Gimme Some Of That DIY, Feel-Good Writing!

The first time I saw a zine was in the late 1980's at Tower Records Bookstore in New York City. It was made of simple, white printer paper by a fan of Kate Bush. It had black and white pictures of Kate that were photocopied and stapled into the magazine. Although not as popular as they once were, DIY zines are still around, and this summer, I stumbled upon a bunch of them at the East Village Zine Fair on St. Mark's Place in NYC. As I checked out the many tables, my eyes caught sight of a particular table run by Quimby's Bookstore in Brooklyn. It had DIY zines that were reminiscent of the zines I used to love to buy so many years ago. Among the teeny-tiny mini zines, I saw a bunch of regular-sized zines by an artist named Jolie Ruin who I recognized because she sells artwork on Etsy. I even had one of her art collages in my Etsy favorites which was a small, art canvas decorated with colorful beads and a quote from a Juliana Hatfield song. I didn't even know she was a zinester and that she published Riot Grrrl-inspired zines!

The simplicity of zines reminds me of my Berklee College of Music days when we all made homemade cassette tapes of our original songs and played them for each other. Sometimes, someone would comment that the recordings of the vocals and instruments should be more slickly produced. I often disagreed. I'd say I rather listen to a guy strumming a guitar and singing lyrics that moved me than a demo of overproduced songs that say nothing and provide nothing original. The passion of three-chord grunge songs of the early 1990's touched so many people, and even today, as soon as you hear the first chords of a Nirvana song, you immediately know it's them.  

The SlutCake zines include not only Jolie Ruin's writing and art but also from a variety of contributors.  My story about my childhood crush on Barry Williams (Greg Brady of the TV show "The Brady Bunch"), and how I met him years later as an adult, is featured in SlutCake #18 - the Love and Crushes Issue

I've grown tired of reading traditional literary journals because so often the stories have shock value themes and an unusual number of tragic endings. I remember one short story - a contest winner -  entitled, "Ice Cream for Breakfast." The title made it sound like it was a pleasant, let's throw caution to the wind, story but instead it was about the mom regretting she hadn't permitted her little boy to have ice cream for breakfast because she was too busy searching for a cure while he was dying of a disease. What this story did for me was made me never want to read a story like that ever again. I believe that we readers can be inspired by stories with everyday, relatable, topics and don't need to have our worlds annihilated in order to be moved by a piece of writing! 

The "Jolie Ruin" zine section at Quimby's Bookstore in Brooklyn, NYC

Discovering Jolie Ruin's zines and art collages have added new excitement to my writing life. When my first order of zines from Etsy came in, I spent one Saturday afternoon on my bed drinking tea and reading Jolie's "The Escapist Artist" zines from cover to cover. I was intrigued by her journal entries from the early 2000's printed in the zines. She told honest, entertaining, and personal stories from when she was in her early twenties, and they took me back to my own early twenties and to those moments when I too saw indie bands perform at rock clubs and had those same feelings of excitement while watching live music and drinking beer with people my own age. 

This "mini" zine by Jolie Ruin contains raw and honest stories straight from her journal entries of 2005

I bought this issue of The Escapist Artist from Jolie Ruin's Etsy Shop, and she mailed it to me along with a bonus sticker and mini business card

Jolie's Riot Grrrl Press company that she runs with her husband Jamie makes T-shirts with quotes and designs that are clever and funny. After ordering the "Make Zines Not War" T-shirt, I answered the call for models to appear in the upcoming Delia*s-inspired Riot Grrrl Press T-Shirt Catalog!

Zinesters contribute more to pop culture than just printed stories. Jolie Ruin creates DIY art, patches, stickers, and even spoken word cassettes and music. I'd suggest giving zines a try even if you primarily read traditional literature. There's enough in the writing market for every taste and style, so like my t-shirt says: "Make Zines, Not War!" 

My very own Art Collage handmade by Jolie Ruin that I bought from her Ebay store. Some of Jolie Ruin's art collages are featured in the Netflix movie "Moxie!" 

https://www.ebay.com/usr/jolieruin

https://www.etsy.com/shop/JolieRuin

"A Little Magic, A Little Kindness" - How I Found My People Through Laura Nyro

Laura Nyro 

Everyone is talking about how amazing Joni Mitchell is because she performed at this year's Grammys at the age of eighty. I agree, but whenever I think of Joni Mitchell, I'm reminded of Laura Nyro, and this makes me sad. In the late 1960's, both Laura and Joni were successful singer/songwriters, and they were major influences on each other. But by the 1970's, Joni's fame and presence in people's minds completely eclipsed Laura's. I appreciate Joni Mitchell's talents, but it is Laura Nyro's music that speaks to me. Joni is more popular, but there are a select few of us who prefer the more primal, soulful and passionate Laura Nyro. 

Laura Nyro was discovered by David Geffen while he was working as a talent agent, a few years before he became a record industry mogul. He quit the talent agency to devote all his time to managing Laura's career. But after releasing a few albums, it was clear that Laura shunned the public life that came with success.  She created music primarily to please herself. She and David Geffen parted ways and sold her song catalog for $4.5 million dollars, each receiving half. The sale allowed David Geffen to start his own record label, and Laura was now free to do anything she wanted. What she wanted to do was "nest," so she bought a house in Connecticut and spent most of her time there raising her new baby son. 

Laura Nyro and David Geffen (from Pinterest)

I first heard of Laura Nyro in an unusual, and somewhat embarrassing, way. I was seventeen and seeing a guy in my neighborhood who I suspected was also seeing another woman in our neighborhood. The first picture I ever saw of Laura Nyro reminded me of this woman. I was obsessed with looking at Laura's picture in my book. I was jealous, but also oddly curious, and eventually I figured, "Since I'm always looking at her picture, why don't I just listen to her music?!"  

