Category Archives: relationships

February 5, 2010 · 12:02 pm

From the Not-So-Secret, Not-So-Closely Guarded BOY’S Manual.


Burt Reynolds cover of Playgirl magazineThere’s an old joke that goes:

“Why are fewer copies of Playgirl sold than of Playboy?”

“Why?”

“Because all a girl* has to do to see a MAN naked is ASK.”

SO true.

Sometimes, a girl has to finagle NOT to see the poor shmoe naked, as in:

  • Shaking hands at the door of a date that HE thought went a LOT better than it did…
  • The more merciful: Offering a cheek for the kiss, instead of the handshake…
  • The less merciful: “I’m sorry, I’m busy Thursday. Yes, Friday, too. All weekend. Why don’t I let you know?”
  • The downright cruel: “I don’t THINK so. Thanks, though.” Slam. And, if the door is thin enough, the aforementioned shmoe might even hear the snickering.

The difference between men and women? (Well, ONE of the many?)

While he may mourn for a few days when she doesn’t call, he will NOT, as women will, agonize over WHY she did not call, because he ALREADY KNOWS.

He’s done it himself, in all likelihood.

Most boys have.

“I’ll call you.”

The three nicest – or the three most suspicious – and, too often, the three most horrendously echoing words ever heard pinballing in a waiting person’s mind, ever to fall from a careless mouth.

(This is not counting “I love you,” which is a whole other essay of “he said/she said” unto itself.)

cell phone number padHe says: “I’ll call you.”

She hears: “I’ll call you.”

He means one of three possibilities.

Possibility Number One:

He means:

“Whoa Nelly, You Are The One, in which case. I don’t want to fuck it up by calling you too soon.”

She waits. Thinking mistakenly they are speaking the same language, which you will see they are not.

Possibility Number Two:

He means:

“It was OK. Maybe I WILL give her a call sometime. Unless, maybe, tonight’s night works out pretty cool. I dunno. Hey – is that a roast beef hero?”

She waits.

Possibility Number Three:

“Hey, DUDE, what ELSE was I supposed to say? I WASN’T going to call?”

She waits.

And waits.

What women don’t understand is this:

WHEN MEN DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY,

OR,

WHEN MEN HAVE SOMETHING THEY’RE AFRAID MIGHT MAKE THEM OR SOMEONE FEMALE UNCOMFORTABLE OR (YIKES) UNHAPPY —

OR,

THE TERRIBLE POSSIBILITY EXISTS THAT TEARS MAY SPROUT FROM LUSHLY MASCARA’D EYES…

Something paralyzes their vocal chords more effectively than any cobra strike or sneaky pygmy blow dart.

Men shut down completely.

They practice avoidance. They become as unreachable as an Arctic research base. They return calls and/or texts as frequently as a sports agent.

Girls: take the not-so-subtle hint.

Cut your losses.

Move on.

Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men"This is, in Boy-Talk, their (yes, cowardly) way of saying: “I can’t HANDLE the truth.”

Even if it was going GREAT?

For some reason, it’s not going great anymore, and unless you’re prepared to start breaking several of the stalker laws in these United States, snag yourself a possible restraining order and even, perhaps, an arrest?

Fuck it.

He’s not worth it. No one is.

Move on to someone in whom you trigger the feelings outlined in Possibility Number One.

Even if you don’t feel the same? It’s good for your ego, at least temporarily.

Just don’t forget the MOVING ON part. Remember it’s HIS cowardice, and society’s hundreds of years of hammering into male heads that they MUST NEVER DEAL with feelings against you, NOT your own self-worth, that silenced your cell.

THAT last bit of cheering-up is in The Secret, Closely-Guarded Girl Manual, remember: It’s not YOU, it’s HIM. So you KNOW it’s true.

* Men and women are referred to here as “boys” and “girls” deliberately – because when it comes to relationships, we ALL turn into teenagers.

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December 30, 2009 · 5:44 pm

Red Ribbon Train Wreck


prescription pills with a red ribbon on themWell, the community in Manatee County, Florida, as reported in the online periodical, “mysuncoast.com” last October, 2009, is united by a red ribbon breakfast against prescription drug abuse by teens. They say their mission is to be “the wall.”

I guess they’re going to be a beribboned wall. “Pounding the pavement” with their ribbons and bows.

Not really sure how that’s going to help the estimated 2,500 teens SEEKING illegal prescription drugs, but that’s their plan, anyway. Guess it’s better than nothing. It might make the teens laugh too hard to take drugs.

The Connecticut Hartford Courant reported this month that although a federal survey says teen drug use is down, teens don’t see drugs as all that terrible, which the feds find vaguely disturbing, natch.

