TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: He sees a psychologist? Is that right?

THERAPIST: A therapist, yeah I do.

CLIENT: A therapist of some sort.

THERAPIST: Yeah, he doesn’t have your Ph.D.s you don’t hang up anymore.

CLIENT: Why is that that they don’t put them up anymore?

THERAPIST: You know I thought about it but I just didn’t think there was a good place to put it.

CLIENT: Maybe yes. Really, he needs the validation.

THERAPIST: Who needs the validation?

CLIENT: Me.

THERAPIST: Right. I thought about putting them up there but I didn’t – whatever, you know.

CLIENT: I suppose you keep them in a drawer. When somebody gets uppity you say, ‘excuse me, look at this. I got all A’s.’

THERAPIST: Show them a (unclear). [0:00:53]

CLIENT: All my wisdom.

THERAPIST: There you go.

CLIENT: I told you I’d been writing.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So I wrote and sent things out and anxiously awaited feedback from my friends. They said, oh I really like this. This is really, really good. I went what? I wrote my friend Rita who has a book deal. She’s writing a book and has written a number of books. I wrote to her and said hey, listen. You’re the most successful writer I know, you’ve written tons of stuff. You always like everyone else say you like my work but that simply can’t be true. Like it just can’t be quite that good – it quite obviously has flaws. And no one’s telling me about them. No one will tell me. She was like – definitely. She was like I can’t get to it right now but I will be sure to get to it. And I thought, awesome. And I’m not sure what’s going to become of that but –

THERAPIST: You want some real feedback.

CLIENT: Oh yeah. It’s nice to have support and everything, but – so that’s why I asked for her help. I just got the invite this morning and I’ve accepted. There on a site called Archive of Our Own. It’s mostly a site for collecting fan fiction and various things. So my thought was (unclear) my Sherlock stuff as an experiment and throw it up there and people could comment on it. And then if I get some actual feedback, people who don’t know me, hidden by the Internet anonymity can tell me what they really think.

THERAPIST: Yeah, the anonymity might mean that they can be more aggressive.

CLIENT: Aggressive, yeah. Meanwhile they can just tell me what they like about it which is great. And there are some lines in there. You know, like –

THERAPIST: What do you think of it?

CLIENT: I think it’s pretty good. I think I have a talent for it, clearly. I just don’t think I could write a book at the moment, you know? I just don’t think that I would be – there is a book published that I wrote. Not that it matters anymore. Read a book on Kindle for $3 and then you’re a published author also. (Unclear) aside. I like writing. I like it a lot and (smacking lips, chewing, cellophane crinkling) like I said, when it stops being easy I stop and then I write something else.

THERAPIST: When it stops being easy.

CLIENT: Yeah. If I’m not flowing, write something else.

THERAPIST: Do you ever return to it?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Or does it –

CLIENT: I’ve got lots to return to. I’ve got one series of take outs I’m doing rewrites for. Because I like it. I like it a lot. I like the characters. Decide to change some aspects of them. Blah, blah, blah. I have this one character. She was a lizard person. And I was like you know, I think I’ll fucking cut lizard people out of this whole thing. I don’t need lizard people cluttering up my mythology.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: But the thing I really liked, this image I had of a combat scene where (unclear) or something and Cullen’s like right, now I’ve got to go save the lizard. Ezra is making his way across there and when the lizard, there’s this scene where she kind of distends her jaw, comes closer and bites his face, literally bites the front half of his skull off. And the figure is kind of a wizard by magic (unclear) and this is the scene as I see her so it was kind of flighty and not really capable of that level of brutality. I like that. I like characters who suddenly show what they’re capable of. [0:05:23]

THERAPIST: It’s almost like they have a life of their own.