My photocopy of the Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock article where I first saw Laura Nyro's picture 

I was never fortunate enough to meet Laura Nyro, but I attended her very rare, live concert at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston, Massachusetts in 1989. Shortly after that, I got married, moved to Canada, and met my new aunt, Rose, who turned out to be a Laura Nyro fan. The first thing she said to me was, "Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Laura Nyro?" She said she was first introduced to Laura Nyro's music in elementary school. Her teacher, a priest, played Laura's "Eli and the Thirteeth Confession" album in class, pointing out some of the album's spiritual lyrics, such as: "I was walking on God's good side," and "Lucky's taking over and his clover shows. Devil can't get out of hand cause Lucky's taking over and what Lucky says goes." I hadn't considered "Eli" to be a spiritual album, as many of the songs are filled with anger and contain themes of feminism, poverty, and deep, passionate love. "Eli" is a fast-paced, energetic album, with musically complicated rhythms and powerful lyrics. Plus, this is the same album that has the song "The Confession" with the lyrics, "Oh I hate my winsome lover, tell him I've had others at my breast."  I'm doubtful Aunt Rose's teacher played that song in class!

Aunt Rose on the left, and me on the right - first meeting where she said I looked like Laura Nyro

As a newlywed living in Canada, I was nesting too. I listened to a lot of Laura Nyro's music, and since so many of her early songs were about living in New York City, I gained solace in the fact that even though I was homesick, I knew that Laura had also left New York City when she moved to Connecticut and had probably been a bit homesick too.  By this time, I mostly enjoyed the two albums she recorded in Connecticut, "Nesting" and "Smile." She sang about new things I was doing while nesting, like cooking. I often listened to her song, "Midnight Blue," and sang along to the lyrics: "There's smoke in the kitchen, shrimps curled." I watched a lot of Canadian TV, and one day I saw an acapella band called "The Nylons" performing Laura's song "Eli's Coming." Very soon afterward, while working at HMV Music Store in Toronto, Canada, I spotted one of The Nylons' singers, Micah Barnes, shopping for CDs.  I approached him and we chatted for a bit, mostly about Laura's "Nested" and "Smile" albums, agreeing how wonderful yet underrated they are. Meeting another Laura Nyro fan made me feel less alone and more at home in Canada. I imagined it was more special than meeting a Rolling Stones fan or a Joni Mitchell fan because a lot of people are fans of them, but when it comes to Laura Nyro, there are so few of us. I realized I was finding my people.

Laura Nyro (from Google)

In the mid-1990's, I moved back to New York City and worked in Manhattan as a legal secretary. My first boss, Murray, was an attorney who told me he used to have long hair and had attended the famous Woodstock festival in 1969. I was so impressed!  During the three years I worked for him, we had many conversations about music. When I told him how much I loved Laura Nyro, a memory was sparked in him. "I met her once!" he said. He told me that one night, he was hanging out with a friend who was friends with Laura Nyro before she was famous. The friend needed to briefly stop by her apartment in the Bronx, but when she greeted them at the door, she asked them to come inside. She wanted their feedback on a new song she wrote, so she sat at her piano and played it for them. He then asked me if he could borrow a couple of my Laura Nyro CDs. One afternoon, after typing my dictations of his letters by listening to his voice on the tapes he had recorded at home, I told him I heard Laura's music playing in the background. "No you didn't!" he answered shyly, but obviously I did!

Murray often said he and I weren't just boss and secretary, we were also friends. I let him read my "Iggy Gorgess" novel's manuscript over a decade before it was published in book form.  In fact, I changed the very last line of my novel because of his criticism, and I think it is better after taking his advice. Then, in 1998, I was devastated when Murray was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I never thought he would get cancer because he was already forty-six years old, and my experience of losing my dad at age fifteen convinced me that Murray was safe because he had already passed forty-one, the age my dad died of cancer. Murray was admitted to the hospital, and my firm sent me to the record store to buy a bunch of CDs he could listen to in his hospital room because I was the only one who knew exactly what music he liked. I visited him in the hospital and brought the huge pile of CDs I'd bought.  He passed away four years later. 

I stopped listening to Laura's music for several years after that. 

I was reunited with Laura's music through YouTube after I found out she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. Bette Midler gave her a beautiful tribute, saying she was "the very essence of New York City: passionate, romantic, ethereal, eternal."  Her only child, Gil Bianchini, attended the ceremony and accepted her award. Through Laura's music, I learned to never hesitate to embrace the art I love even if it is different from what most people enjoy. Our passions draw us toward the people we are meant to meet, and I've found it's sweeter if that club has only a a handful of members. There are few things in life more beautiful than being bonded together by something rare and eternally special. 

Channeling My Inner Starr Quality

Me during the time period Maurice Starr approached me at Tower Records.

Last month, I streamed "The New Edition Story" on Paramount Plus, and it sparked a memory of the time I met Maurice Starr while working at Tower Records Boston in 1990. Starr discovered the 1980's boy band New Edition before he created the astronomically successful New Kids on the Block. When I was in my early teens, I solidly listened to New Edition's first two albums and sang the songs around my house.  One of my favorites had the lines:  "Shake it/Don't break it/It took your mother nine months to make it," and it drove my dad crazy! Seven years later, I was standing at the entrance of Tower, flipping through a Miles Davis biography, when Maurice Starr approached me.  If he had been Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, Ralph, or Mike, I would have recognized him.  But instead, he was their behind-the-scenes producer, and I didn't recognize him at all.  He asked me if I liked Miles Davis, and I said that I didn't know anything about him and that's why I was interested in reading this book.  He also asked me how the Peter Wolf solo album was doing, and I told him whatever I could remember off the top of my head about its sales.  Suddenly a man walked up to me and asked, "Do you know you're talking to a really important guy right now?"  I turned to Maurice and asked, "Who ARE you?!"  He answered, "I'm Maurice Starr,"  to which I exclaimed: "No, you're not!"  So he pulled out his driver's license and showed me.  It had a different name on it, but it also said "a/k/a Maurice Starr," so then I believed him, and his identity was further confirmed to me a few days later when I saw his picture on the cover of one of my free Boston magazines.  Maurice and I chatted a little while longer, and I told him I was a Berklee College of Music student and that I was interested in working as a singer and songwriter.  The next thing I knew, he wrote his phone number down on a little piece of paper and told me to call him.

