When asked what the song means, JJ Grey said, “Since believing in nothing is too vast, you really only have one other option - to believe that anything is possible. That way, you don't waste time wondering. You go right to acceptance.” Anyway, for some reason, the second I heard that, I was instantly reminded of Steve Jobs, whose last words were, “OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.” (As opposed to mine, which will probably be, "Oh shit, really??? I KNEW it!”). But I digress. Whatever the reason, since Apple's founder died, I wanted to write something eloquent about how utterly amazing he was and how much he inspired the world. However, I’m not that talented. And so, with that, I defer to his sister, a real writer, who did his eulogy...
"I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him. They’re not periods of years, but of states of being. His full life. His illness. His dying.
Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day. That’s incredibly simple, but true. He was the opposite of absent-minded. He was never embarrassed about working hard, even if the results were failures. If someone as smart as Steve wasn’t ashamed to admit trying, maybe I didn’t have to be.
When he got kicked out of Apple, things were painful. He told me about a dinner at which 500 Silicon Valley leaders met the then-sitting president. Steve hadn’t been invited. He was hurt but he still went to work at Next. Every single day.
Novelty was not Steve’s highest value. Beauty was.
For an innovator, Steve was remarkably loyal. If he loved a shirt, he’d order 10 or 100 of them. In the Palo Alto house, there are probably enough black cotton turtlenecks for everyone in this church.
He didn’t favor trends or gimmicks. He liked people his own age.
His philosophy of aesthetics reminds me of a quote that went something like this: “Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.” Steve always aspired to make beautiful later.
He was willing to be misunderstood.
Uninvited to the ball, he drove the third or fourth iteration of his same black sports car to Next, where he and his team were quietly inventing the platform on which Tim Berners-Lee would write the program for the World Wide Web.
Steve was like a girl in the amount of time he spent talking about love. Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods. He tracked and worried about the romantic lives of the people working with him. Whenever he saw a man he thought a woman might find dashing, he called out, “Hey are you single? Do you wanna come to dinner with my sister?”
I remember when he phoned the day he met Laurene. “There’s this beautiful woman and she’s really smart and she has this dog and I’m going to marry her.”
When Reed was born, he began gushing and never stopped. He was a physical dad, with each of his children. He fretted over Lisa’s boyfriends and Erin’s travel and skirt lengths and Eve’s safety around the horses she adored. None of us who attended Reed’s graduation party will ever forget the scene of Reed and Steve slow dancing. His abiding love for Laurene sustained him. He believed that love happened all the time, everywhere. In that most important way, Steve was never ironic, never cynical, never pessimistic. I try to learn from that, still.
Steve had been successful at a young age, and he felt that had isolated him. Most of the choices he made from the time I knew him were designed to dissolve the walls around him. A middle-class boy from Los Altos, he fell in love with a middle-class girl from New Jersey. It was important to both of them to raise Lisa, Reed, Erin and Eve as grounded, normal children. Their house didn’t intimidate with art or polish; in fact, for many of the first years I knew Steve and Lo together, dinner was served on the grass, and sometimes consisted of just one vegetable. Lots of that one vegetable. But one. Broccoli. In season. Simply prepared. With just the right, recently snipped, herb.
Even as a young millionaire, Steve always picked me up at the airport. He’d be standing there in his jeans. When a family member called him at work, his secretary Linetta answered, “Your dad’s in a meeting. Would you like me to interrupt him?”
When Reed insisted on dressing up as a witch every Halloween, Steve, Laurene, Erin and Eve all went wiccan.
They once embarked on a kitchen remodel; it took years. They cooked on a hotplate in the garage. The Pixar building, under construction during the same period, finished in half the time. And that was it for the Palo Alto house. The bathrooms stayed old. But — and this was a crucial distinction — it had been a great house to start with; Steve saw to that.
This is not to say that he didn’t enjoy his success: he enjoyed his success a lot, just minus a few zeros. He told me how much he loved going to the Palo Alto bike store and gleefully realizing he could afford to buy the best bike there. And he did.
Steve was humble. Steve liked to keep learning. Once, he told me if he’d grown up differently, he might have become a mathematician. He spoke reverently about colleges and loved walking around the Stanford campus. In the last year of his life, he studied a book of paintings by Mark Rothko, an artist he hadn’t known about before, thinking of what could inspire people on the walls of a future Apple campus.
Steve cultivated whimsy. What other C.E.O. knows the history of English and Chinese tea roses and has a favorite David Austin rose?
He had surprises tucked in all his pockets. I’ll venture that Laurene will discover treats — songs he loved, a poem he cut out and put in a drawer — even after 20 years of an exceptionally close marriage. I spoke to him every other day or so, but when I opened The New York Times and saw a feature on the company’s patents, I was still surprised and delighted to see a sketch for a perfect staircase.
With his four children, with his wife, with all of us, Steve had a lot of fun.
He treasured happiness.
