So basically, I took down all my blogs. But I still will write, this, at least, because I just got off the phone with a very nice man, a writer, who offered to be of service to other writers. I got his contact from a spreadsheet. He responded right away. He started a literary journal. And I’m recording these conversations because I think that my life right now would make an excellent TV show. Funny. It’s funnier on film, I think, this concept of me grabbing onto a mic — on the comedy circuit — and telling people I was in a sex scandal. Crickets. Me collapsing in a chair, with a lidocaine patch, I was in a sex scandal, and I had weird hip pains. The way their eyes shifted over to the stool—as one — that made me laugh so hard. I had to hit the comedy stage to just get real. No one was hearing me, but Mr. Barack Obama did — somewhere out there.
I had to picture telling HIM about the “wise screenwriter” that I met. Because, of course, I’m going to run into unnecessary problems because of this story, and it made me laugh picturing telling Barack Obama what this man told me.
That aside, it’s going to take a male sexual trauma specialist — to HELP ME SEE that this guy was INAPPROPRIATE at step one. I’m going to BATTLE internally with this MAN’s ability to PSYCHICALLY know that I’m having this discussion with him RIGHT NOW. This man will have to wrestle, laugh, and DAMN this man out of me. “HE DOESN’T KNOW AND WHO GIVES A SHIT IF HE DOES?” I’m telling you. This man acted like he was PSYCHIC. That messed with my head.
And it was not true.
Why did he say, “I’m always FEEDING YOU?” I mean, this guy went nuts because he heard my family story.
“I told him, I met a chef.”
“Uh huh,” this sexual trauma specialist would say, “and what’s the SUBTEXT? Since I’m interested in scripts?”
“And he goes, to me meeting a guy, and just saying I always date chefs,” but the SEXUAL TRAUMA SPECIALIST IS GOING — “did you mean that MARIA? Have you ALWAYS dated CHEFS?! No.”
“You lived IN FRANCE, you’re INTO restaurants! So by nature of WHERE YOU GO, WHO YOU HANG OUT WITH?”
But no, “the theme here is nourishment,” he says.
And I was stuck on a line, where people responded so strangely to me and my story, and he spoke as if he had PSYCHIC senses, okay? For real. And I didn’t see this. “What do you mean?” I said, in fairytale tone, sure. I was in Alice in Wonderland here. (OBAMA would get it.)
He didn’t know, with a tone, as if he DID know but he couldn’t tell me. That’s how he acted. He was PERFORMING.
This sexual trauma specialist is telling me to STOP hanging out with this person AT HELLO.
“I’m always FEEDING YOU” he says.
I thought we had a recurring lunch date.
“I’m always feeding you?” What a strange thing to say to a thirty-one, even, year old woman that you’re befriending?
NOURISH, NURTURE — in the END, he’s going to overuse these words — over a book draft, that THEY ALWAYS FEED YOU. My cousins. “I LIKE HOW THEY FEED YOU.”
“WHY is he speaking to me in this way?”
You see what I mean? I was messed up by that, sure.
Imagining dramatizing these sessions with this psychologist in a TV SHOW has been fun.
It’s definitely an important chapter in my life because it was the LAST. I had to start over again as a human being.
He psychoanalyzed me over a LOST I-TANYA DVD. Comical. Then, he’s confessing his love to me on the street, in Beverly Hills, with SO MUCH EMOTION, while referencing my father.
I needed THERAPY to work THAT out. I was NOT aware. THEN, after being SLAPPED around, practically, he BELIEVES in me as an ARTIST (though I haven’t done anything) and he intends to “keep his perspective,” because the I TANYA DVD, my roommate misplacing it, IS ROOTED in disappointment, which is the feeling that exists between my father and me.
And look, with the SEXUAL TRAUMA SPECIALIST, we’re taking it back to step one. His fingers tapping away, I was just SOME CHICK, no offense, in a cafe. And I said it, because he asked, oh what are you writing about, “my mother gave me away to a total stranger when I was four because she lied that he has a child molester.”
“EHHHH,” the sexual trauma specialist is saying — mistake.
