New Name, New Furniture, New Life

My ex had a night a couple of weeks ago where he found it necessary to finally push me too far, up to and including accusing me of trying to kill him in a coma. Okay, wake up and smell the stinky signs of "ain't gonna be friends for a decade or so" and "stop treating this man like he's the delicato and yourself like teflon." Or it could be the progressive accumulation of Al-Anon meetings. But I doubt it - only because I didn't detach with love, I detached with an amputational swipe. "No more!" she cries, sword in hand. I shall no longer be the recipient of your refuse, the receptacle of your trash. How dramatic!

Actually, I did it all with one little email:

"...1. I will speak with you about Sasha [our daughter] and everything and anything having to do with her.
2. I will speak with you about any lawsuit and anything having to do with any of them.
3. I will speak with you about anything having to do with the house.

And that’s about it. I’m done being anyone’s punching bag. I’m afraid you will have to work through your need to dump with someone else..."

With these boundaries I thee unwed. Along came a fantastic flush of peace, and I knew all would be well. Last week I found out that my brother's ex-wife, also a Nancy, has taken back her maiden name, which frees up my REAL name for me. And so I'm taking it back. The first time I signed it I had a rush of gratitude and a new/old recognition of a Nancy I had only glimpsed a long time ago. Go ahead, wave to that cute little blonde. Okay, she does look a little different now, but still recognizable...

All right, now I get this idea in my head that I need to sell off the "things" in my house that remind me of my former life. These "things" need to go now that I've thought of this, mainly because I don't have a job still and I have nothing else to think about. So I utilize the infamous craigslist and start listing: table and chairs (the worst offenders of former insanity) go first, then computer equipment, living room chairs (don't ask), a desk, a couch, etc., etc. Bub-byeeee. And with this money, I replace everything: table and chairs, living room chairs, etc. What did George Carlin say: "Why is it that our shit is everyone else's stuff and their shit is our stuff?" Well I am living this saying and it's feeling good. Real good.

Next I'm adding a deadbolt, just because a psychic told me to. See future post, "The Psychic Told Me There's Never Enough Locks On Your House."

At Barnes & Noble every year they have a promotion in January called "New Year, New You." I'm thinking that this year I'm having that promotion too.

Today I'm grateful to be Nancy [what's-her-name].

Love Is That Sync-ing Feeling

This subject has come up over and over again in the last week. And believe it or not, it's come up with more than five people in my life. But I'll start with one.

I have a girlfriend who is on her way to 40 and never been married. Let's call her Frida, since I'm staring at a photo of Frida Kahlo on the TV Guide. Frida thinks that having a baby is The Goal, that she has so much love to give and that she will receive all that love back as a result of giving it to this proposed child. She may be right.

She is a dating maniac, or, as I call my brother, a serial dater. Frida has a goal in mind, a position to fill and she's looking for someone to fill it: father. She wants to be a mom. So, she kind of interviews these guys, checks them out, checks them off, moves on to the next. Again, I do not stand in judgment, necessarily, with her methodology - I just wonder where the love went.

Frida also has a man in her life, we'll call him Diego, who has recently been soulfully connected with her, who would practically harness the moon for her. He does not want children, and he's sure enough about that that he got a vasectomy years ago. He's a good person, he just wants to work as hard as he can to be the best he can be and to love his life, and to share it with his companion/wife. He does not believe he can do this with kids in his house. And, thank god, he doesn't just do it anyway, because the world certainly doesn't need any more delinquents on the street; delinquents being created by persons who don't want kids in their house but have them anyway. Or think they want them and then find out that you have to take care of them 24/7 for at least 18 years. Right? Hey, it's my blog!

Frida is certain she loves Diego with all her heart but wants to have a kid. So she has decided to "find a father" and let this man go by the wayside. I guess she feels she needs part of her heart back, so she'll take it all. I asked her what she was going to do with the rest of her heart after she finds the father of her child. She says she'll consider giving it to him if he's worth half of what Diego's worth. Wow. Is it a tiny bit chilly in here?

I have another friend, what should we call her? How about Aveda, after the hand lotion on my desk. Aveda is married to...Tully. They have a great marriage, having traveled the world, skiing, surfing, homeowning, friending, caring, etc. Tully wants kids. Period. He was raised catholic, comes from a big family and believes it's his thing to do. Aveda is reluctant. She loves her husband tremendously, as does he love her, and they have what I would definitely want in a marriage - a true partnership with another human being. Very cool.

So Aveda tells me one day that because she loves Tully, she's agreed to get pregnant. But life isn't that easy, of course, and they have been trying to get pregnant for 2 years now. Everyone's been tested and everyone's fine and the extra ooompfs have been added to make the guys swim faster and the eggs drop farther but, nope, no go yet. They are about to start IV therapy, which is about $10K a pop and has no guarantee at all whatsoever.

And what, pray tell, has happened to their loving, thriving relationship? It's gone to hell in a handbasket. It doesn't appear to me that either one of them knows what result they're looking for anymore, other than the little "plus" sign after Aveda pees on the stick. No traveling, no parties in their home, no neighbor kids over for desserts that they used to try out and games to play afterward. No. It doesn't look to me like they even like each other any more. So even if they do get pregnant, they will not have the heart to do for each other or for their child what needs to be done - LOVE each other with all their hearts.

Interesting last minute observation: Frida had an abortion many years ago. And Tully's girlfriend in high school had an abortion too. When I ask either if they think this has anything to do with their hard-driving pursuit to have a child, that remorse might creep into this picture, that they think this could be absolution, both say - NO! Just no, then the conversation changes.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions on that one. But I'm here to tell you that it doesn't work anyway. I know.

My friends Aveda and Tully are hanging on by a thread these days. I know Aveda agreed to try until she was 45, but they've both become compulsive eaters and couch potatoes in their unhappiness. Aveda tried as best she could to encourage Tully to finish his degree online and get his teaching certificate - to become a grade school teacher and love as many children as the Power That Is would put through that school over the years and maybe stop the obsession for a "blue-eyed, redheaded version" of himself. Alas, he is too depressed now to even answer her. Where did the love go? I wish them well.

I read a statistic recently that married persons that decide to have a child before they are married at least 7 years have a 72% chance of ending up a single parent. The divorce rate is astounding.

I would like to think that if I fell in love with someone who did not want kids, it would be because this might not be my incarnation for motherhood. I tell you, I would like to think that if I had what my aforementioned friends once had, I would hang onto it and water it and nurture it and grow it and love it with all my willing soul. And hopefully I will one day.

Today I'm grateful to have been through what I've been through and to have come a little closer to knowing what I think love is. As my mom said in her last days in hospice, "It's all about relationships, it's all about love. That's It."

Bank of America Bites

Once a week, every single week, for the last year:

Ring...ring...ring...

"Hello?"
"Yes is David [xyz] there please?"
"No, he doesn't live here anymore. Who's calling?"
"May I speak with a Nancy [xyz] then?"
"This is actually THE Nancy [xyz]. Who's calling please?"
"This is Bank of America calling..."
"Do you have my file pulled up in front of you?"
"...I am required by law to tell you that we are calling in an attempt to collect a debt owed..."
"I know, I know, can you pull up my file please?"
"...in the amount of [fill in the blank], owed since..."
"I speak with you guys every week..."
"...January of 2009."
"...and tell you the same thing. Please just pull up the file..."
"Have we yet given you the numbers for HUD?"
"...and read it so you can - what?"
"The numbers for HUD and [some other gov't agency]"
"Yes, of course, you give them to me once a week. I've already got a workout in the works with BoA and if you'd just read my file..."
"I have that you are past due on your mortgage in the amount of [HELP]. What manner of payment will you be using today to remedy this delinquency?"
"Hahaha!"
"Hello? What credit card will you be using?"
"Listen, pull up my file and I'll talk with you. Just read it and I'll wait."
"We also accept certified..."
"READ IT. I'll wait."
"...bank checks and certified money orders."
"Well, I've been saving up my Welfare checks for a couple of months, will you take those?"
"Pardon me?"
"Listen, just a take a minute and read - ok. Here it is. We bought this house, my then-husband had a catastrophic illness 3 months later, wound up in a coma for four months, I lost my job, he's legally blind on a stomach tube now so obviously he lost his, I'm looking for work and not finding it, you gave me a Making Home Affordable loan and reneged on it and now I'm waiting to hear back from a woman who's handling our workout."
"I also wish to tell you that this call is being recorded for the purposes of..."
"HELLO!?"
"Well, that certainly doesn't stop the collection process. You are still in arrears."
"Have you ever heard of Lisa [abc]. She is working on our loan."
"I am not with the department that refinances. I am attempting to collect a debt."
"Do you guys never speak with each other?"
"The department you speak of is more than likely in Pittsburgh. I'm in Texas and I would like to know what form of payment you will be using today."
"Well, Texas explains a lot."
"Pardon me?"
"Nothing. Please hand me over to your supervisor if you're not going to read my file."
"All right, your file in now up on my screen. Oh. My. Well. May I put you on hold for a moment?"
"Need a little time NOW, don't we?"
"I'll be right back. Please hold."

