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.

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!!!!!)

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 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!

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.

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.

peace. (of mind. of heart. of home.)

harmony. within. without.

joy. everywhere.

abundance (emotionally, physically, financially.)

creativity. happiness. fulfillment.

friendship. companionship. partnership. a shoulder. a hand. a box of kleenex. a good laugh. a good cry. a common thread.

wishing you what you wish for yourself. good health. good friends. warmth. work. equality. stability. serenity.

good will – GREAT WILL – toward all men & women, boys & girls… & pets.

i wish you romance, music, magic, MIRACLES, hopes, and dreams. BIG DREAMS. HUGE DREAMS.

MERRY!!!!!!!

HAPPY!!!!!

xoxox

let me take you on my 3 AM middle-of-the-night-fiasco-excursion journey.
it all started with a pain shooting straight down from the top of my neck, down to the pelvic, and then back up again. i thought, hmmm… “could be MS” or “could be, maybe, possibly fibromyalgia,” or could be another disease i don’t know how to pronounce. and of course, of course… could be nothing. but that’s not me, that’s not where i go. i go straight to bad.

it was sharp, it was weird, and it gave me that ever so thrilling opportunity to google: NECK PAIN SHOOTING DOWN NECK TO PELVIC AREA AND BACK UP TO ARM. for the first time i realize that even google can get a bit baffled, confused, so i limit the words: “nerve pain neck shoulder arm” and after scrolling a bit more, i come to a website and they recommend an anti-inflammatory analgesic cream that is in my drawer. the tube is in my drawer. i am ecstatic. i have the remedy. wow. and with that excitement, i get up out of bed, and squeeze open the tube, and i rub a “quarter size” dollop (which they recommend on the website), and i rub it all over my neck shoulder area in an “even coat.” and then i wash my hands thoroughly (they recommend that!) and from the time it took to wash my hands, dry my hands, get back into bed … my skin was sizzling like a cheap piece of steak on a george foreman grill. i was literally burning to a fucking crisp. i grab the analgesic cream and there, right there on the label it reads in BOLD: “if you experience a penetrating burning sensation for longer than a minute, please, read the box it came in.” OMFGWTF????? i have news for you, that box, along with a gazillion other boxes, is probably in a landfill somewhere turning into chicken parts. the heat, the burning – coming off my neck and shoulder – is unbearable. i decide the best thing to do is jump into the shower – fully clothed. I take a freezing COLD shower – shivering, shaking, lips turning blue – nada. nothing. i rip off my wet pajamas and throw on a tee shirt and sweat pants and proceed to machete and bludgeon our “one and only” aloe plant – squeezing the last bits of aloe juice out of it. i rub that it onto my blistered skin and when that doesn’t work – when that doesn’t produce an aloe vera miracle, i do what i swore i wouldn’t do, i wake ken (yet) one more time from a deep, happy, joyful, content sleep.
my ken, my sweet ken, wearing his eye-mask and ear plugs, blocking out any and all light, and all noise.
ken, who is in a deep joyous sleep.
i wake him.
i shake him.
he flips up his mask, looks at me and says, “hey, what’s up? i was sleepin’.”
“yeah, well, i’m a burn victim and i need you to hose me down.”
hose you down?
well, isn’t that what they say at the fire house, hose me down?
i wouldn’t know amy. I was in the film business, we only get burned psychologically and creatively.
ken, please, please… get up, i need you to hose me down. i am on fire.
now i just wanna say, i believe there was a slight twinkle in his eyes when i said i was on fire… ken is filled with great hope.
okay…
short of pushing him, i make him get out of bed, he thinks fast on his feet, heads for the kitchen, and comes back with what looks like a dickey soaked in milk.
ughhhhhhhh.
wear it, he says, wear it around your neck.
wear it, i ask?
yeah, it’ll get the burn out, the sting out.
how long do i wear it?
until it curdles.
wow.
until it curdles.
and with that, he hands me a bag of frozen shrimp, and says, ‘you’re gonna need an ice pack.’
shrimp? i ask. where’s our ice pack? the nice blue one, the one I got a rite aid? I like that ice pack.
i don’t know where it is. i’m going back to bed.
and that was it.

so…

at a little past 4:00 in the morning, i am wearing a milk dickey around my neck – the milk dripping from the paper towel onto… yes, the bag of quick thawing frozen shrimp (the 26 to 40 jumbo shrimp pack) which is right there on my shoulder and chest where the aloe is getting all gooey, and sticky, and sticks to everything. everything.

the milk is curdling.
the shrimp is thawing.
the aloe is sticking.

i have become a bad, bad mexican meal.
and you know, a bad mexican meals never, ever gets the guy, never. ever. especially in the morning, like say, around 8:30 AM.

“oh my god, amy, what’s that smell, it’s coming from you?”

“i’m a taco, ken.”

I HAVE BECOME MY MOTHER.

I have.
It happened fast and furious.
I went to bed me, and I woke up her.
There are things about my mother, that yes, i liked.
I liked her humor, her sexiness, her laugh. Her shoes. The way she wore make-up, the way she dressed, her style. Man, did she have style.
And yes, I know, I KNOW… good god, I know, those are all superficial qualities.

