I'm Bewitched

My need for escape is a constant in my life. I think it is for most artistic people. We're more dreamers than doers, and after we've done all the things we absolutely need to do, we spend the rest of our free time indulging in fantasy. In many people's minds, fantasizing sounds like a lazy luxury unless one has an abnormal amount of time to spare. During the pandemic, my escape was watching every single episode of the old black and white TV series, "Perry Mason." It consumed so much of my life that I made Perry the focus of my essay, "How I Survived 2020." After the pandemic, my essay was published and nominated for the Pushcart Prize so, ultimately, I believe my escape wasn't time wasted!

Now three years later, my escape is the classic TV series "Bewitched." It's a TV show starring Elizabeth Montgomery that aired in the late 1960's to early 1970's about an immortal witch named Samantha who marries a mortal human named Darrin. I regularly watched the reruns as a child, but as an adult, the only episode I could remember was one where Endora, Samantha's mom, puts a spell on Darrin that makes his ears grow to an enormous size every time he tells a lie. Recently, one morning, I was changing the channels on my TV and saw two children with weird-painted eyebrows, dressed in peasant clothes, and made to look like "Hansel and Gretel" from the children's story.  Samantha and Darrin's young daughter, Tabitha, has used her witch powers to trade places with Hansel and Gretel by taking them out of the storybook and into her bedroom, then leaving them there to deal with her puzzled parents while she jumps into the book herself. The premise is so funny, and the Hansel and Gretel kids look so goofy, that I started watching Bewitched every morning to have a laugh before I began my workday.

To feed my TV obsessions, I like to shop for things. During my Perry Mason stage, I found a mug for my desk that says, "Life Happens, Perry Helps." For my Bewitched obsession, I bought a cubic zirconia replica of the Pave Heart diamond necklace Samantha wears on the show so that I can wear it as I watch. 

I know it sounds crazy, but I find nothing wrong with having an escape that makes you feel good. Bewitched is a series that promotes positivity. Elizabeth Montgomery had a lot of influence on the show and in how the female characters were represented. Even older women were cast in major roles. Samantha's mother, Endora, played by Agnes Moorehead, appears in all eight seasons as a strong and self-assured woman in her mid sixties and early seventies.  Another older woman, Samantha's Aunt Clara played by actress Marion Lorne, was in her eighties at the time, and her character has boyfriends and she is shown very actively dating men. 

Samantha and her mom, Endora, hanging out in the garden

Another thing I love about Bewitched is that animals are portrayed as sentient beings. On Season 1, Episode 2,  “Ling Ling,” a cat who Samantha puts a spell on to temporarily turn her into a woman, decides she doesn't want to go back to being a cat because, in her words, “I like to be pampered and made a fuss over."  She tells Samantha that if she too had spent her life scrounging around alleys searching for scraps, she'd understand why she doesn't want to go back to being a cat.  She says, "from now on, it will be martinis and sardines all the way.”  On Season 2, Episode 25, "The Horse's Mouth," Samantha sees a horse wandering in the park and wants to know why, so she puts a spell on the horse so that she can talk with him or her.  The horse transforms into a tough, brunette-haired woman who tells Samantha that she just jumped off of a truck to flee her racetrack life because she was being neglected by her trainer and never wins any races.  I love these episodes because they embrace the belief that animals deserve respect and have emotions.

Elizabeth Montgomery was thirty-nine years old during the last season of Bewitched, and over its eight seasons, Samantha's character evolves from a just-married young woman wearing plain, housewife dresses in Season 1 to a freedom-loving woman decked out in short miniskirts and white knee-high socks. Part of this change was obviously influenced by the emerging women's movement and hippie revolution, but I like to think her change in identity has more to do with the fact that when we women approach age forty, we are liberated from a lot of the restrictions we had when we were younger.  We are wiser, confident, carefree, and not bothered and dragged down by the things that used to concern us needlessly. 

Samantha, played by actress Elizabeth Montgomery

Besides entertainment, there is a more important reason why we should have happy obsessions. A friend of mine once told me that a common thread in people who are depressed is that they have lost their ability to fantasize. They can't free themselves from their troubling thoughts and are unable to immerse themselves in another world. Considering this, I say we shouldn't feel guilty about sometimes indulging in fantasies and finding ourselves entranced by other realities.  The ability to escape from our ordinary lives from time to time may even be essential. 

Me and Samantha wearing the Pave Heart 

Be Careful What You Wish For

I spent the entire month of January working on a new short story. I edited it and cut it down drastically to adhere to the word count requirements for a submission call.  That meant putting aside the novel I've been writing for the past two years. By February, I knew it was time to get back to the novel, but I always found some reason to procrastinate. I was too exhausted from working all day, or on my days off, I was too agitated from being around people at the grocery store or overly irritated from waiting on a long line at the bank.  I always seemed to need another a break before I had to wake up and do it all over again tomorrow. I told myself: "If I could just have a few weeks home, I could really dive into this novel, make a dent in it, and finish a first draft. I just need a big bulk of time at home." Then, of course, March rolled along, and this wasn't at all what I'd wished for!


I worked my last day in Manhattan on March 16th, and on my walk home from the train station, I realized it would be a long time before I could go into the City again. After reading a few news stories and watching Governor Cuomo's press conferences, I predicted that the earliest I would be back to work was July 1st. This made me sad because I liked being in the City.  I loved eating my lunch in cafes and the hustle and bustle of walking outdoors.  I even enjoyed hurrying around to make the train and ferry connections.  I went to bed feeling awful. But the next morning, I woke up from a dream that I'd met a male stranger (a made-up one I didn't recognize from real life), and in the dream, the chase was so exciting, and I couldn't wait to see how things would unfold.  Then the next night, I had the same dream but with a different mystery man. The third night, same thing, yet another unknown man.  Why was I having pleasant dreams when all the news around me was so tragic, and nearly the entire planet had just been forced into quarantine with terrible fears of this new virus?

