Antiquity

I look at pics posted online (Dirty Old Boston) and think “oh, that looks like a million years ago” only to read the caption stating it’s from the late 70s/early 80s. Jesus, I was in my 20s then—late college, carnival and then my first years in Boston. I did the math, 1980 was 42 years ago. Christ I’m old!

Just to make me feel even more antique—I was born in 1958, 64 years ago. A person who was 64 in the year of my debut on planet earth would have been born in 1894. The crew includes:

• Actress ZaSu Pitts, (love the name)
• Norman Rockwell
• Comedian Moms Mabley
  
• Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues
• Jack Benny
• James Thurber, my first favorite cartoonist/writer 
  
• Nikita Khrushchev
  
• Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s Deputy Führer
• Choreographer Martha Graham was born in 1894. She died in 1991. Just imagine all the horrors and innovations she saw!

What happened in 1894?

• New England Telephone and Telegraph installed the first battery-operated telephone switchboard, in Lexington, Massachusetts.
• Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time.
• New Zealand enacted the world's first minimum wage law,
• Women in South Australia become the first in Australia to gain the right to vote and the first in the world to be elected to Parliament.

Nothing astoundingly earthshaking but in the last decade of the 19th century:

• The Wounded Knee Massacre went down in 1890.
• 1891—In New Orleans, a lynch mob storms the Old Parish Prison and lynches 11 Italians who had been found not guilty of the murder of the local Police Chief.
• 1892—Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite premièred.
• 1893—New Zealand becomes the first country to grant women the right to vote.
• 1894—the Swiss Army knife was invented.
• 1895—Volleyball was invented (without which I would not have broken my leg, jumping up to spike a ball at the same time as a big guy who landed on top of me).
• 1896—Marie Curie discovered radioactivity.
• 1897—Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, inadvertently giving birth to sparkly vampires.
  
• 1898—H. G. Wells published The War of the Worlds.
• 1898–1900—The Boxer Rebellion in China.
  

And my grandparents were born. Grandpa lived to be 99 years of age. In his near century of life he saw the invention of:

• radio and television
• windshield wipers
• the Model T
• fortune cookies and cornflakes
• insulin and penicillin
• the pop up toaster
• Band-aids
• Technicolor
• canned beer and aerosol spray cans (without which we wouldn’t have spray cheese to put on crackers to munch with our canned beer)
• LSD was synthesized on November 16, 1938

  

  illustration by Sharm Murugiah

• helicopters
• Emile Gagnan and Jacques Cousteau invented the aqualung.(without which we wouldn’t have the brill song and album by Jethro Tull)
• the atomic bomb
• Tupperware
• Frisbees
• Velcro

And a whole fuck-ton of other good and/or execrable shit (like freeze-dried coffee…YECH).

There were also two World Wars, all before 1949, the year Grandpa turned 50.

So, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, oldness. Did you know, in 1972, the year my mother was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis type 2, the disease had only recently been discovered. Much of my own early treatments (evals and surgeries) were based on what the docs had learned from examining and operating on my mother and an older cousin.

Resilience

Childhood is a race. Endure, learn and survive—that’s what it was all about—for me anyway.

I don’t remember my first grade teacher at St. Brigid’s in New Jersey. Not her name, her mien or what she looked like. Frankly, I don’t recall anything about that year of school but I must’ve learned something.

In second grade we lived in Providence, Rhode Island. I went to to two different schools that year. The first was a crowded, rambunctious public school, teaching lessons I’d learned in first grade. My mother managed to slide us into Saint Sebastian’s—late admissions. The only thing I recall from there is being picked on by obnoxious little blonde girls.

In third grade we lived in Townsend, Massachusetts—a very small town with no Catholic schools. I got to wear pretty dresses instead of an ugly old uniform. The teacher wasn’t a mean old nun in a habit reeking of starch. I wasn’t afraid of school or the other kids that year. I loved everything about Townsend. I even had my own room with a secret, small hidey hole. Daddy explained to me that our house had been on the Underground Railroad. He told me about slavery and the people who escaped and those who’d helped. Our house was a hero. My bedroom was a hero. I felt safe in Townsend. 

In fourth and fifth grade we lived in Western Pennsylvania—far away from Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Mary Ann, Uncle Nick, Auntie Carol and my favorite cousins. People spoke funny. Aunt was pronounced ant. Soda was called pop. Route was rowt instead of root. Frappes were ice cream sodas, not milkshakes. The place was wholly alien aside from the Catholic school where most of the nuns, like every other Catholic school, were mean as MAGAts on meth.

In sixth and seventh grade we were in Bloomington, Indiana. The landscape was flat, flat, flat and there weren’t enough trees. The only good things I remember about Bloomington are…okay, I don’t have any favorite memories from there.

