Crazy night.

My dreams last night were nuts.

I’ve been experimenting on TikTok because that’s a video platform. I can begin telling my stories, quite simply, away from people I know. And develop stuff. I might end up getting on stage so why wouldn’t I play around? Besides, I’ve heard that TikTok is the social media channel for that: sharing your stories, what you’re writing about. Publishers are apparently using this channel.

Everyone hates social media, truly, and I understand. Me too. I even saw some woman who works in social media begin her promo with “it sucks, I know” as if that kind of empathy is what people are looking for. That’s going to bring people in.

The world is what it is. And my life was my life, that too, and that’s what I’m writing about for the moment. At least, it feels more authentic to make videos about the projects I’m working on even to help me think out loud. Refine as I go. The Beverly Hills t-shirt is a joke, of course. I’m from Ladera Heights. Frank Ocean called it “the Black Beverly Hills.” There is a Rodeo, also. From Rodeo to Rodeo, my mother loved BH. I was four that year: 1989, also. I would definitely wear that shirt on stage. Let us analyze your expectations and assumptions based on what I am wearing currently. Do I look like I come from BH? Guess where I got it? Turkey. On sale.

Even taking that, let me slide in safe, my mother made the money, not my father. She was the big spender, getting 15,000 dollars out of her sister so I could go to The University for Children. Plenty of people write about their crazy families, nothing new. My mother had all sorts of grand fantasies about herself. A figure that took me considerable time to work through so I could put myself out there. There’s another one. It might be changing but the assumption might be that…my father made money. He was an aerospace engineer but he had recently retired. The illusion of money, too, is true, in that, you can appear to have money even if you don’t.

These dreams, though, last night—crazy.

I’m psychic, apparently. I don’t know what that means exactly. First, in these dreams, it felt like I was being compared to people and I woke up like, wait, excuse me. I don’t think so. I never even thought about that. I’m not trying to be on The Voice, either, is that what I am seeing? I’m just singing and playing around. Do people sing on these channels to get on The Voice? I do not know these things. This is not my goal. Honestly, I didn’t think I even had “a voice” voice. I really love singing, it’s even been healing.

On my own little channel, corner, maybe I will sing something from Annie, would this be “more authentic?” I am not Annie. Not at all. Both my parents were sick. I went through a fundamental readjustment and in just taking the few videos I’ve posted about Miracle Mile, I believe it makes sense.

Do I really look like that? Just because some of these dreams have stumped me. What is this? Does that mean I look good? Is that what I’m getting? You see, I was sort of looking around this succession of dreams, is this a compliment? Why does it feel like it’s not? Very strange. I know there is so much negativity on these channels, so maybe I am picking up on that. I don’t know.

I am not negative. I was thinking about some show that was picked up off YouTube so I know people get their start on these channels, too. I don’t have a problem with the technology that exists. Nor do I have a problem with TV, film, wanting to perhaps steer myself in that direction. What, you try, you see what works, what doesn’t. I’m in Istanbul so I can put things out there.

I stopped wearing make-up for a while and now I am wearing makeup. If I look attractive, then alright, I’m also trying to be comfortable with who I am, where I come from, and yes, Dr. J. It adds another layer to Once Upon a Time on Miracle Mile. On stage, right, if I decide to do some comedy, I might not wear makeup. But that’s part of what that piece is about, what the truth is, appearances, too. Like my t-shirt. Do you think I’m wearing that seriously, well, yes and no. Costume was another aspect of Dr. J. Plus, Christmas in Naples is a sport, so it was like a team shirt.

Dr. J was attractive, it’s just not easy to say that even due to her hyperreal look, the wigs. Dr. J had her make-up professionally done, it was even theatrical. It depends on the time of day but still. This was a glam glam character, a prodigy, the one who made the cash, who came from nothing. So, she doesn’t give a shit. You know? Even that. Just breaking down her character, she might defy one’s expectations.