Possibly because subconsciously, I was excited about the idea of finally having enough time to do my writing at home. As a natural born introvert, I've always spent most of my time at home.  I crave alone time. I long to write. But even though I was home, the state of the world was tragic and scary, and I found it difficult to concentrate on my novel. I was fortunate enough to be able to earn money from home, and the only thing I feared particularly about being in quarantine was running out of things I needed. Luckily, home deliveries of food and chocolate, non-food essentials and, of course, liquor, kept those fears in check.  So, as long as I stayed home and didn't have to worry about catching the virus, I felt okay.  But many of my friends and people talking about quarantine on TV weren't feeling okay at all. I could understand their continued anxiety and their depression if they were out of work and struggling with money, but many of them were either also working from home or being supported by someone who was.  They just couldn't get used to the idea of being indoors and not being out in the world, but I had adjusted. I tried to figure out why.

My best theory is because as a writer, the joy and satisfaction I feel is not related to being out among other people but rather in challenging myself.  Creative writing is not dependent on crowd interaction.  I think if a person's art is dependent on outside validation and applause, then being quarantined must be extremely difficult.  Another theory is that as an introvert, I gain energy by being indoors whereas extroverts are energized by being outdoors. I believe that my extrovert friends' lack of energy has slowed some of them down into a deep depression.

On a more positive note, judging by what I see on social media and TV, it seems that many people, both artists and non-artists, although somewhat depressed and anxious, are trying to make the best of quarantine by doing things they wouldn't have time for if they were out in the world right now. I'm checking off the same things that they are: I've already made homemade pizza and baked brownies; I've binged new series on Hulu like "Dollface" and "High Fidelity"; I've watched as many indie movies as I can find on Pluto TV; and I regularly watch "Cuomo Prime Time" so I can laugh at the banter between the Cuomo brothers. On weekends, I go for walks in the neighborhood or to the harbor. I've also cut my Shih-Tzu dog's bangs and often hang out with her on the deck when weather permits.

The best part of my quarantine is that I'm finally getting some writing done. I've started a brand new short story and have been working on it nearly every day which is a regularity I could never achieve before the quarantine. I'm entertaining myself and keeping up my writing chops, but I still can't really dive into the novel! I can't make a dent in it, and I haven't gotten close to finishing its first draft. Maybe the key to being comfortable in quarantine is to lower our expectations. I'm not making great progress on the novel, but I have started a new short story that wouldn't exist if I hadn't been put into quarantine.  Overall, the most important thing any of us can do is to try and stay as healthy as possible and do our part to keep others healthy as well.  We won't be indoors forever.  Time always passes much more quickly than we wished it had, and sometimes, we need to be careful of what we wish for.

Bingeing Bourdain

Photo by John Reardon from article on theguardian.com

Last month, we celebrated "Bourdain Day" to honor Anthony Bourdain - the former chef, writer, and star of the TV shows "No Reservations" and "Parts Unknown." In these two series, he traveled to different parts of the world to have meals with the locals, or sometimes he brought a friend or fellow chef with him to eat in different restaurants. June 25th was chosen as Bourdain Day by his friends and fans because that was his birthday.  Tragically, June is also the month he took his own life last year, however, the motto for Bourdain Day is "Get out and live," and I think that's a better way to remember him.

Last summer, I binge-watched "Parts Unknown," so this summer I decided to binge-watch "No Reservations."  I watch his shows to escape. I'm not traveling this summer so I like to see all the faraway places he goes to. Many are around oceans and have vacation vibes to them. But he also visits poverty-stricken places and never hesitates to sit down for a meal at a family's home and eat the same things they do. I enjoy listening to his monologues during the shows. He explains each place's history and his own feelings about how the meals taste and how the people treat him and each other.

Bourdain was definitely a storyteller. He philosophized about life. I particularly enjoyed the Vietnam episode of "No Reservations" where he spoke about the desire to move there for a year to write his own novel. I think a big part of the allure of his shows for me is that I like people who write. I like and relate to people who can tell stories.

My only criticism about his shows is his obsession with eating meat. He constantly talked about wanting to eat meat, and we'd have to watch him eat meat, and sometimes we even had to sit through watching the locals trap pigs and other animals so they could slaughter them, all while Bourdain observed and told us about it. As a person who doesn't eat land animals at all, I hate these segments.  But actually, for meat-eaters, I think it's essential that they show the entire procedure that goes into eating meat so people can learn. Otherwise, they are just cooking and eating the packages of plastic-wrapped red squiggles that they pick up at the supermarket. Even though Bourdain ate so much meat, at least he saw first hand how the animals were killed rather than how the usual meat-eater just turns a blind eye and doesn't want to think about the fact that it is an animal they are eating as opposed to a cooked red squiggle.  I'm not a vegan (although I wish I were), and I still eat fish. My reasoning is that I can handle watching people catch fish and then cooking them so I'm being realistic about where my food comes from.

In addition to eating tons of meat on these shows, Bourdain also eats fruits, vegetables, noodles, and desserts. Oh, and if you happen to binge-watch his shows, notice how many times he mentions eating "sea urchins." He seems to eat sea urchins in about every other episode!

So this summer, I'm again living vicariously through Bourdain's travels and meals. It's devastating that even though he traveled the world and seemed to have a job he really loved, he still couldn't get over his depression. It got me thinking: Even though I love how much of a realist Bourdain was, maybe too much reality isn't good?  Considering how he left us, it seems it wasn't good for him.  Sometimes we need to turn that blind eye - like the meat-eaters do during dinner - in order to survive.  Escaping is good for us. Or more accurately, it's necessary.

IMDB.Com

With President Barack Obama (Vox.Com)

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

I'm Celebrating That Summer Feeling! (Oh and more of my writing being published!)

Summer is finally here! It's my favorite season because it's the time of year when I feel the most free. Something about it being hot all the time reminds me of being a kid and playing with my friends in the street when the days seemed like they'd never end. The way I feel freedom these days is through my writing. This summer, I am honored to have three of my short stories included in an upcoming Anthology called "Howls from the Underground" which is being released by an independent publisher called Screamin' Skull Press. I couldn't be more excited! Here are short descriptions of my three short stories:

1. "Beer and Sunlight"

This is the longest short story I have in the Anthology. It takes place in the early 1990's, and it is about the unique friendship and relationship between a young woman and an older man. The illustration at the top of this blog entry is a picture I found in my writing sketchbook from my initial notes of the story.  A short time later, I did a psychological quiz from one of my books where you had to draw the sun, a tree, a house, a river, and a snake. When I drew the house and the sun, I drew the sun shining over the house in the same way I had drawn the sun over the bottle of Heineken beer in this illustration. The quiz said that the house symbolizes yourself and the sun symbolizes your father. I suppose I could have drawn the sun way above the house, as you often see in children's drawings, as a circle having short rays extending around it. But I've never drawn the sun that way. I've always drawn it the way it is here, radiating over the beer bottle. Possibly, the memory of my dad encompasses everything in my life.