I felt invisible (except to the bullies). I remember wandering alone, aimlessly, getting stuck in a mud hole in an abandoned construction site that I’d decided to explore. I freed myself but not my favorite shoes. They were deep in the sucking earth. I figured my mother would pitch a fit so I snuck back into the apartment, rinsed out my muddy socks and wore an old, too small pair of shoes thereafter. Mother never noticed. I was invisible at home as well as school.

Daddy took us to see Fantasia while we were there—I fell madly in love with classical music. We saw 2001: A Space Odyssey—it was gorgeous. The music, the soundtrack slayed me. I saw Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet and developed my first crush…on Shakespeare. Okay, Bloomington wasn’t all bad.

And then we moved back to that little town in Western Pennsylvania. I thought the kids I’d known in fifth grade would remember me, I wouldn’t be starting all over again. Wrong. I’d been forgotten (purposely and not). I felt like a ghost in the junior high halls. Then the bullies homed in on me until my senior year. Graduation was escape.

You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.
~ Bob Marley

Is deafness a disability?

This question popped up on one of my social media feeds the other day. The answer, to my mind, is that it entirely depends on your circumstances, who and where you are.

Fer instance, an acquaintance of mine, (deaf since birth) is a teacher and soccer coach at a school for deaf children here in Massachusetts. His wife, deaf since birth, is also a teacher. They have a daughter, own their home, travel and have a wide and diverse social life. I very much doubt that my friend and his wife consider themselves disabled. They're not. They’re big D deaf – culturally deaf.

Me? I’m a late deafened (at age 46) human on top of all my other bullshit neurological issues. ASL was not my first language (and my signing remains pretty weak), my work/social life wasn’t/isn’t within the deaf community and, pre-deafening, music was a MEGA HUGE part of my life.

Sure, I could have/could still, make a greater effort to break into/make more friends in the local Deaf community and gain ASL fluency but life’s just not so easy, so cut and dry. I have a job (granted, the hours are fluid and I can work from home or wherever I can get a WiFi signal). I have paintings that aren’t gonna start or finish themselves, family and friends I don't see nearly often enough and a whole pile of other health issues on my plate. I’m not just sans audio – I have Nf2.

PLUS I’m one of those awful morning persons. A lot, if not all, of the Deaf Socials happen (happened – pre-Trump Plague) in the evening. I’m in bed reading with Coco by 8PM (no, not every night and yes, that’s obscenely early) AND I don’t drive at night anymore (my night vision blows). Between this and being perpetually on the recovery train, I’ve not made major efforts to immerse myself in Deaf Land.

When we lived in Cambridge, before my hearing took the last train for the coast, I‘d hit the live music clubs two or more nights a week. We’d throw big raucous house parties. Bunches of us would gather for din-din and adult bevs in Inman and Central Squares.

I’m no longer kicking up my heels, pogoing my ass off at the Middle East, dining out at the latest new, wild food joint and I no longer host big shindigs. Is this all because I’m deaf and have myriad other, banjaxing health bullshit going on? Or is it because I’m older (62, thenkyewveddymuch). Mebbe my social stylin' has changed/aged and I’m just not into partying like it’s 1999 anymore?

I believe it’s a little of both. I like my quiet life. Watching Picard (GREAT show!), whilst sipping vino and snacking on roasted Brussels sprouts with Jen and Oni. Taking walks along the seawall and just chillin' with my man Ten. I like that I don’t have to deal with our neighbors who rock the assholian stripes.

An aside: do they not break out in the chit chat with me because I’m deaf and too much for them to communicate with? OR is this more due to my not-exactly-welcoming, resting rabid Godzilla face?

Yes, I’m disabled. 

That sounds so all encompassing, so dire, though. I desperately miss music and conversational ease. I miss being in better, fighting form but the show’s not over yet. Who knows what’s beyond the next bend in the road? I have limits but don't we all?

Blast From The Past

This is a post from another lifetime. I had these imaginings seven full years ago. In that stretch my rear view mirror's witnessed a shit ton of action. I've clocked some excruciatingly sad and scary as hell times AS WELL AS revelationally happy ones.

I never thought I would smile and feel whole again after The Amazing Bob shuffled off this mortal coil. Time and Ten – they work a splendid treat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

In an alternate universe, on an alternate time line I was, I did. I became...

When I left my carnival life behind, I sought out and joined The Big Apple Circus where I learned to ride ponies bareback without fear and fly, in sequins and spangles of course, on the lofty trapeze. Then, THEN came the Cirque du Soleil where I learned how to fly nicely with others (always profitable, salubrious even, to get along with your coworkers).

After that I would have become involved in theater—painting sets and hunting up appropriate props for any given show. Brooklyn Heights would have been my home. Or Alphabet City—either one.

Naturally, this is where I would have met The Amazing Bob—he exists/WE exist in ALL alternate universes. He would have been the theater company’s resident poet, re-write king and, of course, total hot babe.

