Protect me

I’m going to acknowledge something and move on, because I don’t want to dwell on it. Current Events have had me scared shitless since yesterday afternoon, when I read an old New Yorker article online. I’m fucking scared that the disease that the World Health Organization officially declared “eradicated” in 1979 or 1980 is going to return in weapons form. I read a description of its effects, effects that began occurring when the virus first entered the human race approximately 12,000 years ago and that have not been seen since the virus was “eradicated” 20 years ago. As described, the effects are absolutely awful. If, God forbid, I ever get this virus, I hope someone will flood my body with anesthesia and put me out of my misery. Last night I had unsettling dreams, and I woke up this morning totally anxious, and I felt that way throughout most of today, interrupted only by lunch at a Greek restaurant with some coworkers.

Sometimes, when I get a thought that really troubles me, I find myself unable to stop thinking about it. I can’t control the anxiety, and this makes me feel like I don’t control my own mind.

I used to be scared of getting HIV until a very nice testing counselor calmed my fears back in March and reminded me that HIV is not a form of punishment for gay sex or even for promiscuity, and that if you are always safe then you should have little to worry about. So in March, even before my test results came back a very thankful negative, my fears had gone away, and from March through September 11 I was feeling pretty good. And then the world changed, and now I’m afraid of getting a horrible disease that is completely out of my control. Okay, so it’s completely out of my control, so why bother worrying about it? I wish I could stop. I wish I could turn my brain off.

You could die at any time, though. You could get hit by a car, you could get struck by lightning, whatever. My parents’ friends’ 19-year-old daughter just died of leukemia last week. Anything can happen. This is something that TV commercials never tell you: someday you will die. Most definitely. The reason they don’t tell you is because they want you to think that if you buy things, you will live forever. But you won’t. You will die. Even if you buy a Toyota. You don’t know when it will happen, though, so all you can do is maximize your daily happiness, find something to enjoy every day.

I know that if I should happen to die suddenly, I will leave behind this body of writing. It’s what I’ve always wanted to leave behind — my words. Through words, writers achieve immortality. Shakespeare lives today. So does Plato. So does Mary Chesnut. So does someone’s random deceased grandfather whose diary is stored in his grandson’s attic.

There was once an episode of “The X-Files” in which a woman hoped to achieve immortality by uploading her soul onto the Internet. I didn’t quite understand it, plot-wise. But anyway, her action wasn’t necessary. All you have to do to achieve immortality is create something. Keep a diary. Write music. Make people happy. Give people fond memories. Aggressively promote your humanity.

And hey — if you happen to keep a blog, then you really have uploaded your soul onto the Internet.

In other news, tonight my mom and I saw Neil Simon’s newest play, 45 Seconds From Broadway, which is still in previews. We sat in the very front row. The play wasn’t great, but it made us laugh, and that’s important. There were a couple of dead-on portrayals of middle-aged Matinee Ladies, and Marian Seldes (whom I last saw in “The Play About the Baby”) was comical as usual. The play didn’t really stick together and the plot was minimal and unengaging. I think that Neil Simon today just cranks out a play a year without trying very hard. I mean, it’s not like he has to put in any effort anyway; his name is enough to get a play produced, no matter how so-so it is. But these days you go to a Neil Simon play for laughs, and that’s what we got, and I was very grateful for it.

It was also nice to spend an evening with my mom.

After the show, outside the theater, I gave her a big hug and we parted ways. I felt a pang of sadness. I wanted to go home with her, take the bus back home, back to my parents’ house, and sleep there, sleep in my old room even though it’s now a guest room, stay there, forever, protected from this big, awful, horrible world.
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