Noise Will Be Noise

Although I was raised in a distinctly rural part of Virginia, I have spent all of my adult years in urban hubs.  First, New York.  Now, Los Angeles. 

And while the NYC neighborhoods I once lived in are now well out of my price range, my experience – at the time – was of being on the cusp of wealth and danger.

When my ex and I lived in Park Slope, Ben (the alias I have assigned to the ex) described our block as “Park Slop.”  It was most definitely on the cusp.  Make a left when emerging from the building and you’d soon be walking by the types of brownstones you might purchase if you were to win the lottery.  Make a right when emerging from the building and you’re doing another form of gambling altogether…

The same is true of my current hood.  In fact, it’s exactly the same.  If I hang a left, I will soon be walking in an area that is graced by multimillion-dollar homes.  If I hang a right, I will walk into an area from which I sometimes hear gunfire.

But gunfire isn’t the primary noise this time of year (or any time of year, actually).  This time of year, the 4^th of July noisemakers (firecrackers, M-80s, etc.) are prevalent, and I’ve never understood why they are so enticing.  I don’t “get” creating unnecessarily disturbing noise.  Fireworks displays are one thing, but noise for the sake of noise?  What’s the draw?

Once, when Ben and I were returning from dinner at a nice restaurant closer to Park Slope’s brownstones, we saw a dog lying in front of our apartment building.  It was around the 4^th of July, and the noise-making had been happening for more than a week.  As we approached, we learned that the dog had leapt from an apartment window because it was stunned by the sound of a noise-maker. 

So, what did the idiot kids do to get that dog on its feet? 

They launched another noise-maker.

Jesus!  Do these people not have brains?  Or hearts?

Despite the cruel logic, the plan worked.  Another noise-maker got the dog on its feet.  And bless that beast’s heart for returning home to a place where the humans responsible for its well-being were in fact irresponsible in a really big way.

…  On an unrelated occasion (except for the time of year), I traveled with one of my dearest college friends down to Wilmington, Delaware, where we would enjoy the 4^th of July holiday with her parents and her myriad siblings (my friend is the oldest of 11).  My friend and I took the bus down from NYC.  Her husband would be joining us the next day. 

After he’d arrived, the three of us and maybe two of my friend’s sisters headed out into the woods that were near their parents’ house.  The agenda was noise-making, and they’d brought along the “tools.”  I had no interest in creating the noise.  I simply came along for the ride.

I have no idea what my friend, her sisters, and her husband were hurling into the dark, but after one of those noise-makers was flung, one of those sisters heard a crackling noise.  Fortunately, they moved onto that discovery quickly, and within 30 seconds, they were jumping up and down on the forest fire they had almost started.

WTF?

It would have really sucked to have been hauled into the police station for that potential carnage, but I gotta say, if that had happened, my desire for freedom and my absolute innocence would have trumped any loyalty to my friends. 

Sure, they could have booked them – my friend, a magazine editor; her husband, a doctor. 

But me?  The waitress in the mix? 

“Sorry officer,” I would have said.  “I had nothing to do with starting that fire.  I came along as a guest.”

Monday Reruns: Too Old to Move

(original post-date: April 27, 2011)

I cannot imagine leaving Los Angeles.

And not because I love it, which I do.

It’s just that, the older you get, the more difficult it is to make friends.

Remember how easy it was back in childhood? All you needed was a common age, and the deal was sealed.

Are you six? Me too! Let’s go play!

Can you imagine doing that at an adult age?

Hi! Are you fifty-three? Me too! Let’s have lunch!

Ain’t gonna happen.

When my then-husband and I moved to L.A., back in May 1990, it never occurred to me that I was leaving behind some well-established friendships and that I would have to start all over again. Sure, I had a few people out here who I knew, and among them were two I knew quite well, but… that’s barely a starter set.

Looking back at several of my early L.A. friends – people I thought I’d be close to for a long time – I realize that I was going through a process, and I would have to get to the end of that process before I would find the folks who were likely to last.

I remember a co-worker at my first staff job out here. We’ll call her Sheila. I’d been at the nonprofit organization for about a year before she got a position there. Our then-friendship is such ancient history at this point that I cannot explain the “attraction,” but I do remember always feeling as if she and I were both Hayley Mills, playing some equally misbehaving girls in a prep school movie…

I grew out of Sheila before I left the place where we both worked, and a few years later, I was at another nonprofit.

There, I became friends with two women, both of whom were a bit younger than I. We’ll call them Dee and Dora. I bonded with both of them, and we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. Again, I felt I had embarked on some friendships that would last. But they didn’t pan out as I had expected, and in retrospect, my memory of the times I spent with each or both of them centered around a certain amount of righteousness. A desire to be correct.

Interesting.

With Sheila, I was reliving my adolescence.

With Dee and Dora, I was reliving my twenties.

I was 32 when I arrived in Los Angeles, and I was too new to that decade to know what it meant.

Where friendships were concerned, I had to back up.

I had to start over.

I had to relive a few stages of interactive behavior before I would find the comfort of my present. I had to work through a new growth so that I could reach the moment when I began to know who I was and how I needed to be treated.

That moment began in my mid-40s.

In terms of friendships, I’ve been in the comfort zone ever since.

Monday Reruns: It's All In the Reading

(original post date:  April 20, 2011)

Several years ago, I entered a small jewelry store in my neighborhood. The establishment harked back to another time and was probably passed on from one generation to the next. I had gone there to see if the proprietor might be able to repair an antique travel alarm clock that I had purchased at a flea market. The clock had worked quite well for a while, but then it decided to rebel.

While the store owner examined the timepiece, my eyes scanned her small shop, and one of the first things I noticed was a sign: Watch Batteries Repaired While You Wait.

I guess I’m verb-oriented, because my interpretation of that sign was this: If I wanted to, I could watch the proprietor repair batteries while I waited!

(Can you imagine a more entertaining afternoon?)

Interpretation is so subjective.

I have another story on this score, and this one comes from my years in New York. I had been browsing at the Coliseum bookstore, which used to be among the retail features of Columbus Circle. It was probably November or so, because I had stocking stuffers in mind. I quickly noticed a title that would have been appropriate for any member of my family. The title implied a deep devotion (if not outright addiction) to cats.

As I studied the cover illustration, however, I felt confused. There was an elderly person lying in what appeared to be a hospital bed, and surrounding that bed were several people. Those in plain clothes were undoubtedly family.

There also was a nurse and a priest.

But where was the cat?

I looked at how the bedsheets and blanket were arranged over the person lying there. I looked for a lump, figuring the cat must be under the covers.

Then, I returned to the title of the book, and I realized it was Catholics.

(Which explains the priest, of course.)

… There also was a time in between those two incidents – after New York and before I moved to my current neighborhood. I was married to a man whom I’ve previously mentioned in this blog, and since I called him Ben in an earlier essay, we’ll just stick with that…

Anyway, Ben loved to visit a part of California that is about four hours north of Los Angeles, just at the foot of Mount Whitney. There are rock formations there that are awesome, and the landscape is generally, well… what can I say, the dude’s a photographer, and there was no end to the possibilities. So we made the trip together a few times. He’d spend the weekend shooting pictures, and I’d sit by the pool, reading and taking in the remarkable air. Then, we’d meet for dinner and enjoy the quiet, rustic atmosphere of this extremely small town in the middle of nothing but almighty geography.

Once, while doing the drive (which would often begin at the end of a work-week and end close to midnight), we found ourselves behind a particular car, and because we were on a two-lane highway at that point, we remained behind that car for more than a few miles.

And this placement led to some improvisation.

For, you see, the license plate that we were trailing said this: OH BOB

I think Ben started the spontaneous game…

In the tone of a woman who is beyond impressed with a certain individual’s manhood, he exclaimed, “Ohhh Bob!”

I replied, using the clenched-teeth delivery of a wife who has once again found a non-dishwasher safe utensil in that very appliance. “Oh Bob.”

Ben took his turn, imitating a woman who was probably waving flirtatiously from across the room, “Oh, Bo-obb!”

My next entry was scolding, the type of admonition one might use when embarrassed by the inappropriateness of her partner: “Oh, BOB!”

Ben was still in another world. Possibly post-coital. His character sounded quite breathless and was undoubtedly reaching for a cigarette when she sighed, “Oh… Bob…”

When I responded, I sounded more like some 1950’s housewife who’s standing at the bottom of a suburban staircase, her arms folded at her chest. “Oh Bo-obb,” my character chanted, not at all pleased.

I don’t know how many more rounds we went, but it was good to get these feelings out of our systems.

It also was good to reach the changing lane so that we could move on to the next improvisation.

Mort: I Know You're Out There Somewhere – Part III

A NOTE BEFORE READING: This is the third installment of a four-part story. To begin at the beginning, go here.

+++

Mort, Kitty, and I moved again in 1986, this time up to Inwood (“upstate Manhattan,” as Ben called it). Already planning our marriage, Ben and I decided to expedite the cohabitation, and so we established our household in the apartment that he had been renting on his own since he moved to New York two years before. We shared the apartment with the two cats and Brodie, Ben's docile German Shepherd, who had seen her prime and was aging gracefully.