Then, Steve became ill and we watched his life compress into a smaller circle. Once, he’d loved walking through Paris. He’d discovered a small handmade soba shop in Kyoto. He downhill skied gracefully. He cross-country skied clumsily. No more.
Eventually, even ordinary pleasures, like a good peach, no longer appealed to him.
Yet, what amazed me, and what I learned from his illness, was how much was still left after so much had been taken away.
I remember my brother learning to walk again, with a chair. After his liver transplant, once a day he would get up on legs that seemed too thin to bear him, arms pitched to the chair back. He’d push that chair down the Memphis hospital corridor towards the nursing station and then he’d sit down on the chair, rest, turn around and walk back again. He counted his steps and, each day, pressed a little farther. Laurene got down on her knees and looked into his eyes. “You can do this, Steve,” she said. His eyes widened. His lips pressed into each other.
He tried. He always, always tried, and always with love at the core of that effort. He was an intensely emotional man.
I realized during that terrifying time that Steve was not enduring the pain for himself. He set destinations: his son Reed’s graduation from high school, his daughter Erin’s trip to Kyoto, the launching of a boat he was building on which he planned to take his family around the world and where he hoped he and Laurene would someday retire.
Even ill, his taste, his discrimination and his judgment held. He went through 67 nurses before finding kindred spirits and then he completely trusted the three who stayed with him to the end. Tracy. Arturo. Elham. One time when Steve had contracted a tenacious pneumonia his doctor forbid everything — even ice. We were in a standard I.C.U. unit. Steve, who generally disliked cutting in line or dropping his own name, confessed that this once, he’d like to be treated a little specially. I told him: Steve, this is special treatment. He leaned over to me, and said: “I want it to be a little more special.”
Intubated, when he couldn’t talk, he asked for a notepad. He sketched devices to hold an iPad in a hospital bed. He designed new fluid monitors and x-ray equipment. He redrew that not-quite-special-enough hospital unit. And every time his wife walked into the room, I watched his smile remake itself on his face. For the really big, big things, you have to trust me, he wrote on his sketchpad. He looked up. You have to. By that, he meant that we should disobey the doctors and give him a piece of ice.
None of us knows for certain how long we’ll be here. On Steve’s better days, even in the last year, he embarked upon projects and elicited promises from his friends at Apple to finish them. Some boat builders in the Netherlands have a gorgeous stainless steel hull ready to be covered with the finishing wood. His three daughters remain unmarried, his two youngest still girls, and he’d wanted to walk them down the aisle as he’d walked me the day of my wedding.
We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.
I suppose it’s not quite accurate to call the death of someone who lived with cancer for years unexpected, but Steve’s death was unexpected for us.
What I learned from my brother’s death was that character is essential: What he was, was how he died. Tuesday morning, he called me to ask me to hurry up to Palo Alto. His tone was affectionate, dear, loving, but like someone whose luggage was already strapped onto the vehicle, who was already on the beginning of his journey, even as he was sorry, truly deeply sorry, to be leaving us. He started his farewell and I stopped him. I said, “Wait. I’m coming. I’m in a taxi to the airport. I’ll be there.” “I’m telling you now because I’m afraid you won’t make it on time, honey.” When I arrived, he and his Laurene were joking together like partners who’d lived and worked together every day of their lives. He looked into his children’s eyes as if he couldn’t unlock his gaze. Until about 2 in the afternoon, his wife could rouse him, to talk to his friends from Apple. Then, after awhile, it was clear that he would no longer wake to us. His breathing changed. It became severe, deliberate, purposeful. I could feel him counting his steps again, pushing farther than before.
This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it.
He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry, so sorry we wouldn’t be able to be old together as we’d always planned, that he was going to a better place. Dr. Fischer gave him a 50/50 chance of making it through the night. He made it through the night, Laurene next to him on the bed sometimes jerked up when there was a longer pause between his breaths. She and I looked at each other, then he would heave a deep breath and begin again. This had to be done. Even now, he had a stern, still handsome profile, the profile of an absolutist, a romantic. His breath indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude. He seemed to be climbing.
But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later. Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times. Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them. Steve’s final words were:
OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW."
Rest in peace Mac Daddy, Steve Jobs. I hope the Grateful Dead were right about this life. May you wake up on the other side of this limited consciousness thinking, "What a long strange trip it's been."
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
You shall not pass!
W. C. Fields once said, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it." In other words, I didn't win the writing contest. Actually, scratch that. In the spirit of full disclosure, I epically failed it. Of the four judges who reviewed my submission, the kindest comment was, "The best part of your entry was your cover letter." And while I wanted to reply, "Be fruitful and multiple" (but not in those words), I went to a local cemetery instead and cried. Because, let's be honest, where else can you weep and no one thinks it's odd?
