Christmas Bird

I was driving to my 12 step Coda meeting the other night. You know, the one where I'm supposedly learning to let go-- the one where I'm learning to accept people and situations for who and what they are and forgive, forgive, forgive.

I take unfamiliar highways because apparently there are so few people in the tri-state area who have control issues such as myself that I have to travel great distances to get there. AA meetings? Please. You can't go thirty yards without tripping over some grisly pack of loitering, smoking, over-caffeinated alcoholics. Their meetings are conveniently held everywhere and at all hours-- hundreds of open doors within a few square miles beckoning with hot coffee and folding chairs so that their personal demons can kibbutz and cavort with the voices in their heads.

But for those of us afflicted with a penchant for trying to control the stars' twinkling and the snows' falling ("No, no snowflake, you land there, and you land there..."), the ones who need to be tied down from helping out when help wasn't asked of us, the ones who see themselves through a giant pair of circus clown glasses, the lenses jam packed with the faces and imagined judgments of his or her community instead of just themselves-- for us, there are but a few scant meetings. So I drive.

On the way, I was signaling to get over into the right hand highway exit lane so that I might, you know, exit. (Exiting being the perceived key to me getting to my meeting, learning to let go and becoming a better person, a better friend and all around stellar human being.) The driver behind me and to my right wasn't giving me enough room to move over but wasn't passing me either. I felt myself winding up as my exit loomed closer and made the executive decision to bully my way over safely, but none the less, under driver's duress. The other car, now behind me, flashed his or her brights then passed me with no intention of ever exiting. That's when it hit me.

I must flip this person the Christmas Bird.

I must show him or her the err of his or her ways. Clearly, that's my job, right? My anointed duty to point out injustices, to right wrongs? To show people that they're not being Christian at Christmastime, even if they might be Jewish, Muslim or Agnostic? Christmas is no time to refuse someone entree into your lane when they're clearly using their directional signal. Would this person refuse a pregnant teenager a room at the inn? Probably. I had to do something. I had to act fast.

I reached for the electric window button to roll it down so that my Christmas Bird might be thrust into the brisk night air with poignancy and panache. In that split second I thought to myself, You know, Self, every one's safe, thank goodness. There were no egregious errors made, no resulting accident. Perhaps the other driver was locked in heated conversation or silently ruminating over some recent bad news. Or was blasting the radio, singing joyfully and full of such reverie and gusto to "Tainted Love" that they spaced out for a moment and didn't see your turn signal. Maybe the flashing lights were more of an "I'm Sorry" gesture than a "Hey, Jerkface." Sure, there could have been a small pinch of selfishness or aggression in the other driver's actions, but really, is it worth getting out the bird for?

"Heck, yes!" was my Self's reply.

So I pushed the down window button. Nothing happened. I pushed it again. There was a minute lurch, but with no result. The window was frozen. There would be no Christmas Bird. Jesus, my co-pilot, laughed.
"What, Jesus," I snapped.
"Nothing," he smirked.
"No, what's so funny?"
"Your window's frozen shut."
"No, duh. Did you do that Mr. Miracle Man?"
"Didn't have to." He sunk down in his naugahyde seat and tried to muffle his snickering with his robes. I was pissed.

I took the exit ramp then said, "You know, Jesus, you think you're so funny."
"No, I-"
"Mister Love Everybody, Mister Kindness and Forgiveness, you try getting to your meeting on time. Oh, I forgot, you're so perfect, you don't need any meetings. It must be nice, feeling so superior all the time. And please take your grubby sandals off my dashboard."
Jesus sat up and after a moment casually reached for the radio's tuning knob and said, "Oh, c'mon, relax, I'm just trying to make light of a light situation."
"What, you're trying to tell me that it wasn't worth flipping the bird over?" I steamed.
He said nothing as he listened for a salsa station then found one and smiled.

We were on secondary roads now, the occasional evergreen boxwood wrapped in tiny lights twinkled. Passing all those lit up reindeer and blow-up Santas forced me to relax my grip on the steering wheel.
"What?" I asked guiltily.
"I was just wondering why you choose to take everything so personally. Other drivers, your family, your in-laws, watering your Christmas tree, gift-wrapping, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, shall I continue?"
"No," I sulked.
"It's not your job, you know. None of it is," he reasoned, "you are your only job."
"Ah, ha! What about my son?"
"Sure, you should clothe and feed him and love him, but ultimately--"
"Yeah, I've heard. I get it." I turned off the main road and pulled into the dark church parking lot. Warm bodies lit up the inside of the building.

Jesus asked, "That superhero feeling, the one where you feel responsible for righting wrongs and fixing everyone around you, how's that working for you?"
I pulled into a spot and turned off the ignition. The car ticked as the motor cooled.
"Sucks."
He started to crack a smile, which got so wide he had to turn his head away from me.
I got defensive, "Jesus, Jesus! So what do you want me to do then? Let me guess, be kind, love everyone, be forgiving, let go and let your Dad handle it? Your Dad, God, who supposedly got Mary, an innocent thirteen year old pregnant with you? Nice. Happy Birthday, by the way."
Jesus said, "I'm just saying try doing nothing."
"Yeah, yeah. Let go," I said. I'd heard it all before.

I stewed. Then I had a glimmer of a thought. I turned to Jesus and said optimistically, "I've done it with my ex-husband. Let go. No more expectations. Finito."
He sat up straight, "Good! And how's that going for you?"
I brightened, "Sad but good. And muuuuch better. I'm actually happier."
"Well then, Merry Christmas to you," Jesus said in his kind-Jesus voice, "Now, try it with the rest of the world."
"O.K., I know, I'm trying," I said, because I am.
"I know you're trying. Cut yourself a little slack, too. The whole forgiveness shtick? It's for you to do to yourself, too."
"Yeah, OK. Got it."

I gathered my stuff, reached for the door handle and said, "I'd love to stay here and shoot the breeze with you, Jesus, your being so wise and all, but I gotta-- what is so damn funny?"
He had started to crack up again.
"The next time you want to flip some one the bird..." Jesus trailed off. He was laughing too hard to continue. I cracked a smile. I tried to be tough, but I couldn't help myself.

I was wearing mittens.



Merry Christmas to everyone. And I mean everyone.

Seven

I was tagged by my imaginary friend, Blabber Mouse, to divulge seven random and weird things about me in the blogger's version of a chain letter.

This private hell for me is two fold. For one, I hate chain letters. Nay, hate is too panseyass a sentiment. I loathe chain letters. And I loathe them from experience. In my youth I copied prayers, xeroxed poems and wrapped up dollar bills, socks, dish towels and whatever else my conscious harangued me to. Wouldn't want some one in Flippin, Arkansas stranded at the dirt bike rally after dark without my socks to keep them snuggly warm. I waited in post office lines for hours-- hours that I'll never get back-- clutching soft little packages and over sized envelopes. My guilty conscience, back then, was mammoth-esque in scope and I had about as much gumption as an albatross. I was an obedient little Girl Scout and did not break a single chain, and for my trouble I was rewarded with a sound night's sleep. But did my wishes come true? Nyet.

Only once did I see the fulfilled promise of a dream. I did get, in fact, one dishtowel, once. Not the twenty I'd been promised, but I did get one. And it was fugly. Never received any socks and was never shown the money ("$500.00 in two weeks!" they said).

Each and every time time I participated in a chain letter I was forced to take inventory of my friends. Could I trust them? Would they follow through and meet a deadline? Did Dawn, from the marching band, count as a friend even though she was two grades older? Would Debby from tap class do the chain even though she goes to another school? I sat down to assess. Tina would probably break the chain because she has too much homework with all those AP classes. Kelly wouldn't send it on and wouldn't give a damn. I always admired her moxie-- why couldn't I be more like her? Becky and Julie probably already got the letter from Sally, who'd sent it to me. Did I have twelve friends left after that? Should I go out and make more so as not to break the chain? The pressure was awesome.

At some point in my thirties, I started deleting chain emails with a vengeance. Laughing in the face of fate, I dared bad things to happen and do you know what? Bad things did happen. Puppies were run over and governments were toppled but I was fairly certain that none of it had to do with me or the fact that I'd broken a few chains. I was a Bonafide Chain Breaker and I reveled in my new found defiance towards the guilt ridden world of chains.

Now I am free to forward and delete as I feel fit, letting little more than whimsy and the moon's gravitational pull on a wave chart to guide me. I am a chain email atheist. Yes, they happen, but they're not responsible for holding the cosmos together and neither am I. It's nice, this new found freedom. It allows me to consider who my gullible friends still are and that superstition can still have a powerful grasp on even the most rational adult's reasoning and psyche. And that once in a while, it's good to be bad.

But this one I'll do. Just this once.

1. I don't have pierced ears. Never have.

2. I once tap danced and played "I Want Your Sex" on the sousaphone on MTV wearing a purple sequined dress.

3. I once stopped myself from asking James Brown for his autograph for my mother because he was on his way into the bathroom and I thought he deserved his dignity. I've since come to realize that he didn't and that I should have gone for it. Mom would have loved it.

4. I am a spectacular parallel parker. Truly Olympic.

5. My old college ex-boyfriend is a former Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Another one for the books.

6. I have a collection of 16 wisdom teeth, given to me by various friends, that I hope one day to make into a dazzling charm bracelet which should go nicely with my old mouth retainer that I made into a brooch and wore to art openings in the eighties. It was, at the time, the most expensive piece of jewelry I owned.

7. I Still shine the occasional moon, but it must be at the right moment, must be done with panache and must be for an appreciative audience.

Young Monks

Young monks, shooting the breeze, on the journey to attaining total enlightenment:

Stan: "Nothing gets to me, I am one with everything."
Rick: "Wow, I'm impressed."
Stan: "Gotcha! You're not supposed to be impressed. That's suggests envy or ego."
Phil: "But can't he just be appreciative of-"
Stan: "Nope."
Phil: "Not even a little?"
Stan: "Eh-eh."
Alphonso: "Well, I'm totally living in the moment and loving every minute of it."
Rick: "Wow! That's amaz-- oh, shoot. I did it again."
Stan: "My friend, just listen, acknowledge and be present for the next moment, whatever it may bring. Don't attach any meaning to anything. Let the words you hear be like curling ribbons of vapor, disappearing into the ether without a trace."
Stan: "Yeah, just let it go."
Rick: "Everything?"
All Monks: "Everything."
Rick: "I know, I know, it's just that I forget and get so excited."
Phil: "It's only natural. Don't be so hard on yourself."
Alphonso: "You'll get there. Takes time."
Phil: "Yeah, hang in there little buddy."