CLIENT: Yeah. I think in the end I’m going to kill the main character. I haven’t had too many characters that I actually love now. I hadn’t intended to have couples as my main characters. But as it turned out, that’s who they are. But I’m not like explicit about that in any way. It’s just what happens, just what’s there. There’s a scene where they get in a bad situation where they’re outmatched and they’ll probably both have to be killed. But they actually pull together in the end, you know, by the skin of their teeth. Maggie’s got a really bad concussion and she’s injured and might die. Erin’s trying to keep her awake. Something’s wrong with her voice the entire time, she keeps fading in and out of consciousness you know. At one point she and Erin just said at one point, ‘if you let her die, I’ll find you. I swear I’ll find you.’ And this is all because Maggie has this God that does stuff for her sometimes. This God that is (unclear) self-reliance who says, I’m going to give you exactly what you need after you’ve proven to me that you don’t need me. Then I’ll help out. Once I know you don’t need me then I’ll do something. Then I’ll help out.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: But I really like the idea of this whole book going on, this whole thing with Maggie dying and her God not saving her and it’s very sad and the last scene then essentially is new people showing up to take the place of Maggie and stuff and (unclear) sees that Erin is going and says like where are you going? And it’s ending like on the note of, “I’ve got a god to kill.” Like that’s her story. She’s going to go find that God.

THERAPIST: Is that the God that kind of didn’t –

CLIENT: Yeah, didn’t help her best friend. Didn’t help her girlfriend so she’s going to go kill it. That would be a nice little thing to throw at the end. I could go some more about it but Erin goes to find a god.

THERAPIST: So that’s the way it will end though.

CLIENT: Yeah. Erin goes to find a god. Yeah, that’ll be fun. I could actually write a short book that would take us in that direction and it’s got a lot of me in that I’ll (unclear).

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, I think that’s what people like, people like that. People who like to have lots going on, seem interested. I think that’s what I’m going to do. And also, meanwhile, my life has lost all meaning. Like I find that I’ve been employed for so long that I don’t know what I am. You know, the whole thing is that if you are your job you know you are your job. [0:10:07]

I identified as an actor for 11 years of my life and I identified as a professional for six more years of my life and then I was an entrepreneur briefly and still identify myself for 10 years as the video game guy. But I haven’t worked in video games that much in the past four years and I don’t really know what I’m doing. Right now I’m a student taking stats for a couple of weeks and it’s going to be twice as hard as the previous guy and I’ll still be going to college twice a week.

THERAPIST: Yeah, but there’s been this kind of a, by not having a job –

CLIENT: Right, I’ve been able to find myself and how am I going to bring in more money? You know, there were all these ways, all these ways I can do it that would actually make me really happy, you know? I like to – of course, acting work. I can do that, you know. Sell my magic cars you know and some more stuff that happened. I could sign up for teaching which is a single migration. I would be a really good English as a second language person. I don’t know if they teach that here. That’s an important skill. It’s only polite, when you move into a country to learn the language. It’s hard when you move into (unclear) get fired up. [0:11:47]

Everyone knows to speak English but it would be incredibly rude not to learn Dutch. Now (inaudible).

THERAPIST: Yeah. What are you going to do?

CLIENT: The city was perfect. The city was nothing you’d see here. Have you been to Lisbon?

THERAPIST: I have, yeah.

CLIENT: A city like nothing you see here. It feels less crowded. Like I said (unclear) everyone’s educated. You get a sense that everyone’s smarter.

THERAPIST: You like the people.

CLIENT: I like the people.

THERAPIST: Are the people (unclear), the bulk of it?

CLIENT: I like the food. It’s like traveling. I like the train system. I like the biplanes and cars and sidewalks and the best sandwich shop in Lisbon which is as far as I could tell is fucking the best sandwich shop in Lisbon. It says right on the door, best sandwich shop in Lisbon and I’m – you’re on.

THERAPIST: It’s good.

CLIENT: It’s pretty fucking good. Pretty fucking good. It’s all these sandwiches I didn’t know you could make. Like turkey, roast beef, cheese, lettuce, a hardboiled egg which is sliced and spread over it and there’s like a shit-ton of pepper on two long pieces of bread.

THERAPIST: Like a baguette type of thing?

CLIENT: Yeah. So fucking sandwich. Ridiculous.

THERAPIST: Good food.

CLIENT: Yeah, I’m like it’s amazing. Like I didn’t realize you could do stuff like that. I remember I said to Ginny I understand now why people enjoy eating. I can see now why people would like that. Like I’m doing this because I need to put something in my stomach. There’s this pain if I don’t put stuff in there.

THERAPIST: But it is actually a really different relationship to food at least with this sandwich shop.