Now… at this part of the story, you need to know two things before we can continue. One, this cemetery is very old. And two, the part of it that I love the most is quite secluded. It has sprawling family plots with magnificent Oak trees and the occasional bench. The good news is that it’s the perfect place for a pity party. The bad news is that this perfect place is full of “loops.” In other words, the roads to these family plots all have semi-private circular driveways. Which normally isn’t a problem, unless you’re sitting in your car… crying… and a funeral party arrives… and blocks you in.
Yes. You read that correctly. I was sitting… in my car… crying… when a hearse and several limousines showed up and blocked the driveway’s entrance and exit. You see, when I pulled in, I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t noticed the SIX FOOT HOLE IN THE GROUND that was immediately to the left of my car door. In fact, I hadn’t noticed much of anything until it was too late. At which point, approximately twenty-five people were standing there staring at me and wondering who the hell I was. And, while I don’t know the protocol for said event, I’m pretty sure what was going through my head wasn’t it:
At any rate, as I sat there, refusing to dignify my presence to strangers, simultaneously facing my mortality and my failure, I remembered Tolkien again. Only this time, I didn’t hear Gandalf. I heard Gimli, “Certainty of death, small chance of success... What are we waiting for?” I guess another writing contest, but who knows. When I told my mother that night, she only said, “Everyone fails, but not everyone keeps going. Make a choice.” I think I’m still deciding. Til then, talk to you later.
Now… at this part of the story, you need to know two things before we can continue. One, this cemetery is very old. And two, the part of it that I love the most is quite secluded. It has sprawling family plots with magnificent Oak trees and the occasional bench. The good news is that it’s the perfect place for a pity party. The bad news is that this perfect place is full of “loops.” In other words, the roads to these family plots all have semi-private circular driveways. Which normally isn’t a problem, unless you’re sitting in your car… crying… and a funeral party arrives… and blocks you in.
Yes. You read that correctly. I was sitting… in my car… crying… when a hearse and several limousines showed up and blocked the driveway’s entrance and exit. You see, when I pulled in, I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t noticed the SIX FOOT HOLE IN THE GROUND that was immediately to the left of my car door. In fact, I hadn’t noticed much of anything until it was too late. At which point, approximately twenty-five people were standing there staring at me and wondering who the hell I was. And, while I don’t know the protocol for said event, I’m pretty sure what was going through my head wasn’t it:
- Silently join them and let them wonder if I was the deceased’s friend/mistress/illegitimate child.
- Stay in my car and let them wonder if I was the deceased’s friend/mistress/illegitimate child.
- Get out of my car and explain that I wasn’t the deceased’s friend/mistress/illegitimate child.
At any rate, as I sat there, refusing to dignify my presence to strangers, simultaneously facing my mortality and my failure, I remembered Tolkien again. Only this time, I didn’t hear Gandalf. I heard Gimli, “Certainty of death, small chance of success... What are we waiting for?” I guess another writing contest, but who knows. When I told my mother that night, she only said, “Everyone fails, but not everyone keeps going. Make a choice.” I think I’m still deciding. Til then, talk to you later.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Headbangers Ball... The Home Edition
Sorry I haven't written in a while. Over the last few weeks, I've had major Bronchitis and a mild concussion... and, believe it or not - the two are actually related. However, first things first. You may be wondering about this blog post's title and why a middle-aged woman knows anything about a Metal show on MTV. Well, to answer your question, it's because Headbangers Ball aired for the first time in 1987, when I was a sophomore in high school, and yes - I used to watch it. That said, as old as that makes me feel... and it does, it's not even the reason I believe I'm so utterly ancient right now. That honor goes to the fact that the infant on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind album turned twenty this year. TWENTY.
In other words, I could almost legally buy my cassette tape a beer.
Yes, you read that correctly. I didn't download it from iTunes or even own it as a CD. I bought it in 1991 ON CASSETTE. At any rate, to mark this musical milestone, I pulled out my tape, dusted it off, then cranked it. And as I drove around town listening to Smells Like Teen Spirit, I remembered the first time I'd ever heard Nirvana and wondered how many hours of my life were spent copying their songs (and others) onto mixed tapes for friends (instead of studying for exams). Who knows? Maybe Frank Zappa was right. Maybe "You go to college to party. You go to a library for an education." But I digress. The point is that I miss making and getting mixed tapes.
Now... I realize that some of you have no idea what a cassette tape is let alone a mixed tape, but I honestly don't know how to explain the whole concept without loosely quoting John Cusack, "Making a good compilation tape is a subtle art with lots of do's and don'ts. Think of it like breaking up - it's hard to do and takes way longer than it might seem." Anyway, with Christmas right around the corner, I began wondering if I should get old-school this year and make a mixed tape for DB. And, if so, what should I put on it? That's when I had a blinding flash of brilliance. DB loves JJ Grey and Mofro. I could make a mixed tape of their songs and get tickets for us to see them in concert.
