Marrying George Clooney

SHA-SHA-SHA-SHAME

(Here’s Amy)
Okay, so Hollye and I had our Monday morning with Hollye & Amy talk. Sort of like Tuesdays with Morrie, but … not. And, as usual, we caught up with life and each other and … talked about shame. Our shame, our Shame Prom facebook page, and our hot off the presses spanking new gorgeous website, and our anthology – THE SHAME PROM. Holy Batwoman! And we realized, found that we – Hollye & I – are somewhat ashamed that we’re not getting enough traction and “likes” on our Shame Prom Facebook page. People are not lining up to watch our fabulously funny shame out-takes and videos on YouTube, folks are not lining up to like us. Luckily, I was still in bed, and could creep & crawl under the covers. I mean, here we are, two amazing women with unbelievable accomplishments not to mention husbands and friends, and we’re trying to understand why folks are having an allergic reaction to our brilliant and LIFE CHANGING movement – the SHAME PROM movement. And then it happened, Hollye said five magical words: DANCING AT THE SHAME PROM… and in that moment, I pushed the covers off of me (okay, more figuratively than literally) and I smiled and I said to Hollye, God, that’s brilliant. It feels so happy, celebratory. It feels less sad. Less tragic. And of course Hollye made it even sound sexy, and no longer scary. The thing is (and I will let Hollye continue this thought, idea, realization… epiphany) we want everyone to celebrate their shameful experiences. The one’s that make us cringe. Crawl into a ball. Hide under the covers. Change our phone numbers. We want to share our stories, release the gunk, prove we’re not alone in doing silly, stupid, hurtful, painful, and unbearable things. We want to open the doors – literally – and dance to the beat of our own – and others – bravery and courage.
We’re finding SHAME has a very bad reputation, not to mention a really bad rap.
We want to change that.

Okay, here’s Hollye …

Yep. We discovered that although we rejoice in the releasing of it, most people are repelled by the word “Shame”. They don’t want to “Like” it, or watch You Tube videos about it, and GOOD GOD NO they don’t want to talk about it. The word alone carries a negative connotation. When someone said “Shame on you” it meant you were a BAD person who had done a BAD thing. Most of us have come to a point in our lives where we feel we are done with that bullshit. I know I am.

But shame is sneaky.

It hid itself in the corners of my psyche, in the stories I didn’t tell. It lodged itself in my heart in the moment that I let someone else define me, or control me, or belittle me. It hung over me like a sad umbrella, keeping the sun away. And until I learned how to find it, it was keeping me small. Very small.
Our objective with this anthology is to RELEASE it, to sweep it out of the corners and shoo it away, and we want you to join us! We want to connect with you and share this glorious feeling. But there’s that problem…that icky word.
Okay so how about we don’t call it shame. Let’s call it “blurg”.
I felt blurg in my childhood because my father was in prison, and because of things people did to me, and because I thought I was a mistake and didn’t belong anywhere.
I felt it as a young woman when I betrayed myself trying to gain someone else’s love, or when I shared my body with someone who did not value me.
So I wrote a book and got it all out and it changed me. And although I’ve more or less healed myself of the past shame, er, I mean, BLURG, it still creeps up on me. I start to feel it when I chide myself for gaining five pounds, when I see the age in my face that society tells me is not acceptable, when I’m the only one at the dinner party who doesn’t get the intellectual reference because I’m a college dropout.
Yes, I feel BLURG.
Oh, that’s ridiculous. Let’s call it what it is – it’s SHAME. A universal emotion, just like fear, love, jealousy, desire. It’s what makes us human. It’s what binds us. Connects us. Lifts us. Spurs us into action.

Here’s Amy & Hollye

The Shame Prom was conceived and born out of courage, passion, compassion, joy, and self-awareness. It’s not a place for wallowing in self-pity, or sorrow. Well, you can wallow for just a little bit, but we’re grabbing your hand, and we’re taking you out onto the dance floor, and we’re not letting BLURG hold any of us back any more.
Care to dance with us?

