"Ben, is there some way you can chew that..." "Do you have to make that sound when you..." "I'm not even chewing." "I don't chew, I just swallow." "I'm sorry, I'm a little cranky this morning," "I got no sleep last night, the air conditioner kept me up all night." "Oh, really?" "It shimmies, you know?" "Yes, it makes a noise." "I feel like I've been run over." "I must have slept 15 minutes last night." "Really?" "And you gotta go to work." "I know, and I feel..." "I slept eight hours, and I'm going back to bed." "I just gotta get some sleep, that's it." "I can take a look at it." "Would you?" "I'm good with a screwdriver." "Just be careful that you have the air conditioner secured or balanced so that it won't..." "The super did tell the both of us that it was a two-man job because someone needs to open the window while the other person holds." "Yeah, that's why I don't think you need to open the window or remove the air conditioner." "I think you just need to secure it, that's all." "Call security." "Dr. Katz, would your feelings be hurt if I left early today?" "Rodney, this is not about my feelings." "So, I guess, I would have to ask you what time were you thinking of leaving?" "Now." "Well, that hurts a little." "At least sit down for a second." "Okay, we're done, huh?" "I guess, I mean, I think this is the easy way out." "I mean, tell me one sad thing." "Yeah, all right." "At least can we finish this conversation about your wife?" "Okay, I got you." "I remember the first time I met my wife, it was in a restaurant." "She told the waiter, "I'd like to have something simple,"" "so he brought me over." "See, there you go, you're joking again." "We're trying to... you're not being honest with me." "One day, I asked my daughter," ""What do you want to be when you grow up?"" "She looked at my wife... she said, "single."" "Again, this is the same thing." "My kids are nothing but trouble." "I told my son, "Someday, you'll have children of your own."" "He said, "So will you."" "That's cold." "Am I finished?" "You know, I'm not... we're not learning anything by doing this." " Hello?" " Yes?" "Hi, Dr. Katz, it's Fred." "Yeah, Fred, what are you doing here?" "This is..." "I'm... for the appointment." "You're... you're not expected until, until..." "I might be early." "You're 24 hours early, Fred." "You see, I had some problems I really want to talk about, and I was afraid that if I did other things, other things would come up, and I'd forget to talk about the things" "I really wanted to talk about, that the other things would cancel it out." "Maybe you shouldn't..." "I don't want anything else happening." "Maybe you shouldn't do other things until you see me." "Just don't do other things..." "You know what I mean?" "Because if..." "Rodney, I'll be with you in one second, okay?" "Forgive me." "I really have to..." "I have a guy in there." "Oh, could I ask you one quick question really quick?" "Actually, could you just slip the problem under the door, and then when I'm done, I'll..." "And where will the answer be?" "I'll slip it right back under the door to you, okay?" "As soon as I'm done." "Um, where's Laura?" "Laura's..." "Laura had to go." "What are we..." "Am I waiting for now?" "I'm sorry, Rodney, I'll be one second..." "All right, everything okay?" "Everything is fine with me." "I think..." "I just need to get back to work." "Okay, I'm sorry..." "Are you mad at me?" "Little bit." "Could I give you, like, some singles from my wallet?" "Uh, that's not necessary..." "That's a ten, I think." "Ben." "Oh, god." " Hey, Ben." " Daddy." "Did you go back to sleep?" "What?" "Did I wake you up?" "Did you go back to sleep?" "What time is it?" "It's ten after 9:00." "I went back to sleep." "What do you mean?" "You get up, you have breakfast and then you go back to sleep?" "What, do you call me right when you get to work?" "Well, I'm calling you for a reason, because..." "Why don't you leave me alone for a little bit?" "I'm gonna fix the thing." "No, no, I have another reason." "That's my day planner, I forgot it, and I would love it, if you can find it, it's either in my room, or the living room or the kitchen, and just swing by the office with it, that would be great." "Dad, I don't have time to do all those things today, all those things you just said." "Well, that's..." "That's two things." "I'll try to find the day planner... if not, I'll come by." "No, don't come by without the day planner, that's my point." "Dad, you know, in biblical times, a day was actually, like, over 3,000 years long." "Is that true?" "You know how many trees it took to make a day planner back then?" "Huh?" "A lot!" "Yeah." "That's what killed the dinosaurs... one day planner." "Um, I feel I'm having an okay week this week." "That's good, Jake." "You know my girlfriend, we weren't uh..." "The vegetarian?" "Finally, I got her to go to a baseball game with me." "You know, I like to have a hot dog at the baseball game, but she wouldn't leave me alone." "You know, "You don't know what's in there."" "You know, I never really cared..." "They're good, that's enough, except for that white ball... you know that thing?" "You know when you bite into a hot dog, there's that white ball kinda staring at you?" "A lot of questions