Why? because everyone is traceable these days. Hey if Israeli operative can be photographed prior to an assassination, then our lives are open to the world.
The truth is I am too stupid and I have too much to say that no one would voluntarily listen to, so I need a blog. Maybe I should call it my Blab or my Blah-Blah.
An option.
Hmmmm.
Recently, I have welcomed some friends to the unfortunate club of children who have lost parents.
The finality of it all. And the guilt that life must go on. I remember how hard it was to breathe sometimes.
What I don’t dare tell them is that after 7+ years, the snapshot I hold of you in my mind — white-haired wig, tennis sneakers, slacks, blouse (Dad didn’t like you in turtlenecks) and an Eddie Bauer or J. Crew woolen zip-up sweater — is getting a little vague and dimmed as time goes by. I have razor-sharp memories of many, many things — throughout the years and especially during the month before your death — but the sound of your voice, Mom, the sound of your voice, exists only in my imitation of what I remember of it. Has that become the memory and is your voice lost to me?
You are still a force in my life. I was recently at a company retreat and there were over 300 people I didn’t know. I just pretended to be you — the way you would walk into a room and find ways to meet and really talk with — well, up to then — strangers. My mantra, “just be Mom,” enables me to work the room but never like you, the master. You had a way (mine is diluted with Dad’s bluntness) of making people feel, as if when talking to you, no one else in the world existed and you had all the time in the world to chat. And they were right, you remembered everything and you were interested in them and what made them happy or sad and, if they seemed lonely, then — whether they liked it or not — they had to come to every holiday at our house. I feel that way, too, about people I meet, but sometimes my directness (ok, Dad’s genes again) turns them off.
To be fair to Dad, life in the fast-paced world of corporate law (and its diminishing economic rewards) make bluntness a relevant and useful tool. I try to do it á la Larry King (I know, I know, you stopped watching him once he started interviewing headline catchers and hangers-on), with a directness that is a little self-effacing but gets the point across. You see, Mom, I realize that since you died at an age a full 25 years younger than when your parents died, that I cannot rely on the fullness of time for people to come around. In truth, that is a cop-out. I am not as patient as you. And although I believe in the goodness of people and their senses of fundamental fairness, I have a more cynical streak. Since you died before the invasion of Iraq, you are just going to have to trust me that some Republicans and those who are leaders of the military-industrial complex are beyond redemption.
But then again you missed the heady days following Barack Hussein Obama’s election as the 44th President of the United States of America. That would have lifted your soul. The sheer promise of America in those moments would have made your eyes well with tears. He has been attacked and stymied at every turn, but, Mom, he is a transformational leader for our country and our generation. When I see the political machinations going on, I have to dig deep and believe as you that what is true and right will prevail.
Wow, after all of this, I guess you’re not so fuzzy after all. Even though the picture of you is getting fuzzy, you live on in my mind, my heart and my soul.
I really appreciate this talk. And I appreciate your stopping by in my dreams. When I am sick, could you remember to say, “my poor tsakele, if I could have it for you I would”? That always helped. Even your grandson needs to hear me say it “just like Grandma would’ve” when he is sick. And I totally get it. You never want your child to hurt even the teensiest bit. Maybe that is why you hang around, to ease our pain.
Ok, I am not ready to dive in the with the “G-d thing” but I believe that your life force abides. That’s as far as I am willing to go on the “everlasting” subject. You are going to have to win me over on that one. This is going to test your patience. (I was never the easy child.)
I love you. Now I am remembering that you did have a few cashmere turtlenecks, notwithstanding Dad’s preference otherwise, under your sweaters. (We still wear them.)
Love,
Me
I was at a company meeting and people were excited to have me on the various client teams because “we need diversity”. I realized they were talking about being a woman and I said, helpfully, that I satisfy two boxes. “Which other one?” “Gay,” I responded. Then I was asked if I wanted to join the GLBT affinity group. “No,” I said, “I am very comfortable being gay, and my only interest is satisfying client diversity requirements to get more business. But if you have a working mothers’ affinity group, that’d be great.”
So, I’m here, I’m queer, they are used to it, but they don’t get it.
It is funny how people give away private information about their kids without even knowing it.
