The frankincense is always greener on the other side. Or whatever color frankincense is.
On Christmas Day, my cats dined on a tuna and pumpkin medley. My friend Sarah’s feline, Saba, whom I’m watching while she’s out of town, enjoyed a fancy feast of wild salmon florentine with garden greens. My supper was lacking in comparison; I chocked down a banana and a frozen burrito while working a 10.5-hour shift. Well, it technically wasn’t frozen when I ate it, thanks to my proficient microwave skills. So, that’s better.
The newspaper I work for used to provide the skeleton night crew of flunkies on the clock on Christmas a catered meal as sort of a sucks-that-you-pursued-journalism-as-a-career consolation. This year, however, we were left to pack our own dinners order from Chinatown starve. “It’s a kick in the balls,” my outraged colleague griped. Remembering he was commiserating with a girl, he then rephrased: “Kick in the, uh, crotch area.”
I know this is the time of year that I’m supposed to be giving thanks that I’m employed, my cats and I are healthy, we have a roof over our heads, and we have warm beds to sleep in (even if Teva and Isabel won’t step paw anywhere near their bed), but I spent most of Dec. 25 eschewing the second annual cat-wrapping and instead lamenting that if I were living in a homeless shelter, at least I wouldn’t be lonely because of winter overcrowding. And I’d be served warm holiday meals. Well played, homeless people.
While we’re on the topic of Christmas, my period is almost two weeks late, and I’m growing concerned I’m carrying the Lord’s child because ’tis the season. It all adds up. Like Mary, I was raised Jewish. And I haven’t had sex in a lot of months. And I don’t know what myrrh is, but that doesn’t make me want it any less. God’s baby mama’s plight is the Biblical equivalent of the reality TV show “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant.” Which up until an ova ago was, admittedly, a pipe dream for me to appear on, because I didn’t not know that I was not pregnant. You know?
Thinking that this might be my last chance for pampering before my virgin birth, and also wanting to look my best for when the media hordes show up to document my immaculate conception, and also because I had a lot of split ends, I booked a haircut. The salon is one of the only places I feel beautiful, because stylists usually fawn over my hair, which has sort of a unique color. “You have Susan Sarandon Red!” one flamboyant barber once told me, before faux fanning himself and bursting into the song “Dammit Janet!” from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
When I was little, my grandpa, from whom I inherited my ginger genes, used to tell me to keep my crimson clippings after a trim so he could glue them to his forehead to supplement his thinning locks. Actually, he still tells me to do this. While I’m told his hue was more of a fiery orange, mine is a shade of auburn that doesn’t often occur naturally. In fact, I’ve only ever seen it in person on animals. For instance, Saba the cat, an orange tabby, and I match fairly well. But dogs, Irish setters and the like, seem to come closest to my color. Remember the episode of “Friends” when Joey meets his identical hand twin in Las Vegas? I had to travel only 2.5 hours by car to find my identical hair twin, who belongs to a Provincetown B&B innkeeper.
Cape Cod, 2007.
But “Dog Red” sounds slightly less classy than “Susan Sarandon Red,” so let’s just go with that.
At the upscale Harvard Square salon, it was heavenly to be touched, to have someone shampoo my scalp and massage my temples and run her fingers through my wet hair. As she combed and snipped, we chatted about her hometown in Russia, her son who aspires to be a music producer, the graphic design classes she’s enrolled in online. When she finished blow-drying, she spun me around in the chair, held up a mirror so I could view the curls in the back, and declared in a thick accent, “You are goddess!” I *really* need to start spending more time in salons. Also, homeless shelters.
Amid the attention and flattery, my mind strayed from my heart and my, uh, crotch area, and I forgot for a moment that I’m alone, yet again, at the holidays.
“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked.
And then I remembered.
“No,” I said, shifting my eyes downward and sweeping away rogue hairs from my sweater.
“Well,” she said, winking. “Maybe next year.”
“Maybe next year,” I repeated.
Who Wore It Best? Part Deux (“Deux” is pronounced sort of like “duh,” because the answer is obvious.)
Although my barely detectable maternal instinct is wholly satisfied by caring for cats, others in my life are not so blessed. Many of them don’t have cats, or don’t want them, which is totally fine because more for me.