And from there, this screenwriter is going to point at me as if I were in a SCI FI, for real, and I’m going to have to deal with all this.
So, that’s a snapshot.
I got off the phone with this writer, this older guy, who was available to “talk about it all.”
So, we stayed on my story, as I’ve been struggling with it, just asking him to tell me practically speaking how he figures out structure. Normal guy. Hears the story. Isn’t interested in getting involved. He’s going as a reader, I guess I’m going to want to know about this little girl who investigated all this. Like, it wasn’t the Hero’s Journey.
I’m a Nancy Drew, Harriet the Spy of sexual abuse, basically. Which I thought was strong as a premise. He thought so too.
It’s just how do I structure this? A psychological analysis? And is that enough? Because a story develops and changes.
I thought it was a lie, my whole life. Then, partially thanks to the PEOPLE I met who GOT involved with, I reopened these years and didn’t know if it was a lie, anymore, which you, as a reader, you’re not going to know either.
SEXUAL TRAUMA SPECIALIST has my back. And he didn’t SHOVE opinions down my throat. I had to CUT people off. I couldn’t hear myself think. No one even gave a shit. So, no, I don’t really want to talk to you, type deal. That goes to my former friends.
Because, you tell me something like that, I’ll write in what a friend, in that case, looks like.
A TV show started giving me ideas, though, in my case, that wouldn’t exist. I would probably have to keep that out there, so that, at screenings, Carrie Coon, can speak to how surprised she was. And we can discuss that.
YEAH, people never responded WELL. So that was me.
I had to make peace with it.
And I suppose, if I do it well, it might be affecting.
A comedian asked me, which is funny, “how are you doing with THAT,” pointing INTO IT, not knowing how NO ONE was doing THAT, “specifically,” he said. “Are you able to get out of bed in the morning.” And it was the only caring question I received. I sat down, at St. Mark’s with Jose. WOW. “What?”
“No one in my entire life has asked me that question…”
“Really?”
“No…”
“And you’re not even saying,” he understood I didn’t KNOW, which is why he was asking. He liked the music video. Just to say. Because, by that point, I had said “I was in a sex scandal” so many times, that I broke out into an experimental music video. And these tiny moments, only two, made a big difference, actually. No care. Like people sort of forgot what that means.
In any case, I woke up this morning, garnering up the courage again to get back out on the comedy circuit, as I’ve needed some time to process what I’ve done thus far, and to decide whether or not I even cared that much, that’s the thing. I didn’t care THAT MUCH about what happened to me.
SORRY — BEEP — I’m irreverent as a person. My mother was a JOKER. You want an affecting story? Go to foster care. I am NOT that person. I had resources. But this guy only sees an opportunity to show me what “a wise man” he is? I was blown away by this relationship. ME, yes, I’m making choices, the wrong ones.
“WHY are you talking to this person to begin with?”
“Someone who disrespects you at HELLO?”
You see? So, that was the worst relationship of my entire life. The worst. And I’m gonna be real honest. THAT’s not my issue. He was case in point, right next to my cousins, as to what I had to deal with, because I came from where I did. Just the wrong approach. Like, I watch OPRAH talk about ENERGY—this was NOT my problem. I had NO PROBLEM WITH IT.
I had to launch a flare on the psychospiritual plane, as I call it, not the imagination, as I am the MOST psychic human being, this is who I became in the midst of all this, to OBAMA. Yes, Barack Obama. I needed to consult with someone, who, all things considered FIT into this description that was delivered to me in all seriousness:” you are a portal, channel, and antenna traveling on mulitple planes of existence.” If that is is, that is OBAMA and BEYONCE and OPRAH and — I’m waving FLARES. SOS.
Now the screenwriter didn’t say that, but he did say I get bleedthroughs from other times. He agreed with that statement. Look, that sounds like OBAMA to me. He’s Lincoln, sure, just — “Help!” He was available. Obama, on the psycho spiritual plane. So just imagining telling him all this, made me laugh.