The good news is that it's a GREAT idea. The bad news is that the blinding flash I saw was actually ME giving MYSELF a concussion. Yup. I rounded a corner in our beautiful new home... sneezed... and smacked my forehead... on a wall. It's true, and as I lay on the floor, trying to focus, I didn't just hear ringing in my ears. I also heard JJ Grey's funk-filled backwoods wisdom in my head. Too bad the only thing that came to mind was his song, Dirt Floor Cracker.
Once DB got me off the floor and onto the couch, he turned on Palladia - a music television station for adults. Ironically enough, they were airing Back and Forth - a documentary about the Foo Fighters, which actually isn't that ironic if you know that the front man for the Foo used to be Nirvana's drummer. And while I knew that, I had no idea that their seventh (and best) album, Wasting Light, was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage using analog tape instead of digital technology.
That's right. I'm not the only one who misses mixed tapes. Dave Grohl does, too... and he's cool. As for the JJ Grey and Mofro concert, thank God they play blues instead of rock because clearly, at forty, the only headbanging I'm meant to do is at home against a load-bearing wall.
In other words, I could almost legally buy my cassette tape a beer.
Yes, you read that correctly. I didn't download it from iTunes or even own it as a CD. I bought it in 1991 ON CASSETTE. At any rate, to mark this musical milestone, I pulled out my tape, dusted it off, then cranked it. And as I drove around town listening to Smells Like Teen Spirit, I remembered the first time I'd ever heard Nirvana and wondered how many hours of my life were spent copying their songs (and others) onto mixed tapes for friends (instead of studying for exams). Who knows? Maybe Frank Zappa was right. Maybe "You go to college to party. You go to a library for an education." But I digress. The point is that I miss making and getting mixed tapes.
Now... I realize that some of you have no idea what a cassette tape is let alone a mixed tape, but I honestly don't know how to explain the whole concept without loosely quoting John Cusack, "Making a good compilation tape is a subtle art with lots of do's and don'ts. Think of it like breaking up - it's hard to do and takes way longer than it might seem." Anyway, with Christmas right around the corner, I began wondering if I should get old-school this year and make a mixed tape for DB. And, if so, what should I put on it? That's when I had a blinding flash of brilliance. DB loves JJ Grey and Mofro. I could make a mixed tape of their songs and get tickets for us to see them in concert.
The good news is that it's a GREAT idea. The bad news is that the blinding flash I saw was actually ME giving MYSELF a concussion. Yup. I rounded a corner in our beautiful new home... sneezed... and smacked my forehead... on a wall. It's true, and as I lay on the floor, trying to focus, I didn't just hear ringing in my ears. I also heard JJ Grey's funk-filled backwoods wisdom in my head. Too bad the only thing that came to mind was his song, Dirt Floor Cracker.
Once DB got me off the floor and onto the couch, he turned on Palladia - a music television station for adults. Ironically enough, they were airing Back and Forth - a documentary about the Foo Fighters, which actually isn't that ironic if you know that the front man for the Foo used to be Nirvana's drummer. And while I knew that, I had no idea that their seventh (and best) album, Wasting Light, was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage using analog tape instead of digital technology.
That's right. I'm not the only one who misses mixed tapes. Dave Grohl does, too... and he's cool. As for the JJ Grey and Mofro concert, thank God they play blues instead of rock because clearly, at forty, the only headbanging I'm meant to do is at home against a load-bearing wall.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Veni, Vidi, Vici?
In 1974, Barry Manilow hit the charts with a song called, "Mandy." I was three years old at the time, and my father, a jazz pianist, still traveled a lot. However, when he was home or when we went to see him play, he would pat his piano bench and ask me to, "have a seat and help him out with the words." So I would. Though I never knew a single lyric, I would get on stage, curl up beside him, and - much to his genuine amusement - bellow out whatever was in my head.
He always joked that - on those nights, if the club had caught fire, he'd have screamed, "Children and rhythm-section first!" My mother was not amused.
At any rate, one time, when I was in Kindergarten at a Catholic school (and already studying Latin), my dad was performing, and my sister asked him to play Mandy... so he did. When he asked me to give him a hand, I climbed on stage, nestled up next to him, and crooned into the microphone, "OH MANDY. CAUSE YOU CAME, AND YOU SAW, AND YOU CONQUERED... Oh Mannnndy." Now, if you know the song, then you know that the actual lyrics go something like this, "Oh Mandy. You came and you gave without taking. Oh Mandy." Til he died, it was one of his favorite stories about me.
He would have turned 76 this month and I still miss him.
Have you ever had someone who just got you? Someone who understood you and accepted you through all of your faults and idiosyncrasies? That was my dad... and I was not an easy child. All jokes aside, I could have been the poster child for Ritalin. In fact, at Easter, when everyone else had baskets full of candy, I was allowed to have one chocolate bunny - which I would devour in three bites, before running laps around the house, until I eventually collapsed into a sugar coma, where I would drool and twitch in my sleep like a rabid gerbil. My siblings were literally forbidden from giving any of their candy to me. I may very well have been the only child to grow up hearing their mother say, "It's OK, honey. You don't have to share with your sister. Everyone understands that kids can be a little selfish, whiny, and needy sometimes. You're just like tiny men." But I digress.
