Whew . . . that was great, but now the lost feeling starts

[shalanna]

After the telethon, I always feel a sense of letdown and loss along with the excitement of having seen MDA get a dollar (or more) more than last year (almost every year) and the satisfaction of seeing a plan come together. ("I love it when a plan comes together.") Maybe it's because we have to wait another year to see it again, and I'm always a little worried. I'm so relieved and thrilled that Jerry Lewis looked as good and vigorous as he did (for his age and health status!) and that he didn't have any problems with his health during all those hours (I could see he got short of breath sometimes, and I know that mild heart attack did hurt him, but there wasn't anything major that seemed to be going on.) All the acts were really good--really good, ALL of them--and I saw evidence that they have at least three possible "control this and reverse it" solutions in testing for three of the variations of neuromuscular diseases *and* then that exciting clinical trial of the gene therapy FIX for Duchenne MD. Research has been going well, but this year there was a piece about the clinical trial in progress on six boys (and we'll know the results of that safety trial next March.) I saw two children with different n-m diseases who were receiving a treatment (by IV twice a week, replacing the missing proteins that their bodies don't make) and whose disease symptoms were reversing themselves. Obviously, the research is prolonging lives, making a difference, and getting ever-closer to the cure and/or at least an effective treatment that reverses or halts damage. Still . . . when it gets near the time for Jerry to sing that final song that he really doesn't like to sing . . . I always feel melancholy.

I felt extra-guilty this year that I didn't go down and work the phones. But I hadn't made any promises earlier in the year, and this diet has made my attitude really fragile and brittle, *and* I couldn't find the contact info for the people I used to get in touch with. . . . Okay, I just dropped the ball and let it all sneak up on me. Wicked woman.

**BUT** KXAS Fort Worth/Dallas, Channel 5, did not join the Telethon early on Sunday night as it always has for the past 33 years . . . it joined at 6 AM Sunday morning. I couldn't help feeling that if only I had been involved as I should've been, I could've corrected that. *weak grin* Thank goodness our cable system carries WGN Chicago, where I watched starting at 10 PM Sunday. (I watched on the webpage starting at 8, but that gets really tiring.)

[edited for correct spelling of name and link to website!]
After midnight, they showcased a fifteen-year-old singer, Nicolas King. He's a friend/cohort of MDA National Youth Chairperson Billy Gilman. Nicolas has a great voice, lots of talent, and has surely been watching the Bobby Darin tapes, for he sang a medley mostly containing "Mack the Knife," and he did all the Darin moves and even had the phrasing! He looks more like British actor Peter Davison (a dark-haired version--still a Very Good Thing) than like Bobby (an Italian stallion), but he already has some of that Darin charm, and the camera caught it. I predict he is the one to watch.

I also caught an improv troupe of five guys who did "The Ed Sullivan Show In Three Minutes," which I thought was masterful. But it was 5 AM and I was just up to take the dog tinkle and get a glass of water for myself, having gone to sleep around 3, so I didn't get the details about them. I had never heard the Goo Goo Dolls, and they were good. We always enjoy Tony Orlando, and (to quote Jerry), I don't miss Dawn. *grin* [Tony Orlando will be at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth next month!] Jack Jones is fabulous. Early on, an older man came out and started to sing ballads (an upbeat version of "Days of Wine and Roses"), and my mother kept asking, "Who is that? I know him. Did they say who?" I hadn't caught the name. Suddenly she shrieked, "Julius LaRosa! That's Julius LaRosa! Your daddy and I used to watch him on Jack Paar. I never knew he could sing that well even back then!" I had to laugh. Then there was the Cirque du Soleil, whose act started out with a mostly-naked pile of sexy guys who proceeded to do a cross between cheerleading pile-ups and a June Taylor Dancers thing . . . I am sure that kept the attention of MANY people. *GRIN* Ah, Vegas!

Anyhow . . . another successful telethon, the culmination of a long year of work. If Jerry does play a club date in Las Vegas later (as he had planned to earlier this year before his mild heart problem delayed it), I want to go. I saw him live when I was twelve, at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, because my dad was presenting a paper at the American Mathematical Society convention that year and when I saw that the dates coincided, I threw fits until they consented that we'd do both. Gary Lewis also said he's playing in Branson, Missouri, right now and will be there again next spring. I would like to see him live, too. Maybe I'll set those ideas as the new stars in my sky of plans, and they can take the sting out of the repeated disappointments involved in trying to market my writing.

I'm not the ONLY person who has bad luck with agents--stevekelner just posted about that--yet I think I must take it a lot harder. Sure, sure, "she may still call this week." I might get all six numbers in the Lotto on Wednesday, too. And maybe my butt will shrink down to a size eight overnight (and skip the part about anaphylactic shock from sudden tissue loss). All the molecules in this chair could suddenly zing north-northwest all at the same time, and I might go flying.* It COULD happen.

* (Ask a physics teacher about this sometime.)

Comments

From the very end of your post

[dennis-havens.livejournal.com]

Your "ask a Physics teacher about this sometime" instantly brought to mind a "Simpsons" I saw recently. They were all on a train, approaching an imposing mountain range. A sign announced "The Quantum Tunnel"; the train went effortlessly through the mountain, quickly emerging from the other side, unscathed. And of course there was no evidence of a tunnel visible to the viewer.

May your sudden molecule shift bring you safely to Detroit (I think that's a contradiction in terms), or wherever your north-northeast desires want you to go. Canada is lovely this time of year.