All the monks stand quietly, shuffling a bit, looking down at their bowls. It's an awkward silence, even though they all know it's not supposed to be.

Manny: "Is that why there aren't more female monks?"
Stan: "What do you mean?"
Manny: "You know, the part about not attaching meaning to anything and letting everything go."
Alphonso: "You mean, they way women internalize and over-think everything?"
Phil: "Yeah, that and the fact that their imaginations go wild which makes them looney."
Stan: "And there's the beating the dead horse thing."
Rick: "And the control thing, God I hate how they need to always be-- awww, shoot. I did it again, didn't I."
Stan: "You did."

All the monks smile and chide Rick good-naturedly. Rick blushes then re-arranges his saffron robes.

Phil: "Everything's so personal with them."

The group heaves a collective sigh.

Manny: "So, you're saying that if women could detach from their own thoughts and extrapolate only the facts from what they hear others say..."
Phil: "And not take anything personally."
Alphonso: "Or attach any meaning to any other person's words or actions..."
Rick: "And relinquish control..."
Stan: "And let it all go..."
Manny: "They might have a chance?"

There is a long pause. The young monks stare out into the vast expanse of rubble. They are wistful in their musings. Manny picks at a grain of old rice dried onto his bowl.

Manny: "So that would explain why--"
Rick: "Yep. That pretty much sums it up."
Manny: "Got it."

Thanks

When I was in high school I had a friend named, Steve. Actually I had about eight friends named Steve, but that was the name back then.

Steve had a mop of wiry, curly, red apple hair, slightly gnarled teeth, the bluest eyes and an Irish twinkle that got him into trouble for little more than breathing. He was gregarious and silly which easily masked the fact that he was brilliant. I think he may have wanted to keep his intelligence covert because the honor role kids-- the ones who spent their off hours in the "computer room"-- weren't nearly as much fun as the mischievous, messed-up kids-- the ones with a very dry sense of humor, who smoked pot and thought up clever ways to deface the school without leaving permanent damage.

He hung out with the musicians and the artsy crowd and was himself a drummer in the marching band and an art room star. But like all charismatic charmers who manage to defy high school's damning peg system, he was also a nimble wrestler and played varsity football. Steve was so friendly, to literally everybody, that he was voted homecoming king, hands down, over all the straight-teethed Arian offspring and some of our high school's more superior genetic lottery winners. He made the exchange student, "Hor-Hay from Ecuador," his best friend, and treated all teachers with a gentlemanly respect that, in hindsight, was just shades away from abject mockery. He was inconsistent academically and his teachers, who had mixed feelings about him, couldn't help but smile at his jokes. He was an exceptional hugger.

When he learned that he couldn't go to the senior prom because of his latest run in with the Principal, Steve decided to throw his own. It was to be called, "Lil' Stevie's Prom." I drew up a flyer in cursive and gold dust and taped them all around the school. (Clearly subversive plotting through stealth action was not part of my oeuvre at the time.) The idea was that everyone would give Steve twenty bucks, which he'd keep in his pocket. We'd use most of it for the rental payment on the Knights of Columbus dining hall and the rest on kegs of Bud. The cover band, for which I sang and played tambourine, would play for free and we'd all have the prom of our dreams, with Lil' Steve as our master of ceremonies and nothing but dancing and beer. The school was abuzz in no time and people were so friggin' excited about it you would have though Evel Knievel was comin' to town.

We hit our first roadblock when the rental hall discovered that no one among us was eighteen. And then there was the little issue of the legal drinking age in New Jersey, which was, as you might have guessed, not seventeen. Our teachers went berzerk. My flyers were taken down and we were all reprimanded by school authorities. Steve refunded every one's money.

I didn't know what went on in Lil' Stevie's home growing up. If it wasn't part of my own scope of experience then it didn't occur to me. So much of what I later learned about people's home lives would have gone right over my head back then, even if I had known. Heck, even stuff about my own childhood went over my head until very recently. To this day I don't know very much about Steve's private life but I wish I new more. I know that he graduated and at some point went into the army. He was stationed at the DMZ zone, on the 38th parallel in Korea and learned Korean. I was a fierce pen pal in those days, a real US postal force to be reckoned with, and we exchanged letters often.

When he returned, he taught me how to say, "Thank You," in Korean. "Kum-sahm-nee-dah," he would say, and I would repeat it to myself, sometimes calling him to ask if I was saying it correctly. As a reward for being a good student he taught me, "You're Welcome," or "Chun-mah-nay-o."

By this time I was living in New York City and going to NYU where Korean delis dotted the landscape, at least one on every corner it seemed. Every time I bought a NY Post or an ice cream sandwich, I got to practice my phrase, and in doing so, thought of Steve. Usually the busy cashier didn't notice my mumblings or perhaps thought she'd only heard it in her mind. But every so often, she brightened, smiled and looked up into my eyes. "You speak Korean?" she'd ask excitedly and before I could answer would shout over to her friend. And each time I would feel embarrassed to say, "No. Just kum-sahm-nee-dah and chun-mah-nay-o." But they didn't seem as disappointed as I was in myself. They seemed happy that I'd taken the time or made the effort, and I, in turn, was happy to practice my phrase and think of Steve. This little ritual went on for the nearly twenty years that I lived in NY, LA, Brooklyn and San Francisco and continues to this day with the nice family who owns the dry cleaner in my New Jersey suburban town.

As the years accumulated I kept tabs on Steve but didn't see him. I knew, with a sort of lazy complacency, that I would most certainly see Steve again, and so I didn't even try. He wasn't in my graduating class, so he didn't come to my reunions, but I knew he lived in Boston, was married and had kids. He was one of those people where if you'd ask me whom I'm most curious about from high school, Steve would have made the list. And every time I said "Thank you" in Korean he was right there with me, making some crack about buying another box of Mallowmars or ribbing me for how I got that stain on my shirt.

Maybe it's because he was always with me that I never looked him up. So when he died at around age forty, I was pissed. Pissed at myself for taking him for granted and pissed at him for the obvious. I couldn't believe that I would never get that chance to see if his twinkle had made it through the years, though his face had aged, and to just hang out and shoot the breeze for a while. It didn't occur to an old boyfriend from high school to tell me about the service, so I missed it. I felt robbed.

I guess that's the way things go when you get right down to it. Most people will never know who've they affected and how. And maybe that's for the better. Maybe knowing how you've affected some one is too much information, or not necessary or down right none of your business. But no matter. I've forgiven myself for not looking him up and for taking him for granted. For assuming he'd live. Now I'm content to think of Steve, every so often, in a very healthy and friendly way, attached to the smallest expression of kindness, which was a big part of who he was. I think he would have gotten a huge kick out of it. And maybe when he unwrapped the plastic from the hangar before putting on his lightly starched shirt, he would have thought of me, thinking of him, saying thanks to Koreans, everywhere.

명. 고맙습니다

Joy

Yesterday I felt a shiny nickel's worth of joy again.

It all started with our new President-elect. Nothing sexier than a whip-smart family man with an action plan, a steady hand and a irresistible grin. I feel better just thinking about him.

A few days later I had a delightful lunch with an old friend topped off by a malted milk shake-- black and white godliness with extra, extra malt-- so good I danced a chair-jig. Then I ran for the A train and caught it just in time. Speedy and nimble like Wonder Woman leaping through a shrinking portal, I had just enough finesse and swirl to keep my cape from getting caught in the closing doors. I actually had to stop myself from winking at a fellow passenger as I stuck my dismount, cocky and head sure, hands on hips to the tune of the subway's familiar, "Bing-bong."

The real pinnacle of this day's fiesta of personal triumph came when, walking briskly through Penn Station, the gum I was chewing fell out of my mouth and I caught it in my hand! I could have peed in my pants with pride and accomplishment. "Holy moly, I'm on a roll!" I thought, "Nothing can stop me now!" I popped the gum back in my mouth and nearly pumped my fist in the air with a leap and a guttural, "Yeah!" usually reserved for football games, campaign rallies and the last scene in every John Hughes movie.

Smugly, I sauntered to track 3 with a subtle bounce in my step not known or felt for sometime. Things were lookin' up. To the uninitiated I was a gum-crackin' suburban lady on her way home to a life of filling stations and shopping carts, but I had a glint-- a rarity these days. I had hope, I had luck and I had the gum in my mouth to prove it. I was a woman with just enough naivete, (and a smidge of blithe denial), to feel certain, if only for a moment, that everything was going to work out. Our country was going to be fine, my son was going to be fine, the divorce was going to be fine and that I, in the end, was going to be fine.

So let's raise a glass to President Obama, a long life, hope and small joys.

I've said to folks going through tough times, "Things may be brutal now, but this will all be cocktail party banter before you know it." Such will be my divorce. One of life's little anecdotes in a laundry list of experiences, I'll reel it off with the same world-weary inflection given to tap dancing and playing the tuba on MTV, getting kicked out of Lenin's tomb and taking a hammer to the Berlin Wall. The older the dame I become, the longer the list I'll recite. The more husbands I go through and filter less camels I smoke, the droller my delivery, the snappier the comebacks and the better the wilting hors d'oeuvres will seem to everyone tipsy around me.

I once asked a friend, sitting numb in her car, how long would I Feel This Way? She said that we usually feel shitty until the feeling passes and then we feel OK until the next time we feel shitty. She said the trick was in knowing that the feeling will pass and that it won't last forever. "If it did," she said, "we'd all be in the hospital."

I think of that advice often and then connect the dots through each variation, disguised in different texts or spoken to me from different mouths, over and over, day in and day out. It's all the same message, no matter how you slice it. And if I can just remember it, tattoo it to the inside of my eyelids, the milkshakes may appear more often and my gum may stay nestled in my cheek, with joy sticking to me like burs on a sweater or just within reach, like hail at my feet.