She might have had some rage around some of these expectations, in my serious nine-year-old squinting, analyzing, studying. It’s funny, it is, that I found this so fascinating. I am destined to become her, huh, looking around at the world at large. I am that young. The no, I do not have to, brings me to another “truth” which is “all women become their mothers.” Not an option. Doesn’t have to be true. And “yes it does,” we might even insist on the truth that we know to the detriment of someone else.

One should not teach this to children, especially those who come out of my type of situation. Remember, this woman said that the reason why she didn’t call the cops…foster care. That’s it. That’s also a truth. So, in a sense, imagine yourself at four, in this situation. Some people don’t even remember four, I do. A lot happened when I was four. Foster care. Very real.

I’m just using TikTok. For me, I’m just posting videos, having a good time, and reflecting on what value can come from my stories. So, then, when I had this dream, I didn’t understand why I had terrible feelings. I just don’t understand that perspective. God bless. That’s my approach. I do not get off on judging people. I do not have strict superior artistic guidelines, but then, I do, I’m trying to present myself and my stories with care. Again I’ll refine as I go. Who knows, maybe a publisher might say, hey, that’s quite a story. Thank you. Here’s a sample of Christmas in Naples is a Sport. I guess I have my own hang-ups about it, and? Moving on.

Thanks to my videos, I will probably be able to put together a book proposal for Once Upon a Time on Miracle Mile faster than Christmas in Naples is a Sport. “The truth” as a subject is thought-provoking…being able to play in space where the audience might be able to reflect on how an image, me, can be projected on. Like costume. You think you know what you’re looking at. Maybe not. Could someone play this to your disadvantage? Even keeping in mind that I chose this t-shirt on purpose. “Did she know what she was doing…?” That was a question people asked me about Dr. J.

There was so much reality and unreality in Miracle Mile. And yes, how one becomes who they are, very interesting to me at nine years old. It begins in childhood. I understood that.

In looking at myself, in taking in my story, I drew all sorts of conclusions about myself, even, that were not true. No, I didn’t come from, well, yes, I came from quite a house. Absolutely. There’s probably a little more reality rather than sparkles around me, yes. I’m sure. I suppose that’s age too, but picture someone even more attractive than me, which is not my point, in sequins, fur coats, and wigs. My mother was very very attractive. Very fair, as in white. Very white.

“Did you see how quiet it got?”

I can just picture myself on stage, I didn’t know that this word was so touchy, is it? I know I am white, looking around. Is it about race? Does it have to be about race? Um, okay. A joker, I’m telling you, I could craft a joker out of her. “Once upon a time on Miracle Mile,” I could use the language “she was the whitest woman I have ever seen…” Since that was also true. That’s basically what the Brazilian mother said. She was remarkably pale. Nothing wrong with that, obviously.

I don’t know what to say about these dreams last night, someone I don’t like popped up that I just do not agree with. Goodbye. People develop work, themselves, in many ways. I had to minority untangle viewpoints that were useless. If I have my own problems with these channels, then fine, but just get over it. It’s just a space that exists. And my story, the whole point, is that I’m going to write about, I am, and share with that with world so that would include this one.

Miracle Mile, even my mother, might be rather topical. Luckily, I have Arendt, for example, whose work really supported me in thinking about these years, her.

One’s relationship to beauty, even. In the eye of the beholder. Truth? For example, “no one,” my friend said, “thinks that someone as pretty as you is going to be as nice as you are.” Earnest. That adjective. Is that a truth? Is this another truth? Not my perspective. Did her beauty factor into her pathology, it was my question at four, in a way, and what was the world’s relationship to beauty, I was operating from a simple standpoint. Do people know what makes them beautiful?

And then, I think about Dr. J, the villain. Haha. So nice, just so nice. You never met someone sweeter. You know what I mean? She fascinated me beyond my own connection to her.

The rainbows, that’s more for the essay or story because of the way that the chandelier would cast rainbows across the foyer, I studied them. The lambada playing, heartbreak. The rainbows on the sprinklers outside, the grass so green. Picture perfect.