come to mind..." "How many have I eaten so far?" "And should I eat this one?" "Because you don't know..." "Maybe that's the good part." "Maybe they're gonna start selling them that way." ""More white balls!"" "I went to the grocery store to look at the ingredients on a package of hot dogs." "Half of it, I didn't even understand." "But I was hoping to find something about white ball, maybe in parentheses..." ""Known as white ball"..." "Finally, I come to beef lips." "Gross." "I thought they would have made up some code name at least." "I don't know how the lips even get in the hot dogs." "Maybe that's how they make 'em." "Maybe there's just, like, a big grinder and the cows, they think they're just on a tour of the factory, and they're just taken by surprise." "Like, "Very nice operation you've got... a grinder?"" "Anyway, I'd like to go back to the girlfriend." "Sure." "She's the vegetarian." "And so she wanted me to be a vegetarian, because that's how they are." "I think it's a typical relationship thing." "You know, you get involved with somebody, and they give you that old, "I love you... change."" "You know, you can't meet the perfect person." "Everyone knows that, I know that." "So you find a person who's close to the perfect person, and then you hook 'em, and then work on 'em a little while they try and dislodge the lure." "At the time, I loved her..." "Well, she loved me, too." "But if there had been a guy who was just like me who was a vegetarian, I would have been f..." "Whoa, hey, whoa, now." "My other therapist allows me to swear." "Well, that's..." "That's up to him." "Her big one, the one that she would use on me all the time, she would say, "Would you eat your cat?"" "I'd try and be honest." "I tell her, "No, I wouldn't eat my cat." "Someone else's cat, maybe."" "And it depends on the sauce, kind of, for me, 'cause I don't like the heavy cat sauces." "I tell her I wouldn't eat my cat, and then I knew it was over." "It's just a matter of how it's gonna play out." "And she would come at me with," ""What's the difference between your cat and some cow?"" "At that point, I'm winging it, you know." "If a cat is my pet, and I love her, and she's sucking up to me." "These cows don't want me to eat them, let them stop by with a gift." "I wouldn't eat my cat, I love my cat." "And she loves me, too." "But she would eat me, that's the thing about my cat." "She would eat me." "If I slipped in the shower, and was all soggy and bloated, she would probably eat me..." "Eyeballs first." "You know what?" "I would eat her." "Now that I think about it, yeah, I would." "I want to warn her when I get home... you're on thin ice!" "Hi, Laura..." "I'm all ready to do the thing." "Mm-hmm." "So am I next?" "No." "Am I late or early?" "Well, you're late for last week's appointment and early for the next one." "Do you find my flakiness attractive?" "Because I'm like a Jim Morrison." "I'm a rebel." "I just... you don't know what you're gonna get with me." "I could have a tantrum now," "I'm gonna knock this off your desk." "Don't do that." "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get hostile, but you know what I mean..." "It's okay." " Maybe you should go." " Okay." "I was trying to be a vegetarian, because she..." "She had this power over me." "I think women, they're smarter than men, really, is the gist..." "I don't know if they're smarter, but they have a better organization, you know?" "Because they have meetings and they discuss strategies, and techniques and plans." "And they use 'em on us." "You know, at their meetings, they've got pull-down charts and pointers, and they're drinking coffee, all serious, and raising their hands, meanwhile, guys, at our meetings," ""Put the hat on the dog again."" "I guess, we didn't think we needed a plan, because our demands are pretty simple." "We only have two demands, as far as I can tell, which are sex, and don't bug us." "Sometimes, you know, like when we're out in the garage, working on our stupid project that they can't believe we're even bothering to build a model of the starship Enterprise, you know, that has to be perfect," "so our kids can throw it away when we're dead." "You know that's gonna happen someday, right, doctor?" "We're all gonna be dead, and our kids are gonna be going through our stuff like," ""Bullsh..., bullsh..." uh, whoop, Jake!" ""Where's the money?"" "Yello." "Having any luck with the, uh..." "With finding my day planner?" "I was hoping you would have been here by now." "No luck, dad, can't find your book." "Guess what?" "What's that?" "I fixed the air conditioner." "Hey, Ben, thank you so much." "No, I don't know if you're gonna approve but it's better than it was." "Okay, Ben?" "Yes, dad?" "I need to enlist your help." "Right here for you." "I need to find my day planner, I left it either in the..." "What do you call it when you've ruled out certain areas of the apartment, you know, because I've already searched them?" "You're going through the process of elimination." "Whatever... the point is, yeah." "I've eliminated a few rooms, and my checklist says" "I have a couple more to check." "Well, Ben, you know, we have..." "How many rooms in the house?" "There's the kitchen, we have a living room." "We have your