I'm sick today, felled by a cold and headache and scratchy throat. Sophie is in bed, felled by Diastat. Last night I attended the Epilepsy Foundation for Greater Los Angeles' Care and Cure Event -- a grand dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel where hundreds of impeccably business attired people gather and schmooze and honor one another and donate money to The Great Cause. I'm a reluctant participant, at once grateful for the attention given to the scourge of epilepsy, the generosity of the donors, the work put into making it all happen but repulsed by the means to get there. People are honored, immensely influential, Hollywood-types are lauded and applauded, they sit next to me and I want to crack a joke, feel light, defensively sarcastic but I murmur a platitude when congratulated on the work I've done, being a mother to a child with epilepsy and I think of you, readers, and feel less bitter, less ready to stand up on a chair, a silk-covered one and wave my champagne glass, my napkin overhead, a scream, a shout, a surrender.
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