While I’ve been squirreling away cash for my cats’ college funds, my friends have been busy nesting and baby-proofing their cribs. (MTV taught me that “cribs” is what today’s youths and rappers call “domiciles.”) Yes, I’ve apparently reached the age when my peers are starting to fill the Teva-and-Isabel-sized hole in their hearts with children. This displeases me.
Taking into account my selfishness, disapproval of polluting the Earth with progeny and allergy to humans born after Ronald Reagan‘s first term, I figured these births would be the death of our friendships.
I feared the postpartum depression. The sleepless nights. The hemorrhoids. And I’m just talking about the effect their kids would have on *me*.
Possibly worst of all, I resented that I’d have to buy baby shower, birthday and holiday gifts for their little tax write-offs. When’s the last time someone gave my cats a present? Technically, mid-October. But it feels more dramatic and vindicating to say NEVER.
But when I’m wrong, I am wrong.
Upon the arrival of a co-worker’s first child, I reluctantly yet meticulously picked out the perfect congratulations-on-being-born present, and bore witness to the look of sheer joy and wonderment on her innocent, cherubic face as she happily wore the cutesy clothes. I’ve never felt more appreciated, so full of purpose. It warmed the cockles of my hard heart.
This is what being a mother is all about, I thought. I’m making a difference. Like Angelina Jolie with her caboodle of third-world orphans.
That’s why Hanukkah came early this year for another chum’s tyke. I just couldn’t wait another day to celebrate, get my blue on and light the womenorah. I again shopped stores high and low, and instantly those euphoric feelings came flooding back when I saw the little angel sporting adorable new duds.
Then I handed off the gift to my friend’s kid and whatever. No biggie.
Isabel and child
P.S. Go here for part one of “Who Wore It Best?”
P.P.S. Isabel purred most of time.
P.P.P.S. She wears a toddler 2/3. But no pressure.
P.P.P.P.S. OK, I lied. Isabel purred the whole time.
Defying gravity … and convention
The first time my writing was featured in Blogologues, a comedy show that turns web wackiness into theater, my mom, up to her frizzy brown curls in pride, called all of our blood relations, friends we hadn’t spoken to in years and probably random numbers in the phone book to broadcast the good news. She’d never before told them about my blog — for good reason. When they came here to see what Mom had been crowing about, they were met with a recent post in which I described my desire to engage in lesbian prison sex.
And that’s how my extended family found out I’m gay.
On a roll, Mom then insisted on trekking from Cleveland to New York City via Boston to see the show.
I had tried to talk her out of attending. It was, by all accounts, utterly ridiculous for her to drive more than 20 hours round trip to view my five-minute skit. “That’s four hours of traveling for every one minute of stage time,” I rationalized, mistakenly attempting to reach her with logic. Math was no match for her; she had science on her side. In keeping with Newton’s Law of Jewish Mothering, she already had set herself in motion and there was simply no stopping her.
With a mission in mind, like that crazed astronaut who drove from Houston to Orlando wearing adult diapers to cut out pesky bathroom breaks en route to pepper-spraying her ex-beau’s new lady, Mom packed her bags, loaded her Michael Buble collection into the CD changer and hit the road. She stayed with me in Boston for a whirlwind weekend before we continued on to Manhattan.
Although the performance wasn’t until evening, we arrived in the early afternoon to capitalize on our day in the city. After spending several hours marveling at the prehistoric lizards in the American Museum of Natural History, we crossed the street and transitioned from “Jurassic Park” to Central Park. “I’ve never been here before,” Mom said as we entered one of the world’s most beloved and picturesque urban green spaces. “It smells like urine.”
She poses like this in photos because she knows it embarrasses me.
As Mom made a stink about the stench and I pissed around with my camera snapping photos of the skyline, she approached some nearby tourists and asked them to take our picture together. And because she cannot turn down an opportunity to tell the minutiae of our lives to strangers, she engaged them in discussion. “My daughter’s play is opening tonight on Broadway!” she boasted.
Almost every word in that last sentence is untrue. Except the part about being her “daughter.” Maternity test pending.
The cabbie ferrying us to 1st and St. Marks Place heard the same tall tale. As did the cashier at the museum. As did a promoter on the street who tried to hawk us tickets for another production nearby in the East Village. The incredulous look on their faces spoke volumes, but they all politely inquired, “Which show?”
“I didn’t wri- … there’s no … very off-Broadway … MOM!” I stammered.
I was stumped for a coherent response, too busy wondering whether, at age 31, the statute of limitations had expired for divorcing my parents.