Not Funny

You know what's funny about getting divorced? Nothing. Nothing's funny about getting divorced.

I keep trying to find the humor, the ridiculous, the sublime, but it's just one gooey, mucky mess of self-help books and Mallomars, hairy legs and burning eyes, weepy mornings and lonely nights. God, it's lame and I'm the lamer for it.

Crying through church, therapy, yoga class and my 12 step program has become a sort of homage to Mary Tyler Moore in my own fashion. You remember at the end of the funeral episode when Peanuts the Clown is crushed by the elephant and Mary's relentless giggles are replaced, a bit too tardy perhaps, by hysterical sobs? That would be me. All the time. But with out the canned audience laughter. Jest me, hogging the Kleenex box, puffy and bleary eyed. Blechhh. Gross. How gross? Gross me out the door, that's how.

I'll keep you posted when things start to get hilarious, though. I was at the ready during my first meeting with my divorce attorney, but, nope. Nothing funny there. I was poised for puns when my son's kindergarten teacher told me that he was, "acting out lately." Wait, maybe... Naw. Children of divorce are decidedly not funny. I've stopped going to weddings, so there's no chance of self-piteous hijinx there. And the staggeringly impressive arsenal of humorless self-help books stacked at my bedside ensures that I go to sleep every night with a perfect frown on my face. Just like Nixon.

On the up side, I'll probably lose more weight. Fewer disposable razors to buy and fewer presents to wrap at Christmas. I'll get to flex those "bitter muscles" that have been on brief hiatus since my adoption fell apart and my husband moved out. And I'll just keep waiting for the hilarious to present itself to me. Whether it's hashing out a custody arrangement or looking for gainful employment in our New Stinkin' Economy, I'll be ready. And to be honest, it could be much worse. Like, daylight savings could end or I could find out that I have cancer. But daylight savings isn't for... oh, really? Shit. Well, I don't have cancer, knock wood. I'm healthy and my son's healthy and this is just gonna suck for a while, that's all.

As someone said to me not that long ago, "It'll be exhilarating!"

Right. Exhilarating the way water-boarding is exhilarating. Sure, there's that. Meantime, for the love of God, somebody step on a banana peel, will ya? I'm dyin' here.

DIY

My husband took my son to his grandparent's in Connecticut for the weekend and with him, the car. My car, I suppose you could say, the one I mostly drive. We agreed he should take it because it's safer and I had no distant plans-- the station car would do just fine.

It wasn't until later, as I was putting on my coat, that I realized that my make-up bag was in the side door of my car, traveling up the Garden State Parkway, and I had social plans. What on earth was I to do? My self-image as a Separated Lady in My Forties is tenuous at best, and I was about to introduce myself to a whole new crowd of potential future friends. And I'm not even talking boyfriends, Godforbid, I'm just talkin' peeps to hang out with. How could I possibly show my face without that subtle tint of health and vibrancy playing off my cheeks? Was there a social statement to appearing wan that I wasn't aware of? Would they think I was a lesbian, and if so, did it matter much? And what of my eyelashes-- two of my best and only standout facial features along with my eyeballs. They would be nekkid for all the world to see. Or not see in this case. I was disappointed but I had options, or so I thought. I shifted into "panicked burglar" mode.

First I checked every possible pocket in my dazzling panoply of purses, backpacks, tote bags and travel pouches. How many? I'll tell you when you're older. Then it was back upstairs to the deepest recesses of the top right bathroom drawer for what held, for purposes of obsessive
compulsive archiving I suppose, a blush that I've had since high school. I opened the compact, sized up the pink and realized I couldn't do it. It's an otherworldly pink, circa 1984, which only Blondie would have worn on her cheeks or Adam Ant, perhaps, on his eyelids. I looked longingly at the lipsticks but then remembered that never, not once in grade school, had I successfully smeared my Mom's lipstick symmetrically onto both cheeks. I had been down that road before, thank you very much, and had rubbed off enough lipstick and creme blush in my day to sink a ship.

I had been wearing the two missing blushes-- no, I couldn't find the spare either-- for eight years. I was introduced to the color just before my wedding day. A real life make-up professional in a fancy department store had deemed it My Color and so, not one to eschew an expert opinion, I've worn it ever since. It was more of a dusty tawny rose, the color of terribly faded cherry oak, than bubble gum pink and I'd grown to accept it as part of my organic composition. I didn't even know the name of it-- not that there was any time to zip off to the mall-- but still, I should at least know its name. I realized now that I took it for granted. It's a huge part of my life although I hadn't thought of it as such until that moment, and now I also felt ashamed. My blush was gone and with it, the lion's share of my attractiveness and my precious appearance of youth.

OK, perhaps you're wondering why anyone would keep her make-up bag in her car. My car is my portal to the outside world. It's the conduit of choice for most of my face-to-face human interactions. If I'm going to see a neighbor, I stop off for a quick visit to the driveway, where I sit in my car, one leg out and one leg in, putting on a quick swipe of mascara and blush, before closing the car door and heading merrily down the street. When I lived in L.A., I also kept a toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash and deodorant in my car, it was such a huge part of my life. But that was nothing compared to most Los Angelinos, who keep a change of clothes, their entire cache of sports equipment and assorted birth control in their cars.

My inner McGuyver took over. What could I mix together to make blush. I could grind up a clay pot from the patio. That would only take 45 more minutes or so. The party might be over by then. I could prick my fingertips and smear the blood on my cheeks like they did in concentration camps to avoid the gas chamber. Too macabre. I headed for the kitchen. Flour? Yep, I had flour, and smushed raisins for color? Too paste-y. Ground cayenne pepper? Too orange. Nutmeg! The color was better, but that smell-- too pungent. Cinnamon could be nice. What harm could I do to smell like mulled cider? None! I rubbed some on my cheeks. It looked... it looked like I had cinnamon on my face. Like some crazed baker who had just finished baking an apple pie in a frenzy of creative verve, I looked too harried to wipe the cinnamon off my face before changing out of my frilly apron and kerchief. And mascara? I lost the will to hatch a DIY mascara plan because time was ticking. I had the fleeting thought of using a sharpie to individually color the tips of each lash, but there again, I was stopped by the specter of potential blindness. "Permanent Blindness by Permanent Marker!" the Post headline would read. The pull quote would just say, "Duh."

I settled for lipstick on my lips. Too dark and too matte for what the hip ladies are wearing these days, but better than nothing. I thought of Cate Blanchet and her signature style of just deep lipstick and little else. I would channel Cate, pinch my cheeks and call it a day.

Of course, about a minute after I walked in the door of the party, I totally forgot about my lackluster lashes and my withering youth. I accepted an hors d'oeuvre and delicious homemade beer and immediately fell into an engaging conversation with perfectly nice people. They didn't comment on my advanced age or tell me that I must have been a real looker in my day. They didn't ask me if I was feeling all right or needed to sit down. And none of them, not one of them, asked me the proper name of my estranged blush of eight long years.

A good time was had by all.

The Point

I was, in my early days, known to craft back when Girl Scouts ruled the earth and long before craft was a verb. Recently though, I've taken up needlepointing to save my hollow soul from utter self-destruction. At first glance, you might see me sitting in the park and think, "How 2002-post-wave-feminist-nod-to-gentler-times-y." But it's more than that. Beyond my Little House desire to "Take Back the Yarn" and channel my underutilized creativity healthily, needlepointing is also taking my fragile sanity and channeling it into attractive throw pillows.

When my son was about two years old, my Mom Friends all had a second babies. I had tried and tried to have a second child to no avail, and still deeply distraught, found it challenging to hang out with friends who'd had no trouble conceiving again, especially with all the complaining they did (and still do) about how overwhelming it is to raise two kids. On most days I tucked my envy up my sleeve and enjoyed the meaty little cherubs almost as if they were my own. Every precious waddle into my arms or sticky kiss on my cheek reminding me of what I was missing but I soldiered on, alternating between graceful acceptance and whiny self-pity. My son, off playing happily and autonomously with his friends (the older siblings), no longer needed me for the most part. My work, for this phase at lease, was done.

I was now knee deep in the bench-sitter phase. I actually got to sit on the benches at playgrounds, which I and so many other new parents had only dreamt about when our children were just walking and needed us near. I wasn't one of the helicopter-parenting contingents, but even the laziest caregiver has to stay on her feet for the months or years after an intrepid toddler learns to climb and before he learns to fall. Back then, benches were those things that held our diaper bags. We glanced at them longingly from behind the swing set or seesaw, but sit on them? No chance. We were crouching mothers, swaying standers, forever at the ready, always on the move.

Now, I was sitting often. Conversations started between my froend and me only to be inevitably interrupted by youth's infinite caprices and then up my friend would go. Off to push a swing or referee a fight, she or he could be gone anywhere from 20 seconds to four minutes depending on how long the child wanted to play catch or slide down the fireman's pole. Sometimes our conversations continued over great distances like two hard-of-hearing great-aunts shouting across the great sandbox divide. More often than not, I got my lazy ass off the bench and went and stood next to my friend with my hands in my pockets while he pushed his younger son on the squeaky swing.

About half the time I didn't tag along, like when there were sobs to be consoled or disciplinary actions to be handed out. It's not really appropriate nor is it, quite frankly, easy to maintain a chat about a hilarious piece on The Onion's site while simultaneously counting down a time-out laced with stern looks of disapproval. When toilet training was involved, my alone time on the bench stretched out before me like those endless, wordless days, backpacking through Europe, when my travel companion managed to find a new boyfriend, no matter what country we were in, and take off with him, leaving me alone.

I tried thinking. And I should have been able to enjoy the quiet solace of dappled sunlight on wood chips but all I could think about, while surrounded by strollers, was of all the babies I wasn't having. I needed a distraction. I started keeping a rolled up New Yorker magazine in my back pocket. I kept it in my car and even brought it to the playground when it was just me and my son, because chances were pretty good that he might make a friend, and then, I would be abandoned again.

