A new environment has the power to change not just what we see, but how we see.

I like basements. I love basements, places where I feel oddly at home. And happy.

We had a basement once, when I was seven, when my parents rented a house for one year in Middletown, New Jersey. Since we were staying only a year, and it was the first time I’d lived in a house that was neither, A) my family’s home prior to my birth, nor B) brand new, we being the first and only occupants; this house didn’t feel like ours. It was someone else’s choice of wallpaper, someone else’s choice of carpet… someone else’s home. But it did have a basement. I’d never seen one before — it was like a secret room!

Only one item was in that Middletown basement when we arrived: a cardboard house. It was gender-neutral, so any child could make it whatever he or she wished. I would play for hours there, in that cardboard house, that kind of play that happens deep within a child’s imagination; existing only in that moment, living in a world completely invisible to everyone else. But it is real.

That was the first (and only) time growing up that we were surrounded by forest (prior to that, it was either the streets of Brooklyn or the desert of Las Vegas). Flora, flora everywhere! The Garden State. I learned to figure skate on the frozen Navesink River. When it snowed, we slid down the street (a slight hill) on sleds, and our father took us to chop down our own Christmas tree. It was all pretty magical stuff to a seven year-old, right down to the hours I passed in the basement.

We moved back to Las Vegas the following summer, where I remained until high school graduation. At seventeen, I couldn’t get out of that town fast enough, get back to the east coast, where naturally I’d decided to go to college. Because I had an opportunity to fly back on a family friend’s private plane, I arrived in New York a full month before classes were to begin, and stayed with my father at his sister Helen’s house in Bayside, Queens (he and my mother had divorced the year before, and being Greeks, family always lives with family). A month is a long time to live with your overly-protective Greek father and his widowed sister in a town where you know no one (and have no car), so I went around visiting relatives: one grandmother, five aunts, five uncles, and ten cousins.

With Georgia and her boys and my brothers in front of Caesars Palace. It’s changed since then.

I made my way to the family home of Georgia, my father’s first cousin, and her family. They had come to see us in Las Vegas years earlier (that’s them, in the photo on the right), and I really liked them. They were a fun family. And calm, compared to the most of the Greek relatives.

Naturally, I stayed in their basement (which I’d decided were indigenous to New Jersey). Theirs was very different than our basement in Middletown ten years earlier: it was their game room, with a pool table, concert and sports memorabilia on the walls, and a vinyl collection that would make Cameron Crowe cringe with envy. It was my last stop before moving into the dorm, so Georgia took me to buy towels and beddings and clothes for an East Coast winter. After shopping, I’d disappear into the basement and get lost in those records, discovering new artists and their stories, new worlds within those songs –while I was  eagerly counting down the days until I was to go off and discover a whole new world myself at SUNY Stony Brook. It was another magical time.

I write this from yet another basement, this one on the west coast, as I dogsit for my beau’s sister in Seattle. This basement, as you can see in the above picture, is also surrounded by lush greenery outside. Inside, hundreds of movies. It’s their movie room. The beau… it’s still a fairly new relationship, less than a year. I moved back to Las Vegas — none of the lush greenery I love so there — to be with him. So it’s an exciting time, another new beginning. And though I’m welcome to stay in the master bedroom while his sister and family are away, I prefer the basement. It just feels right. These basements are the waiting rooms for life’s next chapter. They’re a place where I naturally, optimistically, look forward to What’s Next — which has been harder and harder for me to do as I’ve gotten older. With age comes the ice cold water realization of What’s Not Next — which I’ve been focusing on too much as of late. It’s much better to focus on not only What’s Next, but What’s Right Here, Right Now.

This “naturally, optimistically” part of my brain is still there — it wasn’t just part of me at seven or seventeen — but it’s gotten very little airtime of late, this basement has made me realize. So I’ll be tapping into it now more and more now. Because having a What’s Next is an important aspect of feeling alive, for me. Here in this basement, I see nothing but a life of unlimited adventure awaiting me. It’s not the adventure I expected — but isn’t that exactly what adventure is? Not to mention, what’s Right Here, Right Now is pretty darn good!

Today’s “basement.”

I’ll create a What’s Next environment (without the basement, which is architecturally impossible in our second-story condo) when I return to Vegas. Armed with only my imagination, I once turned a cardboard house in a cement-floored Middletown basement into a log castle with a fireplace high on a cliff, waves crashing against the rocks below. I’m curious to see what my view will be out the window at my desk.

The closest I’ll come to time travel and meeting myself 20 years ago

I recently moved. While unpacking, I found something I’d written twenty years ago. I’d forgotten about the essay, and about the encounter that inspired it; that is, until I reread it; then it all flooded back — like when someone shows you  a photo of yourself taken years ago that you don’t recall being taken.

