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The sermon for Mar. 27, 2004 is: ringing 3:25 p.m. Glenn called me, to tell me about his evening with Salman Rushdie and to share his shock over watching "My Dinner With Andr�" again, said shock coming from the beginning when Wally Shawn, walking, contemplates in voiceover: "Here I am, 36 years old, and my life already over...." Glenn, shocked, told me, "THIRTY SIX YEARS OLD? I'M ALMOST THIRTY SIX YEARS OLD! JESUS CHRIST, JONATHAN, I'M GOING TO BE WALLY SHAWN!" Which, if that is true, must make me Andr� Gregory; something that would've made Glenn giggle (not that it is difficult to make Glenn giggle) if it had occurred to me then to tell him. Je suis moi-m�me l'�prit d'�scalier nu�. Yong called me, asking me if he could ask me a question. The sound of his voice pierced my guts like an icicle; I knew, just by the mere fact that he was calling me, that he was suicidally depressed, and that meant that he must have broken up with Stephanie. I tried to remain optimistic before responding to him. I said to my soul, Perhaps he wants to talk to you about something happy. Perhaps he want to ask a wildly happy question: Jonathan, Stephanie and I are getting married; will you come? Or perhaps, Jonathan, I knocked Stephanie up with my radioactively super-spy sperm; do you mind if we name our child Jonathan, especially if it's a girl? I said to Yong, Go ahead, ask me your question. And Yong asked, his voice a monotone, dripping with self-pity, Do you love me? Valerie Rosenberg called and left a message on my answering machine, asking in a chipper voice after my health. Since I had thought I would never speak to her again, this put me in a state of such seasickness and longing I could do nothing else except call her immediately back. It took two phone calls and three letters mailed (as in stamped, posted, delivered: e-mail is beyond me these days; the latest technological marvel I've wrapped my 19th century philosophy mind successfully around is the fountain pen) before my ex-girlfriend and I finally talked to one another in tones other than bird-screeching insecurity and quintuple �ntendre. Schade, she's miserable. For some reason, I don't feel like listing her shortcomings and doubts here, which strikes me as incredibly unlike me; somehow, in the years and distances since Valerie had broken my heart, I've somehow regained my sense of pathos and sympathy for her, instead of all the murderous bitterness that had filled and sustained me for nights and days on end. Valerie said, "Your life is Disneyland, Jonathan, compared to mine"; though I quibble about the choice of theme parks (I think my life is more like Dollywood, or Mutual of Omaha's Wild Mormonland), compared to Valerie and Yong, I feel comparatively supernatural. Stephanie called me. Frank Sinatra called me, singing that song "It Was A Very Good Year"; when he got to the verse, "Now I am thirty-five / I'm in the autumn of my years...," he suddenly broke down, screaming with hysterical laughter. "I'M GOING TO BE WALLY SHAWN, JONATHAN!" the Chairman of the Board said. Eric Hays called me. His 18-month old son, Max, has been diagnosed with leukemia. Eric took great pains to prepare me before telling me the news; he also added that the outlook is very optimistic. And yet when he told me, I cried and I cried and I cried. I sit by my phone. Sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I dream.
 
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