*start small…tell us a tiny little story that you never tell. post it anonymously if you like. Go on…get it out. you’ll feel better.

i am the 51%.
stop degrading me. air-brushing me. selling me short. I AM VIBRANT AND I CAN STAND ON MY OWN.
i am the 51%.
stop violating me. humiliating me. hurting me. I AM STRONG AND POWERFUL.
i am the 51%.
stop making me believe that i’m not enough, not good enough, not worthy enough. I AM MORE THAN ENOUGH.
i am the 51%.
stop treating me like i’m stupid, dumb, faulty and unattractive because i wear a little bit more weight. I CAN CARRY MY OWN WEIGHT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
i am the 51%.
stop offending me with the wrong images and sexism and demeaning role models. I AM A GODDESS.
i am the 51%.
stop refusing me equal pay and equal time. I DESERVE AND WANT EQUAL RIGHTS.
i am the 51%.
stop silencing my voice, my stand, my reason, my cause. I AM PASSIONATE, AND BRILLIANT, AND CLEVER, AND YOU NEED TO HEAR WHAT I HAVE TO SAY.
i am the 51%.
stop asking me to get up from the table, and stand in the back of the line. I WILL NOT GIVE UP MY SEAT FOR YOU, AND I WILL NOT GIVE UP.
i am the 51%.
stop shrinking me, altering me, and tightening my face to sell me. I AM PERFECT AND MAGNIFICENT JUST AS I AM.
i am the 51%.
stop limiting my opportunities, and cutting back my pay. I AM INVALUABLE, AND PRICELESS.
i am the 51%.
stop treating me like an object. a sexual toy, a punching bag, a victim, a selling point, a video game. stop sexualizing me, and minimizing me.

I LOVE ME.

i am the 51%.
i win.

This is my story then.

It happened very quickly.
He pinned me up against the wall, his hands choking me.

I don’t talk about it much, but I will now. It happened long ago. Over twenty five years now. To be bluntly honest, I knew the minute I met him he was not right for me. I knew it. I felt it in my solar plexus – the core of my being, as my acupuncturist would say. Dead smack center. I knew it. And I didn’t pay attention. I didn’t pay attention to a lot of things back then, mostly my own inner voice that often and reliably spoke the truth to me, “HE is not right for you,” my inner voice said on more than one occasion. I didn’t listen.

We were together for almost five years.

He, like myself, was a writer. Writers, incase most of you don’t know go under the category of freelance. Which means in part that it’s not a very stable or reliable source of either income or confidence. Back then, twenty five some odd years ago, we – he and I – were trying to break into the film business. And the film business is a very competitive and heart breaking business. It’s heart breaking even if you’re successful. We wrote screenplays — sold a few, became moderately successful, as in: people knew who we were and hired us. We were known as script doctors. A term that is somewhat deceptive. Although, in the Jewish community, it gave my mother a bit more clout when she spoke of the work I was doing. “A doctor.”

The thing was, when we weren’t working, he felt completely powerless. He became belligerent, mean, and moody. He was a malcontent — moping, and stewing, and spewing. I would come home and find him reclining in his own misery – sitting in the dark. And while we had great flurries of work, we also had months on end when nothing seemed to generate. I knew this going into the film business. What I didn’t know was how brutal it can be on the ego, particularly, an ego that is fragile at best. Someone once told me that the film business teaches you how to love yourself. What it doesn’t teach you is how to love someone else.

“He is not right for you.” My inner voice would say, loud and clear. I ignored it. I heard it, but I paid no attention. I believed with every fiber in my being that I could change him. If I were just a bit kinder, nicer, sweeter, more generous, more understanding – he would stop being so unhappy. I could save him from his misery.

It began with yelling and screaming. Escalating into the breaking of things and walking out, being gone for hours on end. I of course would scream back and often be the first to slam the door. Out of guilt, I would return, apologizing for…my bad behavior. I would call my friends, and they would encourage me that it wasn’t my fault. I made a ton of excuses for him: he’s not working, he’s unhappy, he’s trying to find himself, oh, you know, Hollywood can be so cruel, etc., etc., etc., etc.