**WTF, where do they get these jingles that play on a loop like this? Is there someone who studies these things somewhere, testing them on lobotomy patients to see if they play them over and over a hideous number of times they will be able to get them to fork over their life savings?**

22 MINUTES LATER

"Yes, Mrs. [xyz]? Are you still there?"
"Of course."
"I see that you were delinquent on your loan modification paperwork."
"Here we go. Are you listening?"
"Of course."
"... - You made a deal with us. You sent paperwork to me. It needed to be signed in front of notary. My ex-husband is severely disabled and I could not get him to a notary until the last day of the time period, which by the way was too short, like stoopid fresh, aight?"
"Pardon me?"
"Nothing. I called your number and spoke with Kathy. Do you know Kathy?"
"Maam, there are any number of people here who..."
"Oy, never mind! I told Kathy that the papers were going to be late by less than a day and she said, "GO GO GO," to the BoA by my house, have them signed, notarized, etc. So that's what I did. I had the guy fax them to you and I also Fed Exed the originals the same day."
"And?"
"And you cashed my first payment check but sent back the paperwork saying that it was several hours later than the cut off period so the deal was a no go."
"Right. How would you like to pay off your arrears."
"Don't you see the note in my file from Kathy saying that it's okay for the papers to be late?"
"Yes, I see the note. But we didn't honor it. How will you be paying today?"
"Give me your fucking supervisor."
"Please hold."

**Mindless Muzak Again**

"I sent a note to my supervisor with your situation. He is not in at the moment. I would advise you to call back our 800 number and speak with a supervisor in a couple of hours."
"Have you lost your mind? I'm not calling back the 800 number. I'll go postal - you have him call me."
"We don't do that maam."
"You just did. You just now are...never mind! Can I ask you, why did they cash my check for the new amount for the mortgage if the deal is off?"
"Well, maam, it is a check."
"You cashed it because it's a check? Like generically speaking?"
"It was a check made out to us. We cash those."

"What's your name?"
"My name is Mindy."
"Well then, bub-bye Mindy."
Click!!

Rinse and repeat next week. Today I am grateful to still be squatting in my own home.

This Is Why I Am No Longer Married, Part Negative One

Here is today's thought for the day: "Unhappiness is 99% selfishness."

Wow. Take a moment to let that one settle. Simple and yet...TRUE. Except I would probably bring the 99 down a couple of notches, to like say 98.3%. Just because it's my blog and I can if I want to.

I married an unhappy guy. We met, married and lived in New York City in the 90s where being discontent and disenfranchised was hip and part of the East Village/CBGBs mentality. He was the first seemingly "available" man I had ever met. He looked right at me and held my gaze, which is not easy for me to do. He told me he liked me and that he thought I was funny in the very first conversation we had. He said he would call, he told me when (the next day), and HE DID (holy crap). He did not attempt to make me jealous when he felt insecure by checking out or flirting with other women. When it came to me, there wasn't a game in the console slot of his person - he just dived in head first and, I guess, hoped for the best. How attractive is that, I ask you?

It was scary too - I needed a lot of help from my girlfriends. But wow. Such a compliment, a man who is blindly willing to trust that you're a good enough person not to stomp on his heart; who moves forward despite all the wiggy freak-out that shows up in one's head with new beginnings. Sounds about perfect, right?

Yet, if disgruntlement with the world at large was the badge of the very hip, then he was the Sheriff of the hipster posse. Okay, I was hip, but I wasn't very good at it. My glass has always been half full, even though I wore all black, berets and smoked with a cigarette holder. He was MASTER of hip, particularly when it came to disgruntlement. His glass was half empty - wait, no - three-quarters, dammit! People sucked, places sucked, things sucked. And, according to him, all of it sucked on purpose, like a plot to victimize all suckees. Just to fuck with your reality.

You think I'm exaggerating, don't you? I'm really not. Here's a regular day: We get up, it's too cold and the super in our building has made it that way because he's anti-semitic. We get dressed and the dry cleaner has not sufficiently cleaned his shirt. They don't like him because he doesn't tip. We walk to the subway and it screetches too loudly, because our tax dollars are used to line the pockets of the mayor so that he can take his mistress to the opera.

Are you feeling like tuning out? Because we're not even to work yet. The coffee guy put sugar in his coffee because he's jealous of his good looks, the elevator's too small because they didn't know how to build them in the 1940's, the bosses hate him because he knows the right thing to do before they do, blah, blah, blah - lunch. Which sucks. Meetings suck, rides home suck, dinner sucks, etc. I think that's probably enough for now, because in simple remembrance of these days my fingers have become depressed and are not willing to continue typing to finish out the example day.

In the beginning, of course, I attempt to counter all this suckiness by suggesting simple explanations or derailing the downer. The super himself is Jewish, I have never tipped the dry cleaner and grape juice stains for life, the mayor broke up with his mistress. Hey, look, the sun's out, there's your best friend, they cleaned up the park. But these things that I think are going to soothe and help make positive situations out of negative ones are lost on him and actually make him despise me for my light touch.

I think what's most amazing about my part in the whole marriage is that I couldn't see this simple fact for well over ten years: My ex is very, very comfortable in his discomfort - and really doesn't want life to feel any better. It would totally negate everything he has ever said and thought and he would then feel lost or like a complete horse's arse. But a curmudgeon he is and that is what he'll stay. And I wish him well in his preferred state of unhappiness.

Today I am grateful that I can hear the surf and feel the wind on my face and love my friends and family - and maybe even a man again, if only from afar. For today anyway.

Sleep Junkie Withdrawal, Night Six

Wow. I am by nature a sleep junkie. See former post "Sleep Is My Drug Of Choice." It’s taken me several decades to finally have any kind of sympathy for friends of mine who complain of insomnia – something that’s really never been a problem for me for more than one or two nights, tops. And yet, here it is. Payback’s a bitch.

I do not like this, Sam I Am. Nope, not at all. I called my daughter by my dog's name. Sasha sounds nothing like Gus, nor do they resemble each other in the least. Drove through a red light because I got lost in my own singing TO A MILEY CYRUS SONG (I'm truly insane), only to have a mom with triplets in a van follow me, demanding that I pull over, which I didn't. Mainly because I don't appear to have a very good command of the English language right now and what the hell, was she going to do - make me walk a straight line while touching my finger to my nose?

Oops, maybe I knew her from high school and she wanted to say hi...? Nah.

I met with a colleague today at Barnes & Noble to talk about setting up self-employment and about the book I'm writing. We sat in those comfy chairs that you sink down in (the ones that probably have cooties in them) and I caught my head bobbing while she was talking, like, with a little bit of drool burbling down from the left side of my mouth. I sure wish I would have taped that meeting. And, ech, now I'm itching all over...

I'm exhausted, ready for bed, it's 9:30, right? I will fall asleep around 11:00ish and the quality will be somewhat light in nature and then 2:30 or 3:00 will come and WHAP, I'm done. My eyes flip up like curtains being yanked open by a drawstring and that's it. I read, I write, watch TV, I play Samurai Sudoku, and, let me tell you, my fantasy life is getting a freaking workout, you know?

These visitations from the P.M. Wide Awake Fairy better be over soon or I'm going to end up sitting at Game Night with my friends in a wheelchair grunting spittle-laden answers from a dark corner of the room.

I just want to take this opportunity to apologize to all my insomniac friends who have attempted to get my attention with stories of their suffering while I ordered yet another cup of coffee at dinner, smiling my way home to bed. This sucks.