Reading was good but also proved challenging in it's own way. I would arrive at the park, hone in on my bench and my friend would take off. No prob. I would take out my trusty New Yorker and, invariably, get engrossed in some saga, totally sucked in to that piece about the crusty container ship captain and how his vessel was taken by rogue pirates in murky international waters and then he was tied up and knew he was gonna get it. The pirate captain demanded he give up his wedding band and the crusty captain said, "No!" which the pirate captain sort of respected him for and then, all of a sudden, my son was standing before me with his crusty nose needing wiping and now it's snack time and does anyone have an extra wipe? I tried to go back and forth between the fidgity sociopathic pirates and handing out fig newtons to grubby kids only so many times before losing the thread of the story and the will to finish. Time and again this happened, so I gave up.

I thought of knitting, briefly. Knitting is, in case you didn't know, very in. In fact, it was so hugely in for a while that it might even be passe at this point. History may prove knitting to be to the oughts what macrame was to the seventies. But who am I to care what's in when I'm just trying to save my own sanity. I tried knitting and I loved it, I really did. Knitted on the subway, knitted in meetings, knitted my little heart out. But when I got to the sleeves I froze. Sleeves and necks involved counting and dropping and decoding patterns and ripping out mistakes, and I just. Couldn't. Do it. I would need absolute silence and uninterrupted control over my environment in order to focus and concentrate and count, and the Turtleback Zoo was not going to give that to me. Nor was his T-ball clinic or the town pool. So much for knitting.

Needlepointing seemed the logical choice. There's no counting or decoding involved. It's paint by numbers for the craft-challenged. I can be needlepointing away on the bleachers while my son's getting a lecture from the coach and when it's his turn at bat, I can stop, lift my eyes and be fully invested in the game. When things get dreary again, I can just go right back to where I left off. No brain necessary.

I took to it like bees to honey.

I found a canvas at a rummage sale for eight bucks and the yarn for another seven. It rolls up and fits in my purse and never gets bigger. It's with me where ever I go. Long lines at the post office? No prob. Inept cashier at the supermarket? Not an issue. Paralyzing shyness at a PTA, 12 Step or Divorced Ladies Peer Group meeting? I can handle it. My needlepoint is my friend, my go-to-gal when I'm seized by a moment of such irrefutable discomfort that my only other option is to throw myself onto the nearest plastic fork and hope for a swift disembowelment. Of course it's a crutch, I admit it. But it's better than whipping out a crack pipe, or keeping a flask in my glove compartment. I know I should be meditating or breathing deeply, but jeeze, I can only do so much to hold it together.

So I needlepoint. And now, when my friends disappear to attend to their younger kids, I relish the chance to take a little break, nestle into my bench and enjoy my new hobby. It's dorky. It's queer. But it's saving me from my suffering these days and I'm slowly gaining peace, acceptance and some nifty new pillows for the sunroom.

Nice Belt

When one is separated and divorce is imminent, one of the topics bandied about by well meaning well-wishers is, "Don't worry, you won't stay single for long."

"Really?" me thinks, "You mean I'll soon get another chance to date forty seven wrong guys before finally honing in on the most best wrong guy before launching into the cringe-worthy world of relationship re-entry?" Oooh, goody. Sign me up. I am positively chomping at the bit to saunter down the well trod path of Will He Like My Cooking? And When Is It OK to Pee in Front of Him? again. Throw in Getting To Know His Parents and His Favorite Foods and Pet Peeves and I pretty much want to throw up. But not on him, goodness, no. Wouldn't want to diminish my chances at "'Til Death Do We Part -- The Sequel."

Which isn't to say that dinner isn't fine. I'll have dinner 'til the cows come home, but that's as far as I'll go for now. Just chit-chat and cloth napkins and who am I kidding? Who the hell am I going to have dinner with? Please. Looking beyond the fact that I don't want to be dating, I shouldn't be dating. Even if I wanted to, which I don't. I have towers of riotous self-help books all over my bedroom waiting for my somber attention like literary stalagmites, the likes of which have brought an unusual topgraphy to my bedroom sanctuary. And I have more crying to do. Certainly a first date isn't the place for an onslaught of heaving sobs, unless of course, we catch a little local Ibsen before dinner and I want to appear deeply affected, moved really, by The Theater. Which brings me to sex.

Here's my sales pitch for a patent pending number on this really great little gadget you just gotta check out. It's not a chastity belt, per se. Chastity belts went out with lemon wedges as tampons sometime after the Crusades. No, this is for the modern woman with a rice paper defense who just might need to be reminded after a glass and a half of wine that her dinner date should end at, "Check, please."

You remember, those bulky home-forged nuisances made of rusty iron? The ones that had padlocks and no spare keys? Well, I'm talking about a chastity belt for today's demanding woman. Something cozy and breathable, made with a cotton/lycra blend that a modern woman can slip on and lock up to remind her that she is in no condition whatsoever to even consider the possibility of sex until she gets her ducks in a row. And I mean all of them.

It's called the "Me Time Belt." It comes in six fashion colors and has a touch pad lock with re-programmable passcode. I would offer it in a barely-there reinforced brushed cotton for the warmer months-- something in a 320 thread count for durability while allowing for a smooth sillouette under summer skirts, and a fleecy warm silk and satin blend for colder climes. That one, called the Shiver Me Timbers, would come with a built in dial for "Warming your cockles when there's no chance of cock!" during those seemingly endless cold, dark winter afternoons.

Wikipedia says: "On February 6, 2004, USA Today reported that at Athens airport in Greece, a woman's steel chastity belt had triggered a security alarm at the metal detector. She was allowed to continue her flight to London on the pilot's authority."

I think she would make a good spokesperson or at the very least, my first customer, don't you?

Chick Magnet

My son's best friend is a chick magnet. He's six, but he's been a bonafide chick magnet since he was about four. The girls line up to sit next to him at story time and to chase him on the playground at recess. Some have even gone so far as to do his cutting and gluing for him, much to his mother's horror. He is swathed in girls every moment of the day and has been since they could wobble towards him.

And so it begins.

He is bathed in starlight, has been anointed with pixie dust and blown kisses by angels. His eyes-dimples-smile combo with extra cheese is impossible to resist, by even the most hard hearted crossing guards. He is a child of the Gods, although his parents would say he is the illegitimate child of Gods, neither of them claiming, as children, an iota of their son's irrevocable lustre.

"What the hell are we gonna do with a popular kid?" his mother once asked in all earnestness.
"I dunno," answered her equally flummoxed husband.

Apparently neither of them had darkened the doorstep of apex popularity in school. But had Brad Pitt? When he was little Brad Stinky Peach Pit, did the curtains part on the 2nd grade play to reveal a child of the heavens, so brimming with that certain je ne sais quois, that parents and teachers alike nudged each other in their seats, and whispered over their betamax camcorders, "That kid's gonna go far." I know from personal experience that I stayed strapped to my seat in the theater, after Thelma and Louise took the plunge, to wait through the credits so that I might catch a glimpse of That Cowboy's name.

"Wait, just wait a second longer," I pleaded with my cousin who was more than ready to go.
"I just want to see," and then I saw it, "There! Brad Pitt. Huh. Brad Pitt. OK, we can go now."

The next time I did that consciously was when I happened across the Democratic National Convention on TV a thousand years ago. "Wait just a minute longer," I pleaded with my right hand which was twitching on the remote.
"I just want to know," and then I heard it, Barak Obama. Huh. Barak Obama. OK, we can change channels now.

What do you do when your child always gets an extra loop on the pony ride? How do you explain to your son that it's not like this for all children. That not all little boys and girls get an extra scoop on his or her single serving ice cream cone then get to live out the rest of their childhoods like miniature rock stars. But such is the way the world has always worked since Darwin allowed the first caveman with two distinct eyebrows. The fancier the feathers, the more fawning one elicits, the more action one gets, the more doors that swing open. And if handled properly, like kryptonite or radium, the arrangement of those feathers, as he becomes an adult, may bring the world's oyster right to his feet.

I'll always wonder if the charisma of some of our most exquisitely chiseled celebrities, Paul Newman for example, was fully in play as a child. It would have to be to explain how someone might be so comfortable with their own skin, so supremely confident as a man, as to marry his wise crakin', right-back-atchya banterin' muse until death did he part. Or to run for student council president and then President president without looking back or pausing for a second thought. Sure, it may take cahones to run, but, let's face it, it takes charisma to win.

A teacher of mine once defined charisma as, "Not giving a damn." He kept saying over and over, "The truly successful, the ones with charisma, their secret is that they don't give a damn. Stop caring what anyone thinks, for chrissake!" This would explain, in a nutshell, my meteoric rise to stunning obscurity and Angelina Jolie's to Brad Pitt.

And the lucky ones with looks, brains and charisma? Well, let's just say that I'll be registering my son's pal's name as a web domain just to get a leg up on the competition. And I'll teach myself to say, "I knew him when," in seven different languages. Oh, calm down, I'm not out to profit from this genetic jackpot of a super nice and totally delightful child. I'll leave that to his parents-- (just kidding, they're friends of mine.) And I promise to sell his domain name, licensing rights and registered trade mark back to him when he turns eighteen or when his parents say he's old enough to take the reigns, which ever comes first. He can pay me two dollars. One for each dimple.

Haunted

One bright midday this summer, just before lunchtime, a phalanx of hungry neighborhood kids tromped into our house. There was me and my son, my sister and her three kids, my pal and her son, and a local neighborhood boy. To spare you the trouble, that's twelve for lunch, including my parents. My sister set about making grilled cheese sandwiches like a sergeant in a mess hall but with the finesse and panache of a four star chef. These grilled cheeses had hearty slabs of butter, or as we call it in our house, food of the gods, and ample cheese, browned to perfection. The adult version of said same included a soupcon of honeycup mustard, some mayo (also f.o.t.g.), and thinly sliced ham draped lovingly across the warm bed of cheese like a silk duvet on satin sheets. Ahhhh, yessssss, summertime.

As the sandwiches were placed on the kitchen table the troops were called in to lunch. They descended, swarm-like, on the kid's platter with knuckles knocking. Their allotment was signalled by the two perpendicular cuts quartering the sandwiches into the hors d'hoeuvre-like morsels so popular among the under four feet set. The more mature diagonal cuts halved the grown-ups' fare. The air above the stove top waltzed with the heavenly aroma of toasted bread, cheese and butter. There was a brief moment of calm as everyone savored. Yummmmmmy.