From a certain standpoint, coming out of a story like that, getting in touch with the reality of it, I prefer to hold the perspective that my experience and success in clearing that up, even questioning what was really going on, unfortunately, might be able to serve others. Not the same story, not the same person, sort of, as one might expect after reopening all this. My undercover investigation, in particular. Which is great, I think, for the main character being a child, too, who then walks up the hill to St. Jerome’s to factor religion into the equation. I really did this. This was my preoccupation.

I think that if there’s also a truth to be aware of, it’s punishment and putting someone down because they don’t fit in. Hierarchy too.

Don’t be different, don’t even be novel.

“Well, of course you would feel this way,” even if my story does not compare. But then, that would suggest that there are fundamental truths, that’s what people believe, no? And they might seriously affect one’s ability to see the situation as clear as day.

The point is to uplift a person from the seat of their own experience. That helped me.

Since the “motherless child” thing had its effect. Not true. My father wasn’t even important. He was older. Now, they fact can swing in a variety of directions.

I cannot change that we have expectations, even in how divorce works. Again, it’s not that it isn’t true, that’s not my point, but does it have to be true? No, now, we’re getting into murky waters…as in…nature? I noticed a billboard in Los Angeles, an anti-marijuana ad, where a girl was passed out on the couch and a teenage boy was leering to…rape her? Is that what you’re teaching children? Like, if I have a boy or girl, I’m offended. These sorts of truths. So, now, switch them.

In thinking about change, if you can identify what “the truth is” which some people don’t want to see, that’s another truth, “you cannot handle the truth,” and Tom Cruise was upset, and identity what we’d like the truth to be then you create a long-term plan since many of these truths cannot be adjusted in the short-term so I’ve thought about it quite a lot. That’s the aspect of Miracle Mile that gave me solace, looking for meaning, and potentially a story that wasn’t basic. It wasn’t!

This was a minefield, a field day, of truths being flipped, um, in all sorts of directions, so I can break it down to that kind of exquisite detail. And then, there’s the experience I went through in reopening all these years. What repression is, what a four-year-old is, and if you read the one memory I have in my house, thank you. Just like, ahhhh. Ahhhh. So, I’ve obviously spoken to others who have been molested, and that’s the word, and these people should not be rejected or treated like they exist on some disconnected island. It’s a rather large island. That’s just that.

It was the subject of these four years.

I can take what I’ve learned from these women and think about Miracle Mile also from that perspective since I wondered if my mother had been, “once upon a time.” Legends. Stories that carry on. Repeat themselves. It was sort of a tale. I had to de-program pretty much all of it. We’re very real, our experiences are real, they have a real effect, and the buffoonery, in the literal meaning of that term, of it doesn’t scare me, but I understand that it might have an effect. Not sure.

I found it offensive but even that. What’s offensive.

My father’s behavior was downright suspicious. He ended up having an illness that he denied and there were several people with me, one in particular, when I was on that call with his doctor. “Ten years?” I repeated the phrase so that my friend at the time would hear me. “You told him ten years ago that he has Parkinson’s.” What happened after that, don’t know. I said that to my surrogate mother at the time, too.

You’ll see, I’ll be posting the phone call, him calling this Brazilian house. Not picking me up. I missed that step. I asked him, why didn’t you just pick me up. Yes, I get the story, but something doesn’t connect. I could, no, end up going to investigators, social workers, or people who have experience with these kinds of profiles. I might reach out to those who would be willing to talk to me about strange psychological scenarios that they might have found themselves in rather young. There’s a whole world out there. And it amazes me.

In my dream, a healer came through and we went to a group. That helped. We were in Brownsville, also, for unknown reasons. I had to observe her, observe some of these energies that I’ve been dealing with. I don’t have a problem reaching out with the story that I have to see if someone goes—yeah. That one. I’m just telling it for now, but as a performance, that’s something else, since it was, it was a performance. A tour de force.