Today, I can't wait to be grateful again for sleep.

My Apple Did Not Fall Far From My Tree

Dora The Explorer:



That's for those of you who may not know or remember our little Hispanic friend from television on Nick Jr. She is a little cartoon girl, traveling with a monkey "Boots", a map that sings, a backpack with a hyper-smile and googley eyeballs and is perpetually being followed by a creepy looking fox named "Sniper" who hides in trees and bushes, etc., trying to steal from her. The map sings to her about where to go and she has to clear a bunch of obstacles along her way. She is always alone and is more than likely about five years old. When she arrives at her destination, she sings a lot, in both English and Spanish, and we never really find out why she's so happy about where she has found herself.

For her composition classes, my 13 year old daughter, Sasha, chose to write her theory on Dora and read it in front of the class:

"Dora The Explorer's story: At age five, Dora's parents were both drug dealers. They were illegal immigrants in the USA. Her parents got caught and deported, so she runs by herself to deliver the drugs for them with the help of Boots and Backpack and the Drug Map. She imagines her inanimate friends talk to her cuz she is extremely wasted, from smoking her own stash. Swiper, the fox, is an undercover cop trying to confiscate the drugs and the map and arrest Dora to return her to Mexico to stand trial with her parents."

Okay. Did I hear a phone ring? Why, yes I did. "Hello, Ms. [Eckstein Middle School teacher]. Yes, this is Sasha's mom. She what? Well, heh, heh, wow, isn't she just a creative kid? I'm sorry, what's that? Oh my, well, that's unfortunate timing, isn't it? No, I doubt that she knew the presentation of her story was going to be on the same day as the Seattle Police's school assembly on drug and alcohol abuse. Yes, well, 7th graders will laugh at just about anything, won't they? No? You don't think so?..."

You're catching the drift, right?

I've often wondered whether I've been saving for college or rehab - both of her parents being in recovery make which shore she will wash up on a bit of a mystery. Either way...at least she's got a head start with a sense of humor...?


Today I'm grateful to have already been there and done that.

Bravo - To The Only Game In Town

I have a friend who's just gotten his heart broken. This is how he says he feels today in a note:

"Some people have suggested that I "get back in the game." Apparently, getting back in the game means dating a bunch of people. "Playing the field." On the ground that means shredding 4 or 5 or 10 hearts. Then, apparently, I can decide that number 3 is the gal for me. News flash! A shredded heart will never open to you again. "Once bitten, twice shy" is not a pretty song lyric, it is an accurate assessment of our survival mechanisms at work. I'm not getting back in the game. I guarantee that anyone who suggests you do is not in a healthy relationship. Or they have not thought through what they are saying. [...]"

Certainly understandable, as it was yesterday or today that he felt rejected. My other friend then said this:

"Or maybe, they have learned that a broken heart does NOT actually kill you even though you may think you will die because of the pain. Speaking from the place of having my heart broken so many, many times, I am so profoundly glad that I have the ability to try again and again because the ONLY way I can truly experience GOD in my life is by loving other people and being open to love. Moving through life's trials with an open heart has been my goal the past few years. Sometimes it works, sometimes not...but it's so much better being open than closed. This too shall pass....Courage does not come from the lack of fear, but the ability to keep moving through the fear. [...]"

Bravo to my beautiful friends, yes?

The human heart's an amazing thing. I have found that the more heartache I've gone through (of every kind), the more love I have to give. Maybe not right at the moment it breaks (and no, it does NOT have to shred, not unless I decide to dive head-first into MY PAIN), but in the healing process. And the healing process includes just that - giving love; to my friends, my family and even to the depressed-looking guy packing my groceries. And then comes the AHA! Love comes right back at me, in the form of a smile from a previously sad face, being included on a trip to a mountain with friends, an unexpected visit from my brother.

The other thing that I've learned is that love often comes in a package I don't necessarily recognize. Because I've had such a preconceived notion of what it is that's going to Completely Satisfy my Love Requirements. The right height, the right background, the right age, the right gene pool...

I married what many would (and did) consider the right package. Attractive, well-educated, ambitious, creative, witty, ready-to-get-married. And it didn't work. Shit happens. Whether you like it or not.

And sometimes I think about how much I may have missed out on, having made my list and checked it twice and setting my ideal firmly of what I think I am supposed to be holding out for. How sad, not only for me, but for those who have wanted to love me but couldn't get in.

Which may be why our hearts continue to break. To crack them open wider and let the real love in.


I am not resigning from the game - oh, no! And I really don't think the game is probably all that hard. So I pray, on a daily basis, to see what is right in front of my face. Because I truly believe that all I need and all I want is well within my reach. And more than likely, it's just too easy for me to take seriously.

Bravo, I say, to life - to the only game in town! For this I am grateful.

Gusgus In The Can

Dogs. You can't live with 'em...and yet you can. Or CAN you?!


My dog's name is Gus, sometimes Gusgus, sometimes Gustauvo and then again, sometimes Brigitta (from The Sound of Music. I flatten his ears on top of his head and make him sing, "So Long, Farewell, Aufweidersein, Adieu." No animals are harmed in this performance). And I am convinced that Gusgus is my stoner brother, Gary, reincarnated.

My brother Gary was sweet, very, yet definitely not a rocket scientist. Gus=same. Gary had red hair with blond running through it. Gus=same. Gary could talk you into giving him your dessert. Gus=same. Gary smoked pot daily. Gus=I suspect same. I'm putting a tail on him. So to speak.

Gusgus insists on making himself known whether he's in the room or not. If he doesn't think he's getting enough attention, he goes into the bathroom. Since the door only swings one way, and he can't seem to remember this, once he's in the bathroom he can't get back out again. So he whines - stuck in the can again. Wow...so did Gary.

Gus needs to make sure he's known even if he's not in the same city, state or zip code, really. He runs about depositing hair everywhere, particularly on clothes and most particularly if they're black. This hair does not budge, not onto the average sticky roller or the magic lint-away. I couldn't even get it out from between my teeth the other day while I was interviewing at Target. Hmmmm, how...anti-cultural...? Please see former post. You know which one.

Gary had long red that hung all the way down to his bum. So does Gus. Gary took medication every day. So does Gus. Gary used to kick me under the dinner table when he was high, trying to get me to laugh with him. Jeez! So does Gus!

Gary was my best friend, who loved me no matter what. So is Gus.

Today I am grateful to have him...back.

I Shall Return

Wow. I'm back and I have little to report, really.

Other than to say this: I feel like life bitchslapped me through December and backhanded me into the blank wall that has been January thus far. That pretty accurately sums it up.

And this is where I've been. Staring at craigslist with bullseye target eyeballs, wondering what to click on next. Stunned - post Target, Hanukkah, Christmas, a birthday and a really bad date. Really. Bad.

But I am back. Look out January. I am fully dedicated and legally medicated and ready to take life on again. And for that I'm grateful.

At The Risk of Alienating The Holiday Happy

Taking this risk, I'm going to tell you what my last few days have been like. Happy Holidays, by the way.

Okay, if you've been around for the last two posts, you already know the wrangling I've been through with the cattle at Target. Suffice it to say that, in the end, I feel I just had a bit too much personality still, even when I toned it down as best I could. I don't do sheep well, and cattle even less so. But I gave it my best shot, even moreso. And they have a right to want "normies." So anyone who sent me notes about boycotting Target, don't bother. I know I won't, especially since I still need three of everything in the store. But I just might go without for the rest of the year, just on principle. I doubt they will suffer.

Yesterday, after getting my swing swinging again, I witnessed my puppy Gus have two, count them, two Grand Mal seizures again. After having his first a month ago. This time I knew what they were so I knew what to do (basically nothing but get everything out of the way) but it certainly didn't make it any easier to witness - or to clean up! Really, mondo frightening. So we go to the vet and they take blood and examine him and, thank god almighty, clip his toenails and they send me home with Valium for my dog. Which is Valium for big people too, but I made my phone calls and we all agreed that I don't really think Valium would make anything any better for me or anyone else around me. Not.