There, and in subsequent apartments, Mort would continue to pee pretty much wherever he wanted. And no attempt at disciplining him would take hold. A few years down the line, after Ben and I had seen the Clint Eastwood movie for which he would get the Best Director Oscar, Ben made a comment.

“You know,” he said. “If they ever write a movie about Mort, it'll be called Forgiven.”

At the time of the comment, we were living in L.A., and our apartment in the Beverly Hills adjacent area became Mort's ticket to freedom. We let him roam at that point because we were on the first floor, because the building's front door was always open, and because I knew there was no way to stop him.

Even with his access to the outside, though, Mort would still play his games with other apartment-dwellers. If they were on the first floor, he'd enter their apartments through their windows, and then he'd do his stray-cat routine, listing and looking hungry. The young couple who lived across the hall from us were responsive to my requests. “Don't feed him,” I said. “He's just pretending, and he's plenty fed.”

(I could imagine the act he'd been playing for them. I had fallen for it myself. I remembered one of the early weeks of Mort's and my life together. He'd been limping. I made a mental note of the limp and decided that if he were still limping two days later, I'd take him to the vet. Two days later, he was still limping, but he had switched legs. He was a pro.)

In addition to working his ways with our across-the-hall L.A. neighbors, Mort also charmed Paulo, the elderly gentleman and professional violinist who lived upstairs. When we moved into the building and met Paulo, he had a dog. But, shortly after the ’92 riots, he had to give up his dog (they both had health issues), and so he was particularly responsive to Mort. They had meals together, Paulo and Mort. I recognized that this was good for Paulo, and so I didn't invade on the friendship. But I always would make sure that Mort “came home for bed,” and Paulo was agreeable to this rule.

One night, when I went upstairs to retrieve Mort, he was asleep and smiling in Paulo's violin case. I also got a whiff of room deodorizer. I didn't let it become my problem. Paulo could buy a kitty litter box if he wanted to, I reasoned. It was his decision.

+++

While we were living in that building, Mort spent a good part of the day outside. And he'd always seem to hear me come home from work. I don't know if he recognized the sound or smell of the car or the radio station I frequented, but whenever I parked on the street, Mort would emerge from wherever he had been, run toward the driver's side door, and greet me home from the day. It was charming.

And it was actually kind of more charming that night when Paulo returned from the grocery store just as Mort and I were crossing the street together. Mort saw his friend and stopped, and Paulo, pulling grocery bags out of his trunk, said, “Tonight, Mort, we're having steaks!”

Paulo climbed the stairs with Mort fast behind him. I went into Ben's and my apartment.

“Ben,” I said, “Mort's just gone upstairs to have steaks with Paulo. We're having cereal for dinner. What's wrong with this picture?”

+++

Mort, Kitty, Ben and I didn't leave Paulo because of the steaks. We left for a bigger apartment. That was 1993.

Our new place was a two-bedroom in the same Beverly Hills adjacent ‘hood. About seven blocks north, it was closer to the commercial drag of 3rd Street. It also was a second-floor unit.

Although our front door opened directly to the staircase that led to the great outdoors, Mort no longer demanded egress. He was in his early teens at that point, and I guess he was settling down. The only time I remember him going outside was when I would go down to the courtyard to sit in a lawn chair and read in the sun. He’d come along, and most often he would rest in the shade under my chair. Otherwise, indoors was fine with him.

But indoors was trickier for Ben and me, and in 1995, Mort, Kitty and I left Ben.

We moved to a second-floor apartment in Los Feliz – the apartment I still occupy today. And although Mort had had plenty of experience moving (this was our 8th apartment together), I guess he entered into these digs with a bit of anxiety. One morning, as I was rushing to get to my downtown job, I did a cat-count, as per my OCD rituals. Kitty was present, but Mort was nowhere for roll call.

Oh dear.

I checked the window screens, which seemed to be intact. But I also knew that Mort had a way of working screens that was near-magical. Realizing that his wanderlust may have returned, I made a beeline outdoors and checked the perimeter of the building. There was no sign of him, so I came back indoors.

Cats, of course, have an amazing capacity to find hiding places, and so I checked around, peering in every corner of every closet, in every corner of the apartment. Mort was nowhere to be seen.

Now on a schedule that would make me late for work, I had one final strategy. I would pull out the can opener and open a can of cat food. Surely the noise would bring him forth from whatever lair he had discovered in our new place.

As I began to open the drawer in which I kept the can opener, it seemed to resist in a strange way. It was heavier than usual. And that’s when I saw the tabby grey fur. Mort had gone into the cupboard below the drawer and then had accessed the drawer via its back end. A squeeze much tighter than imaginable to the human eye, but it was his mission, and he accomplished it.

For the next several days, and until he adjusted to our new home, I would entertain the same ritual before leaving for work. Finding Kitty on the couch or a chair, I’d pet her and say goodbye. Then, I’d go to the kitchen, open the drawer, and wish Mort a good day.

to be continued on March 15th.

Cruel Pavement

I’m not saying I’m a trendy gal or anything, but on that same morning, the L.A. Times ran a piece about the city’s sidewalks being in disrepair.

That same afternoon, I walked the half mile to Vermont Avenue, where I mailed some bills from the post office. Then, I walked down to the bank, where I deposited some checks.

After that, the tasks were checked off, and the return trip was up for grabs.

I opted for the more commercially-active, east side of the avenue. Even stopped in a few shops, albeit briefly.

But as I neared the more familiar venues – the Los Feliz 3 Cinema marquee now readable – there became an immediate change in the day’s agenda. Suddenly, I was airborne, and then I was looking at some sidewalk, heading toward me.

My reflexive capabilities – apparently having ruled out help from my hands or my knees – delivered a good message to my head. As in, “TURN IT!”

And so, although I landed on my face, I didn’t hurt my nose or my teeth.

… Reflecting on what happened next, I am reminded of a scene involving a toddler. Even those of us who are child-free know this scene and can imagine it clearly… Okay, so there’s this little kid playing on some swings or a slide or something. Kid falls. Kid is fine UNTIL a bunch of adults come running over to see if s/he is okay. It is at that point (and because of that point) that the kid bursts into tears and then cries uncontrollably.

Right.

So anyway, I have just landed, left cheek first, on the sidewalk on Vermont Avenue. In front of Skylight Bookstore.

I know that my situation isn’t good, and I hope that it isn’t really bad.

I wait several seconds, and then I raise my torso and turn so that I am sitting on the sidewalk.

Just at that moment, a woman quickly emerges from the bookstore.

“Oh My God! Don’t move! Oh My God! You’ve split your lip!”

Someone hands me a napkin or a tissue or something.

I dab my lip and come up almost blank. There’s a small, pink stain on the napkin or tissue or something. I feel short-changed (in a good way). I mean, surely a split lip would produce something more alarming, like… I don’t know, some seriously red blood, maybe?

I am at a loss and completely vulnerable. There are so many strangers looking at me, and each one of them knows what my face looks like in that moment.

I do not.

But I’ve been told that I have a split lip and that I shouldn’t move.

But I also am me.

(Me, with my chapped lips…)

And sitting on the sidewalk is just not working out.

I reach for a hand from someone nearby, and I slowly and cautiously rise to my feet.

But it takes me a while longer to walk away from the scene.

I had hit my head, and I know that a hit to the head can lead to a brain injury, and when that is the case, the manifestations can kick in whenever.

I had hit my head, and I’m hoping I didn’t also injure my brain.

I had hit my head, and I need to walk a half mile to get home.

When the worried woman continued speaking with me (after I stood up), one of the questions she’d asked was, “Is there someone you can call?”

“No,” I had said. (An answer that seemed honest in the moment. An answer that would continue to haunt me.)

I had hit my head, and I needed to walk a half mile to get home.

…A few days have passed since my confrontation with the uneven sidewalk, and mostly, I am grateful. Grateful that my hands had not been the first to respond, as that might have resulted in a broken wrist (or two).

Same deal with my knees. I need them.

My face? Whatever.

I don’t type with it.

I don’t wash dishes with it.

I don’t use it to drive.

And, since the day of the unfortunate trip, I’ve also been grateful that I’ve not had to look at my face. At least, I’ve not been confronted by it, as others have been.

For those others, the view is painful.

For me, the view is of them.

…One of my clients runs a domestic violence agency, and when I shared my tale with her and told her of the purple circle under my left eye and the bruise at my chin, she sent a reply email suggesting that people will think that I have been beaten.

And based on my experiences thus far, I think she might be right.

The other night, as I waited my turn at the grocery store, I stood proud and tall. I also was smiling because – quite frankly – I was in a good mood. But the checker, apparently having caught a passing glance at my bruises, could not accept my posture or positive energy. He couldn’t even make eye contact with me.

In fact, he worked very hard at not making eye contact with me.

Yes, my client had been right.

And so had I when I responded to her email with this: “People will make up their own stories.”

What story would you write if you saw a woman with bruises on her face? And would that story be different if the woman bruised was standing tall and smiling?

I *HEART* David Levinson!

Never heard of David Levinson?

Truth be told, until I read yesterday’s Op-Ed piece in the L.A. Times, I hadn’t heard of him either.

But what I learned from the by-line that accompanied his piece is this: He is the founder and executive director of Big Sunday, an annual weekend project that brings together more than 50,000 volunteers to work on 500 charitable projects.