Again, TikTok, even, is so new, social media is still relatively new, it’s just the world isn’t the same, so who knows what directions these channels will take? With TikTok, it’s a TV channel. I sort of get that. I’m not exactly looking to gain millions of followers, off the bat, and that’s not even the approach I’m taking. It’s step by step, Miracle Mile. Very smart. The BH t-shirt, meaning, Ladera Heights. But BH was the goal, the destination.

Even if I came from BH, it doesn’t excuse her behavior, but money, money, money, you see, that’s a real player in these four years. Oh no, I don’t see the world through that lens, well, depending on who you are. This t-shirt is just available for sale in Turkey. No one, I don’t know, attributes that much meaning to it, but I could be wrong. It made me laugh because of all these factors involved. Culture, too.

I do not know what to say about these dreams I’ve been having, I suppose that might come with the territory. People with opinions that I know, don’t know, and some mystery person around this crazy message I received physically in my gut…since this energy keeps on popping up. I reject this energy totally, completely. This is not power. I’ve had these dreams I wish I didn’t have. It’s fine, but it’s maybe something, even, just coming forward with that and feeling support from people I don’t even know.

Again, I don’t know what was going in my house, and in my case, I wish—and not—that it had been properly investigated.

Already, in putting up some videos, I can see how I can make the storytelling of what I’m doing better, clearer, in framing what these expectations and truths were at play. I’m just trying to take you through the basics first. I have to start somewhere. The phone call with my father—wow. Ring ring. Hey! Look at me, just a nice guy calling, striking up a conversation with a total stranger. “WHO? MARIA? OF COURSE,” of course you can talk to her.

There’s something rather delicious in this play, no? Maybe not for some, but the farce, the buffoon, the pitching herself back HAHA, making herself as open as humanly possible, putting on this performance for me, she’s right here. We all know. We all know what’s going on. But it had an unreal effect. I guess my mother did too. “She cried real tears.” And? It’s just hard to believe. Also, to put that aside, she vehemently looked into my eyes, “if you tell me,” and she showed the one little hair, that a person touches a hair on a child’s head, I’m going to kill that person.

But no one spoke to me in the real. Again, understanding can be extended to her, in that, who wants to do that? To have that kind of conversation with a four-year-old?

So, that’s just what happened. We were literally performing. All the same, in an actual play of it, one would have license, creative license to really lay that reality on thick, even push it further. It was already on that level, so that brings me to consider another truth. I might as well start tap dancing shoes, now did I literally tap dance? Almost. There’s something true about pushing the truth to an undeniable point, in your face. Well, that’s what it was.

The truth is: at five, four, I was a problem. I was the problem. And that might be a truth, sorry, like a child molester, that one might not want to face, but many children are blamed very young for all sorts of reasons. So, what did this woman save me from? I had to put on an adult investigator hat, breaking down the story I was given, told, because I was four. What did she do for you? To break this down. WHAT did you save me from?

My father said it too, I promise you. “After everything she’s done for you…” think about that.

I was so confused. Huh. At nine, ten.

“Put sunscreen on your nose.”

Her performance at the tennis club is practically award-worthy. It’s not that it wasn’t true, real, since performance can be very real, very true, alright. Effective. In comparison to Dr. J too, it supports the outrageous person that she was. It demonstrates more and more truths, that some might call lies, too, such as “she was asking for it.” Now, in my undercover investigation, let us go to New Jersey to speak with Aunt Jane about this subject. “She was asking for it.” Very very interesting. A woman from the Great Depression.

“Well was she?” Some women do. We fought about this.

So then, I read Post Office, and that scene was hard to read, the woman who kept screaming rape at him in little clothes. I had to put it down.

La Brasiliane pointed, she was asking for it! It was nuts. So, this was a sick person. How the world responded to her, this world I was in, sort of fascinating as well in relationship to that. Punishment. It might have been unusual but there’s use in a story like that. Do I overanalyze, just edit it, not that big of a deal. You can edit more easily than exploring the territory. I learned that at Lecoq.