In an alternate universe I was a squatter, I was besetzen. I occupied, painted and sculpted in an awesome industrial space within the Kreuzberg section of Berlin. Yeah, das bin mich!

In an alternate universe I worked on the pediatric burn ward at Mass General  going home each night in tears, drowning the pain by proxy in Chianti and Jamisons.

In an alternate universe, I never met TAB and spent my years tweaked out on any random opiate to get past the exquisitely intense feelings of alienation. I refuse to believe that universe could ever possibly exist.

The Amazing Bob with grandkiddles

In an alternate universe, TAB and I had a zillion kids (much like the dream I had last night). He would be the stay at home loving, wondrous parent and I would be the bread winner, the eclair earner, the grub getter. TAB is amazing with kids. Kids and animals. And humans of all kinds. Me—not so much and that’s OK. I’m good with cats. OK, I’m a feline doormat—NOT the same thing as being good with cats, I suppose.

On that note—in an alternate universe, all our cats, indoor and porch dwelling, would get along like halvah and green grapes, like Tristan and Isolde, like Cheech and Chong. Ah, you get where I’m going on this.

In an alternate universe, Jen and I are the same age and went through high school hell together. We were skateboarding, stoner, art babes, standing together against the frumious bandersnatches who stood in our way.

Alternate universes are interesting places to vacation.

Hope Chests

My friend Michal wrote me, bemoaning the passing of this custom.

From about 15 on you collected things that you would need when you set up housekeeping.  Nice table cloths, place mats you embroidered yourself or pillow cases.   You picked out your China, stem ware and silver pattern so you could set a beautiful table on special occasions.   I have all of those things.  Place settings for 12 and Fostoria stemware and my "good" stainless silverware (as opposed to my Mother who had sterling silver silverware—well she did get it from her mother/my Grandmother). The tradition lives on with my niece who presents a full table at Christmas.  But so few of the so called millennial generation do. 

I’d read about the custom, maybe in Little Women or Jane Eyre or some such. I thought it was something women did back when there were dowries and women, on marriage, became their new husband's responsibility or, horrifically, their property. You know, the days of coverture.

 But no, I was wrong.

From Chronically Vintage:

As recently as a few decades ago (and especially prior to the twentieth century) it was exceeding common - virtually de rigueur, actually - for all young, unmarried women to put together a trousseau of household items that would serve her well later on in her married life (or, much less commonly, if a woman set up a house on her own, away from the family home).

In use for centuries, the hope chest (also known as a dowry box, or in the UK and Australia, a glory box) was a means by which women could help contribute to the home they'd one day share with their husband.

This was def not a thing, a custom, in our home. Clearly I was raised on an alien planet or, at least, BY aliens...or something.

I recall the topic coming up while I was visiting my Aunt Mary Ann, a very proper person, in Manhattan. We were shopping and lunching near the Met one day when she asked me if I’d begun mine yet. First I had to ask her to remind me what this Hope Chest thingy was. She was excited about helping me start mine.

I didn’t want to tell her that I couldn’t see myself marrying and being all Suzy Homemaker-ish. Children? NOPE, they were DEF not in my pic. I’d envisioned living in Berlin squats, painting and dancing until dawn to raggedy ass punk bands along with great big clots of my artsy chums. Husband? Ah, no—I felt slightly allergic to the concept.

I was afraid, possibly, that she wouldn’t approve. At 21, I wasn’t hiding who I was or concealing the person I felt myself becoming. No, I just wasn’t ready to wave my freak flag. Not yet anyway.

Besides, wandering around the Upper East Side, looking at China together was fun.

BirthdayBirthdayBirthday!

More or less now with The Green Miles

Then

Now-ish with Helen

Yes, it’s my birthday and, frankly and truly, the number stuns me. How in Bast’s name did I get to be 57. 57 mon ami! Who the fuck’s that old!? Madonna, you say? Steve Buscemi? Prince? Ice T? Belinda Carlisle? Thurston Moore? Gary Oldman? Kate Bush? Kevin Bacon?

OK, ok, ok, I get it. I’m in good or, mebbe just odd, company. 1958 was an interesting year, I guess.

So, 57 and I continue to learn new things.

Rather late in the game, I’m negotiating car accident aftermath—insurance and all that dreary shite. I’m guessing that most folks of the auto owning persuasion go through this in their 20s or 30s maybe. Not only am I dealing with the confusing maze of insurance company crap, I’m doing it while deaf. I imagine other, pro-league, deafies—you know, deaf since birth or childhood versus the ripe middle age of 46—have this all sorted in young adulthood too.

Yeah, I’m back of the pack here but I AM learning!

In what other realms have I gained knowledge?

Not patience, that’s for damn sure, and I continue to struggle mightily with moderation in all things. If I had a tat (or ink as Michal kindly informed me) it would be this:

I was six once!