“Next time, just say you wrote ‘Wicked,’ ” my actress/producer pal Alli, who has her own Jewish mother to contend with, advised over beers after my second beguiling Blogologues last week.
If only I’d thought of that conversation-ending comeback when Mom was telling everyone that I was on track to win a Tony.
Due to last-minute notice and the unpredictable nature of November weather, Mom wasn’t able to come out for my latest New York City showing. But I’d argue she did more than enough coming out for me that first time.
Here’s what she (and probably you) missed, with the lovely Jen Jamula of Lively Productions performing my post “Notes on a Scandal: How My Shameless Childhood Tattling Led Me to Pursue a Career in Journalism”:
Are you alone on Thanksgiving? I’m there with you in spirit. And by “spirit” I mean “alcohol.”
While shopping at Whole Foods earlier this week and somehow racking up a $200-plus bill even though I don’t eat meat and am temporarily, unhappily, off dairy and eggs — Golden Delicious apples are apparently made of actual gold — a cashier, bagger and manager processing my return all asked with pesticide-less, free-range cheer, “Whatcha doing for Thanksgiving?”
My immediate, internal response was rife with non-FDA-approved hormones. The truth was stinging my stomach like conventionally grown tomatoes. I wanted to say, “Nothing. OK? Nothing. But my cats really love me, and I have a blog about my life with them.”
Instead, I thrice coughed up a syrupy “Happy holidays!” before pretending to be distracted by a sale on soy milk.
The truth about my barren holiday social calendar has been eating at me for days, and like a moldy container of leftovers in the fridge, I kept pushing it further back in hopes that the problem would just somehow vaporize. It has not. Now, turduckens and I are stewing in our own juices; I wish I could sit at a big table and not eat bird on Thanksgiving with boisterous blood relatives whom I can barely tolerate who feed me into oblivion and then serve the pies. Because that’s the American way.
By all accounts, aside from getting dumped and growing a tail, I’ve had a pretty good year. A couple of my essays are being staged in New York City. I went to Cape Town on a whim at the invitation of a kindred spirit I’d never met before. I have the most beautiful cats in this and as-yet undiscovered galaxies. But that doesn’t make me feel any less lame about being lonely at the holidays, and it doesn’t keep me warm at night. OK, technically, it does keep me warm at night to the point of being overheated, because Isabel sleeps on my head. I hate when I undermine my own arguments.
We've reached the part of the post where, apropos of nothing, I include a photo of Isabel and Teva cutely crammed into the same cozy cup.
With a full plate stuffed with inedible blessings, I feel like a douche bag for bitching about my lack of Thanksgiving plans. It’s similar to that scene in “Notting Hill” when everyone is whining about their dreadfully hum-drum lives in competition for the last brownie, and then Julia Roberts opens her mesmeric multimillion-dollar mouth and complains about the stress of being the highest-paid actress in the world and the burden of being beautiful. Or maybe I’m a douche bag because I just compared myself to Julia Roberts.
Most of this is my fault. It’s my choice to live far away from my family. My job also requires me to clock in, whether or not Christ is coming or going or Columbus is sort of but not really discovering America or trees are … arboring. And thanks to blogging, I’ve spent much of the past couple of years cultivating friendships with people in faraway places and in nations where Thanksgiving is not celebrated. Once again, my lack of foresight is astounding.
But as my friend Suniverse astutely noted, “On the plus side, you can start celebrating South African holidays, like Nelson Mandela‘s birthday and … Merry End of Apartheid?”
To that I say, Freedom Day is commemorated April 27. Mark your calendar, blacks and whites. We’re gonna party like it’s 1994 and we were just granted universal suffrage.
As for now, if you’re like me and have nowhere to go over the long holiday weekend, we will make it through this Thanksgiving together. And by “we” I mean “you and me and booze.” Because, thank cats, vodka is vegan.
P.S. Because it’s Thanksgiving — emphasis on the giving if you’re not totally self-involved like I am — I’m hoping you might be able to join me in offering moral or financial support to Liz, who’s looking for sponsors as she runs four races in four cities in memory of her mother to raise money for Mind, a mental health charity in England and Wales. Yes, that’s right, she’s a Brit and doesn’t even celebrate this holiday. Let’s show her what it’s all about.
P.P.S. EpicThanks.org asked me and others to write a post “from the heart” about “personal gratitude” and link to its site to promote a grassroots global fundraising campaign. Pretty sure I failed in all possible ways. But it’d be awesome if you check them out.
