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Terroir and Jayne LeGro
Aug. 31st, 2019 08:52 amI had totally forgotten about the time I gave Ben an ultimatum: See a therapist!
And for three months, he “saw” a therapist.
Her name was Dr. Melfi. Dedicated Sopranos fan that I am, you’d think that would have been a dead giveaway. But no-o-o-o, I was like one of those weighted-bottom, blow-up punching bags. Punch the clown! Punch it again! I always believed him.
Every week, he would confide the details of his latest session. A bit reluctantly—they were deeply private, deeply intimate, deeply transformative, after all, these forays into his personal archeology. He was beginning to see patterns.
“But why hasn’t Dr. Melfi sent me a bill?” I asked.
Because, of course, I was paying for the archeological expeditions.
First, she had sent me a bill. But she’d sent it to the wrong address.
Then she’d decided to bill me monthly.
Then she’d decided that Ben was such a unique and striking case that she’d decided not to bill me at all. “She wants to write a paper for a journal,” Ben explained. “About me.”
Well, of course, that was the giveaway. There’s no therapist on the face of the planet who wouldn’t bill a nominal amount. It's part of the therapy.
I think Dr. Melfi was my favorite of all Ben’s many confabulations.
Certainly, recalling their sessions together a dozen years or so after the fact, I found myself laughing merrily.
Though I don’t think laughed at the time.
###
I became reacquainted with Dr. Melfi because I did something last night that I almost never do: I read back over the years 2010, 2011, and 2012 in my own life.
Wow! I thought. From a pure writing point of view, this is very, very good! The absolute nadir of my life, of course. I’d lost a business, I’d lost a house, I was 3,500 miles away from anyone who cared whether I lived or died, and my husband had just walked out on me because I was no longer a viable meal ticket. I was a dead goldfish in a bowl of scummy water. From that point of view, it was terribly embarrassing and hard to read.
But I was writing like an angel.
Complete with great dialogue. And humor.
Even if I hadn’t been reading about myself, this was a page-turner.
It would take you exactly three months to edit this into a memoir, the dissociative Nanny function inside my brain informed me.
I even have the catchy title: Terroir and Jayne LeGro.
###
I do have to say that reacquainting myself with Ben’s asshole behavior left me with no interest whatsoever in attending his (ugh!) Celebration of Life.
Although if I don’t go, RTT will never speak to me again.
And it could be pretty amusing. Particularly if the X-girlfriends square off against each other: I was the one who understood his deep poetic nature the best! No, I was the one who understood his deep poetic nature the best!
I wonder if it’s too late to order a blowup swimming pool and a cubic half-ton of mud so the girls can wrestle.
###
In other news, Darryl’s OD turns out to be heroin-related rather than a suicide attempt.
No wonder he seemed depressed to me!
I’m very glad I informed Lew about the 100 or so morphine pills, and vials and vials of hydrocodone in Ben’s sickroom so that Lew could safely dispose of them. It would have been very bad indeed if these had fallen into Darryl’s hands.
###
Also, early autumn is all around me, as I run through the Vanderbilt estate:
And I found a fabulous dress for the (ugh) Celebration of Life. A Rachel Zoe. Rachel Zoe may be the world’s most obnoxious celebrity but she’s a good designer. I intend to glam the dress up with an enormous broad-brimmed hat, gold sandals, and AOC™ red lipstick. I will be the most beautiful person there and make many scathing remarks.
And for three months, he “saw” a therapist.
Her name was Dr. Melfi. Dedicated Sopranos fan that I am, you’d think that would have been a dead giveaway. But no-o-o-o, I was like one of those weighted-bottom, blow-up punching bags. Punch the clown! Punch it again! I always believed him.
Every week, he would confide the details of his latest session. A bit reluctantly—they were deeply private, deeply intimate, deeply transformative, after all, these forays into his personal archeology. He was beginning to see patterns.
“But why hasn’t Dr. Melfi sent me a bill?” I asked.
Because, of course, I was paying for the archeological expeditions.
First, she had sent me a bill. But she’d sent it to the wrong address.
Then she’d decided to bill me monthly.
Then she’d decided that Ben was such a unique and striking case that she’d decided not to bill me at all. “She wants to write a paper for a journal,” Ben explained. “About me.”
Well, of course, that was the giveaway. There’s no therapist on the face of the planet who wouldn’t bill a nominal amount. It's part of the therapy.
I think Dr. Melfi was my favorite of all Ben’s many confabulations.
Certainly, recalling their sessions together a dozen years or so after the fact, I found myself laughing merrily.
Though I don’t think laughed at the time.
###
I became reacquainted with Dr. Melfi because I did something last night that I almost never do: I read back over the years 2010, 2011, and 2012 in my own life.
Wow! I thought. From a pure writing point of view, this is very, very good! The absolute nadir of my life, of course. I’d lost a business, I’d lost a house, I was 3,500 miles away from anyone who cared whether I lived or died, and my husband had just walked out on me because I was no longer a viable meal ticket. I was a dead goldfish in a bowl of scummy water. From that point of view, it was terribly embarrassing and hard to read.
But I was writing like an angel.
Complete with great dialogue. And humor.
Even if I hadn’t been reading about myself, this was a page-turner.
It would take you exactly three months to edit this into a memoir, the dissociative Nanny function inside my brain informed me.
I even have the catchy title: Terroir and Jayne LeGro.
###
I do have to say that reacquainting myself with Ben’s asshole behavior left me with no interest whatsoever in attending his (ugh!) Celebration of Life.
Although if I don’t go, RTT will never speak to me again.
And it could be pretty amusing. Particularly if the X-girlfriends square off against each other: I was the one who understood his deep poetic nature the best! No, I was the one who understood his deep poetic nature the best!
I wonder if it’s too late to order a blowup swimming pool and a cubic half-ton of mud so the girls can wrestle.
###
In other news, Darryl’s OD turns out to be heroin-related rather than a suicide attempt.
No wonder he seemed depressed to me!
I’m very glad I informed Lew about the 100 or so morphine pills, and vials and vials of hydrocodone in Ben’s sickroom so that Lew could safely dispose of them. It would have been very bad indeed if these had fallen into Darryl’s hands.
###
Also, early autumn is all around me, as I run through the Vanderbilt estate:
And I found a fabulous dress for the (ugh) Celebration of Life. A Rachel Zoe. Rachel Zoe may be the world’s most obnoxious celebrity but she’s a good designer. I intend to glam the dress up with an enormous broad-brimmed hat, gold sandals, and AOC™ red lipstick. I will be the most beautiful person there and make many scathing remarks.
