Marrying George Clooney

I’m going to call her Mary.
Mary was not her real name, but she was, for a period of close to two years, my personal psychic slash adviser. A friend of a friend had seen her, had a reading with her, and said she was so spot-on perfect, so unbelievably accurate, that it was downright scary. And…and… she was a psychic to ‘the stars.’ That’s always a big major plus. Not only do you want her doing a reading for you, but you also want to get real buddy-like close, and have her spill all the juicy gossip about all her famous clients. I call her; we set up a ‘in person’ consultation and psychic reading. She comes to my apartment, an apartment I was sharing with a friend on the Upper West Side, and because it was a one bedroom, every month we switched off sleeping arrangements. It was my month to sleep on the pull out sofa in the living room. Mary walks in – she is very short (five-foot, five-foot one maybe), very tough (a tattoo with a dagger on her forearm), no mincing words (fuckin’ this, fuckin’ that), and has a noticeable limp. She looks around the living room, takes in everything, turns to me and says: “You are destined for greatness.” Wow. Oh. Wow. Destined for greatness. I ask her if she is sure she doesn’t mean my roommate? No, You (emphasis on you) are destined for greatness. I wanted to pick up the phone, call the guy who had just broken up with me and scream into his phone machine, “Guess what, you are so fucked, I, me, moi, am destined for greatness and you are such a fucking asshole fool.” But before I could even finish the fantasy, Mary tells me that a man with the first initial B, as in Bob, Brandon… Brian – BINGO was his name-o – was lethal to women, lethal, and was so lethal in fact, so incredibly fucked up, that she could see him, as in a premonition, in prison, serving time for tax evasion, and – and – not only would he cheat on his taxes, but she was pretty sure, had he not broken up with me, he would cheat on me.

Hey, I think, how does she know he broke up with me?

I spend an hour and a half with Mary and I am convinced that she is a genuine true blue intuit. This was before Google, so in fact there was no way she could have possibly known half the shit she knew about me. I ask her how often people consult with psychics; she tells me with an accompanied shrug and facial gesture some of her clients call her weekly, some every few weeks, but most every month. It’s very important to maintain your psychic relationship, and she offers me a special deal. For every visit, I can get a free phone consultation. I agree, and tell her that I will now have to get a full time job so that I can afford to see her and consult with her so she can tell me, because she is a psychic, when to quit the job because my big gigantic break is coming soon. She tells me I will make a lot of money being funny. Being funny, I ask? Yeah, like a comedian, like a funny comedy writer. I ask her how much money. She says a boatload. I ask her how big the boat is, she says big. I leave it at that. Some things you just want to be completely surprised about.

Mary and I see each other frequently, and talk often and when I feel unsure or want to know what’s going to happen, or could happen so I can be well prepared, I call her and she advises me. I now have a jump start on my future. Sometimes our conversations went like this: “Will he call me?” “No.” “No?” “No. Never.” “Why?” “Because he doesn’t like you.” “Why?” “You’re not his type.” “What’s his type?” “Blonde, blue-eyed, big tits.” For a rather small-cupped brunette that was not encouraging, but she saved me from myself enough times, and she liked me enough to keep me on the phone when she could sense I was unsure, or lonely, or feeling vulnerable.

She became a friend.

When my dog got lost, and he was gone for over a week, she knew exactly where he was. When I was let go – okay, fired — from my waitressing job, she knew the restaurant was going to call and re-hire me, when I met another god-awful wrong man who I absolutely believed was Mr. Right, she would tell me with ‘great patience’ that he was so fucking Mr. Wrong even a blind person could see it. When my mom had a minor heart attack, she saw it, she felt it and she called me, telling me she saw my mom’s ‘heart was blocked,’ but I shouldn’t worry because she will be fine. And sometimes she was just utterly and completely wrong, and boy oh boy did she hate being wrong. She hated being told she was wrong, and I was thoroughly convinced that she would put some kind of reverse psychic spell on it so that she could make it right.

