, dear boy?”
“No,” he said.
“Very good." His previous psychotherapist had given him an antipsychotic drug but his business started to suffer when he came to see the world as a kind and hospitable place. I took him off the meds and he quickly regained the edge that every successful agent needs.
“Those bastards would steal my very identity if they could get it,” he said, his mouth twisting into a sneer.
"Of course they would," I said.
He cast me a suspicious look. "You do believe me, right, Doctor? You're not just humoring a paranoid schizophrenic, are you?"
I squeezed his hand, “if you‘re a paranoid schizophrenic, then, dear boy, so am I.” I looked around the room, where more than a dozen flat-topped, young men sat, eating swordfish in their Thomas Pink striped linen shirts. “Well then, dear boy, so am I!”
"GARY"
Gary, my rugged, sunburned movie star with the lace pillows, showed up looking quite upset today. He told me he’d been crying over a stranger, a woman who died last week while lying on the floor of a bus terminal on Latimer Street. She had the misfortune to be poor and to have a perforated bowel. As she writhed in pain, people stepped over her for an entire day and a janitor mopped the floor around her.
Gary was crying angrily and I’m afraid I wasn’t much help because I was too.
SCREENWRITER'S DESPERATE PLEA:
"MY SUBTEXT STINKS!"
It doesn’t really matter what kind of awards Wylie has won; he’s going to be miserable either way. As an Oscar winning screenwriter, he’s the guy who actually gets screen credit for his own work (So many of them toil anonymously!). But more importantly, he’s a walking minefield of maladjustments, a repository of repression, and the denizen of a desperately delusional world. Petal would like to add that he’s a cornucopia of cognitive dissonance (Is she mocking me?).
Wylie can’t stop being a screenwriter long enough to be a normal person; he sees all of creation as a series of poorly written scenes and monologues which only he can perfect. Today, as he walked in the door, I heard him mumble under his breath, “Enters Left. Sees psychotherapist sitting by window, staring fondly at her shoes.”
Wylie is an attractive man, if you like short, bald, pony-tailed men in Hawaiian shirts with enormous piles of cash, as many women do. The only thing that prevents him from sustaining a relationship with the women he sees is intimacy issues. Problems seem to develop right away for Wylie and I can’t help but feel its due to his style of communication. He tells me he’s merely introducing heightened conflict into the plot, a little bit of needed subtext, and is rewriting the dialogue as he goes. I tell him this kind of behavior is inappropriate for a first date. What’s more, I tell him, women want you to just be yourself and not a character from a movie. This means Wylie should not tell the waiter at the restaurant, “Bring my buxom wench a dish of mead and a draught of your heartiest brew!”
While some women may be charmed initially by his eccentricities, they all jump out of bed and slip out the door the moment he declares, “Forsooth, the time is nigh to spill my manly balm!” This kind of peculiar, inappropriate outburst is referred to in psychiatric circles as the maladaptive syntaxic delusional reaction response, or the
"brain fart."
I told Wylie the problem is he’s in a vicarious relationship with his own life.
He glared at me through his boxy gold frames for a minute and then said, “Wait, wait, hold on a second! That’s a great line! Do you mind if I use it? I’ve got to write that down. This is why I keep coming to see you; you always deliver at least one zinger, you know that?”
“Happy to help,“ I said, handing him a pencil. As we say in psychiatric circles, if you can’t cure ‘em, dazzle the heck out of ‘em!
JUJIMINAPATU
I saw a new client today, a referral from my screenwriter client, Wylie. This new fellow is also a successful screenwriter, a thirty six year old genius named Jujiminapatu (his actual Indian name!) He came from India only three years ago and, despite his close friendship with Wylie, has avoided adopting his eccentric behaviors: he does not wear tights and a codpiece to psychotherapy.
I hope Jujiminapatu will be able to lead a normal life. The poor fellow showed up today with a perfectly horrible story, full of horror and trauma. And yet I was able to help!
According to Jujiminapatu, he was sleeping in a fabulous honeymoon suite in Paris with his new bride when he heard rumbling overhead and was suddenly deluged by a cascade of plaster and cold water. Then there was the moan of floorboards giving way, and a bathtub--complete with a dead man in it--came crashing through the ceiling, landing on the floor next to the terrified couple. The naked corpse flopped out of the tub and into the bed, landing between the young couple, who fled in terror down the hall.
Jujiminapatu was told by detectives that the man died while bathing five days earlier, and had left the water running. But Jujiminapatu remembered seeing a distinctive Cartier Pasha watch on the man’s wrist. Why would he bathe wearing a wristwatch, he wondered. Jujiminapatu was instructed by a detective never to speak of this occurrence. “Why?” he asked. The detective made a threatening gesture and, seizing his ID, disappeared. Since then, Jujiminapatu has been obsessed by the real story that must lie behind this bizarre occurrence.
