The Doctor is In

So, as much as I shudder at musical theater (ah... ok, there is a small inkling of culturally encrypted joy derived from it, but I am too snobby and avante-garde to admit this... and there are composers, like Sondheim, that are extremely clever and therefore warrant a second thought... ) I. has been marching around the room and the bed, listening to "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" and you know the really silly thing? There are places on the album where I just weep. Sure, you say, that is just your highly sentimental sibilant self that wants to cry. Perhaps. I did cry myself to sleep tonight and then wake myself up with that tight, salt-dried cap on my cheeks, burning from the heater without which I freeze but with which my nasal cavities dry up in cracked and bloody misery unless I hydrate myself extensively, which propitiates the need for frequent midnight trips to the bathroom... En fin! Still stuck with me. But my point, if it is that I ever have one (which is rare, I'll admit) was that there is some great wisdom to be had in this little musical score, and maybe it is good to cry myself to sleep sometimes, I haven't let myself do that for years, and it felt strangely satisfying.

Other than the songs where Snoopy is declaiming about his need to bite someone... (from a dog's eye view) I found this to be terribly amusing in that painful way.

[CHARLIE BROWN]
Oh, Lucy. I'm so depressed. I don't know what to do.

[LUCY]
I think what you need most of all, Charlie Brown, is to come
right out and admit all of the things that are wrong with you.

[CHARLIE BROWN]
All right, I'll try
I'm not very handsome or clever, or lucid,
I've always been stupid at spelling and numbers.
I've never been much playing football or baseball
Or stickball, or checkers, or marbles, or ping-pong

I'm usually awful at parties and dances,
I stand like a stick or I cough, or I laugh,
Or I don't bring a present, or I spill the ice cream
Or I get so depressed that I stand and I scream...

Oh, how could there possibly be
One small person as thoroughly, totally, uttlerly
Blah as me.

[LUCY]
Well, that's ok for a starter.

[CHARLIE BROWN]
A starter?

[LUCY]
Certainly. You don't think that mentioning these few superficial
failings is going to do you any good, do you? Why, Charlie Brown,
You really have to delve.

You're stupid, self-centered and moody

[CHARLIE BROWN]
I'm moody

[LUCY]
You're terribly dull to be with

[CHARLIE BROWN]
Yes I am.
And nobody likes me,
Not Frieda, or Shermy, or Linus, or Schroeder-

[LUCY]
Or Lucy.

[CHARLIE BROWN]
Or Lucy.

[LUCY]
Or Snoopy.

[CHARLIE BROWN]
Or Sn-
Wait a minute. Snoopy likes me.

[LUCY]
He only pretends to like you because you feed him.
That doesn't count.

[CHARLIE BROWN]
Or Snoopy.
Oh why- was I born just to be
One small person as thoroughly, totally, utterly-

[LUCY]
Wait!
You're not very much of a person...

[CHARLIE BROWN]
That's certain

[LUCY]
And yet there's a reason for hope.

[CHARLIE BROWN]
There's hope?

[LUCY]
For although you are no good at music,
Like Schroeder, or happy like Snoopy,
Or lovely like me,
You have the distinction to be
No one else but the singular, remarkable, unique
Charlie Brown.

[CHARLIE BROWN]
I'm me!

[LUCY]
Yes- it's amazingly true,
For whatever it's worth, Charlie Brown,
You're you.

[CHARLIE BROWN]
Gosh, Lucy you know something. I'm beginning to feel better already.
You're a true friend, Lucy, a true friend.

[LUCY]
That'll be five cents, please.


And I am reminded that I should go back to therapy (I stopped going at the end of the quarter and didn't go back, not because I had a problem with it, but rather that I just felt too depressed to go. Don't ask.) My big problem, of course, is that I can't ever be honest with the therapist, not really, and not because I fear their judgment, (or at least I don't think that is it) but rather because I find the details to be utterly banal and useless (and besides, I can write about them) or because I don't like to lose control. I have only ever had female therapists, and perhaps that is the problem? It is like having a male masseur... I am not sure that having an unknown man digging his hands into all my sorest spots would be ultimately beneficial, and I am somehow more willing to trust women to know when to stop, but I have never fixed a problem with them either. What I really need is a massage, and perhaps more therapy, but a massage should come first. The other day I got a short-lived and non-monetarily binding one (often the best, but not at all reliable in terms of duration of said massage) and the whole left side of my back was in an excruciating sort of unmanifested pain. It hurt like hell, but I hadn't even realized. There are many things like that in life, I suppose, and until you go poking around, you don't realize what exactly they are.

The stupid thing about therapy, for me, I suppose, is that I never feel like I get to any new insights that I haven't discovered on my own, and what I really want is someone else to tell me HOW to do the things I already know I should. Perhaps what I actually need is a personal trainer, a coach of sorts, for all things (not just in the physical realm). I am programmed in the following way... I will perform beyond the standard that is set for me, often far beyond, but I have a terrible time setting a standard for myself. As I was lazily peddling home, past the athletic fields, with my tire only partially inflated (this makes riding quickly terribly cumbersome) avoiding the lacrosse balls that were winged at the fence, and what felt like my head, past the soccer goalpost, I stopped, well, slowed down, if that is at all possible, to watch a keeper as his trainer slammed the ball down against the astroturf, and it rebounded 10 feet in the air as he raced from a lying down position into a full extended leap. I thought to myself, "I used to do that." What made me stop? Expectations. An unwillingness to forego other more important things like reading books alone in my bedroom. Hmmm. Sounds like a lame excuse. It could be partly because I despised with such vehemence the jocks in my high school, the pretty people parties, the snotty exclusionary policies, the excess, the self-righteous entitlement. I never felt safe among my fellow athletes, I never felt like I could give myself over to that fluid entity, a team. I could direct it, sure, shout instructions from my safe vantage point behind it all, react to the sudden drilling attack, deflecting, diving, punching the ball back out into space. But mostly, it was a solitary activity that disguised itself as a group one.

I am torn, of course, between my desire to be alone, and my intrinsic social nature. I wonder if there is really any answer to these questions. I think, probably not. But the most impressive thing is, of course, that to discover these things one need not have any interlocutor at all, beyond the blank page. Sure, interacting with others around these issues can be validating, but at the same time, superfluous. So why, I ask, shall I pay for someone to sit and listen to my bullshit, when I can rant for free to no one, and ultimately get the same response. Silence.