I’m doing well, I just continue onward, I just don’t appreciate these dreams. I had a beer yesterday and maybe that’s a touch too abrasive too, so I will see if that helps. So, this message I received a couple of years ago hit me in the gut, so I can feel sensitive in that area, maybe I am more in touch with sensation. It’s more of what I really felt, if that makes sense, than what I didn’t, and the feelings I can experience in simply sharing this story when I’ve heard all sorts of stories being shared on these channels, and I am not even that arrogant or aggrandizing in believing myself to be more than one in a billion, forget million.

I’ve hardly ever interacted with Dr. J. A few times after these four years. And I’ll take you through that as well. My undercover investigation. The many truths still at play. Like, this woman, again, what the truth is, telling me that the way my mother handled me was inappropriate, disturbing, even. She showed that in her physicality to be very clear. Weird to imagine anyone saying any of this…without reality. To put this on me? For what reason? Do people understand what a four-year-old is, what trauma does, what it means to be disconnected? And then, “have you heard from your mother?” And, “did he?” Just to make sure, that he wasn’t a child molester after these four years were over.

Did this Brazilian woman have any conversations with my father post this one, this one, in the Italian, where she basically feeds him that he’s not a child molester, since she’s coming to these conclusions without anyone even there, as far as I know. My mother being a liar, is one thing. I’m just saying. What if it was true? Didn’t matter.

I don't quite know how to come up with articles quite yet but “both my parents were ill,” that’s a real truth I came to, and that’s taking me some time, even, because this is all recent. I could write that. I’ve been really, truly, anchoring myself in my woman, divine feminine, rather than masculine as of late in the Hagia Sophia. In this religion, culture, all that. I’ve been meditating on psychology as architecture.

What holds us up, what holds the world up, opposing forces, tension, even artistry.

I apparently had “all the adopted stuff,” but I believe that’s more or less cleared up. I cannot speak to having been adopted. This whole story unfolded around that basic fact: they were both sick. A very different debut. Much more understandable. So, beginning to look up research, in the position I am in now, not about adopted kids, it’s just taken me some time. My parents were ill. And both would deny that. Even in this situation.

I can’t always explain these dreams but I suppose making a statement or coming forward with a perspective might come with reactions.

Anyway, I was thinking about costume, appearances, what people don’t put together. I was a storytelling coach for a company in Paris, and politicians came through the door. I’ve never been more giddy. Look at their outfits. “No, they didn’t plan that.” Yes, they did. Everything tells a story.

“Did she mean to do what she did?”

People asked me that about Dr. J.

Performance was a key attribute of hers. Stunningly so. I found her fascinating for many reasons, unable to even consider how this made me feel. How would someone feel at four, in this situation? How would someone feel four years later, staring at rainbows, um, my mother so brilliantly crazy that my father—the story changed. I know. With me, since I had some people in college, in particular, who asked me questions around this story, what did I learn? Since what Dr. J reflected, what this situation reflected was fascinating to me.

“I know,” well “you know,” you know how it is, how the world works. The “I know” isn’t even a critique. I know what this was. Based on what you’re saying, based on superior intelligence as well, education, that it was this. Not “probably this.” When you might not. I say that more in looking at the Brazilian woman. A mother of six. Someone who had many children. She believed her, then didn’t, then she feels so bad that she ends up siding with my father…though he’s not doing anything, really. Then, she asks me later, just to make sure.

I came out of a particular upbringing. Not bad. Not the worst. I was just reading some updates from a friend who works as an attorney for foster care kids, which I thoroughly appreciate, and that made me lucky. I didn’t go to foster care.

Developing this is more meaningful to me than “here’s the dish I ate,” or “here are the top ten places” which is fine, I can do that too, but I would rather develop work that is meaningful to me and potentially meaningful for others out there. Just because that was one hell of a story, in how it sort of haunted me too. But then, again, once upon a time on Miracle Mile, my unbelievable story, when you look at statistics, it’s rather unbelievable how believable it should be. And there’s a case to make about it being out of the norm. I guess?

