Last night, another poor night of sleep, I tossed and turned, even after two glasses of wine, a melatonin, and one hundred pages of Trollope, worrying about my Monday. It was to be a hellish day: three conference calls at work, a trip over to Marin for a Doctor's appointment, and our first (and last) complete rehearsal before shooting on Tuesday. For the first time, I found myself thinking: "Is this really the fun it's supposed to be?"

The actual dreaded Monday itself turned out not to be as stressful as anticipated, and I was relatively calm when I walked over to the valet-parking garage to pick up my car for my drive to Marin. I found my car exactly where I'd left it, which was odd, since they always park it. As I approached, I saw an angry attendant looking daggers at me. Uh oh. Apparently, I'd left the keys, like you're supposed to, but I'd also inadvertently locked the car, which meant that it had been standing there all morning, blocking the whole floor! So I had to make a mad taxi ride home, pick up my spare keys, taxi ride back to the garage, and then high tail it over to Marin to my Doctor, where the appointment costs $225 and you pay it whether you're there or not!

I made it only five minutes late. I haven't talked at all about this new doctor, Dr Kaiser, so far, in these pages. I was referred to him a few months ago by my regular GP, and he's quite a find. An integrative health specialist who handles chronic fatigue patients. Until I saw him for the first time, I'd never had a physician tell me straight out that I was suffering from chronic fatigue. Now that he's given me that diagnosis, it's, in some ways, a relief. But more than a relief, Dr Kaiser actually thinks he can do something about it. In today's visit, I received the results of a battery of tests. The tests revealed several systematic problems, the most prominent of which was very low levels of testosterone and DHEA (another important hormone).

This is pretty darned groovy! After years and years of fatigue, there's actually something physical that can be pin-pointed. And more, it's a physical something that can be simply corrected, by hormone supplements. While, as Dr Kaiser says, it's not the whole answer, it's a huge part of it, I hope. I'm truly hopeful that over the next few weeks, as the hormones kick in, I'll start to feel a new lease of energy.

So I returned to San Francisco, and our rehearsal, feeling optimistic. But now I had a new face to put on - the director's face, in front of six actors, a couple of extras, and my collaborators Jim and Scott. I met the second lead actor for the first time, Jason, who's playing the Italian-American stud, Nicky. He was a striking, lovely guy, absolutely perfect for the part.

Although I was nervous, again, about being the center of attention as I led the rehearsal, I just tried to stay focused on the fact that if I didn't show confidence and self-belief, the whole thing would fall apart.

And then something wonderful happened. We were rehearsing the heart of the movie - a moment of real connection between two strangers - Nicky, the Italian-American straight stud, and Rico, the heart-broken, flamboyant hair-dresser. And it just wasn't quite working - it felt stiff and affected. Yet, as we worked on it, I suddenly sensed a moment of creative synergy, as our ideas, the lines, and the moment all coincided. Then it wasn't even about the lines - it was about the moment, a long, silent moment, where the two characters saw each others' humanity. It was completely touching, because it was so in the moment, and I felt a chill crawl up my back. For the first time since we started working on the movie I thought that we had the chance of making something genuinely good here. And it felt good to have played a part in bringing out that moment. And there's no other feeling like it: here we were, three almost complete strangers - two actors and a director - having our own emotional connection over the lines of a play, in that intense moment of creativity.