Dr. Strangemom (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the blog)

strangemom in the city

Oh, hello. I'm just back from New York.

I love saying that to everyone I see. It sounds so urbane and casual. So adventurous. So not like me.

Also, it is the best excuse since the 1994 Northridge earthquake for avoiding shit.

"Oh, right. Your wedding. I've been in New York, you know, and I plum forgot about it. So sorry."

I love excuses. Life in LA was a bountiful, fertile petrie dish of excuses for me - earthquakes, heat, traffic - I hardly ever had to show up for anything when I lived there. Now, however, in the Pacific Northwest, I have to be more accountable for my shit. I mean, I can blame an ice storm but - unlike an earthquake, which can be felt (and therefore, validated) by merely one person, albeit a reprehensible, lying, manipulative person - an ice storm is difficult to sell as an excuse, especially to my neighbors who can look outside their windows.

Anything on my calendar, even something good, fills me with dread. I go through the Kubler-Ross stages of shock, denial, bargaining, anger and - inevitably - surrender when I see that I have plans to go somewhere or see someone. I know this may seem counter-intuitive to the fact that I long to live on a commune with people all around me, but it's not. You see, on a commune, one simply encounters one's comrades in regular life situations - morning coffee on the stoop (in my mind, our rural commune has a kinda Brooklyn Heights but with yurts look to it), making the monthly batch of granola in the communal kitchen, replacing the bulbs in the grow lights. In real life, you have to make plans to see people and then you have to wait until the date arrives and then you have to leave your house and go somewhere.

Which is really asking too much of a person.

And which is why it I am surprised that I totally kicked ass at it in New York. Oh, I tried to spend most of my time in the apartment in bed, believe me. Most mornings, by the time I got up, Robin had been up for hours; had breakfasted with Adam and Ken before they left for work, walked Hank the dog around the block a few times, had coffee and made a million new friends. Still, I was dressed and ready by 8AM, Oregon time, each day. Yeah, I campagined for the virtues of seeing New York in my jammies from Adam and Ken's terrace, but in the end, I was slapping my Mephisto sandals on the steaming August pavement with the rest of them.

And I am glad I did. Because otherwise, I would never have met the gyro cart guy in Times Square who - when he sneezed while asking if I wanted hot sauce on my chicken gyro, and I answered, "yes. Hot sauce and Lysol, please" - laughed at my clever bon mot until one of his fillings actually fell out of his mouth. I tell you, I killed on that corner there. I can make it anywhere.

If I stayed in the apartment, I also would never have met the cab driver who - upon hearing my disappointment that he wasn't the Cash Cab - despite my insistence at only taking Cash Cab lookalike minivan taxis, I never found it - offered to play reverse Cash Cab with me, instructing me to ask him questions for a suggested $25.00 for each of his correct answers. If this catches on and becomes a new show on Discovery Channel, someone owes Rufiso and me our share of the revenue. And I really need the scratch because Rufiso kicked my ass at those questions about New York streets. Fool me twice.

On the other hand, had I stayed in bed, I could have missed the forced march Robin took me on from Midtown to, like, Iowa. I really thought he was trying to kill me in that 97 degree, 2000% humidity weather, pushing me to trudge on through Gramercy Park, around Union Square, down the streets of Greenwich Village, the West Village, Chelsea, stopping only to refill our water bottles and beg strangers for Band-aids as my $250.00 sandals were giving me $250.00 blisters which were beginning to bleed all over my $250.00 sandals, rendering me unable to wear any shoes at all, practically, for the rest of the trip, relying, instead, on loosely wrapped menus from the Tibetan restaurant down the block held onto my feet by hair scrunchies.

Thusly shod, I soldiered on. I looked like I was the last holdout from the 1971 Renaissance Faire.

Between my shoe attire, my sweat-frizzed hair (which already suffers from post-Menopausal pubic hair transplant syndrome even in the driest of climates), the absence of a pair of tweezers (confiscated at the airport, 'natch, and fuck if was gonna spend twenty-seven dollars on a new pair at Duane Read even if my mustache and unibrow were coming in like a 757 with a blown tire) and the frequent, unabashed lifting of my blouse to wipe the sweat from my face, I did not exactly show New York my best features.  Plus, and not that I am obssessing about this or anything, I outweighed, like, everyone, in Midtown. And don't even get me started about the gay bars - if you ever want to feel bad, really bad, about yourself, be sweaty and frizzy and gain 75 lbs and then go to a gay bar in Manhattan. The trannys looked more feminine than I did.