I was at a meeting and we were talking about kids and dating and a colleague from the midwest said that her early-teens son was very friendly with girls but hadn’t decided on a girlfriend. Fine so far. Then she added, “but he is always out with them. If there are seven girls going to the movies, he’s the only guy.” Ok, ok, ok.
The difference between a New Yorker and a midwesterner is that we New Yorkers would know the implications of that fact pattern and would leave it to the son — and to time — to unravel the mysteries therein.
Does anyone care if Tiger apologizes? Why is it news? Other than his family, whom did he let down? Certainly not the women who wanted their 15 minutes of fame by having sex with him. His fans? Didn’t people root for him because of his athletic ability and his personal story? Did anyone root for him because he was a faithful, family man?
The unfortunate truth is that if you know something sordid or unappealing about a person, it affects you more than if you knew something positive or simply neutral. I didn’t listen to Tiger’s apology, but if it took this long to come up with one, then it is a public relations apology to regain sponsorships and not a soul-searching mea culpa.
A dear, wise friend once said, “you do it, you live with it.” She also said, “the strong eat the weak,” although she has mellowed from that position. But she is right, life is about taking responsibility and standing up for what is right or taking your lumps when you blow it. We lived across the hall during senior year at college and I was having an — how shall we say — indiscretion and she cleared the hallway of people for me to avoid embarrassment. (I am not giving details, so you need to read between the lines and draw your own conclusions.) The next morning, she was knocking at my door, booming, “if you want to dance, you need to pay the fiddler,” which means if you can’t do something in the light of day (as it were), then don’t do it.
This friend probably doesn’t know that she caused me to look deep inside and start the process of coming out of the closet. She continues to have high standards, tempered by compassion from life experiences. She is the standard bearer and I adore her. She and I have had professional upheavals these past few years and I admire her willingness to take on new challenges in new places. She is my measuring stick for success and hard work. If she reads this, she may be surprised that she had such a profound effect on me so many years ago and through to today. I hope that she puts me in her “win” column.
She could have taught Tiger a lesson or two. And she would have shaped him up faster than an army drill sergeant. And, she has perfectly puffy hair. So, Tiger (if you know what is good for you), be afraid, Tiger, be very afraid.
And, to my friend who is always in my court, long ago you re-directed my life on a bumpy but, ultimately, very happy course. You make a difference just by your presence among us. I love you.
I neither hide nor trumpet that my partner is a woman. I refer to POB (partner of blogger) and our son when appropriate in a professional setting, just as a straight person should only refer to family as appropriate.
I assume that, in my background checks and google searches, my sexual orientation comes up. But it is not — nor should it be — something that anyone would raise as a question in interviews. As you all know, I recently changed jobs.
Today, POB and our son came to see my new office and met some of my new colleagues and support staff. I introduced them as, “this is my partner [POB] and our son [SOPOBAB].”
Everything went smoothly — as it should — but I am old enough to remember coming out in the workplace and being afraid of losing my job or my standing as a promising young associate. Those days are not so long ago. I decided to step out of the closet for good when I switched law firms 13 years ago. It has probably been in the last five years that my sexual orientation hasn’t been a source of intrigue for my colleagues.
Times are a-changing. And, I am grateful.
Someone very dear to me mentioned that something was glaringly missing on my blog — my views of gay marriage and my response to all the current strides and defeats. My response was that I couldn’t be funny or amusing about something that core to me. But, I guess I need to vent. So here goes.
I have had the many privileges of being raised white and upper middle class in this country. Even in my lifetime being Jewish was only an issue at “elite” social levels (and I didn’t like those people anyway).
But I am gay and I have less civil rights than others because of it. If I didn’t live in New York City, being gay could be dangerous. We are well-educated, well-to-do and resourceful so we have created a legal web of “equivalents” so that the inability to marry does not affect our day-to-day lives. Still, it does make me feel like a stranger in my own land.
Those against gay marriage hide behind the sanctity of the institution of marriage and the social fabric arguments.
First, if marriage were so sacred, the self-proclaimed family values politicians wouldn’t be crashing and burning in adultery and gay sex scandals every month or so. Frankly, heterosexuals are destroying the sanctity of marriage. Gays in long-term committed relationships would probably lower the divorce rates.
