Marrying George Clooney

ken forgot to take his cellphone today. not an unusual sort of thing, this memory lapse. but the thing is, ken and i speak a gazillion times a day. i know, i know. you’re probably thinking, wow, thats sort of close for comfort, but we — ken & i — chat all the time. maybe it’s that we just like each other plenty, maybe it’s that we always have something to say to each other, maybe it’s a sick & fucked up addiction, need… whatever. he’ll call to tell me a flower started to bloom in the garden (he’s such an amazing gardener), i will call to tell him that barney’s is having a shoe sale ( i’m such an amazing shoe shopper) and sometimes we just call each other and say hey i love you.
so today he doesn’t have his cell phone, and because he doesn’t – i am calling him just as much and leaving him messages so when he finally has his phone, he will hear how much i love him, how fabulous the shoes are at bergorf’s, that eunice kennedy shriver died, that we’re having dinner with amy & bob & frank & deb tomorrow night, and fill him in on all the news of the day, and  what the weather will be like for the remainder of the week (he’s such a weather channel freak), and mostly, mostly, that i really miss hearing his voice.

my book. today. it’s real. it’s beautiful. it’s alive & breathing & mine. and thank god(dess) – it’s healthy. oh my god(dess), it’s so frickin’ healthy. and really so lovely to hold, & look at, and ken is oh, so delighted. oh, he’s just so over the frickin’ moon, and of course, he held it, and said: ooooh. and then he handed it back to me and i looked at it again, and decided i know, i know what i’m gonna call this baby…
i know, i know, a long title slash name, but hopefully real soon folks are just gonna call it: clooney, as in, hey do you have that fabulous funny clooney book in stock, you know that one about menopause and midlife and marriage and mom’s and googling old boyfriends and the salesperson is going to say: … oh, it’s sold out. but we have it on re-order.

a baby is born.
and another window opens.

i’m wondering if it all began when i got my very own phone at the age 12. it was a pink princess phone, and i had a phone number which i still to this day remember. 769-6016. it’s astonishing to me that i can remember that and there are days that i wonder: hmmmm. did i take my cholesterol pills? but i’m guessing one never ever forgets their first time, regardless of what it is. whether it’s a guy, or girl, or pet, or a forged report card. you just don’t forget some things.
i think it was most definitely back then that i began this addiction to phones and anything and everything that kept me somewhat at arms length. much easier to be curled up on my bed, or in a chair talking my ear off to a friend, then being face to face.
so here we are a hundred and ten years later, and i find that i am facing the same dilemma now with facebook. i am addicted. i am experiencing separation anxiety when i have to leave my computer. it’s sick, fucked-up, i know, but i also know a ton of people in the same boat. we’re all on the same cruise, eating bad food, vomiting, playing shuffle board, dancing to the big band, and sitting on deck chairs asking each other: why oh why are we doing something we don’t really want to be doing, and not very good at it? so i wonder — out-loud — is it to be in touch, stay connected, be curled up on a bed or couch and feel like yes, we have a ton of friends, and by god none of us has to leave our house, or for that matter cabins?
it is agoraphobia or is it googlephobia?

I wasn’t so much lonely, as I was choosing men who were really wrong for my life.

So not to embarrass anyone, I will stand up in front of the entire room and admit – bare my soul — with sheer conviction that yes I did call those 800 numbers, and the 900 numbers, the Psychic Connection, that’s right, the Dionne Warwick psychic connection hotline — and yes, I did dial a psychic for three bucks a minute and yes, I had a phone bill that was so astronomical – so monumentally huge – that my father almost had a coronary stroke. And I wasn’t even living at home, but when the bill came, I rushed to my dad’s office and declared: “Oh my God, if I don’t pay this they’ll shut it off.” “What in God’s name were you doing?” he asked me while turning deathly white. “Looking for love, pop, looking for love.” “What’s wrong with the Bowling Alley, some nice fellas.” “Yeah, I know…not the same.”

We made a deal with AT &T.