It was then that my mother noticed that the neighbor child wasn't eating, but standing quietly on the fringes of our noontime feast. I thought perhaps he was withholding because he did live down the street, after all. His kitchen was a mere stone's throw away-- if you had a good arm-- and perhaps he was considering zipping home for a quick bite then joining us after. And why not? He may have more refined tastes that we can't cater to. There's no reason we can't eat what our individual desires dictate and still be chums, right? But he didn't leave. He just stood there. My mother pointed to the platter of hallowed Americana and said, "Go ahead, dear, there's enough grilled cheese for everyone."

To which our ten year old guest replied, "Cheese haunts me."

I'll wait while you re-read that last sentence. And keep in mind, I'm not making this up. And he wasn't being funny. His face didn't change. There was no grin to come.

Huh, I thought. Really? Haunts you? Like in Poltergeist? Do you open the fridge and snatching your tender arm back from Satin's grip, announce eerily, "They're heee-re," at the sight of the individually vacuum packed mozzarella sticks in the cheese drawer?

Or is it a more aggressive haunting like in the Exorcist. Will you begin talking like a sinister Lou Rawls? Will we end up strapping you to your bedposts and pelting you with fist fulls of lactose pills? Will your head spin fully around on your delicate shoulders and then will you open your mouth and spew cheeze whiz all over the flocked wallpaper?

Actually, this is starting to sound good. I'm due for a little cheese haunting. It's been a while. The last time a kid in my neighborhood was haunted it was by capers and what's the fun in that? Bring it on, I say. Let 'er rip. Feed that local boy a grilled cheese sandwich and let the games begin.

But, no. My mom offered to make him a different sandwich, one tailor-made to his liking. I cracked, "He is ten, Mom, he could make his own sandwich." But that wasn't very nice of me. I guess I just didn't want my mom to put down her sandwich and go to all the trouble of making a custom ordered sandwich for Beelzebub's nephew when he might just as likely throw that one up as well. I mean, who knows what caprice of haunting he may find himself under next? I was perfectly willing to sponge off the wallpaper if need be. Just as soon as Mom and I finished lunch.

Bed Rest

Things I would do if quarantined and confined to my bed for a year :

Learn the ukulele.
Brush up on my French. (For what reason, I can't fathom.)
Learn Spanish.
Learn Chinese.
Learn Morse code.
Finish putting together eight years worth of photo albums.
Re-read all of the saved notes I passed, or was passed, from 6th until 11th grade.
Re-read all my old saved letters. (On actual paper, with envelopes and stamps.)
Read all the classics I'm too embarrassed to tell anyone that I never read.
Memorize all the correct words to The Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, America (My Country Tis of Thee), This Land is Your Land and Yankee Doodle.
Memorize at least three verses of Silent Night, Deck the Halls and all of Frosty the Snowman.
Quilt something big.
Knit something wearable.
Make a crochet square blanket then give it away to someone I don't necessarily like, but who would certainly appreciate it.
Needlepoint a pillow commemorating the dates of and reason for my confinement with a pithy phrase quoted along the bottom.
Hook a rug.
Quill.
Recite the names of every guy I've ever gone out with starting in 3rd grade and classify into various colorful subsets.
Google every one I ever dated or had a crush on since high school.
Google all the geeks from high school. (I know, can you believe I haven't already done that? I'm saving it.)
Attempt to sing and catalogue every song I've ever known in my entire life, including all WPLJ radio sing-a-long faves, in chronological order.
Write a hit pop song.
Write a schmaltzy ballad.
Write my obituary.
Sleep. Alot.
Get depressed.
Think of all the clever and creative ways I might kill myself without getting out of bed.
Write upbeat letters to the editors of all my favorite magazines.
Write the great American novel.
Learn to play bridge.
Learn the rules of cricket.
Learn to identify the calls of all the birds indigenous to my back yard.
Take another nap.
Wake up feeling refreshed and a little less depressed.
Practice my ukulele.

Brandi, You're a Fine Girl

Honestly, I couldn't have written it better.

My husband moved out in May. Mother's Day Weekend to be exact. And it's been going well and it's all for the best, and when a door closes a window opens and all that malarkey. But the other day he said casually, something-something, "...when I go back home." And he didn't mean our house in the suburbs, the one we bought and fixed-up together with his stripped and re-varnished windowsills, his re-built garbage hutch and the living room screens he made me for Valentine's Day way back when. Nor did he mean the home that contains his son's bedroom with his beautiful son sleeping soundly in it, an exquisite angel with his legs bent at the knees and feet crossed at the ankles, oblivious to the malestrom of our marriage.

He meant his sublet on the Upper West Side.

And I thought, well, there you have it, what's done is done, the transformation has been completed. He now thinks of his bare room in a three bedroom share on 109th street as his home. And who does he go home to? None other than, Brandi.

How friggin' perfect is that. My marriage falls to pieces in part over my husband's textbook mid-life crisis and he rents a room in an apartment with a female roommate named, I kid you not, Brandi.

Now it takes two to tango and two to admit accountability for the dissolution of a marriage. A large part of what I've been trying to change in my basic personality pie chart is the part that gives a hoot about what the folks in my life are up to. That's gotta go. So to be given the gift of Brandi "But-she's-engaged", the actress, was pretty perfect as far as being tested by God and the cosmos goes.

So, what does a guy who's left his wife and son to follow his New York City bachelor dreams do with a roommate named, Brandi? I'll never know. And I'll never ask. But more importantly, I don't care.

Pool Shark

"Where do you live?" asked the beguiling nine-year-old girl from the shallow end of her vast swimming pool. I'd grown up with her father and the pool, and my young son and I had dropped in unannounced for a late afternoon dip. The babysitter asked if I could keep an eye on her while she ran inside for a sec and I agreed.

It was a simple enough question so I answered it, telling her the name of our town. We weren't from around here.
"Oh," she said, "That's not too bad."
"Not too bad?" I'm thinking, "I beg your pardon, Missy, I happen to like--" and before I could reply, she went on to say that our town, wherein I'd chosen to raise my son, was "full of bandits."

At first I found it endearing that a young girl would use the term "bandits" and wondered if she also pointed out "hobos" slouched on the sidewalks of Newark. I countered that she must be referring to another town with a similar sounding name that was a notorious hotbed of bandits and she bought it. My mind relaxed and leaned back on it's elbow. My son, age nearly five, is keenly aware of bandits and robbers, as he calls them, and I didn't want to add further angst to his already piqued awareness of such evil-doers in the world, much less draw his attention to their proximity to our back yard.

Then she perked up and said, "Ooh, there is one story about bandits that happened in that town. Do you want to hear it?" I looked at her squarely in the eyes and calmly but pointedly said, "No. Let's not tell that story," then glanced at Jimmy, who was doing his best impersonation of an inattentive child. I thought that that would do the trick, using what I would call my ace reverse tone shtick to let her know I meant business, well aware that hers is an existence of crashing crescendos and audible exclamations points. She said, "O.K., I understand," and smiled demurely, proud of herself for her maturity. Just as I was mentally wiping my hands of the whole matter and about to light my brain's corncob pipe, she continued, "This lady, in the supermarket in your town, had all her money stolen right out of her purse."

I looked at Jimmy who was underwater for half of it and then looked back at her.
"I asked you not to tell him," I said quietly and evenly.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry," she smiled, resting a wet chin on a tan, glistening forearm. She was beautiful now and would be spectacular in about ten years. Her long legs supported a lithe torso that already nipped in at the waist, hinting at the classic shape she would take in the coming years, like her mother, aunts and grandmothers before her.

"You know what else?" she said.
"Good Lord, now what?" I thought.
"Some bandits even come to your house," she crackled.
And I thought, "O.K., that's it, we're outta here." What's next? How easy it is to pick a lock? How anyone can break into your house if they really want to? Recent kidnapping trends in the tri-state area?

I had visions of hustling Jimmy out of the pool and back down the driveway the way one might escape a sudden torrential rain or a surprise onslaught of locusts. Except in my vision of the two of us running hunched under a damp towel, I have my fingers in his ears. "Two minute warning," is what I said, "Jimmy, we've got to get going in two minutes." And then I expertly re-directed the conversation away from the looming train wreck it could only become.

Yes, I was being overprotective, paranoid and controlling the way a mother of one child is convinced she can be, but jeeze, Jimmy is at That Age. He is consumed with bad guys, robbers and the safety and the sanctity of our home and his room. He counted the days until his Kung-Fu Panda headband arrived from the cereal manufacturer, finally giving him the superpowers he had gone six to eight long weeks without. And if there was one thing I knew I couldn't control in this scenario, it was that girl. She had an evil mind and she was going to use it for destruction, to remind everyone who's boss, and to maintain total pool-wide domination.

If only we'd brought the Kung-Fu panda headband to the pool. It's made with velcro and might fit me. Wearing it, I could keep him safe from bandits and nine-year-old girls until he was old enough to not need me or it. Then he could keep me safe from bandits and nine-year-old girls and from my evil-doer thoughts regarding what I might do to a bandit or a certain nine-year-old girl if I ever got my hands on her or him in a dark alley.

Next time, I'll call first before dropping by unannounced.

Dawn, of Mankind

Years ago my friend was making an independent film-- a deft comedy romp starring some up and coming comics and their friends. I asked if there was anything I could do for him, anything at all. My early career in indy film and cable TV production had made me well versed in sound recording and Costo runs and I knew he was doing this on a shoestring.
"Well, there is one thing," my friend, Harry, the director, said.
"You got it. Name it," I said, gamely.
"I need someone to play a stripper and no one will do it." he said.
Harry was a well known yuckster and pretty pervy in his own way and I thought for sure he was kidding.
"I'm not kidding," he said.
“Oh.”
I thought a moment then said, "Let me talk it over with my husband."

Who was I kidding; my husband was thrilled. I told Harry I would do it but only if I was made up beyond recognition; wigs, prosthetics, the whole nine yards. And I would only strip down to a bathing suit. (I had some dignity, however scant.)