My sweetie Helen’s in town with the not-so-wee bairn. Madison will start fourth grade next month and Julianna’s entering second grade. Wow. After Helen got them tucked in last night, she and I hit our local lushery and, yes, indulged in the not-quite-but-it’s-a-near-thing forbidden and beloved Jamo. Yeah, we’ll be hitting Nantasket this morning a tad later than planned.

‘scuse me—gotta go pop some more ibuprofen and suit up for beach time with the grands.

You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old.
~George Burns

When I grow up I want to be an old woman.
~Michelle Shocked 

Acquisitive Nation

That’s what we are, particularly at this time of year and ESPECIALLY today. Christ on a Master Card, the onslaught of catalogues began earlier this month. Christmas candies and decorations were up in the local grocery stores the day after Halloween! Stores have been advertising BIG BLACK FRIDAY SALES EVENTS for weeks now.

It’s as though the vast engine of commercialism is breathing BUY, BUY, BUY into our very pores. And it is.

In case ya hadn't noticed, the siren song, the call to shop is a painfully hard call to resist.

The Amazing Bob and I didn’t exchange prezzies last Christmas and that, for both of us, felt mighty damned odd, wrong even. Unsettling. This year we’re going to buy each other a wee bijoux or some such. He needs a new wedding band. I need new slippers.

Do I need a big, expensive, surprise gift? Does he? Nope. Maybe it’s the habit of a lifetime of goodie filled Christmas mornings. We want something to open while quaffing our peppermint flavored Christmas coffee and snarfing our gingerbread men.

As a kid, my mother gave me socks and underwear. Imagine being eight years old, opening a brightly wrapped box only to find white cotton briefs and knee socks. There were packages containing a needed sweater or a new shirt for my Catholic school uniform too. Disappointment City! At least until I hit my teen years. As usual. Mother and Daddy would ask what I wanted for Christmas. While the question, for mia madre, was strictly pro forma, for the old man it was serious. I asked for an album — Simon and Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and I got it! I’ll tell ya right now this shocked me down to my toenails. Every year after, I’d ask for an LP AND I’d get just what I asked for — the latest Elton John, Paul Simon's first solo effort, Handel and Rossini! It was wonderful.

gratuitous Rocco pic

Of course this makes me sound awful like an awful kid, just terribly ungrateful (I was). I needed socks and underwear. Hells, after I’d moved out on my own and mother would ask “what would you like for Christmas” I’d specifically request socks and underwear. Those suckers cost money AND they don’t grow on trees (if you hadn’t noticed).

BUT, as a wee kiddle, I wanted toys.

Here’s something that my Helen’s starting to do with her girls — she’s giving them an event, a mini vaca, a class where they can learn how to do something that fires up their respective imaginations. Most recently, we had a weekend in northern Vermont and New Hampshire. Madison had said she wanted to learn how to do origami and there was a class at the library in Hardwick. Added to this was a visit to the Museum of Dead Things and a trip into the astounding, fiercely handsome Franconia Notch State Park to see The Basin.

So, she’s giving gifts of experience, learning, fun and memories not things.

Smart. Double plus smart.

As for what any of us do on this big black shopping weekend — well, I’ve said it before and have little to add. Buy from independently owned businesses and check out these fabulous craft folk (do we call them artisans now? Isn’t that the en vogue term?).

OR be a rebel and don’t spend a dime. Enjoy your friends and fam, eat leftovers, watch old movies, play Scrabble, walk on the beach/through the snowy wood. Just be.

This Blogworld joint’s a funny old place

I’ve recently met not one but TWO people who knew my beloved, departed-way-too-fucking-soon Kevin Alexander Scott. It’s been 24 years since he exited stage left.

The first person to pop up was the awesomely brill blogger/craftsman/artist Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station. Turns out they were in the Navy together (and YES this is now in my head) — Kevin as a Hebrew/Arabic Linguist (or HebLing as they’re known in the biz) and Jim as a Chief Warrant Officer. They were co-workers which came up in a brief exchange of emails about something else entirely.
(funny bit from Jim’s profile: He's been called the Tool of Satan, but he prefers the title: Satan's Designated Driver. You can see why I like the dude, can't you?)

The second person is Kevin’s high school sweetie, the young woman who was the mad love of our man's young life. They were inseparable until they went off to separate colleges. In Kevin’s tales, Linda was strong willed, preternaturally (for an adolescent girl) confident, wildly imaginative, wickedly funny, beautiful and smart. Very smart.

OF COURSE I was intimidated beyond measure — I was none of these things. Why would he want to be friends, let alone more, with me?

But he did.

In any case, Linda and I exchanged a few emails and, on top of everything else, she’s kind, warm and engaging. Wow.

