Sunday, 7/18/99

All weekend, the news about John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane. The Coast Guard boats, the gray water, the reporters standing on a beach not knowing anything, hour after hour. Dr. Weiss says to turn it off when it gets to be too much. It got to be too much. I kept it on.

I was nine when his father died. I remember the funeral on our black-and-white set, my mother crying at the ironing board, that little boy saluting. Everybody my age has that picture in their head. Nobody on TV will say it out loud yet, but you can see it on their faces.

Maureen called at nine and said, "Turn it off, Deb." I did. We watched a Frasier rerun together over the phone instead, her in her living room and me in mine, laughing at the same time four miles apart.

Tuesday, 6/29/99

Paxil, day one.

Dr. Weiss and my regular doctor, Dr. Anand, have been talking, and they agreed, and the drugstore delivered it this afternoon in a white paper bag stapled shut. I took the first one with a glass of milk and then sat on the couch waiting to feel different, which I know is silly.

They tell me it takes weeks. Four to six, maybe more. I told Dr. Weiss, "I'm very good at waiting. I've been waiting in this living room for three years." She said, "Then let's wait for something, for a change."

I wrote the date on the calendar by the phone and drew a little star next to it. Maureen asked what the star was for. I said I'll tell her in six weeks.

Saturday, 5/15/99

Maureen turned forty-eight today. The family took her to the Italian place on Ridge Road where we used to go for every birthday. I sent a card with Stan and a note that said "Order the veal."

At a quarter past ten tonight my doorbell rang, and it was Maureen, in her good dress, holding a piece of birthday cake on a paper plate with foil over it. She said, "You're not getting out of cake just because you won't come to cake."

We ate it on the porch in the dark with our shoes off. She says it was the best part of her birthday. She's a liar, but she's my liar.

Wednesday, 4/21/99

I don't have anything smart to say about Colorado. I watched all yesterday afternoon and all of today. Kids running out of that school with their hands on their heads. Parents waiting for names.

People who don't have what I have think I'm afraid of "outside." I'm not, exactly. I'm afraid of being afraid somewhere I can't get out of. This isn't that. This is just sad, all the way down.

At ten I turned it off and called Maureen and asked her to tell me something boring. She talked about her gutters for twenty minutes. God bless her.

Monday, 3/8/99

A reader in Michigan e-mailed to ask how it started. Here's the short version.

February 1996. A Saturday, the grocery store, the checkout line, a full cart. Out of nowhere my heart went wild, I couldn't get a breath, my hands went numb, and I was absolutely sure I was dying right there next to the gum and the magazines. I left the cart. I drove home. The emergency room said my heart was fine.

It happened again at the bank. Then in the car on the highway. Then in the car on our own street. Every place it happened went on the list. By summer the list was "everywhere but home."

Gary lasted until the spring of 1997. I don't blame him as much as I used to. It's hard to be married to someone whose whole world is a split-level.

That's how it started. How it ends, I'm working on.

Friday, 1/15/99

The computer came from a catalog in December. It took me three weeks and a thick book with a yellow cover to get this page up. Maureen says I need a hobby that isn't the television. So here is a hobby about the television.

Hello. I'm Deb. I don't go out much. I watch a lot of TV and I have opinions.

This week everybody is talking about a new HBO show about a mob boss who sees a psychiatrist. Well, I see a psychologist, by telephone, every Tuesday at two, and nobody's making a show about me. Although I would watch it.

What I plan to put here: what I watched, what I thought about it, and once in a while how the rest of it is going. Lucy, my cat, will make appearances. She's named for Lucille Ball, and she has about as much dignity.

It's snowing. From in here, it's beautiful.

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