“I go on, occasionally, with my Tragedy. It does not much enliven, but it soothes me.”

—Frances Burney, letter to her sister, April 1790

 Friday, January 13, 2006

Found out today that I have a brain tumor. Which was upsetting. But not nearly as upsetting as losing my car at the Beverly Center. You know that feeling, right? That totally lost feeling where you’re wandering in circles around an unjust universe thinking…

                    SELF (V.O.)
          But this is exactly where I left it.

It’s clear you have a problem: no car. But on the sliding scale of human misery, how high does this really rate, this lost car at the Beverly Center? Higher than a hangnail, lower than a brain tumor. Or is it? The brain tumor, after all, is benign and—for the moment—seemingly asymptomatic, whereas the lost car….

The lost car is a logistical nightmare begging a wide variety of deep philosophical questions. How long should I look before I accept that it’s gone? An hour? Two? And once I’ve crossed that bridge—once I’ve accepted the very real possibility that my silver Volkswagen Beetle convertible might actually have been stolen from the fourth floor of the Beverly Center while I was inside attempting to return an ill-fitting corduroy jacket to a Gap that no longer exists—whom exactly do I call? The police? My insurance company? A significant other? What if you have no significant other? What if you’re wandering around the Beverly Center parking garage on Friday the 13^th with a brain tumor, a lost car, and a bright-red corduroy jacket you never should have bought in the first place, when right then and there, in that exact instant, you have the should-be-life-changing realization that all the others in your life are, for the most part, largely insignificant? What then?

Keep looking?

Give up?

Put on the bright-red corduroy jacket for added warmth?

It’s not like it does any good to panic in situations like these. Or, wait, maybe it does. Panicking is always an option—although it tends to play better on female leads who are younger than thirty-seven and thinner than a size fourteen. If nothing else, it’s cathartic. Tears. A few sobs. Maybe that’s what I need right now? A catharsis of some sort? In a Hollywood romantic comedy like the one I’m currently trying to write, panicking would totally do the trick and might even attract the attention of a blandly handsome, age-appropriate single guy, thereby leading directly to eighty-eight minutes of banter and some kind of real estate–based happy ending.

Yes, that could totally work.

In a romantic comedy, the scene where the heroine wanders around the Beverly Center parking garage in a desperate search for her lost car could wind up being the Meet Cute.

Or the Point of No Return.

Or possibly even the Climactic Moment of Character Growth.

Here is what happens in real life…

A little old lady barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel of the car she only takes out on weekends slows to a crawl, rolls down her window, and shouts to me across the chasm of her empty passenger seat…

                    LITTLE OLD LADY
          Oh, honey, did you lose your car?

Pity. From the elderly. I suppose that’s as good a place to start as any.

***

Okay, false alarm. It was on the third floor. Not the fourth. Crisis averted. Now that I’m safely tucked back home in the Miracle Mile, I can see that going to the nearest available mall wasn’t necessarily the best way to cope with bizarre, anxiety-producing medical news. Call a friend? That’s something people do, right? I have some friends, sure, but if I were to call one of them and tell them I have a brain tumor, I’m not exactly sure how that would help the situation. I mean, once I got past the part where the tumor is benign (it’s not really a brain tumor; I’m going to be fine etc. etc.), then I’d just be stuck making small talk about meetings both canceled and taken and creating vague plans to get together that will never be fulfilled because, you know…traffic, work.

No, I think the important thing right now is just to remain calm. Remaining calm has always worked super well for me in the past. Because, really, let’s get serious here for a second. My situation? Not that dire. True, I am a single, unemployed, thirty-seven-year-old television writer with a tiny little brain tumor pressing on my frontal lobe. But, again, it’s not like I have cancer or an actual disease or anything—that’s in the pro column. And being unemployed is pretty normal for a TV writer. We’re all unemployed some of the time—like landscapers in cold climates. Being single…pro or con? I’m not really sure. I’m one of those dyed-in-the-wool perennially single types who’s never been any other way except single, so I have no basis for comparison. Married ladies, is it better over there on the other side? Fancy dishes, tax breaks? Is all that stuff helpful when you have a brain tumor, or does it just create a lot of extra domestic chores you have to deal with?

That romantic comedy screenplay I just started writing? That’s definitely in the pro column. If I play my cards right, it could help me rocket my career to the next level—where I suddenly become A-list, get invited to tons of cool parties, and start hanging out with famous people. As opposed to the level I’m at now: where I’m either making good money working on a show that is about to be canceled, or making no money developing my own ridiculously impractical ideas that are set in the eighteenth century. At the moment, I’ve got three whole pages of my new screenplay written, and I have to say I’m very excited about all three of them.

Or, you know, at least the first two.

The pages I wrote before my ridiculously suave, Omar Sharif–like ear, nose, and throat doctor called and told me I have a small brain tumor pressing on my frontal lobe? Those two definitely rock. They’re clear, concise, funny—totally not set in the eighteenth century—and completely consistent with all the rules set forth in Rules for Romantic Comedy, the trusty how-to-write-a-screenplay book I just picked up at the Beverly Center, along with Journaling for Anxiety™ and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris. Seriously, who can resist those buy-two-get-one-free stickers? Margaret Hale Newman, PhD, is the author of the trusty screenwriting guide, and although I’ve never met her, heard of her, or read any screenplays she’s written, based on the parts I skimmed while standing in the aisle at Border’s, I feel like the two of us are going to get along just fine. Without even trying, I seem to have fulfilled her first and biggest commandment.…

Establish a sympathetic, likable heroine and her everyday life.

Check. I’ve totally done that with my heroine. She’s a middle-school teacher in the Chicago suburbs who wears baggy sweaters constantly—you know, sorta like Sandra Bullock in While You Were Sleeping, except really she’s based on my friend Kitten. Screenplay-wise, I’m definitely off to a good start—no question about that—but in dealing with my health crisis, I seem to have floundered. They’re really not calling me back, are they? The brain surgeon’s office? While I was wandering around lost at the Beverly Center, it seemed totally possible that they might call me back, that I’d be able to build a little forward momentum, set up an appointment or something, but now it’s after 6 on Friday, and—oh shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

I just realized something…three-day weekend.

Martin Luther King Day.

Ugh. Now it’s pointless to hope, right? No way is any sort of trained medical professional calling me back before Tuesday at 9 a.m. Till then it’s just me and Google, doing our best not to panic, fear the worst, have negative thoughts, contemplate our mortality, etc. Thankfully, if you Google “meningioma”—the tumor-substitute word my ridiculously suave ENT kept using on the phone earlier today—the word “benign” comes up a lot. Benign means good. Gracious. Kindly. Or, according to the OED online, when specifically related to diseases, “Of a mild type, not malignant.”

Mild. What I’ve got here is a mild case of brain tumor. And the more I think about it, there’s no possible way this can end badly, because the whole thing began—only three short weeks ago—almost exactly like Hannah and Her Sisters. I can’t tell you how much this bathes me in relief. My tumor—like my screenplay—has a genre. And that genre is romantic comedy.