She sent me his high school graduation pic. At left, Kevin in PLAID suit jacket (I can only imagine him burning the damn thing afterwards), sporting relatively long hair and, like me, big aviator specs. I'd never seen Kevin in anything other than faded 501s, tight white Ts and Adidas. A clean cut, short haired, no safety pins, punk look. Ramones-ish even.

With the memories of Kevin flying to the surface of my grey matter, I've been surfing Alternate Reality-Ville. Nice thing about this dimension double is that I don’t have to give up the present one while I cruise the other.

In this other timeline, Kevin never signed on for that 2nd, fatal tour of duty.

He came home, applied and was accepted to a Masters of Fine Art program at NYU.

Conveniently, in this chronology, I don’t have Nf2 (my alternate life/my rules), was able to leave Boston and moved down to NYC. We found a nasty yet charming little one bed in Alphabet City which we set about decorating with cast offs from other, departing students, our own childhood bedroom furniture and other random finds. We created our own sleek, interstellar universe.

What’d I do while my man was in class or at the studio? Painted! Potted and sculpted at the just beginning group studio Supermud. And yeah, I would’ve had a day gig — Kevin’s navy pension and college funds wouldn’t support us completely. I toiled in the stacks at the NYU library, meeting an odd and interesting collection of geeks, desert-dry humored scholars, hipsters, punks and fellow artists. The work was meh, the camaraderie awesome and the pay — just enough to keep me and Blondie in beer, pizza and Utrecht brand oil paint.

My beloved Aunt Mary Ann, (who, in real life, lived up in the Turtle Bay section — about 30 blocks up, near the UN) was appalled at our piecemeal, patchwork, throw-everything-different-together-and-it’ll-work design scheme BUT entertained at the same time. We’d dine up at her place or meet for drinks at McSorley’s. She, like everyone else on the planet fell in love with Kevin on first meeting. How could she not? He was beautiful, funny, warm and smart.

We’d gad about the Village and SoHo with friends Lydia and Steve — discussing new books, artists, philosophies and politics of the day (always) while sipping Guinness at The White Horse or Belgium wheat beer at Dive 75. The four of us would catch the latest, greatest bands at CBGBs and Coney Island High.

Kevin and I would hit Danceteria and pogo, conga and tango our ever lovin’ ta-tas clean off before heading back to our glitteringly hip crib.

And then they lived happily ever after.

The End

I knew Kevin the boy, and you knew Kevin as the man he became.
~ The Gracious, Magnificent Linda

Now We Are Two

When I was One,

I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five, I was just alive.
But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.
A.A. Milne -- Now We Are Six 

This totally slipped past me this week. My Blog Birthday was this past Sunday the 24th -- Tell Me A Story turned two!

OF COURSE this skirted my attention! I suck giant reticulated python poops in the remembering dates realm. Also too -- with all that's been going down -- The Amazing Bob's fun heart times at MGH, work stuff (I REALLY need to not do layout/design when I'm stressing like a hamster in a room full of second graders) and troublesome issues with mein aged Vater in Western Pennsylvania -- it's amazing that I remember my name.

Which, if I've not mentioned this already AND by the by, I'm considering changing to Ruby Wonderland. Why? C'mon -- is that awesome of what?! I almost have The Amazing Bob talked into it too (though, possibly, his acquiescence could be an artifact of the universe swamping dope he got for surgery). You know -- Bob and Ruby Wonderland. How awesome is that?!

Mary Ann would be tickled fuschia!

So, my first blog post was on November 24, 2011. A day to live in infamy, nicht wahr?

The Hill

Fairy tale-like house on the flat of the Hill

A wee magical house for elves

Between my doc visits on Tuesday I took a stroll around Beacon Hill and Back Bay -- concentrations of great wealth and beauty.

Did you know that there used to be a bad side to the Hill? The MGH side versus the Common and Public Garden side was nothing but tiny, junk, sleazoid apartments and rooming houses.

My cousin Carmel lived in one when she was going to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts back in the '60s. All little eight year old me saw, on our one visit to her there, was the grand romance, the glamor and enchantment of being an artist, living in the big city on a tree lined street. Yeah, her room was small and dark with just a single bed/cot and wooden chair but MEIN GOTT the joint fired my imagination up something wild.

I so wanted to be her.

And then I grew up, moved to Boston and found that:

a)  while the apartments on the bad side of the Hill were still miniscule, broke-down, decrepit and dark, the rents for these roach closets were completely unaffordable.


b) I no longer wanted to be Carm.

Converted carriage house

By the time I was 22, she was in her mid 30s -- married with kiddle, living in a big house in a fancy, posh suburb. She counseled me, me who'd just come off the carnival road, to fit into the tiny socially conservative and acceptable box allotted to women in the '50s.

Yeah, sorry. No. Desperately unglaubwürdig.