As I look back on that time, what I really see is a girl with very little self-esteem. Someone desperately wanting to be loved, someone not quite sure of her place in the world, or where she belonged; someone who believed that others had more power or control. I see a young girl who never really believed that she deserved to be happy, whose choice in men mirrored her
lack of self-confidence and reinstated that misguided belief system over and over and over again.

And then I hit a comfort zone – where familiarity absolutely breeds contempt.

A place, as my friend Emi once reminded me, that at best, was mediocre. “You’re accepting crumbs.” Emi said.

It happened very quickly.
He pinned me against the wall, his hands choking me.
It felt like an eternity.

I managed to gather enough saliva and spit in his face. He slapped me hard. I pushed myself away from the wall. I looked into his eyes; they were dull and flat and hateful. There was a loud exchange of words, and he came after me again. I held my hand up and screamed, “If you touch me one more time…”

Just as I don’t exactly recall what it was that made him lunge after me, I don’t recall what it was that stopped him dead in his tracks. Maybe he saw himself in the full-length mirror leaning up against the wall that he had pinned me to. I grabbed a bunch of clothes, throwing everything into one suitcase, along with some very personal items, and left.

I got into my car, and drove away. I never once looked in the rearview mirror.

I drove straight to a friend’s house. A friend he didn’t know – my friend, not our friend. I had black and blue bruises that went all around my neck right down to my clavicle. Cell phones were not popular back then, so he had no way of finding me, or getting in touch. I called my parents and told them that we had broken up. I didn’t mention the abuse. My father gently reminded me that he was not very fond of this guy from the get go. I asked them to not tell him where I was. I stayed with my friend for a few weeks. I tried covering the bruises with make-up, but it couldn’t cover up my shame. I was filled with unbelievable shame. The kind that makes you want to stay in bed and hide from the world.

His father had abused his mother. His grandfather had abused his grandmother. His brothers, all four of them, abused their girlfriends and wives.

We watch, we learn. We repeat patterns.

I had no desire to return to him. I walked out of that relationship a bruised, scared, shameful girl and emerged (through great support, love, nurturing and time) a brave, fearless, courageous woman. What I know now is that it took a horrible, poisonous experience – being abused and mistreated – to uncover my truth: the power, the beauty, and the unlimited potential of who I was truly meant to be.

“Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me a truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”
- Indian Proverb

My story.

Please, share yours.
You can save a life today.

why is it we have such a hard time giving up the pleasing others, and the saying yes when we really truly wanna say no. why is it so hard to replenish ourselves.
fill ourselves up.
take care of ourselves.

well, today … and if only for today … this is my suggestion:

have an affair with yourself.
go on.

take yourself to lunch. or dinner. for a glass of wine. toast yourself. tell yourself a joke and laugh out-loud.
take yourself to a movie and eat all the popcorn and twizzlers. then eat a TUMS.
watch the dreck on TV that you always wanna watch but someone always says, ‘oh, man, that’s stupid.’
give yourself a break. seriously. stop talking bad about you. now. stop talking and thinking bad about yourself.
buy yourself a trinket. something small. but significant. meaningful. and when you give it to yourself, say, “i really love you.”
play the pointer sisters CD, and JUMP. dance. sing along. on key, off key. be sexy. dance! dance! dance! with or without clothes. let it rip.
take out your make-up kit and curl your lashes. and then … bat those eyelashes right back at you.
go for a walk and hold your hands.

buy yourself a bouquet of flowers and write on the card: YOU MAKE ME SWOON.

call yourself on your cell phone from your landline and when you answer your cell, say: YOU ARE GORGEOUS AND SEXY AND FUNNY AND TALENTED AND I LOVE YOU. (and don’t hang up on yourself!)

and last but not least, at the end of this date/affair (and it’s your choice if you want to have sex on a first date) remember to hold yourself and whisper: thank you.

(FOR DEB DeANGELO WITH GRAND, GRAND LOVE)

Imagine this scenario if you will: you’re in the Holland or Lincoln Tunnel, all of a sudden, without a warning, all the lights go out, including all the headlights on all the cars. You’re stuck. There’s no going forward; there’s no going backwards. Complete and utter darkness. And you know in your soul that others are going through the exact same thing – but no one, not one person gets out of their car. Doors are locked. Windows are rolled up. Seatbelts are tightened. Every one just sits, looking straight ahead – waiting, waiting, waiting.
For. A. Light.
To. Flicker.
At. The. End.
Of. The. Tunnel.

