Marrying George Clooney

(a blog worth repeating)

I had just moved into my new apartment on the upper Westside. It was my first grown-up apartment.

It was January 15th, 1990.

I walked into my building, got into the elevator, and before the doors closed, two huge black men got into the elevator with me.

All I thought was, “Oh my god, I’m gonna be raped.”

I grew up in a family where the word schvartza was sprinkled about as frequently and as often as salt and pepper on steak. If there was an abandoned car on the side of the L.I.E with all tires stripped, my mother would casually say, “Schvartzas.” If there was a robbery or a break-in in our all white neighbor, it was the “schvartzas” who would be blamed. Anything unattractive, unappealing, it was always, undoubtedbly, the schvartza.

Schvartza, goy, faggot… not uncommon words used in my house. And these words were passed down generation to generation. Rumor has it that when a black person got up from their seat on a bus, my grandmother would take her cotton handkerchief and wipe it down. And yet, I can’t say that my parents were hateful or prejudice. My parents were friends with gay people, non-jewish people, “colored/non-white” people. All races, all walks of life. I think the truth is there was an underlying unease, feelings of superiority and unconscious (or not) fear that seeped out without any thought what so ever. Both my brother and I, on more than one occasion, were mortified at what came out of our mother’s and father’s mouth. An off color joke here, a nasty remark there, a vile dig here, and a loud rant there. My mother often said that if I dated a black man she would disown me, and I would often respond, joke, ask … “what about sleeping with one?” She would laugh and smile. I had then, and have now, many friends who are black.

BUT… I grew up with the word schvartza embedded – like a chip – in my soul, and I would wager I’m not sharing anything new, however, it is not something I have ever admitted.

Back to the elevator.

There I was standing in the back of the elevator, convinced that these two men – both at least 6’7” – were going to hurt me. Rape me. Kill me. I heard the word schvartza playing over and over and over in my head. I heard my mother saying it, I heard my grandmother saying it. Schvartza. I knew I was afraid. I knew I was petrified.

I also knew it was the night of the Cooney/Forman fight, a big night in boxing. One of the guys asked me, “You like boxing?” I said, “Yeah, oh, yeah.” “Really?” he asked, “who you betting on to win?” Without blinking, I said, “I’m betting on the Black guy.”

They both laughed.

It turned out one of the guys lived in my building, in the penthouse. He was a professional basketball player. He played for the Nets. He was throwing a party that night – a Cooney/Forman party – and right there in the elevator, invited me to come, as his guest.

I asked if there would be any food.

“Yeah,” he said, “We’re roastin’ the white guy.”

I lost every bit of color I had regained. He looked at me, and saw how scared I was.

“Hey,” he said, “I’m jokin’. Really. Cooney’s gonna lose, Forman’s gonna knock him out in the first round. Please, come on up… we’re ordering Chinese. You like Chinese?”

“Yes, I like Chinese,” I said.

I was the only white person in a sea of black people watching Forman punch the shit out of Cooney in the second round.

At the end of the evening, my new friend made sure I got home safe and sound – two floors below him – and thanked me for coming to his party. He was gracious and kind, and he and I remained good friends until he moved out of the building a few years later. He was traded and moved to a different city.

As I think about what’s happening in this country, and the tapes that play over and over and over again in someone’s head – the words that are embedded, the phrases that stick, the stories repeated, the hatred circulating, the ugly, the nasty … the nigger, the faggot, the homo, the goy, the kike, the jew, the queer…

I think about that night, in that elevator, and that bet that I made … and I never, ever thought years later I would say, “I’m betting on the black guy,” out of complete love and respect, and not one ounce of fear.

it’s friday.
the end of the week.
this week i wanted to share some of the women who have made my life full & grand & glorious through their words, their art, their stories, their lives.

so today i bow to barbara hannah grufferman.

for proving every single day that yes, the best of everything (is) after 50.
through her actions.
her words.
her deeds.
her humanity.
her courage.
her fearlessness.
her beauty.
her generosity toward all women who struggle with their own issues.
for speaking up and out and using her work as a platform to reach us all.

i heart her.