CLIENT: Yeah. Like holy fuck, there’s some real food here. We went out for (unclear). Pancakes and waffles (unclear) necessarily. I was like, these aren’t the ones I ordered. But they’re very good so it doesn’t matter. [0:14:35]

THERAPIST: Whatever.

CLIENT: Some of the few people who don’t speak English are the high school girls behind the cash register at the local supermarket. That was a very interesting time. It was kind of like ‘this number, this number.’

THERAPIST: They we’re trying to tell you how much it was?

CLIENT: Yeah, like do you have bags? They’re like, ‘no.’ For groceries you had to bring your own bag as I recall. It was expected that you bring your own or buy one. Like actually I had a better idea. Like why are you supplying me with these?

THERAPIST: Yeah, well I see it at Trader Tim’s about how the people bring their own bags.

CLIENT: Yeah and you ought to because recyclable plastic bags are awful for the world.

THERAPIST: Yeah, they don’t even use any plastic, they use paper.

CLIENT: And they give you a discount if you buy one and bring it back. Whole Foods does that too. How many brown bags did you bring? I’ll knock off a little bit here.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: (Unintelligible). He was late for the first time ever. He said guess how late I was. I was like – 30 seconds. Because he’s usually very exact. Okay I’ll be there in six minutes. He knows that’s how much time it takes him to put his shoes on and go to work. But he was an hour and 20 minutes late. Like, what happened? He was like, I slept through my alarm. I’ve done that. He’s like, the phone rang and it was the supervisor and she was really worried about him. He was like, I slept through the alarm. He showed up, he got to work at 1:20 – they must have called him when he was an hour late. It takes him 15 minutes to get to work, five minutes to get dressed – one hour and 20 minutes. He said when he got there everyone just applauded.

THERAPIST: (Laughs)

CLIENT: You’re never late in your life and you get one –

THERAPIST: How long has he been there now?

CLIENT: A couple of years now. He really likes it, you know? And they’ve got a good benefits plan. Picture a guy with (unclear). I think he’d be happy to work at Whole Foods for a very long time. Yeah, that’s giving him a sort of second family or perhaps a real family.

THERAPIST: He’s gotten to know people there pretty well.

CLIENT: Yeah. But trying to define who I am and I would like to be a voice actor and a writer and a You Tube contact creator and that’s what I’d like to do. Would l like to make games? And I’d love to make games but I need a team to make game. I mean could I do a one man job to make a game? Absolutely. Yes. But you need other folks to make that worthwhile. I don’t know, maybe I’ll start bringing in some for the income. Like all the miracles that pay. Like the extra Viacom money, you know, that stuff – it’s all happened. And Ginny’s working her ass off. She’s actually doing the per diem thing for her old job. It’s on Saturday and she does the Hospice stuff though.

THERAPIST: A little extra money?

CLIENT: Yeah. Only now she gets fewer bucks. She does weddings and funerals whenever possible and that’s like $400 a pop.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you’re continuing to look though even though you’re not crazy about it and gaming.

CLIENT: Yeah. Like I said I did that before the holidays and now just getting back from the holidays so I’m not getting anything.

THERAPIST: Yeah. It’s quiet.

CLIENT: Yeah. And I should be looking. But honestly? Like that’s not even what I want to do but I will do that, I will do that to make money, you know? It doesn’t have to be much. I don’t need a six-figure job. I need something significant.

THERAPIST: Yeah, but what you’d rather do is freelance.

CLIENT: Yeah. I’d love to write. I love writing. Because it’s easy. It’s just what happens. Now, like I’m writing stuff and I’m looking at Rita’s stuff and like (unclear). Now I see more of why my stuff differs from Rita’s stuff and how it differs from people I like. But really I have a number of different styles. I have a fairytale style I really enjoy. You know people give Central America credit for magical realism but in many ways we actually take a look at the Brothers Grimm for magical realism. It’s all a fairytale but very close to sort of magical realism. Although magical realism is just there are magical things that happen as part of that particular reality, right? Like a man with wings shows up on the beach so they keep him in a cage and the only thing that’s magical is that this man has wings and otherwise is unremarkable as is how to deal with one magical element in the world. There’s this one about – which is fascinating. It’s this horror novel written in the second person so it’s a ‘you do this, you do this’. So it’s interesting. In any case what is (unintelligible) I guess. One or two but it doesn’t really matter. I have this (unclear) spot I like to write in which is more flowery and whimsical and is much closer to what Neil Gaiman writes. [0:21:38]