The point is that when people would say, "She's so awkward/high-strung/high-maintenance/high-anxiety," my dad would tell me that I wasn't any of those things. I was just... Coltish... somewhere between a pony who was still getting her bearings and a racehorse who wanted to run until she hit her stride. And he told me to sing.. especially when I didn't know the lyrics... because I would always find the words.
I suppose Jazz pianists are pretty smart guys. After all, wasn't it Thelonious Monk who said, "Play it your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. Play what you want and let the public pick up on what you're doing — even if it takes them fifteen, twenty years." Well, it's taken me forty, but I'm finally doing my own thing. Carpe diem and all that, I guess.
Talk to you later.
He always joked that - on those nights, if the club had caught fire, he'd have screamed, "Children and rhythm-section first!" My mother was not amused.
At any rate, one time, when I was in Kindergarten at a Catholic school (and already studying Latin), my dad was performing, and my sister asked him to play Mandy... so he did. When he asked me to give him a hand, I climbed on stage, nestled up next to him, and crooned into the microphone, "OH MANDY. CAUSE YOU CAME, AND YOU SAW, AND YOU CONQUERED... Oh Mannnndy." Now, if you know the song, then you know that the actual lyrics go something like this, "Oh Mandy. You came and you gave without taking. Oh Mandy." Til he died, it was one of his favorite stories about me.
He would have turned 76 this month and I still miss him.
Have you ever had someone who just got you? Someone who understood you and accepted you through all of your faults and idiosyncrasies? That was my dad... and I was not an easy child. All jokes aside, I could have been the poster child for Ritalin. In fact, at Easter, when everyone else had baskets full of candy, I was allowed to have one chocolate bunny - which I would devour in three bites, before running laps around the house, until I eventually collapsed into a sugar coma, where I would drool and twitch in my sleep like a rabid gerbil. My siblings were literally forbidden from giving any of their candy to me. I may very well have been the only child to grow up hearing their mother say, "It's OK, honey. You don't have to share with your sister. Everyone understands that kids can be a little selfish, whiny, and needy sometimes. You're just like tiny men." But I digress.
The point is that when people would say, "She's so awkward/high-strung/high-maintenance/high-anxiety," my dad would tell me that I wasn't any of those things. I was just... Coltish... somewhere between a pony who was still getting her bearings and a racehorse who wanted to run until she hit her stride. And he told me to sing.. especially when I didn't know the lyrics... because I would always find the words.
I suppose Jazz pianists are pretty smart guys. After all, wasn't it Thelonious Monk who said, "Play it your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. Play what you want and let the public pick up on what you're doing — even if it takes them fifteen, twenty years." Well, it's taken me forty, but I'm finally doing my own thing. Carpe diem and all that, I guess.
Talk to you later.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Laughter is the Best Medicine
This week, Hallmark failed me completely. Though you can actually find numerous books about topics like, “Why mommy looks so scary after her face lift,” there’s nothing for boob jobs. Nada. Zip. Zilch. So, two days ago, when my dearest friend's daughter (BLZ) got a breast reduction, I took the matter into my own hands (figuratively speaking) and sent flowers instead.
Now, to completely understand the full horror of the following exchange, please put yourself in the position of the poor sales clerk who innocently asked, “What would you like written on the card,” and had to hear, “I hope you like your new boobs. I can’t wait to see them.” After the awkward silence between us passed, she cleared her throat, then read it back for clarification… to which I could only reply, “You know, I really hate giving you the name on my Visa card right now.” But I did... and worse than that, I did it from work... in my cube... and worse than that, as with each and every time in my life that I have been mortified, I felt compelled to explain.
Here is what that poor teenage cashier had to hear, “It’s for my friend’s daughter… Oh my God, but NOT LIKE THAT! I’m not some freak-pervert and I SWEAR I’m TOTALLY straight. It's just that BLZ wasn’t happy with her chest, and as someone who has hit forty – believe me, I understand what that girl is talking about... even though she's getting a reduction and I’m just a victim of gravity.”
They say that silence is actually God talking. I don't believe that. I believe that florist was judging me. At any rate, it ended OK... My friend's daughter texted me and said that she laughed pretty hard when she got the lilies. Hopefully it really is the best medicine and in some small way I helped a kid whom I’ve always adored.
Now, to completely understand the full horror of the following exchange, please put yourself in the position of the poor sales clerk who innocently asked, “What would you like written on the card,” and had to hear, “I hope you like your new boobs. I can’t wait to see them.” After the awkward silence between us passed, she cleared her throat, then read it back for clarification… to which I could only reply, “You know, I really hate giving you the name on my Visa card right now.” But I did... and worse than that, I did it from work... in my cube... and worse than that, as with each and every time in my life that I have been mortified, I felt compelled to explain.
