Archive for October, 2008

Call me un-American, but I hate Halloween.

October 30, 2008

Ok. I’m going to say it knowing full well I will come to regret it. And though it almost sounds un-American, even to me, I must admit I hate Halloween. It’s not only because of the huge and hideous lighted plastic orb cum pumpkin that my neighbor put on his lawn last week, a match for the massive synthetic tarantula another neighbor posed in a giant maple in his front yard. No. I have been feeling this way about this holiday for some time now.

Perhaps it stems from all those years rushing around, feverishly trying to prepare my kid for a few hours of door to door fun, inventing the most creative costume I could so that what… she could be queen of the pumpkins? Simply on principle (one that escapes me now), there’d be no store-bought, tie-on princess garb for us. That was until I created the Halloween piéce de résistance, Miss Liberty – torch, crown and bible meticulously spray painted a tarnished copper to match a green draped, flowing robe. Never mind the hours it took me to paint my daughter’s cute round face – a red, white and blue replica of the American flag complete with stars above and below her right eye. It was truly a work of art only to be wiped off minutes after I finished. She no longer wanted to be Miss Liberty. Instead, she headed for the basement, sifted through our costume trunk and came upstairs as a fabulous witch, all in about five minutes.

Costuming aside, (and I do believe we Americans could muster up a bit more ingenuity than doling out two billion dollars a year on Spiderman and Princess Leah outfits), I am staunchly against the whole candy thing. I may sound somewhat curmudgeonly, but I find it hard to rationalize giving bags full of the disguised white stuff to innocent little kids. We do know, don’t we, that refined sugar is not only not nutritious, it has the capability of leaving us all quite crazy hyper and in a state of utter stupor. It makes you wonder at the bio-chemistry of it.

My own unique way of dealing with the candy conundrum was to eschew the treat and settle on the trick. For a few years, I dressed up as a witch, blackened the lights, lit candles throughout the house and played a very scary tape that could be heard by anyone wandering up the front path. Not many had the nerve to venture all the way to the door. I, however, had a great time cackling. I have always excelled at cackling.

So, heads up to all of you witches, ghouls, vampires, superheroes, French maids and wizards, let’s forget Halloween. Why limit ourselves to just one night when we can be whatever we want at any time. We could smear the greasepaint and howl at the moon whenever we felt like it. At work, at the market, at the gym, in the boardroom, we could play a whole slew of interesting parts. It’s a devil of an idea. Tomorrow, for starters, I’m going to be William Faulkner.

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Que Sera, Sera. Big time!

October 23, 2008

Ok then, that’s it. Off with the TV. Ban the radio. Only a glance at the New York Times is permitted, headlines and one editorial. No more than ten minutes maximum allowed for the Huffington Post. Read fast, get the meaning from a word here, another there. Keep those eyes moving at breakneck speed.

Giuliani Records Robocalls for McCain.

Voters Purged from Rolls in Ohio.

Bill O’Reilly on the View

I back out of the site with the willingness of an addict on the way to rehab.

I admit it. I am addicted to the news. Actually, not all news. Just news of this damn never-ending election. It has kept me up at nights, greeted me at dawn. I have been at times despairing, elated, fearful, pissed off, hopeful and hyper, sometimes all of these at once. This all American circus we call an election has been all I could think about and talk about for almost a year. I have obsessed over the nasty accusation, the pundit’s slick spin, the bald-faced lie, the weak rebuttal. With a constant knot in my gut, I have not been enjoying Zen-like days. I know I am not alone.

Months ago, I determined that an intervention was in order – an intervention on myself, if you will. This occurred to me after I had spent the entire morning, four and a half hours of it, surfing the endless pathways of Daily Kos, CNN, Politico, Salon, The New York Times etc. plus the latest national and state polls. I had traveled the equivalent of who knows how many virtual miles before actually getting down to work, you know, the kind that puts food on the table. This behavior called for the cold turkey cure, just like I had done years ago with the Marlboros.