Hamlet refers to Polonius as a 'tedious old fool' BUT he totally nailed it when he advised Laertes:

carriage houses on the flat of the Hill

'This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Daddy gave me the same bit of advice when I was in high school, hopelessly out of step with the norm, trying to hard to fit in. I didn't get it then but, thank the theoretical gods, it finally sunk in.

Why? Warum? Neden?

So why, seeing as we were mated for life like so many angel fish and black vultures, did The Amazing Bob and I finally go all legal on our most awesome union.

Health Insurance.

These were the pre-Obamacare days -- pre-Romneycare too. Our Slick Dick ex-gov, Mitt, just loved to brag long and loud about how he single handedly made health care affordable and available to all us fine residents of the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This was his signature achievement -- the big, swaggering cincher to clearly show that he should be crowned King of America.

As soon as his Tea Party/Koch Bros./Insurance Industry overlords clued him in on affordable health care being as desirable to them as an air biscuit in a Smart Car, he denied having anything to do with it. Of course. To be fair to the old fraud, he had fuck-all to do with it beyond watering it down.

But I digress...and shit. 

TAB needed health insurance and I had it. Made sense to get hitched so he could be on my health plan, eh? This was the marriage inducement enzyme for a lot of my pals. Yeah, we all would have done the deed eventually anyway but this was the catalyst, the fire under our respective asses. And our mothers were grateful.

Still, I was freaked out. Perchè? kodėl? pourquoi?

I was petrified that I'd become my mother again. I was scared poopless of losing myself inside this 

epitome of mainstream normalcy. I'd start wearing gingham aprons, matching socks and sensible shoes. I'd be baking meatloaves not a certain sort of brownie. I'd only paint people with clothes on or *gasp* still lifes! I'd natter on endlessly about home renovations and play dates for the cats. I'd forget that Mission of Burma was one of the best damned bands of all time.  

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK -- the end is nigh!!!
And then I went out for a pint with my very dear and spectacular married buds Cynthia and Giovanni. I confessed my fears and asked for advice.  

Cynthia got right to the heart of the matter, 'What are you -- insane? This will be your marriage not anyone else's. Why should it be anything other than what you and Bob want it to be? And why would anything change from how things are now? It's just a piece of paper -- your love and commitment to each other is already set in your very DNA.'

Oh. OK! My fear fever broke and TAB and I started having fun with it all. Should either of us change our last name? Naturally this led to a long ass discussion on patrilineal naming conventions. He was perfectly willing to change his name from Grant to Maderer but then he'd have the exact same name as my grandfather and that felt kind of oogie. Plus, it seemed to me, we were a new ship on the ocean of life (godDAMN, I'm deep) so we should have a last name that's new to us both. 

We finally came up with the perfect last name. We'd be Bob and Donna Snark! Yup, took a good six days before we could stop laughing on that one. It had to be ixnayed since, clearly, Bob and Donna Snark sound like the sort of folk who live out by Arlee, Montana where they run a little Sinclair filling station just off 93 South.

We kept our original names because we just didn't feel up to moving out of New England.

The Big 27

Today is the anniversary of when The Amazing Bob and I finally tied the knot, did the deed, took on the shackles of  matrimony, stopped getting the milk for free. We'd been shakin' the sheets, living together (or right next door) for 15 years before the gigantic, life altering ceremony.

Why did we wait so long?

Bob's bairn, The Green Miles, told his dorm mates, with a snort, 'they wanted to be sure.' You know, not make an impulsive, hasty choice and all.

Eh, we always knew we were mated for life, like swans, gibbons or, possibly, black vultures. What did we need with some official scrap of paper that just said what we already knew?

I was 27 and TAB 44 when we first hooked up. It wasn't until the following year that I put him though the Meet My Crazy Parents hoop (nota bene, when you're in your teens and 20s, parents are nuts. They become wise and sane about the time we hit 30).

My parents picked us up and, as we settled into the back seat of their Queen Mary-ish, ten year old, Bondo covered blue Chevy, Daddy sternly asked TAB 'what are your intentions with my daughter?' I would have died on the spot had that been an option.

I knew there'd be some uncomfortableness -- TAB's just six years younger than my father. The Old Man was afraid that this big adult would take advantage of his baby girl. Heh, poor TAB was in more danger of that than Daddy's Little Girl.

How did my beloved Honey Pie respond?

He went full metal Eddie Haskell on my father. He replied 'Gee, golly Mister Maderer -- my intentions are strictly dishonorable, sir!' There was a moment of stunned silence and then Pop broke out in great gusts of appreciative laughter.

Over lunch at an awesome little Kenmore Square dive, TAB put Daddy completely at ease. How? By asking him if he was a Red Sox fan. Yes indeedy! They were a conversational house on fire as they went through all their fave players starting with the 1946 line up.

Mother and I made with the chit chat while my Knight In Hipster Armor and The Not-As-Old-As-He-Was-An-Hour-Ago Man  replayed some of the Greatest Games EVAH from before I was born.