Here is what that poor teenage cashier had to hear, “It’s for my friend’s daughter… Oh my God, but NOT LIKE THAT! I’m not some freak-pervert and I SWEAR I’m TOTALLY straight. It's just that BLZ wasn’t happy with her chest, and as someone who has hit forty – believe me, I understand what that girl is talking about... even though she's getting a reduction and I’m just a victim of gravity.”
They say that silence is actually God talking. I don't believe that. I believe that florist was judging me. At any rate, it ended OK... My friend's daughter texted me and said that she laughed pretty hard when she got the lilies. Hopefully it really is the best medicine and in some small way I helped a kid whom I’ve always adored.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
To quote the Bard, "Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time."
In 1892, Walt Whitman published one of the most beautiful and poignant lines ever penned, "That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse." However, before he gave us that answer, he asked us this question first, "What good amid these, O me, O life?"
Enter Mr. Epenetus Dalrymple.
Now, before I continue, I should tell you that Epenetus Dalrymple was a real person... whose name I love more than Huckleberry Finn’s and whose life story I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about... much like in 150 years, people will know very little about my tale - even though (to loosely quote the poet) I'm here today, my life exists, my identity is declared, and that… for as foolish and as faithless as I am (for who more foolish and faithless than I), I have a point to make. Granted, it’s convoluted and scattered as usual, but I swear I have one – so please bear with me.
You see, last month, I turned forty and married DB, my partner of two and a half years. Neither of which is insignificant. Nor is the fact that my mom ACTUALLY forgot the first point and called us back half-way through the second.
About my fortieth, when I told her that she missed my birthday (a big one no less), she simply said, “No I didn’t. I was helping you repress it so you could be thirty-nine for as long as possible.” Honestly, that woman thinks of everything. As for calling us back during the wedding - before I can tell you that part of the story, I have to tell you this part first. In 2005, my mom contracted a virus which severely damaged her heart. Fortunately… it was caught in time and the surgeon was able to repair the mitral valve. Unfortunately… during the procedure, she ended up with a Staph infection that devolved into full-blown septic shock and landed her in a coma for three months. After "coming to," she spent an entire year in physical therapy learning to breathe on her own, eat on her own, walk on her own, and live without assistance… only to come home in 2006 and bury the love of her life, my father. In essence, the heart she fought so hard to fix was shattered all over again.
When we told her that it was time to forgive our dad for dying and the universe for making her sick, she said, “I’m neither bitter nor a germ-a-phobe. I’m just a firm believer that Sartre was right “Hell is other people.” I guess the up-side of her deeply-held conviction is that everyone has to believe in something. The down-side? She will not travel anymore, period. She's like the Godfather. You go to her and pay your respects. She doesn't come to you... And if she does, things in your life are REALLY bad and about to get a whole lot worse now that she's there and she's pissed.
At any rate, in order to strike a balance where everyone’s needs could be met, my Uncle called her before the wedding… kept her on the phone... put his mobile in his tux pocket… then walked me down the aisle. As we got to the bottom of the stairs, and he handed me over to DB… my uncle’s slacks began vibrating. Yes, SHE GOT DROPPED AND ACTUALLY CALLED BACK… Since I wasn’t sure how to say, “I swear, my Uncle’s pants aren’t PULSATING because he’s excited to see you. That’s just my mother in his pocket.” I simply let it go. But I digress…
The point is that, later that week, DB and I left for upstate New York to decompress at a beautiful bed and breakfast on a private lake in the Adirondack’s. And, because there’s so much history there, we spent several hours perusing numerous Revolutionary War cemeteries. If that sounds like an odd way to spend a honeymoon, then I know more than ever that I married the right man. You see, graveyards don’t bother me. In fact, I find them peaceful, and I love speculating on the lives of the people buried in them… including Mr. Epenetus Dalrymple’s.
Here’s what I know about him for sure: He was married. He was widowed. He had children (some of whom he lost). And he died at sea as an old man… Here’s what I conjectured (to DB’s amusement):
1. Like Huckleberry Finn, Epenetus was a wonderfully naughty child. Can’t you just hear his exasperated mother shouting, “EPENETUS DALRYMPLE - GET YOUR ASS OUT OF THAT CREEK, PUT YOUR CLOTHES BACK ON, AND GO CUT THAT WOOD LIKE I TOLD YOU TO.”
2. He was ADORED by his wife, Josephine, who - on more than one occasion, must have said to her husband, “Why, Mr. Epenetus Dalrymple, put your wiener away. You will NOT touch me with that thing tonight.” And then she let him.
3. He worshipped his wife and never remarried. Instead, he was a loving grandfather who fished and told tales of his perfectly misspent youth.