Impressive? Absolutely. But, that’s not what’s driven me to write about him. Rather, I am in love with how he used the Op-Ed section of the Times to address the great economic dichotomy that is Los Angeles.

Levinson’s piece, which is a wildly humorous, open letter to Kim Kardashian, lauds her for her capacity to make serious profit from some very basic rites of passage -- e.g., having sex; getting married. He goes on to suggest that she parlay some of the profits from her divorce proceedings into philanthropic donations. He even suggests that she could up the ante by falling in love with the divorce lawyer and – if it is possible – steal him away from Jennifer Anniston!

Go, David Levinson! Dude, you have nailed L.A.

… More than 21 years ago, I moved from New York to Los Angeles with my then-husband. Leaving behind an administrative job at the Ford Foundation, I was focused on a goal: make it in television writing. I had scripts to back up my dream, and my tenacity was not to be messed with. It could happen.

Once Ben and I had “landed” (in our 15-foot rental truck), and once we’d forked over some money for our first pre-owned car, we did a lot of driving. A lot of driving.

I remember one area of Beverly Hills that we explored – it was a residential street, north of Sunset Boulevard. It was a street that followed a curve.

There was this house there – this house that began at the beginning of the curve.

And then, this house just fucking continued.

And even after the curve of the street landed into its ultimate horseshoe formation, the house was still there.

It was in that moment that we caught eye of the house’s entry point. Easily 15 feet tall and at least as wide, the double-doorway for this particular house was absolutely golden.

Golden.

I don’t know if it was Ben or me, but one of us posed the question: How big does your fucking house have to be?

… While Ben and I continued our exploratory drives, I pursued the Hollywood television writing scene. I also looked into day jobs. Soon, I landed a gig at a local nonprofit. And within a few months of landing there, I was directing a mentoring program for locked-up youth.

And it filled my heart.

As I got to know the kids in the program, and as I learned more about their experiences in gang-infested neighborhoods, my response to the Los Angeles scene became more defined. There also was the New York perspective I brought to the equation (I'd lived there so long): In New York, we were all in each other’s faces. We would ALWAYS be in each other's faces.

Los Angeles – then and now – doesn’t force that face-to-face experience on people.

Los Angeles allows Kardashians and their like to live in their own worlds.

In the meantime, there’s the rest of L.A.

… Before Ben and I left for Los Angeles, and while I still was focused on my television-writing dream, I’d made a connection through a dear friend. Her cousin (whom we’ll call Joe Smith) had been successful and was well-entrenched in the Hollywood writing scene. Among other things, he was teaching a night course at UCLA. Thanks to my tenacious inquiries – and before I’d even left Brooklyn – Joe invited me to one of his lectures. And this invitation was particularly enticing. The guests that night were two guys whose names were well-known to me, as they had contributed regularly to M*A*S*H.

I attended the UCLA session, and after the guest lectures were over, I approached Joe and handed him a copy of my latest spec script – an offering for Designing Women. I then drove home, thinking I was quite lucky to have such a connection.

But those dreams of fame and fortune were too-soon replaced by my sense of responsibility. I became deeply involved in the nonprofit that had hired me on staff and ultimately put me in charge of the juvenile justice mentoring program. Soon, I was deeply involved with the program, its mentors, and through those mentors – THE KIDS. Phone calls were frequent, and I loved hearing from the awesome volunteers who made the program work. I loved the sense of camaraderie that was developing among us.

One day, while I was on the phone with one of the mentors, the receptionist chimed in, indicating that I had a call on Line 4. I quickly put the mentor on hold and switched lines. After my saying “Hello,” a secretary said to me, “Joe Smith is on the line to speak with you.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m in a conversation right now.”

… And it was in that split second that I chose sides.

It was in that split second that I assessed all I’d learned of Hollywood and all I’d seen of Los Angeles.

It was in that split second that I gave my heart and time to the people and causes who need some attention.

… Joe Smith will just have to wait.

I don’t need a big house with a golden door.

Maybe he does, but I don’t.

P.S. Here's a link to the awesome Op-Ed that inspired this post.

Monday Reruns: Approaching Los Angeles

(original post-date: October 27, 2010)

This past Sunday, after a week in Virginia, I headed to Dulles to take an afternoon flight back to L.A. When my seating group was called to board the plane, I followed the pack down the walkway. Shortly, I was at Row 13, where I heaved my little wheeled carry-on into the overhead bin and settled into my window seat. There, I closed my eyes for most of the ten minutes that passed before take-off.

I wasn’t trying to sleep, however. In fact, I soon began eavesdropping on the conversation taking place in the row behind me.

That dialogue began when the guy assigned to the middle seat arrived. The two women who would ride on either side of him had already settled in, and the gal on the aisle was quite cheerful as she stood so he could claim his place.

When one of the women made a joke about the middle seat, he said “That’s what I get for making my reservations three days ago.”

His new companions then learned that he was traveling to L.A. for a conference – some kind of software thing (that’s when I tuned out for a bit). And when, a minute or two later, window-seat lady asked him where he was from, he said Harrisonburg, Virginia. That got me listening again, only because I, too, was raised in the Shenandoah Valley.

He shared that he was going to the West Coast for the first time, and he was staying with a friend in Burbank. He also was looking forward to doing some sight-seeing, though he expected he’d only have about two full days at the end of the week.

And that is when the advice began. That is also when I began to cringe occasionally. As it turned out, both of the women on either side of him live in L.A., and as it turns out, they both live on Los Angeles’ west side.

I silently concurred with window-seat woman when she discouraged him from trying to go to Long Beach. Not that Long Beach doesn’t have much to offer – it absolutely does. It’s just that getting there and back (from Burbank) could possibly take four hours on the freeway. (Not the best use of vacation time.)

Aisle-seat woman fully embraced her travel agent role as the flight moved west, and it really threw me when she suggested he spend time on Melrose.

Melrose?!

A part of me wanted to unfasten my seat belt, pop up on my knees, and turn around so as to present my head and shoulders to the three of them.

Melrose?! I wanted to say. Are you kidding? That is SO twenty years ago!

Aisle-seat woman continued with her suggestions. West Hollywood is nice, she offered, and yes, he should see the Hollywood sites – the typical tourist attractions, such as Grauman’s Chinese, etc. – but, she cautioned, Hollywood is “very dirty” and “you probably don’t want to go east of there.”

What?! I wanted to say. Do you not know?

Seriously. “East of there” is where the action is. East of there is Los Feliz. And Silver Lake. East of there is where the cookie cutter gives way to eclectic. And if you think it’s only for the unwashed, don’t say that to (be-still-my-heart) Jon Hamm, who apparently lives in my ‘hood. Apparently, he’s been seen in the little one-of-a-kind restaurants. Word has it, too, that he likes the no-franchise coffee shops that offer hot beverages in common English sizes.

(I’m not suggesting the Harrisonburg guy would respond to the Jon Hamm reference, but come on, west side girls, get with the program!)

Okay, I’ll admit it – I’m not a big fan of L.A.’s west side. I’ve always found it much too monochromatic. In fact, if L.A. were only its west side, I’d have moved back east 16 years ago.

On the other hand, the west side girls were absolutely right in encouraging him to visit the beach communities. One of them even knew to recommend the ever-funky Venice boardwalk. Good for her.

But… could they tell him, as a sightseer, the absolute best way to get there? From Burbank? Unfortunately, they could not. In fact, I believe one of them recommended a route that included the 10 Freeway. So wrong!

Here’s the deal: if you’re ever in L.A., and you want to see the beach, pretend you’re staying with a friend in Burbank. Because no matter where you’re staying, it will behoove you to find the Ventura Freeway and head west.

From there, take the Topanga Canyon Boulevard exit, heading south. Then, prepare to be awed. You’ll climb a tall winding hill that affords breath-taking panoramic views of the Valley. Then, you’ll enter the canyon, which is phenomenally rustic. You will be taking in that rusticity (great word, huh?) for probably 12 or 13 miles, and you will be blown away by the intensity of and changes in the landscape. Then, just when you wonder what could possibly come next, you’ll follow a curve in the road, and at an elevation that’s maybe 1,000 feet above sea level, you will see the grand Pacific Ocean. Your response will be audible.

… I know, I know. I should have told him.

It’s just that I felt like he already had been overpowered by women who know what they know. I was afraid I’d scare him. I also was tired. I needed to get home to my wacky neighborhood – the “dirty” one, just east of Hollywood.

But… now you know.

So: if you ever fly to L.A., and you sit next to some gal from the west side, ask her if she’s done that drive. And if she hasn’t, tell her she should.

I’m just sayin’.

4-3-2-1- ... STOP?

I think the last time I took a written driving test was in June of 1990, just a week or so after my then-husband and I had steered a 15-foot Ryder truck across the country. Having moved two cats and all our earthly possessions from one coast to the other, we’d begun the process of settling in. First, an apartment. Second, a used car (they were “used” back then; not “pre-owned.”) Then came the job searches and simultaneous to that, the commitment to residency through the acquisition of California drivers licenses.

I went through the process at the DMV, and it was unnerving for me to surrender my New York license. What if I failed the written test? Given the shortcomings of L.A. mass transit, it’s likely I would have had to camp out at the DMV for a few days.

But I passed, thank God, and the happy smile on that first CA license photo is an indication of my great relief.