But all this obscures a central truth: Marriage is not a religious law. Civil law decides the rights of married people in the course of the marriage and its dissolution by divorce or death. Therefore, all married people have civil unions. Some of these are “consecrated” in religious ritual and clergy have the power to officiate pursuant to civil law. Sometimes, a couple gets married in a judge’s chambers. Sometimes, you read about a non-clergy, non-civil servant getting authorization to marry a couple.
Why is this important? Because clergy are not necessary to create a “marriage” under civil law. So, let’s fix the nomenclature and call everything a civil union — whether it is a heterosexual or gay couple. Let religions call their rituals “marriage”.
The social fabric argument really riles me: my life with my partner and our son is destroying the social fabric of our country. We pay more in taxes in any year than the average American family earns in a lifetime, we give to charity, we support universal health care, we help the elderly and the needy and we host all family holidays — civil and religious. Nevertheless, the fact of our lives is why Bubba and Jolene — who live in a rented trailer in some trailer park in Mississippi, who don’t have health care, whose children work at WalMart, run a meth lab or fight on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan — can’t get ahead. It isn’t because we have a broken public education system, non-existent health care, faltering manufacturing industries and young men and women who come back from (at least one unnecessary) war broken inside and out. Clearly, Bubba and Jolene and their children won’t have a future if the states recognize our lives as a family.
Ok, I vented.
How does a woman deride hope and faith in our democracy and receive standing ovations?
I am going out on a limb here, but not everyone can be president of the United States. Neither Joe Six Pack nor Joe the Plumber can run a nuclear superpower. Also, not every opinion is worth as much as any other. To think otherwise is ridiculous. One may have a right to one’s opinion, but if it is illogical or ill-informed, it should be ignored. Remember how much flack then-President Carter got when he said he asked his daughter Amy what she thought of nuclear disarmament? Because we knew that a 13 year-old is not an expert (to be fair, he was making a point about that younger generation’s desire to live nuclear bomb-free). The GOP lambasted him.
Now, the GOP thinks that every stupid idea based on half-truths and discredited sources should be held as on par with those of the President of the United States and his cabinet and advisers. That is just mean-spirited, corrupt and disrespectful. [Now, I didn’t think much of the ideas of GWB, his cabinet and his advisers, but I certainly agree that they knew more than most people and that the relevant opinions were those of experts who thought the Bush doctrine and the Cheney secret police were ill-conceived and ignorant.]
Sarah Palin has some great one-liners but a stand-up comic is not good training for president. Also, other than one-liners, she cannot put together a string of words to make a coherent sentence.
Ok, I am going to pretend I am a GOP operative and Sarah is a Democrat (G-d forbid). Here is my theory:
No matter how many times she makes mistakes or shares her baseless views and ideas, there is this invisible machine that rehabilitates and spins the mistakes and idiotic policy statements into victories for the true America. Any ordinary candidate — especially a female candidate — would be left to tend the embers of her political career after the various Sarah fiascoes. But there is an invisible force that will not let her fail. Why are people so invested? Well, I just keep thinking of that cold war movie about a sleeper mole who is in line for the presidency . . . . maybe . . . naw . . . yes? . . . Is Sarah Palin the real Manchurian Candidate?
Hey, according to the GOP, my opinion is as important and valid as that of any politician or commentator. So, my opinion is that Sarah Palin is the Manchurian Candidate and she was sent to the US to ruin us. In your face, lady in the McCain town hall who believed that President Obama is Arab (and so what if he was).
But Sarah was right about one thing: “President Palin” breeds fear in my heart AND, I hope, all those who love their children and want the world to survive for a few more generations.
My son’s best friend is wild about football. So, my son is now, too. This is an awesome event because my son has had trouble connecting to peers in the past.
So, football. Ok, two women raising a boy and he wants to watch football. My son, who learns through reading — books, websites, whatever — said to me, “E-Mom, we need to fire up the iPod with serious football apps!!” Ok, how did he know there were football apps? So now we have THREE football apps on two iPods but because they are not iPhones we cannot play together. Uh-oh. I am feeling an upgrade on the horizon.
When kids want the next new gadget (or at least the gadget they’ve recently discovered) and are feeling extra deprived (as only spoiled children can feel), they no longer make references to the Stone Age or pre-WWII Europe, like we did or our parents did. My parents would quote their parents, as in, “when we were starving in Europe, we only asked for food and water” to which I remember responding, “gee, sorry, can I get Frye boots anyway?”