Oh, I could tell you so many more stories about my trip to New York but our time is up.

Let's get together real soon. Or soon after that.

After the ice storm, for sure.

Yurt #1. Taking names.

My friend, Don Green, circa the Summer of Love.

He's in.

WWMD?

Have you heard The Word?

May I stand at your front door and talk to you for a few minutes about The Word?

Hello? Wait. Come back. Fuck.

You see, I have been to the Promised Land: Sag Harbor.

I have surrendered my body to the smooth - one might whisper,  tho not unkindly, "well-worn" - velvet womb of seat #3, left mezzanine. Once there, Egypt is behind me forever. I will never again dwell in the land of the stranger.

Because David Mamet spoke to me. To me. Through the mouths of the cast of the Bay Street Theater's production of "Romance". He spoke The Word.

And the word was fuck.

I am still in thrall.

Regular readers of this blog know about my relationship with the word. It is the beloved child I determinedly strap into the stroller and parade through my 'hood, knowing full well that the child is not pleasant for others to behold. To me, of course, the word, this child, is beautiful, perfect, a reassurance that the issue of my tissue will live yet for another generation, but I am not unaware of the looks we get outside our home. The wide-eyed anticipatory smile that - once the child's face is revealed - tries, unsuccessfully, to mask a wince, disappointment, judgment. Yeah, I see you.

Not so in seat #3. Not so. Mamet's play is punctuated with, propelled by and validated through, what I can only call, the most awesome, kickass word EVER.

Oh, my darling "fuck", how I have missed hearing you in public. I will never leave you again.

"Fuck" is the greatest all-purpose word of all times. It could be the entirety of Esperanto, leaving only  the tiniest of vernacular carbon footprints on our planet. Unlike "drats" or "shoot", which - let's just be truthful - run the descriptive gamut from A to B, the word "fuck" can convey appreciation a finely chiseled naked body ("fuuuck"), totally cherry cylinder, spark plugs, valves and pistons ("fuuuuuuck") or the perfect bagel ("fuuhhhhhhk"). 

And there there is the "fuuuock" barely whispered to oneself when you are counting on a quickie with your husband and you find that he's lit candles and showered and brushed his teeth and there's just no way you are getting out of the bedroom before "Project Runway" starts.

At the risk of Mamet blasphemy, however, I have to mention that I find the word far more powerful when said not in anger. Here's what I know. Sh'ma, David:

Anger is best expressed in repressed, staccato, high-falutin' language of subtle character assassination that alludes to disappointment in the size of a partner's penis. I'm just saying, in case you are open to suggestion.

Still, I owe Mamet - and the fucking awesome cast and artistic staff of the Bay Street Theater -  a debt of gratitude. They reminded me that when, inevitably, some people are offended by your truth and walk out on you, or demand their money back after spending time with you, it only means that you are totally superior to them and they are probably the kind of people who still say shit like, " Look at that bling", but not ironically. At least, that's what I got from the play. Thank you, David Mamet.

I am considering getting a "WWMD" bracelet. Because I know what he would do. He would say, "fuck".

Maybe an entire play consisting ONLY of the word "fuck". OMG, could you imagine?

Dear Murphy Davis of Bay Street Theater,

Please call me. I have a killer idea to pitch to you.

Hello? Hello???

Hunh. He put me on hold.

Fuck.

If It's Thursday, This Must Be Blue

I'm kinda liking Robin lately. And not just because he woke me up yesterday to tell me I was right about the thing we talked about. Although that didn't hurt.

Today I like Robin because he dropped by with a co-worker this morning with a shitload of organic strawberries they bought from a roadside stand on their way back from - ostensibly - a meeting. I don't know exactly what Robin does for a living, so I accept his comings and goings with a modicum of faith that the paycheck will arrive on Thursdays. His profession isn't a secret; it's just that I don't pay attention when he talks about it. I catch some keywords - photovoltaic and sustainable and I deposited my paycheck into your account - but the rest is pretty much white noise to me, you know? I've adopted a need to know policy in our marriage. It saves on brain space. As it is, I still get mixed up about where he went to high school. I've narrowed it down to Pasadena or Palo Alto. Maybe. Am I a bad wife? Is Marabel Morgan - remember that scumbag 'ho, the one who wrote The Total Woman, suggesting we meet our husbands at the door every evening wearing nothing but Saran Wrap and warning us to abrogate our own rights and needs to be subservient to men?- shaking her helmet-coiffed head and tsk tsk'ing me right now? God, I hope so.

