I'm so excited -- but I'll try to hide it

Just got off the phone with my filmmaker, TV producer pal and sometimes creative partner who was passionate to tell me that two national TV networks are interested in financing a documentary project of which I am – albeit in my own small way – to be a part of.

Needless to say she was just peeing her pants over the news and pantingly said: “I just had to call you – I just had to call – I want to shout it from the rooftops!”

Without question that is good, good news, especially for her because she realizes that her ‘credibility’ isn’t just in her mind, and that she, dammit, may just finally be going somewhere. Not a bad thing for a 40-year-old single mom who has been toiling in the television trenches since she was 21.

Not a bad thing for me, either. All going well, she has earmarked a sum of money for me that is of a nature to not be sneezed at. No, it’s not a fortune by any stretch, but it will help with the mortgage, and that sort of thing. If my car breaks down I can get it fixed, but the Porsche Carrera will have to wait for a while.

I know I should be utterly over the moon about all of this – and I am – but in ‘my own’ way. My own way – so what’s that all about? Well, it goes like this: I have a built-in wariness about being ecstatic about something that hasn’t yet transpired. I’m mindful of the adage that goes: “If you want to give God a laugh, make a plan.”

My first wife used to accuse me of suffering from anhedonia – a resistance to feeling the same sort of pleasure that others feel about certain things that should give ecstatic sensations. I mean, she didn’t use the word anhedonia, but I got her drift.

And, maybe in a broader sense she was right. I find that I am not a cartwheel turner, and I’m not certain why. If I run up against one of those things that I know should make me feel really good, it tends to make me 'cautiously' pleased.

I suspect it has something to do with disappointments in childhood wherein assurances were given by parents that a certain thing was going to happen, and then it didn’t. Consequently, when I kept hens, I did count the eggs under a broody mama, but never relied that if there were eight eggs, there would be at least seven chicks. There might be three, or there might be none. So, I guess it’s a kind of built-in armor against disappointment. I’m sure Dr. Deb could sort this all out in a trice.

Anhedonia is a multi-faceted term, actually. It also means not necessarily taking pleasure in stuff others find pleasurable. I mean, sometimes I do, but it varies, and I am especially wary of ‘popular’ pleasures in the sense, as I suggested before about the Olympics, that somebody tells me I ‘must’ take pleasure in this particular thing because everybody else is. Well, everybody isn't, and I won't be bullied into taking pleasure about anything.

I mean, I’m not a killjoy. I love having fun, and I do have fun, and can get as raucous and jubilant as can be, but only if 'I' am tickled in a particular manner. I have a terrific sense of humor, and am even frolicsome. But, only if the feeling is genuine in the sense I can't constrain myself. If I’m not so tickled, I just can’t fake it. It’s like pretending to be in love with somebody in order to get into their pants. I mean, the sex act with that person might be very pleasant, but it’s not going to be the same as it would be if the ‘love’ quotient existed. Now, that’s when I feel ‘hedonic’.

As for the film project, I shall keep you posted. And yes, I am excited about it, and I wish I could tell you much more, but right now the nature of the venture has to be kept under wraps. Stay tuned. Isn’t that what electronic media people say? Guess I’ll have to get used to that over the next while.