In this story, I was the girl in the red beret. I don’t know why I wrote it in the voice of the old man, but it’s obvious that even then, twenty years ago, my elderly father’s mortality was very much on my mind. When my brothers and I reunited to be with him for the final month of his life in 2007, I had no intention of writing a play, “It Is What It Is,” inspired by that experience. But that play is also about long buried memories we rediscover when we read something written at a certain time in the past, and about how — even in our most meaningless texts — we are in a way choosing what we document in our lives every day. Which is not entirely unlike me rediscovering this essay now, twenty years after it was written. Here it is:

NORTH BEACH, WEDNESDAY, 1993

This is the only time of the day that this street, this neighborhood, looks the way it used to. Except for the cars passing by… the cars are different. I don’t notice them much. Usually, they’re just in the background.

I remember when I was young and every morning I’d see the old Italian men in the neighborhood sitting here on this same bench I’m sitting on now, talking to each other in Italian. I never paid much attention to them. I mean, I noticed them, as they fed the pigeons. But I guess I thought of them like I thought of the benches, the pigeons, and the statues: all part of the park itself. I thought they’d be there forever and I thought I’d be young forever too.

I never thought I’d be an old man, like a child never thinks he’ll be anything but a child. But these things happen and we don’t even think about it until it’s long since happened. Then we realize the loss of time… at least, I do. Somehow I think that if I’d thought of it then, of growing old, I could have prevented it. Like I could have taken control. Instead, no! Time took control. I stopped paying attention to it and it got the upper hand and it beat me.

I noticed some young men standing on the corner as I walked past them earlier – Christ, they probably thought I hobbled past them. Which, I did. I do. I do hobble now. It felt good so to sit down on this here bench. God, how good it felt to sit. Tired after three blocks, mostly downhill. When I was the young man standing on the corner, I pitied the old men. But I never thought I could turn into one of then, any more than I thought I could turn into a bench or a pigeon or a statue.

Do the young men pity me now? How can they not? They don’t see I’m the same as them. I once was them, as they will one day be me.

I don’t understand it, how I still think exactly the same as I did when I was young – yet to others, I look so different. So old.  They think I was always old, with nothing to do but count the days. At least that’s what I used to think of the old men when I was young. Those old men are all long dead by now.

I like it here in the morning, once I sit down. It’s quiet, just a few people on their way to work. There’ll be a lot of people on their way to work in an hour or so, then it changes. It’ll be rushed. Now, it’s new; it feels new and fresh and very peaceful. And I’m part of it. The sun’s not out yet. I mean it’s risen, but it’s still so hazy and foggy, you can’t even see it. Every day starts out overcast here, and I like that. But usually the sun eventually burns through. Then the people don’t wear their coats and hats. I like seeing people in coats and hats. People used to always wear hats. Now they can’t be bothered, only when it’s cold out. But here in the early morning, they wear them, and the scene looks like it used to look years ago. The brighter the coats and hats, the better!

Like this gal passing by right now. What a cutie! She’s wearing a red beret, like mine (though mine’s gray). She’s wearing a matching red raincoat with little blond curls and big brown eyes peeking out from under the beret. Can’t see much of her body under that coat, but she’s not skinny – and I like that! I always liked women’s bodies to look like women’s bodies. I used to love big tits. Still do. I just haven’t had my hands on some in too long to remember. My wife’s were big. Still are. But they’ve changed. When we were young, they stood up and saluted, like they were as glad to see me as I was to see them. Now they hang low, staring at the ground whenever I’m around. Guess I’m not such a sight anymore, either.

The cutie in the red beret is still standing on the corner, so close I could poke her with my cane. The light turned green and she didn’t cross; she just stood there, staring. At me. I look up and catch her eye and she looks off a little to the left, I think she’s embarrassed. I give the kid a break and stop looking at her. But I can still see her and she’s staring at me again, just standing there looking very sad. I’m kinda enjoying all this attention. No young lady has looked at me in who-knows-how-long. But she’s not looking at me the way I used to be looked at by the ladies, the way I’d give one of my few remaining years to be looked at again: a look of desire, a look with sex written all over it.

Instead, she looks at me sadly. She pities me, as I used to pity the old men. I bet I remind her of a grandfather. A dead grandfather. I don’t want to be her dead grandfather.

She looks down at her feet for a few seconds. It almost seems, for an instant, that she might come over here. But no, this time the light turns green, ad she walks away, waiting for everyone else to step off the curb first. Did you see that, Charlie? She looked over her shoulder at me for a final glance! Ciao, Bella.

I feel like I was mean to her. I could have said Hello. She was thinking, she wanted to say something to me… maybe something she didn’t get to say to her dead grandfather. She was too scared. You know what? I was too scared to say anything, too.

Here comes Pete now. Better move this newspaper so he’ll have room to sit – Christ, he moves slower than I do. I hope I don’t look like that when I walk. You go play with the other pigeons now, Charlie. Go see if you can  get a little action with that cute little white one over there. She’s been watching you this whole time. Don’t blow this opportunity…

…that frying pan hurtling toward my head came from a good place…

Bound for an S. A, Prum riesling pairing luncheon with my dear friend Liza The Wine Chick  at RN74, I left the house Monday looking appropriately fabulous. I received a text from one of my brothers, “Rik died,” just as I saw my bus fast approaching. I sprinted to the corner, dreading looking at that message on my phone screen again. But once one the bus, I did read it again. When I put my hand to my throat, I realized that my silk Vera Wang scarf must have fallen off during my run. I thought about getting off the bus and going back; we were just a stop away. No, it was cold out. And besides, why give a shit about a scarf I hardly ever wear when Rik died? But I couldn’t let the scarf go. I phoned a neighbor to go out and retrace my steps. No luck, that scarf was gone. Why am I still thinking about the fucking scarf? I could handle thinking about my scarf being gone forever. I couldn’t handle thinking about Rik being gone forever. Focus on the scarf. For now.