The phase of my election news blackout lasted for a little over a month. And yes, it was quite like nicotine, although the pain of withdrawal subsided more quickly and didn’t require sucking on a straw. The urge to “tune in” was replaced this time by a blissful well-being that can only be had through ignorance. Rather wonderful. I really didn’t miss worrying about John McCain’s concealment of vital health information.

Now I have moved on to another phase. I am back into the news but I am monitoring my intake just so there is no accidental overdosing. I have figured out how to stay calm, collected and somewhat joyful while in the eye of the storm, no matter what happens in this election.

I’m hanging on to the wisdom of the ancient masters. I’m opting for “the perfection of the universe” theory rather than “shit happens,” all the while telling myself that what passes for “reality” is nothing but illusion. I repeat at various intervals throughout the day the ever-soothing mantra, “in it but not of it,” and for good measure I add the empowering “I am that I am.” To end my meditations on a cheery, life affirming note that would make Doris Day proud, I belt out a rousing, heart-felt rendition of “Que Sera, Sera.” Big time.

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Viagra, bringer of the new American Dream.

October 16, 2008

Is it just me or does it seem as if half the U.S. population is having a hard time getting it on? If you watch even a little TV, you can’t help but notice the number of ads devoted to the likes of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. Hey Bob Dole, help us out here. What’s going on?

There they are, the attractive “mature” couple, hand in hand, seemingly delighted over a game of golf on the great green fairway, a look of eager anticipation on their smiling faces. But these two are not thinking about getting the ball into that small hole. No, they are busy picturing the pleasure of their upcoming sexual tryst – either that night or the next morning or even at tea time the following afternoon. Whenever the time is right in their 36-hour window of opportunity.

A male friend of mine thinks it’s just another con job by Madison Avenue – a “hard” sell to the American people in which big Pharma once again addresses the symptom rather than the cause. Never mind, he says, that two thirds of the population is overweight and dealing daily with diabetes, clogged arteries, high blood pressure and the stress of paying for things they can’t afford including health care.

But hey, I see it this way. As the American Dream continues to go up in smoke, Viagra and the like offer the hope of a new American Dream. It gives us something to believe in once more – just as home ownership, a college education, and a business of one’s own become totally unattainable for us middleclassers. We’ll have a new measure of success – an erection to rival the soaring Chrysler building. Or the everlasting Eveready Bunny. No more saving. No more scrimping. It can be here and now and can go on and on. Guaranteed gratification with just one swallow.

And what could be more American than heaven in pill form? Fast, effective and painless. Nirvana with just the turn of a screw cap. To add to our medicine chests full of diet pills, anti-depressants, cold tablets and anxiety pills, we clever Americans have now found our way to a more enlightened definition of American achievement. The eternal erection is far more modern and in fact, much more American than simply a “chicken in every pot or a car in every garage.” For our long-suffering American men and their insatiable (or is it exhausted?) women, let’s give a hardy salute for the new American Dream. As the great patriot John Cameron Swayze used to say about another American staple, “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking!”

For those under thirty-five, go google John Cameron Swayze.

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Climbing into bed with the Bogie Man himself.

October 8, 2008

It’s 8:30 am and I’ve already done forty minutes on a treadmill and twenty minutes on the floor, legs crossed, Gandhi-like. Trying to clear my mind so I can calm the hell down. Breathe the stillness in. Breathe the upset out. Peace in. Turmoil out.

Forget it. That uneasy, queasy awful unrest is still there – in my gut. I don’t even know what it’s about. What they call free-floating anxiety, I suppose. It makes it tricky to do anything at all, even breathe.

“Financial Crisis Spreads to Europe, More Banks to Close, Dow Down 800 Points.” Even though I don’t have a cent in the stock market, not even a 401K, I am nuts. The wattage ramps up. My mind races: Who will need a writer when the bread lines start to form?