2. "We Love to Watch Zee Cockroaches"

This story is about an Austrian woman who uses "Z's" in her speech because she is unable to use the "th" sound we use in English. She has a Spanish boyfriend, and the two of them entertain an American couple in their rather odd apartment. She offers the couple straight vodka in a shot glass with a glass of water on the side and insists that this was never her original idea: “You know, we never drink vodka zis way till we meet you," she tells them. "We never have straight. Wiz ice and juice before.” But the vodka drinking is the least unusual thing about her living situation.

and

"I'm Sexy AF"

This story is my take on Instagram "models" and the general degradation and dumbing down of our society thanks to fads like the Kardashians. Reality TV and filtered photos aren't real. I'm very much looking forward to the day that all of this self aggrandizement goes away.



In addition to "Howls from the Underground," I am working on my fifth novel. I'm looking forward to writing it this summer but have no idea when I'll finish it.  I don't even know if I'll release it independently as I did my first two novels: "Iggy Gorgess" and "Bliss, Bliss, Bliss." I still fantasize that someday I'll publish a blockbuster novel. But right now, I'm content with being an indie writer. Sometimes I wonder if I resist making commercial novels my goal because I don't want to sound like everybody else?  In my mind, the appeal of commercial novels to the majority of people is the same thing as how most people identify with music like the Beatles and Joni Mitchell. Maybe my novels and short stories speak more to the primal parts of ourselves and would resonate better with passionate, wild people who prefer a musician like Brian Wilson during his "Smile" period or every song that Laura Nyro recorded on her own? The best scenario would be to appeal to both sets of people, similar to the way Anne Rice's vampire books are commercial but also literary. But those books are rare. I just hope to someday find an editor who will understand me or an agent who will know exactly where to place me. In the meantime, I'm perfectly satisfied with being labeled as an underground, independent writer, and I just aim to get my writing read by as many people as possible.



The other thing that makes me feel free is swimming in the ocean.  Last summer, I went to Florida but didn't get to swim in the ocean because I went to the beach during a thunderstorm!  This summer, I need to get myself into the ocean so I plan to go to a New Jersey beach or to Coney Island. I'll just pretend I'm in a more exotic locale. Fantasy is another amazing vehicle for feeling free. I love to just imagine and live vicariously through others. I'm going to do this by watching the entire series of "Parts Unknown" by Anthony Bourdain. I literally was JUST getting into his show when he committed suicide. I still don't understand it. How could someone who gets to travel the world, eat the best food, and drink the best liquor -- all while getting paid for it -- not want to live this life anymore? I know from reading articles in the wake of his death that he had been fighting "demons" which nobody else could really understand.  So I just want to honor the legacy he left us. I plan to sit with a glass of wine and a plate of cheese and crackers and celebrate his life, reveling in that feeling of freedom I always strive for during summer.

"Iggy" Novel Coming This Winter!

Iggy was bored so he moved to New York.  Before there was Felicity -- the lead character of my "Bliss, Bliss, Bliss" novel -- there was Iggy.  In fact, if there hadn't been an Iggy, there would have never been a Felicity.

When my best childhood friend, Ania, and I were teenagers, we loved taking the subway on Saturday afternoons to Greenwich Village in Manhattan. We saw people with dyed black or blue hair, mohawks, and black leather clothes with silver studs and safety pins on them when we went to the Village.  We shopped at the stores "Flip" and "Butterfly," which sold black leggings and punk clothing.  Butterfly also had jewelry and postcards.  It was a Bauhaus postcard that gave me the idea for Iggy's look.  That dyed black, punk hairstyle spiked up high, and black eyeliner always stayed in my mind.  That was a real punk.

Years later, while living in Canada, I enrolled in a Women's Writer's Workshop at the local college and wrote several short stories with female lead characters, but I never liked them.  They didn't speak for me, and I couldn't find a female voice I could relate to.  One night, while flipping the TV channels, I stumbled upon a 1970's movie starring Jon Voight called "The Odessa File."  Something about the mood of the scene captivated me.  It is about an American man living in Germany with his German go-go dancer girlfriend.  He spends many hours one evening reading a manuscript when his girlfriend suddenly enters the living room and says she's trying to get a taxi for work.  He says, "Don't I always take you?"  They both seem aloof and moody, and the scene just drew me in.  Suddenly, Iggy was born.

I immediately wrote a short story called "Iggy's Dailies."  It was about a moody male character who I put into a scene similar to that evening in Germany in "The Odessa File" movie, but I made him live in Greenwich Village, NYC. I remembered that Bauhaus postcard I'd seen in the punk shop those years ago. I made him look like that.  There was still the problem of what to name him.  I had such a hard time coming up with one, so I told myself that I was just going to look down at the magazines on my coffee table, and I'd choose the first name I looked at.  The first thing my eyes caught focus of was a tiny picture of Iggy Pop.  Iggy.  I couldn't come up with any other names, so I decided to just call him Iggy.

I brought "Iggy's Dailies" into my Women's Writer's Workshop.  They didn't like the title and told me it was not a "slice of life" story, as I'd called it. At the time, I took their word for it, but looking back, I think Iggy is a slice of life story.  It is a sample of Iggy's life.  It's him hanging around in his living room, reading his manuscript.  It's Iggy. Simply Iggy.  It's a depiction of Iggy's everyday reality.  The only difference between my novel and a typical "slice of life" story is that I developed Iggy's character.  He's not just a bit part in a story that's front and center. 

I took Iggy with me to my Novel Writing course and began writing Iggy in chapter form. Next semester, I took a Screenwriting class and adapted the first 10 pages of my Iggy novel-in-progress as a screenplay.  Our final assignment was to choose a few people from our class to act out the dialog in the screenplay.  I chose someone named Joel to play Iggy. He was an actual actor who I'd seen in a Canadian beer commercial where he said "Hi, I'm Joel, and this is my beer commercial."  He played Iggy and told me afterward that he really enjoyed it.  I got encouraged.