1983, just shy of 25. That’s him in pink. Don’t judge him. Like I said, 1983.

I met Rik at age seven, He was 4.5 years older. He played hockey with my two older brothers, and I had a crush on him. He was cute, sort-of exotic looking. I thought he looked Indian (“Native American” had not yet entered the lexicon). He paid me no special attention, none of my brothers’ cute hockey-playing friends did (and I had crushes on most of them). I was just the bratty little sister always tagging along.

As we got a little older, he was the only one of my brothers friends who didn’t join the chorus when others would tease me about a little pubescent weight gain, calling me “Thighane” (rhymes with “Diane”) and other names that do nothing for the self-esteem of a teenage girl at war with her body. In fact, Rik was pretty fucking outraged by their behavior.

Rik took me on my first motorcycle ride, an all-day one from Hoover Dam SE of Vegas to Mt. Charleston, NW of town. We watched a movie in his room and he tried to kiss me — by now Rik developed a little crush on me, probably because I was one of the few girls who accepted him as he was.  But by then, he was too much of a big brother to me to consider any shift in our relationship. But he had qualities that to this day I look for in a man.

For a while in his early twenties he sported  a green mohawk. See, Rik was punk in Las Vegas when there was no such thing  as punk in Las Vegas. And the last place on earth Rik belonged was Vegas. As he entered adulthood he became more worldly and informed than his peers. He was curious. Some of his childhood hockey friends didn’t hang out with him much after that. I don’t know if it was the mohawk, or if Rik and his outspokenness was too much for them to take.

He changed my mindset, my world outlook. Living in a time and place where the only information, entertainment, or art readily available was mainstream, top 40, he-who-has-the-biggest-microphone-is-right DJs, it was Rik who told me where to look to hear other voices, to find alternatives: Alternative music. Alternative news sources. Alternative television. Alternative food. He was my portal to other world and all that was out there.

Rik had some issues. He drank too much. I’m not sure what if any relationship he had with drugs, but he drank way too much. He also had extreme mood swings. I don’t know that he was ever diagnosed, but he was pretty much a bipolar disorder textbook case. We became roommates for a while. During that time, I had my own self-destructive ways. I was still battling an on/off again eating disorder. Rik knew, and it infuriated him. He wasn’t mad at me so much as he hated seeing me hurt myself. One day his frustration and temper got the best of him and he threw a frying pan at my head. I knew that frying pan hurtling toward my head came from a good place, but I also knew it was time to move out.

Of course we remained friends after the frying pan incident. He became roommates with Rob, who was like Rik in many ways, minus the self-destruction, emotional issues, and violent tendencies. The three of us attended — or if I’m not mistaken, organized — the first ever Amnesty International Vegas chapter meeting.

Eventually I visited a friend in San Francisco, and felt like Dorothy discovering the Emerald City. It was a city for people like me (and Rik),  where progressive thinking and diversity —  ethnic, religious, culinary, and political — ruled. I couldn’t move here fast enough.

Oddly, I could never convince Rik to visit me here, let alone make the move he said was inevitable. He was stuck in Vegas, a place that so outraged him, with it’s crudeness and vapidness. But he stayed. Maybe he needed the fight, to always be at battle with something (in this case, a town). Or maybe, more likely, Rik was simply too inert at that point to do something about the things that aggravated him in life. It was easier to rant than to change his situation.

Over the years, he grew bloated from the beer; gone were the chiseled features, replaced by a weathered face. His hair grew wild and gray, and he  had a beard. He looked like  Jerry Garcia, after being out at sea for a year. The only place for which he would leave his tiny cluttered apartment was a local “British Pub” within walking distance, resplendent with video poker games at the bar and waitresses best described as Hooters Girls in Leiderhosen (remember, we’re in Vegas). We stayed in touch via email, until it became difficult to stay in touch with Rik. Correction: it became annoying.

With the internet, Rik had at his fingertips access to way too much information. Lots of information he thought you must read and act upon. He also had way too much free time to find all this information. After a while, I’d just hit delete. I know I wasn’t the only one.

He moved to Ruth, Nevada, as small a town as it gets. He got as far from society as he could afford to go. He sounded happy (very relatively speaking) the last few times I spoke to him. I sent him an email in November 2012, a simple “Still out there?” No reply.

Back to that text my brother sent. It  said Rik died on December 16, 2010. Rik’s been dead over two years and none of us knew. Sadly, none of us were surprised. He had a drinking-related brush with death @ 5 or 8 years ago, I honestly have no sense of time right now when it comes to Rik. I found the online announcement, which supplied only date and place of death. I was disgusted — yes, disgusted — to learn that there was no obituary for him. His parents died years ago. He’d long been estranged from his siblings. They weren’t even mentioned, nor was the son he learned he had fathered six years after the child was born. He died alone.