My cats might be tiny cheetahs
A leopard can't change its spots. But this is a cheetah. There are no idioms for cheetahs. Discrimination! Where are the Black Panthers when you need them?
I’ve long suspected Teva and Isabel are more than just my life partners house cats.
Just the other day, they got a phone call. It was The Wild.
I mean, I’m pretty sure it was a call of The Wild. I just let it go straight to voicemail, because I screen and prefer to use my phone only to access email and play Words with Friends (username: alonewithcats, bring it!). The number was blocked and no one left a message. If that’s not The Wild’s calling card, I don’t know what is.
Having recently been where the wild things are in South Africa, I had a chance to observe tame cheetahs up-close at a rehab center at Inverdoorn Game Reserve, and I couldn’t help but eye the similarities between my itty-bitty torties and the spotted speedsters. The resemblance is uncanny. The cheetahs and my girls share so many of the same movements and expressions, the same keen sense of pop culture, the same swears-laden, slightly hostile thoughts.
Gazing at the cheetahs was like staring into a mirror. A FURRY MIRROR MADE OF TEVA AND ISABEL. I might be misunderstanding how mirrors work.
Upon returning home from my Southern Hemisphere safari, I combed through photos of my possibly tiny cheetahs to make highly methodical side-by-side comparisons with actual big kitties at the reserve. One image in particular is aided by my bedspread that resembles a savanna, which I may or may not have bought to color-coordinate with my felines’ foxy green eyes. I should probably be an interior decorator.
Let’s have a looksie:
The physics or astronomy or some sort of science-y science seemed to be stacked in our favor. The evidence is powerful. I was nearly convinced that Teva and Isabel are actually tiny cheetahs.
Until I remembered this troubling scene:
A leash? No. Absolutely, no.
Isabel and Teva would never put up with that shit.
Sure, they let me wrap them in cellophane, but that’s where they draw the line.
Alas, my cats aren’t tiny cheetahs after all. But possibly little lions …
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Alone with Cats is taking Manhattan again, muppets-style! In a family-themed show dubbed “Blood is Thicker than Blogologues,” Lively Productions will be staging another one of my essays, “Notes on a Scandal: How My Shameless Childhood Tattling Led Me to Pursue a Career in Journalism,” at Under St. Marks theater in the East Village on Monday, Nov. 28 at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. It’ll be a post-Thanksgiving cornucopia of laughs. Come see!
Just deserts in South Africa
Inverdoorn Game Reserve, South Africa
Usually, I prefer to spend my birthday drowning in decadent desserts. Because everyone knows that calories don’t count on birthdays. And special occasions. And days the Earth orbits the sun. That’s just science.
But this year I dieted, dropped an “S” and turned 31, the age-flavor equivalent of being my own Baskin-Robbins, in the dry, desert region of South Africa called the Karoo.
Claire, a longtime blog reader in Cape Town, graciously invited me to drop in on her life, and because I apparently have no inner voice that cautions me against taking three flights totaling 10,000 miles to meet strangers from the internet, I was more than happy to accept. To commemorate my seemingly irreversible onward march into my thirties, she booked us an overnight at Inverdoorn Game Reserve, where we embarked on a private safari in hopes of catching glimpses of hippopotamus, antelope, buffa— OK, totally not fooling anyone. I was just in it for the cats.
We set out at sunset in a 4 x 4 to cover the vast and gorgeous expanse of the park. A few minutes into our once-in-a-lifetime adventure, during a creepy conversation about Claire’s crippling fear of snakes, a cape cobra sprung up on a rock to our left. The safari guide — rastafari is the preferred term, I’m pretty sure — stopped the vehicle and told us to get out. Claire froze, then shoved me toward the serpent in a shameless attempt to sacrifice me and save herself, as if to say “Take the American!”
Claire, probably laughing about her shrewd "Lord of the Flies"-style survival strategy.
Undeterred, Rastafari again implored us to exit the truck. Which seemed totally safe, with our slippery fork-tongued new friend slithering close by. So we hopped out and into harm’s way. Because yes, when someone tells me to jump, I say “How high?” followed by a disclaimer that my legs are unnaturally squat and stocky and watching me leap pathetically is unsatisfying for all involved. However, I have no issues with authority. We can’t all be independent thinkers.
But it was all worth Claire and Rastafari taking my life into their hands, because also nearby on the other side of some thorny bushes we came face to femur with Shorty.