I had to joke, with myself, because Barack Obama? I doubt he would have reacted to me like this man did. I think, if someone told him, within 20 minutes of meeting him, that he was psychic, and that in the 15th century, he would have bee the one to speak to animals, that he might — just leave. I don’t think he’s sticking around. Stuff like that. This guy wasn’t real. He wasn’t FOR REAL. That’s all I gotta say right there.
In my mind, as I felt crazy, I needed to reach for someone, in my mind, who reached REAL SUCCESS, as Obama has, a genius, even, sure, to help me laugh as that was the personality profile I was dealing with… Like, what would Obama say to all this? He’s not here, I’m pretty sure. He’s not going to be interested.
This conversation I had with this writer was simple, practical, and straightforward. So now, he said, “okay, so I spend a day trying out different perspectives: me as a child, me looking back as adult.” Uh huh. He spoke of the feeling, for sure, that’s driving through these lines, but he’s not harping on it, exactly. So then, I went, okay, I started with this dramatic debut, of this woman telling me what my mother told her. That my father was abusing me, and so, she’s going to launch a “nice game.”
You get the central drama right away, but maybe that’s not the debut. Maybe, I told him it was a love song, right? Only the best, the classics. This Brazilian woman was obsessed with love songs. Nicole, her youngest, took it in a spiritual direction—Enya. Right, he said, maybe write some scenes — maybe you can structure it around these love songs. Maybe as an exercise, title it a song, and see what comes out of it. It’s just I want the tennis players and that movement, to come in. I want to tell the story of my investigation of the sex scandal. He goes, I’m going to want to know about the girl who did this, which I have, but I was — not interested in getting personally affected, as this was a farce.
Now, if that’s true or not, I don’t know what to say, because I didn’t DRIVE from here, there was even a career in it.
Which is the direction I wished I took.
I have to think, if I want to bring in my adult voice, or do more like a YA. He spoke of perspective. Is this you looking back? Or do you want us to follow a KID protagonist?
This man didn’t act cryptic. He didn’t remain silent on the phone. He just talked it out with me. I guess he’s not AT the guru’s level. But like, if you’re going to mentor someone’s draft —a, why are you? If you don’t know anything about this type of writing? Yes, I didn’t see it, but based on how he acted, I had to assume that this guy must really really love books. Not that I’m not SPECIAL, in his words, but what had I done that was that special to him? Was it this investigation?
You see? Nothing clear or specific as to WHY he felt I was special, exactly. Was it my personality? Then why shit on it? Because I was well adjusted? Wait, I thought I was repressed to you? When I might not have understood what the exercise was? I might have been a shitty writer who needed to spend some time reading. This writer gave ME a practical example, like, he broke up with his wife, it took a year to get through what wasn’t HIS, and he thought about guilt. So what’s the burning question? He asked me specific questions.
In terms of me being repressed, what am I supposed to do with that? Was I repressed? Or dysfunctional? Simply. Meaning, I think I was in touch with my feelings, I just didn’t know what they were. Like, if I couldn’t identify a dangerous person, meaning, this guy was NOT a good idea, then what was I doing?
I didn’t TRUST my feeling, you see, as I had to take it back to “date one” with this specialist.
“Tell me about it,” the sexual trauma specialist said.
“So he made you uncomfortable?”
Yes, he did, I didn’t know what his interest was based on how he was acting. I took out my credit card, to pay for my side, to simply communicate, as this man didn’t ask me out on a date… that I wasn’t on a date, just in case. He found me “remarkable.” How? Why? You see?
“Good, progress,” this psychologist said. He happens to be a sexual trauma specialist, but we had a lot to unpack here, as I am not TRYING to say that I KNOW, which was so annoying about my circle. I don’t know. But all this other stuff was happening around me at the time. Which he knows. He doesn’t care. Not like it couldn’t have happened somewhere, let’s just keep… moving through this.
“Always weird, wasn’t it?”
I guess so.
But that relationship with that guy? He was the APEX. It was, indeed, a jerk, the final blow. He told me a fictional character in my draft was a “really good psychological device.” I told this writer this. This nerd.
So guess what? I got what I needed.