So now, I will write his obituary. Here’s my tribute to Richard L. Alpert; July 8, 1959 – December 16, 2010; Ruth, Nevada

Rik was the smartest guy in the room. He was also the most passionate, and outspoken, and annoying guy in the room. He could really be a pain in the ass. But it always came from a good place, and that was just Rik. He was a great, loyal friend.

Rik stood for fairness and freedom, compassion and kindness – yes kindness. Despite the bitter rage with which he spoke about (or to) those he believed were in the wrong, or mocking those who stood for things he abhorred, Rik was the kindest soul. He was not the most tolerant soul. He had no use for ignorance or hypocrisy, betrayal, or greed. He had high moral standards when it came to how the world should be and how people should treat all living beings and the planet. Perhaps too high, for he was constantly infuriated that governments, employers, leaders and lovers could behave so badly. Eventually he got away from it all and moved to to the fringe of society. And now, he’s free of all the pain and suffering he found so unacceptable in the world; as well as his own.

Rik Alpert left a strong impression on everyone who ever met him. You couldn’t love him without sometimes wishing you could shut him up. But you always came back to loving him. He was not afraid to stand up for what he believed in. He’ll never know how much he mattered in this world, not just to me.

Here’s a song/band/album Rik introduced me to. It’s still in my top 5:

Thank you, Rik. For raising my standards. For having my back. For introducing me to The Young Ones and Big Audio Dynamite and Love And Rockets and The Utne Reader and Mother Jones and hot and sour soup and long motorcycle rides in the desert Amnesty International and Rob (the afore-mentioned roommate). When I phoned Rob to tell him, I lost it a little. When I told him that Rik shaped me more than any other person (besides my parents), Rob said if he were here he’d give me a hug. Which made me sad because I’ll bet that at the end, Rik had no one to hug. And it kills me that that is permanent.

In his honor, I share here another of my all-time favorite songs that Rik turned me on to. I listen to it when I know I need to get out of my own head. You can thank me with a comment.

Sometimes, people rock. Thank you anonymous neighbor, for your well-timed random act of kindness.

I want to share some good news before signing off. When I came home from that luncheon, I got my dog Picard and went for a walk. Because at that time I was still was mourning the loss of my scarf rather than Rik, I walked to the bus stop… where I found my scarf, tied at eye-level to the bus stop pole, blowing in the wind! I almost got hit by a car running toward it, so happy was I for this one act of random kindness from a total stranger at a time when I so desperately needed something good.

Rik Alpert, you fucking mattered! You fucking rocked!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDt4sPkxZ2U

Reason #58 to stay in good graces with your exes (if/when that’s possible): you never know when they’re gonna come in handy. Even better, you never know in what way.

For example, I recently got an email from an ex of many, many years ago. Our lives are on opposite sides of the world now (literally), but we do check in occasionally. In this day and age, usually in the form of a Facebook comment.

In this email, my ex, a very talented writer, details a dream he had of me. A very sexually explicit dream. Let me tell you as I told him, he should seriously be writing erotica. Even if I weren’t the inspiration for this dream / short story, I’d still find it HOT. And also, perfectly timed.

I think they’re pretty.

I needed this. My most recent ex made me feel like a pariah in a fishnet bodystocking the last time I tried to seduce him. Not a highlight of our relationship, as I intended it to be. It was surreal (and, needless to say, humiliating). It also shook my confidence and self-image. Things with which I don’t usually struggle too much.

Granted, this email came from the man with whom I had the most incendiary sexual chemistry on the planet. Obviously, incendiary sexual chemistry wasn’t enough to keep us together, but it’s funny how that chemistry still has an effect. Oh him and his subconscious, and — by proxy — on me and the restoration of my self-esteem, by him sharing this dream with me. And reminding me that no, I am definitely NOT a pariah when wearing nothing but a fishnet bodystocking.

This is just one example. There are other ways in which other exes still play a part in my life, just by being true to who they are: the character that attracted me to them in the first place. If I could bundle each of their unique, individual characters — the pieces of them that keep them in my life — into one one man, he would be the perfect specimen. For me. But what fun would that be? Who wants flawless? I certainly can’t offer flawless in return. Flaws are good. They give us heart and make us interesting and complex and vulnerable — and thus more appreciative of others’ love. Now that’s value.

I posted this on the community board at the beach where I walk my dog. It was gone within an hour. I hope this necklace went to someone who really cherishes it. I cherish the thought and memory behind this necklace, and I’ll always have that.

I love the idea that it found a good home, and that someone out there is really happy to be wearing this necklace.

Just moments after our first encounter.

(This story can also be found in the print and online editions of Bay Woof magazine.)

I used to be a fairly regular blogger; just another person with a greater than average need to express myself – usually as a means to make sense of life, especially when it confounds me (and there was a lot of that these past few years). But then something happened: I got a dog. Coincidentally, I got a boyfriend at roughly the same time. So basically, I got a life again. And so for the past year, while I’ve been enjoying living this life, the only things I’ve posted on my blog are cute pup pictures.

