Too Tired and Depressed

Meant to write; too down right now. More later when i feel better; promise. Watch this space.

The Writing Life -- Chapter 1: Anxiety

There are some writers who are so fantastically good they immobilize me. Do you know what I mean?

I read their books or essays or magazine articles or what-have-you and I'm floored, amazed, enthralled at their ability to write dialogue that stings and zings, their talent at creating (and juggling) compelling characters, their skill at keeping a plot moving smoothly, seamlessly along. I read them and think Wow. How cool is this. How tremendous to have such gifts. How lucky to be able to just do this.

Then I get depressed.

I look at my own paltry attempts and think, Idiot. What made you think you could ever do what this writer does? You who never finished college. Who can hardly keep a job for more than three years. Who could lose a few pounds and should floss more often.

At the recommendation of a friend--I mean "on"--"on the recommendation of a friend" (See? This is what I'm talking about) I've been reading Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird, a book that is by turns reassuring (sometimes), informative (plenty), and hilarious (always). There is a point where Lamott quotes the writer John Gardner as saying "the writer is creating a dream into which he or she invites the reader, and that the dream must be vivid and continuous." Lamott says that when she teaches she always has her class write that part down: the dream must be vivid and continuous. She reminds you that you won't after all be able to sit next to every reader of your work and explain all the details you left out, the stuff that would have made the story more interesting, and the characters more believable. Your story has to work on its own, and the dream must be vivid and continuous.

I try to remember that.

She also says--and this is in some ways the scariest part--to find someone to bounce your material off of, someone "who can bring a colder eye and a certain detachment" to your effort. This is definitely the hard part for me. I suppose it's the hard part for anyone who writes and wants to be published.

Although--wait a sec. I have already done this, sort of. Several times now I've shown some stuff to a writer friend who's been very encouraging, although so far this has been an extremely informal arrangement; he's not my teacher or editor or anything remotely official like that. I just send him a few things from time to time, and what he likes, he praises. Maybe if I were taking a class with him he'd be a lot tougher on my work? I don't know. But Lamott does make the excellent point that the writer is usually too close to her material to see it objectively enough to know either when to leave it alone already or when it really, really, really needs more work.

This may strike you as grandiose, but suddenly I'm thinking of The Beatles. Not by way of comparison; I just had the thought that it might help if once in awhile I keep Lennon and McCartney in mind, how they would write songs individually and show them to each other for feedback. Paul McCartney once told an interviewer that he wrote a lyric and showed it to John Lennon not sure what the hell it all meant, half-apologizing as Lennon looked it over, and hastily assuring him that he would change things: "I know; don't worry; I'll take that out..." but Lennon looked at him and said "Why? That's the best part."

That's what a good teacher or editor or friend with a "cold eye and certain detachment" does, I guess--he (or she) is your John Lennon, keeping you from taking out the best parts.

Thursday Morning Pages -- My Gramma's Face

News flash: no one likes getting older.

Our metabolism slows, our relationship to gravity changes, we begin to look tired whether we are or not, and even the cat has begun to notice that uuunnnnhh sound we make as we straighten after feeding her and freshening her water, and it actually seems to annoy her. (Like she's getting any younger.)

Once, on a southbound bus, I saw a poster of people's faces with their ages printed under each. It was just a quick connecting ride so I didn't have time to study the poster carefully enough to figure out what the point was--probably just another Dove advertisement--but I was struck by how remarkably youthful some people remained even into middle age, assuming the given information wasn't a put-on. How lucky is that, I thought as I disembarked. And how freakin' unfair.

This morning as I was slathering on moisturizer and applying foundation, eyebrow pencil and eyeliner with my customary artful care (necessitating two and a half do-overs), I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and saw something completely unexpected.

My grandmother's face.

Not her Gramma face, you understand, not the twinkly, wrinkled, slightly saggy visage I remember from my teenage and twentysomething years. The face staring at me in the mirror was a younger version of my grandmother to be sure, but unmistakably her. (There was maybe a little of my mother in there, and my aunt Max, around the edges.)