Hmm…

While I am terrific at picking out things like computers, colors, solutions to most problems, etc., there is one thing I am really, truly horrible at in my life.

Choosing boyfriends.

Two spectacular mistakes in my past spring immediately to mind.

One was a crack addict, desperately in need of drug treatment.

The other was a FORMER crack addict and blazingly explosive alcoholic. (He could seriously have used some genuine alcohol rehabilitation – but then, one has to want the help.)

While I was under no delusions I could CHANGE either of these idiots, I was delusional enough not to NOTICE either gigantic flaw until I was in too deep to get out fast enough.

The soft HEART in me, unfortunately, softened my HEAD.

The thing was? Both of these <ahem> fine gentlemen would have done well to have gotten help in the teen years. BEFORE they stumbled along and cut swathes of destruction through the lives of women like me, and others, before and sadly, after me.

(Don’t, whenever you sluff off a moron, wish you could phone the next poor victim and warn her? Totally NOT out of jealousy, but rather out of pity for the next girl? As in: “Honey, sit down: Let me just tell you what this jackass is REALLY like…” Ah, if only they would listen…)

Early course correction. When I was a teacher at a college, the math department had this GREAT picture of a train wreck.

“This train was only off by .0000023 degrees.”

But it was enough, over time, to wreck the train.

I loved it. I use it as my own parenting philosophy.

Get help early on with addiction recovery. Save the teen, and save the adult a world of misery – and the rest of the people’s lives they touch. Including your own.

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December 11, 2009 · 3:45 pm

He wishes I were his ninja girlfriend.


Ah. If only I were available; and if only he were HIM, which he’s not, since HE is not HERE, and HE … well, that’s another blog post, and frankly, none of your beeswax, anyway.

Still. It was nice – I think – being called a ninja.

Considering when I met him, I was shouting: “You suck!” at him.

I had an excuse. The house in which I live here in California is a virtual palace: in addition to all the black leather furniture, the stone floors, the decks festooning every outdoor wall, and the pool house – which houses, ha-ha, not only an in-ground pool and Jacuzzi, but also a pool table – AND an arcade, an air hockey table, a fuzball table, and other fun-fun-fun activities…

… but also the crappiest television service I’ve ever endured.

This would NOT be so terrible if I did not have two daughters, 13, and 10, who live with me in tranquil nowhere, and when they are bored, expecting me to be “Julie McCoy, their cruise director,” because apparently horses to ride, miniature horses to visit, three and half-acres (with a pond) to stroll around on, and the aforementioned Pool House of Joy are not QUITE as entertaining as, say, iCarly, or SpongeBob.

So there were actually two gentlemen – and gentlemen they were, indeed, to suffer such abuse at the hands of a tiny, leather-clad loudmouth, when all they really did was politely inquire:

“Excuse me: may we ask what service you use for your TV?”

Which triggered extreme wrath indeed, and the following blast, when I spotted their spiffy little “DirectTV” shirts.

“I have DirectTV, and you SUCK,” I said.

Loudly.

Maybe, kinda, too loudly.

To their credit, they were shocked and dismayed, instead of outraged and defensive, which, also frankly, (apparently Today’s Word Of The Day) would have been MY reaction.

The tall, blonde DirectTV guy, about six feet, six inches tall – putting him at about a foot and a half taller than myself,  bent slightly over me apologetically, with a dash of defensiveness.

“Well,” he said, “all you had to do was call 1-800-DIRECTTV.”

Still enraged, I stared back, eye to, well, chest. “How would I KNOW that? Is it on the screen, at night, when it would be a smart time to LET me know? When I might be inclined to order? Like I said. You SUCK.”

His babyface fell.  “You can call them right NOW,” Blonde Jock suggested helpfully.

“YOU call,” I dared him, crossing my arms over my chest.

Charmingly, he took my dare.

“I will,” he said, pulling out his flip phone.

And he DID.

(Later, the ex-footballer confessed, after we became Lifelong Friends For Five Minutes, he’d always wanted to learn how to ballroom dance. “Good choice,” I advised him, “You’ll get laid for the rest of your life.”)

Between the two of them, we got my service upgraded to the next level, easily and quickly. The only potential glitch was the customer service phone rep was Southern, and started out a little brusque, but that was easily dispatched when I laid on the Georgia sugar: that is, calling him “sir” (he was obviously older than I was) and deliberately mentioning my other home in Rocky Plains.

Amazing how things go smoother south of the Mason-Dixon line when you’re “from around there.”

It WAS funny watching the DirectTV Duo listen to me switch up accents quicker – and way better – than Angelina Jolie or Meryl Streep.