So how did I so completely and quickly morph from the creator of “The Adventures of Vulva Fervor” into this googoogaga-ing mommy creature — the kind that thinks her dogs yawns are adorable and his stinky puppy breath is wonderful and the way he whistle-woofs in his sleep is just the cutest darned thing, not to mention the way his ass shoots up in the air when he shakes — that I used to mock?

Let’s start with the obvious: I’m 47, with no children. And at this point in life, it looks like I’m not going to have ’em. Despite great health and all the energy in the world, that’s just the cold hard truth of my reproductive cycle. Though I never truly had that strong baby urge, I always assumed I’d have at least one child. A daughter. And since my own mother died when I was young, leaving me with many unanswered questions about who she was other than my mother, I have a trunk full of memorabilia, journals, etc – a trunk full of young me – for my daughter, should I leave her too early. Now with no daughter, I don’t know what the hell to do with this trunk now. But I digress…

I didn’t plan on owning a dog; I went to a Rocket Dog Rescue (RDR) adoption event to foster a pit bull for two days (an idea that was inspired by  another writing project of mine, “The Saga Of Gray And Nameless”).  RDR didn’t have any pitties that day. But since I’d driven all the way out there, I might as well foster something until a pittie came along. As I live in a tiny city flat with thin walls, a quiet dog was necessary. Problem was, all the quiet dogs seemed nervous, if not downright terrified. Except one: a funny-looking 6-month old pug mix named Picard who seemed uniquely independent, calm and almost aloof. I had no other choice.

That night I hosted a Mad Men season 4 premiere cocktail party for 12 guests. Picard was calm with a houseful of strangers, and never made one move toward the table covered with hors d’oeuvres. He needed nothing more than a lap on which to lay his head. He almost seemed hesitant to trust this happy home, as if he didn’t want to get attached. But… I got attached. Despite no job and no money, I had to find a way to keep him. I needed to take care of him, and would do whatever I had to do to give this little guy a happy home and make him feel safe and loved. And somehow, it just happened. After jobhunting for two years, I finally got a job.

Now, every day I wake up to a face that is pure happiness. Happy to be awake and know that breakfast is coming soon… though sometimes not soon enough. One morning I was sleeping in uncharacteristically late, and Picard woke me up by licking my eyelids open. Point is, his pure happiness is pure inspiration, from the second I open my eyes.  You can’t wake up in a bad mood with Picard in the room. On that note, no matter how bad a day I’ve had, I can’t stay in a bad mood when I come home to him. He’s so happy I’m home. It truly grounds me, how lucky I am to have a home and to have him in it. Then there’s the sheer joy he has in simply walking outside. Same route, different route, doesn’t matter; he’s outside and walking in the world, a part of it. He doesn’t consider his place in the world, where he’s come from or where he’s going. He’s just so damn happy to be moving and seeing people and sniffing things and meeting other pups. A fine example of living in the moment.

Picard has also reminded me of aspects of myself that I’d forgotten. For example, as a kid I was a huge lover of the outdoors: a Girl Scout, a camper, a hiker, a skier, a skater, a climber. I have 2 olders brothers, and I was always tagging along on their adventures (as much as they’d let me). Now as a car-free urbanite, I keep my outdoor activities to  simply hiking the hills of San Francisco — that is until I got Picard. He has so much energy (which he contains magnificently when in my flat), far more than he can burn off in a day walking or running with me. So at least once a week, we head out to Ft. Funston or Lands End or hunt for new places where he can run himself silly. And I feel like my face is going to crack from smiling so hard when I watch him run! When he runs, it looks like his eyes are going to bulge out of his head from all the joy. Thank you, Picard, for resurrecting the nature lover in me.

Picard keeping Pauline from her work! (please pardon the “lipstick.”)

He’s also a great listener. He knows that it’s best not to say too much; that I really just need him to listen, be my sounding board. He listened when I told him about the recent split between my beau and myself. And Picard made me realize that any pain I felt in that split was a fraction of what I would feel if I had to part with Picard. I don’t know if that’s very telling about the relationship, or if it’s more telling that this is what I need in my heart right now: to be a “mother,” rather than a partner. What I do know is that what makes my relationship with Picard one that most romantic unions might want to emulate is that it is balanced. He gives to me as much as I give to him. Of course his giving is pure and mindless and effortless, which makes it all the sweeter. And he gives to others as well: Picketers put down their signs to pet him. Handsome manly men cross the street to meet him (lucky me!) In stores, mothers take their babies out of their strollers so they can kiss him. Business comes to a standstill when I bring him on errands with me. And no kidding, I can’t tell you how many people have thanked me for sharing him. I feel so, so blessed that I get to witness and experience the joy he brings to others every day, simply by being delightfully sweet and loving. I truly believe he is the key to world peace: If you locked all oppressors, bullies, and sadistic motherfuckers in a room with Picard, I know for a fact he could disarm them all.

