2:58 pm - Mon 7/9/07
An Emotional Thursday Night

Just got back from walking Lady, the sheltie I walk for Mark, my upstairs neighbor...

Thursday was an emotional night--I saw Javier, my therapist, for the first time in a couple weeks (he was out of the country one week, and I had my Passions gig the next), then I saw Michael Moore's Sicko at ArcLight.

I've been...struggling emotionally for awhile now, and "holding it in", for the most part; I didn't tell Javier about it the last time I saw him, it didn't come up when I visited Cary and Kay (Maybe because that provided a "break in the gloom"), and I don't think I said anything about it when Mark and Jane called recently.

And I haven't given it "full voice" in here, in spite of my professed desire to be more "honest" about what's going on in my life--Good, bad, or somewhere in-between.

And I don't know what all this "withholding" is about. Do I think people won't care? That they're tired of my shit? Do I just not want to be pathetic, coming off as always being "depressed" about something?

I don't know.

Anyway, when I saw Javier, after a couple week's layoff...well, I wouldn't say the dam burst, exactly, but sad, anxious thoughts were expressed, and tears were shed.

Did it help? I don't know.

The two things that came out of it?

1. Javier threw out the option of giving me a referral to a psychiatrist, and trying some anti-anxiety medication.

(I'll be writing about that more in a future entry.)

2. He also said it was important I find some way to "get out more" (Which is the same thing Kathy B. suggested the last time she emailed me).

That poses challenges on a couple levels (Again, I'll be addressing those "challenges" in an upcoming entry), but I know it's something I need to do--A big part of my current upset is that I'm really bored, and really lonely; I need life to be a little more than going to my crappy job, then coming home and playing on the computer or watching tv, with only the odd audition or workshop to break up the tedium.

Anyway, after therapy (It was Thursday this past week because of the holiday), I rode my bike to ArcLight and saw Sicko.

I know the big HMO lobby, and the politicians they pay for, are going to come out with guns blazing, saying "this isn't true", or "that was staged" or "this is misleading", and tell us horror stories about socialized medicine in other countries, but to me, it's hard to deny that something is horribly wrong when people die because they don't have health insurance, or their health insurance provider just doesn't want to pay out, when people, confused and disoriented, are dumped out on "skid row" here in L.A.--wearing nothing but their hospital gowns--because they can't pay their bill.

People might accuse him of overstating the case, or grandstanding, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it, but I think you do have to wonder, when hearing these stories, "Who are we?".

This is the best America, the supposed "Leader Of The Free World", can do? This is how much human life is valued? Is making money really the be-all-and-end-all of our lives, of our society, to the point that we're willing for people to die if it helps the bottom line?

Anyway, if you haven't seen the movie yet, you should.

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