Dizzy and Maddening

I shouldn't drink on an empty stomach--neither coffee nor martinis. I had a mid-afternoon meeting at a Starbucks near the airport today to talk about the fact that I am going to South Australia to lead a press trip down there, covering probably close to 2,000 km in 2 weeks. It's funny to think I am going back to the country only a year after I was there last as a writer. Who knew I would have a job where I was supposed to escort writers to a part of Australia that so few people actually visit--the purpose of which is to make them write about it? Of course, that's what makes it appeal to me. I get to do something very few people will do in their lifetime--namely fly across the Pacific Ocean and swim with sea lions, track wombats in the dark in a gorge in the Outback, and visit a place the name of which is actually Kangaroo Island. And I leave on Thanksgiving, of all days.

The point of this originally was that I had too much coffee at said meeting and was like a hummingbird drunk on nectar, buzzing around, singing in my car at top volume--making myself hoarse--as I drove back to Hollywood in the crush of rush hour traffic. Then, later, I went to a friend's house for dinner and was given a martini and felt like my bones had collapsed in a heap--worthless and heavy. Somehow I managed to make conversation and keep it afloat, but the words seemed to wrap around me and hang like chains. I think it's simply exhaustion. I have not slept much this week and, when I do, I have had stupid dreams about a stupid movie I watched last weekend with Lesley.

Granted, stupid movies with Lesley and I are ubiquitous, but for some reason "The Maddening" got to me. I can't tell if it's the inexplicable casting of Burt Reynolds and Angie Dickinson as swamp trash crazies who trap an unsuspecting young mother (Mia Sara, long past her prime) and daughter in their backwater house, or if somehow the movie managed to actually touch a nerve in me. Either that or we finally watched something so bad that it just stayed with me like food poisoning. Either way, I have literally had 3 Angie Dickinson dreams this week, with her yammering at me while holding a tray of food--like she does to poor, poor Mia in her locked bedroom in le film. But, unlike Mia's character in "Da Maddening," as I took to calling it, I do not have to pee on the bedroom floor in my dreams. Thank god. No one wants to wake up like that.

Hopefully the rest of the week will clear my head as I wrap up a hellishly busy 5 days and go catch a Kristin Hersh concert on Friday the 13th. I've been listening to Throwing Muses all day, which is adding to the dizziness. Try keeping up with these lyrics: "I have two heads / Where's the man? He's late / One burns one's sky / Where's the man? He's late / I'm two headed ... one free, one sticky."

Maybe the wrong choice for an hour-long car ride from El Segundo to Hollywood.

And before bed, the bon mots of the day, overheard on the elevator, as I rode with two psychics up to the fifth floor of my building (yes, I work next to an office housing consultants on the Psychic Hotline): "Well, I was going to call her, but I already knew she didn't want to talk to me."

All I could think was, "Gee, if only all interpersonal communication was always that cut and dried."