But the things about my mother that I didn’t like, that scared me, that made me cringe, that made me wanna crawl into a ball and roll down a hill… that made me pray and chant, light candles and smudge incense that she become, turn into… emma goldman or better yet… bella abzug. or, at the very least, elizabeth montgomery.

Those things.

Her moods, her impatience, her righteousness, her lack of compassion especially toward her husband, her lip-liner not matching her lipstick, her harboring resentment, her wearing arrogance as if it were an accessory, her mix-matched emotions, her fears and doubts and worries, her tears and laughter (both like floods), her shame and guilt, her personal “i am so much fucking better than you” high holy days, her silence.

these are qualities that i see now. in me.
ken points them out. “oh, look who’s here, bea…”
he does, he says it with both a little tilted smile and great, great fear.
as in: “hey look who’s here, but… let’s not invite her in.”

but the real clincher for me, the moment that sealed it, when i knew, when i saw it with my own two eyes:
ken and I were having words yesterday over something so minor, so small, that yes, of course, i had to turn a molehill into a fucking massive mountain. i had to. i took something small, trivial and went right for the heart, and i witnessed my two calm sweet playful cats look at each other as only cats can do, and they both got up off the floor in perfect unison, and they went into the closet, where they hid, huddled together. And when i found them, curled up, holding onto each other with dear life … their fur standing up on end, they looked at me with their big cat eyes… that, “please don’t come closer” look in their eyes.

and honest to god, in that moment i saw me as a little girl… the sacred little girl cowering. and instead of going into the closet and getting on all fours… i did something my mother would have never ever done ever.

i let them be.
and i waited and waited and waited… and waited…
… for them to forgive me on their time.

(which ironically coincided with dinner and treats)

and once again i am reminded that change begins with one tiny little step in a different direction.

my mother, my teacher.

Please raise your hand if you have ever had a fantasy of marrying George Clooney.

I have taken a poll among my many curiously deranged, off-balance girlfriends who very often find themselves dancing, or in some cases, swaying, to the beat of their own iPod in the middle of the night.

Each one, honest to god, has a similar fantasy. Mine goes like this.

Tossing and turning, more tossing and … turning, more tossing and turning.

You slip out of bed, and find yourself standing in front of the bathroom vanity mirror: the puffy droopy eyelids, along with the ever-so-slightly sag in the jowls – and you understand on a cellular level how Faye Dunaway was able to turn herself into a radioactive trout. First it was the eyes. Let’s pull and tuck them tightly (with adding the glamour of scotch tape) so that they appear to no longer be in the center of the face. Let’s take the nose, which at one time was so perfect and straight, and now expand the nostrils so they can hide canned goods incase of a nuclear meltdown. And now the lips, it’s always such a tragedy when the mouth starts to take on the form and shape of a six-lane freeway. Why oh why do we women do this to ourselves? Really, what is the point? Because we want to get hired as the ingénue, the sexy hot babe. Hey, I’ve got news for you – we are sexy hot women, but we’re all botoxing ourselves into non-expression frenzy mode. I mean really – what is so sexy about a shiny forehead that only seems to move when you jerk your arm?

Back to my fantasy.

I go into a bar. There are a few scattered customers. Mostly drunk out of their gourd, mumbling, wobbling, and peeing in their pants. I order a cosmo, straight up, which really means cranberry juice with a twist of lime. I get up from my bar stool and saunter over to the jukebox. I play Laura Nyro and Ricky Lee Jones. I, for one, want to hear women sing about rejection and pain and unrequited love and abortion and guys named Chuck-e who yes, are in love.

And then he walks in.

Makes himself comfortable at the end of the bar. Orders a beer. Fiddles with his brand new sleek black sexy iPhone. He looks at me. I look at him. He looks at me again. I mouth, “Hey… want my number?” in perfect Italian. He looks at me in his Clooney kind of way, eyebrows tilting up, eyes looking down…a smirk…he nods. Then he slides the iPhone ever so gracefully – landing right in front of me. I punch in my ten-digit number and add a smiley face with a wink, sliding it right back to him.

“Hey,” he says, “You have Three 7’s in your number, that’s lucky.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah. That’s me, Ms. Very, Very Lucky.”

Nine months to the day I give birth to our first child, whom we name Dolores Claiborne Clooney. She dies three days later under mysterious circumstances. Then I fall into a coma. And stay in a vegetative state for eight years. The only people who seem to visit me on a regular basis are Robert and Mary Schindler, Terri Schiavo’s parents, who petition to adopt me. I vaguely remember hearing someone – possibly a nurse, or an attendant – saying that George thanked me at an Oscar ceremony. He didn’t mention me by name, but did refer to me as ‘his coma girl.’

Boy George releases a single that same year, “Coma, Coma, Coma, Coma Girl” and experiences a huge comeback post jail.

I end up on the cover of Time Magazine, as “Vegetative Person of the Year.”

I wake up from my coma; George and I inevitably divorce. Amicably. I open a fast-food Vegan Restaurant, called Vegetative Taste, with a drive-through for Hybrids only. It becomes a franchise, and I am awarded the Nobel Prize.

I am jarred by the sound of an alarm clock.
My husband, Ken, upon waking, turns to me, “What’s with the scotch-tape?”

He cannot relate at all to my fantasy life with George.

(please, help a menopausal woman get to Broadway… you can donate here)

Marrying George Clooney, The Play