By now, we were all great friends; I’d pulled out my iPhone with the graffiti cover for admiration, as well as my ever-present Leatherman, for further admiration. (Blonde Jock is planning to get the iPhone soon, as was intrigued with my mirrored privacy cover.)

And, of course, anyone with a penis is always intrigued by a genuine Leatherman.

(If you don’t know what the Leatherman tool is, http://www.leatherman.com/)

ANYWAY…

After show and tell, the conversation turned to the fact I’d just been run over by a truck, which was true.

“So, you’re like, a ninja,” said one of them, in an impressed whisper.

Ninja? Aren’t ALL moms?

“I wish you were MY girlfriend,” he said, in a sort of awestruck tone. “Or that you could train my NEXT girlfriend.”

Thinking this would be a good time for me to mount my white steed Silver and “Hi-Ho” off into the sunset, since any time any conversation veers even remotely into the territory of “can I have your number?” or “girlfriend” or even “what’s your name?” I tend to get a bit skittish, I laughed and said there was fudge calling me at the front of the store (which indeed there was) and waved good-bye – where, in fact, the sistah selling the chocolate pound of wonder and delight even walked me to the very front of the line. How cool is that?

Ninja?

Nah. Just a woman, following the Secret, Closely-Guarded Girl Manual.

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November 1, 2009 · 11:27 pm

French Kiss First, Introductions Later.


Welcome to California.

golden_gate_bridge

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

If all your contact with the outside world is mass media, or, say, you’re an alien from space, seeking information about earth, and your research dart on the globe hit the USA, and you began, sensibly enough, with mass media –you would surely presume the only places IN America were…

New York, and California.

Because EVERYTHING on television, in movies, etc., is located in: you guessed it. NY or CA.

Naturally, when the opportunity flung itself like a blob of goo to head west with my two daughters to the flipside of mainland America, I figured: hmm? Why not see life as the extraterrestrials – I mean, Californians – do?

I kid, I KID.

Actually, this time I DO kid, because if you happen to be reading this…

WAIT.

Don’t you just HATE when writers write: “If you happen to be reading this?”

Talk about “author intrusion,”* which, of course, I’m doing now in a MAJOR way, but for some reason, I am egomaniacal enough – or feel strongly enough about this point – to have the nerve to think I can get away with it.

Duh. Of COURSE you happen to be reading this; if you WEREN’T reading this, you wouldn’t be READING this: the author’s SENTENCE that says, so very stupidly, “if you happen to be reading this.”

Why THANK you, Captain OBVIOUS.

(How do you spell “AAUGHHH?”)

I can’t STAND it when people don’t give other people the credit for the most BASIC intelligence. Or when they refuse to exhibit the most basic intelligence of their own, and simply swallow and regurgitate clichés.

Sorry. That’s just not thinking “out of the box.”

(That’s a joke. I am SO hoping you all got that….)

::-::-::

Anyway, tirade over, now that I’ve “intruded,” my job as a writer now is to suck you so hard back into the work that you forget about me again. So: forget me, move on without me, save yourselves….

To get back to Californians: if you’ve been wondering where all the nice people in the world have gone; if you’ve lost your faith in humanity, you’ve been betrayed, you can’t seem to find a kind soul in a cold-hearted world, no matter where you look…

<can you hear the swelling orchestral strings…?>

Get your ass to northern California.

InvaderZimWthoutStripesSomeone, I don’t know who – Invader Zim?

…has scooped them all up in a giant net and deposited them HERE.

Of course, the New Yorker in me wants to warn you: I’ve only been here a few weeks, so they COULD be putting on an devastatingly good show (California, Hollywood, Oscar…), and I SHOULD keep checking my back for knives…

But honestly, if these folks aren’t genuinely nice, then I’ve landed where Ira Levin got his idea for The Stepford Wives, because everybody – and I do mean everybody – walks around with a light step, a friendly smile, and an open outlook.

This is either the Cosmic Galactic Nexus of Benevolence, or these folks are gobsmackingly realistic test robots for Disneyland’s newest animatronic attraction.

They’re cheerful and concerned for others in a state with a bigger unemployment problem and more housing foreclosures than New York.

And, unlike New York – and particularly unlike, say…oooh, I dunno, GEORGIA, they are warm and inviting to strangers. Even strangers who come from scary and disreputable places like New York. No one here has prejudged us at all.

oscar-wilde-ph

Oscar Wilde

(At least not to our faces, where it counts. As far as I’m concerned, I’m with Oscar Wilde. Let people say whatever they want behind my back; I’ll worry when they STOP talking.)

These folks are even charming and positive in an area located less than – well, my guess would be, less then twelve inches from the Sun.

I can’t seem to figure it out. We aren’t any closer to the equator (although maybe we’re WAYYYY higher. As in, we’re astronauts. Californunauts.)