I am in Los Angeles for five days. I am here on ‘screenwriting’ business, seeing friends, and it is Valentine’s Day. I am on a date with a guy I met through work, he being a television Producer. He takes me to some fancy-schmancy restaurant up in Malibu Canyon, and I’m on my second glass of wine, having just finished my frisee and pear salad with bleu cheese, when the headache starts up again. Pounding, pounding, pounding – it feels as if my head is going to split open and explode. I have been having horrible blinding headaches for about a month, and they keep getting worse, and here I am experiencing a god awful blinding headache, and this time, at this restaurant, on this first date, it comes back in a fury. I am trying to act normal, until I can’t any longer, and I tell this guy, this guy that I hardly know at all, that I’m awfully sorry, but I think I need to be rushed immediately to a hospital NOW, as in this fucking minute. I stand up, and ask him if he would like to take me to Cedars Sinai, or… or, and I would completely understand if in fact he didn’t want to, I could have the restaurant call me a cab. He offers to take me, but asks if we could just wait a few minutes, so we could get the food we ordered to go. We don’t have the time, I tell him. At this point, I am convinced that I am dying, and I don’t want to dilly-dally. Although, I don’t tell him that, it feels like too much information to share on a first date. He throws down a wad of cash to pay for a meal that is costing an arm and a leg not to mention a piece of my brain, and we make a mad rush out of there. He drives directly to Cedars Sinai in Beverly Hills, and we proceed to push our way up the queue in the Emergency Room line. This being Hollywood, I notice a couple of B slash C movie actors in the waiting room. Now it’s my turn with the emergency room nurse and she asks me what’s wrong. I tell her that I believe I have a brain tumor. My new friend turns absolutely white, “A brain tumor.” he says/asks. Yes I say, a brain tumor. I don’t think he wants to see me anymore. I think he wants to leave, and go back to the restaurant and try to pick up the cute waitress who was flirting with him, who, by the way, appears to have a very long life in front of her. The nurse gets me a semi-private room within the emergency room area, and my friend tags along. We wait for what feels like hours until the attending Emergency Room physician makes his way to see me. Long story short – they take an X-Ray, there’s a small tiny cluster that appears on the X-Ray, and I am now officially unofficially told that I have what appears to be a brain mass, or what is commonly known as a brain tumor. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.

They put me in a private room, where handwritten on a board directly above my head, it reads, “Brain Tumor.” My friend stays with me, and we get to know each other, because, well, clearly I don’t have much time left. We chat. He’s a Pisces, and loves Opera; I’m a Sagittarius, and I love the Rolling Stones. He loves algebra and calculus, anything and everything mathematical, I like none of that. He loves watercolors and ink drawings, I love sculpture and modern art. He loves Betty White. I don’t even know how or why that came up. I like romantic comedies, thrillers, and 40’s film noir; he likes sci-fi and musicals and loves, with a capital L, game shows. Clearly, this is not a match, not even close. But he stays, and I think he stays because he has no-where else to go, and for that I am grateful, but not grateful enough to engage in any sexual activity as a thank-you. Another attending doctor comes in, a small wisp of a guy, and asks me if there is anyone, a family member or otherwise, I would like to call. The specialist brain tumor doctor will be in first thing in the morning, to take a look at the X-Rays, but in the meantime, they’ll give me some pain medication to ease my pain: Percocet, percodan, and/or codeine. And again, asks me if there is anyone I would like to call. Yes, I say, I want to call Mary. “Your sister?” “No. My psychic.” If I wasn’t convinced enough that my new friend’s eyes glazed over with the brain tumor line, this certainly clinched it. I dial Mary’s number, I’m pretty sure she’s asleep – it is three hours later in New York – but, she answers the phone. I tell her I am in a hospital, I’ve just been diagnosed with a brain tumor, and… and…I knew it… I knew it, I just knew these headaches were life-threatening, and she stops me mid-sentence, interrupting me, telling me point blank, “It is not a brain tumor, whatdya fuckin’ kiddin’ me, who the fuck told you it was a brain tumor, they should have their fuckin’ medical license taken away, you wanna know what you have? You wanna know what’s wrong, you have sinusitis.”

Huh, I say. Really?
Yeah. Sinus headaches. It’s that time of year.
But I never had this before.
I never had a weight problem, but I have one now. You don’t have a fuckin’ tumor.

Well, she’s not always right.

My new friend asks, “So, uh, what did your psychic say?” with enough cynicism that I knew – it was all in his tone – I knew that he wasn’t a believer.
“It’s not good,” I tell him.

I spend the night. The nurses and attending physicians tiptoe around my room, treating me like the terminally ill patient I am, with kindness and the occasional handholding and the big toe grabbing. And then morning comes. My friend has also spent the night, having fallen asleep in the chair. The specialist comes in, a very lovely older gentlemen with a shock of gray hair and a lovely smile, and he introduces himself and says, I hope you didn’t call your parents because that little cluster that the attending emergency room physician read on the X-Ray was in fact the sinus cavity, and it appears that you have what is commonly known as sinusitis.

He then gives me a Claritin, which I can now buy over the counter at any pharmacy or drug store.

My friend asks me if I would mind terribly taking a cab back to my hotel room. Shortly after our date, he left the television and film business, moved back to Vermont, where he owns and operates a “Welcome to Vermont” tchotchkes store.

And according to another psychic, someday I will run into him, and he will avoid me like the plague.

And yes, I have sinusitis every year, right around Valentines Day.
And I still on occasion believe it’s a brain tumor, or brain cancer.