So now my dog is on Valium until Saturday, when they start him on Phenobarbitol for seizure disorder. So far, the effect of the Valium has been interesting. He has licked an entire wall of my bedroom and tried to head-butt the closet door open in my office. His legs don't work so good, so he's needed to kind of army crawl up my front steps after "walking" around the block. The first hour after he takes the pills, not unlike his mom, he is wound tight and needs to patrol and re-patrol the inner perimeter of the house until he falls down from exhaustion. He then sleeps like the dead for about an hour, and begins the patrolling all over again. He is 70 pounds and is now "sitting" on my lap while I'm trying to write at my desk. I'm sure he wishes I wouldn't have lost all that weight, as my lap is not as big as it used to be.

This perimeter patrol pretty much kept me up all night, as my bed appears to be one of the regular checkpoints, which is not good for me as I am an addictive sleeper. So I was really tired when I got up and answered the door for the Fed Ex man, who handed me an envelope from Bank of America. These are the people who hold my mortgage and who helped me work out my Making Home Affordable new mortgage that I signed last Tuesday. I say, "Golly, thanks pal, and have a great holiday." Thinking that they are returning their signed part of my home documents. Bbzztt, wrong!

They have returned my papers, saying that they did not receive them until a couple of hours after they were due and that they were reneging on the deal. Did I want to start over? Okay, this "deal" started well over a year ago, with someone in upstate New York. Today the guy I get on the phone is from Texas who talks to me about the present documents that were sent to me from Pittsburgh. So naturally, in order for me to start this process all over again, I have to talk to the guy in Arizona. And while they are all affiliated with Bank of America, none of them know each other and I have found that taking their names down makes no difference at all whatsoever in working through anything. They say they are making "notations" in my "file" every time they speak with me, and I can hear them typing, but apparently Bank of America employees don't actually have to read anything, just type. So - I would have to get all the doctors from Harborview Medical Center to write letters again, re-contact Jim McDermott's office (my congressman), write several letters explaining that I am not a slacker, even though on paper it certainly looks that way because I cannot get a job, and re-explain to all the persons all over the country who call me to re-discuss my default all over again for another year that my ex-husband is severely disabled, in what way, and on SSDI? After crying and crying and being unable to enunciate words for a couple of minutes...big breath...I tell the Escalation Officer in Texas that either the deal goes through as is or they can have my house. Period. "Call whomever you have to call, do whatever you have to do," was basically the end of that conversation.

Happy Freaking Holidays. Can I get any more down? No one gave me a Hanukkah gift, which was all right because I knew there was no one to do it. My daughter is only 13 and her dad is still too much of a bundle of continuous self-preservation to think of taking her shopping. And there will be no Christmas for me. Even though I'm Jewish, I was raised with Christmas and my mom, who passed away in 2005, was the only one who took it as more than "another chance for Hallmark to make movies and get people to buy stuff" (per my father). Although this year,my father actually did send me a card with a gift, my only gift this holiday season. You know what that gift is?

A TARGET GIFT CARD.

I kid you not. Need I say more about my dad? YES, but not today!

So. I knew what I wanted for the holidays, and today I went to get it. It's a print of a painting that I saw hanging in an art show recently and I happened to know where to get it. And I brought it home and I wrapped it and I told my daughter that I would appreciate it if she could give it to me on Friday and wish me a Merry Christmas. I'm lucky that she thinks this is "cute." Then I went and got something small that I know that I'd like for my birthday, which is the 4th of January and I brought it home and I wrapped it up and I will open that on the 4th.

Today I'm having a lot of trouble finding something to be grateful for. A lot. I'm grateful for the woman who stopped to give my battery a jump on the way out of the gallery parking lot. I am grateful that there is something we can do for Gus. And I am grateful that the holidays are almost over. I hate to say it, but I am. After all, this sentiment has at least provided a place for me to find gratitude.

Best Interview Answers To Best Interview Practices

At the urging of a friend and former co-worker, I have agreed to post my answers to the aforesaid corporate interview questions (please see previous post, "Torturous Interviews With An Egomaniacal Entity") to underline the injustice of such arrogance:

Interview Question Number One:
Tell me about a time when you and another employee had a disagreement.
Well, there was this one time? When I was a carhop on rollerskates at A&W? And I got into a fight with another girl who worked with me about which burger was the best? Because I definitely think it was the Mama burger and she thought it was the Papa burger and she was so loud that I just wanted her to Shut Up so I grabbed her by the throat and pinned her up against the little shack where we got the food from? And then she kicked me between the legs and I accidentally let go and I rolled back over the curb and into the parking lot? Between the customer's cars? And then she like started to push off and roll after me? And, you know, it was that girl that we used to call "Roller Derby Hippo Legs" and she was big and coming at me fast so I landed a good one right below her ribcage? With my skate up, like this? And so she flew back and landed right on her butt next to the shack? And she couldn't breathe for a minute, so some customer just gets on out of their car and shouts - "Hey! Where the hell's my Mama Burger, you nutjobs?"

Okay. And how did this experience work out for you?
Well, you know, since it was the Mama Burger they were looking for, we both kind of thought it was a sign. From Jesus. Or maybe like Gandhi, I guess. So we both started laughing so hard with like tears and finished delivering our orders? And then we asked our boss if he could get us a six pack of tall boys? Because, we were, like, 16 and he was, like 22? So, we ended up having fun that day after all, for sure.

Interview Question Number Two
Tell me about a time when you had an idea to make things better.
Well, yeah, I guess that might be when I brought up in the manager's meeting at Barnes & Noble, you know, about the day before, when I ran after this really hairy guy who I had seen stuffing DVDs down his pants and then just walking stiff-legged out of the store toward the parking lot. You know, they tell you that you can't do that, like, chase after them and all but, hey, the guy was laughing to himself and talking to somebody who wasn't there and I thought he was a pretty easy mark, so I went for it. And I scared the bejongas out of him by shouting that they were all coming down on him if he didn't drop the merchandise NOW and, luckily I had thought ahead and brought along some tongs to pick up the DVDs with, because, ugh, they came down through his pant leg and I sure wasn't going to pick them up, right? So, anyway, I think we should be allowed to bend the rules for obviously crazy people, right? Like, I got the stolen merchandise back, right? I mean, who are the police gonna believe, me or him?!

And how was this idea received?
Strangely, they, I mean the other managers, laughed and shook their heads and I guess they thought I was just kidding. This happens to me sometimes. Huh...

Interview Question Number Three
Tell me about a time when you had to deliver negative information.
I remember there was this time? There was a guy who used to work for me, in like a customer service capacity, okay? And he had really, really awful, horrid breath, like every day. Okay, as if this isn't bad enough, he had really, unbelievably offensive taste in clothes! You know, they were always within the dress code but, come on already, he was old enough to know better, right? And I took it upon myself to sit him down finally and have a talk with him, because none of the men managers would and, I mean, somebody had to, especially about the one-piece jumpsuits. So I just told him, as painlessly and quickly as I could, that most of what he wore fell within the code but that it was what I would classify as "white trash," and that he was really setting a poor example for the younger college guys at work who were still trying to figure out who they were and who their signature designer was going to be. Then I suggested a designer that I thought would probably cut clothes big enough for him. Oh! And then I just added in, like as an aside, that he needed to brush his teeth and floss or I'd fire him.

And what was the result of this...meeting?
Well, he just remained a total mess. And, believe it or not - they wouldn't let me do another thing about it! So wrong! But what can you do? It is what it is, right?

Interview Question Number Four
Tell me about a time when you had to help someone when you were doing something else.
Oh my god, was this all the time or what? People, especially the Ladies Who Lunch from Laurelhurst, think that they deserve a free, personal shopper, right? Like I'm there to be their slave. And you smile and ask, "Can I help you find anything today?" while your arms are absolutely loaded with merchandise and the store is packed and they just think they are the hottest thing walking, okay? So you're supposed to just drop everything and help them find Every Single Thing on their list! And then, if it's not on the shelf, they want you to go to a freaking computer and order it for them and then they want it all personally gift-wrapped - BY YOU. I know part of it was that they were just jealous because my hair was naturally blonde and theirs was from some bottle. Jeez Louise!! New money can be so tacky!

And how did this work out?
Well, you know, they're never happy. What-ever!