When they say “sunny California,” they aren’t just whistling Dixie.

(Side note: having made a side trip on the way to visit family in Rocky Plains, Georgia, I know what I’m talking about when I say “Dixie,” too.)

The sun is so strong here I carry a bottle of water around with me nearly everywhere I go, wishing I could haul a tank around, like someone on oxygen. I never realized what a deliciously humid state New York actually was.

oldwomanSomeone PLEASE let me know what moisturizing cream I need. I’m going to look about 45 years old in about 45 minutes. In another 45, I’ll look 90. As it is, the jar that used to last me six months is half gone.

In fact, Californians are SO friendly, that in a recent trip to a music store (I was rescuing a guitar I’d discovered that had been criminally abused) I got to joking with the owner, who began to tease me – and then somehow, things got a little weird.

Now, if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ve probably caught on: I’m not someone you want to DARE.

Play chicken with me? You’re pretty much guaranteed two totaled cars.

So when I jokingly said: “Well, then, I’ll just have to get one big, fat, sloppy kiss,” never in a million years thinking he would take me up on it – for no one in their right mind in New York would take that phrase as ANYTHING but, er, symbolic, when the music store owner said something along the lines of me not having the nerve…

… Well, what could I do? Apparently, he was calling my bluff – or thought I was bluffing. I had my entire state’s reputation to defend.

It was only later, perusing my copy of The Secret, Closely-Guarded Girl Manual, that I remembered that those of us with a little too much tomboy in them have to be wary of dares and the like, and that boys will steal kisses when they can, particularly from impulsive redheads.

So I called his bluff back, and dashed over boldly right behind his workspace, again, never dreaming his own oncoming car would not swerve.

Yet swerve he did NOT, and put his arms around me, and kissed me like Bogart kissed Bergman in Casablanca.

Yipes.

Careful to keep my New York cool, I then shook his hand and said:

“How do you do? I’m Elizabeth. And your name is?”

“Larry,” he said. “Welcome to California.”

::-::-::-::-::-::

Author Intrusion (also sometimes called, literarily, “authorial intrusion” – I don’t know why they like the extra two syllables, but professors sometimes do…) is explained nicely here, at about.com:

Have you ever read a book where the author suddenly jolted you out of the storyline with a comment that just doesn’t flow with the rest of the work? That’s an authorial intrusion. Sometimes it works, but only when it’s done by a master storyteller/writer.

Authorial intrusions are of substantial length (not just a brief aside in a novel) and they are addressed to you (the reader).

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September 15, 2009 · 12:08 am

The Girl on the Left.


awkwardEtiquette: Useful. Nice is only a side benefit.

Oldest daughter, exasperated, from backseat, to me: “Mom? MUST you narrate EVERYTHING you see? As if it’s your business in the first place?”

Me, non-plussed by this surly teenaged dismissal: “Why, yes. Yes, I do.”

Oldest: “You’re the only one who can even SEE them.”

Youngest, cheerfully, having had the foresight to pipe up earlier: “I call shotgun,” and therefore sitting in the catbird seat, immediately to my right, now pipes up: “I can see FINE.”

No words are necessary. The heat alone from the backseat is enough.

Words come, anyway.

Oldest: “Why do you even CARE about them, anyway?”

Me: “Because it SUCKS to be the girl on the left.”

Youngest: “I don’t know what you’re talking about at all.”

Oldest (still furious, about my car-to-car meddling, and the whole shotgun thing in general, since she knows quite well she’d completely understand what I was talking about if SHE COULD JUST SEE FOR HER OWN DAMN SELF): “ohKAY, why does it suck to be the girl on the left?

I grin, happy at last: my chance to give a short lecture on the nature of awkward situations. (It has to be short, the girls know, because we are headed for the bank, which is coming up just a few turns away.)

The car in front of me has three people in the back seat: on the left, there is one brunette ponytail. In the middle, there is a blonde ponytail, who is being bear-hugged, and generally molested by, a burly boy – probably a footballer – on the far right.

This jock is so into his blonde ponytail that he keeps nuzzling his squeeze – and is ending up squeezing the girl on the left ever-over, ever-closer to the left-side passenger door. She doesn’t turn her head, not once, not ever. She is graciously bearing this indignity; why, I do not know.

I myself would have given them a good shove back, and suggested they find a room or something. Well, maybe not “find a room,” since that’s pretty cliché.

Perhaps instead I would “accidentally” drop my purse, lunging forward towards that endlessly annoying hump in the middle, knocking them BOTH toward the RIGHT side passenger door. When they both responded: “HEY!” – as if “how dare you interrupt our foreplay?” I’d smile apologetically, while at the same time planting my ass just a little further to the right, with my big fat backpack/purse/knapsack, or what have you tucked to my left, in between the passenger’s side door and myself.