I have no idea what else to say about this, people. I'm still absorbing it-- you can understand.

More on this later. If I'm not too freaked out.

Two Summer Couples

I don't know them, but I love them--just for being there, for being out, for being happy. On Commercial Street, I'll see men I don't know holding hands and I'll think, "That simple act would be enough to get you bashed somewhere else." I'm tired of people bashing my friends, my people, my tribe. And no issue, my friends, is more important than that. (William J. Mann, williamjmann.com, MannTalk August 18, 2008 "Monday Musing...Republicans, Polls, Tea Dance and Herring Cove Beach")

Oh, Bill… Reading those words evoked in me a rush of emotions and memories, a kaleidoscope almost, of feelings both warm and sad.

I thought of the very first time I saw two young men kiss. It was late summer, I was 21 and working the lobby concession counter at—no joke—Playboy Enterprises, back when the publishing offices were still at 919 N. Michigan Avenue, here in Chicago.

They hadn’t come in together. One of them—a guy who could not have been much older than me and was so cute with his beautiful smile and long lashes that I couldn’t stop staring at him—wanted to buy a package of gum. I flirted with him a little; he was amused and we chatted a bit. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, the Playboy club down the hall was closed (though the joint would be jumping later that night), and there was no one else around.

I guess his boyfriend (also a looker) was wondering what was taking so long because he came striding into the lobby with a peeved expression on his face. He and the Cute Guy had a brief, bantering sotto voce exchange and then, right at my counter, right in front of me, they nuzzled each other and suddenly smooched. And I don’t mean a dry, quick, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it peck either; I’m talking a lingering, passionate lip-lock.

Well. I wish I could tell you that I was charmed by the sight, but in fact I was shocked, and embarrassed, and wished to God I were somewhere, anywhere, else. My mouth flew open, my eyes popped—and I think I actually gasped, like a stock actor in a bad play. My chocolate brown face was now beet red; I looked down, not wanting to see such things, and was furious with myself for the way I was behaving. I had queer friends after all, and had prided myself on being hipper, better informed and more sophisticated than, say, my mother, who would roll her eyes and purse her lips whenever she made reference to a gay coworker, or my grandmother, who would call men and women she presumed to be gay “strange fruit,” chuckling at my wince. When I dared to look up I discovered that both young men were watching me—the Cute Guy with a look of soft disappointment in his eyes, the Boyfriend with a twisted smirk as if to say to his lover, See? You can’t be friends with them. Indeed, I felt angry and defensive, as if I was on trial for something. I felt ambushed. And stupid. I dropped my eyes again, mortified.

The Boyfriend tossed me another cutting look and then left to wait outside in the sun. The Cute Guy paid me for his gum—this time no chat between us; total silence—watching me closely as I made his change. I could feel him wanting to say something, but he didn’t. I desperately wanted to say something—I hated the thought of him thinking of me what I knew he was thinking—but I didn’t know what exactly to say.

Finally he pocketed his money, said a brief “Thanks” and walked out to join his friend. I watched him go, feeling close to tears. It was like, in that moment, with the kiss and the accusing looks, they had forced me to see something I hadn’t up to then realized: what a repressed and immature little girl I truly was. It left me depressed and vaguely ashamed.

But reading your words I also remembered an almost-encounter with another two very young men, this time nearly twenty years later, this also in late summer—isn’t that odd?

I was on a bus going home from work and feeling very dispirited. I was temping and in this assignment I was working in an office I didn’t like very much, doing work that didn’t matter to me, making conversation all day with people who cared about things I didn’t—or the other way around. It was one of those periods in my life when I felt very far away from my truer self, when I knew I was burying or denying myself, retreating from life, just getting by. I had a book with me—I always carried a book—but I couldn’t relax and enjoy it because my mind was jumping and whirling with anxious, angry thoughts; replaying the day, replaying old conversations, replaying old reproaches.

