I woke up again

and wanted to write down my dream. There was a young man, he resembled my physiotherapist. Recently I have been blessed with a sexy physiotherapist —whereas so often I've been assigned to a towering, heavy-busted ‘Nurse Ratched’ sort of lady who tugs mercilessly at my recalcitrant limbs. I cannot work hard — not at my body; or I am loathe too. I can lose weight because that is precisely doing nothing, but doing something is a different matter altogether. It’s nice to have him touch me. He’s a golfer, apparently (I googled him) and today I discovered he has a ‘partner’ (though he didn’t use that awful word). He spoke about getting sushi with her — I assume it’s a ‘her,’ but I was afraid to ask, I mean, how would you ask? He touches me so terribly sweetly. I find it very hard to control myself when he digs his thumbs lovingly into the small of my back,  adjacent to my coccyx. I had to sign a permission form saying he could massage my ‘glutes’ — as he so politely calls them. Well, I was more than overjoyed to find they would be the locus of his concentration. He is slow, deliberate, gentle, and very very kind. I think he would be a perfect lover — and so I can’t imagine why he would find it necessary to tell me that he had sushi with someone on the weekend! You  know what that’s like, don’t you? Being jealous of someone who isn’t even a random sexual partner? Someone who just touches your body for a living, and is not even a prostitute? Yes, that's what it’s come to. Occasionally I look down at my penis and wonder if it is still there; it reminds me of Shrodinger’s Cat, the fact that I lack the ability to see it in action means its very existence is in question. To be or not to be’ applies here, in an ontological sense. Of course one doesn’t forget how to do it, does one? It’s like riding a bicycle, isn’t it? Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida says “no man is the lord of anything,…. ‘til he communicate his parts to others." Well, you got that right, Ulysses! (Though he might not have meant it in precisely that way.) All this brings me to the other boy in my dream. He wandered in, uninvited, interrupting my sexual fantasy. And when I woke up —  I was puzzling — who was he? I couldn’t put a name or face to him. Then I realised that though I didn’t know who he was I definitely had a feeling about him, and the feeling was that he was jealous of me. Let’s start off by saying jealousy is the most awful emotion in the world; it’s a sin for a good reason (not like some others). It can destroy you as nothing else can. I used to constantly compare myself to everyone, and now, Thank God, I have dropped that, like a pebble into a smooth, calm lake. Leaving jealousy behind has made it possible for me to endure becoming an ex-celebrity, and to navigate an open relationship, and to stop wishing I was Daniel MacIvor. Yes, once, I envied Daniel MacIvor. Once. It was all about Marion Bridge. I guess I had my father in the back of my mind (don’t we always?). My father once said that he would only consider me successful, as an artist if I ended up on The Johnny Carson Show. (I know that dates me — for those of you too young to have heard of Johnny Carson, he was the Trevor Noah of his day!) Needless to say, I never made it onto that particular television show. The closest I came was being one of the Two Genies on the Canadian TV show Dudley the Dragon — and The Other Genie was far cuter than I was (he was The French Genie, and I wanted so much to sleep with him, but he wouldn’t even look at me!). So yes, back to Marion Bridge, I was jealous of Daniel MacIvor because he managed to write that movie —  a perfect piece of entertainment, one that even a grandmother could love. I was never capable of doing that, never will be. Why just in the space of this blog I’ve probably committed thousands of sins that would make it unpublishable, unreadable, or at the very least unappealing to most grandmas. But then there is the other side of the coin; those who are jealous of me. I know I sound like Marlene Dietrich when I talk like that — and let me tell you, we are very similar in many ways (just kidding!). But there is at least one person I know who, if I ever end up murdered, well, it might make sense to give him a call. There are others whose names I won’t mention, who seemed to covet my life, at a time when I was very unhappy and it made no sense to have done so --  when I was sort-of-famous. I didn’t know they were jealous of me; they were both good friends of mine, and  I only figured it out when they both started being very mean to me — yelling at me for what I thought was no reason. I finally turned to another friend and said -- ‘Why is so-and-so so angry at me?’ And she smiled condescendingly and said ‘Don’t you see, he wants to be you?' I couldn't imagine ever wanting to be me. I was never very attractive, or good at sex, I have a lower IQ than my sister, and I will probably only be remembered — if at all — for being a ‘militant homosexual.’  But no need to worry; no one wants to 'be me' anymore. It’s very funny because the Playwrights Guild of Canada wants me to do an online conversation with a young playwright. So they told me they would be calling me back when they found someone who has been influenced by my work. I haven’t gotten that phone call. I am waiting for them to say ‘Sorry, we couldn’t find anyone who was willing to say they are influenced by your work.' But people definitely have been. Remember, if you hate someone then you have been influenced by them. So as you can see, I have had a lot of influence. But to summarize, to pull this all together in a neat package without a bow, I have banished jealousy from my skill set, if not from my dreams. I am what I am, as several very famous people have said (including, unfortunately, I think, Madonna). Or better yet,  perhaps I should say  --‘Pass Me By” something Peggy Lee sang, when she wasn’t falling asleep and bumping her head on the microphone. That’s all I have to say about jealousy, for now. Except, once again; don’t be jealous. It’s a big waste of time. And ultimately you don’t have very much of that; I speak from experience.