But writing the Sherlock stuff is a very different style. Writing the Maggie and Erin was a very different style. Maggie and Erin is a lot more action packed but also much more about the emotional connection between these two than the journey of Maggie from this tough, emotionally shut off, passionate hero into this more – someone who realizes it’s okay to accept help from specific people and Erin who is much more in touch with her emotions. It’s part of what her position in society is. (Unclear) is various people. The (unclear) people are distinguished by various classifications and Maggie is classified as a champion, usually a champion of some cause or a god that gives them power, that makes them so good. The problem with Maggie is nobody knows who her God is, nor does she. She knows it’s female and it does stuff. She knows when she first met it but she doesn’t know anything else about it. And nobody does so it’s kind of fucked up. But with Erin I had to do a lot of acrobatic stuff – throwing knives and cool stuff and I didn’t know what I was going to do with her for a while. I wanted to call her a Ninja but you can’t call someone a Ninja, you know. So I called her a heart-seeker instead and sort of making it all about heartbeats and frequency of heartbeats and sensing other people’s heartbeats and you know and in tuning the metal in blades to that of the heart so that the blades would actually seek out the heart of a person. (Unclear) could also learn cool things of the heart. But it also gives us a way to get more of a sense of what’s going on in Maggie’s mind from Erin’s perspective. What I’m trying to do with all three of these is show that they each perceive the world in a different way and call them other things that they notice look different. And it is also lighthearted like the funny parts are fine, the fighting parts are violent, graphic, well-choreographed I think, and the feeling parts are feeling, I think. So far everyone likes it, everyone wants more like they ask me to write more stuff. So that’s good, I’ll write more stuff.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I mean I guess one thing is do you feel like you really would like to make a kind of a go at writing.

CLIENT: I’d love to. Like writing a book deal at this point – you know, make that viable.

THERAPIST: Well, I think, too, but there’s a lot of people that do try to make a career out of writing creatively and there are probably a lot of ways to go about it but there are people who do that.

CLIENT: Well I know, right? I’ve got one who is doing that right now. I mean she’s been a lawyer for many years. She teaches law right now but she’s also got a book deal so she’s writing.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Did she ever freelance? Does she submit stuff to –?

CLIENT: She had until she got an agent. She got an agent and the agent got her a book deal.

THERAPIST: And then that’s all she writes is what she –

CLIENT: She writes young adult fiction. She’s written a lot of fan fiction and she still writes it for fun.

THERAPIST: For fun, yeah.

CLIENT: She’s prolific in terms of her writing but she can – she writes a (unclear) that’s easy so she can do it for longer. She can write just all day and just some amazing stuff. And like I said, she’s written a trilogy already. She’s already written three novels. These are not the ones being published. She’s writing a new trilogy now for a new book deal. That’s what I want to write, too, is young adult stuff, right? Young adult stuff is fun, it gets turned into movies and TV shows and I know it’s more playful. You get to play around and stuff. You get to be funny and feel-y and fight-y. [0:27:49]

THERAPIST: Yeah. I think there’s probably – I’m sure there’s a whole kind of way of people going about doing that. A structure people kind of write and submit stuff.

CLIENT: Well there’s a magazine a friend of mine suggested I submit a short story to. They give out cash prizes that go up to $1,000 for stories they take. When I (unclear), when I flesh out these three chapters I have and two like a short story, they pull together like a short story, I can submit that. They assure you on the side, this is our form rejection letter, this is what you’ll get if we don’t take your piece. Don’t be offended that it’s a form but we get so many submissions, there are only two of us and we’re sisters and we run this magazine. The general form rejection letter is very good. Like here’s some writer’s tips, things to think about. Like (unintelligible) as a result of these actions. I’m just like fuck. I’ve still never written a sex scene. I was supposed to write a sex scene in creative writing in college, a class which I fought my way through. The teacher and I just fought and fought and fought.

THERAPIST: She was the professor?