Shorty's name is slightly misleading.
Mocking my stature and nationality in one fell swoop, Claire instructed me to get my short self in front of Shorty the giraffe and wave like a tourist. I do what I’m told.
Shorty meets Shorty.
The blind agreement didn’t stop there. It’s a good thing I wasn’t being led to slaughter — except for the part about being thrust into the cross hairs of a killer cobra — because I just kept obliging without resistance. It’s my gentle nature.
In the midst of being in the majestic company of, among many others …
… white rhinoceros …
… wildebeest …
… zebra …
… cape buffalo …
… gemsbok …
… black-maned Barbary Cape lion (squee!) …
… and cheetah (squee times infinity!) …
… Rastafari pulled up alongside a tree, rocketed from the truck, ripped a few leaves from the branches and handed us each a green gift. Licking the leaf and remarking on its salty taste, he looked to his captive audience to follow his lead.
I've put worse things in my mouth. *ominous foreshadowing*
After observing Claire and I hesitate with suspicion before sampling the snack, he said rhinos often favor that plant when marking their territory — yes, what we’d just lapped up was pungent rhino piss.
We spent the next several minutes spitooing and scraping our tongues, until Rastafari, rolling with laughter, revealed the plant’s just naturally high in sodium. Kind of a let down.
You’d think that would have been enough to lose our trust, and yet. Spying some springbok droppings, Rastafari explained how spitting contests are common in certain circles with the round pellets. Then he devilishly peered at Claire and me.
With a turd between his teeth.
And that’s how I ended up eating shit on my 31st birthday.
Not quite the cherry on top I’ve come to expect, but oh-so-much sweeter. Unless we’re talking about the actual taste of the chocolate-colored diminutive desert dung. In which case it was odorless, with a hint of grass.
Less is more. And amore.
A common complaint among bloggers is that their cats aren’t as cute as mine. This is accurate. The truth shall set you free.
Bloggers also gripe about a lack of readers. I’m guilty of this as well. My self-esteem is intricately tied to my site stats. I feel sad when they’re sad. And then I feel even sadder, because I get that Barry Manilow song stuck in my head. If you only knew what I’m going through. Even when my stats spike, I wonder why they didn’t climb even higher. I always want more. More daily hits. And more comments. And more cowbell.
My grandma always said, “If you have a few really good friends, consider yourself wealthy.” Impeccably manicured, Grandma also used to tell me, an incorrigible nail biter in my youth, “If you grow out your nails, I’ll paint them for you.” One of those lessons might apply here.
I don’t have a billionty readers, but one happens to be Allison Goldberg, an actor and co-founder of a production company who unexpectedly plucked one of my posts and propelled it onstage. A few nights ago at Under St. Marks theater in New York City’s East Village, my friends, my mom — of course she came — and I watched as the effervescent Alli performed one of my essays in a knee-slapper of a new show called “Blogologues,” which transforms blog fodder into monologues. I have yet to fully process how fucking cool this is — that a silly little rambling that I lazily launched into the interwebs expecting only a few folks to read came to life in front of an audience. For the first time as a blogger, instead of seeing LOLs, I heard actual laughs in response to my writing.
I had hoped that the actor playing me would be much prettier and thinner and more charming than I, and Alli didn’t disappoint. See for yourself:
If you live in New York City or on Earth, I highly recommend you check out this show, and I’m not just saying that to suck up to the producers because they picked my post and I hope they use more. I legitimately loved it and I’m sucking up.
The show was the second time in as many months that my blog brought me to New York City. In July, I crashed the Big Apple vacation of bloggy babes Nursemyra and Daisyfae.
And Buddah makes four.
The good nurse gave me a key chain with a feline on it, because she apparently just assumed that I like cats. I don’t know what gave her that idea.
Cats are fine. Whatev.
Daisyfae then sent Amber my way. We met for lunch and she sweetly presented me with a gift-wrapped package of cellophane. Because maybe sometimes I spend Saturday nights cloaking my cats in Saran.
For reasons that we may never know or understand, Teva and Isabel were more enthralled with the ribbon than the shrink wrap.
Another web buddy, Laurenne, put me up for a few summer nights at her apartment in Venice Beach, California. Both aspiring writers, we made a pact that if one of us ever achieves success, we’ll make room on our coattails for the other. I will hold her to this.
Coattails forthcoming.