The bus was stopped by a traffic light and was idling close to the curb—and that’s when I saw them: two thin, young white men, both in white shirts with loosened ties, the shirtsleeves rolled up to their elbows and each of them carrying their jackets over their arms, one clutching a briefcase. And they were holding each other’s hands, their fingers tightly interlocked. Though the sight of their hand-holding was touching to see—such brave nonconformity, such affirmation!—it was their facial expressions that really tore at me. They looked so unhappy. In fact, they looked very angry and a little bit scared. I understood implicitly, or assumed I did.

They were headed for subway stairs just a few steps in front of them. As I watched them I wondered: From how far had these two walked in the blistering evening heat to get to here? Did they work in the same office together, or meet each evening on a prearranged corner? My hunch was they were catching the red line train for Lakeview—more commonly known as Boys Town—where nobody was fazed by male-male handholding (or kisses), where such sights were commonplace. But this was State Street in downtown Chicago.

How much abuse had they taken as they’d made their determined way, hand in hand, to that train station? And how much more name-calling and threats and who knew what else would they have to endure on that gritty, smelly subway platform, and on that train, before finally they were once again on their own street and among their tribe? How much insult, every day, every evening, had they had to rise above, and for how long?

My eyes began to sting as I watched them trudging along; at any moment now the light would change and the bus would pull away. I was seized by the need—was I remembering another young couple, years ago?—to make my presence known to them, to somehow communicate my support. I sat up straight in my seat and tapped on the window with my fingernails, trying to get their attention, my mind calling frantically “Guys! Over here! To your right! Look at me! Look at me!” but they stared stoically, resolutely forward, not hearing me.

Or maybe they did hear me and assumed I was just another homophobic jerk trying to mess with them; probably it happened all the time and they were not going to give me the satisfaction. The bus was slowly moving forward in the stop and go traffic; at one point the couple was so close it was like we were all in synchronized motion together… The woman sitting next to me, her attention likely drawn by my silent histrionics, noticed them also and tsked, frowning distastefully. Fuck you Lady, I thought irritably, cutting her a sharp look. What do you know about them. Or me. What do you know about anything.

They were nearly at the top of the subway stairs now and poised to disappear down the stairwell. Your Pride pin, I thought feverishly. Weeks earlier my cousin Mark had come in from New York and we’d bought and been given flags and bands and condoms and dams and assorted other colorful little knick knacks at that summer’s Pride festivities. I had attached a small Pride button to the outside of the leather hobo bag I was carrying that year. I wrestled it to the window. If they would just look up, if just one of them would look up, for just one second, and they could see that button, and my smile of reassurance. Guys! Guys—it’s okay! I’m family, too!
They never looked up, Bill. I guess they’d learned not to. They went down the steps and the bus roared off. I sagged in my seat, feeling utterly drained. We were so close, and they never knew I was there, worrying about them, marveling at their courage, trying in that little moment to watch over them.

And I had so wanted them to know. I’d wanted them to see, just once at least, a friendly, loving, supportive face, especially my face, my brown, female, middle-aged face. I’d sat back in my seat, and clutched my purse and my book in my lap, saying a silent prayer: Please, God. Don’t let anyone hurt them anymore than they have been already. Let them get home safe. Let them grow old together safe.

And as I was getting off at my stop I made sure the disapproving lady next to me saw my Pride button. As I rose I swung and shouldered my leather bag in such a way that she couldn’t fail to see it, nearly hitting her smack in the face with it in the effort.

Unintentionally, of course.

An Irritating Way To Start The Day

As usual, Bill Mann has written a thoughtful and wonderfully expressive blog entry ("Monday Musing...Republicans, Polls, Tea Dance and Herring Cove Beach"). He really is a wonderful writer.

Instead of being able to savor it though, and comment specifically to it, I found myself drawn into yet another slugfest with a reader who seems to pride himself on posting offensive, idiotic things. I hate that. I hate getting sucked into that. It's one thing to respectfully--or even heatedly--disagree with someone who is clearly coming from another place, another mindset, another worldview. It's something else entirely to participate in the literary equivalent of a schoolyard brawl, which is what it often seems to come down to between me and this guy.

I also dislike the assumptions I catch myself jumping to about this person whenever we argue--I read his self-satisfied pronouncements and assume he is white and male.