When I moved back to New York City, I submitted a few chapters to "Antimatters Magazine," a magazine that published articles about the musicians who performed at a very popular East Village Antifolk Music Club called "Sidewalk Café."  Iggy seemed to be a good fit for the magazine because he lived in Greenwich Village, and he had a musician's look and hairstyle. "Antimatters" published excerpts of Iggy in four of their issues. 

Now, I'm preparing to publish Iggy in complete form as an E-Book and limited paperback.  I will be pinning to his "My E-Book Iggy Gorgess" Board on Pinterest, tweeting about him and running contests on my Facebook Author Page, and I've got a first line for his introduction into the social media world too:  Iggy wanted to meet you all, so he decided to join Facebook.

Breathtakingly Beautiful "Mad Men"

 

"And then I realized, I don't know anything about you."  These are Sally Draper's words to her father, Don, during an "edge of your seat" episode of this season's "Mad Men," its sixth.  I enjoyed every minute of Season 6 which led up to a breathtaking finale which saw Don's life unraveling into misery until the finale's very last seconds. I'm already longing for "Mad Men" which used to air every Sunday night, but maybe blogging about its finale will help me miss it less tonight.

"Mad Men's" writer and creator, Matthew Weiner, kept the manuscripts for Seasons 1 and 2 in his briefcase for ten years before he sold the show to AMC. It's obvious that he spends a lot of time thinking about his characters because each season plays out like a mini novel with plot twists and foreshadowing elements planted so purposefully, I enjoy them even more during second viewings when I already know how things turn out but can appreciate the genius of what he'd been doing to lead up to all those "a-ha!" moments.

"Mad Men" takes place in the 1960's, and Weiner takes great care to make sure everything in each show is authentic to the sixties, even down to the train route Don takes.  "Mad Men" IS Don Draper, an advertising executive on Madison Avenue who grew up poor but stole a dead soldier's identity and privileged background.  Even Don's wife, Betty, doesn't know this fact or anything about his past until Season 3 which prompts her to divorce him.  Their children, Sally, Bobby and Gene still don't know, and a major storyline of Season 6 involves Sally's frustration at knowing so little about her dad.

Sally's quote at the beginning of this post was uttered after she spends the night talking to an intruder who breaks into Don's and his new young wife Megan's apartment while Don is high at the office on a speed trip injection that all the ad execs received from a "Dr. Feelgood" who told them it was vitamins and would help them work faster on their new Chevy account.  Megan is out late schmoozing with theater people in hopes of landing a play even though she's already a soap opera star.  So Sally is alone with her younger brothers, startled out of her sleep by an older African-American woman who claims to be her "Grandma Ida."  She tells Sally that she raised her handsome daddy.  Since Sally doesn't know anything about her dad, she believes that Grandma Ida really was invited to the Draper residence in the middle of the night and doesn't think it strange that Grandma is wrestling with their TV while commenting that it's screwed in "good!" Finally, Sally comes to her senses and sneaks in a call to the police, but Grandma Ida catches her and suddenly isn't so "grandmotherly."  She holds Sally hostage, and when Don arrives home, he finds the police in his apartment and Sally feeling guilty.  The next day, Sally tells Don that she was stupid to believe Grandma Ida's story, but Don assures her, "I left the door open.  It was my fault." 

All of Season 6 is essentially about Don "leaving the door open," and about doorways in general.  In past seasons, Don's door is always shut as he carefully protects his successful adman persona, while inside feeling like the poor, neglected farm boy he truly is.  But this season, Don's door to his past opens up to us through flashbacks of a teen aged Don living in a whorehouse.  He spies on the prostitutes through the doorways which sheds some light on why he is now a chronic cheater who has trouble trusting women and sustaining mature and healthy relationships with them. 

By the start of Season 6, Don is pulling away from Megan and is having an on-again/off-again affair with Sylvia who is the wife of his downstairs neighbor and friend, Dr. Rosen.  During one of its "off" periods, Don wants Sylvia back so he begins leaving his back door open so he can sneak downstairs and spy on her through her front door (again, the door symbolism) without Megan or Dr. Rosen finding out.  His leaving his back door open is what allows Grandma Ida to get in that night poor Sally was held hostage.  But Sally becomes even more damaged after Don wins Sylvia back, and Sally catches them in the act through an open door in the Rosen's apartment.  Don is devastated, and he fears Sally will tell Megan.  When he sees Sally later on back at the apartment, she won't talk to him, so he speaks to her through what, but of course, the bedroom door:  "I know you think you saw something," he tells her, but "I was comforting Mrs. Rosen."  I know she's a teenager, but if Sally believes THAT, Don has got a bridge to sell her.

Which brings me back to the Season 6 finale.  Don is on a downward spiral.  He's drinking constantly and clashing with his co-workers, and seemingly tired of living up to the image that everyone has of him yet was built on a lie.  It's two days before Thanksgiving, and Don is getting drunk in a bar when a preacher tries to talk about God to him. Don punches him out, and the next thing we see is a flashback of a preacher being thrown out of the whorehouse where teen aged Don lives.  Don follows the preacher out down his front steps and watches the preacher gather himself together.  The preacher tells him:  "The only unpardonable sin is to believe that God cannot forgive you."

Next, we flash back to Don the man who is spending the night in the "drunk tank" for punching out the preacher in the bar. This night changes Don, maybe.  The next morning, he resolves to change and make a fresh start. He goes to work without having a drink and prepares to pitch the agency's campaign to the Hershey's Chocolate Bar people.  He tells them that when he was a boy, his dad would take him to the drug store and tell him he could pick whatever he wanted.  He says that he always chose the Hershey's bar because "the wrapper looked like what was inside."  Of course, the story he is telling the Hershey's people is completely untrue.  Don's dad was an angry, poor farmer who never bought him a chocolate bar.  We also know that Don is the opposite of a Hershey's bar because his "wrapper" isn't anything at all what he is like on the inside.  Don's hand begins shaking because he is going through alcohol withdrawal, but suddenly, we know he is going through more than that. He is having a complete breakdown in the middle of an important sales pitch.  "I grew up in a whorehouse in Pennsylvania," he begins.  This is a HUGE moment in "Mad Men" history.  Don's fellow partners don't know that Don didn't grow up with the same privileged backgrounds that they did.  After Don's admission, "Mad Men" can never be the same.  He continues to tell his TRUE Hershey's bar story by saying that the only time he ate Hershey's bars was alone in a room at the whorehouse when one of the prostitutes would buy him one after seeing him go through a john's pockets.  This is the true story, and the next morning, on Thanksgiving, his partners inform him he will be taking a mandatory leave of absence, effective immediately. 