It creeps up on you, suddenly. You’re watching TV and then the “Hi, how are ya?” commercial comes on, and she tells you, all in a close up, that she knows all about your future, she has all the answers and she knows you’ve been heartbroken and sad and lonely and she can help you, she can mend you heart, reignite the flame, guide you, help you find financial security. These commercials usually start up at around 11 o’clock, the vulnerable hour. You’ve already, I’m guessing, watched your favorite TV show slash series, the one with the sad yet sexy cop and you’re drifting, floating in and out of the nightly news with it’s ghastly images, when you click through other stations and there she is: looking directly into the camera.

Hi. My name is Juanita. I can see your sadness and fear, that loss of job, that man who left you high and dry, the house in foreclosure, the troubled children and the hemorrhaging bank account. I can read your future and trust me, as bleak and awful as it is now, your future is filled with great happiness and huge benefit, and really it’s just around the corner. You should call me now at 1-800-FOOL, that’s 1-800-FOOL, and for those who only have rotary phones, 1-800-3665.

It’s tempting. This shit is tempting. Your boyfriend, or girlfriend breaks up with you, worse yet, does not return any of your phone calls, which by the way, in my book, is worthy of being tried and convicted without trial. A not returned phone call is a crime. Period. Anyone who tells you they don’t give a shit if someone calls them back is as full of shit as the person who is not calling. It’s rude, it’s unnecessary, and it’s just plain disrespectful. I’m starting a petition: No return phone calls, no daylight.

I call this Juanita person. I ask her the top tier questions: Is the guy I’m dating true blue, does he have an ulterior motive, is he working where he said he was working, and is this relationship worthy? And what does it look like for me in the job market? She says she needs to go deep in, have a moment or two of meditation – I could’ve sworn she said medication – and so I channel surf, while I’m cradling the phone.

On another channel, another psychic, with a crystal ball in the background, is offering – along with a reading – an herbal concoction that will help stimulate the sex juices. “We all can use a little extra UMMMmmph.”

While she was selling “ummmph,” my psychic was meditating, or maybe medicating, but she seemed to be gone for a while.

Juanita didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. Not a clue, and there was a point in the conversation, mid way, when all of a sudden it was I who was giving her advice, and job tips, and helping her make some life choices and decisions. She tells me she misses her boyfriend so badly it hurts. I ask if he’s on vacation, or maybe, he’s away on work, out of town on business. No, she tells me, her boyfriend is serving time in prison.

Huh, I say, white collar?
Uh uh, no, she says, uh-uh, he’s serving life.
Life? I say.
Uh huh, she says, he murdered a couple of people he didn’t like.
Huh. Prior to this uh, killing murder thing, was he seeing a therapist?
I don’t know. He didn’t tell me. You think he really loves me? I love him so much. You think I should wait for him?
Well, truthfully, I tell her, I have a hard time waiting on line at Fairway, so I’m thinking I’m not the right person to ask.

Oh. Kay.

So, tell me, how does it go from my calling a psychic to find out if the guy I’m seeing is a psychopath, to the psychic telling me that her boyfriend, the love of her life, is in prison for murder.

As a friend of mine always says: crazy shit breeds crazy shit.

… is beginning to manifest.

i have become a middle aged woman (okay, a pretty cool & hip & fashionably astute middle aged woman) who has become addicted – completely – to facebook.

and the thing is… i know, i really truly know, i am not alone. but that doesn’t make me feel any better.

eva & i are starting FA, facebook anonymous.