People come and go, sometimes breaking our hearts. But the little ones, the dogs and cats and pre-verbal children… they bring out the good in us and others they encounter. I know that having a dog is not the same as having a child. But it’s what I’ve got to work with, and there are  ways in which having a pup is advantageous to having a child at this point in my life. I will always be able to pick up and hold Picard, something that children outgrow both in size and in their tolerance for being kissed to the point of embarrassment (also something that gets difficult to do as we get older). Picard will not cost me a fortune in college tuition, he will never talk back to me, and he will never introduce unpleasant friends into my home. Added bonus: he rarely, rarely tests me.

At our favorite spot: Ft. Funston.

I’m just the lucky lottery winner who happened to be in the right place at the right time when this pup needed a home. Home is one of the most sacred words — and things — in the world to me. Picard reminds me every day of how important it is to feel safe and secure in the knowledge that you have a home – whether that be a physical place or someone  that will always protect and provide love and safety and comfort. I’ve learned that it’s indescribably satisfying to give someone — even a dog — a home. Far better than receiving one. Welcome home Picard.

Sunset on the farm. Unless of course you ask the rooster, for whom the sun eternally rises.

I took a friend up on an invitation to spend Memorial Day Weekend savoring peace, fresh air, and fresh eggs on her family (a 4-H family) farm. I was surrounded by horses, goats, turkeys, chickens, cats, dogs — and a cacophony of animal sounds. And it was rather peaceful – even the rooster with total disregard for the sun’s location in the sky.

My job on these treks (which occur every six months or so) is to cook. It’s what I love to do and I love doing it for her mother, who lives there alone. She gets more vegetables in her diet the weekend I’m there than the other fifty-one combined.

It gets a little embarrassing when her mother informs everyone (in-home nurses, bridge partners, family members) who enters that I am the visiting “Iron Chef”; because then they stop and observe, believing that I really am some sort of expert. I’m not. I just have a good eye, hand, sense of taste, and (mostly), some serious curiosity. And of course, there’s always the glass of wine nearby, which is part of the ceremony that is cooking. And no one loves a ceremony more than yours truly.

Catching up on some light holiday reading.

Before accepting the invitation, I specifically asked my friend if any family activities were planned. “No” was the answer. My friend didn’t know this was a make-or-break for me. Not that I dislike her family; far from it. They’re lovely. It’s just… a very different family than I grew up with. And the whole “Iron Chef” thing… nah. Please, no live audience. I just want a nice quiet weekend, because…

I’d also decided the day before driving up that I was not going to drink for a month. A month. Just to “reset” the brain and the body. It’s not the sort of thing you share with nice people whose lives don’t involve (or for that matter revolve around) the ceremony of drinking to a large degree. Living in the city, I don’t know anyone whose social life isn’t rooted in the culture of cocktails. It’s how I grew up, it’s what I know, it’s what I love, it’s how I’ve often paid the rent (bartending). The people, the lifestyle, the stories, the making of a fine cocktail, the nose of an epic wine, the feel of a velvety cognac on your tongue… Most of my friends are artists of all strains, and over cocktails is where we come together.

But back to Memorial Day weekend:

Oh, the things one finds in other’s childhood rooms…

It turns out that my friend’s brother, his wife and their three children were, in fact coming over for dinner Sunday night. The wall of watchful, matching, green-gray eyes was on me in the kitchen from the moment they entered, as mom immediately started singing my Iron Chef praises. I took care of that by ordering them all to carry stuff to the backyard, where we’d be dining. Over dinner, All members of the family engaged in a very detailed discussion about a recent field trip to Washingon DC. Family Discussion As Ceremony. I’d heard of that…

After dinner, we gathered in the parlor to enjoy tea, Toblerone chocolate, and strawberries. And the whole time, the whole night, these kids participated. There were no cell phones, no distractions. This was normal to them: kids and parents talking. Kids behaving. I didn’t know families like this still existed!

I thought this sort of thing only happened on the Hallmark channel. It truly was an episode of The Waltons, directed by Norman Rockwell. I’m not joking. The children have flaming red hair and more freckles than the bus has strains of bacteria. The adults sport a faded version of this coloration. And they’re all tall. I do not blend in this crowd. Not just the physical difference (I’m a petite, olive-y blonde, the result of my Greek/Norwegian heritage); but more to do with the fact and I’m an acerbic urbanite. Chalk that one up to nurture, not nature. And the fact that I was sipping a grapefruit spritzer rather than a glass of pinot was not helping my disposition. Quite the opposite.

Gatherings at my house growing up looked like a day on the set of Casino. It was Vegas in the ‘70’s. My parents even looked like Robert DeNiro and Sharon Stone (that Greek/Norwegian thing again). As a family, we didn’t gather in the parlor to converse over tea and Toblerone and strawberries after dinner. For starters, my father was the Bar Manager at the Hilton Hotel (when Elvis was performing there). So he was seldom home for dinner. Our garage looked like the liquor warehouse of the hotel. My parents had parties, and that’s when things got conversational at our house. It was always fun to watch the adults loosen up and not be so hush-hush (in front of us kids) about… whatever it was that adults talk about.  And their conversations were always much more interesting than those of my peers. At one holiday party, I stood at the door holding a crate of Elvis’ Christmas Album (I assume that was a “secret gift” from the Hilton Hotel to my father), handing one to each tipsy guest as they left. It never dawned on me that this wasn’t typical of every child’s holiday memories.