But in the final minutes of the finale, Don doesn't seem to care.  He picks up his children, Sally, Bobby and Gene, and takes them for a car ride during which his son Bobby exclaims, "This is a BAD neighborhood."  We don't know where Don is taking them, until the camera pans out, and we see that same white whorehouse we've been seeing all season long in the flashbacks featuring the teen aged Don.  It is worn out and broken down now, but it is positively the same house.  He tells his kids, "This is where I grew up."  Finally, we know that Don is going to begin opening up to his kids and telling them the truth about his childhood.  It may be a small first step, but through all the turmoil of Season 6, we feel like we've gone full circle with Don.  We can finally begin forgiving Don for the things he's done because we realize he is willing to change. Just like the preacher said:  "The only unpardonable sin is to believe that God cannot forgive you."  Beautiful, breathtaking, "Mad Men."

 

 

 

 

Grandma, We Hardly Knew You

My grandmother was born in the beginning of October and died at the end of October, a few weeks after her 95th birthday.  That's why I've decided to remember her in an October blog.

The last time I saw her was at my cousin's wedding.  She had just turned 90 and had flown from Florida with my cousin, the bride-to-be, who was now her primary caretaker.  At this wedding, I saw a sassy side of her I'd never seen before. Every time someone would come to greet her, she greeted them back with zingers.  To her grandniece she said, "Wow, your husband put on a lot of weight."  I asked another of my cousins about this, and she laughed about it, saying, "She's always been like this. Every time she sees me, she still asks me why I only had one child." My mom endured zinger after zinger, most of them questions about my mom's ex-husband whom she married after my father (who was my grandmother's youngest son) passed away.  My mom didn't seem rattled by her zingers at all. When I asked her about it, she said, "I'm used to it. When you were a kid, she often told me I should wash your father's hair for him."   I figured that now that I was an adult, there would probably be zingers for me too. I braced myself for zingers directed at me, but they never came.

Growing up, I hardly ever saw my grandmother smile. If she spoke to me at all, it was either "hello," "what was that?" (because she was hard of hearing) or "goodbye," along with a "pray for me."  I also remember her being obsessed by things.  At first it was her false teeth, then years later, the floaters in her eyes. If she did talk about something other than false teeth or floaters, it was likely to be something odd. Like the time when Jack Cafferty (now a CNN news analyst, back then a New York City's Live at 5 News anchor) came onto the TV, and she suddenly exclaimed, "That is a good-looking man!"  Jack Cafferty? You'd think Tom Selleck had just appeared on the screen!

The only thing I can remember us doing together was play cards. She taught me a great card game with a lot of steps called "King's Corners." She and my grandfather used to stay at our house for one week every Christmas vacation.  During one of those visits, my mom had to go to work, and I wanted to make pancakes. I was probably about 12. I called my mom's work, and she wasn't at her desk, so her co-worker asked me if there was something she could help me with.  I told her, "Well, how do I make pancakes?"  She told me a few things, and I hung up the phone.  As soon as I hung up, my grandmother exclaimed, "Why didn't you just ask me?"  I was surprised at her expression and that she seemed upset.  "I know how to make pancakes!"  she said huffily. She had never reprimanded me for anything in my life except for not asking her how to make pancakes! It was funny, but the thought  never crossed my mind that I could just ask my grandmother how to do it. 

The fact that I didn't think she could handle something as easy as making pancakes is strange considering that when she was growing up, her family of five siblings all agreed that she was the most gifted academically. Her biggest disappointment in life was that her family didn't have enough money to send her to college because it was the Depression. Only her oldest sister got to go.  But she made the best of it and became a legal secretary. She was a champion stenographer who also entered typing contests and won medals. She was such a fast typist that she had to type on a special Underwood typewriter. Otherwise the keys would jam up because she typed so fast.

After she married, she became a stay-at-home mom to my uncle and my father.  It was World War II, and she and my grandfather had going away parties at their house for their friends going off to war almost every week. Since my grandfather had the two young boys to take care of,  he was the last to go. My uncle remembers there being singalongs at the player piano and karaoke before there was a name for it. My grandmother was considered very funny and an excellent hostess. But all that changed about nine years later, when she gave birth to her last child, my aunt, and suffered a severe form of postpartum depression. She wasn't able to take care of either her new baby or her two sons, so she endured "treatments" given in the basement of a questionable doctor and was never the same after that. But it did save her from going the way of Sylvia Plath.

For my grandmother's 90th birthday party, I asked my cousin what I should get her, and she said a brain teaser/logic problems book.  You know, the ones that hardly anyone can do much less would want to do unless they were being forced to? She said little during the party except that she didn't know what all the fuss was about. At one point, a guest said, "I try to never argue with anyone during the day because, you know, one night, you may go to sleep and not wake up in the morning."  "Oh," my grandmother said looking him up and down. "I wish that would happen to me!" 

During the last decade of my grandmother's life, my cousins, who sometimes took turns taking care of her, had a lot of stories to tell. The funniest story was when she stayed with my cousin and his wife who lived in New Jersey. Every morning,  my cousin went into the room where she was staying and noticed that the cable channel was always set from the night before on the same number, a certain adult channel. When they asked her about it, she answered, "I don't know.  I watched this show. There was a woman who had a pink apparatus." When my cousin told us this story in front of my grandmother, all she had to say about the channel was, "I was intrigued by it."

When she moved back to Florida for good, there were various medical personnel who came to evaluate her to help her get the care she needed. She never gave them an easy time.  One funny story is the time a man came to the house and had to ask her several questions as he filled out a questionnaire.  At one point he asked her how much she weighed to which she snapped, "Weigh? How much do I weigh? Well, how much do YOU weigh?"