room, we have my room." "We have the foyer." "The foyer, and the bathroom..." "Did I mention the bathroom?" "This is a beautiful apartment, dad." "Yeah." "Dr. Katz' office." "Why not, "Hello?"" "I know you're running a business, but that's awful cold." "Did you find the day planner yet?" " Are you looking?" " No." "Well, why not?" "I mean, there should be more than one person on this job." "Because it's not here." "Could you please find it?" "Laura, I'll tell you something right now." "My dad's in a state..." "I know." "I'm telling you, Ben, you have to find it because..." "I'm gonna find it, Laura." "The thing about me is that when I start a job, you know," "I don't stop until I fail." "Mm-hmm." "I won't find the day planner." "I'll tell you that right now..." "I know that, but I won't quit." "I'll tell you, doc, I got a lot of pressure." "And this pressure is like a heaviness." "And it's always on top of me, this heaviness." "Other people wake up in the morning," ""Ah, new day, up and at 'em."" "I wake up, the heaviness is right there waiting for me." "I say, "Hi, heaviness."" "And the heaviness looks back at me," ""Today, you're gonna get it good." "You'll be drinking early today."" "Yeah... so wait, who's on top, you or the heaviness?" "Didn't you hear me the first time?" "I guess, I'm sorry, I..." "Jeez, I don't have time for all this." "Unless the money is right." "You'll get paid, Rodney, but your payment will be in the form of mental health." "That's what... that's the business I'm in." "I get paid for this?" "That's right, you'll get paid back in a different way, the returns will be..." "And to think we get paid for this!" "Wanna talk about my childhood?" " Yeah." " All right." "Just relax and whatever pops into your head, you know, your first memory, it doesn't have to be a good memory, or bad memory, just whatever comes to your mind." "The time I was lost in a beach, I asked a cop," ""How can I find my parents?"" "He said, "I don't know, kid, there's so many places they could hide."" "Yeah." "I never got lucky with girls either when I was a kid." "I had a date with one girl, I waited two hours at the corner." "A girl walked by..." "I said, "Are you Louise?"" "She said, "Are you Rodney?" I said, "Yeah."" "She said, "I'm not Louise."" "You're still haunted by the rejection you got as a young man from women." "That still is something that weighs heavily on you, and you feel like you..." "What are you talking about?" "I sense that what you're feeling and what you're saying are so far opposed, that you're just so uncomfortable with this format." "You take a long time to think about it." "Yeah." "Well, we're working at two different paces here." "Should I pick one, is that what you're saying?" "Dad, I just wanted to fill you in on my progress." "Yes, please." "I've been looking..." "No progress." "Well, Ben, I need..." "To be honest with you, I'm not panicking about this." "This doesn't have to do with your panic, this is about my panic." "Well, you've made it... you've made it my issue, too." "I'm just trying to say that, relax..." "I got it under control." "I need this book, Ben." "I'm here in the house all day, and I'm gonna find it." "I need it, and I need it in a hurry, so please..." "What's so important about the book you need it right now, dad?" "The reason you hear the beginnings of panic in my voice is because contained in that book are all my appointments, notes about my patients, and the first two chapters of a self-help book that I'm writing." "The first two chapters of what?" "I'm working on a self-help book." "Why didn't you tell me, dad?" "You can't just hit me with that kind of news." "Because I, I..." "Thought you might make fun of me." "I'm not gonna... why would I make fun of you for..." "All right, I'll make fun of you." "You're writing a book about self-help?" "Self-help?" "What are you, crazy?" "Well, you know, remember I had a book almost published about three years ago called," ""How to hurt your own feelings?"" "I feel like as much as I love my work," "I feel like there's a more efficient way to help people." "And that's why this book..." "It's not about the money, then, huh?" "It's not about the money, it's about the help." "I just think a lot of these self-help books actually take advantage of people's..." "That's not my motivation for writing the book." "All I'm saying is..." "The same reason" "I went into the business of therapy." "Why?" "I'm in it for the money." "No, I'm in it for..." "What I was saying is" "I think a lot of these people who write self-help books are doing it for the wrong reasons, not to help people, but to just help themselves, financially, and I think that's great." "What's wrong?" "What's the matter with you?" "Don't ask." "What?" "I... essentially, my life is over." "What are you talking about, what's going on?" "My god, what's wrong?" "Why the hangdog?" "You know this book that I affectionately refer to as my Bible, my day planner with all this stuff." "Your organizer, yeah, yeah." "With every phone number, every appointment, every idea I've had in the last ten years..." "Don't tell me." "Well, I don't know where the hell the thing is." "You know, I'm going nuts, I can't find it." "I can't dress myself without referring