“Do you want to send me a draft? Ever read HIROSHIMA in school?”
“No, because I didn’t go to SCHOOL for writing…”
“So, read that…”
Like, “what’s the explosion? And what happens as a result?”
He gave me practical advice: I do this: and that’s it! So, I’ll see what he says once I complete a story.
But I might put in the love songs, actually, I just had no idea how to work that in, structurally.
So, now, when he said feeling, just mentioned it, in terms of talking about the prose, the flow, I was thinking oh, maybe I should begin with the love songs as a driver through the investigation. So, I’ll try that. I was beginning with this dramatic debut, which was, her — theatrically telling me what my mother told her, which was, that my father was abusive, so she was going to launch “a nice game” to play with him.
I didn’t need to “download” from the future. In other words: I wasn’t this guy’s AUDIENCE. I was NOT the person to discuss controversial New Age logic with. Handing me Seth Books, channeled books, telling me to “forget about the costume” when I’m naturally rebellious, and if you touch me there, my father will tell you — Maria is swinging bats in public, like, MARIA is a force to be reckoned with, this girl does not care. If you disrespect her, if you trigger her, as the Catholic faith did, she might attack. You gotta KNOW your audience. Not the person to give channeler tapes to.
I did not need this. I didn’t need to become psychic.
But apparently, this screenwriter was in love with me.
The I TANYA DVD. It was time to put on funny scary music, the sexual trauma specialist said.
I guess the undertone was that he was in love with me. It’s just scary, what that looked like, and extremely insulting and disheartening. That, that’s how he treated someone he was in love with? Or else, why did you do that? Confess his love, like, “you can’t disappoint me, you have my loooooove,” with all this emotion. Whoa.
It’s just a DVD.
I got major big brother energy — yes, energy — at the NY Comedy Club. “It’s just a DVD.”
And I’m a nice, caring person who went out of their way to try and get it back, as my roommate lost it, and that angered me.
Like, I can’t help that I wasn’t in love with you? I mean, you pointed at me as if I were in a SCI FI, the first time we hung out!
Then, date two, I’m on a computer, discussing my mother with you? WHY? He said, he could feel my pain. Imagine? He MISTOOK vulnerability for pain. That, um, really happened to me, so, “AND,” this psychologist said. “YOU DIDN’T KNOW HIM. WOULD ANYONE WANT TO TALK TO SOMEONE THEY DID NOT KNOW about THAT?”
Looking at me. “WHO here would want to TALK to someone about a sex scandal?”
“Was that comfortable for you?”
I had to laugh.
“NO…”
Nodding.
“Why would you want to talk about that?”
“Convo one. You know?”
And just picturing this as a script, the way the camera would cut — this trauma specialist, touching his temple.
“Why would you want to talk about that?”
In my case, this wasn’t some sappy picture about someone who can’t open up. WHY would anyone want to OPEN UP about that? Nope.
It’s not an argument. It’s not like, oh my mother was overbearing. It’s — um, I was in a situation that IMPACTED YES. She wrapped me up in a sex scandal. It’s called — too much, too quick, too soon. “Might throw you off.” So I had to adjust my understanding from step one, because no one gave a shit about me, and no one treated me as if I were REAL.
LIKE REALLY GIRL? You want to talk about this?
No. I do not. Especially because people got engrossed, tied up, confused, affected, and their interpretations were borderline wacko.
I was not a character in a TV show.
And here we go, maybe I’ll write a show about it, and TV, the SCREEN, will make this story real. Truly!
So, I’m going to work on this story, today. Now that I have some pointers from someone who has written stories before in this way. Right? I’m going to think—love song…as the motor, moving through the club. And maybe there will be its own structure. I’m trying to get into a specific mag, and I thought — with them in mind — an undercover investigation, kicked off by a young Nancy Drew of sexual abuse, at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club — that’s an interesting scenario. That’s an elevator pitch.
And, it’s a love song, the best party on Earth. 1989, the year Kaoma’s lambada took the world by storm. A song and dance about sex, and we danced it ALL NIGHT LONG. As a family. Brazilian-Jewish. So picture Ben Stiller, he’s there, as Jose Leibowitz. In a manner of speaking.