But I've never met or even seen this indvidual and could have no way of knowing that.

Time's a-wastin' as my Gramma used to say; have to stop here. More on all this later.

Get Yourself A College Girl Who Thinks Young!

Well.

Between listening to Gene Pitney this morning and watching the Dave Clark Five and the Animals this afternoon, we’re all about the American pop culture thing, specifically the American pop culture movie, circa 1964.

The older we get though, the more we find we have to be in the proper mood, or something like that, to sit through this kind of movie. As entertainment goes, sixties pop movies are not exactly… well, they’re not exactly anything, exactly.

Get Yourself a College Girl, for example, plays as a pastiche of a bunch of things, obviously taking its swingin’ gals on the prowl look and tone from predecessors like 1960’s Where the Boys Are and the more popular beach party flicks of the era. If you are in the right frame of mind for it, College Girl is hilarious, albeit mindless, fun.

If you’re not… it’s awful, really it is. Cute little Republican-soccer-mom-to-be Mary Ann Mobley as a coed sex-bomb “liberating” her peers with her “sophisticated, sexy” songs? Please. Seriously. Stop.

And then there’s For Those Who Think Young, yet another variation on campus musical/ beach blanket bikini hijinks, also from ’64, this one starring—you can assume we’re using that word very loosely here—sixties hunk muffin James Darren as Gardiner Pruitt III, nicknamed—we swear we are not making this up—“Ding-a-Ling” or “Ding” to his intimates, and the wholesome and sultry Pamela Tiffin as the coed Ding digs. We don’t recall her character’s name just now but be assured that doesn’t matter much here; this is the sixties after all and she’s just a chick, you dig? Young also co-stars Nancy “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” Sinatra as Tiffin’s respectable and demurely brunette best friend and—get out—a blonde Ellen Burstyn (appearing in the cast listing as Ellen McRae) as an upright, uptight arbiter of campus morals with a bod that won’t quit who eventually learns to loosen up and get with it. Of course she does.

We should mention that the amusing Bob Denver, still in full Maynard G. Krebs mode, is on hand as Sinatra’s bearded boyfriend, and that wonderfully snarky Paul Lynde plays, well, he plays Paul Lynde—not that we’d have it any other way. Also we thought we recognized the dependable Allan Jenkins somewhere in the proceedings as a kind of hipster-fogie crony—okay, yeah, but we can’t figure any other way to describe him—of Darren-Ding’s wealthy, disapproving grandpa, played with appropriate gruff by Robert Middleton, who has surely seen better days in fifties movies like Love Me Tender, The Desperate Hours and The Court Jester, movies we frankly liked a whole lot better than this one.

And, saaaay-- isn’t that the impossibly glamorous Tina “Ginger” Louise as campus bombshell-stripper and closet intellectual Topaz McQueen, over there with Golden Era tough guy George Raft and 77 Sunset Strip’s debonair Roger Smith, both of whom appear here as determined G-men or some such? Ye-es. We'd have to double-check, but we think it was not long after this film’s release that Smith decided to give up the acting, marry Ann-Margret, and concentrate his energies on managing her career. We shouldn’t wonder.

It’s probably unfair to expect much from movies like this; still, you kind of do. You sense that, when done properly, and with some verve, sixties flicks are a fun, frothy treat and not at all a bad way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon, no matter what our mom says.

Think Oliver Reed and a shockingly young Michael Crawford in the romp, The Jokers; think The Beatles in Help! and the superior A Hard Day’s Night; think Lynn Redgrave and Rita Tushingham in the knockabout Smashing Time; think Frankie and Annette in the agreeably silly Beach Blanket Bingo, for goodness sakes.