Yeah, I felt a teensy bit oogie.

Happy the Clown and Captain Jack

It was the summer of 1964, just a bit before my sixth birthday. We, my parents, my older sister and I were in New Haven visiting my mother’s brothers and their families. I believe we stayed in a small suite of rooms at the old Taft Hotel.

My mother had fixed up a real treat for Carol and I -- we’d get to be in the audience for a taping of The Happy the Clown show. I think it was Happy the Clown anyway. Maybe it was The Flippy the Clown Show. I know it was a guy in a big floppy, brightly colored costume and sorority sister levels of pancake makeup though.

Man oh man I was twelve kinds of psyched!

What I figured on was a giddily funny guy who spent a lot of time making us laugh, feel important and would let us sit as close we wanted to the GIANT TV screen. We'd gobble sticky, sweet confections, ones forbidden at home, while watching Heckyl and Jeckyl and Bugs.

Here’s what I didn’t expect -- reality. This was a television show and we kids were nothing more than props. We had to practice cheering and were admonished for not squealing enthusiastically enough. Apart from that we were ignored.

The grouch in the big, bright floppy suit had a total lack of interest in us except for the one segment where he was filmed sitting cozy with a few ‘lucky’ souls. When the cameras were off he had all the charm of Krusty and none of the cool.

Yeah, I was one primo bummed five year old. I figured 'at least we'll get to watch cartoons -- it'll be like in a movie theater too.'
Ah no. The screen was miniscule and waaaaay down the other end of the bleachers from where I was sitting. I clearly recall thinking 'This blows, I can see better at home!' OK, possibly, that's not exactly what went through my little mind but it's really bloody close.

I don't recall whether there was a snack now but I know for sure that we didn't get the cupcakes and cannolis of my dreams.

We got back to the hotel to find my father thoroughly engrossed in what was on the small black and white television. He was watching the news. I stood by him, hoping to get a chance to tell him about our adventure.

What was more important than our time on the The Happy the Clown Show? The Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

Sheesh. What’s next? No Santa? No Easter Bunny? Daddy’s the one who slips the nickel under my pillow when I lose a tooth?!!!!!

Thanks but I think I’d like to go back to my fairy tale land of happy clowns, all the cartoons I want, frosted cupcake snacks and no war.

What brings this to mind? A friend who grew up in Miami was, in one of our usual deep, existential tète-à-tètes, relating the story of the times he and his sister had gone on the Banjo Billy Show and met, the recently quit of this good green earth, Captain Jack. I don't think his experience was quite as jolting or maybe he was a five year old with fewer illusions than I.

Welcome to the Working World

I fell into my first job, at the tender-ish age of 15, in the summer of 1974. The gig? Candy girl at the Manos theater. It was a big old vaudeville house, complete with orchestra pit.

There hadn’t been a live performance in decades though. A shame as it would’ve been perfect for musicals, plays and opera. Indiana, Pennsylvania, back then, was hardly a happening artsy kind of town. It was place populated by coal miners and college professors with very little in between. The most glorious, highbrow thing to pass through the theater was showings of Chinatown, Murder on the Orient Express and OF COURSE Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. (Young Frankenstein -- possibly my favorite movie of all time. Right after Blade Runner, that is.)

I was dating one of the ushers. Yep, there were ushers back then. These were the guys, always dudes, with flashlights who would lead you to your seat. Girls sold candy and tickets. Boys ushered. It was the way the world was structured.

After the last show, the ushers, my fellow candy girls and I would pile into one of the usher’s father’s cars, a pale green 1973 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham (a seriously ugly ride) and cruise. The inevitable doobie was sparked as we looked for the never present excitement of our tiny town. Given that Indiana’s main drag was just a few blocks long and there was pretty much nothing beyond that, we cruised the hills, the farmland surrounding the bright ‘city lights.’ Yeah, this was hardly American Graffiti.

The following year, I tried to get a gig at the local posh clothing store -- Brody’s. All dolled up, I walked into their Personnel Department (this was before Human Resources was invented). I was wearing a pair of totally hip, burnt orange, tweedy gaucho pants (a much prized gift from Aunt Mary Ann in NYC) with a bell sleeved, deep orange sweater. There were adorable, delicate pastel flowers embroidered around the boat neckline. On my feet -- maroon leather clogs. It was 1975 and I was THE pinnacle of chic, mod fashion.

And I didn’t even get an interview.

I was bumming huge! How could they possibly have passed me over -- I’d be such an asset. OK, I really and truly wanted that employee discount. This is possibly where my budding career as a Carrie Bradshaw-esque fashion plate/disaster derailed. Em...good?

