Marrying George Clooney

“Here on our watch we will stand, we will stand for life, we will never forget, we will never give up, and next year we will gather in a day of celebration when we have finally ended abortion in this all important election,” she said. “Join me this year. Choose life.” Michelle Bachman

Choose Life.

Oh, Michelle…Michelle, Michelle….

I choose life everyday.
I do.
I am so Pro-life, as in: I love my life.
Maybe not every single day. some days I wanna crawl into a ball and hide, and stay under the covers, but generally, mostly, pretty consistently, i am pro-life. Fuck yeah! I am all for everyone making their own decisions, their own choices for their own life. I don’t wanna make your decisions for you. I don’t wanna pick out your clothes or shoes for you. If you wanna wear pastel colors and look pasty, hey, that’s your problem. not mine.

let’s talk choices.

many years ago i had an abortion. i actually had two abortions. two that i’ll talk about. share. and on both occasions i sat alone in a waiting room with other young women who had also made bad choices, bad boy choices. and because we had made bad boy choices we were now sitting all alone waiting to terminate our unwanted pregnancies.

let me just, for a second, tell you what that feels like, sitting alone, waiting to be called, to be taken into a room where you’re surrounded by kind strangers, and filled with thoughts of great sadness. great guilt. great shame.

it all begins with wanting someone to love you. that boy over there. the cute one. you want him to notice you, love you, pay attention. good god, you’ll do anything for him. you want him to like you, to love you back. you drink, you smoke, you flirt, you tell him yes yes, please, yes… and then maybe you end up in the back of a car, or in the basement, or in his room, or in the locker room in the gym and you let him have you. take you. you give yourself away. you think if i give him this, he’ll want me, love me, want more of me. you don’t think protection, or safety or disease, or pregnancy. you only think “i want you to love me.” and then you don’t hear from him, he doesn’t call, ever. you sit and wait and he doesn’t call and then you miss your period, and feel sick and think it’s the flu, or a cold, or a stomach virus, and then you feel really sick and start to gain a bit of weight, and he doesn’t notice you, he ignores you, and then you go to your doctor, or some doctor with a friend because you can’t tell your folks, and the doctor does a blood test and some urine test and tells you that your pregnant and you’re 15. maybe 16. and the guy that you liked, wanted, loved doesn’t even care if you’re alive and god knows he’s not going to want you more because you didn’t care enough about yourself to protect yourself, use a condom, tell him “NO, you can not come inside of me,” and you find yourself sitting in a clinic with people who are kind and loving and brush your hair our of your eyes and say, “you’ll be fine, you’ll be fine,” and you want to believe them, and then someone holds your hand and says count backwards from 100 and the next thing you know that same someone is standing over you with a glass of orange juice, lifting your head ever so slightly, and saying, ‘take a sip, a little sip.” and then you get dressed and you feel shame and guilt and empty and lonely and you wish that you liked yourself enough to not have let that boy – the one who doesn’t even know you exist, who doesn’t even say hello to you in the hallways, who doesn’t even look at you out of the corner of his eyes – into your heart and soul and body. and you feel dirty, empty and dirty.

and yes, those were my choices: both the bad boy that i wanted and loved madly who didn’t love me back, not one iota, and the abortion. and that choice that i made, that one, that one saved my life, and that boys life.

and then there’s another choice… there are girls out there who get pregnant and have babies at 14 and 15 and 16 and then a year or two later, they are overwhelmed and unprepared and no longer with that boy, and those young girls, they kill their babies. their child. they murder their babies, because they can’t do it anymore, they can’t do it alone because they’re overwhelmed, and underwater, and life is a burden. life is a heavy hard burden and they’re only 18 years old, and they end up in prison.

and all those lives … all those lives… are ruined, destroyed, no longer.

there a hundreds of thousands of young girls in this country that get pregnant, have babies, and then abandon them, kill them, hurt them.

what kind of choice is that?
where’s the pro-life in that?

My choice was tragic. It was tragic from the get go. I didn’t know at the age of 15 that I could love me, love myself and that would be okay. more than okay. more than enough. i didn’t know that.

But those choices: having a baby, killing a baby – those choices are horrific.