Interview Question Number Five
Tell me about a time when you made someone feel good.
Oh my. Well, I don't know about that. I would never do that at work, you know...THAT! I just, you know, I have always thought that it was wrong to, like, fraternize with your boss or anything, you know...what if somebody walks in on you?(blush)

And so there you have it. I mean, you be the judge: fair or unfair. You do know I'm kidding, right? Today I am grateful to have people in my life who understand me and push me toward higher ground.

Torturous Interviews With An Egomaniacal Entity

I am just now getting out of bed after two days of being up and down and up and down. If I didn't have a kid or a dog I'd still be lying flat. I'm not sure if any of this is physical, even though I do have a low-grade fever, but I am certain that it's the result of the end of six, count them, six interviews with Target.

Yep, six. Not two, not four. Six. I was referred in by a friend of a friend who is now a friend too, since I've been around the Target Experience so long. Can you imagine how many interviews you'd have to withstand if you weren't actually referred by someone reputable within the company?

In a couple of decades of being interviewed, and another of being the interviewer, I have never, ever heard of anyone being questioned by so many people for such a lengthy amount of time. Except by perhaps the FBI or the Spanish Inquisition. Actually had it been the Spanish Inquisition I'd have been stretched on the rack and dead a month ago.

Target got my resume in September, called and started the interviewing in November. It's now almost the New Year. The supposed position available was retail management, of which I have eight years experience in an 18 million dollar Barnes & Noble, the third largest grossing out of 800 stores in the United States. All of my reviews were fairly shining and if one were to seek out former employees I believe they would speak quite well of me. I left of my own volition, with no bridges burning and no skid marks.

Easy, right? So - talk to me, see if I'm mentally impaired, whether I smell okay, if I know not to wear jeans to an interview, even try to provoke me and see if I bad-mouth my former employers. Go ahead, use a big word on me, and then use an "insider" sales term and see if I know what you're talking about. Pass me off to another person and then call my references. At most, set me up to later see the "big guy/gal" on a third interview to see if I know how to behave myself in the face of cold, hard authority and see if I can show up on time for it at an obscure location almost an hour away. Appropriately, I'd be somewhat nervous, but really, piece of cake in the end.

Aforesaid company does not use this model as a best practice. They have a big packet of questions that two people ask you in separate rooms; teensy, tiny, windowless rooms that make you wonder if anyone weighing over 120 or asthmatic could ever be eligible to work there. The questions are, of course, overly simple, and the same as the questions the last person asked you but they are worded just slightly differently. Then they let you go and say they will call.

Then they call a week later and set you up for "an" interview for a week after that. This time you speak with not two, but three different people, in three different beensy, minute, airless rooms and they ask you questions from a different packet, although the questions are still the same, really, just worded differently. They are very mysterious as to what they're looking for, and I ask them after I simply answer the questions if my answers made sense to them. Each looks up slyly as they're jotting away on their pads like some Freudian shrink, and says, "Oh yes." Then they send you home and say that someone will call.

In fairness, they do ask you if you have any questions for them, but for god's sake, it's a freaking retail floor management position, not engineering for NASA, so as hard as I try, I can't really come up with anything. Other than perhaps what shade of red they think I'd look good in. No, I didn't.

They now call on a Sunday, because they're retail and want to know if you can speak without a slur on the weekend, and set you up for another interview, somewhere in the distant hinterlands, to speak with someone else. A person with only one name, like Cher or Madonna, who has an obscure title that you've never heard of that must be an insider thing and, for the love of allah, I just need a fucking job already, I'll scrub your toilets for minimum wage, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME ALREADY!! No, I relax, sure I can look it up on MapQuest and I'll be there whenever you want me to be there.

WTF, what position are they looking at me for? El Presidentress, Tsarina, walker of the company bull terrier - and WTF is up with meeting somewhere else? I just want to sell toys for Christmas and rearrange your housewares department. So, I drive out of Seattle a ways and find this, this other place and walk in and ask for the one-named person on which my future lies. She is busy, can I wait? Uh, yeah, I can wait. And I smile at all the shoppers for awhile, thinking, hey, I could be a security deterrent for awhile if nothing else and forty-five minutes after my scheduled interview time the one-named woman shows up in front of me. No introduction from her, just "Ah, who are you?" I extend my hand to shake hers and say "Hi, I'm Nancy and I've been sent over from Northgate to meet with you." She hesitantly takes my hand and gives me that half-handed, withered dead fish non-grip and says, "Ok, yeah, and what are you here for?" I say, "I've met with five people at Northgate and then HR sent me here to see you." I Am Not going to help this chick out, okay? She takes me back to a larger, windowless cubicle and takes out a packet and asks me exactly the same questions the other five have asked only this time in monotone:

Tell me about a time when you and another employee had a disagreement.
Tell me about a time when you had an idea to make things better.
Tell me about a time when you had to deliver negative information.
Tell me about a time when you had to help someone when you were doing something else.
Tell me about a time when you made someone feel good.

You get the gist, right? Fuck, you are not going to get a more creative question answerer than me, all right?!?! Yet, as I stayed on track for the first five people, by the mysterious and extraordinarily bored sixth, I probably did not deliver with all the enthusiasm she wanted. Or maybe I did. Who knows?

Because you know what? The very next day, Human Resources called and said, "Hi Nancy, Happy Holidays! How are you today? I'm sorry to tell you that we do not have a place for you here and I wanted to let you know as soon as we knew."

I can't breathe. She's called while I am looking over my new Making Home Affordable mortgage papers. I say, very small, "Really?" She says, "Yes, I'm sorry it didn't work out." I wait a moment, quiet, not letting her hang up on me without SOMETHING, Anything, and I ask, "Well, do you have any feedback for me? After SIX interviews with your company?" She says, "Well, we just do not believe that you would be a good fit for our culture."

I feel slugged in the stomach. It appeared to be such a sure thing, any position would have been fine, really, WTF. And I leave my house and I walk miles in the rain down Greenwood Avenue and I cry and people are watching me, probably thinking somebody died and I could give a shit because it's all just too much. My wonderful neighbors bring over dinner because my one-of-a-kind daughter tells them I'm down and out and my friends send me messages on Facebook of love and support and all I want to do is my drug of choice, which is sleep. Please see former post, "Sleep Is My Drug Of Choice."

I get up today and I am enraged, pissy and cannot quit going from sighing to barking at those around me. I miss my mom, who absolutely loved Christmas, like most moms do, but she was fun and we baked and decorated and laughed and cried and sometimes just sat held each other on the couch while we watched a movie. But that's not going to happen anymore. And I'm lost. Again.

Today I am grateful for my sanity, that continues to be tested by some of the most unworthy opponents. Okay, that didn't sound very grateful. Today I am grateful, so much, for my super-supportive friends and neighbors who are not afraid to show up, even when I just want to crawl in a hole, and bring me kudos and chicken cassarole.

To Have Or Have Not

I have the most fabulous kid on earth, and that's a fact. And I hope she never reads this.

I have read that the highest rate of divorce occurs between people with children, when their children are age four. I'm fairly sure that this is strictly an American statistic, and that would make sense to me, since "family" means something a lot "looser" here than in just about any culture on Earth, except for maybe Canada. Please see future post, "I Just Don't Know What The Hell To Think About Canada."

My experience in this potential marriage-breaking endeavor, this bringing forth of progeny, pretty much holds true to this statistic, except that the actual breakup of my marriage occurred six years later than the norm, even though it was over long before that. My own specifics will not be gone into here, but suffice it to say that upon questioning my divorced and not-divorced-but-fantasize-about-it-regularly peers, this theory appears to hold some water.

Let me give you a random situation in a nutshell: let's say...Jancy and Mavid meet. They go out for about a year, move in together and live happily together for another year, they get engaged and a year later they get married. Mavid says to Jancy one day, "Hey, what say we try to have a kid?" Jancy, thinking, what the hell, I've never been pregnant even by accident, says, "Uh, yeah, sure, why not?" I have found that the majority of married couples I know put exactly that much thought into the creating of another life. Because, what the hey, our parents did it, right? How hard could it be?

And wouldn't everyone like to have a little onion bun that looks just like them and has their funny expressions and blows bubbles and wants to play and help you keep your fun, youthful spirit hopping about for as long as it can? I mean, besides the mandate that that's what your supposed to do after marriage and besides the ongoing nudging of your parental units claiming, ad nauseum, "But I want to be a Grandma!!"