For those who read my blog, you all know this week is giving week. sharing the folks and blogs i adore. ADORE. LOVE. CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF. and today i share with you hollye dexter. i’m sharing her but you can’t have her because she’s mine. well, okay, that’s not true. but for for right now, this moment, she’s mine. i adore hollye.
i love that she spells her name with an e at the end.
i love that she wears both her heart and her political passion on her sleeve.
i love that she can do anything: sing, write, paint, make gorgeous babies, marry a hunka-hunka burnin’ love, curse like the best, forgive like we oughta, and that she has a past she is not afraid to share in the present and get this: she does it all with frickin’ grace and ease..
i not only heart her. i bow at the altar of hollye dexter because i am forever grateful that she is in my life.
she has made my life stunningly glorious.

here’s hollye’s new blog post:

The first thing that flashed into my mind this morning as my son poked me awake at 6:30 am was “Oh my God…this is it. The last Oprah show is today…”

Next thought: How will I deal with it? I thought about flying to Chicago, throwing myself to the floor and clinging to her legs, begging Don’t leave me! But that would be undignified. And creepy. I could imagine myself screaming as the cops drag me away…But you guys don’t understand! Oprah is my best friend!

Oprah truly does feel like a friend to me, and to so many of us. She has been a companion to my days for the last twenty-five years.. When I’ve been hopeless, I’ve looked to her for direction. On so many occasions her show inspired me, pulling me out of a life rut. I’ve taken her advice on so many issues. Like her, I too start my days asking that God use my life for something greater than I know. She taught me that.

In fact, Oprah has taught me more than I ever learned growing up in my family. She taught me that you can be born a poor black child in the segregated deep South, and become the most beloved woman in the world.

When she shared that she was molested as a child, she taught me you can be damaged and still be happy.

When I learned about her hidden pregnancy at 14, and the baby’s death, it taught me you can make terrible mistakes in your life and start again.

When she exposed her secrets to the world, she taught me that it is okay to tell the truth, about everything.

She brought incest and child abuse and homosexuality and shame out of the closet.

She taught me that being happy for other’s successes lifts all of humanity.

She taught me that money and power is not necessarily the root of all evil. Some people use theirs for good.

When she sat down with guests who she’d had previous conflicts with, she taught me it’s okay to be wrong and say you’re sorry.

Through her struggles with weight, she taught that most of us will have lifelong battles that we may overcome, or we may not, but we are still worthy and lovable just as we are.

She’s taught women everywhere that you can rise to the top, be a powerful woman, have kids or not have kids, be married or don’t. Be yourself.

I had certainly never known a person like this in my own life growing up. But since learning that people like that exist, I have sought them out. My life is now filled with phenomenal, brave, honest people like Oprah. If it weren’t for Oprah and her influence on my life, I don’t know that I would have had the courage to start my own nonprofit for foster kids, to write my memoir, or to write The Shame Prom with Amy Ferris.

And for all you eye-rollers out there who have your doubts about her, I hear you. She is human. I’ve been mad at her here and there. She has her moods, she gets caught up in her ego sometimes, and is flawed like everyone else. And yes, I know she’s not God (though the jury is still out on that one…I mean, you never know…)

On the other hand, Oprah has had a positive influence on our culture, more than any other living person I can think of. Seriously, the Dalai Lama doesn’t have as much reach and influence (no offense, Dalai!). People in the poorest countries in Africa watch her. Women in Saudi Arabia gather in their burqas to watch her. I even believe that her personal endorsement was a big reason Barack Obama won the Presidency.

She has emboldened a generation, opened our minds to new possibilities, exposed us to other cultures and ways of thinking. She cast a strong bright light on the hidden shame we all carried. She brought positive television to the masses.

She gave us hope and laughter and truth when we needed it, and for that Ms. Oprah Winfrey, I am eternally grateful.

So long, dear friend. I will miss you terribly …
P.S. Will you miss me, too?

OMO.

Oh My Oprah.

I for one believe that Oprah has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is a true blue goddess. She rises to the occasion, forgives when she’s wrong, tells it like it is, has a huge heart and the ability to truly – honest to goddess – move mountains. She can give & receive. She is humble & kind & generous beyond words. And LOYAL. LOYAL LOYAL LOYAL.

Given the world we live in, with all this crazy wacky bad men shit: from the everyday affairs to the catastrophic “the world is gonna end,” i need a hero.

a genuine, no bullshit hero.
I found one.

and i wanna be a little o. not a disciple. not a follower.
just a perfectly small gorgeous little o.

continuing in my “best blogs, best quotes, best best…” this week, i am re-posting, reprinting kristine van raden’s blog post from her gorgeous BLOG: MATTERS THAT MATTER (stunning blog)
she – kristine – is the cats meow, she has held me up, she has lifted my soul & spirits, she tells the truth and hears the truth. she’s tall & sexy & funny & filled with humanity the size of the frickin’ universe. how lucky we are that she is in our lives, and is our friend? i love her to the moon and back and back again, here goes:

“Freaking Out” comes in waves. Big, nasty, sweep you out to sea, waves. For the most part I am calm and collected as I choose to toss yet another memory place holder on to the Goodwill pile. I hold it, smell it, sometimes shed a tear or two. But the promise of less stuff, a new beginning, a sense of surrender to the matters that truly matter now keeps me focused.