I showed up on set somewhere in Queens or Brooklyn at an ungodly hour.
"Morning!" I chirped.
"Yeah," Harry grumbled. The set was already abuzz; coffee cups, cables and crew everywhere.
"So, what do you need?" I asked, helpfully, as if I were showing up to do lawn chores. What a girl scout. I was no doubt trying to assuage my guilt for playing an agent of desire in the carnal commercial industry. A strippa.
Harry said, "You'll be dancing to this," and he handed me a CD. It read, 2001 A Space Odyssey.
I looked at him quizzically, "You want me to strip to the theme from 2001 Space Odyssey?"
"Yes," he smirked.
I was confused, but then I perked up, "The disco version, right?"
"No, the Richard Strauss version," he smiled, "It's funnier."
"The one with horns and timpani drums?" I said with my eyebrows.
"That’s the one."
He was right. It was funnier. Harry pointed, "In that door is a gym where they'll get you into hair and make-up. There's also a boom-box and some room to choreograph your routine."
"Choreograph my routine?" my eyebrows continued.
"You're gonna have to do it like twenty times and it's gonna have to be the same every time for continuity right?" Right again.
"OK," I said, "Anything else?"
"Yeah," he said before walking away, "be funny."

Okey-dokey. Be a funny stripper. No dialogue, just dancing. Because if there's one thing that's hilariously knee-slappingly funny, it's a stripper.
I crossed the cruddy linoleum gymnasium floor to the corner of the room and plugged the boom box in behind a stack of metal folding chairs. Immediately, all my years of dancing in high school musicals came flooding back to me. I figured my character must be third rate, which means her junior high school musical, circa 1980, is probably the last time she "trained." So, grape vine, kick-ball-change, glissade and pas de bourree, they all went into my routine. I played the song over and over and each time added a few more steps. Flashdance came to mind so I included the running-in-place-in-a-circle bit while gliding my hands up and down my thighs. I also included the infamous shimmy from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a cartwheel, and ended with the dying swan move from Swan Lake. It was the worst made up dance routine I could imagine and hopefully, funny. I worked on it for four and a half hours, committed it to memory, and then headed off to wardrobe.

Sitting in the make-up chair I couldn't help but think that Harry was pretty damn lucky that I had said yes. How many of his friends were dance minors in college and could fit into Amy Poehler's silver lamé bikini? Precious few. They put me in a Cleopatra wig; dark, wet lipstick; and heavy blue eye shadow. Amy, who had a legit role in the film, was sitting in the make-up chair next to me. I mentioned to her that I was wearing her silver lamé bikini from The Upright Citizens Brigade TV show and she nodded and smiled. She didn't say much-- kept her cards pretty close to her chest-- so I decided to do that, too.
They stuffed my bikini top to a full C cup and then put me in Amy's fishbowl helmet, white puffy zip-up suit and moon boots, because if you're a lushy perv in a dank, dark strip club, you're going to need a little visual aid to drive the point home. I was an astronaut, dammit, not some derivative or homage, but the real deal. I went back to my corner of the gym and muddled through the entire routine again in costume. The boots held me back a bit, I had to admit, but the rest seemed to really hum. I was clearly starting to take my role very seriously.

Two hours later, it was show time. I was led onto the “bar” set where the usual motley crew of hardened film industry carnies and disillusioned extras stood waiting for me to get into position. Harry asked if I was ready and then cued the dry ice. All I had to do was to walk out onto the tiny stage, strip out of an astronaut suit in front of a room full of strangers and dance my lousy routine badly without messing up or laughing, over and over and over again.
A weary male voice with a Long Island accent introduced me, “And now, Dawn of Mankind.” I shuffled out slowly, a tarted-up, zombie-like cosmonaut, from behind a smoky haze. As the horn music swelled with that first painstaking note, I removed my large, round, glass helmet; flicked off my heavy, Kevlar gloves; and started to dance. The arms of the space suit were attached at the shoulders with Velcro so that when I swung them into a Y, then stopped them abruptly, the sleeves flew off and up into the ether. Then I unzipped the suit and twirled it over my head a few times like Annie Oakley before tossing it into the crowd. I was in the zone. The rest of my dance fell seamlessly into place as Richard Strauss' hit crescendoed to an electrifying conclusion with me, in bikini, wig, and moon boots, fluttering on the floor as the dying swan-- timpani drums beating wildly. Bravo!

I did it again and again until I became sweaty and finally they told me I was done. Cameras, cables and coffee cups shifted as I gathered my stuff-- I had no handlers-- and headed for the door. Harry called me over to say thanks and good job. Then he told me it was funny.
"Really?" I said, looking longingly for a pat.
"Yeah," he said, already thinking about the next scene. But he was genuine and I glanced over at the DP, his assistant, and the camera loader and they all nodded, grunted and half-smiled. The cameraman even said, out loud right to my face, "You were very funny,” and I just about fell over. When the cameraman says you're funny, you've really accomplished something. I beamed.
I washed my face and returned everything to wardrobe, even the moon boots. Amy Poehler told me that I was funny then tootled off. I poked my head in to say goodbye to Harry and he sneaked out to give me a proper farewell. I thanked him for the good time and he thanked me for saving his ass. “Damn right I did,” I said. Then he told me that if I wanted to get paid, I should talk to that guy over there. Paid? Heck, yeah, I'll get paid! So he kissed me on the cheek, I wished him good luck and took off, musing over what I might buy with my unexpected windfall. A few weeks later I got a check in the mail for forty bucks.

The film enjoyed a nice run at a smattering of art theaters and college campuses but never got the wide screen release Harry was hoping for. All that hard work, however, was not in vain. Currently, the movie is enjoying a pleasant second wind as early morning programming on a comedy cable television channel. I sleep in soundly, knowing that I did my part for the cinematic arts and funny strippers everywhere and my friends, as they slurp their morning coffee, can glimpse my pale, half-nekkid body flailing around in the background during a scene of dialogue between the two main characters, who, by the way, are not paying an ounce of attention to the ridiculous astronaut dancing really poorly on the tiny stage behind them.

Drive-Thru

I keep writing new pieces then spend weeks revising them then send them off to publishing concerns which prohibits me from posting them here. And so you think I've died.

Well, close. But not quite. I wish I'd died, most days, but not the permanent kind, more of the Walt-Disney-cryogenic semi-permanent kind. I envision me and my son going to sleep and waking up a year from now in our wonderful, cozy home with pancake batter already mixed and fresh flowers on the breakfast nook table, all of our problems seamlessly worked out, a new rhythm to our life together, hope lingering in the air all around us like pixie dust. All I need to do is wipe the kiwi-sized sleepies out of my eyes, heat the griddle and put on some lovely, soothing, morning music. Sounds divine. Unrealistic to be sure, but heavenly.

Speaking of heaven and death. Did you know that there are drive-thru funeral parlors in the good 'ole USA? You follow the arrows, slowly driving around the building, like at a bank or Burger King, and stop at the podium next to your car door, on which lays the guest book and a pen. Just behind the podium there is a low, long rectangular window cut out of the funeral home's basement floor. There, behind the glass, lying in eternal grace, is your dear friend you were too lazy-assed to get out of the car for.

You glance at your friend, or maybe your mother, and decide what to write. Maybe you even turn down the radio or shush your kids in order to better organize your thoughts. You could just sign your name, but they'll know that this is the outdoor guest book on account of the dried rain drops and bird doo on its sun bleached pages, so perhaps a little note is in order. Something sentimental will do nicely.

"Dear Gertie,
Sorry about the piano. I was sure the smoking would kill ya.
Aren't you glad you didn't stop? Ha, ha! I'll miss you at canasta.
Love, Vickie"

or

"Dear Mom,
I'd get out of the car, but I've got the kids with me and whose going to watch them now that you're gone and besides, I knew you wouldn't want them to get caramel corn on your precious casket that could have paid for ballet/jazz and tap lessons, but OK, fine.
Sorry to see you go. I told you not to smoke.
Love ya, miss ya, Vick"

I could go on, but I won't.

Sometime I'll tell you about the place out west where you can have your loved one's ashes shot into space where they'll orbit Earth for 64 million years. Now that's death. Eternal life ain't got nuthin' on that.

Girlfriends

I love, "The Girls Next Door," and I think I've finally figured out why and I'll tell you in a minute. First off, for those of you not in The Know, "The Girls Next Door," is a reality-type documentary show about Hugh Hefner's three girlfriends and their mundane, day-to-day adventures living together at The Mansion. One man, three women, scantily clad, all getting along and enjoying life's simple pleasures. Sort of like "Big Love" meets "Show Girls" meets "Little House on the Prairie." Pure programming bliss. I cannot for the life of me continue the business of channel surfing when I chance upon this rich nugget of cable viewing heaven, I must stop and gawk. I may be deeply opposed to rubber necking on the freeway, but for this I have to slow down and stare and I think I know why. It's because they're so friggin' nice to each other. And their boobies are so gosh darn big.

Seriously, think about it. Three totally unsophisticated, looks-obsessed, uneducated girlfriends with no future earnings potential sharing one rich, vaguely attentive workaholic boyfriend. They should be at each other's throats, right? Pick me, pick me! Kicking, scratching and swearing up a storm. Well, they're not. Or if they are, the network will never let on. It's all peach pie and picnics for us. Any eyeball scratching cat fights have been left on the cutting room floor. (A phrase, by the way, that is now so antiquated that I'm dating myself. Again.)

And the boobies? So big. I look at them and marvel the way I look at certain secretary's incredibly long and winding 2-inch-plus fingernails and think,

1. How do you diaper your children?
2. How do you re thread the broken shoulder straps on their back-packs?
3. Pick gunk out of their eyes?

And with boobies I think,

1. How do you see the bottom row of keys on your computer?
2. How do you get your back tan?
3. Scratch your elbow?

I mean, their bellybuttons must be caked with years of hardened lint sediment in tiny little layers because they can't get in there. Or can they? I know! They can clean each other's belly buttons! And that, my friends is the genius of their living arrangement. Holly (The Mom), Bridget (The Girlscout) and Kendra (The Sullen, Slightly-Spoiled, Permanently-Hungover, Tomboy Troublemaker) live together like super-sweet co-eds in their own private sorority. Hef does little more than shuffle around, take naps and order soup.