How can one really act around an abuser? How does gender play into this situation, which is, what’s that paper thing that opens with all these sides in your hands? In this. What a woman can do. What a man can do. The gender-conforming individual who posed for me in a “patriarchy has no gender” t-shirt. These sorts of truths. Not true. Well, I can look at Dr. J and present her as a patriarchal character as well. I can break down her psychology, even, from that perspective to evaluate what the truth might be.

I can compare her to other figures, even those who are featured in magazines, to place her in her proper context. The type of profiles that fascinate us. What really exists. I mean I read so many unbelievable things. It’s immense. That’s what interests me about Miracle Mile, what I’m building toward. I suppose I just have to try and keep my objectives clear for myself and try to, I don’t know, protect my energetic space because I should be supported. Right? I’m just doing my thing.

I said for years that I was going to write my story. The basic facts of my life have not changed. If things clear up, even better. If people projected onto me, well, welcome to the world. That’s what people do. Based on my personality, my appreciation of clothes, at the time, many many factors, even how I presented this story and my parents…there was a lot of gunk to clear. Luckily, I did, I’m here.

My mother’s “I love you I love you I love you” performance the few times I saw her, in fact, and let me break down a perspective I had as a child. I had a feeling, no doubt, that she loved me…so picture this sentiment…she just had problems that were bigger than me, so it was not possible. Sure, that and. Not good enough. Unacceptable what she did. This isn’t love. Love is not an ethereal concept, not in my opinion. This is what I mean. I am here today because I was that honest with myself. It’s called standards and we should have them.

My father, too, he loved me, no one loved me more than him except his relationship to me was odd, he was sick, and the person who used language with me would reflect a problem. Not someone who I would trust, in this regard, or I would take her words differently. I’m telling you, reflections. Mirror mirrors on the wall, in my mother’s office, reality itself. What is it? There is one, many. Truly speaking. If we’re talking neurology, that might imply something basic about what reality is.

Someone said that I was “so brave” for being a freelance writer, doing the freelance thing, when I disagree. I think coming forward with the story, that is, my story is what makes me brave.

In my case, it’s funny, I can picture someone asking me about karma, sure, or choices I might have made on some level to be born to these parents. These sorts of concepts. The investigation I conducted about Miracle Mile could be impactful because I was that, a child, which I knew, also, though I had no idea what was going on. And the Brazilian woman was there, she knows I asked her all these questions. It’s just different when the language is…yes, I was investigating you.

It was the intention, knowing no one would even suspect that, thinking about “truths” that might be lies, too, that are TRUE, even insisted upon, what we teach the young so young. All that. I was angry, infuriated, enraged. Some of the truths reflected might not be easy to admit, and then, I can use that to illuminate how something like a child molester might be hard for someone to believe is true. However, not really. You don’t expect someone to lie about that…and on the real end, exactly, and the unreal end.

Lying can run very very deep. Ah, here is my father, on some level. Denial is lying to oneself.

Oh, did the illness do it? Well, looking at my mother, I’m going to extend the same logic. Even if these are different illnesses and no one knows what the roots are. It’s like, sometimes, these ideas can exist without roots, that is, where did they come from? I think that’s fair.

Anyway, I will continue developing my ideas.

Here’s another truth. As an idea, it can even be sentimental. “It’s the best possible time to be alive when everything you thought you knew was wrong,” a Tom Stoppard quote. In practice, however, that might not be so easy. Do people like being wrong? Not in my experience.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of this Brazilian woman. I know what’s going on, no, I know, no. Just what that does. Even what she thought about me, with all her knowledge, truth. Was I going to become my mother? I was a child, which is also the gift in it.

I just had to show up as a parent to myself. I went through so much, just so much about the lie, clung onto that psychologically and that got hellish. This was my whole life.