Her mind stayed intact until only a couple of years before she died. I didn't see her during those couple of years, but I was told her personality had made a dramatic change for the second time in her life, but this time it was for the better. Suddenly, she was cheery all the time.  My cousin said she just sat around watching TV and laughing all day.  Her favorite movie was "Napoleon Dynamite," and she watched it constantly!

Come to think of it, there was one period of time that I actually saw my grandmother happy. It was when I was a teenager, after my grandmother's daughter's baby was born, and my grandmother moved in with them for three years to care for my new cousin while my aunt returned to work full-time. Whenever we visited them, she smiled and simply beamed over that baby.  She took really good care of her and truly thrived while doing so.

My uncle probably knew my grandmother better than anyone else in the world.  When I asked him about her recently, he told me: "People thought she was aloof and distant, but that wasn't the mother I knew."  Again, I say -- Grandma, we hardly knew you.


Post Script:  I have to give the photo credit to my cousin Dawn who found this picture in her stash.  Both of us were shocked that there was actually a photograph in existence of our grandmother and grandfather kissing!

The Woman Who SHOULD Have Had Her Own Talk Show

Believe it or not, Oprah's incredibly successful talk show was not the first of its kind.  That credit goes to Phil Donahue whose TV show had its heyday in the 70's.  He was the first TV show host to explore the deeply personal, emotional, sometimes cringeworthy topics that really moved both his guests' and audience's souls.  Donahue really cared about his guests who would bravely come onto the air and pour their hearts out.  He treated them with compassion and with the same respect he'd give to a guest who came into his home.  I'm willing to bet that every guest on his show could rest assured that once the cameras rolled, they would be discussing the topics they had actually been invited on the show to discuss. This is not the case for many guests invited onto the show of another famous Phil -- Dr. Phil.

Many people saw the recent Dina Lohan interview (Dina is Lindsay's mom). Apparently, she is yet another guest in a long list of guests who did the Dr. Phil show under false pretenses.  She thought she was invited onto his show to talk about the plight of abused women and how they can be helped.  Instead, she was greeted by Dr. Phil's surprise guest, none other than Michael Lohan, Dina's ex-husband and former abuser!  She got so nervous when she found out he was on the show that she couldn't continue with her platform and instead began behaving erratically.  She told Dr. Phil that he was yet another member of the media out to destroy her to which he angrily responded:  "I am not the media.  I've been a trained professional for the past thirty-four years.  I know how to interview people!"  But what he does obviously know how to do better than interview people is how to gain incredibly high ratings for his show's producers and advertisers.

I was a faithful viewer of the Dr. Phil show for years. But it all went downhill when I tuned into a show where his guest was a stage parent who had gone on the show under the guise of getting exposure for her talented singer daughter.  Instead, she was reamed out for pushing her child into a career in show business rather than letting her daughter be a kid.  The woman looked completely baffled and hoodwinked as to why he was doing this.  I felt bad for her.  I pictured the producers interviewing her and acting excited about her daughter's talent and telling her how Dr. Phil's show would expose her daughter to millions of potential fans, maybe even get her daughter a record deal right on the spot. Then she goes on Dr. Phil and gets humiliated on TV for being a bad parent!

I finally lost all hope in Dr. Phil's credibility as a therapist on a later program when he interviewed an older woman/younger man couple.  He all but called her a crazy psycho simply for dating a man about twenty-five years younger than she was.  He said she needed psychological help.   I don't know if it was due to the fact that this woman in her fifties was around Dr. Phil's age yet preferred men in their twenties, but his criticism of her was way out of proportion to the situation. I doubted he'd have the same advice for his daughter-in-law's former boss, Playboy magazine mogul, Hugh Hefner, who routinely dates women SIXTY years younger than he is!

So I'm not surprised at all that he has now done this to Dina Lohan.  Dina Lohan makes her own mistakes, it's true.  She's not an innocent, yet I did find it refreshing when she made him squirm in his seat as he denied that she was put onto his show just so he could manipulate her the way the media does, purely for ratings.

Another of Oprah's proteges, Dr. Oz, is one step above Dr. Phil because he mostly does an informative show about health which forces more focus on facts rather than psychological opinions.  However, I did experience an all-time low one afternoon while viewing the Dr. Oz show.  His topic was women and weight loss.  He humiliated his women-only audience by making it mandatory for them to sit in his audience wearing short, skin-tight exercise tops that exposed their large bellies.  His lack of sensitivity by doing this to these women made this show one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen.  This episode easily could have been done without the visuals.  One of the women given the microphone in the audience had a flat belly, but she also was trying to lose weight. She had no trouble speaking to Dr. Oz about her problems with weight loss without breaking down in tears as nearly all of the women with the large bellies had done during their turns at the mike.

The one former protege of Oprah's who should have had a successful TV show is Martha Beck. She wrote the brilliant books entitled "Finding Your North Star" and "Expecting Adam," the latter being about her son with Down's Syndrome.   In her "North Star" book she shows the readers how to create a step-by-step plan to both find and succeed at the work they really want to do.  She believes in being true to your authentic self and in doing the work you would do even if you weren't getting paid. Oprah gave one day a week of the Oprah show to Beck just as she had done with Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz to create interest and to pave the way for their own "Harpo" Network shows.  I was surprised when a "Martha Beck Show" did not appear on the air the same way the Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz shows had. But knowing what I know now, there is NO way a Martha Beck show would have survived if she had been forced to participate in the dirty ratings tactics that both Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz participate in.  I'm not criticizing Oprah, just her offspring.  Martha Beck would never have allowed people to be humiliated on her show. This is a genuine, kind woman with a clean soul.  She is there to help people, not hurt people.  What is wrong with our media and society if they are about the bottom dollar without having concern for ruining people's lives?  Martha Beck would have never agreed to that.  So she remains a woman without a show.  But I'm sure she sleeps better at night knowing she hasn't had to humiliate or dupe anyone during the day.