But I didn't! 

I should have because it was my dream to get a record contract, but I was too shy and scared to go and audition for him.  I was more of a songwriter and instrumentalist and less of an entertainer and performer.  I missed my chance.  A few months later, I saw Maurice Starr  interviewed on MTV.  The interviewer asked him what made him choose to work with certain people over others.  He answered that he noticed a little something special in those people, making them stand out from the rest.  I felt he must have spotted a quality like that in me.  

For years, I regretted not using that little piece of paper to call Maurice Starr.  All I did was Scotch tape it into my notebook journal.  Eventually, I learned to accept that singing and dancing to pop music just wasn't me.  Growing content with our limitations comes easier with age.  It would be tempting to sit around and sulk and ask myself: "Why didn't I jump at the chance? I was in my prime then!"  But what good would that do me now, and what does it really mean to be in our prime anyway?  Everyone constantly says that women over the age of forty are no longer in their "prime," but what if being in our  prime doesn't mean what society tells us it means?  What if having more confidence and self-awareness is what it really means to be in our prime? Maurice Starr noticed something in me when I was in my early twenties, and that special something hasn't gone away.  I may not sing and dance or have a record contract, but I write novels and they fulfill me. The secret to staying in our prime is to channel our own inner "Starr" qualities, and instead of dwelling on what we can't do, we should remind ourselves what we CAN do.  

Lena Dunham's Instagram post on New Year's Eve positively resonated with me. She proposed we forget about making New Year's resolutions because they keep us focused on our failures. Instead, she suggests we: “Give in to who you are and what your actual gifts are, your true powers, and let go of the compare and contrast.”  I think this is good advice.  This year, instead of making more demands on myself to clean the house more and exercise more, how about I just be me?

Me on the Willowbrook Park Carousel in Staten Island - Present Day

Cougars and Jaguars and Stares, OH MY!

 

Me at Coney Island Beach - July 2022

This week, I watched the new Pamela Anderson Netflix documentary, "Pamela: A Love Story." I enjoyed it overall, but knowing that Pamela has gained so much strength and confidence through surviving scandals and bad marriages, I was disappointed to see that she is insecure about her body.  At one point, her mom asks her why she doesn't wear tight fitting clothes anymore, and Pamela answers that it is because nobody wants to see her body anymore.  Later, she comments that people no longer want to see her breasts. The mistaken notion that women are only worth admiring when they're young probably originated in her mind during her heyday of posing nude for "Playboy."  Though I have no qualms about women posing nude, I've always believed that "Playboy" magazine was the wrong venue for it.  After all, "Playboy" was created and controlled by the late Hugh Hefner - a man who forbade his models to wear red lipstick because in the era he grew up in, red lipstick was a statement of strength, boldness, courage, and independence.  Plus, I'm sure he had convinced his models that they are only beautiful when they are youthful.

I'm only a little bit younger than Pamela Anderson, and it stings to know that many women in our age group are hesitant to show off their bodies.  Some people believe that what the years do to women's bodies is distasteful. Yet when women get plastic surgery in an attempt to look youthful, they are criticized even more. Thinking about the vitriol hurled at Madonna after her recent appearance on the Grammys is devastating.  Countless people made hurtful comments about how her face has changed through the overuse of  Botox and plastic surgery.  They say she looks horrible and question why a woman who once had an abundance of self-confidence would now feel so badly about herself that she needs to cave into the pressure to look younger.  I believe that the reason she has decided to remain wrinkle-free is because her business is pop music which is a genre of music listened to by the young. The music she has recorded for decades brings listeners back to the years they first heard the songs, and she wants her look to match how she looked during the time periods of those songs. She prefers the skin on her face to have the smoothness of youth.  

In actuality, not everyone hates Madonna's new look.  Many of her comments on Instagram praise her for looking beautiful.  Everybody has different preferences regarding physical appearances.  For instance, some people prefer thin bodies and others prefer curvy bodies; some love how women look with breast implants, others prefer natural breasts;  some people find mature women more attractive, others prefer youthful women.  Pamela Anderson shouldn't just assume that she is no longer desirable because her looks are now that of a mature woman.  As I said, different people find different looks attractive, and I doubt she gave it a second thought years ago when she had breast implant surgery even though there are many people who prefer natural, smaller breasts. 

Luckily for us, several mature women once celebrated for their beautiful faces in the 1980's are now speaking out on our behalf.  Model, Paulina Porizkova, and actress, Brooke Shields, are working hard to break down the myths that older women are no longer beautiful.  Paulina does this in her new "No Filter" book of essays, and Brooke does this with her website and newsletter "The Beginning is Now."  Whether a woman wants to get plastic surgery to look younger or instead chooses to age naturally is nobody else's business.  The most beautiful asset a woman can have is confidence.  If we still believe we are beautiful, then others will too.  If you've got it, flaunt it, and even if you don't think you've got it, take a chance and flaunt it anyway, and never let anyone make you feel shameful about it. 

This Is Not A Post About Chicago

It all started with a beautiful man.  But don't most things start that way?  An attractive person can change your world.  I grew up on 1980's movies where it's usually a male character who falls in love at first sight with a female character and then spends the rest of the movie pursuing her and having thoughts about nothing but her.  Movies like "Valley Girl" when Randy the punk spotted beautiful valley girl, Julie, on the beach and then crashed the preppie party to meet her. Well, I'm not about to crash any parties, but after seeing Robert Lamm of Chicago on their "Live at Tanglewood" concert video from 1970,  I have been consumed by all things Chicago. 

