I walked up to the restaurant with my sister, I felt insecure. I felt underdressed. I felt that my shirt was too tight. I think I cowered. I tend to be affected by people. I don't feel like I am successful in the way that they might be. Doctors, lawyers, insurance people, people with large investments, those who play the stock market, who actually have jewelry worth something. Although my glasses cost $1200 out the door. I was cordial.

I let my sister step up to the podium and declare "party of three" to the hostess, who took us to a table along the side of the restaurant. I saw my cousin arrive in her car, and told my sister, I would go and get our cousin. I walked to an opening in the enclosed area and walked across the street. I came back with my cousin and sat down.

I think as you mentioned in the piece later that like your client, I lost my father when I was ten, at that point, and all my confidence left.

I can remember the realization that I was now on my own. My therapist called it being the emotional parent of the family.

It is hard to go from a jovial boy, who placed second in the California State Clown Contest at five years old and was sought by Barnum and Bailey scouts as well as writing and performing my own one-man plays before audiences at an apartment clubhouse on Howe Avenue in Sacramento to the son of a doctor, where the doctor had just taken a house call from which he would never return.

My mother, who constantly had migranes, was raped by her uncle and her boss, was a run-way model/commercial artist, who had quit her job when she got pregnant and stayed at home. My mother had also told me that her father died when she was two and her mother died just 2 hours away from her at the time, and alone when she was 18, and she vowed she would never leave us as her mother did because it was the Depression and she didn't have the money to care for her. Her brothers were sent away to the Supreme Court Page School. My mother went to foster homes.

That sensation of never talking to the man, who went from living in a garage with about six other brothers and sisters, and a mother, who raised them but didn't speak English, to Yale and Stanford, eventually graduating from medical school and starting a successful private practice and being only one of three urologists in Sacramento made me sad. If anyone, he had the answers. I was like my mother, we were artists, dreamers. We believed in the truth of beauty, and the beauty of truth.

That's why I walk self-consciously. In that restaurant, I wanted to wear my mask as a courtesy to the waitress, because as a waiter, I understand the idea that my customers are probably going to give COVID to me.

I was cordial to the waitress, she was lean and young, probably in her late 20's or early 30's. I am not sure. I was attracted to her, both in terms of her role, seeing as she was calm and articulate, and she was attractive to me. I said very little to her, but I always acknowledged her when she appeared. I inherently respected her. I knew exactly what the process was and I watched her with other tables and how she took care of them. The bill was $109. We left her $140. She came back and confirmed.