I think it was Erma Bombeck who once wrote about that Saran Wrap thing and how she hated to waste all that plastic, so she just used two Tupperware cupcake holders and a snap-lid party tray on her privates when her husband came home from work. Man, I miss the 'beck......

So, anyway, not really knowing the why's or where's of Robin's work life, I accepted the fact that he and Lori somehow wound up at an organic fruit stand at 10:30 on a Thursday morning with the same neutral detachment that I accept, say, gravity. Or that Bruce Jenner is part of the Kardashians. Some shit you just accept, right?

Frankly, I am not a fan of the strawberry. Not an enemy, not a frenemy, not allergic. The strawberry just doesn't speak to me the way, for instance, a raspberry speaks to me. Still, having a flat of just-picked, gorgeous, deep red organic strawberries in your refrigerator is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, as the saying goes. But the berries are not the reason I am liking Robin today.

My affection stems from the fact that he and Lori were wearing matching outfits. Well, not matching exactly, in that Robin is a man, a burly man, with kinda a knuckle-dragger, strong like ox body, and Lori is, well, Lori is just as cute as a button. Still, with their sky blue shirts (hers- a sweet little, J Crew-y type cardigan over a white tank top; his - JCPenney's best button down) black jeans and black shoes, it was pretty fucking adorable. She looked like his matching little Polly Pocket. I wondered if they called each other this morning to plan what to wear, like I used to do with my friends in junior high. Back then, the discussion was centered around which pair of white go-go boots we were going to wear with which scent of Bonne Bell Lipsmacker lipgloss, while Robin and Lori are pretty much confined to fashion appropriate for....uh...errr....whatever it is they do, but the idea that they planned their outfits to match makes me believe that there is hope for the construction industry. With a little federal stimulus money, in fact, Robin could upgrade to Sears.

Or Saran Wrap.

(Don't) Wake Me Up Before You Go Go

Well, I'll say this much:

if you have to be awakened by the phone at 9AM on a summer vacation morning when you could have slept much later - and you really needed to sleep in because you stayed up until 3AM worrying that you will not be able to keep up with the one-and-a-half-mile in two-hours walking tour of the 60's folk music scene of Greenwich Village and it's really too late to get in shape when you fly out in three days, and also you just remembered that you never got that other molar crown taken care of and God knows if there are any decent dentists in New York in case your mouth all goes to hell while you are there, and then, of course, there is the constant late night worry about the birds in the Gulf and the baby orphaned elephants in Africa and if Ted Stevens is honestly, truly, finally, dead. I also worry that it's too late to start watching "Mad Men"; I mean, am I just too behind the train with that? By the time I catch up, will everyone have moved on to a different show? And before you know it, your sleepless night has become a sleepless morning and just as you drift off, it's 9AM and the damn phone is ringing.

Well, if you have to be shaken awake by the phone at the crack of noon, it is totally almost worth it when the person on the other end of the line is your husband and his first words are, "I just wanted to tell you that you were right..."

I was right. I mean, yeah, I knew that already but it's nice when someone other than me figures it out.

Honestly, however, his actual first words were, "were you sleeping?" To which, of course, I had to answer indignantly, "noooo. I was downstairs doing laundry" because it's so embarrassing to be caught sleeping late, isn't it? Especially when the person who is calling you has already been at work for two hours and you still have your bite guard in your thick, drooly mouth and don't know what day it is.

It's the final closet in which we hide: liking to sleep. Time to out myself - hey, Westboro Baptist Church, over here! There is something unnatural going on in my bedroom. I'm sleeping late. It's queer. Get used to it.

Arise, you prisoners of sleep-deprivation. Oh wait, don't arise. Go back to bed. Wear proudly your sleep-wrinkled face into the harsh afternoon light.

Fuck grabbing the day at sunrise and filling as many hours as you can with LIFE. Nobody wants to be grabbed early in the morning, and I know all you ladies are with me on that one. I bet even the sun would prefer that we all just leave her the fuck alone for an hour or so to have her coffee and scratch herself instead of all the life-grabbers hiking up mountains and driving out to beaches and setting their alarms to watch her rise. It's really kinda twisted and voyeuristic, when you think of it. 

I am going to blame menopause for my need to sleep late even though I generally like to blame Dick Cheney. Because even though menopause may not be the cause of my need for sleep (especially since I've been this way since, oh, I was ten), I can guarantee you that The Dick robs me of my sleep; God forbid his face comes into my dreamworld I would force myself to wake up. And Lysol my brain. And never sleep again.