4. He died at sea… in his skiff … in a storm… and was deeply missed by everyone who survived him.
Now, it should be stated again, I don’t pretend to be right. That’s just how I see his life in my head… which made me wonder, really wonder - what will people read into my life in fifty years when they see my tombstone, especially if it says what I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.” And so… because of a man I’ve never met… who rests in a New England cemetery I’ll never visit again… I’m going to try and contribute MY verse to this crazy play.
Yes, I entered a writing contest.
So, wish me luck – and not just because I'm more competitive than a Drag Queen and want to win, but because Shakespeare was right, 'neither marble nor gilded monuments shall outlive this powerful rhyme.' I want my loved ones (and their loved ones’ loved ones) to know that it’s OK to be crazy. It runs in the family… but so does a good sense of humor. I also want them to know how deeply they were loved, so no one ever has to wonder - not even 150 years from now.
Talk to you later (and rest in peace Epenetus Dalrymple).
Enter Mr. Epenetus Dalrymple.
Now, before I continue, I should tell you that Epenetus Dalrymple was a real person... whose name I love more than Huckleberry Finn’s and whose life story I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about... much like in 150 years, people will know very little about my tale - even though (to loosely quote the poet) I'm here today, my life exists, my identity is declared, and that… for as foolish and as faithless as I am (for who more foolish and faithless than I), I have a point to make. Granted, it’s convoluted and scattered as usual, but I swear I have one – so please bear with me.
You see, last month, I turned forty and married DB, my partner of two and a half years. Neither of which is insignificant. Nor is the fact that my mom ACTUALLY forgot the first point and called us back half-way through the second.
About my fortieth, when I told her that she missed my birthday (a big one no less), she simply said, “No I didn’t. I was helping you repress it so you could be thirty-nine for as long as possible.” Honestly, that woman thinks of everything. As for calling us back during the wedding - before I can tell you that part of the story, I have to tell you this part first. In 2005, my mom contracted a virus which severely damaged her heart. Fortunately… it was caught in time and the surgeon was able to repair the mitral valve. Unfortunately… during the procedure, she ended up with a Staph infection that devolved into full-blown septic shock and landed her in a coma for three months. After "coming to," she spent an entire year in physical therapy learning to breathe on her own, eat on her own, walk on her own, and live without assistance… only to come home in 2006 and bury the love of her life, my father. In essence, the heart she fought so hard to fix was shattered all over again.
When we told her that it was time to forgive our dad for dying and the universe for making her sick, she said, “I’m neither bitter nor a germ-a-phobe. I’m just a firm believer that Sartre was right “Hell is other people.” I guess the up-side of her deeply-held conviction is that everyone has to believe in something. The down-side? She will not travel anymore, period. She's like the Godfather. You go to her and pay your respects. She doesn't come to you... And if she does, things in your life are REALLY bad and about to get a whole lot worse now that she's there and she's pissed.
At any rate, in order to strike a balance where everyone’s needs could be met, my Uncle called her before the wedding… kept her on the phone... put his mobile in his tux pocket… then walked me down the aisle. As we got to the bottom of the stairs, and he handed me over to DB… my uncle’s slacks began vibrating. Yes, SHE GOT DROPPED AND ACTUALLY CALLED BACK… Since I wasn’t sure how to say, “I swear, my Uncle’s pants aren’t PULSATING because he’s excited to see you. That’s just my mother in his pocket.” I simply let it go. But I digress…
The point is that, later that week, DB and I left for upstate New York to decompress at a beautiful bed and breakfast on a private lake in the Adirondack’s. And, because there’s so much history there, we spent several hours perusing numerous Revolutionary War cemeteries. If that sounds like an odd way to spend a honeymoon, then I know more than ever that I married the right man. You see, graveyards don’t bother me. In fact, I find them peaceful, and I love speculating on the lives of the people buried in them… including Mr. Epenetus Dalrymple’s.
Here’s what I know about him for sure: He was married. He was widowed. He had children (some of whom he lost). And he died at sea as an old man… Here’s what I conjectured (to DB’s amusement):
1. Like Huckleberry Finn, Epenetus was a wonderfully naughty child. Can’t you just hear his exasperated mother shouting, “EPENETUS DALRYMPLE - GET YOUR ASS OUT OF THAT CREEK, PUT YOUR CLOTHES BACK ON, AND GO CUT THAT WOOD LIKE I TOLD YOU TO.”
2. He was ADORED by his wife, Josephine, who - on more than one occasion, must have said to her husband, “Why, Mr. Epenetus Dalrymple, put your wiener away. You will NOT touch me with that thing tonight.” And then she let him.
3. He worshipped his wife and never remarried. Instead, he was a loving grandfather who fished and told tales of his perfectly misspent youth.
4. He died at sea… in his skiff … in a storm… and was deeply missed by everyone who survived him.
Now, it should be stated again, I don’t pretend to be right. That’s just how I see his life in my head… which made me wonder, really wonder - what will people read into my life in fifty years when they see my tombstone, especially if it says what I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.” And so… because of a man I’ve never met… who rests in a New England cemetery I’ll never visit again… I’m going to try and contribute MY verse to this crazy play.