I remember one of the questions on the test, and I remember it because I feared it was a “trick question.” I cannot share the exact language with you, but having just visited a website where current questions are publicized, I can at least cite the one that comes closest to that which I thought had stumped me. Here’s how it goes:

You drive defensively when you:

(a) Always put one car length between you and the car ahead.
(b) Look only at the car in front of you while driving.
(c) Keep your eyes moving to look for possible hazards.

The answer, of course, is (c), and although I chose the circa 1990 equivalent answer and I was therefore correct, I still felt doubtful. Perhaps I was envisioning one of those bobble-headed animals that used to be prominent on the back shelf of sedans. Their equally bobbly eyes – eyes that were definitely moving – hardly seemed capable of defensive action.

(Maybe I just read too much into words.)

Anyway, yes, that’s how I drive. I look ahead, and I look to the sides. I look ahead of ahead, and I look ahead of the sides.

… And about seven or eight years ago, an ostensibly helpful new tool was introduced at intersections, and it immediately started messing with my driving.

I’m talking about the crosswalk countdown. That indicator that tells pedestrians how many more seconds they’ve got before the light changes.

Because I keep my “eyes moving to look for possible hazards,” I quickly discovered that the crosswalk countdown IS a hazard. And so I have had to keep reminding myself: it’s not for me!

It’s for the walkers, not the drivers.

Still, though, when I approach an intersection, about four car lengths from the light, a “2” tempts me to slow down. (After all, TWO is quickly followed by ONE and then ZERO.) And because of this temptation, I have really come to resent those crosswalk lights. For, you see, as I also have come to learn, getting to zero is not the same as getting to yellow and red. Sometimes, getting to zero comes directly ahead of an entire new round of pedestrian approval beginning at, say, 14 seconds. (Which is to say, the light stays green for the drivers.)

… Several weeks ago, the Los Angeles City Council decided that it would no longer utilize cameras at intersections. I can’t recall when those cameras began showing up, but they had become rather plentiful. They had become a sort of reminder that you, the driver, are never safe from being caught for the slightest infraction.

(And for me – what with my eyes moving about as they do – the cameras rarely went unnoticed. I felt myself being watched, constantly. As if I were taking a 24/7 behind-the-wheel test.)

The Council’s decision was accompanied by news reports on our local NPR station that indicated the City simply could not afford to enforce those tickets that were issued as a result of cameras catching red-light-runners. Apparently, in fact, they never were able to afford enforcement, and anyone who had ever received such a citation in the mail could have disregarded it with no bad results. (I wonder if my friend, who paid her camera-issued ticket, who then took online driving school and went through all the other motions – to the tune of $700 or so – heard this news. I’m not telling her… Besides, I would have done the same thing.)

And here’s the interesting thing that has happened in the weeks since I learned of the City’s decision: I am less frequently influenced by the 4-3-2-1 of the pedestrian crosswalks. Sure, they still throw me off from time to time, but mostly, I’ve returned to trusting my instincts. I’ve returned to receiving my guidance from the venerable color code of green, yellow, and red.

I like it, I guess, that I no longer feel I’m being observed so consistently. Seriously, between those countdown crosswalks and the cameras at every corner, I was as good as the gal taking a typing test with the temp agent hovering behind her.

I hope never to make an automotive typo at some L.A. intersection. And I do all that I can to avoid such a circumstance.

I also know this: I do my best when I don’t feel that I’m being watched, judged, or timed.

That Ol' Jack Magic - Unconditional Love in a Faulty Structure: Part Two

A NOTE BEFORE READING: This is the second installment of a three-part essay. To begin at the beginning, go here. (Or just scroll down to last Wednesday's post.)

+++

It’s weird for me to think back now on that short dialogue I had with Tim during the pre-Elizabethan era. He had moved into the apartment below mine probably about a year after me. We knew each other’s names, and we had had a few inconsequential conversations, but we were hardly friends. One day, we were both in the stairwell at the same time. I was at the top of the stairs, about to go into my apartment. He was at the bottom of the stairs, leaving his.

“Are you alright?” he asked, in an angry tone. “Because last night, your music woke me out of a deep sleep.” (He was pissed, and he had the right to be.)

“I’m sorry,” I said.

And I let him vent a little more. I apologized again. But I didn’t give the full explanation.

Because I didn’t know Tim then, I didn’t tell him what had preceded that night of loud, let-me-forget-the-day music. I had to put my cat to sleep that day. I had to say good-bye to Kitty, the cat I adopted in New York when I was only 20 years old.

Kitty had been a remarkable presence in my life. When I adopted her at the New York SPCA, I assumed I was bringing back to my college residence a little feline who would entertain my five suitemates and me. A toy; an object for our amusement. But, the tiny black kitten that returned with me to 116th Street wasn’t entertaining. In fact, as I would learn from the vet I took her to a few days later, she was dying.

She had not been weaned properly, and – despite the fatal prognosis – I was given some instructions that might work: I was to combine baby food with appetite enhancer and force it into her mouth with a rubber syringe. My friend Aileen’s boyfriend, Phil, immediately came to the plate to help me with this task, and we were a team. In spite of our teamwork, there always was a lot of sloppy goop tucked between Kitty’s tiny whiskers. But because of the teamwork, Kitty lived. For more than 18 years.

We had gone through a lot, Kitty and I. And part of what we had gone through was what she taught me those first few weeks I knew her: that I could take care of something; that I could give that something unconditional love.

It’s weird to think now that I couldn’t share with Tim what I had gone through the previous day. I only could apologize weakly and walk into my apartment, feeling guilty for having woke him up with the music I was blaring well past midnight. Were I going through the same thing today, he would know it. He would know, long before that last trip to the vet, that my cat was dying. And, just as he has offered to drive me to the airport in the years since, he probably would offer to drive me to the vet. And I would accept. I would be able to share the experience with him. Because he is not just my neighbor; he is my friend.

+++

And it’s weird to think what my apartment might still look like if Deb hadn’t moved into the building. Deb, whose eye and sense of daring, immediately pushed the envelope in her own apartment. Deb, who set a precedent for those who might say, “This is my space.”

I didn’t know Deb very well when I sought her advice regarding the painting of my living room, but I trusted her instincts. So I let her pick out the colors, and I followed her every direction. She helped at times, too, and we giggled as we worked together – something about those fumes, something about the whole endeavor. There’s nothing like moving your entire world into the middle of a space and changing the colors around it. Debbi showed me how energizing those changes could be.

And less than a year later, she again would drive the color scheme. I pointed to Colby, my red tabby cat, and said, “That’s the palette I want for my bedroom.” She fanned through her book of paint chips, starred two colors (neither of which actually exists on Colby), and gave me quick verbal instructions as to how to do a particular faux finish. Then, she was off to Colorado for Christmas. I would spend Christmas painting my bedroom, always with her cell phone number close at hand.

By the end of that week, a phenomenal transformation had taken place in my bedroom. And like some 21st Century cubist Cinderella, I would – from that point forward – sleep peacefully inside something that resembles a square pumpkin.

+++

Something was happening, during that time. I was not just changing the color of my apartment. I was changing the color of my life. The unexpected support from the people with whom I shared a roof was kicking in. The comfort was allowing me to open up, to see what the universe had in store.

I had held nonprofit staff jobs for 12 years, and they were never without their share of problems and frustrations. In August 2000, after an unusually lengthy search, I accepted a Development Director position that commanded a high salary (by nonprofit standards). But a bizarre thing happened at about the same time…

I had plans one Saturday to meet my friend Maria in Santa Monica. We’d agreed to a loose agenda. We would eat brunch wherever, and then we’d walk down Main Street. Browse through the shops. My personal agenda was to treat myself to a bracelet – a memory wire bracelet, specifically. (And this was a rather odd agenda for me to entertain. With the exception of earrings, I had never been one to buy – or care much about – jewelry.)

Maria and I picked a brunch spot randomly, and after we ate, we headed south on Main Street. The first store we came upon had window displays that were seductive. Window displays that implied jewelry. We walked in. And I realized immediately that we had just walked into a bead store.

“Hmm…” I thought, scoping the room. “Maybe I’ll just make a bracelet.”

+++

It’s no secret that I have an addictive personality, and by the time I shared my creations with Julie, who was the first of the neighbors to see them, my bowl o’ bracelets already was teeming.

“I’m so proud of you,” she said, in her warm and compassionate way. “You’re going outside yourself.”

Debbi had just returned from a production trip, and Julie saw her before I did. “Katie’s doing something completely different,” Julie told Deb. “And I’m not going to tell you what it is. You just have to see!”

I remember that night in late summer when I debuted my bowl o’ bracelets on Debbi’s stoop. I watched as my neighbor friends pawed over the new collection, trying them on and modeling them for each other. Julie already had bought one. Now Deb and new neighbor Sara would make their selections.

to be continued on September 7th.

That Ol’ Jack Magic – Unconditional Love in a Faulty Structure: Part One

A NOTE BEFORE READING: Today’s post and the two Wednesday posts that will follow it come from a memoir project: five Catalysts and five Constants. The project’s essays are all quite a bit longer than my usual posts, so I am going to share this one in three installments.

I should make one thing clear from the start: I don’t like Jack.