While out West, I connected with Roxanne, who had previously shipped me a care package when I was nursing a broken heart and asscontaining treats for Teva and Isabel, cat-shaped cookies and the most hideously awesome cat-print silk blouse I have ever seen.
It's a little long in the sleeves.
Don't be fooled by Teva's look of disgust and the way she's clawing her way out of the shirt. She loves it.
Teva says "less is more" with her eyes.
And a few months ago when a reader in South Africa named Claire asked me what I’m doing for my birthday, and I replied something like “cats” and “alone” and “with,” she asked whether I might want to celebrate turning 31 in Cape Town. I’m told there are big and fast cats there. She twisted my arm. While on the other side of the world, I’ll visit ‘net crony Kyknoord, a glass-half-empty kindred spirit with whom I do all my best wallowing.
Beginning today, I’ll be dropping off this series of tubes for a few weeks while I go continent-hopping, which wouldn’t be possible without the generosity (and probably insanity) of the wonderful people who’ve found their way here. With your kindness and support and pledge of coattail-riding, you’ve all taught me that it’s not how many readers but who’s reading that counts. From now on, I’ll remember that when I’m feeling Mani-low.
What I’m saying is, I’m wealthy because I want to paint all your nails.
Notes on a scandal: How my shameless childhood tattling led me to pursue a career in journalism
I'm surprised the Smithsonian hasn't called wanting these for its archives.
At age 5, I composed my earliest writings in the front seat of my grandpa’s car. I was literally driven to the field of journalism by my maternal grandparents, who both worked for the long-defunct Cleveland Press. I never made the connection between my childhood correspondence and my chosen career until I spent a few days with Poppa last month, and together we sifted through dozens of letters I’d written to Grandma.
“Do you know what these are, Little Dolly?” my 91-year-old Poppa asked as he shuffled toward me, his feet electrically charging the carpet in his senior-living apartment with each half-step. Handing me the 25-year-old crinkled notes, kept carefully tucked away in the top drawer of his antique bureau, he raised his eyebrows and grinned, flashing his dentures. “Your grandma used to read these and laugh until she cried.”
Although she’s been gone for more than 10 years, I still can hear her hearty howl. It rumbled from somewhere deep inside her robust belly and would shake the house almost as much as her snoring. Hunched over her disastrous kitchen table buried under an avalanche of TV Guides, bills and coupons in a scene that would make “Hoarders” seem like a show about neat freaks, she’d crack up, alone or with company, at the sarcastic letters penned by a kid too young to know what sarcasm was.
Grandma and Poppa, photographed with my first camera.
I wrote the notes when I was in kindergarten, and Poppa would pick me up every day after school and then I’d wait in his beige Buick at the corner of West St. James and Fairmount in Cleveland Heights, where he shepherded area kids as a crossing guard. In an era before Game Boy and PSP, when fetuses didn’t text in utero, Grandma left a pad of paper and a pencil for me on the front passenger seat to help pass the time. Whereas other 5-year-old girls probably would have used it for doodling or scribbling the names of boys, I decided its purpose would be to publish daily reports on Poppa’s behavior, generosity with car amenities and what I perceived to be his scandalous affair with a neighborhood jogger. It’s no wonder I grew up to work at a tabloid.
There were stories to scoop, and I needn’t look beyond the dashboard to find them.
If it wasn’t the climate of the car that had me rallying for revolution, then it was the sound of Poppa’s singing – an apparent affront to my young ears — as he chirped along to the older-than-oldies AM station. I even made sure to record the song titles, in case Grandma wanted to interrogate him later about his repertoire.
Poppa sometimes would join me in the car and we’d watch for stragglers. This presented him with a chance to shower me with affection. Like most goofy grandpas, his most favorite pastime was playfully stealing kisses and tickles; unlike most grandchildren, I tallied his every touch, seizing any and all opportunities to tattle.
I may have been prone to hyperbole from a young age.
As Grandma’s self-appointed spy, I saw it as my responsibility to keep close tabs on Poppa’s every move. Constantly on my radar was a local female jogger who just happened to zip by every day on his watch. He referred to her as the “Lady Friend.” Which at the time I was pretty sure was code for “man-stealing harpy bimbo.”
My novice nose for news could smell a scandal. Poppa’s schnoz, meanwhile, was hot on the scent of something else.