We must teach our girls and our boys to CHOOSE TO LOVE THEIR OWN LIFE.

And that Michelle Bachman is what PRO-LIFE should be about, not this crap about overturning Roe V. Wade, or closing down abortion clinics.

How about:
CHOOSE YOUR OWN LIFE: LOVE IT, AND LIVE IT WELL.

and ps: by the way, here’s one more radical choice: same-sex adoption. i gotta say there isn’t one same sex couple that i know out there (no pun intended) who aren’t the very best parents. oh my god, talk about love and goodness and wanting – really, truly, deeply wanting – a family.

when we first started the kickstarter campaign for Marrying George Clooney, Confessions From A Midlife Crisis (the Play) i wrote a blog, and I shared with everyone my absolute fear of and disdain for asking people, friends, folks for money. oh my god i would have preferred running naked through Shoprite. i can’t even begin to tell you how difficult that was for me. excruciating. i can’t even ask folks who borrowed money from me to give me back the money. i break out in hives and i just wanna hide under the covers.

but it felt like a true blue “face the fear, look in the mouth of the demon, come out of the closet,” moment.
i decided it was time to wear brave, and wear it well. Accessorize and coordinate it with all my other human flaws.

the first day of the campaign was pure magic. something like a thousand dollars was donated. people i didn’t even know threw in 10 dollars, 50 dollars, 1 dollar. it felt so fantastic. and painless. i hardly had to beg.
“oh, my god,” I thought, this is gonna be easy breezy.

Now this is where I absolutely believe that the minute you say out loud, “wow, piece o’ frickin’ cake,” the universe decides to take that arrogance down a couple of notches.

the next few days were pretty dismal in terms of contributions. i wrote a blog, i sent emails, i got down on my hands & knees (which is very painful when you have sciatica), and I prayed and I begged and begged some more. “Please, oh please, oh, please…for god fucking sake, PLEASE….”

I found that begging doesn’t work. It only made me feel more desperate, more unworthy, more shameful. I couldn’t even apply make-up because I couldn’t look myself in the mirror. So, I was pale, and desperate, and i had to raise over 10 grand. And I had a stye. So, I was pale, desperate and had this little red thing on my eyelid which made me look quasi-modo-ish.
i decided to feign the flu, and a fever. maybe if i was sick people would have pity on me and donate.
that did not work.
“oh poor puppy, poor baby, stay home, under the covers, no we can’t donate, have some soup and tea, no we don’t like going on line to donate we don’t want anyone knowing our business oh sweetness have some chicken soup no we only donate big big big money to the arts for underprivileged white children whose parents are imprisoned for ponzi schemes, take some vitamin B and C and K and F and LMNOP.”

okay, so much for those donors & friends. for feigning illness. ken told me i was being punished by the kickstarter gods. as if i didn’t have enough on my plate, now i needed to worry about imaginary gods that collect fees.

10 grand short and the days were ticking away and my asking was filled with huge limitation. personal limitation. fear and doubt and a whole lot of self-confidence waning, and tremendous self-doubt taking up residence.

i prayed some more. well, i didn’t really pray. i looked up to the heavens, and i bartered. I said: Listen if you help me get this money for the play I will take 22 kids bowling and then take them for pizza at Len and Jo’s, and then to Kohl’s.

That didn’t work either, and honestly, i was grateful. 22 kids is a lot of kids and i only have a 5 seater.

So, I wrote another blog, and Laura (Holliman) and I put our heads together and since she is so very gorgeous, i felt rather pretty that day – the day we put our heads together – and we came up with a game plan. Another blog, a few videos, a funny vimeo, and an email blast to all & everyone.

And a few more contributors, donations, backers. A teeny spike.

And then I got wholly discouraged and emailed a friend in the middle of the night and she held my (virtual) hand across the country while i vented, and soothed my battered ego and soul and told me that i must never ever ever give up. ever. and if folks don’t want to contribute or donate that’s okay, focus on the good, the kind. she threw me a virtual kiss and hug and i slept well.