In any case, I asked my mother -- ‘what up,’ ‘why,’ ‘warum?’ (one of the rare times that we discussed versus fought during my teen years) Her brief, to the point enlightenment was this -- ‘look at the people they employ. Do they look like you? Do you look like them? Companies hire the same sorts over and over.’

Huh. I didn’t doubt her for a moment but still I was angry. I didn’t look anything like the women at Brody’s -- me with my very dark brown hair in a sea of blonds, olive-ish skin tone amongst the luminescently pale and, oopsie, a figure that didn’t get the memo that we were all to look like 12 year old boys with mini tits (it being the ‘70s and all).

This was radically unfair! Yeah, duh. Welcome to the working world, little girl.

Rubric's Sash

What does your satin, rhinestone and lace trimmed sash say?

Are you Ms./Mr. Director of Technology 2013? Senior Graphic Designer? Executive Editor? Senior Software Engineer? Yoga Instructor? Grant Writer? Videographer?

We so often identify ourselves by what our job is. Of course! We spend 40 and more hours a week working, laboring, stressing and, often enough, NOT at something that fills us with deep personal satisfaction. Sure, sure — some of us are that lucky but it’s, sadly, not common enough.

My Aunt Mary Ann always advised me to ‘have a life, not a career.’ She was an editor at Scripps Howard and, later, CBS, working crazy long hours. Mary Ann lived by the corner of 45th and 2nd Avenue in the Turtle Bay section of Manhattan — just around the corner from the UN. Every year, she had season tickets to the The Met, loved ballet and theater too. BUT she routinely fell asleep at all of these — that is, if she was even able to get herself out of the office to attend.

This was her biggest regret.

I followed her advice pretty much — spending much of my free time traveling to hear fabulous music (you know, make best use of the hearing while I had it). I saw John Martyn at Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. The World Drum Fest in Amsterdam. Tremendous jazz ensembles at Reduta in Prague  and folk fests in The Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland. I went to as many museums and galleries as I could stand — Palazzo Pitti and the Dante museums in Florence, the Scuola Grande di San Rocco and the Peggy Guggenheim in Venice, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Secession hall and the Leopold Museums in Vienna and more.

When not traveling, I painted, potted, sculpted and spent crazy ass amounts of time in T.T. the Bear’s Place, The Middle East, The Rat, Jack’s and on and on.

Still, I had to work — there was rent to pay and the sorely needed health insurance,  which only came with the day job, the grind.

 So, if I had to spend such a huge chunk of my waking hours working, shouldn’t I engage my brain a bit and enjoy?  There was no money or time to go back to school (plus, I couldn’t give up the Blue Cross even for a minute — being all Miss Pre-existing Condition and all) so I looked for opportunities within the industry where I toiled — printing. It was there that I managed to score the BEST GIG EVAH!

Seriously. I was teaching AND writing training programs about preparing and preflighting files for print, layout musts, understanding and selling offset and digital printing. I wrote and delivered a four-part process improvement seminar based on the Deming model. There were classes on negotiation skills and litigation services, understanding legal terminology and sales techniques. Christ almighty this was fun stuff -- both the creating and the tutoring parts.

My rhinestone trimmed, neon blue sash read Print Empress and Training Queen.  It was the nads, the shit, the real, mega-watt high times.

Why did I get out of that most awesome of employments. Well, it wasn’t on purpose — that’s for damned sure. The company where I worked fell on hard times and was sold. The new owner eliminated the Human Resources department, where I was based, entirely.

Shortly thereafter my health hit an iceberg. I had fractionated stereotactic radiation in the hope of maintaining my hearing level and reducing the tumor’s size. In addition to being a raging non starter, I was as weak as over-steamed string beans and wretchedly nauseous for close to a solid year. I was putting in, at most, 20 hours each week.

Next up — surgery. By now Percival, my tumor, was the size of the Queen Mary (more or less). There were big complications so, five days after my initial 18 hour OR event, I was back in for a four hour repair round. I had to relearn how to walk, had double vision (which lasted six months) and was now effectively deaf.

Boyhowdy, that’ll put a big fat crimp in the ole’ job hunting plans, lemme just tell you!

I spent the next year or so recovering, doing some design and customer service work while trying to sort out ‘what now.’

The eventually found and snared new job was supposed to be so much more than it was. It would be a new start -- mostly research and data analysis but the prospect of teaching (or at least mentoring) had been dangled during the job interview.

Nope. Nada.

I have a friend who’s a tech writer and instructional video creator and editor at Google. I have a pal who’s a massage and yoga therapist. There are a couple of free lance journalist buddies. Teachers. Potters. Musicians. I have métier envy on top of job title wistfulness.

Way back when The Amazing Bob and I went to Cambridge City Hall to apply for our marriage license, we had to fill out a form. There was a box to write in our occupations. It didn’t ask what we were paid to do. Nope, just asked what we were occupied with.

Bob wrote poet. I printed artist.

Yup, that about covers it.