THE video! "Beginnings" from "Chicago - Live at Tanglewood"

A few months ago in August, I flipped my TV channel remote on the Chicago episode of AXS Channel's "Rock Legends" series. I remembered that my former stepfather gave me his "Chicago IX -  Greatest Hits" album on vinyl when I was a teenager.   This was in the 1980's, and until I'd heard this album, I had no idea that Chicago had a full brass section and a singer with a deep voice.  I was only familiar with their videos showing Peter Cetera as their lead singer, a blonde-haired tenor who sang ballads. It was a pleasant surprise to discover this earlier version of Chicago, and I listened to my "Chicago IX" album regularly.  I was told the singer with the deep voice on my album was Terry Kath who died in the 1970's in a gun accident.  My favorite songs on the album were "Make Me Smile," "Call on Me," "Beginnings," and "Feeling Stronger Everyday." 

My new Chicago bracelet set that I asked an Etsy artist to make for me featuring my favorite Chicago song 

After the AXS episode refreshed my memory of how much I loved those songs, I decided to look on YouTube for Chicago videos. I searched for "Beginnings" and stumbled upon the Tanglewood concert.  At first, I assumed the long-haired man getting ready to sing at the microphone was the deceased Terry Kath.  Basically, I just assumed this because I knew he wasn't Peter Cetera.   But right away, I heard him say, "Terry," while looking to his side and gesturing with his hand, so I said to myself, "Oh. This isn't Terry Kath. BUT THEN WHO IS THIS HANDSOME GUY??!!"  I Googled and found out it was Robert Lamm and that he is still alive and STILL good-looking at age seventy-eight. 

Soon I was watching every single Chicago video and documentary I could find.  Not just to see 1970's Robert Lamm but because Chicago's musicianship speaks to me. Even though I consider myself primarily a novelist, at the core of my heart, I am a musician.  When I was five years old, I begged my parents to let me take piano lessons.  They put me off until I was six because they didn't want to waste money on a piano only to have me change my mind.  I didn't change my mind, and I took lessons until I was sixteen. Then, when I was eighteen, I enrolled at Boston's Berklee College of Music.  Watching live Chicago videos during the Terry Kath years of 1970 through 1977 is like being at Berklee again.  Every night I enjoy sitting with a half glass of Chardonnay or a half bottle of Guinness beer with my headphones on and plugged into YouTube.  I am behind in my podcasts and in editing the 2nd draft of my newest novel because I keep watching and listening to Chicago in the 1970's, and it feels so good.

Pin from my Pinterest Board dedicated solely to Chicago's Robert Lamm

One day last month, I was really angry.  Just from the usual, everyday life's frustrations. So at night, I put the entire "Live at Tanglewood" concert into my headphones yet again. Terry Kath's amazing and busy guitar playing and Danny Seraphine's wild, forceful, drumming helped get everything out of me.  It was cathartic and exactly what I needed.  I was able to sleep peacefully that night.

So why do I keep on watching and listening to Chicago? I believe it is because obsessions allow us to distract our minds from the everyday things that are troubling us. Things like the fact that I have only $10 left in my checking account.  Or when I think about how if I carry my mug of tea down the stairs, I may trip and fall and die like Ivana Trump did while carrying her mug of coffee.  Or if something like that doesn't happen to me, and I live another forty years, is the planet going to be half submerged under water by then?  These days, when I have anxious thoughts, I immediately switch them, and instead, I plug into Chicago.

I know that eventually my fascination with Chicago will dim, but I don't want it to yet because I'm having too much fun. I'm excited I'll get to see Chicago play live when they tour the East Coast in April 2023.  But what would be even better is if one night, Robert Lamm could magically step out of that "Chicago - Live at Tanglewood" YouTube video from out of my laptop the same way Jeff Daniels stepped off the movie theater screen in Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo!"  If that happened, I could remain in a dream fantasy world forever. Surely, this would be the perfect cure for my anxiety.  If only!

My ticket confirmation to see Chicago.  Robert Lamm is in the middle in white pants.

The Poem I Wrote As A Love Letter To My Vocal Cords

 

My Dad singing with his cover band "Beach Road" in the 1970's

In April 2016, I wrote a blog entry entitled, "Finally - Dad. (Part 1)."  I said that it was very difficult to write about my dad who died when I was fifteen but that eventually I would write more entries about him.  So here we are, six years later, with Part 2. In Part 1, I wrote about my dad's love of Walt Whitman's poetry and said that he wrote his own version of Whitman's collection of poems, "Leaves of Grass,"  by changing the words and setting the poems to music. Here in Part 2, I would like to share a poem that I wrote years ago, "Lifedream," and the story behind it. 

Even though my dad was a talented songwriter, his true love was singing.  His favorite singer was Teddy Pendergrass whose albums he often played at family gatherings, exclaiming, "Listen how Teddy sings this note! Nobody can sing like Teddy!" This prompted teasing from my aunt who told him, "You talk about him like he's your friend! 'Hey Teddy, let's go outside and play ball!'" My dad loved Pendergrass, but he judged other singers very harshly, and I could never understand why.  They all sounded good to me, and I figured that since they were on TV, they had to be good!  I never had the courage to actually sing in front of my dad.  Instead, I blared albums on my record player and sang along with my favorite singers at the time, Donna Summer and Diana Ross, behind the closed door of my bedroom.  I'll never forget the thrill I had on a car ride with my mom on the way to applepicking when she mentioned that my dad told her he had heard me singing in my room, and if I studied, I had the potential of becoming a really good singer.  My dad didn't throw singing compliments around lightly, so the joy I felt at that moment was monumental.  I immediately enrolled in singing lessons and continued them even after he died.  I knew singing was the closest I could be to him, and it was a way to make him proud of me. When I turned eighteen, I moved to Boston to study singing and songwriting at Berklee College of Music. I needed to know what truly made a singer good or bad.  Otherwise, I feared I'd become one of those singers that my dad would have hated!