And then folks started donating. Contributing, asking how they can help, and then the kickstarter campaign started showing up on their pages and websites. Day 12, 13, 15…17, 18…19, 20, 23…25, day 30, 31.
and i got good at asking, and Facebooking and posting, and reposting, and my fear about asking for money diminished a teeny bit…

and then i had an epiphany:

this isn’t about money, i thought, this is about a dream. this isn’t about asking folks for money, it’s about asking for support, this isn’t about money, it’s about going all in, going for broke (or abundance as i now like to say!), this isn’t about money, it’s all about faith. in myself. in others. in goodness & kindness & generosity of spirit.

faith.
belief.

i had a dream
a desire.
a goal.
passion.

something i had created that meant the world to me.
and there were 5 other amazing, glorious, brilliant people who joined in on this dream, collaborating – turning it into this play. and the minute i realized that this wasn’t about asking for money, it was all about creating magic, creating and manifesting the impossible, and not taking NO for an answer.

it was all about asking from my heart, my soul and saying:

Hey, I have this incredible dream, and boy oh boy would I love if you could help me, support me, lift me, watch my back, stand by me, beside me, next to me, with me, help me, push me, keep me going, hold my hand, loan me your shoulder, keep the wind on my back …

and that’s when the world literally opened up, the support came in, the friends rose to the occasion in a way that felt so magical, miraculous. stunning. that’s when every and any human being i was ever kind to came to my support. folks i hadn’t seen or heard from in years. strangers on Facebook that were rooting me on, this play on, us on. friends (on Facebook) i had never met, but who’ve been my lifeblood, my greatest champions for 2 years.

Farm animals from Farmville came out of their virtual recluse-ment to help out.

it started out about asking for money, a fear that ran so deep, it ran right down to my achilles heel; and just like all wonderful fairy tales, and magical experiences, and sweet miracles – it was really truly deeply about fulfilling a dream, bringing a beautiful, funny, extraordinary piece of work to fruition.

it was about believing.
the belief and faith and hope that if i could fulfill this dream of bringing this play to life, that i would encourage and inspire every single human being to fulfill theirs; to inspire them to be bold and audacious, to be oh so brave.

It’s was all about kickstarting my life.

And really, how fucking cool is that?

(and yes, yes… we raised all the funds, plus some!!!!!)

Dear George,
I know it’s been a while since I’ve reached out. Called. Wrote. Got in touch.
I’m hoping you’re not sitting by your iPhone waiting for that special ringtone, the Amy ringtone, the one with me giggling with excitement. Actually, truthfully… a confession…I was never fond of that ringtone, George. I much prefer the more mature ringtone … but you always liked the younger, perkier, BLONDER ringtone.
No wonder we never really deeply connected.
Okay, enough bitterness.
I forgive you.

I have a favor, a request, and yes, George, good God, yes, I will beg. I will get down on my hands and knees.
But just this once, I have sciatic problems, which flare-up when I beg.
Here goes:

On February 29th our play, MARRYING GEORGE CLOONEY, CONFESSIONS FROM A MIDLIFE CRISIS, opens at Cap21 Theater Company (18 West 18th Street, New York City, New York) and runs through the entire month of March. Frank Ventura is directing. Frank is fabulous It’s a wonderful, funny, laugh-out-loud, poignant play, and I am one of the co-authors along with Krista Lyons, and Ken Ferris! And we have Eliza Ventura (what a babe, and gorgeous!!!!) and Colleen Zenk (double babe!!!!) Really. It’s about midlife, menopause, Ambien, googling old boyfriends, siblings, mothers & daughters, forgiveness, social networking. You name it. And it all takes place in cyberspace in the middle of the night.

Three women sharing, confessing everything from googling old boyfriends, to fantasizing about you …at 3 AM!

And, that’s where you come in!
Do you know what February 29th is?
It’s Sadie Hawkins Day (and no, George, Sadie Hawkins is NOT a gospel group). It’s the one day – the one wholly, complete day – that a woman gets to ask a man to marry her.
It’s that day.
Leap fucking year!
It happens once every four years.
Talk about timing, huh?
So, whatdya say, George, please, come to New York City … come to the play.
I’m not gonna ask you to marry me… I already have my Mr. Wonderful … but I am gonna ask you to give theater-goers the thrill of their lifetime.