It’s more, I felt these scenes were blocky, literal, not communicating feeling, sure, but once I plugged into the love songs, I thought, hm… maybe that’s the drive, even in tennis— this was a committment. This was — um, ice packs on my shoulder. Laughing about it, sure. This situation bruised me, for sure. But there was a deeper drive, and that was psychology.
I went through this situation, I really did, and it was the psychology of her, an analysis of her, so I suppose it’s an EPIC Rahel Varnhagen, though it’s not, but it’s a psychological analysis that speaks to the sex scandals as of late. As I’m going to analyze the way incest, specifically, affects family. When there’s sexual problems… as she said, “don’t you think that would mess up dynamics?” And I’m trying to determine if this really happened to my mother because she was so messed up, in a particular way: sex. Yes. This one.
Oh my God, you can’t talk about it. You can’t SAY she had sex problems because NO ONE will hear it as true. That’s what that was. And what am I supposed to do about it. I was too young, too scared, maybe, because WHO was my father? Forget this wild Brazilian mother, Angelica Leibowitz, okay? A name so close to her real name, it’s ridiculous.
I cannot make it up, that’s the point. How could I MAKE UP Angelica Leibowitz? As a Catholic?
That was my true passion, psychology, my Will Hunting moment, when, the world just opened… and that’s what I saw. I knew what pathology was, at eight, nine. I knew you could be “psychologically damaged.” I knew what rape was, when I was four.
And, the thing is, NOW, thanks to this SCRIPT idea, I’m thinking about a really really good psychologist character as Robin Williams. He really really was, in Good Will Hunting. I have the makings of that. Where, this guy, to Lionel Richie, even, is going to have to help me to not give up, because I’m 40. I’m not THAT pretty.
And I never cared, you see! I never understood these people. Not that I’m not pretty, but I’m not YOUNG. And I wasted my time on the SETH BOOKS with guys in their sixties, you know what I mean? Who don’t have to work, don’t really seem to have friends, if you will… so I felt like, I just got caught up in the wrong places. These guys weren’t FRIENDS.
They were maybe these people you grabbed a bite with, stopped by, seldomly, as there’s no real intimacy there, they’re interesting characters, so sure, I grab a bite with them, when I’m in town, maybe. Depends. Not the people to get wrapped up in. And I am not wrong. But I am a person — so if you go PUSHING BUTTONS at that time, I might not be ABLE to IDENTIFY IT. Because people acted WEIRD around that story.
But the therapist and I went, “no more.”
But NOW I’m not YOUNG. This is my point. These MEN wouldn’t bother me now. Not like 40 is old. But, man… why?
Now, I look at myself, as I look like a villain, on screen.
Wouldn’t I make a great villain? The psychologist thought that was good. “The Joker’s daughter, isn’t THAT what I look like?”
So, he would have to keep me going, as I didn’t have a tight circle. SURE, I had COLLEGE FRIENDS I saw EVERY NOW AND THEN. I didn’t have a man. A career. And this screenwriter spoke of THIS STORY as THE STORY THAT WILL BE THE HARRY POTTER OF FAMILY — IF I CHOSE THAT.
I MUST ALIGN with the future point — in which it IS the Harry Potter of FAMILY — lol. And sure, that’s all fine, but I went through turmoil and confusion, trying to “channel” this book, not even understanding why I was approaching my LIFE that way? HOW did I get here?
This writer — having made himself available to “talk it all out.”
“Okay?”
He got annoyed, somewhere in here, like, “oh my editor emailed me, here we go.” Haha.
It was as if I got BLOWN OUT. DIDN’T NEED that. I needed to be BROUGHT in. Just amazing.
It’s like I called this guy, clearly disturbed, I GET THAT, but if I were on the other line — I wouldn’t BE there to begin with.
“It doesn’t matter what the rent is.” He said. “That takes care of itself.”
Just this psychologist. Picturing his face? “Okay.”
“How?”