In fact, Hef's whole mystique can be summed up by the fact that Holly's endearing nick name for him is "Puffin." Not "Tiger" or "Wild Man" or "Hercules." Just a silly little unobtrusive bird. Eagle, hawk and raven wouldn't have worked either, but Puffin fits him like a glove. Sure, occasionally we see them in his 1970s goth bedroom all sitting together on those cheesy, slippery crimson sheets, on that ridiculous custom made emperor-sized bed, but they're usually watching TV or eating ice cream. It's less like the west coast epi-center of adult hedonism and more like sleep-away camp.

In fact, I'm guessing there's far more debauchery going on at sleep-away camps all over the greater US than there is in Hef's bedroom. And not for lack of trying. Those girls have been bit by the sexy bug and you just know that on the myriad vacations they take without him there is some serious dirty dancing going on between the three of them. But we don't usually get to see that. We see golf cart hi-jinx, doggie grooming excursions and endless theme party planning. Plus their incredibly thoughtful and caring friendship, wanton giggling and mutual respect. Its bizarre.

And thank goodness they have each other. Those parties look dreadful. We don't get to see various young stud A-List movie stars mauling nineteen year old playmates from Arkansas. No, no, we see our three girls, their assortment of playpals, a sibling or two, sometimes a mom, Hef and his eighty year old brother and their ninety year old friends standing around under flourescent lights. It just looks so dismal I can't tell you. The only guest with any chutzpah, besides the effervescent Kendra, is Mary, Hef's executive assistant of 140 years. She a real piece of work, drinkin' and swearin' like a sailor, totally unimpressed by the whole circus sideshow. She just keeps plugging along, filing things away in shoe boxes and old metal filing cabinets, tucking missives into her brassier I imagine. As long as she gets a scotch and an occasional hand of poker she's happy. Of the whole lot, she's the one I would want to be stuck in an elevator with. Oh, the boring, redundant stories she could tell.

So, I recommend, "The Girls Next Door." No back-biting, no-infighting, not a single cross word between them. Just a trio of best friends havin' some good, clean fun. And lots of ginormous boobies. Truly a marvel to see.

Perspective

Under the title, "Things Could Be Worse," in my life's card catalogue, I came across a piece in The Times about how albinos in Tanzania are being hunted for their bones, skin and hair. Apparently witch doctors in the Congo are suggesting that the use of certain albino body parts in potions and weaving their hair into fishing nets will bring great wealth. As if the inevitability of dying the slow death of skin cancer and being tormented as local pariahs weren't bad enough.

I thought of cutting out the picture of the weary, destitute albino man and putting it up on my fridge, but didn't want to add insult to injury. It seemed disrespectful to use someone else's personal calamity as a barometer for my own whining. How would I feel if there was a yacht somewhere on the Cote D'Azur where some socialite in a wide brimmed hat put my picture on the door of her walk in shoe closet, just to remind her that things could be worse. She should count her lucky stars because after all, she could be living in a three bedroom house in a small, suburban community surrounded by neighbors who actually cook their own food and drive their own cars. The horror.

I would get wind of this and, understandably steamed, would ride up to her yacht on a small rented dinghy and demand to come aboard in my bucket hat and Crocs. She would wave a Harry Winstoned hand at her manservant, Ernesto, in an attempt to have me shoo'd away, but I would persist. "Take my photo off your door, lady. I don't want to be some symbol of a less-than life for you, I like my life, in fact, I love my life."
She would cooly counter, "Then why do you need that photo of the albino man on your refrigerator door?"
"How did you-"
She continues, "If you are truly contented, why do you need comparison to remind you of your happiness?"

I'm stumped. I slouch onto the white suede sectional couch and look out over the glittering bay towards the salmon pink horizon. I can taste the salt in the air and feel my hair starting to curl. Ernesto hands me a glass of champagne. I thank him and think to myself, "What would Ghandhi say?"

I just saw Ghandhi on Netflix. He always had just the right comeback, very clever banter, that Gandhi fellow. He could have moonlighted as a TV talk show writer, although I'm sure his textile venture was very prosperous, being Gandhi and all. I can just hear the radio ad crackling on the ashram porch, "Now you, too, can wear the shirt right off of Gandhi's back! Be the most enlightened of all your friends in a shirt personally spun by the leader of the revolution and savior of our nation! An assortment of colors in all sizes. Visit our showroom in Calcutta today. Call ahead as we may be closed due to bloodshed." Seriously, WWGD?

Ernesto returned with a tray of sushi and I returned to the matter at hand.
"So what you're saying is, I shouldn't need anything to remind me of my gurtitude." I was getting a little tipsy.
"Precisely," she replied, blotting a monogrammed silk linen napkin to her moist lips.
I asked, "Then why do you have my photo tacked to your walk-in-shoe-closet-to-the-stars sliding pocket door?"
"To remind me of your happiness."
I was a little confused. I reached for a spider roll and asked, "You think I'm happy?"
"I know you're happy. Even when you don't."
I chewed. I swallowed. I thought of Gandhi.
I asked her, "Does that mean the Albino man is happy?"
She responded, "He may or may not be. You have no way of knowing. The only thing you can be sure of is how you feel."
"But those poor people!"
"Who, the ones in Tanzania or suburban New Jersey?"
I eyed her suspiciously then something hit me. I leaned forward excitedly and sloshed a little bit of champagne on her turquoise and lime green rug, "Do you know my shrink? Were you sent here by my therapist?"
She said, "You came to me."

And with that, she finished her Perrier, got up, said goodnight and sauntered out of the room. Boy she was one tough customer. And such a nice manicure. How does she get her hair so shiny? Now I was drunk.

I never took philosophy in school and I wasn't on the debate team. But I knew enough to know that she had the upper hand and that there was a lesson in there somewhere. Although the waters had been calm I felt nauseous and desperately wanted an aspirin. Before I had even finished the thought, Ernesto was there, by my side, with 500 milligrams in his perfectly opened palm. His skin was so beautiful. I wanted to hug him. Or maybe I wanted him to hug me. I definitely needed to go home.

I chose not to put the albino man on my fridge. I think of him every night, though, and I say a little prayer, as if it would do any good, for him and the women and children who are being hunted. I imagine him thinking always, always, within each moment, each second of his waking life, "What's going to happen next? What's to become of me?" But, then I'm reminded that I don't know what he or any of the other albinos are thinking. I couldn't begin to imagine and it's wrong to even try.

Sometimes I drift off to sleep thinking about the fancy lady, Gandhi, Ernesto and the albinos of Tanzania all having a relaxing picnic together under a big, shady oak tree. And sometimes I just wonder, over and over, "What's going to happen next? What's to become of me? I'm happy, aren't I?"

Church of Choice

My son, Jimmy, and I have been getting Daddy accustomed to the idea that we're going to church now. My husband is, most decidedly, not, which is ironic as he was a religion major in college. OK, maybe it's not so ironic, but he plays along by asking our son how it went every Sunday after services.

One day during brunch, after a bit of direct questioning on my son's part as to what Daddy's own particular brand of church is, my husband answers, "The Mets is my church."

I'm thinking, "Oh, great."
Jimmy waits a beat and counters with, "Writing is Mommy's church."

Hallelujia, praise the Lord, little Jimmy's catching on.

Signing

The other night I was at the book reading of a friend of a friend's. She's a sharp cookie and hilarious lesbian (yes, you heard me right) as her writing and especially her storytelling deftly communicates. I was in awe. But at the same time thought, "Hey, I can do that." I can get my books published and go to bookstores and read my work and chat with the hoi polloi and sign their books and make nice. I have attractive handwriting and no germ phobias or fear of public speaking. I'm your gal.

I was feeling good about my new life as a published book-signin' author when I wandered into the conversation being held by the two warm-up authors who had read first in the evening's line-up and a third guy who was also a published author, though not a lesbian, as well as something alarmingly called a Live Fiction Critic, yikes. They were discussing how they sign their books when at their own book readings. They said things like, "If they've bought this book, I sign it this way, and if they've bought my other book I usually sign it another way." And how they always ask if the person wants an inscription or just an autograph in case they plan to resell it on e-bay. They weren't preening, they were just harmlessly swapping tricks of the trade.

I felt as if I were surrounded by earnest mid-western beauty queens trading tips on how they polish and maintain the high luster of their rhinestone tiaras.

They were generous to include me in their conversation, and perfectly friendly, I might add, especially since I had absolutely nothing to add. I suppose I could have tried to interject a dry little ditty about signing Christmas cards, but I didn't bother. Too much of a reach, and these lesbians weren't nearly as funny. So I just listened, trying to soak up the other team's play book, that of Published Authors.

I wonder if they knew I felt like an anxious puppy with my wet slobbery nose pressed up against the cage, panting and drooling with wild desire. I wonder if they know that I'm next.

Buttons

There are laces we tie up and zippers we zip
There are snaps we snap snugly with nary a quip
There are hooks that get hooked at the neck's lovely nape
As we dress up for dinner's much needed escape.

But the buttons we push just by being one's self
When they leak hideousness from the very top shelf
And that black gooey stuff with those sharp little shards
That can hardly be cleaned, though we try oh-so-hard
Keeps on drippin', then runnin' a strong steady stream
Until every thing's sopped; patience, hope, love and dreams
Once we're stepping in muck and we're covered in goo
Seems the self that I thought was the right self won't do.

So it's back to the salt mines, yup, back to my core
Back to the original factory store
To tear down the walls, asbestos and black mold,
(I pray I can do this, that I'm not too old)
Like the bionic woman I'll stop at no end
To re-code and re-build me as Mom, wife and friend.