You can’t say no to that.
You’re George Clooney.

You’re kind, and good, and philanthropic, and a great humanitarian, and you’re rooting for older women to work in theater and film and television (i read that on Huffington post!!!) and we are those women – we are – the very women over 40… who are awake in the middle of the night who are wishing, hoping, praying – getting down on their knees – that one day you’ll slide up next to them at the local bar and say: “Hey, you’re cute, can I have your number?”

So., come on, George, make this girl very happy and say yes to Marrying George Clooney.

All my love,
Amy

marrying george clooney, the play, KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN

you make me swoon.
you make me count my blessings.
you make me feel like i swallowed the sun.
you make me feel so proud of myself.
you make me want to be kinder, better, bigger, more.
you make me wish and pray for goodness as soon as i open my eyes.
you make me stop, and smell the roses, or coffee, depending on the time of day & year.
you make me say please and thank you.
you make me realize that nothing beats love.
you make me stop and think, and then speak.
you make my world better.
you make me appreciate the mistakes i’ve made because they got me here.
you make me treasure all our differences.
you make me believe that nothing is impossible.
you make me listen.
you make me look in your eyes.
you make me see the beauty in the world.

YOU make me feel so good and happy and joyous.

YOU … are ALL my friends.
YOU support me and love me, and root me on.
YOU are right there cheering, hoping, clapping…and wishing me well.
Every.
Single.
Day.

YOU ARE PURE MAGIC.
ALL OF YOU.
and i love YOU all.

my friends.
i thank YOU all!

ken is about to turn 71.
good news.
bad news.
the good news is that he’s here, (actually, right now, this very minute cuddled up next to me) turning 71, loving his life, enjoying every second. he’s so very good at that. he loves his life.
the bad news is that for me, he’s turning 71.
and that scares the shit out of me.
scares me so very much.
i know, i know … 70 is the new 50, the new sexy, the new levi’s, the new iPad, the new GE, the new gloria gaynor disco hit.
i know.
it’s not as old as it used to be, it’s all in the attitude, it’s just a number… i get it. I GET IT. i do.
but actually, truthfully, i don’t get it.
i’m trying desperately to get it.
i’m trying to embrace it, go with it. be joyous.
like the other day when he backed into a parked car, he didn’t look where he was going. i said, “honey, baby, uh oh whatdya think?” he said, “blindspot.” I immediately went straight to, thought blindspot? bullshit…dementia.
and when he forgot to close and lock the front door, i said, “hey moo-moo, you left the door open.” he said, “hey, shit happens.” i immediately thought huh, shit happens… incontinence. Incontinence happens.
and when the knob on the clothes dryer got all fucked up, and it stopped working and he decided a good way to attack this problem, was, well, to attack the problem with a screwdriver. i said, “baby-doll, why’d you attack the dryer knob with a screwdriver?” he said, “you know, uh, i was, uh, stoned.” huh, i thought, stoned.
memory loss.
uh oh, i thought, assisted living.
and so, these little things, small things, these new small things, the new 70 is just a number small things, scare me.
they do.
and talking about it helps me.
writing about it.
sharing it.
spilling it.
because, when i get scared, i retreat.
and when i retreat, i go to my room,
and when i go to my room, i go deep inside my head.
and when i’m deep inside my head the chatter is about dementia, and alzheimer’s, and incontinence, and i envision wheel chairs and ramps, and dribbling and more incontinence, and then i think, oh my god… oh my frickin’ god, my future is HERE, HOLY SHIT, I AM HERE NOW.
NOW.

and I gotta be honest, being in the NOW, living in THIS MOMENT is virtually impossible for me. i can recall being in the NOW once in my entire life and that had to do with a pap smear.

but, new year, new me… i don’t wanna retreat. i wanna be present. so, i leave my room, and all that nasty bad chatter behind, and i walk into the living room where ken is cozy: sitting in front of a lovely fire, reading the NY Times and I look at him and he looks at me, and i look at him… and i slide in, cuddle up, right next to him on the couch, and he laughs.
a gorgeous, hearty, sexy laugh. a ken laugh.
and in that moment, the NOW moment, what i’m scared of … is losing ken. this ken. my ken.