The Lady Friend became the sole focus of a continuing investigative series. Staking out her turf undercover-style in the front seat of Poppa’s car — the only things missing from my sting were jelly doughnuts, coffee and my gingerly uttering cop cliches such as “I’m too old for this shit” — I’d meticulously keep track of each time she waved and smiled at him. Get a room. He only made matters worse for himself by commenting on her comeliness.
Oh no he didn’t.
Poppa must have sensed I was getting too close to discovering his secret because, every so often, he’d conveniently “misplace” my pad of paper or “forget” to pass along my notes to Grandma. I’d catch him red-handed when he’d pick me up the next day and yesterday’s notes were still sitting on the car cushions, spurring me to launch a fierce letter-writing campaign to protect my First Amendment rights to free speech and press.
He *so* messed with the wrong kindergartner.
Even veteran reporters, however, come up short for stories sometimes. A source clams up. Or a lead doesn’t pan out. Or you suffer insomnia during nap time at school and you’re sleepy. I was no exception, but I soldiered on and still made deadline.
Among nearly one hundred notes, I could find only one praising Poppa.
I suspect my generous mood mostly had to do with my decoder magic marker.
When we finished flipping through the numerous notes, Poppa queried: “Do you want to take these home with you, Little Dolly?” He has asked before, but I always decline. They’ll be mine someday, but for now, I like that they’re there keeping him company. I’d prefer that he also had a cat, but I can’t win them all. When he’s missing Grandma, he needn’t look farther than his top dresser drawer to share in her joy. She passed away when I was a freshman in college, a few years before I landed my first newspaper job, but I’d like to think she knew I was destined for journalism, considering the way I effortlessly blew the lid off of Lady Friend-gate. For the encouragement and keeping me well stocked with writing supplies in my youth, and so much more, I wish I could thank her — 7,000 times.
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One of my posts about Jesus, “Sex and the City” and leg-shaving — you know me, always writing about weighty issues like world peace and whatever — is going to be performed by actors in a show called “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Blogolouges” at Under St. Marks theater in New York City on Monday, Sept. 26 at 7 and 9 p.m. I’ll be at the later show. If you live nearby and love me enough to hire a catsitter for the night, please join us.
Or maybe *this* is what happened to Princess Diana …
I found a typewriter-written conspiracy theory about the death of Princess Diana — or rather “Princes Diana,” which adds an unexpected multiple transsexual twist! — in a stack of Letters to the Editor recently sent to the newspaper where I work. I cannot not share it. And yeah, Postmaster General, if you want to get all technical about it, this probably constitutes felony mail fraud, which carries a punishment of up to five years in prison and/or fines of up to $250,000. Worth it. Also, there was a lot of lesbian sex that one time on “The L Word” when Bette and Candace went to jail. I’d find a way to muddle through it.
Holy mole-y.
I am *so* gullible. To think, all this time I was under the impression that the wilting of England’s rose was caused by a deadly combination of a drunken driver and ruthless paparazzi. Which is exactly what The Queen wants you to believe.
And by “The Queen” I mean “Elton John.” If the truth ever leaked out, he’d be forced to re-rewrite his song. Thankfully, I’ve already penned a new title: “Good lie, England’s Ruse.” I’ve got your back, Elton John. Not in the prison-sex sort of way, though. Because you keep rejecting my advances.
Dating is a zoo
While I was strolling through the San Diego Zoo, as usual professing my Lionel Richie-like endless love for every adorable animal I encountered and seething hate for all the stupid humans hogging my air, a billboard advertising a “Dating Service for the Desperate” caught my eye. My first thought was, that’s redundant. *Everyone* who joins a dating service is desperate. I speak from experience. My second thought was, sign me up.
The display was adjacent to the tiger exhibit, where no doubt countless severely single cat connoisseurs swarm and go ape every day. In the advertising field, this approach is known as catering to your target demographic.
The San Diego Zoo doesn't monkey around when it comes to dating. (I call dibs on the hottie on the right.)
This is all vaguely reminiscent of the time I spied a humdinger of an error in an editorial assistant’s article while performing my nightly proofing duties. I can’t remember who wrote it, what it was about, or how long ago it was, because I’m a highly skilled storyteller whose multimillion-dollar book deal to pen my memoir will materialize any. day. now. But I do recall that what the reporter meant was “dire straits”; what he or she or shim actually wrote was “dire straights.” Which I instantly became convinced would make the most awesome name ever for a dating service geared toward hopeless heterosexuals.