“Intention, meditating…”
I didn’t get him, it felt so mean. It felt so mean. “Spinning up energy,” is what writing is…?
So, I get love song. This was a love song. And man, I really felt that way. So what if I was sort of Barbara Harris type? But was I really a Jim Carrey? Just, a little different. I was VULNERABLE, you see. But he made me feel that way, too, or I needed to get in touch with WALLS.
Get in touch with those.
This man was ONE BIG WALL.
So it’s my job to OPEN UP for YOU?
And that, in looking at Barbara Harris, is why I wanted to work on a more sweeping book… that seemed to have caused her ALL SORTS of problems. That she was vulnerable and touching. She, too, became supernatural.
You know? That sucked on my end. It was all hot air. I’m just saying, I’m a TOUGH bitch, actually, I don’t want to play games. WHAT exactly, specifically, makes me gifted or special? If it was my personality, that got crushed. And I’m still struggling to recover, as if I got into a terrible accident… where, am I going to be able to walk again?
This guy — doesn’t give a shit. Just like my mother. It was TOO deep. My mother didn’t care if I lived or died.
Like this guy.
Now, I can sort of walk down the hall. So I’m walking, not totally past soreness. I can’t quite run. Walk for long. I sometimes go through pain, episodes, and they rattle me because more distance is being reached between them. I almost smoked a cig last night, you see. I didn’t.
Am I psychic? I will shoot arrows at you. STOP TRYING TO DOMINATE ME. In the weirdest fashion. I disagree. Truly! I had to fight over this, imagine? Like, no, I am not psychic. I shut the door on these men’s faces. Go bother someone else.
I can’t even be myself, though I have had my moments. But now, I’m not that nice. I’m ready to fire. And I don’t care. You wanna fight? Beware. I had to get there.
So I’m moving as fast as I can. I told this writer on the phone today, that I’m just trying to find my way now because “becoming a writer” brought me strange men. “Help,” when, here we go, “there’s academic article one, two, fourteen.”
“Weren’t you scared?” As this screenwriter suggested, when I called him and said, stupidly, “what’s happening?” He acted so psychic, like he just knew things, that he said that without even asking me what was happening. “What are you talking about?”
That’s not how this man acted.
Imagine if someone called you, and said, “what’s happening?”
Without any other information. Sure, I’m writing a book. But like, this GUY had IDEAS as to what that meant, you see.
“Weren’t you scared? Suddenly being somewhere else.”
“You’re probably going to have to go through some experiences.”
Danger.
He’s not saying I’m repressed, you see, he’s being manipulative. But that’s where we’re headed. Okay?
Was I scared? Of what?
“Suddenly being somewhere else,” he says.
I don’t think so. My house wasn’t that pleasant. My mother was scary.
That didn’t pertain to me, at all. I don’t think so.
I’m contemplating child abuse, at four. Not five. I’m at the police station, a lot, not scared — pissed. Throwing this Mickey Mouse sleeping bag, aside. Sitting up in downtown LA with police lights flashing into the Cutlass Supreme. Pissed. AGAIN?
I grabbed onto his and HER seat — and hoisted myself up to take a look at this bitch, coming down the stairs. I’m not scared, you see. I’m PISSED. Why aren’t they stopping her? Maybe she did scare me, but Jesus Christ, I went around the WHEEL because of this guy, not knowing what’s true, not true, again!
He had the WRONG idea. I was severely impacted by this man. And now, I feel like such a different human being, like, you didn’t get it. I understand I had a LOOK to you. LOOKING at Brad Pitt, like, do people do this to you? Or, anyone, really. I loved seeing Ed Norton mistaken for Brad Pitt. On instagram. Happy birthday. There you go.
Like, I was always strong. I didn’t need this man to say STRONG at me as if I needed ENCOURAGEMENT ENCOURAGEMENT — he went nuts. As if I didn’t KNOW that. “STRONG,” he said.
Just, how am I here?
And now, I’m meeting normal people, with whom I can discuss a story idea, as if that’s all it is, and move on. But this is a tough patch in my life, as I haven’t been able to get a job, know how to move forward.
So that’s that.