“Doctor DelVecchio,” he said, “I’ve had insomnia ever since. Can you help me?
“Yes,” I said.
“Praise Ganesh!” he gasped.
“Now," I said, "let’s analyze the elements of what you just told me. Are you sure you were deluged with cold water?
“Yes,” he said, “I think so.”
I explained that if the man had been running a bath, it would have been warm water. A hotel would never run out of warm water.
“Oh,” he said. “I guess you’re right. Maybe it was warm.”
“And are you sure it was a man?” I asked.
“Hmmm,” he said. “Now that you mention it, maybe it wasn’t.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a beautiful young woman?” I asked. “After all, you’re lying in bed with your new bride and suddenly a sexy young naked lady is lying on top of you!”
“You know something,” he said, scratching his chin, “maybe it was a lady! Go on! Go on!”
I said, “I like the part where the detective takes your ID. How will you get back to the US without your ID? This creates an interesting problem. A real
police detective probably wouldn’t take your ID since it’s too easy for you to lodge a complaint. And so I’m guessing he wasn’t really a detective and that he was actually involved in the murder of the sexy dead woman.
“You have a sharp intellect!” said Jujiminapatu.
“And so do you,” I said. “Now go think about what I’ve just told you and I’ll see you next week at this time.”
“Blessings upon you and your family! Blessings for your generosity!” he said, standing up and bowing.
Yes, I thought, that is rather generous of me. Writers don’t often get a whole week for a second draft.
HOLLYWOOD SHRINK'S SECRET CURE
I did two things on Sunday that I'm not very proud of! Firstly, I missed going to Mass which, while not exactly a sin, makes me morally uncomfortable. It makes me sad because it's not like I attend mass just for myself: I go for Ostergarrd, who prefers to spend the hour and a half at home. He says he needs quality time with his gladiolas. And secondly, I fed Megan a whole thermos of Red Bull without her knowing it.
At least it was for a good reason that I missed Holy Mass: Megan's publicist, Melody, had asked me to go help Megan on the set of her new movie (a romantic comedy). While Megan's electroshock treatments have successfully kept her away from drugs, they were also keeping her from the high-energy performance her director demanded. And so I drove down to a vacant warehouse at the foot of Alpine Street in Chinatown where they were filming. Megan's star-trailer was parked out front, amid the wardrobe and lighting trucks. Melody was standing by the door, in the bright morning sun. She told me to go in and see if I could pull Megan out of her fog. I already came prepared, having poured six Red Bulls into a thermos I was carrying.
Inside the teak paneled trailer sat Megan, gazing blankly at herself in a vanity mirror. Her AnonyNurse sat in a far corner, arms folded, wearing a green beret and enormous, dark, masculine looking sunglasses which must have been purchased at some kind of terrorist boutique.
"Oh, hello, Dr. Carla," said Megan, wanly. Her auburn hair had been styled into curly bangs and her blurry, brown eyes looked every which way but toward me…and independently of each other.
"How are you, dear child?" I said.
She told me she wanted to get out of show business, and started sobbing. She had thought about it and had decided she would move to Idaho while her reputation was still unsoiled. But meanwhile, she had to deal with an angry director. He had to do all her shots in profile since the studio wouldn't allow her to stop filming long enough to get her eyes surgically repaired. The director had also yelled at her today because she was supposed to run after a car while holding a cream pie, catch up with the car and toss the pie through the driver's window. She could barely walk and had dropped the pie nine times. Megan's’ AnonyNurse refused to let her have any kind of stimulant, including coffee, although she was exhausted and ready to drop.
"Hello AnonyNurse," I said. AnonyNurse didn't respond. Was she sleeping behind those glasses?
I gave Megan the thermos of Red Bulls. "Here," I said. "Drink this organic green tea."
The moment Megan tasted it, her cheeks flushed and her eyes uncrossed. She gulped down the entire thermos and bolted out of the trailer shouting, "Let's shoot this scene, everybody! Yee-haw!" Unfortunately, by that time, the scene had been rewritten and she wasn't in it. She was still yelling at the director when I left.
So those are my two sins for today. I am so undeserving of my good fortune! When I got home, I noticed Ostergarrd had removed all my panties and stockings from my drawer, refolded them neatly and put them back. It's those little things that make all the difference!
HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER BEATS WIFE, EGGS, CLOCK!