So being there on the farm, surrounded by Rockwell’s Waltons, the feeling that “I don’t belong here” was now festering into pure irritability because I didn’t have my beloved glass of wine handy to help me appreciate the oddity, the surreality (to me, anyhow) of the situation. No, it was just me, unarmed. And again, I can’t tell nice non-drinkers that I’m cranky (and trying to hide my crankiness, which makes me even crankier) because I’m a baby and I want my ba-ba. They won’t understand and it’s embarrassing. Yeah, you know it’s bad when you can’t stop staring at a (probably 15-year old) bottle of vermouth. All of this soon spirals into a very real headache, and very real reason to excuse myself from the room and pop a Tylenol PM.

A good thing. I miss you.

So why the hell all this 40-something equivalent of 20-something navel gazing? Damn good question. I got nuthin’. I do have this: It’s day seven now. I’d just finished writing a feature screenplay (right before taking this vow of a month’s sobriety) and was wondering “what next?” And in recent days I finally started to write something for the upcoming Tenderloin Reading Series at which I was invited to read. And I was informed that my play, It Is What It Is, has been accepted in the upcoming SF Theater Festival. And of course, I did not pop a bottle to celebrate. That was tough!

So do I need this ceremony, this companion, this lovely crutch called “cocktail”? Last night I went to a local bar and had two ginger beer/mint/lime spritzers. So the past 7 days prove I don’t need it, the alcohol at least. But the ceremony… yes, I need ceremony in my life. Though there are a million (non-alcoholic) ceremonies out there and a million more I can invent… but I love this one! It’s where I come from, it’s in my blood; it even reminds me of childhood, watching my fabulous parents entertain. Hell, I made my first cocktail at age 5; I’d make them for my parents friends and charge them 10 cents. It’s who I am! Other kids longed for Disneyland; I had Fantasyland right there at home. Whenever my parents entertained, there were gorgeously groomed men in suits, beautifully made-up women in fabulous frocks, the Rat Pack backed up by the music of ice chiming in beautiful glasswear, and laughter! I couldn’t wait to grow up and make that my world. My Adultland.

But I guess we all need to step outside our skin once in a while, now don’t we? If for no other reason than to decided whether or not the skin we’ve grown so accustomed to still fits and is still flattering. Or do we still wear it because it’s what we’re used to, and we’re too lazy to try on a new one?

The one thing I know to be directly related to not drinking is waking up with a clear head. So clear is it, that I decided to write this little reflection to share with you. But is a clear head worth  going without my beloved ceremony? Ask me on July 1st, when I celebrate this achievement.

Better make that July 2nd.

This too shall pass.

I wasn’t looking for a title to this post. I wasn’t planning on writing about this, period. But something happened recently, something that  stung. Then I was filled with regret, self-loathing, repulsion, pity, and compassion. And then I got angry. Good and angry. And this is what I chose to do about it.

What does it take to get me this angry? Put it this way: If you were to draw A Map Of Moral Behavior, and there was a territory  called Things You Don’t Do; what this Mook (though he is far too old by definition, the rest of the description is spot-on)  did to me would be bordering Sleep With Your Best Friend’s Wife. Yeah, it was shitty and selfish and low (that’s where the self-loathing comes in: I actually trusted him).

I don’t believe in blaming others for our actions and choices. With one exception: when our actions are based on another person’s deliberate deception; when we act on good faith and later learn that someone withheld information that they knew would affect our behavior — but they witheld it anyway. I call that being violated emotionally. Again, certain things you don’t do: You don’t violate another human being. Emotionally, physically: You Do Not Do That. Especially to a friend. Hey, I’m very open-minded when it comes down to what goes on behind closed doors: as long as all parties have their cards on the table so that everyone’s eyes are wide open: All’s fair.

I’ve never used the term “douche bag” before, unless I was quoting another. I always thought the expression was childish and banal and better suited for those lacking any imagination, originality, or a respectable vocabulary. But it’s stuck in my head.; it so perfectly crystalizes how I feel about the Mook. Douche bag douche bag douche bag! God, I’m not kidding. Douche bag! Okay, there is a certain satisfaction in saying it, I have to confess.

I want these feeling to go away. I want to move on. I realized yesterday: What I need is to forgive. But… I don’t know how to forgive in this case. I was just about to begin a yoga class and I was getting anxious about not knowing how to forgive because this is just eating me, and I didn’t want to go into the class like that. I don’t want to go into the next hour like that. So I shot off a text to a dear and wise friend (whose blog, “Belief Systems & Other BS”, I highly recommend): “Any words on forgiveness?”

He wrote back “She who forgives most is happiest”. It made me cry. I instantly got a picture in my head of a very old, very happy woman who’d lived a very hard life — yet with the biggest toothless smile you can imagine. She had forgiven a lot, this woman in my head.