College life and living in the dorms were not kind to my voice.  The stuffiness of the dorm rooms exacerbated my allergies, and the beer drinking and late nights roaming the halls screaming and being silly made my voice hoarse.  At one point, I was limited to a three-note range.  My voice teacher recommended an ear, nose and throat specialist to examine my vocal cords.  The diagnosis wasn't good. I had the beginnings of vocal nodules, simply called "nodes," which are benign growths on the vocal cords that develop when people abuse their voices.  The struggle to heal my voice was difficult and depressing. I stopped drinking beer and staying up late.  I stopped singing and screaming in the hallways.   But I kept on writing.  The following poem, "Lifedream," is a metaphorical poem I wrote to my vocal cords, expressing my sadness and disappointment and my fear that my voice would never come back:

"Lifedream"

I will shelter you like a thin sheet of ice./Put you in a tiny box./Preserve you till I'm ready.  

No, I'd never give you up./Never give up skating.

But you and I don't think alike./Never meant to hurt you./And up until the end of time,/I'll never give up skating. 

But maybe I can't save the ice./My body crushed and crumbling through./If I can't live my life on ice,/I'll never love you true.

I will shelter you and hold you tight./Together we will move.

If I fall through this sheet of ice,/My life's dream I will lose.

Slowly, my vocal range came back.  In fact, my voice teacher told me she had never seen anyone overcome vocal damage to the extent that I was able to with no outside medical treatment. But I still felt I would never be able to sing as well as my dad would have wanted me to.  Anytime I had a late night or was run down, my sensitivity to hoarseness acted up.  My voice teacher also told me that my speaking voice was harsh and very different from my singing voice.  She said you must speak the same way that you sing but that trying to speak in a way that wasn't natural to me might change my personality. I didn't want to do that, and eventually, I just decided that if I couldn't sing as well as my dad, there was no use in singing at all.  It all turned out okay though because I'm happy now writing novels.  Plus, it's been beautiful to rediscover my poem and to remember those days when singing was so meaningful to me.

Swimming Pools and Me

Me as a teen in my childhood home swimming pool

When I was eight years old, my dad and I sat together in our backyard and watched the workmen dig our grass and dirt to put in a new above-the-ground swimming pool. My mom referred to our pool as a "15 Round" which meant that it measured fifteen feet in diameter.  The outside was blue, and it had straight white panels going down each side with the words "Esther Williams" printed on them. My grandmother told me that Esther Williams was a very famous swimmer who starred in Hollywood movies many years ago.   

Every summer, my best friend, Ania, and I spent most of our time in my pool.  Even though she had an oval, above-the-ground swimming pool in her own backyard, we were always in mine.  A few times, we stayed in so long that our lips turned blue!  We loved being in my swimming pool so much that we never realized we were cold - probably because we were always moving and jumping up and down.  One summer, I spent so much time doing handstands and cartwheels underwater that I came down with an ear infection.  I had to take ear drops and wear earplugs every summer after that.  Sometimes, I pretended I was a mermaid and that my swimming pool was a big tank I lived in while on land. Nothing felt better than being in my swimming pool.

But then I grew up and left home for college in Boston.  While I was away, my mom sold the house.  For many years after that, I had a recurring dream that I returned to my childhood home, and the water in my swimming pool turned green.  I was distraught that the pool was unusable. I figured I dreamed this because shortly before I had left home, our pool water really did turn green.  I hadn't been very good at keeping up with putting in the scoops of chlorine and running the filter.  My dad was the one in charge of our pool, but he passed away when I was fifteen.  In my dreams, as soon as I saw that the water was green, I went on a desperate quest for chlorine. Sometimes, I'd look in my shed and other times I'd try to find a store somewhere, hoping it was still open in the middle of the night.  Eventually, I'd find one, and I'd spend the rest of the dream measuring out the chlorine.  

Illustration from Instagram

I've never had my own pool as an adult, but I always enjoy them whenever I get to swim.  One of my favorites is this wave pool in Pennsylvania.  I didn't know one existed until I went in.  It was the best of both worlds, as my other favorite place in the world is the ocean.  One time, I was staying at a hotel in Nevada, near Las Vegas, and the hotel pool was an inground pool that had the pool water streaming right up onto the concrete floor at your feet as you approached it. I was only in Nevada for a couple of days and had a jam-packed schedule with family who live there so I didn't make time to go into the pool.  Ever since that day,  I STILL regret that I didn't go in, and I swear I will one day go back to that same hotel so I can get into that particular swimming pool! 

Over the years, the swimming pool water in my recurring dreams began to appear clearer and less green. I haven't had one of those dreams in a while.  Sometimes, I miss having a swimming pool to call my own.  I can't have one in my backyard now because my small yard is on a slanted hill which is nearly all rock.  But I guess it would be possible to put in a pool if I hired an expert to check the yard out. I mean, if I can find a store to buy chlorine  in the middle of the night, then I suppose anything is possible!

Esther Williams in 1953 (cinemasips.com)

5 Ways To Have Fun During Post-Quarantine Limbo

Remember in January when we referred to 2020 as "The Roaring 20's" so we could feel like our new decade would be as wild and free as the original 1920's? Back in 1920, people were happy that World War I was over, and they celebrated through decadence and carefree living.  But by 1929,  the stock market crashed which facilitated the Great Depression causing many months of fear and anxiety.  Turns out our Roaring 20's were headed in the same direction but instead of it taking a decade to crash and burn, it took us only a few months!