In fact, there have been times when I really have not liked Jack. And there have been times when my feelings for him have gone way beyond “really not liking.” His behavior and his firm inaction are unfathomable, and because he is nothing more than my landlord, I shouldn’t have to entertain feelings about him – ever. But, on occasion, I have had no choice.

Like that time my kitchen faucet essentially exploded at half past midnight, shooting water across the room. Thank God I had not gone to sleep yet, and thank God my neighbors weren’t sleeping too deeply. Though I didn’t know any one of them very well back then, they responded to my calls for “HELP!” Several of them bailed water out of my kitchen while another figured out how to turn off the flow to the entire building – the only way to end the potentially decapitating stream that was bursting out of the wall.

Jack’s got some messed-up pipes, I want to tell you.

And then there was that really scary time that my leg went through the deck/walkway outside my second-floor kitchen door. When I realized I couldn’t pull it out of the hole it had created, I yelled “HELP!” once again. Neighbors responded. Among them were a few who had become friends.

“Call 9-1-1!” I blurted out, realizing – for the first time in my life – that when you need 9-1-1, you know it. And although it should have been a relief to have the fire department arrive, I couldn’t help but feel even more vulnerable at that point. With five firemen surrounding me, I believed there was no way the deck would hold up. And when it collapsed, I’d still be stuck in the wood. My head cracked open on the pavement below.

But the deck didn’t give, and the firemen did get me out. They had to use an electric saw that I watched as it cut the wood just inches from my leg. By then, a crowd from the neighborhood had gathered. I was convinced after that evening that I would probably be a feature of “Show and Tell” in a few local classrooms the next morning.

Jack’s got some soft wood, I want to tell you.

About four months after the deck incident, I was in my living room with my Mom, who was visiting from Virginia. It was a typically hot October day in L.A., so we had the air conditioner running. (A window unit that came with the apartment; something that could probably get a nice chunk of change at the Antiques Roadshow.) Suddenly, there was a funky smell. I saw smoke coming out of the wall socket into which the air conditioner was plugged. I quickly turned off the unit and called the fire department. They arrived within minutes, checked it out and told me not to use the outlet again until an electrician could make the necessary repairs. I immediately called one, and he came over that afternoon.

The electrician replaced whatever needed to be replaced, and I wrote him a check. When I sent Jack my rent the following month, I enclosed the electrician’s receipt, deducted the cost, and explained my math in a note. The next week, I received a bill from Jack for the amount I had deducted. It stated that no repairs can be made without the landlord’s prior approval.

Jack’s got some strange wiring, I want to tell you.

But there’s one other thing about Jack that I cannot deny or overlook. He brought to this building the most amazing tenants. And he brought to this tenant the most amazing friends. It’s magic. It’s bigger than all of us. And it’s definitely not something that I made happen.

+++

“I’m not a friendly neighbor,” I once confessed to my mother, some months after moving from my marriage into Jack’s building.

“That’s because you lived in New York,” she responded.

Maybe there was truth to her theory. For someone else. But I think, for me, the embracing of privacy came first. I think that the reason I chose New York – for college, and for the eleven years that would follow college – is that I craved the option of being anonymous. After growing up in a small town in Virginia, I didn’t want people to know me or to know my business. Sure, I always would have close friends, and they would know more about me than they probably cared to know, but I still guarded my privacy. And as a tenant, I cultivated it. Until…

“Hi, Katie!” Therese calls out through her first-floor living room window.

“Hi, Therese!” I respond, smiling, as I head to my car in the back lot.

(So much for Mom’s theory, I think. Therese lived in New York, too.)

But Mom’s New York theory was not disproved by Therese. It was disproved by Elizabeth, who had moved into the building several months earlier than Therese. Elizabeth, in her own inimitable style, introduced us all to each other. Elizabeth – who also had lived in New York, by the way – brought to Jack’s building her unique brand of Texan hospitality. She had an indefatigable ability to inspire us to pool our resources for a night of partying. Before we knew it, we all chipped in for a grill. And once we were fed, we gathered in her living room for party games. It became a weekend routine, and one that I welcomed. A nice way to relax and interact without going out.

I still didn’t feel particularly close to any of my individual neighbors, but I was enjoying the communion. It was good to become friendly with these people with whom I shared a roof – with whom I shared the pipes, the wood, and the wiring that were unique to Jack. We always had landlord stories to swap, that’s for sure. And Elizabeth seemed to have more of them than anyone.

Of course, where she was concerned, Jack did have a case. Whether we liked it or not, every eviction notice he ever posted on her door was issued validly. She always seemed to be behind on her rent as she pursued a career that might be worthy of her phenomenal singing voice. And I would miss that voice. I would miss hearing her hit every note perfectly, never requiring musical accompaniment.

And I would appreciate always what she had brought to the building.

The first Christmas season after she moved in, I taped a holiday card to her front door. “Dear Elizabeth,” I had written inside, “When I tell my friends about the new energy in my building, I always tell them that one person made it happen. She’s our building’s ‘Fraulein Maria.’ Because of her, there’s music in the house again. I thank you for that, and my only regret is that Jack bears no resemblance whatsoever to Christopher Plummer. Those are the breaks. Love, Katie.”

Remembering that note now, what strikes me is that when I referred to “friends,” I was thinking about the people I knew outside the building.

…But something would happen around the time Elizabeth moved. The bonds that had been created during loud parties and competitive party games would become stronger. Among a few of us, there would be more quiet, one-on-one moments. We would share problems, secrets, and dreams. We’d still have the larger gatherings on the stoop or around the grill, but something deeper than simple socializing among neighbors was emerging.

to be continued on August 31st.

Monday Reruns: Quit Your Honking!

(original post-date: August 18, 2010)

Having lived – and therefore driven – in Los Angeles for 20 years, I’ve developed some serious ‘tude behind the wheel.

I know that friends who have ridden with me will question that statement, and I don’t blame them. Fact of the matter is, when I have a passenger, I drive much more cautiously (and therefore rarely reveal my ‘tude.) …I don’t know, maybe it’s some kind of hang-up. Something to do with feeling responsibility for another life. (I guess I’m quirky that way.)

BUT: most of the driving I do, I do alone, and so most of the time, I am as willing as the next reasonable person to take a few highly calculated risks.

However, when the driver behind me suggests, through the honking of a horn, that I take a risk I am not willing to take, I am tempted to throw it all into park and pull out a picnic lunch.

Seriously. Do NOT tell me I should make the left now.

Just. Don’t.

I witnessed someone dealing with this type of dilemma last week – as I was driving on Hollywood Boulevard, heading west. I had just approached the LaBrea intersection, which comprises at least two times as many lanes as exist on most interstates in our country’s heartland. I was first at the red light, middle lane, when I saw what was happening to the poor soul in the left-turn lane of LaBrea’s northbound traffic. The car behind him had honked intrusively, telling the driver at the front of the pack that he should go now. And so, while the driver at the front responded to that honk by moving forward by about six feet, he clearly concluded – after making that honk-inspired move – that, in fact, it wasn’t safe to proceed at that moment.

And so he became stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock was the aggressive driver behind him who kept honking. The hard place was the east- and west-bound traffic that had now been given the literal green light to move along.

As I made my way across LaBrea (part of the privileged green-lit traffic), I really felt for the guy who had allowed the driver behind him to push him into traffic. And with that aggression at his rear, he had no options for backing up. He just had to remain there – stuck out and at risk of being hit – until the lights changed once again. I detested the guy behind him who so resented being second in line for a left turn. A part of me wanted to stop my car in the middle of the intersection, get out of it, and scold that honking bully! (But that’s a whole other risk, and I’m not stupid.)

I’m also not saying that car horns are without merit. In fact, just two or so years into my L.A. experience, when I was driving a pre-owned Civic, I became quite alarmed when I realized my horn wasn’t working. As a co-worker (who had grown up out here) agreed, “That’s a safety hazard!”

Damn right it is. The horn is an essential tool. There have been dozens of times when I have used it to alert someone to my presence and so to avoid the meeting of metal. It’s my way of telling someone who is being inattentive that this lane is already taken.

In fact, I think that’s the best way to describe the use of a car horn: to alert the inattentive. And sure, I’ve also been on the receiving end of that alert. I actually appreciate it when the car behind me taps quickly to let me know that the light has changed. In the event that I didn’t notice, that alert is helpful.

But: when the car behind me uses its horn to inspire a risk-taking move? Nothing is more likely to make me take my sweet, sweet time…

Hmm… as long as I’m talking about driving, I might as well use this post to share something I do that I consider the best way to secure one’s safety on the freeway (or whatever highly traveled roads are in your neck of the woods). I don’t remember anymore if this is something I came up with or if it is a lesson I learned from someone else. Regardless, it works like a charm, and it works like this:

If you are in heavy traffic and you see that, ahead of you, the traffic is slowing considerably, turn on your hazard lights. The car behind you will immediately begin to slow down. This tip also is great if someone is riding your ass. There is nothing like the blink-blink-blink of the hazard lights to turn that ass-rider’s aggression into “ooh, don’t wanna be near this problem!”

I’m telling you, in these 20 years of driving in L.A., I’ve figured some things out. And one of them is this: power steering isn’t something that comes with your car; it’s what you bring to the road.