It's gonna get ugly and messy and ick
There's no other way, there is simply no trick
To avoid the inevitable unbearable truth
(It's been chasing me since I got off in Duluth)

So here I go on this most treach'rous of trips
I feel bad for the stains left from those nasty drips
Please move a small rug, shift the couch, inch the chair,
And for heaven's sake do wash the pain from your hair,
And I'll do the same and then before we know it
Time will have passed and then more time will show it
Was best for us all, was the best we could do
So anon the next phase, the next chapter or two

I'm gonna need tissues, some wine and a cookie,
I'll slump to the floor, yes, and moan like a Wookie,
But I'll get by like the vast hoards gone before me
And tepidly, gingerly glide gently toward thee
My blessings are many, my good fortunes, great
I'll cover my grey hairs and gain back the weight

Then one bright fine day I won't sob any longer
I'll stride from the ashes a bit happier, a lot stronger
I'll dust off my funny bone and my thinking cap
And I'll write it all down and then take a long nap
Then wake up and pick up my sweet son from school,
He's my bright shining star and he's no body's fool

He'll bounce back as I will, he's young and he's malleable
Our family we'll cherish as precious and valuable
Together we'll forge, yes, our problems we'll suck up
I'll do what I can so that he's not a fuck up

Like his parents, grandparents and those gone before
Such damage to undo'll take patience galore
And willpower, fortitude, gumption and grace
I'll put feet in my mouth and get egg on my face

But I'll try and I'll try and I'll try with great might
Until one fine clear evening when saying goodnight
I'll look up at the full moon and down at my son
And know without a doubt that a battle I've won
OK, maybe not won but triumphed just a bit
So the buttons I push don't turn evr'ything to shit.

The End.

(Smile and curtsy. Blow a kiss. Wave. Exit stage left.)

Leid Back

A couple of months back, I was feeling particularly awash in bitterness and frustration when I happened upon a notice for a three-hour hula class. Imagine that, thought I. Why not harness all my stress and tension and then unleash it upon a room full of unsuspecting Hawaiians.
"Hey," some might say, "what say you try kick boxing or cock fighting to assuage your pent up hostility?"
And I might answer, "But where, pray thee, could I get a fierce cock on such short notice?"
"True, true," the sages would nod.

Besides, kick boxing would require a whole special outfit which means an extra shopping trip to some hideous sports gear emporium, then the added pressure of regular pedicures so that I'm not kicking my hygienically-challenged feet into some one's face and getting sued for passing on some mutant strain of mersa and lets not forget the addition of multiple loads of laundry so as to keep the white outfit it's very brightest which is why I feel the need to punch someone in the first place.

So off to the hula class I went, unprepared and unapologetic. I was going to learn to hula, dammit, or else. Or at the very least, I would spend an afternoon hopefully surrounded by good peeps.

I rushed so as not to be late. Silly me. They were all late; the students, the instructor, late, late, late. But it didn't seem to matter nor was it acknowledged once they started to dribble in because after all, Hawaiian time is laid back time (think Southern California) and some how it hadn't occurred to me that there might be actual Hawaiians taking hula in Manhattan and that the instructor might also be Hawaiian. So in they sauntered and lallygagged and I followed them snorting and stomping on the inside as we dropped our bags and sloughed off our jackets and waited for class to begin.

Their faces were predominantly Hawaiian, wide with full mouths and strong horizontal noses. I might even say squarish features like Russians, except for the eyes which pleated upwards at the corners into semi-gaiety. Their skin was the color of roasted walnuts and their hair was thick, shiny black, mostly wavy and only on the tops of their heads. If you were to guess, you might suggest Puerto Rican, Cuban, Chinese, even Filipino, but they were a classic mix of Japanese, Chinese, Samoan and others that is Polynesian, that is Hawaiian. The women's bodies were startlingly different with every variety present and accounted for and the men were proud, unabashed and not all gay. There was a married couple in their fifties who hula'd together proving the old adage, "A couple who hulas together, stays together." He was small, much smaller than the more substantially built women of a certain stout stature, and she was small, too, with deep circles under her heavily lidded eyes. There was a scar on her cheek and her expression suggested exhaustion whether she was or not, but she was so beautiful when she smiled that I was reminded that all women are beautiful when they are truly loved.

Within moments the students wandered over and graciously introduced themselves. They had lyrical paperback novel names like Ila and Fawn, Nani and Cecilia, Masaki and Roxanne. Everyone was there; the Young Gay with the rippling biceps; the Old Man who seemed cauterized at the waist but either didn't notice or didn't care; the three Old Ladies and the three Young Gals, the Very Skinny Minis, and the Luscious Zaftig Ones, and lest we forget, the random Howlie Girl from Rhode Island who drives down and back every month for these weekend seminars. They were all present and relaxed and ready to hula and they couldn't have been nicer. Clearly this was no place for my prickly mantle of stress and hostility, so I put it away, gently tucked it into my shoes along with my balled-up socks.

Our teacher, June, was the loveliest and kindest woman I have come across in a long time. She was radiant and calm, not "Hey, man, it's all good" stoner-calm, just contented calm. It was unusual. It was peaceful. It was quietly magnificent.

The second thing I noticed was her age. Probably late fifties or early sixties. And warm, almost sunny almond-shaped eyes with a bow-shaped mouth. She wasn't wearing a leotard or full skirt as some of the other ladies were; big, colorful swaths of lime and yellow Hawaiian leaf or magenta and lilac flower printed cotton fabric gathered at the waist with large elastic bands adding at least 15 pounds to every waist. But no one cared an iota because there were no egos in the room. There didn't even appear to be any egos tucked into their shoes or waiting in the lobby for them to assume once class was over. Even the Very Gay Man had a certain sweetness scarcely found in the West Village as any Mary will tell you.

June had very short, close cropped hair and wore simple black pants and a long sleeved cream colored jersey top. No make up and no jewelry but for a simple gold chain necklace with a charm so tiny I couldn't make it out. Totally un-"dancerly", she did nothing to call attention to the fact that this was her class and she was the instructor. She never raised her voice and yet, we listened. We lined up in three staggered rows of four or five across and faced the giant mirrored wall, some 25 feet high. Behind us the opposite wall was glass, allowing for the city's humbled downtown skyline to share this crisp day's white cartoon clouds and sunshine with us. After a brief moment of June asking, "Now which dance did we leave off on?" and, "Should we do the Hi'iaka this time?" and "Does anyone remember how the arms start off with this one?" (because no one had written it down, including June), we began.

"Hula," June commanded sweetly and everyone began to move our arms and feet at once. June alone sang in Hawaiian, her clear, round alto voice providing the only music we would need. No boom boxes, no amplification, just her actual, incomparable singing voice. I jumped in with both feet and arms akimbo, doing my best to keep up from the comfortable anonymity of the back row. My arms moved and dropped my hands into certain spots in the air for very brief moments before moving them on to the next place, always moving, liquid, moving, sweeping, never resting for more than an instant in any one place in time. Simultaneously, my feet moved constantly in a set side-to-side pattern whose groove became automatic until the occasional curve ball was thrown, but always back to the familiar shuffle. Like a room full of extremely graceful airport runway signal flag wavers, we danced.

Sometimes, when a new dance began, a large orange gourd was lifted and dropped, slapped and knocked in time to the chanting. Sometimes just the sounds of our feet rocking and digging into the floor, heels up and down, lent us the percussion for these mighty dances about strength and courage. Fists hit palms in time to stomping as we honored Pele, the fierce goddess of volcanoes. Expressions were equally fierce and focused and then for the next dance, our arms and hands became breezes, flowers and gentle rain, and our faces relaxed and smiled. One dance sings of effortless confidence and self-assurance: "I am a beautiful dancer, I have bright eyes and cheeks, graceful hands, lovely shoulders and I have made a lei for you with all my heart. I embrace you and give it to you with Aloha." It was during these dances that June never had to remind anyone to smile, because everyone was already smiling.

Occasionally June stopped to explain in English, "Your hands are birds, this sweep is the mountain, when hands come down around your neck, you are putting on a lei." Could my feet possibly be the waves? Who is the lei from? Why are we saying no to the god and the god of what? I had so many questions and I kept them all to myself because everyone else seemed to know the answers. But it was OK. I just replaced one question with the next, letting them leap frog over one another and then out of my head and kept dancing.

At certain parts of certain dances, everyone joined in singing the long, meandering, Hawaiian phrases which sounded to me like a mellifluous Native American dialect, with cadences and melodies sounding similar to those I recall from the TV show "Northern Exposure." June was up at the front, dancing away, heels digging, hips rocking and smiling. I hadn't expected to encounter sex so unabashedly during my hula class, but there it was. Hands stretched up, clasped behind our heads, upper bodies tipped back, smiling, eyes to the heavens, hips forward with right toe outstretched and pointed as we rocked side to side like Rita Hayworth nestling back into a haystack. And there's June, so fully engaged with her sensuality in this moment that I couldn't help but imagine her really enjoying a good roll in the hay. Hubba, hubba.

At this point I couldn't believe my luck in falling in with this merry band of hula dancers. I think it's pretty safe to say that Hawaiians are the calmest, kindest and most relaxed people west of the Hudson River. And yet, here they were in Manhattan on a windy, frigid Sunday afternoon. "What are all of you people doing here?" I wanted to say, "and why did you leave your sunshine and papaya filled oasis of mellowness and beauty to come to the epicenter of crassness and strife?" And why are you all so seemingly happy about it?

It took some time but I managed to piece a few things together by watching and listening during the "five minute" break which lasted twenty. I learned that this group of dancers had been dancing together all year long. They were students, housewives, employees and entrepreneurs and they'd been meeting for practices between classes because apparently there is a hula exam next month and a performance in May. They were given handouts at one point with song translations and would be required to translate as part of their exam. They were friendly, as is a group unified by a common goal, but not necessarily friends. I learned that June lives in Chicago and flies to New York once a month to teach beginners on Saturdays and advanced dancers on Sundays. And, you guessed it, this was a Sunday. But I had held my own over there in the back row and June had been delicately supportive and occasionally complimentary. I had felt no pressure, no competition and no judgment from a single soul in the room, including June.

And then I learned that June is a Zen Buddhist priest.

Ahh-ha. Got it.

A cloud passed and the sun strengthened and brightened with the vivid clarity it masters only in the early spring and fall in New York. The room filled, brimming so completely with simple voices and simple smiles, and sex and strength and grace and beauty that I thought the walls might begin to gently glow, buzzing from such unfettered joy.

I didn't know what else to do, not sure if anyone else had noticed. My eyes welled up and a hitch crept up my throat but I stopped myself. Then I turned back to June, my sexy Zen Buddhist priest Hawaiian hula instructor, and I smiled and kept dancing.