Every now and then I must admit I lose control. My seasoned composure doesn’t even make the donation pile. It flies all around the room, bouncing off every wall and coming back to smack me upside the head. What the fuck am I doing? I hate change…Change in my life has often represented really bad stuff…someone dies, or tries to. Families fall apart, people leave and don’t come back…footings fail, roofs cave in, foul and destructive human beings run for public office and WIN.

When the wave subsides, I catch my breath and return to the business at hand. Slipping from one major chapter into another isn’t easy. Leaving behind ghosts of a family growing up under one roof, grandparents who were independent and had life force enough to spare; trees planted that have now come to be giants in all seasons; roots of all kinds that made me feel like I belonged here…all pieces of the previous chapter.

AND YET…standing at cross roads a choice eventually has to be made. I am confident that forward is the only option. Holding still never really gets you where you want to go. Indeed, it is less work, by far. Less dangerous, less challenging, less emotional…less, less, less.

I want more.

I want to have the time to do more for others. I want to be present for a granddaughter in the making. I want to create good will in a new community. I want to live with less and experience more.

okay, so, this week i’m going to honor friends. each day a new blog post either about someone (i love & admire) written by someone else, or a blog post that i adore written by a friend… or a random posting because, well, random can be and is often, perfection.

this (blog) was written by bill black. he’s the co-founder of pages & places book festival in scranton, pa (full disclosure, i am on the board). it’s all about elizabeth randol, a woman i can’t say enough about. she’s gorgeous, funny, smart, sassy, elegant, feisty, hot as hell, cool as can be, strong, brilliant, humane, generous – a gracious plenty. she’s my friend, and i adore her. she ran for county commissioner & lost (by a teeny bit). but she really didn’t lose, because now an entire generation and community knows who she is, how stunning & honest & extraordinary she is… she opened doors & hearts & souls.

so, here’s to bill. for writing this exquisite “political” love letter:

This morning, as we’re weighing the implications of last night’s election, and the candidates and volunteers are considering life without the grueling hours of the past four months, I find myself ever more optimistic about the future of our city and regio…n—despite the fact that the smartest, savviest, most plugged-in, dedicated, and worthy candidate didn’t win. As most of you no doubt know, Liz’s campaign for County Commission began with nearly zero name recognition, zero money, zero infrastructure, an outsider status (having grown up in Cleveland), and no Y chromosome, and yet she came within 400 votes of knocking off a well-funded incumbent. This is an extraordinary accomplishment, even if it comes as no surprise. When I asked Liz why in God’s name she wanted to submit herself to half a year of campaigning, never mind, should she win, the thanklessness of the job, she told me what we already know about her—that had fallen in love with this city and its people and its future, and given her wealth of experience in the commissioners’ office and the state treasury, if she wasn’t willing to dedicate her competencies to this position, well, what was she doing here? Anyone who has benefited from The Women’s Narrative Project or the Women’s Resource Center or her statewide Women and Money program or Pages & Places and its offshoots or any of the myriad things Liz has founded or directed or merely contributed her vast personal resources to knows that this is what she always thinks. It is her alpha and omega. It’s who she is. As I listened to her address her volunteers and supporters last night, two thoughts crystalized, if not for the first time: (1) A real political rock star has been born—one who has not only the charisma and strategic intelligence and stamina to be a breathtakingly strong candidate and office holder, but also one whose convictions point our city, our community in precisely the direction we need to go. (2) How impoverished we would be without her, and how unbelievably lucky we are that this woman who can do whatever she wants, wherever she wants, has chosen to dedicate ourselves to us. If you see Liz, thank her for that, and then let’s pledge to follow her lead and Create Scranton. Let’s make this a place that lives up to our hopes and our expectations of ourselves.