You know why she wants to be a grandma? She'll even tell you this one: Because I get to be the good guy and have all the fun and then send them home when I'm done with them. "Grandma loves you! Bub-Byeeeee!!" And the door goes, "Slam."

And won't your so-far loving and satisfied husband love you even more once you've pushed that big bowling ball out of your tiny little pin hole, right there in front of him, with all the attendant blood, sweat, bodily functions and the exclamations of sheer hatred that pop out during hard labor? Okay, maybe everybody's not quite that bad, but I'm trying to build my theory here. Childbirth can be thoroughly disgusting. Beautiful and gross all at the same time. I have photos if you want to see them.

You bring this little sweetie pie home and voila! It sucks and cries and poops and vomits and sleeps every once in awhile, and then it sucks and cries and poops and throws up and doesn't sleep for a couple nights straight. And on and on. And for a woman, your hormones are whacktastic and other-worldly anyway, but now you're not sleeping, even though your husband helps you as much as he can but he doesn't produce milk so...and even if you pump, your screetching child will not latch onto a bottle so he can't help you anyway...zzzzzzzz.

This part goes on for a couple of months, which feels like a couple of years because you're not sleeping and even when you're sleeping you're programmed to be listening. And you really do have some beautiful times, especially when your kid gets gas and you imagine that she/he's smiling at you when really they just need to fart. But it's cool anyway.

All of this said, this is not even touching upon what's happening to your All-American romantic relationship. Your husband asks the doctor, while you're still in the childbirth recovery room, "So how long til we can DO IT again?" If he's lucky, you don't hear him because if you do, there could well be hell for him to pay. Even after a couple of weeks, after the episiotomy heals and you stop the non-stop bleeding, you haven't slept in...forever. This phase is not unlike psychoses. And it's not that you don't love your husband anymore, but your needs have become very, very simple, primal and, quite frankly, unimportant. Your body is no longer your own, it's become breakfast and lunch - and a picker-upper and a bender-overer and changer. And unfortunately you haven't even thought about the fact that his needs have not altered in this profound way at all. He still wants to DO IT. And once y'all DO IT again, he will assume that y'all will again resume your regularly scheduled impromptu sexing. But you can't. And it's going to be awhile before you can and even then, you're going to be DOING IT as a mom. If that kid cries, you're stopping the show, regardless of what scene you're on.

I remember a pregnant friend once saying to me, "Well, nothing will change for us. We will still hike with little Harold on our backs and travel and ski and everything else we've always done. He'll just come with us!!" Right. What if your kid doesn't like sitting in that backpack and throws a fit until you take him out? What if your kid doesn't like to sleep anywhere but home? What if your kid finds the cold too irritating and the hot too crabbifying? I mean, they're not born little blobs who can be molded into whatever fits your lifestyle. My kid decided she was a vegetarian at age 4 and announced it at the dinner table while I was in the middle of cutting up my prime rib. At 13, she still is. I have to cook two different meals. Oh, you say I don't? I bet you don't have a kid.

But I think the bottom line on the maintenance of a good, loving relationship while being parents is not really any of this. I think it's more of a psycho-spiritual roll of the dice than meets the eye. I think there are a lot of factors at play, physical, mental and spiritual, and so many of us didn't take the time to examine our own personhoods before we so glibly stopped the birth control. So much of what happens to form a good and loving relationship has to do with the unconscious and the subconscious. It's not all about what we think or decide. Most times it's decided for us by something much bigger than us. Isn't that what real love is?

And what I have found for myself, and from what I've studied of other newly parental relationships, is that a profound shift occurs that we have no control over, in parts of our psyche that we are not able to steer in any direction - we don't even know they're there! Something happens to a man when his woman starts being called "Mommy" and to a woman when her man starts to be "Daddy." Sounds warm and fuzzy, but that's not always the case.

We owe it to ourselves and to our potential children to perform great, painstaking personal reflection with major internal housecleaning before we go pitching the condoms. Did we have wonderful powers of example in parenting? Did they? Are we really willing to amend our full-disclosure intimacy with one another or our satisfying lifestyles just to do what people may think is right or that we'd be "good at?" And what would make us "good" at it? Because we're childish and haven't even grown up ourselves yet? Do we really feel like relinquishing our cherished child-likeness to an actual child for whom we now have to set a power of example? Most of all, do we realize, fully realize that the spiritual life of this little blue-eyed bumpkin is going to be our responsibility 24/7, 365 days a year, really, for the rest of our lives? Because even when they leave home, we will still think about them all the time and wonder if they're happy.

I don't know about you. Your experience may differ, and more power to you, for sure. But these are my thoughts tonight, and they're not fully coherent, even to me. What I do know is that almost every single day, I see evidence of more and more heartache and hearts breaking over what seems to have been a couple's easiest decision to make. And none of them seem to know why they hurt, or where the pain started.

And yet, here again - I have the most incredible daughter a person could want. I couldn't have designed a better kid, even if I were given all the options I could have dreamed up. But this has come at a huge, tremendous personal price to someone without a prayer or a clue or a handbook.

Today I am humbled with the gratitude I have for my Sasha and for my survival as a now single mother - but I am grateful most of all perhaps, that I realized just in the nick of time that it really DOES take a village to raise a child well - and that I am able to avail myself the help of that village. Let's spread that love, right?

I Heart RWE - But Could RWE Ever Heart Me Back?

"Don't tell me who you are because who you are is thundering so loudly that I couldn't hear you anyway." Ralph Waldo Emerson

This saying by Emerson has been resounding through my chest cavity and bouncing off my ribcage ever since I first heard it probably twenty years ago. It was quoted to me by that same good friend of mine who spoke with me of disappointment: please see former post, "The Fabulousness Of Disappointment." She felt moved to quote RWE to me in response to my attempting to give her an extremely lengthy justification (droning on and on and on) for why my being a control freak was so necessary for the survival of the species. Please also see future post "My First Fourth Step." (Yeah, I doubt it!)

I think the woman who originally quoted it to me was really just saying, "Wow, give it a rest, wouldja? Give other people more credit for their own intelligence and perceptions - who they think you are is more about what your actions say than it is about your words!!" Or maybe, "Shut it, already!! We got your number a long time ago!" That sounds more like Ainsley.

Ironic, isn't it, how we're always the last people to know who we are? I remember after being clean and sober for awhile, warily approaching a long-time, dear friend of mine who had told me to pretty much get lost a year earlier because, in her words, she didn't want to watch me kill myself with booze and drugs. Now I was terrified that she would hate me once I told her the truth about me but I did it anyway. I met her for coffee at the corner of 42nd and Ninth and shyly told her that I was sorry for anything I had done to upset her, but that I thought she should know that I quit drinking and that I was an...an alcoholic. Her response to me was to laugh and say, "Yeah, no shit!!"

I recently had a fatal fallout with a different friend, specifically about "the obvious." I told her how I saw a situation where she was desperately trying to change and control some of our mutual friends. True, I could have stated it more simply myself, but she went on to write email after email, paragraph upon paragraph of explanation, justification and the theory behind her rightness. And then to show up later to publicly recruit other people over to see it "her way" too.

I know what this is. I know it because I've done it myself, all too many times, particularly in work situations where I thought someone was a bitch or I felt threatened by someone else's good fortune that I thought was undeserved. And I have felt perfectly justified and righteous in making my correctness known worldwide re this given situation. Only to go home and later feel baffled as to why I hate myself so much and feel the need to eat an entire layer cake or scratch at my wounds or cut my nails too short. Little did I know that it was Ralph and his wisdom, thundering their way up through my denial, telling me, "Hey, you don't believe that crap is right anymore, remember? Knock it off!"

These days, when I don't act well, I don't feel well, no matter what I've said and to whom. I still do these things on occasion, although only about 1/24th of the time I used to. But now I know what to do about my regression into fearful self-absorption - own it, baby, both with myself and with those I've visited it upon. And best of all, I get to do it with the helpful insight of my beloved friends.

Today I am grateful for the path and all the challenging mirrors I find along the way. Even if they sometimes don't look "right" to me.

Facebook Burnt My Dinner - Again!!

I know. I have to own this, don't I? Even though most of my friends are also hooked on Facebook...and, come on, Facebook doesn't MAKE me attach my psychic consciousness to it all day...so it probably is, at least somewhat, my fault that I didn't get up when the timer went off for the pizza. Again.

