11:47 p.m. - Wed 10/22/03
A Diaryland Sorbet

Well, I called my doctor today about Provigil.

He can't prescribe it for me.

He's never heard of it.

(This was my M.D., Dr Azizi. A nice enough guy--The couple times I've gone to him, he's been very concerned, very much the Jewish mother about my not having a girlfriend--but I'm fairly sure he didn't graduate at the top of his class in med school.)

So I called Dr. Montagano, the otolaryngologist (sp?) I went to once when I needed to be re-diagnosed for sleep apnea (In order to get a new CPAP machine).

He wasn't there.

His receptionist took my name and number, and said he'd call me back tomorrow.

(This is the doctor who kept me waiting for an hour on my first and only visit, tossing off maybe the most perfunctory apology I've ever gotten once we finally met. It got us off to a bad start, to say the least!.)

Now, I've had occasion to call Dr M. a couple times, regarding this or that sleep apnea/throat-related isssue (I remember once wanting to know if he was aware of somnoplasty, and if he could perform the procedure, or at least advise me on who could), and he has never called me back.

I'm guessing he'll remain true-to-form, and not call me back tomorrow.

So I'll either call him back sometime during the day, or barring that, see if I can dig up my provider book and find another guy to get my information from.

Maybe one who's a little less of an asshole.

(If you're wondering why I keep trying to deal with this guy if he's such an asshole...well, I'm kind of wondering about that too, now that you mention it. It's been awhile, but I think the deal was that there weren't many throat doctors on our provider list, and this guy was closest.)

Two celebrity sightings in recent weeks I've forgotten to mention...

One afternoon, I was at the register, doing the retail thing that is my raison d'etre, when a woman put two magazines down on the counter ("Buffy" and "Angel" fan mags, to be specific).

I looked up, and saw that it was Juliet Landau, who plays "Drusilla", a continuing character on both shows (For the uninitiated, Juliet Landau is Martin Landau's daughter, and "Drusilla" is a vampire who happens to be quite insane. In other words, a double-dose of freaky/scary).

Thinking on my feet, as I can still sometimes do, I did a "take", from her to the magazines and back again. And bless her heart--If she wasn't genuinely amused, she at least had the decency to act like it. She laughed, and said there were some interviews in each magazine she wanted to see (That was kind of disappointing; You do an interview for a magazine, and you don't even get a complimentary copy?).

I told her how much I enjoyed her work ("The only thing scarier than a vampire is an insane vampire, I always say..."), and asked if she was going to be on this season of Angel (She is).

Then, still in my "I really want you to remember me" mode, I said I've wanted to be a bad guy on Angel, but saw the actor who plays "Gunn" in the store, and once I saw how big he was (David Boreanz--"Angel"--is not a small guy himself, for that matter), I realized I'd have to play the sort of bad guy who sends his henchmen in to do the real dirty work.

She played along, saying--in a "Drusilla"-ish voice--"Get 'em, Boys...!", which I thought was pretty funny.

Anyway, she was very nice.

A couple days later, at night, two women asked me for help while I was at the info counter.

One was fairly ordinary looking, but the other, while very thin, was strikingly beautiful, with a fetching accent to boot (Being from small town America, I usually suck at figuring out where a given accent is from. And I'm embarrassed by that, because as a character actor, I feel like I should really be an accent expert. But anyway...)

Turned out "Strikingly Beautiful" was the one who needed the help. I walked her around, showing her this and that book, making small talk and what have you, generally being as charming as I could be (When she asked for a book on accent reduction, I said, "But why? Your accent is wonderful!").

When she'd gotten everything she needed, and was just looking around the store with her friend, she asked at one point if I had seen "a man in a hat".

Apparently, she come in with "a man in a hat".

The "man in a hat" turned out to be Leonardo Dicaprio, and my beautful woman with the fetching accent was Giselle Bundchen (sp?), his on-again/off-again/on-again girlfriend.

I know what you're thinking--"Big deal, Jim. You got turned on by a skinny 'supermodel'. How stereotypical of you"--but here's the thing: It was actually the second time I've seen her in the store, and the first time, all I found myself thinking was "She's grotesquely skinny...". I wasn't attracted to her in the slightest.

(The first time, she was with Leo, who was essentially the one I was helping. He was looking for books on Alexander The Great, and she was just hanging back.)

I wasn't really even quite sure who she was (Afterwards, when I asked Pat "Was that Giselle...?" he said he didn't think so). All I knew was that I was in love.

Not 100% sure what the difference was. Maybe I was just more comfortable noticing her this time out, without her boyfriend right there ("Yeah Leo, I'm checking out your girlfriend. What are you gonna do about it, Tough Guy...?").

Well, I started this too late, and it's taken too long, to get to anything I really wanted to talk about, but just as well; we'll consider this entry a nice literary sorbet, to "cleanse the palette" between angst-filled entries.

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