still crushed

"I smoke and I drink and every time I blink, I have a tiny dream... but as bad as I am, I'm proud of the fact that I'm worse than I seem." -Ani DiFranco "Grey"

This reminds me of the still-happening breakdown of my heartbroken friend, who is currently checking himself into a "loony bin" (his words, not mine), because he still cannot function like a normal human being. It's been about two months, and there seems no end to the tears and the self-pity. I've tried it all. Empathetic ear, sound advice, all the way to "Ok, enough, she's a fuckin' bitch, now move ON". Nothing has helped. He lives in L.A., so I figured there's got to be some serious kick-ass therapy there, in the land of crazier-than-you-can-ever-imagine-being, right? I mean, next to NYC, where I know we have our share of whackos. So I started suggesting this toward the end of the trip to the middle of shitty nowhere with him, knowing that once his crutch (me) was gone, he would have very little to hold himself up with. He kept saying once he got back to L.A., he would talk to his doctor to get a referral, because he had to work in Vegas for a week first...which amazes me, by the way, because in case you're just tuning into this story, the guy is a comedian. He has to suspend his crippling grief for an hour at a time to make people laugh, and I have to be honest. The shows he did in the middle of nowhere? Some of the funniest shit he's ever done, and I've seen his act at least a kabillion times. Sure, it was bitter and fraught with angry woman jokes, but he killed.

So, he's been back in L.A. for a couple of weeks, and his doctor told him he'd be best off if he checked himself into a treatment center for "mental exhaustion" (aka: you're way too far down the spiral of self-loathing for simple therapy). Getting into the place isn't quite as simple as that, though, because there's all this red tape and insurance approval nonsense, and meanwhile, the guy is driving around the city of angels, aimlessly, trying to figure out why life has handed him this particular variety of crap.

I'm just frustrated for him, and with him (not in the sense that it's his fault, just that I wish he had the tools to snap out of it without all this).

On a completely unrelated note, I think I might break down and call CYB back today. I figure he probably heads back out of town early in the morning, so that solves the dilemma of growing bored with him, and all I'm saying here is...sexual prime, people. I'm in it, and it would just be a shame to let it go to waste, right?