When they’re not done well, when they’re slapped together and rushed out there, the better to jump on the youth movement bandwagon while the wheels are still attached, you cringe with disappointment. You wince and smirk and wince some more as you watch yet another mid-sixties “youth movie” that is nothing of the sort—everything about the way these “kids” talk, move, and look, the boys spit-polished and clean-cut in suits and ties, the babes elaborately coiffed and coyly demure in Evan-Picone and sensible heels, betray establishment Hollywood’s totally clueless notions about the New Youth. The supposedly swingin’ soundtracks of Get Yourself a College Girl and For Those Who Think Young are (mostly) painfully generic muzak that studio suits apparently convinced themselves was reasonably representative of righteous rock and roll, though this was—we’re pinching ourselves—the very same year that Motown, the Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones and the aforementioned Beatles Ate America.

Call this the “Velveeta Revolution,” a blonde, bland, blah offensively inoffensive, pre-fab youth rebellion for a Goldwater Middle-America.

Or call it—oh, screw it; you know by now where we’re going with this.

Wonder if “Gilligan’s Island” is on?

Thursday Morning Pages

So I've decided that of the Jeff-Lloyd trilogy, Where The Boys Are is the one I flat-out enjoyed, page by page, the most, with its predecessor, The Men from the Boys, a thisclose second. Stunning cover art, too. I wonder if there's any possibility these books will ever be serialized for cable or maybe condensed into a movie? Who would Bill want to see play Jeff O'Brien? Lloyd? Henry? and most importantly, Javitz?

This bacon is sooooo good.

I love bacon, wish I could eat it every single day (like I used to, in one of my past lives). But with its sky-high fat and sodium content it's one of the absolute worst things you could possibly put in your mouth, then chew and swallow. Why? (I've often asked total strangers) Why does something that tastes so good--that smells even better when it's cooking--have to be so bad for you?

It's off-putting, is what it is.

These particular strips remind me of the glorious Farmer John brand I used to enjoy most mornings when I was living in California, many years ago. I'd never heard of that brand before and you should have seen the look I gave my Aunt Max when, during an evening grocery run, she ignored the Oscar Mayer and eagerly grabbed not one but several plain white rectangular boxes and dumped them into the cart. "This is better," she said breezily as I stared perplexed at the nondescript black lettering. Better? This stuff? This stuff looked for all the world like that dreaded Brand X crap you avoided at all cost even if it was cheaper and you were between paydays.

But no. Max was right as usual. Its generic packaging notwithstanding, Farmer John bacon was scrumptious, delicious, lip-smackingly tasty stuff--and that's saying a lot because, really, it's hard to get it wrong with a food like bacon. Most everyone--everyone who still eats bacon, that is--has their favorite but almost any brand, carefully cooked, is good (I know what I said before. Don't interrupt.) and Farmer John, with its woody, slightly smoky, very big flavor, was exceptional. I'm telling you people, the pigs that gave up their porky little lives for Farmer John brand bacon must have been raised on ambrosia or heather or something similar.

Hog heaven, friends. Hog heaven.

Wednesday Morning Blahs

It's a gray, gray, gray day out there, gang. Low, brooding, moody clouds. Matches my frame of mind perfectly.

I've just punched the mute button on this 1998 Spin City rerun because suddenly I can't stand it. This is a '90's sitcom that could usually be relied upon to give me a chuckle or three, mainly because of affable oddball Richard Kind who, if he's not careful, is on his way to being a TV sidekick national treasure assuming he's not there already. And Michael J. Fox is fine, I've liked him since his Family Ties/Back from the Future glory days, and Heather Locklear is...well...she's very Heather Locklear, but I swear to the God I no longer believe in that if I have to watch the dating dilemmas of one more adorable white het TV couple I'm going to lose my breakfast.

In the next hour Frasier will come on and there'll be the continuing saga (circa 1999) of the romantic misadventures of the lovestruck Niles and the charmingly oblivious Daphne who (come on, you know I'm right on this) became a LOT less appealing after she and Niles finally hooked up in Season Whenever. After which neurotic singleton Grace Adler gets to french every guy she encounters while her other half, Will, gets to frown with concern and make quippy wisecracks on the sidelines with the antic, boy-crazy Jack who never--not once--is allowed similar lip-locks with any of the boys.

Just--enough already, okay? For today, anyway.