for years i belonged to a religious community – i would consider myself a faithful follower if that in fact is the correct description. i began this journey at 19, found a community of folks that encouraged, inspired, and engaged me in opening my life, seeing the possibility in all things, believing that nothing was in fact impossible and all was equal. in the past four or five years, there’s been shift – it feels quite internal, and one that could be described as evolution, or at the very least a midlife crisis, although i tend to doubt that. you do something for many years, you often get stuck in a rut and need a new routine, a new face, a new song to dance to. after 32 years of being a part of this ‘faith community’ i found myself questioning the agenda, the motive, the truth so to speak. i often wondered why i had such a hard time speaking up, saying my mind, letting out my frustrations and doubts and feelings on elitist behavior that seemed to permeate certain conversations. a piece here a piece there. then one day i was told i couldn’t remain friends with one of my best friends because he was in fact very good friends with someone the organization feared was an evil doer. i personally thought it would have served everyone a bit better had they just moved this under the header of ego, but far be if for me to raise my hand up that high. none the less, i made a choice. i stood by my friend. for many reasons, and i could probably given the time list them alphabetically, but for the simple reason that he often stood by me. I find that always a good sign. lately i have wondered, usually late at night what it is i’m feeling when i feel that slight twinge move up my spine… and i realize quite wisely that aside from having a ritual every single day twice a day that felt incredibly poetic and filled with reverence; it also became my community. my friends, my sparring partners, my guaranteed friday evening place to be… and as i grew up and out and evolved, the needs i had at 19, and 25, and 38, and 47 seem to vanish. time does that. but what i realize is two fold: faith is personal, and if we’re real lucky it will absolutely appear and manifest the moment we so need it. like that shoulder that comes out of no where so we can rest our head on it, and secondly no one, not one soul can tell you if you do or don’t have faith. Faith is not a daily drive with a few red lights, and destination. Faith is the road you take and the turns you make and the fork you come to and the instant decision to follow your gut.
no one can tell you that.
you sit, you pray, you know. and if you don’t know…well, you pray a bit harder, longer, but an answer appears, and it often feels exactly spot on like it oughta.

okay. two days ago ken said to me “geez amy your hair looks a little, hmmm, what’s the word i’m looking for, yeah got it: fucked up.” first of all that isn’t one word, it’s two. and my hairdresser – a very sweet but unstable guy who cut hair out of his house who also by the way lived with a gazillion (okay, a thousand…) animals, and… and was also searching for acceptance at a local church which refused to accept his homosexuality and therefore he left both our community and my hair high and dry, and on end. i can say with absolute confidence that one should never try to find a new hairdresser during the summer months because a) when it starts growing out you can wake up one morning and honest to god, look like don fucking king.
so, he left me — and i have gone to two different women, and both times i came out wanting to completely shave my head. and so last night, with a bit of wine in me, and a scissor that wasn’t meant to cut anything, particularly hair, i started to chop here and there, and when i woke up this morning ken looked at me and covered his mouth with his hand (something he never ever does) and then said in a hush voice, what happened to your eyebrows?
hmmm. i thought. now that i have a pixie junkie razor cut minus the aubergine tips, he’s noticing my thin and very very light eyebrows.
which made me think: i could put a pair of tits on my forehead and ken would say “hmmm, hey baby, i think you have pink eye.”

b is for benadryl, c is for cialis, d is for demarol, e is for effexor, f is for flonase, g is for gas-x, h is for habitrol, i is for ibuprofen, j is for java, k is for klonopin, l is for lorazepam, m is for morphine, n is for nicoderm, o is for omega-3, p is for percodan, q is for quaalude, r is for retin-a, s is for stool softener, t is for testosterone, u is for ultracet, v is for valium, w is for wellbutrin, x is for xanax, y is for yodoxin, z is for zoloft

my husband fell tonight, smash down on the ground. it scared me. for the first time in our marriage, i felt sacred. like i could lose him, and i don’t often think of losing him…maybe misplacing him, maybe getting lost for a few hours and then of couse one of us calls the others cellphone and we say hey where the fuck are you and we catch up, and all is fine. good. safe. but tonight he fell, and my heart started to crack a little, and all this time… all this time, i have taken it for granted that it would be he saying goodbye to me when the time came.
i feel so much safer and better knowing that ken is in the world. cliched, yeah, maybe… but true.
i wish you all this kind of love.

okay.
they are:
piercing.
gorgeous.
enlightened.
joyous.
dark.
happy.
serious.
beautiful.
meaningful.
honest.
peaceful.
magical.
truthful.
filled with wonder.
i have never seen such eyes. truly. they are singular, bold, audacious.
they are summer eyes. filling a room like a firefly. sparkling.
when i see him they twinkle.

i feel blessed when he looks at me.
truly.
i love, oh so much, his eyes.