Just be sure the power you are looking for comes from a desire for safety, ‘cause if you’re seeking something else – say, a compensation for bedroom failings or a desire to chew out your boss – well then, I got three words for you: QUIT YOUR HONKING!

Monday Reruns: 20 Years Later

(original post-date: May 5, 2010)

This month marks my 20th year living in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles also is the place where I have lived the longest.

Although I was born in Connecticut, most of my first 17 years were in Virginia, under the care of my parents (granted, that care was rather remote during my three years in boarding school).

From Virginia, I went to New York, where I would experience my four years of college life within the confines of university housing. Thereafter, there were about seven years of apartment-sharing with roommates.

Then, I met a man with a lease, and I fell in love (not with his lease, mind you).

For a while, the man and I shared his lease in a dismally unpopular area of upper Manhattan. After we married, we moved to a better neighborhood in Brooklyn. Nearly three years into our marriage, we loaded our worldly possessions into a 15-foot rental truck, doused the cats with the prescribed dosage of Dr. Goodpet’s Homeopathic Stress Drops, and drove across the country.

I don’t want to talk about the first L.A. apartments my ex and I shared. We ran a bit of a gamut until we figured it was the marriage, not us, that needed to be “moved.” Suffice it to say, where I live now is the place I moved to when I ended that marriage. Where I live now is the place I’ve lived longer than any other place in my life.

So, here I am, in a place that I have got to call home.

What makes it so?

Something that struck me early after moving to L.A. is that this city is so many things. Unlike New York, which is in your face the minute you walk out into it, L.A. is – potentially – whatever you want it to be.

Are you a surfer-dude? Live in Venice. You’ll find your ilk.

Like shopping? An apartment near the Americana in Glendale will probably work well for you.

Need quiet? Tuck yourself away in some corner of the Valley or find a place in a remote area of Brentwood.

I’ll admit that for the first four years of my living here (i.e., before I ended my marriage and landed in Los Feliz), I was giving serious thoughts to moving back east. It just didn’t feel right to me. But now, I’m in the ‘hood I need to be in. It’s urban. It’s diverse. It’s not altogether safe. It’s alive.

I love my Los Angeles.

It’s funny. In New York, with the hustle and bustle of so many people cramped together on so small an island, you don’t have to define yourself beyond simply being a New Yorker. And if you can just get through your day, make it home, and remember to pick up the dry cleaning, you are an activist.

Los Angeles, an equally populated city, is utterly different from that.

I recall a line from Kramer vs. Kramer in which the Meryl Streep character, during the courtroom scene, referred to moving to California “to find myself.” Within the context of that movie (and perhaps because I first heard it from a Manhattan movie theatre seat), the concept of finding oneself in California sounded very touchy-feely. Like the character had probably gone to some commune in the Big Sur area. Perhaps engaged in some activities meant to release energies otherwise trapped in an inhospitable chakra.

But there is some truth to the concept of “finding oneself” in California. And it doesn’t all relate to East Coast prejudices about this wacky state that’s likely to fall off the continent following the next big tremor…

When I arrived in Los Angeles, I knew only one thing about myself: I was a New Yorker.

And, guess what? Los Angeles didn’t give a shit!

And so… I had “to find myself.”

The good news is that I did.

And I’m guessing that if I weren’t okay with the self I found, I wouldn’t still be here.

Too Old to Move

I cannot imagine leaving Los Angeles.

And not because I love it, which I do.

It’s just that, the older you get, the more difficult it is to make friends.

Remember how easy it was back in childhood? All you needed was a common age, and the deal was sealed.

Are you six? Me too! Let’s go play!

Can you imagine doing that at an adult age?

Hi! Are you fifty-three? Me too! Let’s have lunch!

Ain’t gonna happen.

When my then-husband and I moved to L.A., back in May 1990, it never occurred to me that I was leaving behind some well-established friendships and that I would have to start all over again. Sure, I had a few people out here who I knew, and among them were two I knew quite well, but… that’s barely a starter set.

Looking back at several of my early L.A. friends – people I thought I’d be close to for a long time – I realize that I was going through a process, and I would have to get to the end of that process before I would find the folks who were likely to last.

I remember a co-worker at my first staff job out here. We’ll call her Sheila. I’d been at the nonprofit organization for about a year before she got a position there. Our then-friendship is such ancient history at this point that I cannot explain the “attraction,” but I do remember always feeling as if she and I were both Hayley Mills, playing some equally misbehaving girls in a prep school movie…

I grew out of Sheila before I left the place where we both worked, and a few years later, I was at another nonprofit.

There, I became friends with two women, both of whom were a bit younger than I. We’ll call them Dee and Dora. I bonded with both of them, and we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. Again, I felt I had embarked on some friendships that would last. But they didn’t pan out as I had expected, and in retrospect, my memory of the times I spent with each or both of them centered around a certain amount of righteousness. A desire to be correct.

Interesting.

With Sheila, I was reliving my adolescence.

With Dee and Dora, I was reliving my twenties.

I was 32 when I arrived in Los Angeles, and I was too new to that decade to know what it meant.

Where friendships were concerned, I had to back up.

I had to start over.

I had to relive a few stages of interactive behavior before I would find the comfort of my present. I had to work through a new growth so that I could reach the moment when I began to know who I was and how I needed to be treated.

That moment began in my mid-40s.

In terms of friendships, I’ve been in the comfort zone ever since.

It's All in the Reading

Several years ago, I entered a small jewelry store in my neighborhood. The establishment harked back to another time and was probably passed on from one generation to the next. I had gone there to see if the proprietor might be able to repair an antique travel alarm clock that I had purchased at a flea market. The clock had worked quite well for a while, but then it decided to rebel.

While the store owner examined the timepiece, my eyes scanned her small shop, and one of the first things I noticed was a sign: Watch Batteries Repaired While You Wait.

I guess I’m verb-oriented, because my interpretation of that sign was this: If I wanted to, I could watch the proprietor repair batteries while I waited!

(Can you imagine a more entertaining afternoon?)

Interpretation is so subjective.

I have another story on this score, and this one comes from my years in New York. I had been browsing at the Coliseum bookstore, which used to be among the retail features of Columbus Circle. It was probably November or so, because I had stocking stuffers in mind. I quickly noticed a title that would have been appropriate for any member of my family. The title implied a deep devotion (if not outright addiction) to cats.

As I studied the cover illustration, however, I felt confused. There was an elderly person lying in what appeared to be a hospital bed, and surrounding that bed were several people. Those in plain clothes were undoubtedly family.

There also was a nurse and a priest.

But where was the cat?

I looked at how the bedsheets and blanket were arranged over the person lying there. I looked for a lump, figuring the cat must be under the covers.

Then, I returned to the title of the book, and I realized it was Catholics.

(Which explains the priest, of course.)

… There also was a time in between those two incidents – after New York and before I moved to my current neighborhood. I was married to a man whom I’ve previously mentioned in this blog, and since I called him Ben in an earlier essay, we’ll just stick with that…

Anyway, Ben loved to visit a part of California that is about four hours north of Los Angeles, just at the foot of Mount Whitney. There are rock formations there that are awesome, and the landscape is generally, well… what can I say, the dude’s a photographer, and there was no end to the possibilities. So we made the trip together a few times. He’d spend the weekend shooting pictures, and I’d sit by the pool, reading and taking in the remarkable air. Then, we’d meet for dinner and enjoy the quiet, rustic atmosphere of this extremely small town in the middle of nothing but almighty geography.

Once, while doing the drive (which would often begin at the end of a work-week and end close to midnight), we found ourselves behind a particular car, and because we were on a two-lane highway at that point, we remained behind that car for more than a few miles.

And this placement led to some improvisation.

For, you see, the license plate that we were trailing said this: OH BOB

I think Ben started the spontaneous game…

In the tone of a woman who is beyond impressed with a certain individual’s manhood, he exclaimed, “Ohhh Bob!”

I replied, using the clenched-teeth delivery of a wife who has once again found a non-dishwasher safe utensil in that very appliance. “Oh Bob.”

Ben took his turn, imitating a woman who was probably waving flirtatiously from across the room, “Oh, Bo-obb!”

My next entry was scolding, the type of admonition one might use when embarrassed by the inappropriateness of her partner: “Oh, BOB!”

Ben was still in another world. Possibly post-coital. His character sounded quite breathless and was undoubtedly reaching for a cigarette when she sighed, “Oh… Bob…”

When I responded, I sounded more like some 1950’s housewife who’s standing at the bottom of a suburban staircase, her arms folded at her chest. “Oh Bo-obb,” my character chanted, not at all pleased.

I don’t know how many more rounds we went, but it was good to get these feelings out of our systems.

It also was good to reach the changing lane so that we could move on to the next improvisation.

Monday Reruns: Confessions of a Non-Stalker

(original post date: April 14, 2010)

Back in the 60's (or maybe it was the 70's), a couple who are among my mom’s and my late dad’s contemporaries traveled from Virginia for their annual experience in New York. One night, they went to a Broadway show. The wife noticed a man sitting in front of them (or perhaps in their row), and this is what she said to him: “I know you’re someone famous, but I don’t know who you are.”

“My kids don’t think I’m famous,” he replied, kindly.

The man, not famous to his children, was Sidney Poitier.

I share this little anecdote because I just had to do some Googling. I wanted to make sure I got the actor’s name right.