Spin City does have a queer black character, the reliable Michael Boatman as Carter Heywood, Minority Affairs honcho of the fictional NY City Hall office of Mayor Randall Winston, but therein lies the rub. Boatman is funny and does the best he can with what he's given, but what's he given? Some witty throwaway lines as he wryly observes the office absurdities, romantic and otherwise, all around him? Both before and after Ellen's groundbreaking "Puppy Episode" the closest thing to a serious love affair Carter was allowed--by which I mean that we the audience were allowed to see--involved him hugging goodbye some hunky closet-case whose "issues" meant neither we nor Carter were ever going to see him again.

Well, there's always LOGO later.

All my zen serenity of this time yesterday has evaporated and I am back to being on pins and needles of anxiety about the artistic workshop Bill had proposed on Sunday. Monday he did another, more extensive email blast to gauge interest and I've not heard anything further since. I'm not sure what to think. I want to put positive energy out there, you know, good karma, but my naturally pessimistic nature is fighting me every step of the way. If Bill gets X number of encouraging reponses will it happen? Great; but what would that mean for me? I'd basically be right back where I started, unable to afford the trip.

On the other hand if he gets qualified responses, where people indicate that like me they want to participate but can't deal with the various costs, an online workshop might well be a go, which would work for me though frankly, I'd rather travel and do the classwork in P-Town (preferably) or Palm Springs.

And what of Tim Huber's participation if Bill decides to try for it online? Can Tim do what he does best (I mean professionally you guys, come on now, behave) electronically? Could Bill and Tim double-team on this electronically? Would they really want to? How would it work?

For that matter how would it work were we all able to meet in person? Could a 2 or 3 day seminar or class that attempted to blend psychological counseling with artistic coaching really yield the desired results? Which would be... what, exactly? What would everyone's expectations be and could they all be met? Bill noted in his blog that he and Tim Miller had done this before with great success, and Tim Miller responded to Bill's blog that he'd just returned from Chicago (He was here? Hello? Where the hell was he? Where the hell was I??) having done something similar (or was it?) with great results (What? What results? What did TM do? What did the two of them do previously?)

I need to get going. (In more ways than one, gang.)

The Daydream Deferred

Feeling so deflated right at this moment. Just heard from Bill regarding the workshop and it doesn't look like it will be a go--the response he's gotten so far has not been strong enough. So many folks have been Bush-whacked by this Gilded Age economy, me included. Ten years ago, five years ago, I could have made the trip; not now.

And I'm annoyed at myself for letting myself get excited. Because I knew, even as I read his post, that I wouldn't be able to put the funds together for the trip. But I so loved what he was proposing that I got carried away anyway in spite of myself.

A ray of hope: There may be the possibility for an online class of some kind, and if so I would like very much to participate. Maybe the response will be stronger to something like that.

Would have been so nice to do this in P-Town, though.

Maybe next year...

Daydreaming An Impossible Little Dream

I'm still breathless from Bill Mann's latest blog posting, in which he asks if anyone out there is interested in a creative writing workshop. In Palm Springs maybe, or Provincetown.

Godamighty. Is he kidding? Is anyone "interested"?? Let me just take a deep breath and see if I can get my tumbling, caroming thoughts in some kind of coherent order.

I would--well, not kill, exactly--but I would do a lot to be able to participate in such an event, even if it's only for 2-3 days. Also I would dearly love to go to Provincetown, Mass and see for myself what it is Bill raves about: the fascinating parade of people, the flow of queer locals and curious tourists, and the water and sun and the unique interplay between the two that produces (he says, others say) the kind of light one doesn't find anywhere else. I'm sure Palm Springs is lovely, but Provincetown is magical, or so I've heard, or so I'd love to see.

And I need a change. I really do. I need to break out of the prison existence I've been living for so long, this soul-deadening routine of work, home, work, home. I long ago walked away from my artwork and my writing, save for this blog, is going nowhere. I need to see other places, meet new people, make more friends, find my joy.

I need to work, but at something that really matters to me, that will make me feel alive and engaged with the world. I don't know if, realistically, a 3 day seminar would help me accomplish all that--that may be asking too much of any sort of class or workshop. But a start. It could be the start of a new path and a new sense of purpose.

