I spent another miserable day in bed like a 19th century mental patient . . . no matter what I did, I just could not rouse myself. The SEVERE NITETIME Cold & Flu had done its job of sedating me for 12 whole hours, and now I was imprisoned in its nuclear-green swamp. I did not particularly want to get up. And anyway, I thought, it isn’t like there was anything or anyone waiting for me on the other side. Out my window it was just above freezing and windy. I faced away from it all and fell in and out of sleep until past two in the afternoon. When I finally did get out of bed, it was strictly to make a cup of coffee.
Back in bed, I took a few phone calls . . . one to Florida, one to London, another to Portland, and yet another to Rochester . . . I’m trying to figure out what I should do with myself now that I have a little over half a month to kill before I catch a flight back to Berlin. It is too expensive to fly back to California or else I’d go to LA and the Bay Area to see everyone one last time. I could go up to Detroit and Chicago to see Kelsey and Gayle and Hali, but I feel so depressed and exhausted I don’t even know if I have it in me. My best bet is to go back down to New Orleans and stay with Leila for a week, but that’s another expensive flight or a very long drive. Staying put is not an option . . . I’ll completely lose my mind if I do that, and sooner than later we’ll all see my face end up on the back of a cereal box. And I don’t even really know what that means! So what to do . . . ?
For now I have been working on my novel:
I read some of it to Molly over the phone. She said, perhaps to be polite, “I think some of the combinations of words you’re using have never been used before.” To which I replied: “Now you’re getting it!” She asked me how I was able to be so creative when I’m feeling so low, and I told her I had no other choice . . . that I had to Do Something or else I’d really go nuts. And anyway, when they hang the gallows high, that’s when the good stuff comes out of you, at least in my experience. Who knows if it’s any good or not . . . the important part is that I finally finish it. I have to finish something before the world finally finishes me . . .
(My agent has just reminded me that, should I fail to complete the novel on time, I will also be forced to return the $300k advance given to me by the publisher . . . which of course is long gone.)
And so presently my life is all about . . .
At least I’m going to Japan for a whole month not too far from now. I love Japan and even lived there for a whole winter. I haven’t been back in something like fourteen years . . . I’m going to buy a JR rail pass and go visit Kyoto and Osaka and Hiroshima and all those places again. I’ve been to Japan so many times that this is essentially a Comfort Trip . . . it’s like watching a movie you’ve seen a hundred times. In that sense I know what awaits me, and yet I wonder if I’m going to feel completely miserable being alone for an entire month like that . . . I wish someone would come with me, at least for a little while. Not to get all cheesy here at the end, but as someone who spends most of his life alone, and certainly nearly all of his traveling time alone, I can tell you that it sometimes feels a little empty when you see something incredible but are by yourself. I’ll always think, for instance, “I wish Laura were here to see this with me.”
Well, it’s like the fella said . . .