CLIENT: Yeah. We would always fight because she would make us read these depressing, awful things. And I just wanted to write something that was funny. And she had us write these exercises of like the saddest things. And I’d think this is fine and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just write like whatever and she’d have us read stuff and she fucking like whatever. And one time she asked us to write a sex scene and so I kind of wrote like looking at a post saying like typical college virgin thing like post first time awkwardness and in one part she was “ugh” and I’m like, I know it’s not very good but I don’t write sex scenes. And Jim Butcher had written some sex scenes and mostly women write sex scenes but J.K. Dennison is this black (unclear) because she’s trying to make a name for herself in a mostly male community of science fiction writers and she writes these books that are amazing from perspectives of people I’ve never considered. She writes the first book as a black woman whereas in that world black people are not oppressed but they are seen as other in a culture which is (unclear). So there’s that aspect. [0:31:33]

But she writes sex scenes from the perspective of a woman and it’s absolutely eye-opening. Amazing stuff. A lot of times she talks about the quality of surrender. It is so interesting. It’s equated with sex, the surrender. I guess for me. From what I gather, this J.K. Dennison really likes men taking a more dominant role in a sex relationship. This is what I gather from her writing about sex. And then she wrote about sex so many times in those books, a common theme from all of them was the idea of surrender and surrendering to control, essentially. But the books were also incredibly good. The second book is written from the perspective of the woman who has no vision. She can only see matter of the gods in a world littered with gods and godlings. And so there she has some amount of perception into the world of God matters.

THERAPIST: What do you mean?

CLIENT: I’ll write my own stuff and won’t have anything to do with (unclear) stuff.

THERAPIST: You’re kind of like well how do I differentiate myself?

CLIENT: It’s like how to fucking write a book? You know? How do I do it like this week?

THERAPIST: (Laughs) That’s a tall order.

CLIENT: It is a tall order. You know fucking [Nan Oremo] (ph)? You’ve heard of [Nan Oremo] (ph)? It’s a November – it’s like a challenge you write in a book in November. You write a 50,000 page novella, essentially. You don’t edit. You don’t stop. You just write X amount of words a day and boom, then you have a book. Boy is this book shitty. Can it be salvaged? Victor wrote one years ago. He’s been trying to get us to read it for some time, but it’s fucking awful, like it’s really bad. And I’m having a hard time telling him, like man, this is your first attempt at a novel. Just fucking toss it, right? Like that? That’s what writers do, right? They take a bunch of stuff, they write a bunch of stuff and they fucking toss it, you know? [0:33:44]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Right, right. There’s a lot of – because all of a sudden.

CLIENT: Yeah, like oh, now I see what I’m doing. Everything before was bullshit.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it’s a kind of a very, well, it’s really creative. There’s also the side of the – there’s a whole discipline to it.

CLIENT: It’s an art, right? It’s a skill set. A talent and a skill set. And I have the talent and I’m working on the skill set. I’ve worked on the skill set for years. Like I said, I took creative writing and I’ve taken writing courses. I accidently had to take Writing II in college. It was such a joke. I told you about the professor in that one, right? He came into class. He didn’t want to teach Writing II.

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: But he had to because it was his turn that semester and he didn’t want to do it but he taught like at the 400 level English classes about like real books. And so he walks in the first day and he’s like, ‘I don’t want to teach this class so I’m not going to.’ He was like, ‘how many here feel like you need help with your writing? Honestly.’ And he says, ‘Fine. You can still be ready (unclear) because I’m not going to teach you a goddamn thing.’ (Laughing) He’s like, ‘this class is stupid.’ Alright, like, nobody here needs this class.

THERAPIST: So what did you make of the class? What did you get out of it?

CLIENT: I was immediately in love. I was, this is great. And was like, I have only three rules in this class: 1 – lie. If you can pull the wool over my eyes, more power to you. 2 – Cheat. People say cheaters never win. This is not true. Cheaters always win. That’s why they cheat. 3 – Never underestimate the value of money. For $50 we never have to see each other again – and everyone laughs. But then as I may have mentioned I’ve noted over the years that his birthday fell so conveniently at the end of both semesters during grading time.

THERAPIST: What does that mean?