If I could go.

I don't see how I possibly could; I'm barely making ends meet as it is. How many hundreds of dollars would a 3 day workshop in Provincetown or Palm Springs cost? How to get there from here? I'm getting depressed just thinking about this now, to think I could be a part of something like this--it's out of the question.

But if I could......

Lulu, Slappy, Mother and Me

From a December 2005 diary:

Reading about Lulu Guinness and her amazing success with her elegantly whimsical handbags for some reason puts me in mind of a Fats Waller song. A period thing, I guess. In the Vanity Fair profile Mrs. Guinness emerges as a witty singular personality, confident from the start about her affinity for the glamour of a bygone era. As young as age 9 she knows who she is and trusts her instincts enough to let her creative impulses lead her to a happy (and lucrative) adult life.

Lulu Guinness, I salute you.

Lulu Guinness, rescue me.

I had Lulu's kind of confidence once. Didn't last long, sadly. If I'd been luckier in the gene pool lottery or if my parents had been simultaneously more mature and adventurous... i know. It's cheap and easy to blame mom and dad for your adult failures. Then again there is an argument to made for how your beginnings can seal--or at least strongly influence--your fate. Personally, I cringe when I remember how my mother--

Oh, hell. That is too easy.

But you know, my pre-adult life might have been happier and fuller if only my mother had had the wisdom, or the confidence, or both, to take advantage of certain unique opportunities that came her way.

Like the offer in the late 50's to be a straight man, er, woman, to Redd Foxx--or was it Slappy White?--when she was a barely-twenty-something nightclub dancer at the Club DeLisa; Mom was pretty, curvy and funny, an apparently rare combination.

Mom said she spurned the offer because she didn't want to have to deal with a reportedly pathologically jealous wife and also she suspected, not without some justification, that Mr. White's--or was it Mr. Foxx's?--interest in partnering her was not strictly professional. Under the circumstances I suppose I can understand Mother's disinclination to follow that one up.

And then there was the offer in the early 70's to move to Denmark as the guest of her coworker friend, N, who was returning to her homeland with her young son, A.

N assured my mom there would be plenty of room for all of us on the family estate, regaling her with all the cultural and educational opportunities for Joey and me; Mom said thanks, really, thank you--but, no.

When some years later Mother told me about all of this, I wanted to throttle her. I really did. She passed on great adventures for herself and the possibility of untold opportunities for her family. What was she thinking, turning all of that down? Where was her spirit?

But all my mother could see looming ahead was the stress and confusion of packing up and starting over and the challenges, the unknown difficulties, of navigating strange new worlds...

Typical. If someone had ever made such offers to me, I'd have... um...... Without hesitation, I'd've.... hmmm.

*sigh*

Too Stressed Tonight To Write

Oh, fuck!

Is Spybot worth the trouble or not? I just don't know anymore.

First of all, it takes a frikkin' year for the thing to load and do its stuff whenever you try to open the program to download updates and run a scan... Now, apparently, in trying to download what I (obviously mistakenly) thought was a legit updated version of Spybot on my mom's PC, I've unleashed something nasty enough to disable her BitDefender anti-virus. (I have to monitor and run her PC security because she won't, because she forgets how it all works, and anyway she forgets to do it, and anyway she doesn't really want to have to deal with stuff like this. That's what her daughter is for. Among other things.)

Now I sit here anxiously waiting to hear from BitDefender support for instructions on what to do next, praying the damage, if there is any, is negligible. I can't concentrate on anything else until this is resolved...

Oh, fuck! I had none of these headaches back in 1995. If Gates, Allen and Microsoft really want to impress me, they'll come up with a System Restore that will return me--forget the damn computer; me--to a younger, less techno-stressful time.

Pressed For Time

Unnngghh..! I really have some things to say, really feel like writing, but no time just now to type. (Should have gotten up and out earlier this morning...)

Oh, well. Maybe tonight. If not, tomorrow first thing. Promise.