to this thing." "You know, it's really..." "Have you retraced your steps?" "I've traced them, I retraced them." "Ben has turned the place inside-out..." "Jeez." "He says." "And there's also stuff, just that there's stuff in that book, which if taken out of context, could be very hurtful." "That's all." "Oh, really?" " To who?" " To Ben..." "To my friends, to you Stanley, to..." "Wait, wait, wait..." "Is this like trash?" "There's trash in it about me and about..." "No, no one said the word, "trash."" "I just gotta ask you something here." "You didn't talk about the thing that happened in Jersey that time, when I had the thing?" "What thing?" "Nah, nah, if I wanted you to know..." "Ixnay with the ing-thay on that thing there." "It's not events that I write about, it's feelings." "Yeah, that's okay then." "You didn't mention the thing in New Paltz, on that weekend in the late '70s?" "Well, that I referred to, but..." "Damn!" "But in context." "In the context of a friendship that's almost 20 years old." "And Julie, I need to say this to you, is that Julie is a very common name." "Today was a..." "Today was a tough day for you." "I'm trying not to think about the day planner." "I'm trying to get over the..." "I, dad, I want to just say, for the record, that I tried my best." "I know you were..." "I appreciate it." "You seemed disappointed in my efforts." "Well, I'm sorry if I snapped at you." "It's only because my efforts were disappointing." "Yeah." "The thing about it is, it took me all day to get to this point, but I definitely remember seeing it, I just don't know where..." "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait." "What, you mean you actually saw it, at some point, today?" "I know I saw it today, or this morning." "You know what would have been a good idea, was to pick it up at that point." "I just wasn't thinking like that at the time." "Well, maybe it would be worth our while to retrace your steps." "Right, actually, it won't be that tricky, dad, because I didn't take many steps today." "You know, I stayed relatively still." "Okay, let's begin at the beginning." "I went to work, and I left you..." "I started lying down in the kitchen, and then made my way to the couch." "And then I had gotten up to look around." "Oh, no, wait..." "I fixed the air conditioner." "And how did you..." "Well, what I did was, because there was a space, on the left side, it was sagging." "So what I did was, I just put a book, it was, like, a leather-bound thing, and I put it right under the..." "And wedged it in, and now it's fine." "What?" "My day planner?" "I didn't check." "Yeah, sounds like it." "Did it say, "Day planner" on the front of it?" "Yes, it did." "That might have been it." "Jeez, I'm sorry, dad." "We've all done that." "We've all wedged something in between something, not realizing what it was, you know?" "I know I'm never gonna understand the world." "I used to think I was gonna figure out life, you know?" "Sure." "Remember when you were 15 years old, you think you knew everything, people come to you with their problems," ""My girlfriend is a..." "Well, break up with her!" "She's a jerk, screw her!"" "You know, it just seemed so simple back then." "And now, people come to me with their girlfriend problems, and I'm just like," ""Did she shoot you or just point the gun at you?"" "I used to have all these opinions, you know, doctor," "I used to look down on people with tattoos, because I thought they didn't understand what they were doing." "And now, I admire people with tattoos, because at least they thought they knew what they were doing." "I crave that clarity..." "To walk in and say to a guy," ""Yeah, a flying pig with fire coming out of his snout." "Right here, 'cause that's who I am."" "Hello, Laura?" "Yes?" "This is Fred Stoller." "I'm late for an appointment again." "You want to know why?" "Sure." "I'm not gonna tell you why..." "That's the mystique about me." "I'm an enigma..." "It intrigues you." ""Is he one of these?" "Is he one of these?"" "I'm brooding," "I'm intense, "What makes him tick?"" "That makes people attracted to me." "What's this guy about?" "Right?" "Where are you calling from?" "I'm in my friend's house." "Okay, have fun." "All right, maybe I'll see you later?" "Okay." "Okay, thanks." "I respect the pierced people..." "Have you seen these people?" "Sure." "If you want to freak out your mom..." "If you want to freak your mom out now, you've got to get a lip or a nostril or eyebrow piercing." "Have you seen that eyebrow, where it's like a shower curtain going across there" ""Go to hell!"" "And then the tongue one... wow." "I don't even understand what the point of that is." "No one can even see it, until you go, "ahh."" "I don't know if there's a name for that or not... the tongue." "Although, I don't want to know." "If there is a name, I don't want to know, because that is just..." "That'd be like one step closer to getting it, you know?" "This way, I can't get drunk and accidentally order it 'cause that would be the worst hangover ever." "You wake up the next... "Jeethus, what the hell did we do last night?" "I got a nail in my tongue." "Tho ha ha ha, funny to you."" "Whoops, you know what the music means." "Our time is up." "Thank you."