I live in New York City, and these days, our numbers of COVID-19 cases are less than 1% positive among those  tested.  This is an all-time low, considering our number of virus cases had skyrocketed in March, April and May.  We are now partially reopened, and people can be less afraid of going outdoors.  Personally, I feel as though I am in a "Post-Quarantine Limbo." I can't go back to a "life is normal again" routine when such a large portion of our country currently has their hospitals overfilled with Coronavirus patients.  These states didn't follow New York's example of not reopening until the cases were down. They didn't wear masks and participated in large indoor gatherings. Even scarier, some New Yorkers are also guilty of this right now, convinced that our previous high number of cases is a thing of the past. Between my own state's complacency coupled with the reality that people from all over the country will try to travel to New York City this summer, it may be just a matter of time until we New Yorkers have to go back into full quarantine.  Realizing this, I think that before we crash and burn again, why don't we just have a bit of fun during this little reprieve of low infection rate and pleasant (albeit very hot and rainy) summer weather while we can?

Here is a list of 5 things we can enjoy while in Post-Quarantine Limbo:

1.  Visiting Outdoor Markets, Outside Dining and a Limited Amount of Indoor Retail Shopping 

Finally, we can feel safe to do small trips out.  After not leaving my neighborhood for half of March and the entire months of April and May, I was hardly able to contain myself when June rolled around, and I took my first trip back to Stop & Shop!  Home deliveries of food kept me fed during quarantine, but back when I gave up actual meat in the year 2001, I never thought that one day I would also have to give up meat substitutes! I couldn't find any home delivery method to get Morningstar Bacon, Boca Burgers or Amy's Spaghetti and Meatballs, so I was thrilled to load my shopping cart and freezer with all of those again.  Later in June, I shopped and ate at Empire Outlets, an outdoor marketplace near the Staten Island Ferry.  Fantasizing about returning to Empire Outlets kept me sane back in March. I told myself that by July 1st, I'll be outdoors at Empire Outlets, feeling the ocean wind in my hair.  I assured myself: "I WILL shop and eat outside food again!"  So this summer, I plan to make every minute count. I need to just in case by winter, my biggest thrill will again be the fact that my Misfits Box contains those little yellow potatoes that I can cut into quarters and microwave. 

2. Reading Romantic Fiction About Pandemic Heroes

Think of how anxiety-ridden New Yorkers would have been back in March and April if we didn't have our quarantine hero, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (the Luv Gov), to reassure us with daily Coronavirus briefings? Dr. Anthony Fauci's soothing and intelligent words were also there to comfort our souls. So imagine my thrill when I heard about a 1991 romantic novel in which its author, Sally Quinn, based her romantic hero, Dr. Michael Lanzer, on none other than our very own Dr. Fauci!  You too can dig up this old book (I found it on Amazon, but you have to look every day because copies under $40 are few and far between) and enjoy escaping into steamy prose starring one of our quarantine heroes.  Bearing that in mind, why not just write a story yourself?  For instance, CNN host Christopher Cuomo and his frequent guest, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, can also be materialized into dashing romantic characters.  Or, if you're a male, why not write a romantic story about that beautiful brunette reporter who asks Trump the tough questions on CNN?  Just now, I Googled exactly that: "beautiful brunette reporter on CNN who Trump hates," and the first thing that popped up was exactly the name I was trying to remember:  Kaitlan Collins! I believe we should keep up the skill of escaping into our minds through reading and fantasy so our imagination muscles can stay flexed if we have to go into full-time quarantine again.  Nothing and nobody can ever stop us from reading and writing.

 3.  Baking Shih-Tzu Sugar Cookies

Seems like everyone was cooking, baking bread, and making their own pizza dough during quarantine.  Since it's such a healthy and enjoyable habit, I think we should keep this indoor hobby up whether quarantined or not.  I think I'm going to expand to buying cookie cutters in the shape of Shih-Tzus so I can bake sugar cookies from scratch which I haven't done in about two decades.  I'll also continue to utilize my giant box of Bisquick purchased during quarantine because with it, I can make everything from biscuits to muffins to pizza crust.  If there's anything anyone can think of that Bisquick CAN'T be turned into, please comment below and let me know.

4. Laughing at Funny Memes

Keep reading those funny memes because if you don't laugh, you'll cry.

5.   Setting Off or Just Watching Fireworks, 1990's-Style

I'm still hearing fireworks go off nearly every single night, and this 4th of July, they were completely out of control!  It was like the early 1990's again! This year, nobody heeded the usual fireworks warnings to not buy them because they are dangerous and illegal.  But I'm not complaining, as they were truly beautiful to see, and I didn't even have to leave my house!  I marveled at all their beautiful colors from my second floor window.  It's something we can keep on doing even if we get thrust into full-time quarantine again because they are an outdoor activity.  Plus, people will continue to socially distance while using them because who on earth wants to get their face that close to another person's flaming firework?

So while we remain in Post-Quarantine Limbo, let's just continue the fireworks show.  Let's be reckless and decadent in our imaginations and indoor forms of escapism.  But when the fun gets carried outside of our homes, let's just remember we must continue to stay socially distanced and Wear. A. Mask. 

Play It As It Lays

Me at Spring Lake, NJ

In Joan Didion's 1970 novel, "Play It as It Lays," lead character Maria is slowly losing her mind and unraveling through flashbacks told in very short chapters. According to Google, the term "Play it as it lays" means: "Take what you get, and figure it out, and make the best of it so that you can move forward." I'd never heard the expression before, so after reading it, I came to my own conclusions about what the phrase might mean, and that is: "Take it as it comes, just let each day unfold the way it wants to, and make no plans." Unlike Maria, who recalls several tragic events throughout the novel, my interpretation of the phrase is more suitable to mundane, everyday life.  Letting each day unfold and making no plans is a chill way of living.  I never followed it in my youth. I always planned, and waited, and definitely tried to control things. But these days, I realize how little control I have, so I find myself "taking things as they come" more often than ever before.

Me, Poolside in Canada   

"In Maria's own garden the air smelled of jasmine and the water in the pool was 85°. The water in the pool was always 85° and it was always clean."