Cozy but effective strategy for flipping the awkwardness back over onto THEM. My, aren’t we ALL awfully close now? Still want to kiss her, quarterback, now that I’m practically on her lap?

If THAT didn’t send the intended message across, I’d wait till the next big smooch, break out my math homework, and tap the blonde ponytail on the shoulder right in the middle of tonguing it.

“Hey, Brittany, did you understand what Mrs. Meyer was talking about when she ran through that binomial theorem today, because I’m TOTALLY lost? Mind taking a look at my notes for a sec, and seeing if they make ANY sense to you, because I’m about to have an EPIC FAIL here.”

Then hold aforementioned binder right up to yon spit-covered face, with innocent smile.

Basically, you get the strategy: incredibly annoying politeness until the people you’re being annoyingly polite to either catch on that they’re being ludicrously rude, and stop, or just stop out of sheer annoyance. Either way, what can they say to you? You’re being incredibly polite.

The beauty of politeness. Don’t let anyone tell you that politeness, etiquette, good manners, is to make other people feel BETTER. That’s just a side benefit.

Etiquette is for one main thing only: So you ALWAYS know what to do in any given situation, without being embarrassed. That’s it. It’s almost as practical as money. Which is why most people who’ve had money for a long time have good manners.

It’s not really snobbery. It’s sensible.

Best of all? YOU can do it, too. Just keep reading this blog, and I’ll learn ya.

My daughter, of course, at 13, could not rest at letting me be right.

“What if she didn’t mind?”

Me: “You think the girl on the left ENJOYED being squeezed over while the two of them sucked face?”

Oldest, grasping for straws: “Maybe she’s a lesbian.”

Me: “In that case, she’d have to be a pretty CHARITABLE lesbian; don’t you think otherwise she’d be jealous?”

Oldest: “Maybe she IS a charitable lesbian.”

It DOES take all kinds to make a world. My oldest COULD be right. The one thing I DO know? At 13, the one thing Mom isn’t, is right. About anything.

For everyone else? Take my word for it. If you ever find yourself The Girl on the Left? Try etiquette.

Ah, etiquette: the most effective way to be obnoxious and get away with it.

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June 29, 2009 · 8:36 pm

Don’t read this blog if you’re a bitch.


Actually, maybe you SHOULD read this blog. Because guess what?
There are a lot MORE of us who AREN’T bitches out there.
Ever notice that “the popular girls” always tended to hang out in tiny little groups, like, in fours, with only three other friends – while the rest of us had a MILLION friends?

Guess what? We’re all grownups, now, girls, and if YOU forgot to grow up, and stayed bitchy, then the rest of us – the nice ones – well?

WE’RE out here, counting our million friends, while you?
Actually?
We don’t care.
BEST BLOG POST I’VE READ IN, LIKE, FOREVER: READ THIS.

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June 23, 2009 · 10:47 pm

Celebrities are NOT your friends. Stop caring.


(Full disclosure: I don’t know how to turn on or off my own TV.)

A very popular guy, I guess.

A very popular guy, I guess.

Is it just me? Or am I the only one who wasn’t friends with Ed McMahon, isn’t friends with Jon and Kate plus eight, the Olsen twins, and that Perez guy who, for the longest time, I thought was the Paris girl* and everyone was just misspelling his – I mean her – name?

I remember a couple of years ago, when that really blonde, sort of beefy-but-attractive-to-geriatric-gazillionaires, apparently, had a baby, and at every cash register, headlines loomed: “Who’s the father?” Even my oldest, wondered aloud to me: “Who do YOU think is the father?” My daughter even knew the woman’s name, which escapes me now, for the same reason I gave my daughter then:

“She’s not my friend,” I said to my daughter, “therefore, I don’t care, honey.”

“Mean!” my daughter said.

celebs“NOT mean,” I tried to explain. “PR machine. I don’t know this person. YOU don’t know this person. Probably only a handful of people really know this person. Why DO you care who the father of her baby is, anyway? Because you’ve heard of her? Just because she’s famous? Is that REALLY a good reason? Do you care who the father of THAT woman’s baby is?” I pointed to another pregnant woman in Eckerd.

My daughter, as usual, rolled her eyes, as she predicted another rant coming on, so I stopped.

Give me one reason to care about Ed McMahon. He’s dead. I’m sure his family is very sad, as they count their inheritance from all the cheesy-ass commercials he shilled for: Publisher’s Clearing House, that stupid rip-off “Cash For Gold” scheme, and other “your premium will never go up no matter how old you get” life insurance scams.