Welcome to menopause.
Exit 36 B on the highway called Life.

Perhaps this is a good time for me to rattle off some of the symptoms of my personal menopausal journey. This journey; by the way, began with one step. While I don’t consider myself ‘an exercise type o’ gal,’ I have been fucking spinning almost nonstop for the past few years. I have been depressed, anxious, forgetful, lost in a fog, angry, and resentful, with an emphasis on ‘angry’. I have been filled with tremendous hope, and in the next unexpected moment, filled with the exact amount of despair. I have cried uncontrollably from my gut, and I have laughed from the depths of my soul. I have felt like throwing my life away, as in literally jumping off a bridge. I have witnessed my body grow one full size while sleeping soundly; and just like Play-Doh, I have been able to pull and form my new love handles into the same animal like shapes that I was once able to create out of balloons. I could continue, but I think you get the idea.

In the midst of this fresh hell, I decided to quit smoking. I’m not sure if it was an act of courage or just simply self-destructive behavior. After 32 years of smoking, I wanted to stop filling my lungs with tar and nicotine, even though, simultaneously, I was looking for that perfect bridge. For whatever reason, the ‘clean panty theory’ played over in my mind. I could actually hear my mother (and I believe all mothers) saying, “Don’t forget to wear clean panties incase you get into an accident. You may need to be rushed to the hospital.” I simply substituted ‘clean panties’ with ‘clean lungs.’ Dare anyone find me with dirty lungs after I took the plunge off a bridge.

So, I quit smoking. Much to my husband’s grand delight, not to mention my friends and family, I decided to divorce the one constant that kept me from experiencing my feelings fully. Every time I would feel anxious, sad, depressed, nervous, bitter, resentful, fearful, and hopeless, I would light up – and almost instantaneously, those feelings would dissolve. Well, actually, in truth they didn’t dissolve – they were simply pushed down to the sub-terrain level of suppression where they had lived and thrived for my entire adult life. Oh, were they in for a treat, they were about to experience sunlight for the first time.

So, not only were my hormones doing a ferocious nut-dance – now my suppressed, discarded feelings were vying for attention.

This is the point in the story I get to introduce my husband. Please raise your hand if any of you have turned into the devil doll on a dime. You know what I’m talking about – that moment when your husband (or wife, or partner) says or does something trivial, innocuous, a casual throw-a-way and without a moments hesitation you respond by burning a hole in their heart with your tongue. And it’s all down hill from there. The only word that comes to mind to describe my behavior is vile. The only word to describe my husband’s reaction is stunned. Although I have a feeling that a psychiatrist (not even necessarily a good one) would say that he was scared to death of my irrational and unpredictable behavior and staying as far away from me as humanly possible.

Along with herbs – black cohosh, peony, passionflower, and a dab of progesterone cream twice a day, I decided to go back to weekly acupuncture treatments. My acupuncturist said, and I’m quoting, “I feel a deep seismic shift occurring inside of you, Amy.”

Uh huh. So in other words a 10.5 right on the fault line.

Most everyone who knows me knows I am a Buddhist for over 38 years. One of the exquisite tenets of Buddhism is embracing and honoring the ‘whole’ of our lives. Not just bits and pieces, not just ‘the good’ or the ‘nice’ but every inch – head to toe. Buddhism also encourages and teaches that one can find – through inner resolve – the enlightened side to anything.

Along with weight gain and mental anguish, insomnia is yet another ‘side dish’ accompanying menopause. So, late one night while unable to sleep and tossing a coin – heads, Ambien, tails, Ambien – it occurred to me that it was time for me to put into practice what I deeply believe. To a) truly embrace and love every single part of me. Not just the good and kind and generous, but the bad and unattractive and mentally unstable. And b) find the enlightened side. Just because my mother couldn’t deal with my feelings, wanting me to ignore them, suppress them, HIDE THEM, it was my obligation and responsibility to acknowledge and hold dear the privilege of my very own life.

