E. C. (Gene) Ayres Blogspot

For those of you who once read my blogs, and might read them again, I am back. It has been a year of silence, that happily is about to be broken. I was fighting many battles in my absence, in many ways and at many levels: for my life. I am back, at least for now, because I have won those battles at last, if not the war. As to that, one cannot truly control the outcome of one's life, much as we might wish otherwise. Still, we can try. Imagine, if you will, having to pick up your life and move (we've all done that) but in the process, incurring a grievous injury requiring surgery. Then take it further: that you go to sleep in pain, and wake up a different person. Or two different persons: persons who do not relate to you, who are hostile to you and to each other. One is manic; the other profoundly depressed. So then you reach out for help and are given medications, and the medications trigger a terrible reaction. So then you try, try again, and finally find balance. Imagi...

I know, I know. I haven't posted since my eulogy to Dominick Dunne back in January. My apologies, and mea culpa. But the cells have not been dormant. I've been thinking. Three a.m. toss and turn kind of thinking, even as a beautiful woman lies peacefully and blissfully unaware at my side. I've been thinking about why I've had so many near misses, so many close calls, so many Almost Famous moments, dancing with stars, even my own Fifteen Minutes of Fame, personally bestowed by Andy Warhol himself, yet always felt like an impostor, like I didn't belong. What's up with that? Well, for starters, it was extraordinarily reassuring to learn, even so many years later and too late to thank the man personally, that Nick Dunne had always felt the same way. We were opposites, of course, in some ways: he grew up rich, I didn't. He was famous. I wasn't. He was hugely successful. I wasn't. And yet, and yet: we felt the same way about ourselves, and our lives. Stran...