My father was twenty years old in 1929. The Depression informed his life, right to the end. It made him hound his daughters incessantly to turn off every light in the house (not such a bad thing), but it also robbed him of enjoying what money was meant for… spending it. Oh, how he had a hard time letting go of it, and this after working so hard to earn it. Forty-odd years. The fear wrought by the Great Depression just simply morphed into a generalized fear of never having enough, even when he did.

With a nod to FDR and his iconic “nothing to fear but fear itself” let me reiterate that clever acronym that spells FEAR:. False Evidence Appearing Real. After all, lying in a dark room huddled in fear requires only turning on the smallest night light to prove there are no bogie men lurking behind the door. I say, let there be light.

I will start. I am afraid that there will be no work for me and I will not be able to pay my bills and I will have to live in a cardboard box under the I-95 overpass.

I am afraid that my teeth will fall out before I can afford to have the dental work I need and I will be toothless like a dirt farmer in Appalachia.

I am afraid that I will never finish my book or that it will never get published or if it does finally find a publisher, no one will read it or if they do, no one will like it.

I am afraid that my daughter won’t be able to finish college because her mother cannot get a loan to pay the tuition for the last two years. If she manages to graduate, however, I am afraid that she will opt to work for big fat Pharma Company and then marry a Reagan Republican.

I am afraid that money will be so scarce that I will not be able to afford the products and services necessary for warding off the ravages of time, i.e. covering the grey every eight weeks, the requisite moisturizers, masks and eye creams.

I am afraid that my mental capacity is diminishing daily as seen in my tendency to forget what I came into the room for. If this should get worse, my family will not be able to shuffle me off to assisted living since I have (irresponsibly) made no provisions for this contingency. They will therefore have to use their frequent flyer miles to get me to Alaska where they will put me on an ice flow and leave me to float out to sea.

Phew. So many fears taking up the short time that’s left. Here’s my choice as I see it. I can continue on with this futile nail-biting, unable to control any of the outcomes, or I can just let it all go and eke every bit of joy out of every present moment. I’m for plan B. How about you?

What are your fears?

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Why it’s useful to have wise friends.

October 2, 2008

An old friend of mine was recently in Nepal visiting her quite remarkable 21 year-old daughter who decided to skip college and go start her own NGO, www.blinknow.org, a self-sustainable community for destitute and orphaned children. But that’s another story for another time.

On looking up at the expanse of stars under the Nepalese sky, my friend began to think about the nature of the universe and our relationship to it. Nature does that to us, especially the vast canvass of a night sky in a far away place. It always seems to call into question who we are and what we’re doing here. It is forever raising that ancient, unanswerable and most aggravating question, “What is it all about?”

Surprisingly, my friend tells me she also thought of me. There underneath that beautiful sky on the other side of the world, she thought about how I often groused to her about not seeing the value of writing “my little stories” about my “little life.” There, where the earth meets the sky, she concluded that doubts were to be expected when human art was measured against the best art of all. The bar is too high. Anyone would wonder, “Why bother?”

So why bother indeed. Why spend so much time arranging words on a page, trying to make sense of disjointed thoughts crammed into an overcrowded head? I could give a whole litany of long-winded answers, but in the end, it must be because it gives me pleasure. And even when I struggle with the process (and moan about it to friends who will listen), I finally have to admit that it gives me pleasure. That’s enough, right?

For my friend who spent two weeks contemplating life in the majestic Himalayas, my “little” stories help her to see just how funny (and fascinating) it is to be human every day. My stories, she says, bring some comedic relief to her overly active ego, ever ready with one crisis or another. She’s says she’s grateful for the respite. And I am grateful to be of service. Because just like her remarkable daughter in Nepal, I like being of service. It makes me feel good. Certainly, it’s got to be the reason we bother.

So I am once again reminded why I need to write and why we all need to gaze at the stars and why it’s useful to have wise friends.

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