"...you were right..." Robin told me, is my point, however.

Were sweeter words ever spoken over a phone at 9AM? Never mind that I don't even remember what I was right about (oh wait, yes I do: everything); those words alone are balm to the soul. Whipped cream cheese to the perfectly toasted bagel. Pants that you don't have to suck in your stomach to button. A clean mammogram. A clean house. All your emails answered. A twenty-dollar-bill in your coat pocket. A morning poop. Vindication. These are a few of my favorite things.

So I'm going to New York in a couple of days and I will probably have to get up early because Ken and Adam, with whom we are staying, will be getting up early and they will judge me harshly if I am asleep when they leave for work and just getting up when they get home and after a week I will have nothing to show for being there other than the absence of a headache and a well-rested complexion.

Which, come to think of it, is totally worth the trip.

Life In A Post-Target World

Okay, so we are boycotting Target, right? I'm down with that.

I come from a long line of picketers and political activitists, and nothing says "summer" to me like a good boycott. I spent most of my childhood summers sitting with my mom in front of Hughes' Market in Van Nuys, asking people not to buy iceberg lettuce or grapes. We were so involved in the boycott, in fact, that when I was young I used to actually think we were the farmworkers in Delano. It was a little confusing, telling people about the horrible conditions of the migrant workers (us?) and then going home to our nice house to watch TV and eat popsicles. I mean, were these conditions really worthy of a strike? Yeah, we didn't have air conditioning and it was a black and white TV, but all in all, it seemed as if the life of a migrant farmworker wasn't all that newsworthy.

I have to confess to being a tad disappointed a few years later when I figured out that we weren't the farmworkers; we were the comfortable, middle-class Jews in LA.

Man, it sucks to not be authentically oppressed. There's no appropriate destination for upper middle class rage so we get all whipped up over shit like non-toxic toys at Gymboree and Yoplait with fiber the fact that our Toyota Highlanders accelerate at red lights. Wayh, wayh fucking wayh.  God, we are a bunch of weenies.

Oh, and we're boycotting the Anthropologie stores, too, did you hear? That's an easy one for me since nothing fits me there and I couldn't afford anything in there even if it did. So fuck 'em. They make me feel bad about myself. Their largest size is 4. Prepare a special place in Hell for them.

I am going to miss Target, however. I will miss going there despite the fact that my bajillions of Target dollars has rarely bought me anything of lasting value. All that uber desirable shit, the shit you can't resist - raffia framed cork bulletin boards, Morrocan motif salad bowls, Todd English pots and pans, Isaac Mizrahi cargo capri pants (note to Todd and Isaac: where are you at with all this? Is it better to continue to supply Target with your goods, thus TAKING their money, and use it to support human and civil rights causes? Or is it better to leave in a hissy fit, kick over the checkstand lights and steal the gum on your way out?)  - eventually falls into disrepair or disenchantment or falls behind the bookcase and needs to be replaced.

How much money have I spent at Target in the past, say, 15 years? Let's do the math....

Okay, well, I cannot do the math, having been an Ethnomusicology of The Balkans major in college. No math requirements. But I know I've given a shitload of my hard-earned cash to them. And what do they do with MY money? They give it to gay-bashing gubernatorial candidates, that's what.

So, presuming I am going to have, oh, about an extra ten thousand dollars a month now that I am not going to Target, I am faced with a happy dilemma: what to do with the newfound scratch?

First of all, I am going to end the war in Afghanistan.

And then, I am going to bring peace to the Middle East and to the rest of the world.  And end hunger. And I don't just mean mine.

Then, I am going to get my legs waxed. I've never done that and I've always wondered if a professional wax job can really keep my swarthy, Mediterranean, Missing Link leg fur smooth and shiny for six weeks.   I'm going to New York in a few weeks and I worry that with the heat and humidity there, every extra leg hair on me is gonna take me one step closer to heatstroke and death.

Then, I will send the BP execusuits to their rooms for a good, long time-out while they think about what they've done. And I will give their salaries to the Tree People, Teachers Without Borders and the Sheldrick Elephant Rescue. Yeah, you heard me. It's my fucking money.

Oh, and I will buy Robin some decent underwear. I mean, yikes. Talk about your oil spills.

It's settle then, right? Now, who wants to buy a raffia framed cork bulletin board from me?