Why Sci-Fi Should Be Called Psy-Fi

Earlier this month, NASA successfully landed a rover named "Curiosity" onto the surface of Mars, the Red Planet in our solar system. This project was developed to see if there is now or ever was life on Mars. Ray Bradbury would be proud!  He is my favorite short story writer who passed away in June at the ripe old age of 91, only two months before Curiosity landed. In fact, Curiosity might not have been landed at all if it weren't for Ray Bradbury!  Many scientists were inspired to explore Mars solely due to their reading of Ray Bradbury's 1950 novel, "The Martian Chronicles." That man had some mind.  His writing predicted many events.  His 1953 novel entitled "Fahrenheit 451" predicted how television would take over our lives with giant screens taking up space on every single wall in people's living rooms.  In my case, I'm glad that TV has taken over because I feel it helps me escape from the stress of my everyday, realistic, life.  Science Fiction TV, particularly "The Twilight Zone," is a place I can go to when I want to get away for an hour or so.  That's why I think "Sci-Fi" should be called "PSY-fi!"

Watching these episodes where people are constantly faced with problems of gloom and doom help me get my anxiety out.  As I watch, I feel anxious for these characters, yet I know it's a totally different world from my own, and even as I experience their dilemmas as they do, I'm still not in danger of coming to any harm. My favorite "Twilight Zone" episode, "The Midnight Sun," is a perfect example.  Two women are dealing with their apartment building getting hotter and hotter, there is a water shortage, and people are evacuating, heading north where it's a bit cooler because scientists say that the Earth has moved out of its orbit and is moving closer to the sun.  But by the end, it's suddenly really dark, and the mercury on the thermometer has dropped so low that the numbers are nearly unreadable.  It has gotten frightfully cold.  Turns out the woman was dreaming, and she was only hot because she had a fever.  The twist is that the Earth is not moving closer to the sun, it is actually moving farther away!

However, it's not always anxiety I need to release when I feel stressed, sometimes I just want to imagine a more pleasant world than my own.  One of the happier "Twilight Zone" episodes is from the 1980's remake of the series.  An episode called "The World Next Door" is about one of my favorite science fiction topics: parallel worlds.  Actor George Wendt (best known as Norm from "Cheers") stars in this one as a character named Barney who is a failure as an inventor.  He has a basement workshop, and when his wife orders him to clean it up and get rid of his mess of inventions, he destroys a bookshelf and discovers a door that leads straight into another house's wine cellar. A woman's voice from the top of the stairs calls "Barney" to come up and rejoin the party, except that the woman is referring to the "Barney" who lives in the house with the wine cellar.  He is a successful inventor famous for inventing something having to do with the fuel system for cars. Yet since they are identical Barneys each living in a parallel world, it is no problem when instead it is the failed inventor Barney who decides to go upstairs and join the party.

Turns out wealthy "Barney" is not happy either.  He wants to live a simple life, so the two Barneys switch places.  Failed inventor, Barney, brings one of his flopped inventions to this new life where here it is a success, and famous "Barney" has cleaned up the basement and is set to live a normal life with failure Barney's now-contented wife! Don't we all wish sometimes that we could escape to a parallel world where things are almost the same as our real lives but we've made improvements in the areas we see fit?

I think all of us have things we rely on to escape from our chores and the hustle and bustle of our busy lives. Mine is good Sci-Fi TV, because, hey, if on certain days, I find myself struggling to figure out a way to pay the bills, at least I can reassure myself that the world most definitely is not moving farther away from the sun!

Whatever Happened To Good TV?

I'm anxious for this Reality TV craze to be over.  REALLY anxious.  It's got to be over soon, I mean, it can't last forever.  Of course, I've been saying this for the past ten years! TV crazes have always come and gone.  There was the night time soap craze of the 70's and 80's:  "Dallas," "Dynasty," "Knots Landing" and "Falcon Crest" to name a few.  "Dallas" completely took over pop culture consciousness!  I distinctly remember how much everyone talked about the Spring of 1980 cliffhanger where somebody shot J.R., the lead character of the show played by Larry Hagman.  Even all of us kids were obsessed with finding out "Who Shot J.R.?" We hadn't even SEEN the episode, but we just needed to know "Who Shot J.R.?" 

Later in the 1990's there was the "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" game show craze.  Everybody watched it, and everybody was dialing up the pre-audition telephone test because they felt a duty to be a contestant on the show if they were able to answer the majority of the questions while watching from home.  Even Regis Philbin's wardrobe with its shiny ties and suits were analyzed and copied.  But at least the popularity of these two TV crazes didn't kill the basic format of the other shows on during that time period.  There were still daytime soaps and family sitcoms, and there were still game shows like "Wheel of Fortune" (which is still on today and still uses its basic original format) . These crazes didn't hurt anybody, but Reality TV has killed the Writer.

Reality TV's simplistic and uninspired dialogue, and the plots that are acted out (yes, they ARE "acted out," as Reality TV is scripted, albeit poorly), are about as far from reality as any other fictitious TV show has ever been.  But what's worse is that it prevents writers from being hired to actually write good TV.  There are a handful of shows still trying to peep their heads out from under all this reality nonsense.  I try to cheer myself up by watching "The Good Wife," a  law drama in which the writing is excellent.  Good writers actually sit down and think about how to make the plots and characters both thought-provoking and socially-conscious, and even when you think you've gotten the whole theme of the night's episode figured out, the writers manage to throw you a curve ball at the very end so that what you thought you knew and believed the show was trying to tell you was actually something completely different.  Becoming a regular viewer of "The Good Wife" has helped make me feel better, but my most recent rental from Netflix actually made me feel worse.

From 1990-1995, a weekly, hour-long TV show named "Northern Exposure" had its run.  It was about a New York City doctor named Joel who was transplanted to a small town called Cicely that was in Alaska.  I felt a special kinship with Joel back then because I was a New York City girl who lived in Canada during that same time period!  When I rented it from Netflix and watched it for the first time after many years, it really hit home how much we've been missing from TV.  "Northern Exposure" could be a novel rather than a TV show.  The characters are so well planned out.  Maggie Malone was always my personal favorite.  I used to pop kernels from a popcorn bag every night in a saucepan on the stove rather than buying the microwave version because that's how Maggie did it from her log cabin kitchen.  I wanted to feel like she did.  I long to live in a relaxed town and experience the easy lifestyle of Cicely, Alaska, escaping the fast pace and stressfulness of reality (or even Reality TV where they're always screaming and fighting).  I can become so absorbed in her story. 