CLIENT: His birthday, twice a year, right when grades were due. He liked whiskey. He wanted people to know he wanted presents. And people would and he would give them “A”s. Whatever. He was like, oh [] showed up in my office with a bottle of whiskey for my birthday. That’s great. You ladies are great students I think you’re both getting an A this semester. Oh really! You’re goddamn right. Thank you for the whiskey. He was completely corrupt and I loved that about him. Because he understood the joke. He got the joke. He’s like, this is this whole thing, this whole structure is useless. This is all a game that people are playing, paying money for education that they will never be able to get back. And most of them will even understand or get or use, right. It’s like we are teaching useless things like Writing II.

THERAPIST: But you kind of shared your kind of sensibility about it?

CLIENT: Yeah, that college was a game. A game I played very well. Do you know what my GPA was when I left?

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: 2.01 .01 points above what I needed to get my financial aid. I played the game just about perfectly except that I did not graduate. That is the one real mistake I made. I miscalculated how much I could slack off in one class.

THERAPIST: What was it?

CLIENT: It was a throw-away course called “Introduction to Science” which would have completed my quantitative reasoning requirement and I would have graduated.

THERAPIST: And that was it. That was the only one.

CLIENT: That was it. I slacked because it was supposed to be a throw-away course but this semester junior teachers had it and they were like oh, it’s going to be a real course this year. I slacked too much and I failed it, so.

THERAPIST: Did you go to class and stuff?

CLIENT: Sometimes, yeah. But I didn’t take it seriously, anywhere near as seriously as I should have, which would have been just a little seriously. Just a very little seriously would have been enough. But – this semester I’ll have it.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: I’ll be a famous writer by then as well. I need more to come though. I need to get a voice reel together. It’s like, why, why – what the fuck is wrong with me, Dennis?

THERAPIST: I think it has something to do with the actual – when it’s like really – when you feel like you’re putting your work out there, you know, what kind of comes up for you I think like there’s any number of things you’re talented at and interested in. It seems to me it’s always, it’s right when you get to the point of alright, now I’ve got to put it out there.

CLIENT: Yeah. I suppose.

THERAPIST: I mean I think it’s kind of similar to how I sense what was challenging about Koala Crush. It was like it was a done product but it was like what do I do to make – I mean some of it was like the people you hired to do the push weren’t really –

CLIENT: That went pretty good.

THERAPIST: But there’s also something about how you felt about putting your own working –

CLIENT: Yeah, I couldn’t (unclear). [0:40:24]

THERAPIST: Yeah, and it was because it seemed like as you’re talking about your identity there was something about it was you but it didn’t feel exactly like you, but it was nonetheless a reflection of you that you’re putting out there.

CLIENT: I’m doing it for a lot of reasons. And I look back and I see how I could have, or should have done it and that is not how I did it. I jumped in. I bought into my lie and I believed that I was as amazing as (unclear) said I was. I am pretty fucking amazing. That much I have learned. But not to the point to become a one-man studio. Like with Jack I could do now. But only because I understand how to code better. I can do their expensive part myself. Even my fucking neighbor now, Tim, he also loves to convert but he also loved to work on a game. So I have all these resources and options. It’s just, it just, it just, and it just keeps – I need to fucking run out of weed and be done with it because now it’s just getting high, it’s not getting faster, it’s not getting me more productive. It’s not getting me anywhere. It’s just putting me on pause, like pushing a pause button. I can’t afford to pause. Class starts on January 21. By that date I must be done or I have to be focused and sharp. Have to be a genius again. Not that I’m not, but I have to be at my best, my tip-top game.

THERAPIST: Well, you know, it’s like I think that there’s – what it also has been is that you realize that genius doesn’t mean struggle. You know, like you do struggle. Look at the God particle – how long it took them to find the damn thing. The most brilliant minds in the world – it took them what – 40 years to find, or something like that?

CLIENT: Well, yeah, I mean four years to find but theorize for longer. You saw Higgs – he stood up and fucking cried when they realized ‘we found it.’ It was like old men – this is my life’s work. I devoted my life to discovering this thing. And the God particle is an awful name for it, an awful name for it. It’s just totally American to call it that. Only in America do we have such idiocy as that. I’m not saying that you’re an idiot, but I’m saying that the term is idiotic. It is not a god particle. It is not proof of God. It is a particle, part of a field through which all reality moves which gives it mass.

