"Sigler on soap

"Jamie-Lynn Sigler who stars as Tony Soprano's daughter, Meadow, on HBO's 'The Sopranos,' will play herself on an upcoming episode of ABC's 'All My Children.'

"Sigler will appear as a guest on Pine Valley's fictional talk show 'The Wave.'"

- Wire report, December 9, 2002

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by Edward Lacie

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Episode Sixteen

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Leland shoots golf balls as I wake up and return to watching "Twin Peaks" and deciding what to do with Greg Baysans: kill him? release him? my thoughts of a ransom have been deflated. Leland tells Donna and James that Maddy has just left for Missoula this morning.

There is also mention of my unresearched FBI file about that night talk with the sheriff, that call to the FBI: "Do I have a connection to Son of Sam or don't I?" A ridiculous question, after the fact. No wonder I went crazy.

From the first draft of this narrative in prose: "I can't tell the whole story, not knowing, all these years later, the details, haven't filled in the blanks even after all these years."

From the first draft of this narrative in poetry years before which resulted in me shutting down for years, unable to write a thing:

From the "Gnome Notebook" I found just yesterday and haven't even looked at for over a decade! 

"I remember the hallow day,

"it had such holes,

"one, only one, hollow hulled man

"and maybe half-helled. He might

"have made me cry on any other night."

Later on the same page: 

"I remember the latent lover later who was best being used boozed drugged drug through the tiny town where we are nice and friendly means we don't mind your secret if you don't mind."

Why did I write the address "1224 6th St. SW, Spokane" followed with the phrase "with separate separate eyes..."?

I think that's the address of the house I rented a short while. I think the real Son of Sam lived there before me but I don't know this. My heart pumps (and jumps) just writing and remembering this, the rewrite of a re-enactment of a rewrite. Every day I wake and this is the first thing I forget on purpose.

Audrey's father, Ben Horn, has been arrested for Laura's murder although we, the audience, now know it was Leland as Bob who did the evil deed. Ben has no alibi for the night in question so now he's in jail. Leland is free and guilty, and we feel better at last just knowing "Who killed Laura Palmer?" Leland is driving with Maddy, his next victim, in the trunk when Truman and Cooper in the squad car pull him over.

Another page from the poetry version of my adventures in writing is an entire "Are you FBI? CIA? KKK?" banter. 

At the time of my breakdown in the direction of up, I was watching "Gilligan's Island" and using it to decipher who was and who wasn't my friend. 

At the time of my breakdown in the direction of up, I was reading the newspaper line by broken line and using that method to decipher who was and who wasn't KGB. 

At the time of my breakdown in the direction of up, I would watch an actual football game and identify with the winning team to decipher who was and who wasn't Ayatollah Khomeini. 

At the time of my breakdown in the direction of up, I would listen to one radio station to hear what "Good" thought, another station to hear what "Evil" thought of my plans and actions. 

One day I'm thinking it's just me and imagined. The next day I'm thinking I'm going to be killed. A day later and my best friend has disappeared. 

A day later and hostages are taken in Iran where another friend visits his Kurdish family. I wanted him returned alive. This is all moving too fast. 

The country cries out for Jimmy to invade Iran. Bomb Iran. I agree with Jimmy not to.

It's not a breakdown because nothing will stop moving!

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

Looking through the Gnome Notebook after all these years, I realize it's not great poetry. But it's better than my recent attempt, a slip of paper found in my pocket after a driving trip Jim and I took a month before I abducted Baysans: 

"Midnight getaway to the coast more than we/ can afford but afford it we do through/ the dregs and the lees life has offered." 

That's awful.

I copy that into the first draft of this. I immediately write: 

"I study poetry because I can't write it." 

Baysans, in person and in lockdown, agrees that I can't write poetry. I forget if I asked him or not.

Instead of Leland, it's Bob that drives away.

First draft notes here include a preliminary attempt at a fictitious name for my fictitious poet of the past: Bernard Colombard was what I started with, eventually coming up with "Blaise Cendrars".

Although he is kidnapped, I allow Baysans access to e-mail. He is under constant supervision for the most minor of correspondence and I censor all outgoing e-mail, his only contact with anyone. 

I'm grilling him about some of the poems he wrote long ago, what they might mean: "Remembering Ruby" and "Weak Knees" are immediate topics.

I don't understand the reference here to Van Gogh in my notes. An alarm clock goes off for Jim Post, nine hours after it was supposed to and he's mad at me for anything, this will do. I'd been distracted by Baysans, and Jim Post wants him dead or, at least, gone.

My entire notes for the first draft of this include no further reference to "Twin Peaks" as I watched it.

Another example of "disorder" from the Gnome notebook: 

"My self 
righteousness has
got
ten the best
of me and I
still
want to give my former boss
his gift and still
cry into the phone to
have my Terry Gardner's
manic
letter, message, back,
my fearful dirge,
the knife in my friends'
backs
which I've felt guilt for
ever since."

I don't know what half of that means.

The other half is self-evident. The reason I'm re-enacting this is to discover the meaning of the other half.

I say nothing about Rimbaud's "corps"¹ of friends and fascination with the occult.

Episode over.