No, our kids say things like, “we’re being raised like the Aaaa-mishhhhh!!” As I remember, Kelly McGillis was very hot in that movie with Harrison Ford, “Witness,” about an Amish boy who witnessed a murder in Port Authority or Penn Station. Ok, so I am missing the point of the intended scathing analysis of our child-rearing techniques. Never mind.
It is important to listen to kids because they are experts in being children and being childish. If they are happy all of the time, then you are a push-over, the moral equivalent of a chump, and, ultimately, a bad parent. I hear tell of a magical zone where good parenting meets the right level of whining for proper childhood development. This may be a myth (actually, I know it is because I just made it up). But there are books written about errogenous zones that exist only on runway models and elixirs of youth, so maybe I have found my way out of the daily grind by discovery a new theory. Hmmm.
What does this have to do with fantasy football? Work with me here. My son is into football and I have a fantasy that he and I will both survive his childhood and adolescence as high-functioning individuals in environs more luxurious than Amish. Also, part of my fantasy involves my brother-in-law watching the football games with my son. Here the reason why it is a fantasy: he is an artist and in touch with his animus and anima (I think these are Jungian terms) — that is to say, he is too evolved for football and in touch with his feminine side as well as his masculine side. Bottom line — he is not a chest beater or head-butter. Which makes him wonderful in general but useless at football. Maybe he is a closet alpha male. (Don’t tell SOB — sister of blogger — because she will un-alpha him in a NY minute. She IS tough but gentle and uses her powers for good.)
I am rambling because my mind goes to crazy places on Friday nights as the work week winds downs and cartoons cometh in the morning. I feel a good kind of tired — the kind that comes from playing with my son — tackle football, of course, and “keep away” and monkey-in-the-middle with POB. Then as we wind down to bed time, we have pretend adventures — because my son has an incredible imagination — I am a British tourist to Oregon (who would not set foot in the former colonies) and only goes to place that revolted against the French, Spanish and Dutch and my son is my uncle George. Then I am a Kenyan who travels to Jamaica in hurricane season (because the airfare was cheap). Where does he get this stuff?. Soon to be followed in a slightly altered Fred Flintstone voice as I reprise my “Big Tuna” role in an undersea world where I have a talk show and he is my little ramora whom POB, as Secret Agent Swordfish (don’t ask), saved on her nose as he fell off a whale. I am exhausted to my core.
Now, my son who is my joy is in his jammies and reading an encyclopedia of something. Because that is the way he is. And I love him because he is kooky and loving and kind and imaginative. And I can take no credit — I am genetically irrelevant to him. He is like the most fabulous gift that keeps changing and challenging the recipient. Sometimes, like tonight, I max out from his intensity. But no worries, he will come charging at full volume into my bedroom tomorrow to wake me up. Thank G-d POB is following with hot coffee.
I love my family. I am blessed. I am tired.
I know, I know. I write about death and destruction a lot. But life is like that. And movies and TV depict death and destruction with a certain enthusiasm that seems, well, ooky.
Today, I went to a friend’s father’s funeral. I didn’t know my friend’s father but I knew about his life. I heard him speak once. And his is a life story worth telling again and again, over and over.
He was born in Turkey and raised — before World War II — in France. He was a Jew and fled to the forests in unoccupied France. There he met his wife and together, with others they met in hiding, fought with the Resistance.
I remember his saying at a talk at our synagogue that he never really thought of himself as a survivor in the same way that those who survived the concentration camps were survivors.
At the funeral, the rabbi asked those who hid with him to stand and three very old people slowly, and with assistance, stood, two of them very stooped over. These old people did heroic things in a world gone haywire and they survived in a jungle of sorts where other humans were hunters and they were the game.
This man did the exact opposite of what was done to him. He loved, he gave generously of his time and his resources, he was grateful for life‘s gifts and, as someone at the funeral said, he didn’t blink when adversity hit.
He is truly the epitome of our greatest generation. He saw the worst, endured the worst and gave his best back.
I didn’t know him but I stand on his shoulders and those like him — my own parents and grandparents — and therefore I need to pay my respects to a man who made possible the opportunities in my life. For the debt I cannot repay to those who so willingly gave to me, I promise to pay it forward to the next generation, all the while telling the heroic stories of those who came before me.
Monsieur Henri, your memory is a blessing to all who know you and your family.