Yes, I entered a writing contest.
So, wish me luck – and not just because I'm more competitive than a Drag Queen and want to win, but because Shakespeare was right, 'neither marble nor gilded monuments shall outlive this powerful rhyme.' I want my loved ones (and their loved ones’ loved ones) to know that it’s OK to be crazy. It runs in the family… but so does a good sense of humor. I also want them to know how deeply they were loved, so no one ever has to wonder - not even 150 years from now.
Talk to you later (and rest in peace Epenetus Dalrymple).
Saturday, July 2, 2011
You can't have everything... where would you put it?
Do you remember The Odd Couple? It started out as a play by Neil Simon (with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau), then became a TV show (with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman). For those of you who have NO idea what I’m talking about, the story basically revolves around two roommates:
You see, though DB and I have been partners for over two years, we never truly co-habitated until a month ago. Sure, we stayed together, but we each had our own “spaces” to retreat to. I owned my house…. he owned his house… and we went back-and-forth around work and placement schedules. No doubt it had its drawbacks, but it also protected him from how insane I am. Now that we’re in one house (a rental while ours is being built), it’s literally “full-on crazy” with very little reprieve for a man whom I love more than life. And it’s not just because we’re planning a wedding or building a house… though those make lovely excuses. It’s honestly because I’m just CRAZY. I like things the way I like them, “A place for everything and everything in its place,” which makes me a HORRIBLE roommate.
When I met my best friend for lunch and asked her what she thought, she said, “I’ve loved you longer than he has, but you’d be IMPOSSIBLE to live with. It’d be like bringing a baby home from the hospital. Seriously, you babble incessantly when you’re happy, you cry non-stop when you aren’t, and a good game of itsy-bitsy spider will genuinely occupy you for hours. Besides that, you eat every twenty fucking minutes, sometimes through the night, and you’d honestly let someone pick you up and carry you from room-to-room if you could find a way to make it happen. Besides that, you’re prone to rashes. And… speaking of, at least he doesn’t have to change your diaper. That fine task will fall to me, your Medical Power of Attorney, when you’re ninety and you stroke out because you refuse to exercise.” I hate it when she’s right.
At any rate, the point is that - of all the Neil Simon characters out there - I always wanted to be like the witty, adorable, care-free Corie in Barefoot in the Park... not Felix Unger in the Odd Couple, and I’m not sure when or how it happened - I only know that it did. That said, I guess I’ll have to take DB’s advice and just be myself… and not just because everyone else is taken, but also because this is the person he fell in love with… even if I do occasionally sign my notes, “FU” (for Felix Unger).
- Felix Unger - An anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive, neat-freak who is so high-maintenance that he wears his seat-belt at a drive-inn movie theatre
- Oscar Madison - A funny, laid-back guy who craves peace and normalcy and just wants Felix to stop leaving him lengthy to-do lists and random notes that are always signed, "F.U." (for Felix Unger)
You see, though DB and I have been partners for over two years, we never truly co-habitated until a month ago. Sure, we stayed together, but we each had our own “spaces” to retreat to. I owned my house…. he owned his house… and we went back-and-forth around work and placement schedules. No doubt it had its drawbacks, but it also protected him from how insane I am. Now that we’re in one house (a rental while ours is being built), it’s literally “full-on crazy” with very little reprieve for a man whom I love more than life. And it’s not just because we’re planning a wedding or building a house… though those make lovely excuses. It’s honestly because I’m just CRAZY. I like things the way I like them, “A place for everything and everything in its place,” which makes me a HORRIBLE roommate.
When I met my best friend for lunch and asked her what she thought, she said, “I’ve loved you longer than he has, but you’d be IMPOSSIBLE to live with. It’d be like bringing a baby home from the hospital. Seriously, you babble incessantly when you’re happy, you cry non-stop when you aren’t, and a good game of itsy-bitsy spider will genuinely occupy you for hours. Besides that, you eat every twenty fucking minutes, sometimes through the night, and you’d honestly let someone pick you up and carry you from room-to-room if you could find a way to make it happen. Besides that, you’re prone to rashes. And… speaking of, at least he doesn’t have to change your diaper. That fine task will fall to me, your Medical Power of Attorney, when you’re ninety and you stroke out because you refuse to exercise.” I hate it when she’s right.
At any rate, the point is that - of all the Neil Simon characters out there - I always wanted to be like the witty, adorable, care-free Corie in Barefoot in the Park... not Felix Unger in the Odd Couple, and I’m not sure when or how it happened - I only know that it did. That said, I guess I’ll have to take DB’s advice and just be myself… and not just because everyone else is taken, but also because this is the person he fell in love with… even if I do occasionally sign my notes, “FU” (for Felix Unger).
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