I’m officially looking for a new job. If anyone out there has a lead, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.

I think I’d love to work in a library — I’ve had library jobs before and they seem to suit me — but a job in a nice office-type environment would be fine, too. Preferably something low-stress. What I’m pretty sure about is that I don’t want to practice law anymore. (Not that I ever really wanted to in the first place.)

I had therapy last night, and it was really really good. Since the urologist has told me that my uncomfortable physical sensations are all in my mind, my therapist and I tried to figure out why my mind would be doing this to me. I have a theory that I’ve gone through a fucking nutty amount of stress in the last three months — first and foremost related to my job, but also related to other things — and this is my body’s reaction to all that stress. It’s never reacted this way before, but since I recently had prostatitis (which itself was stressful), I wonder if my body perhaps “remembers” those symptoms and is recreating them.

I need to get out of this job. I no longer care about fulfilling my three-year commitment. The worst that will happen is that I won’t be able to get an official recommendation from the state in the future. I can’t wait until next August; my health and my sanity are more important to me. A new job — something to which I’m better suited — is the most important thing right now.

It also could be that Wellbutrin is not the right drug for me. Granted, I’ve had these symptoms since before I started taking Wellbutrin, but perhaps the Wellbutrin isn’t helping. I haven’t been sleeping well since I started taking it, especially this week; last night I woke up at 2:00 and then at 3:00, and I was awake with pain until about 5:00. Wellbutrin can also create agitation, and perhaps it’s making my symptoms worse. Who knows. Anxiety has always been my problem more than depression, anyway. Maybe a different drug will reduce all this stress and make the symptoms go away.

I actually broke down and cried last night as I tried to get out the words, “I feel like I can’t even trust my own body anymore, I feel like my body has turned against me.” It’s scary to feel that your own body is playing tricks on you.

When I was at my lowest yesterday afternoon, completely scared and stressed out about this, I called my dad to talk about it with him, and he called me a hypochondriac.

Okay — I’m a chronic worrier about my health. I often worry that a particular symptom is a sign of something worse than it actually turns out to be. But while I overly worry about the consequences of symptoms, I’ve never actually imagined symptoms before. So this is just weird. I’ve printed out this to read, though.

There is one ray of light. When I have an erection, there’s no pain.

Yup — last night I confirmed that despite what’s been going on with me, I can still have great sex.

(This was not during therapy, of course.)

I’ll close by repeating — if anyone has any job leads, I’d love it if you could pass them on to me. Thanks.

Another reason why it’s good to go to the dentist every six months:

I had an appointment this morning for my regular six-month dental checkup — x-rays, cleaning, et cetera. There was a new dentist; the last three times I’ve gone, the dentist who’s worked on my teeth has been this old man who doesn’t say much, but this time it was a young Nigerian woman with excellent English. I liked her much better.

And then she told me that I had three very little cavities.

She said they were so small that I wouldn’t need anesthesia if she filled them in. She asked if I wanted to have it done now.

Hell, why not. I figured it was good to get it done before my brain had time to process this.

And she was right — it took about 20 minutes and I didn’t need anesthesia. I did feel a little pain for a second or two — but really, once you’ve had a swab stuck up your urethra, everything else is peaches.

So it’s done. Good. Thank you, nice Nigerian dentist lady! Apparently I need to do a better job of brushing the tops of my teeth.

Meanwhile, I’m still having bladder issues, and they’ve been getting worse again since the urologist told me last Monday that it’s probably psychosomatic. So I’ve scheduled an appointment with another urologist, which unfortunately isn’t until next Thursday. But I still have some Celebrex left (an anti-inflammatory drug), and I’m going to start taking it again to see if it helps. I was not in good shape mentally at the end of work yesterday; I’d made the mistake of searching the Web and diagnosing myself with something that’s incurable, even though I’m missing one or two of the key symptoms, and I figured, that’s it, I’ll have to deal with this every day for the rest of my life, I will forever be impaired, my life will never be the same again. I was really upset.

Once I got home I realized I was being ridiculous. Why not just wait until I see the new urologist and he makes me better? I took a hot bath, ordered in a sandwich for dinner, and watched “Smallville” and “Angel.” “Smallville” has been really good lately; I’m still not sure what I think of “Angel” this season. But I’m halfway through Season 2 on DVD, and it’s damn good.