Not Sidney Poitier's name. I know who he is, but rather, I wanted to check on the name of the actor I'm about to talk about.

It's Edward Burns.

Edward Burns has been around since the mid-90’s. In 1995, he made the scene with his indie film, The Brothers McMullen. He wrote it, directed it, and starred in it. A guy from Long Island, he had a tri-state tale to tell, and he told it well. He’s been busy ever since.

And one night, about ten years ago, he went to the movies.

So did I.

I had driven over to the Laemmle 5 on Sunset. Don’t remember what I saw. When I left the theatre, I entered the elevator to return to the underground parking structure that was designed by sadists. (Sidebar: is it any wonder there is now a Trader Joe’s within that complex? But I digress…)

Edward Burns joined me on the elevator, pressed the button for his parking level, and together, we rode down to the lower levels, each of us looking somewhere else.

About twenty minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of the Mayfair at Franklin and Bronson, as I had decided to pick up a few groceries on the way home. It must have been winter (if L.A. can be said to have one), as I recall I was wearing my royal blue, sort of all-weather jacket – a noticeable color among the more common, muted shades of winterizing Angelenos.

When I had filled my basket and approached check-out, I saw that my elevator mate was waiting in the most available, fastest-moving line. Yup. Edward Burns. Seven or eight zip codes ago, we were sharing an elevator. Now, we were both at Mayfair.

Self-conscious in my royal blue outerwear, I chose another check-out line.

The non-stalker line.

... Because I Have To

Today, I am very grateful to be the featured blogger on SITS , which is a remarkable community of bloggers. The acronym says it all: the Secret is the Support.

Welcome to those who have come here through SITS, and welcome to those who have come here out of habit or just because. I hope you enjoy your visit.

Quite frequently, I read SITS features, and while I miss some on occasion, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that I’ll be the first to quote Kate Jackson.

Remember her?

Back in the days of Charlie’s Angels on television, she was deemed “the smart one.”

I don’t know where she’s taken her brains in the ensuing decades, but I do recall an interview she had with Johnny Carson.

Remember him?

Back in the days of Charlie’s Angels on television, he was the host of The Tonight Show.

I cannot remember exactly the question that Johnny had posed to Kate, but the fact that her answer stays with me speaks volumes.

She was talking about a friend’s son and how that boy wanted to break into acting. Having listened to the child’s interest, she said to him, “Do you want to get into the business because you want to act or because you have to act?”

That’s it right there.

If there’s something you have to do, you’ll be hard-pressed not to do it. No matter how much other things – things you think you want to do – get in the way.

… When I was a kid, my family had a running joke. (We were the running-joke types, which – in my opinion – can be very entertaining.) And this was the routine: If my sister misbehaved, her punishment would be no television. If I misbehaved, my punishment would be no paper or pens.

Because, for some reason, even before I knew how, I had to write.

I remember taking a pen to a legal pad, and working my way across the lines in what appeared to be cursive verse. I’d dot this and cross that (because I knew that was part of the drill), but the lines were nothing but shapes, curves, and sweeps. There was no writing there because I had not yet learned to write the words one might know beyond kindergarten.

And I certainly didn’t know how to do anything cursive…

I was simply pretending.

I was pretending to write.

To this day, I get great relaxation from doodling. If I can just hold a pen in my hand and put it to paper, I am grounded. Even if I doodle the same word over and over again, there is peace in the process.

Even if I then sit back and look at that repeated word and wonder if it is a word…

Let me have my pens and my paper. I need them.

So yes, smart angel, I have to write.

… I hope new visitors from SITS will stop by the links that I shared with Kat (reiterated below).

I also hope you’ll stop by again. You’ll find a new post every Wednesday, an excerpt from my novel every Saturday, and a rerun every Monday.

I welcome your support, and I look forward, too, to seeing what you have to write!

For more, go to:

The Distance From Our Corners addresses issues so many in the sandwich generation are concerned about.

Approaching Los Angeles is a piece that shares my reflections upon overhearing an in-flight conversation and wanting to butt in.

Too Many Machines is my homage to Dr. Seuss. I wrote it back in 1987, when the fax machine was the newest invention… I stand by my prescience.

An Open Letter to Some People Who Attended the UCLA-Live Event This Past Saturday

Greetings from another member of the audience:

Before I address you individually, I should probably provide a little background regarding my experiences with live theatre…

Throughout my childhood, my parents were actively involved in two community theatre groups. One group staged three plays during the school year, while the other – an open-air venue – had a summer season comprising five plays. When my parents first became involved, they signed on to do props for one of the summer productions. Within a few years, though, they both had moved on to the stage, where they would, over the years, fine-tune their acting skills with style and grace.

When my sister and I were old enough to participate, we, too, volunteered for assignments, and while Martha would certainly accept production work, she really enjoyed acting more. (And, like my parents, she was quite good.) I, on the other hand, never got bit by the bug, and so – with the exception of a few very small roles that I performed quite poorly – I preferred to make my contributions as part of the backstage crew.

More often than not, though, I was in the audience, and I learned, at a young age, that the audience of a live performance should be respectful of the time, energy, passions, and talent that have gone into the mounting of a theatre production. Which is to say, the audience should give its full attention to the stage.

When I lived in New York, I continued to enjoy attending theatrical events. Broadway was affordable then, and with the option of placing the word “off-” in front of that concept, and then repeating it – as many times as you please – there was never a shortage of productions taking place in smaller venues throughout the City. I probably saw more than 50 plays and musicals during my 15 years in New York.

My theatre attendance in Los Angeles has been a bit more spotty. While I have seen several remarkable shows at some of the area’s larger venues, my having to be a bit more careful with money in recent years has put a dent in my theatre-going. Part of the problem is that I have “open space issues.” In most theatres, the balcony area (that is, where the cheap seats are) is way too high for me, and the grade is much too steep. I simply cannot enjoy what’s happening on the stage when I fear I will topple over my fellow patrons as I make my way, headfirst (and quite fatally), into the orchestra section.

(I realize, by the way, that there are terms for these “issues:” acrophobia, in regard to the fear of heights; and agoraphobia, in regard to the fear of open spaces. But I prefer simply to call the combination a profound and deep respect for the concept of gravity.)

Anyway, because of the economy, I’ve curtailed my theatre-going in recent years, and I even had to think about it for a minute, last week, when my friend Maria asked if I were interested in attending the Wallace Shawn performance at UCLA’s Royce Hall. But I’ve admired the writer/actor ever since I saw My Dinner With Andre back in the 80s, and the $45 ticket price didn’t seem like such a huge amount after three busy weeks of billable hours.

Which brings me to you people: you five or six people who also had forked over some money for tickets; you five or six people who were sitting nearby…

Some words first to the couple three rows ahead. I am very happy that you found each other. Your common need to fondle the hair and ear of your partner will probably make for a long relationship. But, seriously, get a room. Even with the house lights down, it was impossible not to be distracted by your public displays of obsession, and you need to cop to the fact that, because neither of you is petite (especially not you, sir), you will never be able to enjoy this shared fetish in a manner that is discreet.

Now to the two young ladies sitting behind my friend and me. Yes; you two. I appreciate that you probably got a student discount to attend the event, but that doesn’t mean you are entitled to chatter away while the performer is on stage. I am glad that when I turned around and glared at you, you stopped talking. I also was pleased when the man across the aisle silently got up from his seat, approached you both, and let you know – in a stage whisper – that the light emanating from your blackberry was bothering him and others. But don’t think for a moment that I didn’t notice your continued attempts to sneak back into that little machine and do whatever technological task apparently could not wait. I noticed it, and it bothered me.

As to the dude sitting in the row in front of us... Yes; you -- with the bright and distracting handheld device. My friend shared with me later that you were playing a video game on your little machine. Really? So, what happened? Did you win? And, why, by the way – if you were wanting to play computer games – did you choose to do so in a theatre?

As for the folks down the row, my peripheral vision also caught your illuminated screens. Was there an emergency? Was that the deal? Or maybe your text simply stated: yeah, I’m at the theatre.

To the five or six of you and whoever else was multitasking in Royce Hall, shame on you. Not behaving properly at a public event is equivalent to having a lack of social skills. And, in my opinion, you people are lacking in social skills.

Shame on you.

…Of course, before Shawn took the stage, the usual announcement was made. You know the one – it’s the same as is made in movie theatres: please turn off cell phones, pagers, and any illuminated handheld devices, [etc.] What’s interesting is that, while this request was being abused all over Royce Hall on Saturday night, I have rarely seen it abused in movie theatres.

Maybe people just need to see what they see on screens. And if that’s true, then what that means, I guess, is that a movie can replace those handheld devices, but a live human cannot.

Hmm, are we really so screen-addicted?

I realize, of course, that I am looking at one now.

And so are you.

But I also am not pretending to do, hear, or see something else simultaneously. And I hope the same goes for you.

…After his performance, which included readings (from his own work and others) around the theme of Real World, Fake World, Dream World, Wallace Shawn entertained some questions from the audience. A few of those questions provided him with an opportunity to elaborate on what a mess our world has become and how we should, in fact, be worried.

I appreciate his perspective.