Crap! It was such a beautiful pie, too. I got it freshly made at PCC. Which in itself is saying a lot - please see my vile November post entitled "Life Amongst The Encapsulated, Part 1" to fully know how hard it is for me to revisit that slow-motion, tree-hugging, nightmarish establishment. Yet I did, and I was anticipating such succulence, even if it was organic.

I think George Clooney could have been waiting on me in the boudoir with tactile-enhancing oil from the yumyum plant and I wouldn't have budged tonight. The subject on the thread was "Glee," the musical, and the way Rachel nailed her rendition of one of my all-time favorite Broadway hits, "Don't Rain On My Parade." I mean, I wept and had goosebumps for an hour afterward! Fuck Dinner, Right?!?!

Gawd, I can be so ambivalent. Pizza, Facebook, pizza, FB, pizza, fb...?

Today I am grateful for: being able to afford something to eat, certainly pizza; for having a psychic consciousness at all (much less one that can attach to FB drek); for being able to own my own part in the demise of things dinner (kind of); for George Clooney and the ability to be moved to tears by Broadway show tunes; and for being able to consider the possibility that I will someday enjoy a PCC experience.

Not necessarily in that order.

I Let Nixon Do My Hair

Like most mothers, my mom had a couple of supremely annoying stock lines. Ones like, "Because I said so," and "If you keep scrunching that face up it's going to stay that way," etc. The one that's creeping up my consciousness ladder today like an old choke weed is "A woman's hair is her crown of glory!" Ugh, gawd. Not in front of my friends!

Translation, for those lightly baffled, is: If your hair doesn't look good, forget about the rest of your day. It's going to suck. Please see future post, "Princess Diana's Hair Was Never Quite Good Enough."

Funny, this coming from a woman who could have singlehandedly destroyed the ozone layer above North America with the way she wrangled her tresses through the spray of a full can of AquaNet. She was a high-teasing, redheaded, beehive hairdo champion of North Suburban Minneapolis, she was. And for her era, she was as good as it gets in the excellent hair day department.

Still, puberty had a way of making much of what she said creepy and I guess today I'm still hearing her "glory" saying through pubic ears. It could be because I got up this morning and looked at my hair while brushing my teeth. I tend to avoid this early sneak peek, not because I never like what I see, but because I can't predict which days I won't. So I usually put it off until after caffeination. This morning my hair just sucked, plain and simple. I totally hate the last haircut I got, it's growing out wonky, it's too short to cut any differently just yet and I'm simply having to live with it for awhile. But today, as it just lays there dead to the world, up from the depths comes that inane mommy quip to frost my already paltry cake.

Ack! Of course I have to do something - and I have to do it today. Whenever I find the time is ripe for hair modification it must happen on the same day the thought occurs. Everybody's got their thang, all right?

I phone my usual colorist. It's the holidays so naturally she's booked out for three entire days. Breathe. So, after a small amount of panic, I say to the receptionist, "Okay, go ahead and book me with whoever has an opening today."

What?! What am I thinking?! Who in blazes do you think is going to have an impromptu opening in their schedule this close to the holiday?

I get to the salon, check my coat, and am informed by the receptionist that I am to be the lucky "guest" of one of the newest members of their design team. Ah! Greaaaaat...and who would that be? "Nixon," that's who. A brand-spanking new hair school graduate with the same name as one of our nation's most embarrassing Yankee leaders to date. How could this possibly bode well?

I'm not going to describe Nixon. The photo to your left is not her (although the first thing she said to me upon shaking my hand was, "I am not a crook"). She is actually a lovely young woman with a lavender crewcut...who has no idea how or where to slather and fold the foils as necessary for the lightening of hair (she started in the back!). And let me just wrap this up by saying that, because I let Nixon do my hair, 85 dollars later it looks exactly the same as it did in the mirror this morning. There shall be no glory in my crown today.

However, let it be said that because I do know quite a bit about haircolor processing itself, and after watching Nixon "do" my hair, today I am extremely grateful to have any hair left at all.

No Lipstick, No Dancing, No Movies - Oh My!

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying." - Kurt Vonnegut

Grandma Valborg used to bring us to big stadiums filled with Unadulterated Believers and heavy men with large circles of armpit sweat, shouting over microphones, "Bring your sins up the aisle and throw them onto the stage! You can still be saved! Do it now, while there's still time!" My mom would get drunk (how? did she have a hip flask?) and I would hide underneath her skirt.

Many, many years later I was to find out that Valborg started life out as a Jew hiding in Denmark, making my mother Jewish and me too. Please see future post, "Oy, What A Relief It Is."

Which is what made her unflagging, vehement faith in fundamentalist christianity even more whack. And yes, it was whack even without that information.

No lipstick, no dancing, no movies. These were not only some of the "commandments" my mother grew up with, but apparently, according to Valborg's church, they are also confirmed in the bible somewhere. I remember asking where, specifically, since around Jesus' time and before there was no Revlon or cinema yet. And I seem to remember dancing mentioned in an upbeat, rather positive way (you know, unless it was around a golden calf or some other false idol...). My grandmother would look toward the heavens, shake her head, and make that sound, the one with the tongue that is so hard to replicate in writing: "tch, tch" or "tsk, tsk." And, of course, she would not answer. She was Danish! Please see future posts, "If You're Scandanavian, Please Raise Your Children Italian" or "The Silence That Is My Father."

Also, according to Valborg's church, no one but they are going to heaven. As a kid I understood this as having to do with the three aforementioned commandments. She feared, often verbally, for all our lives, filled with things like the The Twist and Lipsmackers and The Dick VanDyke Show. Or worse yet, full length features, like Singing In The Rain. When one of us got sick, the mourning would begin ahead of time, in preparation for the time to come when she would never see us again. "Ever!" she would weakly wail.

My Mom would smirk and take no heed, and I have to give her credit - these antics must have dragged up countless deprivational childhood scenes on her internal screen: of her father, Walter, having to push her out the back door while shoving a buck into her coat pocket, telling her to go ahead and go to the movies with her friends; of going to the school dance under the guise of attending a bible study; of chapped lips.

I bet leaving home was more of a relief to Mom than it was to most - and having her own home even more liberating. For whenever Grandma came over for dinner, it seemed to me that Mom would put on her full makeup regalia, turn the television toward the dinner table, flip the channel to a movie (any movie), and do the Charleston while dishing up the plates. While this could have had as much to do with the diet pills/methamphetamines she took daily, it sure looked to me like it was in direct response to them auditorium revivals we were dragged to where Grandma would beg her to go up to the front and throw her cigarettes onto the stage. Where Mom would get mysteriously, contentedly soused and my brothers would duck under the bleachers to dodge the flying spittle of the unquestioning believers while I hung onto my mother's leg, hoping to get home in time for Get Smart.

Today I am so very grateful to have had my mom as a mom. For even through all the dysfunction, confusion and sometimes tragedy of my childhood, my mom taught me, among many of life's lessons, that to be myself was the most powerful thing I could ever want to be.

The Fabulousness of Disappointment

My closest friend once told me that I've earned the right to be disappointed.

What?! - I mean, is she pissed off at me, does she feel I should suffer more (as if!), did I wink at her husband again? (I have Tourette's Syndrome. Please see future post, Tics, Clicks and My Inability to Retain What You Just Said.)

No. She meant it. And positively.

The theory goes: if I can just readjust my habitual look through my own life's prism, shift just a tad over from the dread view to the view of anticipating the best, or even just something good, out of a possible situation, or person, etc., then I will have spent the majority of my time feeling warm and fuzzy hope. Instead of the usual crappy-ass "oh well" gloom I have been so programmed to believe in, even before anything happens, which supposedly protects me from the Big Fall. Or maybe protects me from feeling stupid for believing something good could happen. But why stupid, and in front of whom?

If I can do this, believe this...thing, situation...can actually happen, then even if everything goes to hell in a furious ball of flames, I will still have enjoyed the majority of my conscious time on the way there.

I mean, if you're going to fall off the cliff, may as well have fun on the run up to the edge, right? And maybe you won't fall at all. Maybe you'll just leap through the air only to land lightly onto the next plateau.