I’m not sad. I probably would be, if I’d known him. Maybe he was nice; maybe he did all that crappy shit and gave all the money to the poor.

I don’t KNOW, because HE WAS NOT MY FRIEND.

Another set I don’t care about? Jon and Kate. Or their eight. I mean, as humans, and regarding their basic humanity, I care. As soon-to-be children of divorce, my heart goes out to them.

That’s it, though; I’m done caring now.

The Olsen twins? I don’t even like them on reruns of Full House when my kids have it on; they’re annoying as tots, and they’re even more annoying now. Have a sandwich, and then please go away; I haven’t seen you in a decent movie … let me think… ever.

If your work becomes good, I might go see it, but otherwise, I don’t give a rat’s ass about your personal life. Call me up for advice, or to vent your issues; my public number is on my Twitter profile page. Intrude on me and MAKE me know you. Then, in pity, I might care. Otherwise? Fail.

I’m STILL not sure what the difference is between Paris Hilton and Perez Hilton; as far as I can tell, they both irritate and bother to distraction everyone I know equally, so I’m pleased to remain as ignorant as possible.

Neither Hilton produces any work of any kind as far as I can tell. They write no good books, they make no good movies or television, they don’t even perform synchronized swim routines. They seem relatively worthless, as far as I’m concerned, although presumably, their friends value them – if, indeed, they have any who care about them as people, and not for their popularity.

I am NOT a friend to either of them, so… I don’t care.

Do I sound jealous? I’m not. I have well-known friends, whom, out of respect, I will not mention here. Being famous is not all it’s cracked up to be.

I myself am relatively famous, actually, but only if you’re about five or six. (See InklessTales.com) I’m a former newspaper columnist, and now a performer – I give concerts all over – but I seriously enjoy my privacy. As, I’m sure, do most famous people.

Ever notice I’ve NEVER mentioned my kids by name here?

I get the feeling it must SUCK OUT LOUD to be a celebrity on the vast scale. Who, going through a divorce, or having just had a baby, or hell – just having made a movie – done their job, after all – wants the indignity of no longer being able to enter a drugstore, a mall, a regular street, without being hassled, subjected to stupid, inaccurate headlines, freakish curiosity on a circus sideshow scale, and otherwise normal human beings completely losing their minds at the mere sight of them?

You think YOU’RE embarrassed on a bad hair day? Imagine if there were twenty photographers outside your door, eagerly salivating to get pictures of your bad hair? What about the day after you polished off that Ben and Jerry’s, and you’re using the ponytail holder to keep your jeans shut? You REALLY want the whole world watching?

How would YOU like to be professionally THIN? AND have the whole world thinking they have the “right to know” your weight?

Remember, people: if a celebrity is not your friend – THEY’RE NOT YOUR FRIEND.

Just because someone appears on your TELEVISION in your living room every week, it doesn’t mean they are ACTUALLY IN YOUR LIVING ROOM every week.

Having personally experienced the odd, off-putting feeling of having people recognize and greet you whom YOU DON’T KNOW, let me tell you: the first couple of times, it IS kinda cool.

After that: it gets a little weird.

I can only imagine what it does to you when it starts locking you in your house, and forcing you to interact only with other celebrities, also locked in that world of weirdness.

Maybe we should just leave them the hell alone – and start paying attention to our real, live friends.

::-::-::-::

* Speaking of weirdness on a vast scale, the first Google result for Paris Hilton that came up was the EARTH-SHATTERING news that the woman had switched her Blackberry for an Ericsson phone. If you Google me, you get almost 10 pages, but in none of them will you find news of when I myself switched my Blackberry for my indestructible G’Zone phone. You know why?

Because from the looks of it, this is the biggest accomplishment this poor wretch of a girl has managed recently. Sad, really. So very sad.

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May 21, 2009 · 12:26 am

Love, Loss and Luck in Gotham City.


batsignalEvening in Gotham City.

No crime spree that we know of yet, but you can never call it quiet in this section of town. Darkish, yes, because here in the Batcave we’re half-underground: enough to let the daylight in, but once yon sun calls it quits, there’s no doubt about it: darkness rises.

Smoke rises, too, and all but one of us does, so the two windows – screenless, natch – are open a crack, whether the weather, so bring thou a sweater (or grab one of the skull-adorned hoodies tossed all over the place) and so, too, the studio tends to have a few more visitors: of the genus Insecta.

Tonight we tried to get Takeshi to summon his Japanese Ninja Warrior Side and decimate a 3-inch Something that strongly resembled a Flying Dragon, but he was deeply involved in summoning his Japanese Zen Peaceful Monk Side, instead.

