Sakharov and Tim
<<2003-03-09 - 10:20 p.m.>>

And it was good. I mean, not fan-fucking-tastic, but good enough that I wanted to make it better, good enough that I started doing that thing in my head where I take a movie or a play or a story and start pounding out the kinks in my mind. There were three very good performances, and the other three, while not nearly as good, were also not nearly as important. It was a thesis production called "Sakharov," about (rather obviously) about Andre Sakharov, a disgraced Soviet physicist, the Swedish journalist who sneaks into Gorky, from which foreigners were banned, and the KGB agents who monitor them. Sakharov, the journalist, and the new-arrival KGB agent (played by an acquaintance of mine) were all quite good. There were a few line readings that just gave you a solid gut-feeling of that was right. It was exciting.

I was, however, distracted by Tim's general moroseness. He came up to me and Miriam at dinner looking rather sad, and stood there forlornly even after we'd asked him to sit down. I asked him what was wrong; he said he'd rather not talk about it. I got up and gave him a hug. And Tim is still my favorite person to hug. He's just the right size for me to hug—just the right amount taller and broader-shouldered than I am. And he's so solid. Hugging Tim is my new favorite hobby, I think. Anyhow. It didn't particularly seem to help, though I enjoyed it. And then I was sitting between him and Gina in the black box theater, waiting for the play to start, and he was doing that thing that he does when he's sad, staring off into space with that particularly blank look of his—and when someone is as animated as Tim is when he's happy, blankness just feels crushing, somehow. I asked him what was wrong again. He said he'd "spent the afternoon staring into the void, shall we say."

I want Tim to never be sad. Ever. Tim's sadness seems to have that particular quality of being easily transmittable to me. I told Miriam later last night that sometimes I think it's not that one is particularly sensitive to one's friends' feelings, but that one becomes friends with the people to whose feelings one is particularly sensitive.

And sometimes Tim seems so awfully sad. Sometimes it seems like the void is so close to him. And I know I don't know him well enough, and I know I couldn't even if I did, I know it's not my responsibility to save people, but with people like Tim I can't help it—I just want to make him feel safe. He never makes eye contact when he speaks. He looks away, his voice drifts, and I think of his conservative Christian family and the skirts he sometimes wears and the drugs he does and the truly staggering amount of sex he used to have.

I want to sit him down and hold both his hands and just make eye contact with him. Oh, Tim, it can all be okay.

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