Bill Black Co-Director (along with Liz) Pages & Places Book Festival

do i clean my house or let it go to shit?
do i pay my bills, or say screw it?
do i write all those thank you notes or fuck you notes?
do i spend the day in bed with ken or do i go to the woodbury commons outlet?
do i give up my need to be in control or do i hold on tighter?
do i surrender to a higher power/being/the universe, or do i admit that i am in fact a goddess and i only answer to me?
do i learn to pole dance or do i just run around my house topless until i faint from exhaustion?
do i call up the phone company and cancel my land line?
do i go fore-go (or is it forgo?) my annual check-up?
do i re-order my beauty products?
do i get a new battery for my watch?
do i refill my prescriptions?
do i bathe my cats or do i let them just lick themselves silly?

or maybe…
just maybe i should live in the now, this moment, you know … live as if today were the last day with a happy face.

what a concept.

today i had a fight with myself.

oh, go fuck yourself amy.
no no… you, amy, you go fuck yourself.

trust me it was a no win.

today i was unkind to myself.
i was.
i was unforgiving & i treated me with great disdain.
today i was mean spirited & lacked generosity toward myself.
i berated myself.
and then i caught myself.
i stopped.
i stopped.
I.
STOPPED.
and i closed my eyes:
and i thought, “no. oh no. you do not get to treat yourself badly. you do not get to mistreat yourself. you do not beat yourself to a pulp. oh. no.”
no.
no.
no.
not now.
no more.

and then each voice went quiet:
my mother.
my brother.
my father.
bad boyfriends.
toxic friends.
and i heard myself – myself -breathing.

my breathing.
my own breathing.

and then i heard

hollye
kristine
troy
amy wise
amy friedman
kathleen
barbara
ken
monica
randy
peter
kedren
elizabeth
robyn
marcia
linda
maxee
julie
madge
carol
RICHARD

and …
their goodness & kindness & love & generosity & sweetness…

i found my voice.

and i apologized to me.
and i accepted the apology.

i told ken i was going to write all day.
i did.
this is what i said: “ken, i’m writing all day. please, don’t bother me unless you really need me.”
he said, “fine. good. sounds good. you need to write. okay. good. good.”
and i told him, “today i’m going to actually sit at my desk and write.”
and he said, “good. that’s so good.”
and amy wise (angel of angel’s) called me, and i said, “i’m going to write today.”
and she said, “oh good. GOOD!”
and so…
i sat here all day. at my computer.
and…
i wrote a few emails.
i wrote two checks.
i read some huff post posts.
i read that newt is going to run. away, i hope. far fucking away. no newt is good newt.
i read that jesse james doesn’t believe sandra bullock loved him. shoo. go away. run with newt. go with newt.
i read something about silver & gold going up & down. up & down. sell buy sell buy.
i wrote another e-mail.
i wrote martha frankel about six or seven e-mails.
i went onto facebook. i liked about a hundred things, people, causes, sayings.
i did not like newt running.
i liked david lacy.
i liked julie silver.
i liked maxee artist.
i liked obama 2012.

ken knocked at my door, “are you busy? can I ask you something?”
i immediately got off facebook, opened my “book” and sat with a long face. a bookface.
“sure, come in.”

“how’s the writing?”
“good. good.”
“yeah?”

“actually, no it’s not, you know, going at all. I’m not writing.”

he kissed my forehead.
“write me a love letter,” he said, and then he was off & running – well not really running, but he scooted away.

so here goes:

dear ken,
you make me swoon.
come back now.

i love you.

Years ago, there was an article in New York magazine all about past life regression. This was right up my alley. With an entire past life roadmap I get to a) find out how I came to be who I am in this lifetime, and b) why I make the same mistakes over and over and over again. It seemed like an awfully good way to spend both a major amount of money and a good solid five hours. A few ‘past life readers’ were referenced, but I decide to call and make an appointment with the one who came highly, highly recommended by the author of the article. A French woman, who miraculously had an immediate opening because someone had “just cancelled,” and tells me, in a lovely accent, that she takes cash. I ask if I can write her a check, she says yes, but cash is preferable. I like cash, she says. So do I, I reply.

For those who don’t know anything about a past life regression, you are under hypnosis, hypnotized, but not really. It’s sort of like you’re awake but awake two hundred years ago. Does that make sense?

I’m going to call this woman Francine. This is not her real name, but it’s the only French name I can think of right now. Francine lived in a small apartment that would have made the Collyer Brothers proud. She had newspapers and cardboard boxes piled up so high that I actually wondered if she was getting all her ‘regression’ information from all the front page headlines lying around. It seemed to me she had newspapers from the early 1900’s.