Which brings to mind another of my sage's [old] sayings about me - "There she goes again, kicking and screaming her way from one plateau of joy to the next." That could really use a painting to go along with it, don't you think?

Today, I'm grateful for disappointment.

Adventures In Social Cocaine Use, Exhibit A

Those who know say that the number one symptom of addiction is denial. Those who follow those who know say that denial "ain't no river in Egypt." I've had the fortune to be able to very intimately explore and challenge this "knowledge," and to later write reams of confessional about these very experiences in an attempt to rid myself of the shame and earn the right to have the hole in my septum rebuilt. See future post entitled "Okay, Was That Considered A Nose Job?"

My place, in the '80s, where everybody knew my name, was on East 58th Street and First Avenue in New York City: Hartley, four-star dinner, five-star clientele, really big brass bar. Denial had me throw in the "'80s" part I'm sure because after all, didn't everybody do coke in the '80s? Certainly everyone I knew. Please see future post, "Everyone I Knew In The '80s Has Done Time."

This was back in the more social, ambulatory days of my use, when it still seemed to me that I was the coolest thing walking. Cocaine gave my ever-diminishing capacity to drink LEGS, and baby that discovery made me very happy. I appeared very happy back then anyway, and why not? I was living on the posh Upper East Side of Manhattan, making more money than g_d, with a quite obvious knowledge of the important designers to wear, people to know, places to be seen. In fact, I was certain that it was only a matter of time before I was discovered. For what, I don't know, because I didn't really do anything to be discovered for, but in my celebrity-dotted life and my chemically-addled haze it seemed certain and inevitable that someone would finally realize who I really was!

Friday night at Hartley: I had scored a particularly beautiful glassine envelope filled with the purest, pretty white snow from my favorite bartender. And I paid the last pretty copper penny I had for it too. Paycheck received that morning, paycheck gone that night. But, hey, you should have seen the outfit I was wearing. These things count when you're broke!

So I saunter back through the restaurant, wave to Max on my left, retort over to my right "Oh, Penelope, you're so bad!" etc., and head for the ladies room, psyched, yes pumped - I can't wait to get into that stall!

Ach! It's full! Well, I'm just going to unfold this little envelope at one end, kind of, hmmm, you know they don't really unfold except for in the middle, but maybe I can juuuuuuust scoop a little bit onto my mutantly long fingernail and get us a little toot while we're waiting, right? Maybe not.

First, can I describe the skirt I had on? Here it is, and although that is not me wearing it (long legs?) it easily could have been (flat stomach!):


Yes, it is important to the progression of the story: it was a hot little number, kind of a cross between Madonna-loose and the Thompson Twins-cute - tacky as hell, though not for its time. Notice it's velvet.

So I'm a bit "tipsy" and struggling to secret a little snort of the primo stuff up my nose while I'm waiting for the stall to open up and, oh my! Ooooops?! The whole envelope opens up and empties down the front of me. Crap!! It's snowing down the velvet!

Well, what does a girl do? It's early in the evening, I've spent everything I've got, I need to keep drinking even though I'm already drunk (please see future post "My Name Is ______ And I'm An Alcoholic") and I'm in dire need of a pick-me-up so I can go on looking "hot(?)" enough to get the bartender and other assorted persons to buy me drinks. Okay, the answer is obvious to me, but if it's not to you, I'll just tell you. I lift my velvet skirt up over my face and begin to snort it. Can you believe the luck of wearing something with such a dense and grabby nap to it on such a clumsy night as this?

The woman who was occupying the stall (remember I'm still out in the public part of the ladies room) comes out to find me leaning up against the sinks with my skirt up over my head, sounding like I'm taking a test for asthma. "Would you mind if I wash my hands?" I lean forward, peeking out from my skirt and say, "No, certainly not." Then I drop my skirt halfway down and offer, "Coke? There's an awful lot here!" I pull it back down completely to show her.

She smiles big, and without a word, drops to her knees and begins to snort and lick my skirt.

Yes, well, together we huffed up as much as we could, brushed as much more as we could back into the little envelope, had a bit of trouble leaving the ladies room for want of a break in our high-speed conversation which touched lightly upon just about every subject known to mankind - all this while women were coming in and out of same said ladies room.

What might this have looked like to them? Hmmm. Probably like social cocaine use. I'm sorry, did I mention this was the '80s?

Okay, so today I'm grateful for not cocaining anymore.

On Being (Somewhat) Passively Stalked

Wow, I'm crabby. I just told my daughter that even an ape can load a dishwasher the right way; you know, cups and bowls facing DOWN? Oy, just observe the sprayers!

Besides still having a bitchin' toothache and still no insurance, I am disturbed by this sense I have of being stalked. Like most things out here, it is being done in a way that is not direct - no bulb flashing, no obvious drive-bys during daylight hours, no screaming for my autograph or stealing of my garbage - wait, who am I? Oh, sorry, I get confused with the rock star I am in the shower.

No, this is stalking in the passive-aggressive style; the sending of semi-direct, in-the-know messages through shared electronic media and/or through having your own expressions spoken back to you out of the mouth of a friend, yet attributed to said "stalker."


This label makes me nervous, so let's call this entity Celery With the Fluffy Leaves On Top, or better yet, just Celery.

Remember in school when another kid would all of a sudden show up with your haircut (worse=color), your boots, or nowdays perhaps your tattoo? You go to the mall and, surprise, they're already there, shopping coincidentally in the store you were going to? Then they're in line two people back from you at the food court, because, hey, they like tacos too?

Well, okay, you decide why not? We can sit together. And because they tend to be so many places you go, you speak to them more regularly than you used to, and they seem to be okay. You hang on occasion until one day they come over to help you with your homework. This person likes to help your mom a lot, too, and finds reasons to help mom even more, later, making plans for another day in the future. Maybe your friends come over as well and now become acquaintances with this person.

Then one day, you are home alone and stuck - stuck on your final paper, supposedly your best of the year. Frustrated and feeling like you're worthless because this used to be your best subject but now, now you find yourself bereft of words that used to come so easily - argh - and this person just happens to stop over. And what do you do? You feel ultra-lost so you...let them read your draft. And then let them actually make comments. Little did you know then, that you were making a grave error in judgment. That this could be possibly misunderstood as copyright.

Several of your friends soon start to drop hints: "Did you know that you and Celery have the same jacket on today?" or "You know, I saw Celery the other day at Sports Authority buying night vision goggles." Or they come right out and tell you, "Hey, Celery froths around the corners of their mouth in your presence. That person's been known to froth excessively when they're about to have to move on to another city - again. No one knows why, exactly, but take good care of yourself. Just saying."

You don't really think too much about any of this (except to note that the tic in your right eye starts up again) until the day you see the froth for yourself. "Listen Celery, I think my term paper is getting a little too much spittle on it for comfort and I'm sorry, I know I listened to some of your ideas, but I did write it myself and, you know, really, it's mine."

Celery doesn't take this too well and stalks off. Stories start making their way back to you that you stole Celery's words away, promised a byline, reneged. And you need to look hard at this, because after all, you thought it was homework for god's sake, what have you done? Celery calls and makes grand references to books you've written together (not) in places you've never been, during years in which you don't remember ever even knowing Celery. Holy crap! Do you think Celery may be missing a couple of chunks?! Celery insists that it was more than just homework and that you know it. When you attempt to tell Celery that Celery should maybe just leave you alone for awhile, Celery dips, and jumps straight into the Ranch Dressing.

Am I getting whack here or what?

You try to be nice, but it just makes things worse and soon you've actually had to threaten to get a restraining order because Celery is just a tad scary at this point.

Celery is now a "friend" of several of my "friends" and continues to do and say things that Celery knows will reach me, or show up places that Celery knows I will be, believing that I will somehow accept that Celery, even with Celery's ever-evaporating H2O, is the vegetable I want to have in every salad.

And I say, "YO! CELERY! I DON'T EVEN LIKE SALAD!!!"

Which is why I am so freaking crabby - again, today, after observing something that was directed at me that wasn't directed to me. Alas, I believe I will have to be the bigger person here, say what I need to say when I need to say it and let Celery figure out that Celery wants a big salad-lover and not a writer-of-words like me.

Today I'm grateful to have dodged a bullet in human form. Hopefully.

P.S. Of course, I did apologize to my daughter...