I’ll be glad when the Wellbutrin kicks in.

[4/21/08: Greetings, Googlers! No doubt many of you are here because of the New York Times article today. You can find out more about me or check out my archives. Feel free to drop me a line!]

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I’ve been reading Not Since Carrie, Ken Mandelbaum’s book about Broadway musical flops. Since I also own Hot Seat, a collection of Frank Rich’s 13 years of theater reviews for the New York Times, I’ve occasionally looked up some of Rich’s reviews of the flops that Mandelbaum discusses. They’re entertaining, often scathing.

Mandelbaum’s book does not discuss Moose Murders, one of the most notorious Broadway flops ever, because it’s a play, not a musical. But Frank Rich reviewed it. I couldn’t find his review online, so I’ve transcribed it from Hot Seat in its entirety. Have fun.

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February 23, 1983

From now on, there will always be two groups of theatergoers in this world: those who have seen Moose Murders, and those who have not. Those of us who have witnessed the play that opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theater last night will undoubtedly hold periodic reunions, in the noble tradition of survivors of the Titanic. Tears and booze will flow in equal measure, and there will be a prize awarded to the bearer of the most outstanding antlers. As for those theatergoers who miss Moose Murders — well, they just don’t rate. A visit to Moose Murders is what will separate the connoisseurs of Broadway disaster from mere dilettantes for many moons to come.

The play begins in the exact manner of Whodunnit — itself one of the season’s drearier offerings, though at the time of its opening we didn’t realize how relatively civilized it was. There’s a loud thunderclap, and the curtain rises to reveal an elaborate, two-level, dark wood set. Amusingly designed by Marjorie Bradley Kellogg, the set represents a lodge in the Adirondacks and is profusely decorated with the requisite stuffed moose heads. Though the heads may be hunting trophies, one cannot rule out the possibility that these particular moose committed suicide shortly after being shown the script that trades on their good name.

The first human characters we meet — if “human” is the right word — are “the singing Keenes.” The scantily clad Snooks Keene bumps her backside in the audience’s face and sings “Jeepers Creepers” in an aggressively off-key screech while her blind husband, Howie, pounds away on an electric hand organ. Howie’s plug is soon mercifully pulled by the lodge’s beefy middle-aged caretaker, Joe Buffalo Dance, who wears Indian war paint and braids but who speaks in an Irish brogue.

This loathsome trio is quickly joined by a whole crowd of unappetizing clowns. The wealthy Hedda Holloway, the lodge’s new owner, arrives with her husband, Sidney, a heavily bandaged quadriplegic who is confined to a wheelchair and who is accurately described as “that fetid roll of gauze.” Sidney’s attendant, Nurse Dagmar, wears revealing black satin, barks in Nazi-ese, and likes to leave her patient out in the rain. The Holloway children include Stinky, a drug-crazed hippie who wants to sleep with his mother, and Gay, a little girl in a party dress. Told that her father will always be “a vegetable,” Gay turns up her nose and replies, “Like a lima bean? Gross me out!” She then breaks into a tap dance.

For much of Act 1, this ensemble stumbles about mumbling dialogue that, as far as one can tell, is only improved by its inaudibility. Just before intermission, Stinky breaks out a deck of cards to give the actors, if not the audience, something to do. The lights go out in mid-game, and when they come up again, one of the characters has been murdered. Such is the comatose nature of the production that we’re too busy trying to guess which stiff on stage is the victim to worry about guessing the culprit.

Even Act 1 of Moose Murders is inadequate preparation for the ludicrous depths of Act 2. I won’t soon forget the spectacle of watching the mummified Sidney rise from his wheelchair to kick an intruder, unaccountably dressed in a moose costume, in the groin. This peculiar fracas is topped by the play’s final twist, in which Hedda serves her daughter Gay a poison-laced vodka martini. As the young girl collapses to the floor and dies in the midst of another Shirley Temple-esque buck and wing, her mother breaks into laughter and applause.

The ten actors trapped in this enterprise, a minority of them of professional caliber, will not be singled out here. I’m tempted to upbraid the author, director, and producers of Moose Murders, but surely the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will be after them soon enough.

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Moose Murders closed after one performance.

There’s also this enjoyable account.