LOST IN THE FLOOD

So my wife is on her third round of antibiotics and her first batch of steroids for what the doctors believe is a sinus infection migrated south to retire permanently in her lungs as bronchitis. My son has awakened us every night for the past two weeks complaining of a recurring nightmare involving a bad man with a tail who lives in a lamp. I have a rash that I don't want to talk about, and my dog has had a recurrence of something that requires its own special canine dermatologist.

So something's up.

Because besides the bee death cult and the devil dreams and the wife's death rattle chest, there's also now the flood.

In my previous post I believe I mentioned the possibilities for floods?

Sometime last week, possibly on Thanksgiving but who really cares, a very small pinhole leak developed in a hot water pipe in my attic. An attic, that, due to a condition I possess which I can only define as "ladder-impairedness," is hardly a place that I frequent. It's dark up there, lots of air-conditioning ducting, a creaky wood beam floor, and most likely very large furry jumping spiders from Brazil.

This leak, tiny as tiny can be, sprayed hot water continually for days and days, drenching the creaky wood floor of my attic until such wood could no longer contain all of the water and passed it along to various portions of my house. The ceiling of my office. The wall behind a built-in bookcase. A large wall along a staircase. The ceiling in my kitchen. And the wall of my basement.

It was a very ambitious little leak, an uptight little overachieving leak, the kind of leak you want to beat the shit out of in high school. One that did its dirty work under the cover of darkness until paint started bubbling off my walls and small, amber colored drops of water started landing in my King Vitamin cereal at breakfast.

So for two days now my house has been the L.A. equivalent of the Amish barn-raising scene in Witness except you take out Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis and replace them with my handyman George and four other dudes who, every time you walk by them, smile and shake their heads and say: "Mucho trabajo." Which I understand now is Spanish for "Isn't this black mold?"

It's enough to make a man pine for the Hochleitners.

Plastic hangs over my doorways like a Dexter death room and rolls of butcher paper have been spread all over my floors with such enthusiasm that I am beginning to feel like a pork loin. One wall was dried out and plastered over and six hours later that wall had turned an ugly shade of brown--suggesting that it was not actually dried out in the first place or I am living in Fucking Amityville.

In my previous post I rolled these bones and saw signs of the labor apocalypse. And given the AMPTP's recent "New Economic Partnership" proposal it's certainly possible that the latest pox on my house is simply an anaphylactic shock brought on by the Big Media Beast as it slouches towards the Ivy to eat crab cakes and Rickey's Fried Chicken.

However.

As devoted father and loving husband it is my DUTY to explore alternate explanations for whatever dark materials have found their way to my family and my hearth.

So.

If we are to eliminate:
a) nature and all naturally occurring sources
b) the Old testament and related religious explanations
c) coincidence
d) the possibility that I am a delusional paranoid hypochondriac who is so fucked up that his family, pets, and house suffer from Munchausen's by Proxy--

We are left with only one option:

Joss Whedon is very upset with me for casting Summer Glau and has somehow invoked a powerful curse and relocated the Buffy Hellmouth underneath my home.

I saw how the Hellmouth operated for many years, I know its signs and symbols. And while there may not be any vampires yet to slay, I swear to God I saw Alyson Hannigan tongue-kissing a werebear in my laundry room when I was washing my strike shirt.

What kills me is I saw Joss two weeks ago at the Showrunner March. We talked about Summer. I didn't sense anything weird. Looking back I do remember seeing Shawn Ryan and the dude from the 4400 both give packages to Joss that at the time I assumed were Mrs. Beasley's muffin baskets but now I clearly believe were animal sacrifices.

(At another point during the march I saw Joss and Ron Moore huddled together but when I tried to eavesdrop on what they were saying I got this hot burning sensation in my ears and I may have blacked out and peed for a second.)

So because I think there is no other choice and also because I'm on strike with a lot of time on my hands I decide to make a donation to the Church of Joss.

I buy the Firefly boxed set (24 cents to Joss); I watched Serenity on cable (maybe .5 cents to Joss), I already own and have watched the entire Buffy series on DVD (75 cents to Joss). I have spent DAYS OF MY LIFE devoted to the works of Joss Whedon and I'm pretty sure I haven't even sent A WHOLE DOLLAR OF RESIDUALS in his direction.

Which is obviously not enough of a sacrifice to break the curse.

So I'll offer up one of the most humiliating moments for me as a professional writer:

Some years ago I am invited to a dinner party for screenwriters. There's about fifty of us there--including most of the A list people I had always wanted to call my peers. At the time the only credit I had was a shared story on Chain Reaction but I knew a couple of the people throwing the dinner and so I was invited. Terrified, but invited. At some point I am introduced to a writer/director whose work I had admired for years. He was a little older, kind of a legend. Here's how the conversation went:

ME: God, I can't tell you how great it is to meet you. I love your work. Especially (BIG MOVIE).
LEGEND: No. the pleasure is mine. I'm such a huge fan of your writing.
ME: Really?
LEGEND: Of course. It's fantastic. My kids absolutely love Buffy. Just love it.
ME: Uhmmm....
LEGEND: They're gonna be so impressed I met you. They're always going on about you...
ME: Uh, Mr. Legend? As much as I want to be Joss Whedon right now...I'm not. I'm Josh Friedman.
LEGEND: Josh Friedman?
ME: Josh Friedman.
LEGEND: Hm. Oh. Well, I'm sure you're a good writer, too.

And then he walked away.

So please, Joss. Do my family a favor. Take Back the Hellmouth. I know it's fucking huge and you might not have room for it at your place. Maybe you could donate it.

Maybe we could include it in the New Economic Partnership.

Just a thought.