Just take this snapshot—truth, what’s the truth? My mother talks about rape to the priest every Sunday. I felt something is my room after this and my father tells me that a woman was raped in my room. I’m nine. Then, a hypnotherapist says, “didn’t he have Alzheimer’s at this time?” They say all sorts of stuff. And what is that? In talking about my parents, I need to do supplemental research. Even into the collective, I could that too since people speak about their psychosis, too; that’s rather common today. You see what I mean? What is the reality of this?

I’ll be able to talk about what I actually wrestled with along with some tensions, problems, absolutely, there’s nothing wrong in discussing that, that surfaced as a result of beginning to write my story and how I resolved them. And I’m psychic, which I don’t totally understand, and no one has helped me that much in understanding it. So, again, I’ve sort of put that aside.

I thought about Harris as a prodigal person, someone who might have been psychic, also, so it’s not to say that’s not true, since she seemed to be tuned in, in a particular way. It’s just that, the talk about me being an antenna (Sufi would nod, exactly), portal, channel, traveling on multiple planes of existence, I would prefer moving outside this language. Especially since the people who use it might not be comfortable with publicly stating that but I’m supposed to…it’s true, apparently, but again, I’ll leave that be.

I’m having a really good time doing what I’m doing. I’ve never been better, you know, in all the ways. Sometimes, I suppose I’ve had to deal with my experience as having been real “once upon a time” and go through some of these feelings that I couldn’t in the past. I mean, if my mother tried to call, which she never has, it would be a very very different person on the phone. A Zen Master Sybil (just love that, because she was a zen master psychologist with the middle name Sybil), tried to get rage out of me. Like my reaction, and she really held onto me, put the force of rage into me, and I appreciated it, DID NOT make sense. It’s just to say.

I don’t know what the point of social media is though it’s about community, message, I’ve heard. I’m developing things, sharing what I have, and I’m actually enjoying that. It’s taken a moment to figure out but talking out loud feels a little more natural to me right now. My cousins are hilarious. Christmas in Naples is hilarious. Were you expecting pool? Were you expecting it? Christmas Eve menu.

I love my cousins and these videos.

It’s not exactly the tone of the book but their response to my story was really touching, too. I suppose I wasn’t as pronounced a character as Zoolander, but a character in Naples is nothing new, nothing to discourage either. But some of my moves, which they more or less appreciated, and that made me laugh, makes sense in the physicality of it. Hiding from the cookies, transparently, I’m trying to be clear, and unoffensive. I was a Neapolitan every step of the way, sure.

Just this conversation from last night I was writing. Me telling my cousins about this Brazilian family requesting that I take my elbows off the table during dinner. “Absurd.” Completely absurd. Even angry. And then, I’m trying to tell them how big of a problem. I was! ME! I slid my elbows down, INCH BY INCH, good, yes, obviously. Until my pinky remained. I put it there.

Show me an Italian, my cousins said, bring me an Italian who is going to eat with their elbows off the table? Of course, I revolted, this is even cultural. Truly. Did these people understand that you were Italian? Plus, I wasn’t in MY HOUSE WHY ARE YOU THERE? Is this NOT what you were asking? Why am I here? And conversation is really like that there.

So much fun, the sport of it, ricotta, cheese, whacking the responses, the chorus coming to support the moment around cheese. WHAT CHEESE, Maria, what cheese? We’re discussing it. Brilliant performers.

It made me laugh, cry, thinking about my Neapolitan relatives busting in on this story and taking me out of it. At least. The chaos will settle in time. So you went through hell, Franco Franzese stirred his risotto, “Dante,” okay, this was Dante once again, and everyone in my family calls me Dante, for real, and his name is on every piazza, so this is the point. At least, they know that hell is a real place. They kept comparing me to Dante, quoting Dante, because my story sounded like Dante to them.

I needed to just work through that today. And I am writing about my life right now which can bring up an array of feelings. It’s mostly Miracle Mile and posting this on social media. I would prefer being on stage but that’s sort of what social media is. Like I get people use it personally. I’m just in a particular place right now, clearing noise, actually.

