Obsessive Love

If creative work protects a man from mental illness, it is small wonder that he pursues it with avidity. Creative activity is a particularly apt way to express himself—the activity is solitary—but the ability to create and the productions which result from such ability are generally regarded as possessing value by our society.
-Sylvia Nasar
A BEAUTIFUL MIND

Twenty-five years ago today:

April 11, 1987
Saturday

Suzy Miller called me but I wasn’t home. When I returned her call at 10AM or so she wasn’t home, so I left a message on her answering machine.

Johnny Schaefer called from L.A.
I said, “I may go down there the end of this month when I have my pretend poison oak illness.”
He laughed.
Now that I am writing my thoughts I don’t think I will go. I doubt it.

I was reading that letter I received from Irene Keenan who wrote me from New York and she is flying-in to the Bay Area on April 26th.  I feel I should show her around. I am certainly not obligated to do so, so I may not. I do need that time off for myself. I need some solitary time. I just may take the time off sooner.

I attempted a bike ride but got an unexpected flat tire. I guess flat tires are never expected. I coaxed my fair, beautiful and caring mother into driving over to pick me up after calling her from a telephone booth. I walked with my bike up to Doolittle Drive where she picked me up in Dad's truck and drove me to the bike shop.

I made it over to ISLAND BICYCLES where my flat tire was repaired. I happened to bump into Ron, the buff ex-windsurfer, and we talked for a while. I tried ‘biking it’ again and made the mistake of deciding to put more air in my back tire. I needed a special adaptor to do that in my BIANCHI Italian wheels; whereby, I lost most of the air in the back tire and had to walk my bike to KINGS BIKE SHOP on Webster Street to get it pumped correctly. It wasn’t meant for me to ride today.

PHOTO: Actor Simon MacCorkindale, (b. 1952 d. 2010)

I went to mom’s house later and played with my niece, Lauren. I slept and had a nice ‘din din’ with ma and pa. I went to SAFEWAY for a variety of desserts and returned to mom and dad’s pad to watch that movie called OBSESSIVE LOVE.  

The OBSESSIVE LOVE movie was about Yvette Mimieux as a plain, mousy travel agent who is dominated by her mother. Her favorite TV show is some soap opera where she has this fascination with her favorite character named ‘Michael’, played by actor Simon MacCorkindale who was in the TV-series FALCON CREST.   Yvette resists socializing with people, preferring to fantasize about ‘Michael’. After telling her mother she is engaged she takes a trip to Los Angeles and reinvents herself with a new wardrobe and sexy, new look as she sets out to meet ‘Michael’. She succeeds and Michael’s life begins to unravel.

Thus on the scroll for the spring:
The peach flowers bloom upon the trees,
Not knowing whether the frost will kill them.


The summer scroll:
The hot sun burns, the thunder drums the sky.
The cicadas sing endlessly, unheeding.


The autumn scroll:
The red leaves fall, and all the court is still.
I tread the leaves and under my feet they die.


The winter scroll:
Snow covers the living and the dead,
The green pine tree, the perished flowers.


These four poems reached to the bottom of her heart and made her want to cry.
Compel her mind as she might, she could not remember her own mother’s face or her father’s voice.
-Pearl S Buck
PEONY