THERAPIST: But amazing that it took them –

CLIENT: Oh, sure – totally amazing.

THERAPIST: Failed – and these were the most brilliant minds.

CLIENT: And it took a long time of working together. But they’re trying to understand the secrets of the universe. I’m trying to write a fucking book or like –

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: And I’m like I wish I were a physicist. I have what Richard Dawkins describes as “physics envy”. (Unintelligible). Totally outclassed, completely outclassed. I was really (unclear) at the end of the day my friend, Xavier (unclear), he’s a vegetarian. He feels very strongly about it, ethically, right? But he doesn’t push that on people, right? He just respects people don’t be a dick to him. Oh, I’m an important vegan, I’m so good. Which people can do, the assholes. So this one dude was being a real dickhead to him about it. [0:44:02]

Like I’m going to go to this country and eat this like baby bird (unintelligible). He said it like in this real dickish way. And some people jumped up like, ha, ha, ha, it’s funny stuff. And the guy’s like (unclear) funny stuff. And so then Xavier was going to bring two bottles of mead to this guy’s party that he had brewed. And then he posted a picture of himself pouring it all out. He’s like, I’m taking a break from Facebook for a while. He’s like I got really mad at (unclear) friends today. Like I feel pretty strongly about these things but I don’t say it. People (unclear) dicks about it I would pour out all the mead. People were like oh, my God, oh, my God. I was like – Xavier, it was completely justified. [0:45:14]

And the guy comes back and is like, ‘yeah, like I started the whole thing off because I was acting like a douche like I always do, copy and paste.’ I was like, ‘Brad, I don’t know you very well but “I was acting like a douche like I always do”, that’s a statement you should really think about.’

THERAPIST: Just getting back to (unclear) as you were saying like, ‘it’s just a book,’ or ‘it’s just a game.’ What do you mean by that? Like tell me about, like I should be able to just do –

CLIENT: Yeah, I suppose. I should be able to just sit down and do it, right? I mean, fucking make a voice reel that would take me a couple of hours. Send it to Tim, take a couple of hours to clean it up, give it to [] and that will take a couple of days and then maybe I’ll start getting auditions and I start getting cast and shit because I will get cast and shit. You know?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: There’s a (unclear) publishing stuff today. (Unclear). Put out my two funny stories. Look for feedback. All that sort of stuff. Why not just do that? Why not do just all of that? I see Carla at 11 so I figure I’ll kill an hour after this, more than an hour, but still. Yeah, it’s the getting, the just doing it. I read this guy, an article on the search for happiness leads to unhappiness. And he’s like focus on one method of achieving your goal rather than on achieving your goal. We talked about this and maybe it’s true but it seems like just a trick.

THERAPIST: Yeah, right. You know, it’s kind of like you were talking Monday about doing the vocal work and what it’s like to set yourself up and how it’s easy to get distracted on – alright, I’ve got to get this cleaned and I’ve got to get this organized.

CLIENT: Right. These are all the various steps that lead up to doing this thing and there are so many of them.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. And I think in some way too it’s not just about – of course it’s about work, but it’s also about – the two things you were talking about are both things about voice, identity, who you are.

CLIENT: It’s creation. It’s all about creation. It’s always been a problem. (Unclear). [0:48:10]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. That’s an important distinction, like acting must be somehow different in terms of –

CLIENT: It’s creative but you’re right there with people and you can feel if a crowd loves you or doesn’t love you momentarily and you can find a way to fix that. It sucks playing to a dead house.

THERAPIST: Yeah. And I think there’s something, too, that kind of bubbles up for you as you’re writing and things, as you put it, sort of get hard, something bubbles up, or putting your vocal work out there. Whatever it might be that’s a kind of a creative act.

CLIENT: Yeah, well I guess it is a little bit embarrassing, I mean send a fucking vocal reel – am I [in distorted voice] talking like this? Am I talking like – or any of those things. All the various crazy voices I could put on there to show what I can do. You know it’s like here Tim, here’s a tape of me. [In distorted voice] (Unclear). [0:49:26]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I don’t know, it’s weird. It’s like I said, what – I put it all out on there? And he’s like, this actually sounds pretty much the same. I’m like – ooh. Well, then we have a problem, like this was an idiot thing for me to consider. I should have known. I guess I don’t want to be told that I have deluded myself. That’s what it is. I don’t want to be a kid that’s (unclear) you shouldn’t do this anymore. You should stop. I have this daydream where I get to go on (unclear) to be amazing. The thing about the voice is it actually teaches you how to sing over the course of the show.