And if he was aware – during his 90 minutes on stage – of the multi-tasking that was occurring in the audience, I also appreciate his ability not to give it any power. I could not have done that. Had it been me behind the lectern, I would have stopped in my tracks, shut my mouth, and refused to continue talking until the collective rudeness had virtually left the room.

Good thing, I guess, that I’ve always preferred the backstage assignments.

The Distance from Our Corners

When I was a kid, our family had a summer vacation ritual that entailed a very long drive with a rich, two-week reward at the other end. Packed and ready to go on an early June morning, we’d put the suitcases in the back of the station wagon and then take our places.

Dad would be the first driver, while Mom sat on the passenger’s side of what were not yet bucket seats.

In the back, I would take my place on the right, while Martha would sit on the left.

That’s how it always was. Me on the right. Martha on the left. Not an indication of political leanings or which side of our brains we favored. Simply a routine that would remain unbroken for all of our lives in the backseat.

And then we would head north from Virginia on the pre-interstate roads. Occasionally, Martha or I would climb into the front seat to rest her head on Mom’s lap (unless she was driving, of course). There were no laws back then that would have earned us a ticket for this climbing-over-the-seats routine, and for many of those years driving up to Cape Cod, I believe there were not even seatbelts.

But we always made it just fine.

The first leg of the trip was the longest – about nine or so hours to get to our grandparents’ house in Connecticut. And because it was such a long stretch, it was not without its moments that would test our mother’s nerves.

When Martha and I – understandably tired from the unending asphalt; undoubtedly bored with playing Auto Bingo – got feisty with each other in the backseat, Mom would turn around, and say, in no uncertain terms, “Get in your corners!”

And so we did.

And I’m guessing that, at that point, we got a little quiet.

(Which is exactly what Mom wanted – and needed.)

… A few decades later and 20 years ago, I moved to Los Angeles. And 10 years after that, my sister moved from Virginia to the UK. When Martha moved, Dad was still alive, and although he quickly became frail, Mom still had him for company. They would remain in the Shenandoah Valley, where my sister and I were raised, and long distance telephone calls would keep all of us in touch.

“Boy,” I said to Martha, during one of those calls – at a time when my Los Angeles hours and her England hours allowed for a lively conversation, “we sure did get in our corners, huh?”

She laughed, as did Mom, when I shared the observation with her later that week.

But these days, our geographic distance does not feel laughable. Dad died in late March of 2008, and although Martha and her best-ever husband made an unselfish and valiant effort before Christmas that year to bridge the proximity gap, their move “across the pond” and their plans for establishing a life near Mom did not pan out. The economy bit their butts, and they ultimately discovered how difficult it is – particularly in a small town – for “older people” to find work. They moved back to the UK this past November.

In the meantime, I’ve remained in L.A., where I have established a life for 20 years. Where my address is the one I’ve held the longest in my 53 years on the planet.

And so Martha and I – two members of what literature now calls the “sandwich generation” – are back in our corners.

My sister is a “true” sandwich in that she has a generation on either side. Mom, in Virginia (and the memory of Dad), represent the bottom slice of bread, while Martha’s daughter, granddaughter, and son-in-law comprise her top slice.

As for me, I guess you’d have to describe me as more of an “open-faced sandwich.” Yes, Mom’s there (and the memory of Dad), providing me with that slice that anchors my ingredients, but above that – or rather, creating a bookend to that generation – there is nothing.

It’s interesting, the press that the current sandwich generation gets. So much of the news is about the combating needs on either end. How aging parents and growing children create a tug-of-war, causing “us” Baby Boomers to feel pulled in two directions at once.

For those whose sandwich is closed, I am not without empathy. I get it that you are answering to two distinctly different age groups, and you are concerned about them both. But, I’d like to shine the light on us open-faced sandwiches for a moment. Because, while the demands on us – as children of aging parents – may not be as complex, they still are emotional.

My decision not to have children was not conscious, but I believe it was smart. I believe it suits me to not be a mother. I’m not sure I could have pulled off the discipline it would have required to discipline others. And if I had, I would have lost a big part of myself in the bargain.

But I also am realizing now, as I witness my mother’s aging, the emptiness that will be my legacy. The emptiness of no family nearby.

And so these days, my empathy extends more to my mother than to my sister or to other members of the “sandwich generation.” I feel for my Mom, alone in Virginia. I feel for her, so far from the corners that Martha and I now occupy. If any of the three of us had some bank to spare, we could make some adjustments to this scenario, but… money isn’t our strong suit.

Mom and Dad did not raise us to pursue the almighty dollar. Rather, they raised us to follow our hearts and have faith in our paths.

It is for that reason that Martha shares a house in rural Scotland with her best-ever husband and two generations below her. It also is for that reason that I maintain a one-bedroom apartment in a decidedly urban area of sprawling Los Angeles.

We are in our corners.

We are…a sandwich-and-a-half of Baby Boomer daughters wishing the best for their Mom.

Approaching Los Angeles

This past Sunday, after a week in Virginia, I headed to Dulles to take an afternoon flight back to L.A. When my seating group was called to board the plane, I followed the pack down the walkway. Shortly, I was at Row 13, where I heaved my little wheeled carry-on into the overhead bin and settled into my window seat. There, I closed my eyes for most of the ten minutes that passed before take-off.

I wasn’t trying to sleep, however. In fact, I soon began eavesdropping on the conversation taking place in the row behind me.

That dialogue began when the guy assigned to the middle seat arrived. The two women who would ride on either side of him had already settled in, and the gal on the aisle was quite cheerful as she stood so he could claim his place.

When one of the women made a joke about the middle seat, he said “That’s what I get for making my reservations three days ago.”

His new companions then learned that he was traveling to L.A. for a conference – some kind of software thing (that’s when I tuned out for a bit). And when, a minute or two later, window-seat lady asked him where he was from, he said Harrisonburg, Virginia. That got me listening again, only because I, too, was raised in the Shenandoah Valley.

He shared that he was going to the West Coast for the first time, and he was staying with a friend in Burbank. He also was looking forward to doing some sight-seeing, though he expected he’d only have about two full days at the end of the week.

And that is when the advice began. That is also when I began to cringe occasionally. As it turned out, both of the women on either side of him live in L.A., and as it turns out, they both live on Los Angeles’ west side.

I silently concurred with window-seat woman when she discouraged him from trying to go to Long Beach. Not that Long Beach doesn’t have much to offer – it absolutely does. It’s just that getting there and back (from Burbank) could possibly take four hours on the freeway. (Not the best use of vacation time.)

Aisle-seat woman fully embraced her travel agent role as the flight moved west, and it really threw me when she suggested he spend time on Melrose.

Melrose?!

A part of me wanted to unfasten my seat belt, pop up on my knees, and turn around so as to present my head and shoulders to the three of them.

Melrose?! I wanted to say. Are you kidding? That is SO twenty years ago!

Aisle-seat woman continued with her suggestions. West Hollywood is nice, she offered, and yes, he should see the Hollywood sites – the typical tourist attractions, such as Grauman’s Chinese, etc. – but, she cautioned, Hollywood is “very dirty” and “you probably don’t want to go east of there.”

What?! I wanted to say. Do you not know?

Seriously. “East of there” is where the action is. East of there is Los Feliz. And Silver Lake. East of there is where the cookie cutter gives way to eclectic. And if you think it’s only for the unwashed, don’t say that to (be-still-my-heart) Jon Hamm, who apparently lives in my ‘hood. Apparently, he’s been seen in the little one-of-a-kind restaurants. Word has it, too, that he likes the no-franchise coffee shops that offer hot beverages in common English sizes.

(I’m not suggesting the Harrisonburg guy would respond to the Jon Hamm reference, but come on, west side girls, get with the program!)

Okay, I’ll admit it – I’m not a big fan of L.A.’s west side. I’ve always found it much too monochromatic. In fact, if L.A. were only its west side, I’d have moved back east 16 years ago.

On the other hand, the west side girls were absolutely right in encouraging him to visit the beach communities. One of them even knew to recommend the ever-funky Venice boardwalk. Good for her.

But… could they tell him, as a sightseer, the absolute best way to get there? From Burbank? Unfortunately, they could not. In fact, I believe one of them recommended a route that included the 10 Freeway. So wrong!

Here’s the deal: if you’re ever in L.A., and you want to see the beach, pretend you’re staying with a friend in Burbank. Because no matter where you’re staying, it will behoove you to find the Ventura Freeway and head west.

From there, take the Topanga Canyon Boulevard exit, heading south. Then, prepare to be awed. You’ll climb a tall winding hill that affords breath-taking panoramic views of the Valley. Then, you’ll enter the canyon, which is phenomenally rustic. You will be taking in that rusticity (great word, huh?) for probably 12 or 13 miles, and you will be blown away by the intensity of and changes in the landscape. Then, just when you wonder what could possibly come next, you’ll follow a curve in the road, and at an elevation that’s maybe 1,000 feet above sea level, you will see the grand Pacific Ocean. Your response will be audible.

… I know, I know. I should have told him.

It’s just that I felt like he already had been overpowered by women who know what they know. I was afraid I’d scare him. I also was tired. I needed to get home to my wacky neighborhood – the “dirty” one, just east of Hollywood.

But… now you know.

So: if you ever fly to L.A., and you sit next to some gal from the west side, ask her if she’s done that drive. And if she hasn’t, tell her she should.

I’m just sayin’.