Now that I'm older,  I never go to bed early enough. I guess it's because I'm more aware of the passage of time and how quickly it goes. It's like I don't want to miss anything. I stay up until midnight watching "The Twilight Zone" and "Alfred Hitchcock Hour," then have to wake up at 5:30 a.m. for work. I can fall asleep easily but often wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble getting back to sleep. My solution to daytime sleepiness is napping. First, I nap on the ferry on the way to work, then once at home, I nap anywhere I can think of. I used to sleep on the couch a lot, but now that I have my two-year-old Shih-Tzu, I can't because she won't let me. She seems to think it breaks routine,  so she paws at me and at the pillow as if to say: "You are not supposed to be sleeping on the couch!" So I try and sneak a nap on the recliner when she isn't paying attention. In "Play It as It Lays," Maria has trouble sleeping and finds that she can only fall asleep, and stay asleep, outside beside her swimming pool, lying on the lounge chairs along it. I think that in a larger sense, Maria has a feeling of unrest that goes beyond not sleeping. She doesn't feel comfortable anywhere and is unable to relax or let her guard down in order to enter a proper sleep. The act of sleeping outside on a pool chair resonated with me. I hate not being able to sleep, and if I found that sleeping on a chair in my backyard beside a swimming pool was the only way I could get some sleep, I would do it too, just like Maria.

                                                                                      Me and my Shih-Tzu


"Maria was listening to someone talk and every now and then she would hear herself making what she thought was an appropriate response but mostly she was just swaying slightly with the music and wondering where her drink was..."


We all, at times, find our minds wandering off when people talk to us. Often, I'll find myself drifting into different thoughts while someone is telling me a story. But suddenly, I'll see their animated expression or I'll notice a slight pause in conversation, and I'll usually respond with a "Wow" or an "Oh that's crazy." Otherwise, I'll just nod my head in agreement and hope my response was not way off. Maria has lost control in this scene and can't plan her responses as people often do in social situations.  Throughout the book, she is increasingly unable to adopt a persona, and by this point in her life, she is tiring of "the game," and through no other choice, she is only able to be her authentic self. She is real, but it is killing her. Throughout the story, she can only "play it as it lays," just like in this party scene, until she can escape with her drink.  It's exhausting trying to live as your truest self in a world where so many people work hard to perfect their outward personalities and control their responses, and you're over there taking every statement at face value and missing the inside jokes and the hidden innuendos. People don't want to take themselves as they are. Instead, they want to create the kind of person they think they should be. I think it's exhausting on both sides.


"Always when I play back my father's voice, it is with a professional rasp, it goes as it lays, don't do it the hard way.  My father advised me that life itself was a crap game: it was one of two lessons I learned as a child.  The other was that overturning a rock was apt to reveal a rattlesnake."

Me and my Dad. He used to love gambling on the horses.

Maria's dad is the one who advises her to "play it as it lays" at the end of the book. He says life is a crap game. He keeps on investing his money in shaky business deals, and keeps on losing, but he never loses his positivity and optimism. He advises Maria to relinquish control.

My assessment is that life can sometimes make you messed up like Maria:  There are times you only want a drink, and other times, you have insomnia because you are aware of the passage of time and how quickly it all goes.  But you have to realize you can't control these things. You have to learn to "play it as it lays" and do the best you can with what you've got because, really, you have no other choice, and most of the time, that's perfectly OK.

“I am what I am. To look for reasons is beside the point.” 

Joan Didion (brainpickings.org)

Why I Believe It Is Essential To Watch SMILF

Photo from Stalktr.net

This Sunday marks the last episode of Showtime Channel's "SMILF" until (hopefully) the show gets picked up by another network. It would be a shame to see this masterpiece which depicts the lives and thoughts of real women in an honest and unique way cease to exist when it was only just getting started.

SMILF is the brainchild of writer, director and actress Frankie Shaw. She stars as Bridgette Bird who is a single mom with a young son named Larry, and they live together in South Boston. Bridgette loves to play basketball, has a raw sexuality and a vulgar mouth, but her love and devotion to her son is fierce. I discovered SMILF late in the game, after Season 1 ended, but I binge-watched all eight episodes on a day off from work and instantly got hooked. Subsequently, as Season 2 began, my favorite thing to do each week was grab my bottle of birthday Shiraz wine that my best friend got me, pour a glass, cut a sliver of cheddar cheese, and sit down at 10:30 pm, Sunday nights, to watch SMILF.

SMILF is different and daring. Similar to HBO's "Girls" but focusing mainly on Bridgette, her mom, brilliantly played by Rosie O'Donnell, and her son, Larry, rather than an ensemble female cast. The intelligence in the writing is still there and the lead character again is a true-to-life, flawed, human being who is aware that she has a lot to learn but wants to do it in her own way and on her own timetable based on the feelings she has from within rather than imitating what she thinks is expected of her from society. She is just another creative woman who feels differently than everybody else and is simply trying to muddle through life as best as she can.



Gloria Steinem said in her book "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions" that the way to test if  you think someone is being sexist is to switch the male and female roles in their story and see if you think the same things would happen and the same feelings elicited if the roles were reversed. For example, if  someone tells you a story about how their female boss at work was  "on the rag" today because she was getting on everybody's case for not getting their work done fast enough and was being bitchy with everyone, would the storyteller have used the same language if their story had been about a male boss or would this just have been considered a typical day at the office and not even worthy of mentioning? Last Sunday's SMILF (Season 2, Episode 9: "Single Mom Is Losing Faith") demonstrated this type of test commendably.  The entire episode has a cowboy setting, and initially, the viewer naturally assumes that the male cowboys are in charge of the town, but odd things are seen in the background. There are good-looking men walking around in the background of the town saloon, and they are wearing pants with holes cut out in the backs of their blue jeans revealing naked backsides. Shortly after this scene, as more dialogue occurs between the male and female characters, it becomes obvious that the reason these male inhabitants of this Western town are dressed this way is because the town is run by women. So instead of seeing females' butt cheeks predominantly featured in yoga pants or hanging out the backs of short-shorts, this is what this town features. Men wear make up and speak in gentle, self-effacing, remorseful tones. In this episode, Bridgette is having a bad day as she is riding her horse around town and lamenting over having to pay Cowboy Taxes so she says she needs to blow off some steam. The way she makes herself feel better is to go upstairs and gain the services of her male prostitute who proceeds to ride her from the top in exactly the same style as a woman rides a man.