Also, Takeshi has a new laptop, and the password to my wireless network, so there’s a strong possibility that he was summoning his Japanese Pokémon Cheat Hack side, too. I didn’t look, so I can’t say for sure. As the Zen parable, “The Farmer’s Luck” goes: “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Aris and Psycho Cherry are currently sharing a MacBook, and were therefore IM-ing and DJ-ing at the same time, which was terrific for me, since when they AREN’T here, I’m usually too focused on what I’m doing to remember even to launch my iTunes, despite the icon in the dock of my own MacBookPro staring me right smack in the face.

Really.

No, really.

That peppy little CD with the blue music notes on it, just leers at me, going: “Uh, hello? Musician? Tunes?” Then shakes its digital little head at me, as if I am hopeless.

But when Aris and Psycho Cherry are here, the ambiance changes radically from a simple one-human digital sweatshop to a working party of discussion and delight. My daughters – who refer reverently to my posse as “The Cool People” – love it. Everyone gets magically fed, watered, intellectually stimulated, and entertained.

Those who grace my studio cherish my daughters, too, as mutually as my daughters cherish them: this past week, when my youngest’s much-beloved, much-too-young cat died suddenly, my daughter overheard them laughing in the Batcave as she and I were upstairs, preparing for the backyard funeral.

“Tell them they don’t have to come,” my 10-year-old said, fighting the most recent round of tears. “They sound so happy. I don’t want to make them come to a sad funeral.”

At that point, my own throat started to close.

Of my two daughters, the oldest, would throw herself in front of a train for you if ever you needed it, but from her manner, her bearing and her Dorothy Parker wit, you’d never know it.

My youngest? Her devastating but selfish charm would allow her to skip lightly over your bleeding body and make you want to thank her for it.

Ergo, lump in my throat.

Down with message went I to Batcave.

Up I returned: No way. All for one, one for all.

The ragged gypsy band of us lined up at the back fence grave, my youngest as “chief mourner,” asking only for a moment of silence in Toufou’s honor.

We all took turns trying to console the little one, especially Aris and myself, who have each suffered private losses recently; losses the little one could not yet understand, yet still our freshly-wounded hearts bled for her, our own scars only just beginning to form.

We resonated like tuning forks for her, grief upon grief, vibrations that we knew would lessen with time. Could the little one be made to understand? That time, and thankfulness, were all that ever help, in the end?

Time.

And gratitude.

“Gratitude?” My youngest was totally confused.

“Look around you,” I whispered into her silken, golden brown hair, as she wept into my lap. “Look at all the people who love you. Be thankful, even though right now you can’t be happy.”

“But I want Toufou,” she protested.

“You’ll have Toufou as long as you love and remember her,” I said.

“I can’t see her. I can’t talk to her. I can’t touch her. It’s not enough,” she said.

“Not now,” I said. “But eventually, it will be.”

It will have to be, I thought, my own heart quickening a bit.

“Eventually doesn’t come soon enough.”

“It never does, darling,” I said, “but that’s what Gotham City is here for.”

We fell asleep together for the next few nights on the futon in the Batcave, hanging on to each other, each, alternately mourning, alternately celebrating, the love of each other, basking in the glory of our friendships, the sunshine, the comfort of darkness, and the hope of time.

 

 

The Farmer’s Luck

A Zen Parable

Once there was a farmer whose horse ran away.

All the village came to him: “What terrible luck!” they said.

The farmer calmly said: “Maybe. Maybe not.”

The next day, the horse returned — with another horse.

All the village came to him: “What wonderful luck!” they said.

The farmer calmly said: “Maybe. Maybe not.”

The farmer’s son tried to ride the second horse — and broke his leg.

All the village came to him: “What terrible luck!” they said.

The farmer calmly said: “Maybe. Maybe not.”

The country was at war, and the next day, the army came to collect young men to fight: all but the farmer’s son — whose leg was broken.

All the village came to him: “What wonderful luck!” they said.

The farmer calmly said: “Maybe. Maybe not.”

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May 16, 2009 · 4:53 pm

Follow me on Twitter: Look: No, Really: Look.


twitter_32Follow me on Twitter: I’m @inklesstales.

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May 12, 2009 · 9:47 pm

More Dumpage Tips from the Secret, Closely-Guarded Girl Manual



Digg!

 NOTE: This blog post, and the previous post, are dedicated to the group of loving friends that make my studio the heaven it is. These incredibly intelligent, stomach-crunchingly funny individuals are possessed of a Zen-level patience and tolerance of my “okay, let me read THIS draft to you: I changed a syllable, so I have to read the entire thing again…” They are futon-draping, chair-grabbing, pillow-lounging folk whom my daughter calls simply “The Cool People.” Today, in particular, I send my love to Aris*, the willowy and graceful beauty who allowed me the honor of photographing her last night, preserving the rare and unique beauty she someday will know she possesses.