Every single woman I know, without exception, has or will experience some deep inner turmoil or upheaval because of menopause. It is a part of being a woman. Period. I have known women of great equilibrium to wobble horrifically because they were in the process of dealing with this huge change of life. The good news: most women credit this hell as the single most profound experience, which has enabled them to uncover their own greatness. I can definitely embrace that.

And here’s the enlightened side:
Menopause is just like couture fashion. Some of it is just really fucking ugly.

last night i had a run in with a woman i’ve known for a long time. full disclosure: she & i are not friends. we’re neighbors. not close neighbors. you know, hello… goodbye, have a nice day … neighbors. i’ve always known her to be a strong willed woman. in a good sense.
but last night, at a political function/fundraiser which i was invited to speak, she approached me and after our pleasantries, asked me to not use the word ‘feminist’ while campaigning for a woman. she finds the word offensive, and oppressive and inoppropriate. “it will turn people off and away if you use that word…” she actually asked me to make her a promise to NEVER use that word. i boldly rejected her request: that’s like asking a person of color to not wear their color.
women have come a long way. we have. we’ve come far. but i also think many women stand in their own way. we are – at times – our own worst enemy. pushy and nasty and righteous.
the thing is, i never used the word feminist in my speech last night. i said that those who know me know i am left of center, a woman who speaks her mind, and someone who will stand up for what she believes even if it’s not popular. i talked about the power and greatness of good women. and this is why i was supporting pam.
period.
end of story.
the word FEMINIST never left my mouth.
however, in this later conversation, while drinking wine and eating cheese, i mentioned how i was deeply proud of being a woman of strength, with a feminist point of view.
uh oh.
holy shit.
you would have thought i said to her, ala the exorcist, “your mother sucks cock in hell….”

which brings me to this.
why is it that women are so offended when other women stand tall. stand up, speak up. why is it so difficult to honor and appreciate our differences, our individual journeys, our paths, our beliefs. why slap someone for their choices? is it only and all about god? about sex? about godless sex? is it that some religious women, (some) church going women, actually equate power with god and therefore being a feminist is equated with no god. no spirituality? or perhaps god forbid a feminist is a woman who loves god, but also loves other women.

i don’t get the fear. i don’t get the anger. i don’t get the hate. i don’t get the censorship.

would i ever ask a woman wearing a diamond or gold cross necklace to remove the cross necklace because as a buddhist i don’t have the same taste in jewelry?

fuck no.

it all boils down to one thing: plain old feminist-fearing.

don’t you love being a goddess?

stay hungry, stay foolish.
steve jobs loved that motto.
he said so at his stanford commencement speech back in 2005.

i dreamed the other night that steve jobs died.
i didn’t know him.
i had never slept with him.
i never met him.
i knew he was very, very, very sick.

but still, it was a premonition.

i woke up and knew he was going to die.

weird.
sometimes i have those kind of premonitions.
i should pay more attention.

dreams. dreaming.
dreaming big.
huge.

steve jobs was a big huge dreamer. he went for broke. he followed his gut, his intuition and didn’t much sway from his own heart and soul. he changed the world, our world. his was not an ordinary path. he was adopted. he dropped out of college, and when he came to blows with john sculley, he went out and started PIXAR. not too shabby. and then he returned to APPLE, and well, everything “tech” changed.

i’m never, in a million frickin’ years, gonna be a tech genius, for god sake, i can barely figure out downloading and attaching photos – but BUT the whole notion of following your heart, believing in yourself, going for broke … now that’s something i can stand behind, in complete solidarity.

i am a firm believer that one human being can change the destiny of a nation.
one human being has the power to transform hearts and souls.
one human being can make life easier and better for many, if not all.
one human being can be brave enough to listen to their own heart… follow their intuition…

i frickin’ love what he said to john sculley – who he was luring to APPLE to be it’s CEO from Pepsi-Cola:
“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?”

RIP steve jobs, thanks for taking a bite out of the apple.