my iKen.

okay, so this was a first.

ken & i have been married 20 years, almost 20 years, and to be totally honest, new years eve was never a big sort of let’s close the door on this fucking year… kind of night. always lovely, but not a ritual.

but this year – 2012 – this year felt like it needed more than champagne. it needed honor, ritual. it needed to be treated as NEW and HOPEFUL.

i tell ken that we’re gonna do a whole spiritual cleansing ritual, a whole ‘we’re gonna write down everything we wanna get rid of, let go of … and we’re gonna pray, and chant and close our eyes and make wishes, and toss it all into the fireplace, and we’re gonna end 2011 in a big wonderful puff of smoke.’ i tell him we’re gonna expiate the crap, and we’re gonna watch it go up and out in flames, and we’re gonna cleanse ourselves of all the old…and bring in the new.”

big and shiny and new, just like the ‘love boat,’ i tell him.

for those of you who know ken, know this is not something he would want to do. it’s not his thing to smudge, or cleanse or walk around the house with incense calling upon all the buddhist gods and deities and angels and any and all dead relatives who could possibly, hopefully watch over us, bless us, keep us safe and happy. first of all, to get him to even own up to the fact that there is anything he wants to get rid of – with the exception of hemorrhoids – is very, very difficult. ken is content, happy, joyous, easy to please and feels fine about all and every personal flaw (no matter how irritating). i, on the other hand, drag my shit, along with my emotions, through the mud and then recycle it. over and over and over and over again. but i was determined, armed… ready to smudge, i was ready to write down everything i no longer wanted, needed, or could fit into. it was time to toss, release, expiate. time to de-clutter my emotional life.

and these are the words i write down, each thoughtfully & carefully handwritten on little teeny individual pieces of paper:

jealousy
anger
self-loathing
impatience
judgmental
critical
worrying
weight gain

what i wanted to rid from my life – everything from anger to weight gain – and was ready to let go of. toss. start anew.

i told ken i wanted to read each word out loud, share them with him; and then he could write down his words, and share them with me, and then together we could stand in front of the fireplace; ignite and toss the whole batch of teeny pieces of paper, and then kiss and make-out. he said, and i’m quoting, “i don’t like this game, can we play something else?” i told him that was the very first thing he needed to rid himself of, “to stop being so childish.” he didn’t agree, he didn’t want to get rid of that. after much deliberation he chose one thing, a habit. doing the laundry. i told him maybe he should give up marijuana if he was looking for a habit to toss.
he became petulant, he said he couldn’t come up with anything he wanted to toss, throw in the fire, get rid of.
i told him i would come up with some words, habits for him.
i came up with: complaining, self-indulgence, child-like behavior, farting in public, and throwing pity-parties once a week.
he said, and i’m quoting, “i’m not giving up farting in public, that’s impossible.”
i told him it was too late, it was already written in proverbial stone.

we stood in front of our fireplace – i made ken close his eyes and make a wish – and then we watched all the little teeny pieces of papers burn and disappear and turn into ash… all the words and phrases and habits go up in smoke.

i immediately, IMMEDIATELY, felt lighter, better, shiny & new, and cleansed. i felt so full of hope and joy and excitement.
i was ready for 2012.
i put on my little black sheath, a little mascara, some lipgloss, and was ready to bring in the new year.

I WAS READY TO PARTY.

ken sat down on the couch, and out of the corner of my eye i could see him scribbling on a piece of paper. he got up, walked over to me, and said: “this is what I never want to get rid of, never want to be without, not for one moment.”
and on that piece of paper was one word:

YOU

(like that’s gonna cancel out the farting in public…)

ps: a little january 2nd post-coital add: ken tells me he’s been thinking about the whole cleansing process, starting each day fresh, new… and the stuff that he doesn’t like about himself, stuff that holds him back, that keeps him small… he tells me today that he doesn’t like that he’s so righteous, and that he wants to toss ‘that word’ in the fireplace.

another word goes POUFFFF.
ken feels big & bold & sexy.
and he looks sexy (er).
we make-out.

i like this ritual.