There you have it. So simple. I want to be the “She” in his text. Okay, realistically, I’m never going to be “happiest”.  But I can be happier. That’s realistic. And then the yoga class started. And I’m fortunate to have two instructors who feel like home to me. I feel safe and alive and grateful in the environment they create. I relax and breath and am open to thoughts/feelings/ideas that the stupid 8-track in my brain often drowns out.

Let’s get back to the Mook. Part of the problem is that anything I have to say to him would be extremely hurtful. It would be truthful, and if I thought for one second it would actually do him some good to hear it, that he’d learn something from it, I might confront him. But he’s not at that place now. We all have our demons and our issues; hopefully we learn from them and grow and they make us better, more compassionate people. But some people choose to remain children. And no amount of adult dialogue will make them get it. It being the fact that their actions directly affect others. Sometimes deeply hurting them even.

So I won’t be confronting the Mook. Because at the end of the day, being hurtful has never been who I am, and I’m not about to start now. No good would come of it. The one and only thing I would say to him — and it sounds snarky but I mean it sincerely — is this: I hope he gets the help he needs. As I’m trying to get the help I need. Help To Forgive.

Which starts with: How did I get here? I never let a Mook get so close to hurt me like this before. Maybe I just didn’t let many people in before, as a way of avoiding hurt. But now that I’m divorced and single again in my 40’s, I’m taking more risks. I’m being more open because for so long I felt nothing, and I pined to feel alive. And half of feeling alive is feeling pain. Can’t have your ecstasy without your agony. So… I guess I asked for this, to a degree. But I’m learning. I’m learning to gather more information before trusting someone with my heart. There were signs — there are always signs — but I was so hungry for the newfound bliss that I missed many douche bag signs along the way. It’s a tricky balance: head/heart. Bliss/information. I’ll use a food analogy that we ladies are so fond of: eat healthfully, but you must indulge occasionally (and moderately) in the sinful — for if you deprive yourself too long, you will gorge and regret it.

I’ll trust again. And again. I won’t be trusting him (I’ll stop calling him a mook now — see? I’m already mellowing), but I will trust again. But cautiously next time, receptive to the flags on the field (a little sports analogy for the guys this time).

I think I’m starting to forgive.

PS: If you aspire to be a man — or if you already are, but want to be a better man — I strongly urge you the check out  The Art Of Manliness.

Manly, yes. But I like it too!

swinging on a moon

That’s not actually her in the photo. It’s a photo of her necklace, worn by me. Someone gave it to her because she was a Cancer, and Cancers are “Moon Children”. I never heard that before, but I’ll just accept it as being the truth. Cancer is a water sign, water/moon, blah blah blah.

This necklace became mine when she died. And like all her jewelry — not worth millions of dollars, but priceless to me — I put it in a box, afraid to wear it. Afraid to lose it.

And then after I came back home after my mid-life pyrotechic chapter a couple of years ago, I weeded through all my belongings. And realized I had a box of jewelry — stuff that she handled, adored, used to accessorize — just sitting there for over 20 years. Lost for 20 years.

So I wear this necklace every day now. Ditto the hoop earrings she gave me at Christmas when I was 14. Two months after I began wearing them, I lost one, and was actually grateful for the two months I got to enjoy them again. And then walking to get coffee, not even looking, never expecting to find it again… there it was, on the sidewalk. There you see? I was meant to wear it, lose it, find it. Let it be.

This necklace is not subtle. I used to worry — it being prominant and solid gold, bordering on blingy — that it might get snatched right off my neck when I ride the bus or walk through the Tenderloin. But the opposite has proven to be the case.

People who I guarantee you have a rap sheet as long as I am tall stop me to comment on the necklace. They are complimentary, respectful, and thoughtful. An example: A loudmouth little gangsta girl — who’d been talking smack moments earlier with her homies on the bus — went out of her way to say, “Pardon me, ma’am, that’s a real nice necklace. I don’t normally talk to white people, but that’s a really pretty necklace.” And so I tell her the story about my mother and we proceeded to talk for fifteen minutes, parting with “Merry Christmas!” as I got off the bus.

So that’s what I mean when I say “Meet My Mother.” Because it’s like she’s with me when I wear it. That’s the effect she had on people. She was the great equalizer, making everyone in the room (or on the bus, in this case) feel comfortable enough to talk to her and really glad that they did in the end.

I may lose the necklace. Hell, someone may snatch it right off me on the bus. It would be devastating, but I  know she’ll keep doing what she does best, wherever she ends up.

He didn't like to talk about the war. But he thought about it all the time.

He wrote “18” on the soles of his shoes, so that when they asked when he was enlisting, “Are you over eighteen?”, he didn’t have to lie. He was really seventeen. That’s what boys did then, to defend their country in WWII — and not lie in order to do so.

He was in the 82nd Airborne. One of those guys who was dropped behind enemy lines (see “A Bridge Too Far”), one of the few who survived. He took a bullet in the arm and it remained there til the day he died.

He started talking about it toward the end of his life, a little. I wish I could have recorded him. But he never, ever would have allowed that.