One of the episodes on my Netflix rental was called "Nothing's Perfect."  It centered around an older character named "Maurice" who was a former United States astronaut and was the wealthiest inhabitant of Cicely. In this particular episode, he orders a very expensive clock from Germany which is a one-of-a-kind treasure in both its rareness and beauty, but after showing it off to his friends, he discovers that it doesn't keep perfect time!  Maurice is furious and wants his money back, but then he mulls it over. He tells us about how when he was a young astronaut, he thought he would live forever, but now that he's older, he knows that time is not something he can control.  He wants to keep the clock to admire its beauty and to hold onto the small moments in life and to enjoy them and savor them while he can.  Thus, this episode reinforces my disdain for Realty TV. If time is fleeting, and our moments are precious and few, why should we all be forced to waste it on Reality TV?

My Life With Marilyn

Now that "Dancing With The Stars" is over, and we know that the "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" show is a fake, what TV event can we look forward to next?  The Oscars!  Well, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here.  But my current obsession is that I really want to see the movie "My Week With Marilyn" starring Michelle Williams!  Michelle Williams should get the Oscar.  From the clips I've seen of "My Week With Marilyn," it is the real Marilyn Monroe that Michelle Williams plays, not the icon. She studied Marilyn extensively to play this part and even tied a belt around her knees to get Marilyn's "wiggle walk" down. She watched all her films and read up on her on the Internet. It's been said that a man who worked on the original film, "The Prince and The Showgirl" (the film that Marilyn was working on during the "week" she befriended the stage assistant who wrote the book that the current movie is based on) was on the set of "My Week With Marilyn,"  and  apparently, as soon as Michelle Williams came onto the set, he grabbed the person next to him in disbelief and exclaimed, "That's Marilyn!"   If Michelle Williams doesn't at least get an Oscar nomination this February, I will be extremely disappointed!

I actually knew who Marilyn Monroe was before I knew who George Washington was.  We had a huge mirror of her in my parents' bedroom because my dad used to collect Marilyn Monroe memorabilia.  My parents were on a date when they heard the news of Marilyn's death on the car radio.  My mom said they were shocked, but my dad was particularly heartbroken. I used to ask my dad who he loved more, Marilyn or my mom.  To his credit, he always said he loved my mom more, but I was never really sure if I believed him.

Marilyn Monroe was an intelligent woman.  Most agree that comedy is often harder to play than drama.   After many "dumb blond" roles, Marilyn wanted to be known as a serious actress so she moved to New York City to study acting at the famed "Actors Studio." Marilyn always tried to improve herself and was merely playing up her "dumb blond" image, speaking in that high, breathy voice whenever she acted or was being filmed for interviews. One day I heard a tape recording of her speaking in her real voice. It was deeper and didn't contain any of those silly inflections that people identify her with. It really surprised me because she sounded like a completely different person. That's because she was a different person than the general public believed her to be.

Another misconception of her was that she committed suicide. My dad used to say that Marilyn died because of Robert Kennedy.  He read extensively on Marilyn, so I believe he knew. 

Other than "growing up" with Marilyn, I don't know what it is about this film that makes me want to see it so much.  I like movies that show the real side of celebrity.  One of my all-time favorite movie lines is in the movie "Notting Hill" where Julia Roberts plays a famous actress who travels to England and meets bookseller, Hugh Grant, and they befriend each other even though he's initially blinded by her celebrity.  At one point she says something like: "You know, this fame thing,  it isn't real."  That's what I feel this Marilyn movie shows -- a real woman who was not just an image but an actual person with feelings and a very high sensitivity.  With all the fakeness around me, the Kardashians, and ALL the reality TV shows, it is refreshing to finally see something REAL.

Bedtime Stories

In the latest Vanity Fair issue, Courtney Love says she thinks one of the reasons her 19 year-old daughter is estranged from her is because she never read to her as a child.  It surprises me that Courtney didn't read to her daughter because usually artistic people like books.  It's important to read to your kids as part of their bedtime routine.  Nowadays, a lot of kids have TVs in their bedrooms and use that to get themselves to sleep.  We have a "No TV In The Bedrooms" rule in our house.  That's not to say we don't watch TV.  The TV is pretty much on all day, every day.  I remember a friend of mine telling me that she recently read about a  family who had the TV on for more than 8 hours a day!  "Oh, we do that," I said.  "It's not that we just sit there and watch it all day, but it's on all day."  It was the same when I was a kid.  But I didn't have a TV in my bedroom back then either. My parents read to me every night.

First my mom would come in, and I'd get to pick one of my books from my bookshelf.  Then my dad would come in, but he preferred to make up his own stories or to tell me condensed kid-friendly versions of  his personal favorites.  Considering that his two favorite books were Joyce's "Ulysses" and Melville's "Moby Dick," I guess "The Runaway Pancake" was not really entertaining enough for him.

This has become part of my family history. My dad's cousin, Terry, often tells me about the night she was was visiting and took his place in my bedtime routine while my dad was involved in one of their super-competitive Monopoly games.  I told her then that since she was taking my dad's place, she couldn't read me a story, she had to make one up!  She said she thought, "Make one up?  You have to really work hard for this kid!"

First, he'd ask me to tell him the names of some of the kids in my class, and then he'd make up the story.  I remember one story had a bunch of us in a house that was on fire, but one of the kids got a hose, and we were all running around, but we managed to put out the fire in time.  One night he told me about Steinbeck's "The Pearl," the story of a poor fisherman whose son gets bit by a scorpion, but he can't afford to pay the doctor until he finds a giant pearl that seems to solve all his problems. Of course, it just makes his life worse because he becomes greedy, and the novella teaches us a lesson concerning good vs. evil.  My father's stories usually ended in a lesson of some sort, probably due to the fact that he was a teacher! 

Another night, he told me about Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter."  He said that the lady in the book was being accused of adultery and had to wear the letter "A" on the outside of her dress, over her heart.  Nobody knew which man in town she was unfaithful with.  But of course the man knew, and because of this, he had his own letter "A," but it was on the inside of his heart. Eventually, this caused his heart to die because he kept his secret and all of his feelings of guilt and shame inside of him.  My dad said that everyone always thought the woman had it worse because she had to stand outside being taunted in front of the whole town wearing that big letter "A," but it was really the man who had it worse all along.  I often think of the message of that story when situations come up in my own life. That it's better to let your feelings out than to hide them. I doubt that Dora could give me as good of a lesson as that!