THERAPIST: They get better. That’s right. Yeah.

CLIENT: They get better. That’s what I want to do is get better at things.

THERAPIST: Yeah, where there is this kind of fantasy that would be like there is nothing you can hear to work with.

CLIENT: Like this thing you love to do you’re not at all good at it and you should stop.

THERAPIST: And you should stop.

CLIENT: Which I know is not true. I know I can rock (unclear) acting. I spent a fucking semester reading everybody’s plays, acting in everyone’s plays and 95% of the plays I was in – that’s a rough estimate. But I’m not (unclear) I can do this stuff. [0:50:53]

It’s like stretching old muscles, you know? By the end of this semester I was back into it.

THERAPIST: Hey, what did she end up –?

CLIENT: Oh, A minus. I got an A minus.

THERAPIST: Okay. Oh yeah, what did you think of it?

CLIENT: An A minus? Yeah, I had some stuff that was late, so whatever. Like I did good work.

THERAPIST: A minus and then you got an A in the other one?

CLIENT: Yeah, so that pretty nice. It reminds me of the time that Becky (unclear) and Ginny challenged me to get a 4.0, so I did. And I was like ta-da – did it. Happy? I just wanted to show them I could. Well no, I can do it. It’s not hard.

THERAPIST: And just statistics away from the degree.

CLIENT: Just statistics away. Ah, I took a look at the bill. If I have a check with me I’ll write you a check today.

THERAPIST: Yeah, what do you want to do?

CLIENT: It looks like essentially with the co-pays – were they $15 a session? So I’ll be owing for (unclear) from $25 to $30 a week, right?

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, that’s (unclear). [0:52:16]

CLIENT: Yeah. And then with these – is that cutting into the balance – are we making progress towards lowering the total number?

THERAPIST: Yeah. Or you could put it towards the co-pay and then still have 20 – whatever, it would be 35 instead of 50 going towards it it would be 35. Whatever you want to do.

CLIENT: That works because does that get us moving in the right direction towards lowering the number?

THERAPIST: Well yeah.

CLIENT: Okay. So then what’s the – I’m not clear on all the details yet. I’ll put it towards the co-pay so 35 there – so then not pay a co-pay?

THERAPIST: If that’s what you want to do, yeah. And then the 30, the extra 35 will go towards the balance –

CLIENT: Because the insurance is now covering the balance.

THERAPIST: That’s right.

CLIENT: That’s going to be really nice, huh? Look – our investment paid off eventually. (Unclear) a loan that didn’t go bad.

THERAPIST: (Laughs) yeah. Yeah, no, that’s fine. Whatever you want to do.

CLIENT: (Cross talk). That works. You get your money and everyone’s happy.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Okay. That’s very important to me.

THERAPIST: Alright, then let’s do that. Oh, the other thing I just wanted to check on you is that my – with the new semester I see a lot of students and schedules are changing and stuff and I was wondering if you had any – if we moved the 12 o’clock on Monday back an hour, how that would be.

CLIENT: Back?

THERAPIST: To 11 o’clock.

CLIENT: Oh, that’s even better.

THERAPIST: Is it?

CLIENT: Yeah. That’s even better. (inaudible). I think it’s 60 that I owe you at the moment? The latest bill? [0:54:02]

THERAPIST: Well, not if you’re going to –

CLIENT: Oh. Do I just not write you a check?

THERAPIST: No. I mean if that works –

CLIENT: Great. Eleven works for me. I’ll push back to 11?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Moving forward is that –?

THERAPIST: You know, I’ll have to check. There’s one person that I think that – well, what you can do is either we can keep it – if you would prefer to do 11 we’ll just keep it at 11.

CLIENT: Eleven’s even better.

THERAPIST: Okay. Let’s do that.

CLIENT: Okay. Monday is Victor’s birthday.

END TRANSCRIPT