Let's look at The Book.

Let's look at The Book.

And Now..

(Drum Roll, Please…)

More Dumpage Tips from
The Secret, Closely-Guarded Girl Manual.

In the highs and lows following a spectacular drop from a great height, many of us make mistakes we later regret with the same shuddering horror with which we look back upon our school pictures: what was I thinking?

Clearly, you were NOT. Thinking, that is. Thinking is NOT something you will be good at for the next little while.

You have suffered what we can term an “emotional concussion.” The Secret, Closely-Guarded Girl Manual provides for this, offering guidelines of what you SHOULD and SHOULD NOT do immediately after someone tells you they want nothing more to do with you.

#1: Your comprehension skills are at an all-time low right now.

Know this, embrace this, and STOP. LOOK. LISTEN. Be slow to act, and even slower to respond.

For example: when your former “significant other” tells you it’s over, they COULD mean anything from:

“I’m a: complete jackass/player/fool/commitment-phobe/blind in one eye/liar/coward/<<insert any number of possibilities here, including (I hate to break to you) Just-Not-the-Right-Fit, and Mr.-Not-Right-Now, or even – and this DOES happen, because no one is all bad, even your ex’s… I’m-a-nice-guy-and-I-see-it’s-not-working-so-I’m-letting-you-down-easy-now-instead-of-later-when-it’ll-only-be-tougher.>>

The Secret, Closely-Guarded Girl Manual, however, deeply encourages you to interpret WHATEVER is said to you, at least for now, thusly:

“You are: wonderful/fabulous/exciting/any person’s dream come true. For some reason, I’ve experienced some brain damage and cannot perceive all your unique and charming qualities, so you’d best either simply be my friend, since I could obviously use all the help I could get, or forget me entirely.”

Then – and this is the most important thing of all – DO IT.

#2: Your literary skills are not what you think they might be at this vulnerable time.

So stop e-mailing all those WAY too long, really stupid, soulful volumes that belong in your diary instead.

dump-emailThere are several reasons why this is an abysmally bad idea.

Unless you are a woman, and your ex is a woman, too*, you might as well be writing: “I really want to have your baby, spend all your money, and your penis? I’ll keep that safe in my hope chest; you won’t need it anymore.” If you listen carefully after you hit the SEND button, you’ll hear the musical “beep-beep-ZOOM” of the Warner Brothers Road Runner. It’s him, running for his life.

[*N.B. – Deeply soulful, heartfelt outpourings work far better on woman-to-woman relationships, although tread carefully here; the line between deeply heartfelt and profoundly pathetic is thin indeed.]

Pouring your heart out like that, although you want to everyday, all day, several times a day, is worse than useless. It’s not that he doesn’t care – after all, if he was with you once, he certainly DOES care. THAT’S why it’s so bad.

Heartfelt outpourings make him twitchy, itchy in his own skin, guilty, and miserable. Yeah, yeah, you might initially be pulling a joyful fist down and shouting “Boo-YEAH,” but what’s really happening is this:

Who wants to feel twitchy, itchy, guilty and miserable?
Remember that weirdo with the crush on you from Starbucks a couple of months ago?
The short, creepy dude who kept staring at you and your girlfriends?
The one you guys laughed at, especially when he kept giving you free lattes, and trying to strike up a conversation, but you kept shutting him down because he was really starting to make you feel uncomfortable?

Now that’s YOU. How’s THAT for some perspective?

Suddenly, you don’t feel like sending those e-mails anymore, do ya?

#3: Mention no names, but start telling strange, cute men that you just got dumped.

Sub-tip: Do not EVER leave your house without looking your very best.

dump_flirtChances are, in your misery, if you are thin, you will have gained a few needed pounds. If you have been looking to lose a few, you have. Ergo, one delicious benefit to your agony is that you are, in all likelihood, looking better than ever.

Doll yourself up – not ridiculously so, of course. You’re not going to the grocery store in a little black dress. But instead of a tank top… maybe… throw a halter on. Show a little shoulder. Wear your nicest jeans, with some awesome shoes. Stand up straight; you look confident and thinner.

Casually mention to hunky guys that you’ve just been dumped, but be sure to say it in your most cheerful voice, with your most dazzling smile.

Guaranteed: you will be consoled, flattered, and told what an abominable half-wit he was.

Enjoy this, but TAKE NO NUMBERS. You are not ready for a new relationship; just revel in the glory of the insults he cannot hear, and the joy of hearing how wonderful you are – for you are, and soon you will be fine, and you won’t need anyone to tell you.

You’ll just know.

* Aris: Not her real name. Her real name is cooler, like she is.

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