The Beverly Hills T-shirt is good, I think. I’ve been thinking about comedy a lot over the past couple of years. As a context, it offered me relief. This story was buffoon, it was even hysterical. Dr J was hysterical. Sometimes, it was all we could do, and I was young, so in looking back on this, in sort of connecting to this person, I might have looked at this Brazilian woman…what were you doing? It’s the laughter, we sometimes had to, we both couldn’t believe it. For a while, it was almost like a purge, I guess. I also just loved to laugh. Wanting to connect.

But again, I told her not to hold back. I was studying this. I didn’t say that exactly. This was the only way to get to know her. She blasted trust to smithereens.

So, how did my mother…that first conversation go?

“Here! Take her,” laughter, she’d never seen anything like it. How funny. Why did she hate me? Not always. She had strange ties to this as well. It was just terrible, it’s true. One would have to understand that she was affected by what she did too, you know, and she asked me after all this to confirm whether my father was a child molester or not, which would introduce an element of doubt. Do you see what I mean? Very different story, same situation.

Crazy right? I really thought about it, that’s the other thing. I really thought about this. Deeply. It might not make sense, it wasn’t going to make sense, for a while, but if I have this intention, if I press record, if I just listen, maybe one day, it will begin to make sense. It’s astonishing to me that I was really in this situation and it took a journey to bring it into reality. But now, I can see people saying that makes sense as a psychological drama, absolutely. I just took a novel approach, I guess, rather young, but again, me being a rookie psychologist in this already speaks magnitudes.

What do you do with a wild card? You might just play it. I meant what I did, you see, investigating this, conducting my experiments, just a few, especially after these four years. Reality itself was a subject of fascination. Intention, focus, all this. And my teeth were growing in. Like, no, no way you planned to lie, not exactly, that would be simplistic if I was being totally honest. I set up a psychological container, my words, and I was going to lie for the purposes of good. It was a major problem. I believed I would be understood later. And I had to understand how a woman could lie like that. I had to forget about the intention, obviously, to have no attachment to the experiment (haha) to make it as real as possible. I had to wait for the impulse to lie. Again, what the truth is, that’s what interested me about the lies. I was a kid reasoning with the understanding that I had, also.

But if there was one person I wanted to bring down, it was Dr. J. I will admit that even if I had nothing but heart for her, maybe too much, just because I couldn’t imagine the house she came out of—very real, Dr. J. Very very real. There is reality, no? This is what I mean. Why was it so unreal? Just thinking about the utter disconnection. She was an addict. Also. But in terms of her guilt, it’s not my problem, but guilt as a detrimental emotion is another truth. White guilt, have I not heard this?

Then, I think about emotion as an entry point into mental illness. Our obsession with mind, for example, might be mental.

Pity, shame, guilt, punishment.

I have to just move past these moments and keep going. My digital nomad mate said “you’ll get haters too” which for him, was part of the fun of it. I can’t comment on that but that’s fine, I haven’t even received any comments. I don’t get these dreams often, it’s just when I do, I don’t understand them. If they are a product of being in a freer state, more in touch with the reality of all that, because I can, myself, extend some sympathy toward myself that that was harsh, not the harshest, but yeah. No one knew what was going on.

Once Upon a Time on Miracle Mile. Let us analyze the truth even from Dr. J perspective, as I understood it as a child, analyzing her behavior in church, even, maybe taking her real past into account. Probably poverty, no? Based on her operation. Maybe a remarkable person in her own right, the type of person that one might, sit beside her at the piano, organ, no, and wonder if she might play something. How did you learn? That you were a prodigy? After all, she was saved from this situation because she was a genius. So, what does that mean?

See you later, gotta get to my draft and keep on setting up my videos.

I also subscribe to the Marshall Project so there are all sorts of stories out there. I just have to anchor myself sometimes in that fact. Do you know what I mean? And that was the other motivation, criminality and madness in relation to society. And that was her…job. Her first client was typically about the go to jail. What does that mean? I don’t know.

Thanks!