She was a petite, older woman, both very thin, and very stylish. I recall a string of pearls and a lovely large cocktail ring. I also recall that she was in her late seventies, early eighties. She asks me if I’ve ever done this before, I tell her, no, and she is delighted. She leads me to a leather chaise, which is surrounded by more newspapers. She tells me to please lie down, and make myself comfy. She then explains that most issues and problems, including medical and sexual, can be traced to an event or an experience from the past, and can be completely transformed and even eradicated through understanding the initial cause to alter the effect. Even a person who committed a crime, she says, like a crime of passion, or even a serial type killing. Cause and effect she says, but long ago causes, and ‘brand new’ effects, that appear in this lifetime. Like, she says, when you throw a baseball a hundred years ago and it comes back now. Huh. That’s sort of interesting. I know about cause and effect, although and I hate to admit it, I am not at all a baseball fan, so the analogy goes right over my head, literally. She asks me if there is any area in particular I would like to work on, or is this a general regression? I say general because there’s too many areas I would like to work on. It’s usually just one, she says, people have a specific area they want to work on. I don’t know what to say. So, we begin the journey. I am told to close my eyes, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out…slowly … and now imagine that I am floating on a white pillow made of clouds, a cloud pillow. I need to really concentrate, I need to breathe, I need to really envision this white fluffy cloud, and that I am sitting happily, and joyfully with not a care in the world. And she starts counting backwards from like a thousand… nine hundred and ninety nine, nine hundred ninety eight, and weaves some kind of regression ritual into the
counting backwards, and I need to really focus and concentrate on the white cloud pillow, and I need to notice what it is I’m wearing, she says, starting with the feet up. What do the shoes look like that I am wearing? What century? What century, I think? Bergdorf’s, Twentieth. This is all very confusing to me. I’m not sure how this is supposed to work because I am not seeing myself on a cloud pillow, and I can’t see my feet, but as I breathe in and out, I can smell old newspapers. I open my eyes and call time out, and ask her to please, please help me get onto the pillow. I need your help, I tell her I can’t get up on the pillow by myself – I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a cloud pillow, or be a pillow in the clouds. She is now exhibiting frustration toward me. It’s a pillow, she says, a large white cloud pillow, just like a pillow I would buy at say Bloomingdales in their linen department, except it is up in the clouds. Okay. Okay. Okay. I can imagine shopping at Bloomingdales. I close my eyes and I imagine buying a pillow, a big white fluffy pillow with my credit card, and then I imagine the salesperson putting the pillow in a big Bloomingdales shopping bag, and then …then I imagine sitting on that pillow, and try to imagine being in the clouds on that pillow and to tell you the truth I got so exhausted from trying to envision this whole fucking scenario, I think I might have dozed off. Needless to say just like a Valium high. I was woozy, and giddy. I ‘recalled’ about ten past lives, all very strange and weird; one involved a murder, and another where I was a lyricist living in Ireland where my husband held me prisoner in what looked like an outhouse until I wrote lyrics for him because he told everyone in our small Irish village that he was the lyricist when in fact I was the lyricist. Which made me completely understand my issues with ‘giving away credit, as in my own credibility’ in this lifetime. And in another lifetime I was a man, and possibly gay (of course, perfect sense, look at who I was married to prior); and in another I was about to be guillotined, which explains all the arthritic pain I have in my neck in this lifetime, Weird, whacky and quite amazing stuff. And of course, one cannot, I repeat cannot, have a past life regression without having been someone utterly fabulously famous in the past, so it was I – me – who lived in Versailles, although there is no documented proof that it was I – me – who was in fact Marie Antoinette. This is the past life space I occupied on my white fluffy cloud pillow. And it was while I was “living” in Versailles, minding my own business, staring out one of the gazillion windows onto the perfectly manicured garden slash maze, that I began to hyperventilate – in French no less – because for one brief moment when I was both in the past and in the present – which by the way, is a very weird, strange place to be – I thought, “Holy shit, what if this woman – this regression woman – has a heart attack and dies, and I am stuck, literally, in the past?”

Who would I be? Would I be Marie Antoinette, but be in my present body? Would I start wearing long puffy dresses and wigs, and take the subway to work? Would I have a clue how to get back to the present? Would this become a movie with Michelle Pfeiffer playing me, playing Marie Antoinette? Or maybe, just maybe Robert Zemeckis would sue me for stealing Back to the Future and retelling it from a feminist point of view?

Needless to say, I manage with great difficulty to work through one more past life, this one taking place in the Wild West, where I was working and living in a travelling circus– not unlike the recent HBO show Deadwood – except my entire family, all twelve of them, were all midgets. But not me, I was the ‘normal’ size one.

And for this I paid two hundred and eighty dollars… yes, in cash.