My Korean film producer, Mr. Kim (his real name!), is a swaggering, argumentative, domineering man. He’s the kind of man who would pee in the sink if he was tall enough. His psychotherapy is court ordered because he beats his wife, although it was her attending physician and not she who alerted the police. I’ve long since realized a few months of psychotherapy won't undo thousands of years of Korean tradition. So why not have some fun?
“How are you today, Mr. Kim?” I asked, as he sat, glaring out the window at the sky.
“What you mean, how I am?” he barked. “Very busy! No time for this!”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“You crazy! Crazy talk!” he said.
“No, you crazy talk. Crazy man. We must put you in room. No windows! Eat from tin plate!”
“You stink!”
Now that we’d gotten our pleasantries out of the way, I suggested we play a game.
He looked at me suspiciously. “What game?!”
“Strip poker,” I said. “Are you in?”
“You crazy! I no play with you!”
“Oh no?” I said, slyly. “And is that because you’re wearing tightie-whities under that blue suit? Is that it?”
“What is tightie-whities, stupid woman?” he asked.
“That’s the kind of floppy, white undies you wore when you were a boy. They balloon out around your bottom and they’re one step up from diapers. You still wear them, don’t you! Stains and all. Such a big, important man in your tightie-whities!”
“Shut up! Not your business!”
“Alright then,” I said, “how about a game of Parcheesi?”
“Now you’re talking! Same pot like last time?”
I pulled my Parcheesi board and some dice out of the desk drawer. “If you win today, I’ll have to write you a check. I didn’t bring cash and I had to fish eleven dollars in change from the lobby fountain to buy myself a cole slaw from the concession cart.”
“Boo-hoo, sad story!” said Mr. Kim, loosening his tie. “Give me dice, crazy lady! Give me dice! You think I have all day?! I have stupid homemaking class in forty minutes. Give me dice!”
MAN IN CHEAP SUIT HAS NERVE
BIG CHEESE came for therapy today, wearing a suit in a vaguely nauseating shade of green. Huffing and puffing, he tottered toward my newly upholstered crème colored sofa and threw his lanky frame across it. Big Cheese put his feet up on the cushions but, sensing a lack of approval coming from my direction, took them off. “Do you know your damned elevator is out of order?” he said, accusingly.
What I like about Big Cheese is his ability to skip right over the niceties and go straight to the raw "gestalt" of the moment. “And how does that make
you feel?” I said.
“Feel?“ he growled. “How is that supposed to make me feel? I just climbed fourteen flights of stairs in ninety degree weather. And in this suit! How would you feel if you climbed all that way in this suit?”
"The only place I would climb in that suit is out a window,” I said, regretting the comment immediately.
“Huh?” he said, inspecting himself. “What’s wrong with this suit?”
“Did I say there’s anything wrong with that suit?” I said, stoically.
“Why wouldn’t you wear it? I paid a lot for it. Don’t you like it?” he said, sitting up.
“Why does my opinion matter so much to you?” I said. “Aren’t you confusing me with your mother?”
“Why do we always have to bring my mother into the picture?” He said, his eyes narrowing.
I knew by the narrowing of his eyes that I was winning. I went for the kill. “Isn’t she always in the picture? Isn‘t that your problem?”
“Huh? Oh no, not again.”
“Isn’t she always looming over you like a great big shadow, her stern voice echoing in your ear: ‘Sonny, Sonny, you little bastard, you’ll never amount to anything! You’re a great big nothing! You can fill your mantle with Academy Awards and Golden Globes but you’ll never amount to anything. You’ll always be a big loser, Sonny!’”
“Jesus!” he said.
“’Everybody is better looking than you are and no one is going to ask you to the prom! You’ve got thick ankles and there’s nothing you can do about it! Your hair is kinky and, with that acne, no boy will ever want to kiss you! Who would marry you? You look like a giant toad. Say yes to the first guy that comes along because you may never get another chance, a girl like you! I’m only telling you this because I love you, Carla!’” Oops.
He stared at me, unblinking. There was a thud as a sparrow dove into the window and bounced off the glass. Said Big Cheese, “Are you done, Dr. Carla?”
“We have thirty five minutes,” I said, looking at my watch. “We can discuss your continuing fear of this chaotic universe, if you like.”
“Oh God,” he moaned, burying his face in his hands.
“Exactly,” I said. "It's always God's fault, isn't it! A vengeful warlord whose stern voice echoes in your ear, ‘Sonny, Sonny, you little bastard, you‘ll never amount to anything!”
“Shouldn't you be paying me for this?” he said, impertinently.
"This is called psychodrama," I said. "Don't interrupt. Sonny, you little bastard, you'll always be a big loser. Nobody will ever ask you to the prom, and would you like to know why? I'll tell you why......”