SMILF is not preachy in its feminist viewpoint. It shows instead of tells. The cowboy episode is a great example of this. Its script never spells out what it's trying to say. Rather, it's all symbolism, and you have to figure it out for yourself. These days, we need a show like SMILF to show a real portrayal of women who dictate their own sexuality rather than giving into the needs of older, powerful men as has been traditionally done in entertainment for decades. SMILF is honest and original. Just like so many of us women are. Maybe SMILF is still ahead of its time. Similar to how female bosses were several decades ago.

Photo from Fanpop.com

Zip Zip Zinging In The New Year

It's New Year's, and to me that means watching "The Twilight Zone" marathon or re-watching Henry Jaglom's movie, "New Year's Day." It also means watching the Ball drop on TV from Times Square in New York City at midnight, wishing it were still an apple like it was during the 1980's. I can remember New Year's Eve in the '80's more than I can in any other decade. I'd watch Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, and when 1984 passed into 1985, I realized that from this point on, every year would now be a year my dad would never see. But that's a downer! Truth is, I see each New Year as a year full of promise. 2019 will be the year I'll finish the first draft of my latest novel. I've been having a hard time getting it off the ground because it's too close to me. It's my mind focused on serious things, such as living as a woman in the Trump era. My characters have a lot to say, but all I want to do is escape with a glass of Chardonnay and a plate of fried shrimp.

Hopefully, I'll push my fears away and get into a groove with what will be my fifth novel. The problem with buckling down with a novel is that it leaves little time to work on shorter stories and to give them the attention they deserve. I'd love to keep submitting and seeing my stories posted on the Web because that's such a thrill, but sometimes, writing a good short story can take as many months of rewriting and editing as a short novel can. I see 2019 mostly as the year I'll write another novel, but I'm also excited that later this year, one of my short stories will appear in an Anthology, so I'll have to let that sustain me until I can devote the kind of time that quality short stories deserve.

So here's to 2019! Here's to remembering friends who didn't make it out of 2018 but who remain in our memories along with all the music we'd listened to with them, the glasses of wine we drank together and all those lengthy discussions of life.  Let's read, talk, and give a toast to 2019! My books aren't going to write themselves, and as much as I want to escape, I also need to express the things that weigh heavily on my mind. I want to give something back like my favorite writer, Anais Nin, did when she reluctantly went deep inside herself to bring out what we often suppress. Reading helps all of us bring our own hidden thoughts to the surface so we can feel like we're never truly alone.

It Was An Era

Last week was the 17th anniversary of 9/11. Every anniversary of 9/11 makes us all relive what we were doing on the day the Twin Towers came down. I was on the Staten Island express bus on my way to work at a law firm one block away from the World Trade Center, and I found out from one of the few people on the bus who had a cell phone who got a phone call saying that "a small plane flew into one of the Twin Towers." As people learned about the events occurring from more calls on their cell phones, I was reading a computer print-out of a J.D. Salinger story that my friend Chris Dillon let me borrow from a rare collection he printed off the internet.  I listened with one ear and read about J. D. Salinger's character stuck in a partially underground trench as a soldier in the other ear. It wasn't pleasant reading, and that image of war from J.D. Salinger's story is the last thing I remember thinking about before the actual painful truth of the terrorist events of 9/11 unfolded and clouded all of my thoughts for days, weeks and months. I lost six pounds just from being upset. Last Tuesday morning (9/11 happened to be on a Tuesday also), I didn't know that while I watched the footage reliving the days of 9/11, Chris had died the day before on September 10th from tainted heroin.

New York City had a very different vibe before 9/11. We used to feel free in New York City, but on September 11, 2001, the City forever lost its innocence. During the first half of 2001, Chris and I were musicians on the East Village, NYC music scene and even played in a band together for a short while. The clubs were always packed, and it was an exciting time to be in NYC. But after 9/11, the clubs were suddenly empty, losing money, and nobody wanted to go out anymore. It was depressing to accept the sad truth that our City could be attacked that way, and nothing could ever feel the same again.

On September 10, 2001, I ate my lunch sitting under the Twin Towers. I didn't know that would be the last time I ever sat under those silver towers. About two years ago (maybe it was less, I don't know), I saw Chris, and we talked all about the old days. He had gray hair now and told me that his dog who he loved so much was named Katniss after the "Hunger Games" so he nicknamed her "The Hero Pup." He handed me some Hero Pup stickers, which was his new band that was really just him, singing and writing songs, that had a caricature of his precious dog on it. I put it on my Kindle that I carry everywhere. I didn't know that would be the last time I ever saw him.

 As soon as I learned of Chris' passing, thoughts of the days I knew him flooded me. I remembered the poetry written in magic marker on the walls of his attic room, the candles that smelled like chocolate that were always burning as we talked and talked and talked while we drank wine around the coffee table that was my grandparents' when I grew up. I was so grateful he took some furniture I'd remembered from my childhood home in Bay Terrace so they didn't have to be thrown away, and I could still enjoy a piece of something left from when I was a kid. At Chris' memorial, his brother and I reminisced about how often we all saw each other during those days many years back. "It was an era," he said, and that's the best way to describe it. Life is full of eras that come and go. But those long days existed, and certain things will always unexpectedly pop up to bring them back from time to time. It's true that things can never be the same again. But at least we had that era.


RIP Christopher Dillon Micha a/k/a The Hero Pup