Sh*t Gets Real

Is this going to be a ‘revenge blog?’ – my husband asks while clipping his toenails in bed.

No. Absolutely not. And would you mind not dusting your nail clippings onto my side of the bed. –

Why ARE you doing it? –

What a luxurious question. How many things does one do in a day and then reflect, ‘why am I doing it?’ Maybe a few “ethical hackers” and dog food tasters, but otherwise? Bueller???

Clearly I’m avoiding the question.

Simon Sinek asked me to Start With Why and Find My Why and figure out my Golden Circle which, as it turns out, can be an exercise in self-abasement. My WHY? Please. If I’ve learned anything, SIMON, it is that the present can only be understood in retrospect AND through multiple narrators AND everything is fiction AND Freddy Mercury/Albert Camus so who TF am I to try to figure out the why?

Still avoiding the question.

_____________________

My father died holding my hand. About a year and half ago. He was also holding my mother’s hand. His best friend and his Rabbi were there. You could say it was cinematic death. I would say it because I mentally stowed myself so far away from the action, made it so that I was watching it on a screen somewhere while I sat in a velvet reclining seat, sipping dilute Diet Coke and melted ice through a plastic straw, knowing it wasn’t real life.

Every once in while I think about how I watched my father die.

Every once a day sometimes.

Yeah, big whoops, I know. Give the lady a participation trophy for living life.

A few weeks later my friend died. Unlike my father, this from out of the f*ing blue. Just like, ‘Hey, we meeting next week?’ to ‘You died?’ without connective tissue.

This is the card she sent me; I guess it was a condolence card for my dad; I was actually at Trader Joe’s with her when she bought it. If I would have known it would have been the last time I would see her I would have suggested she NOT buy a card that she asked me to ignore. Or pick a card with a message she could get behind and also not die.

We all have a friend like Her: The Late Night Intellectual Booty Call. (Maybe I’m overestimating the presumed ubiquitousness.) Tagging each other in McSweeney’s posts. Dissecting Hamlet and Sam Heughan with equal passion. Basking in our overloaded schedules as we piled on our own TBR and Must Watch lists. Sipping absinthe in Perrier bottles on the LIRR (so not pretentiously douch-y.) Thinking we are the coolest cuz we watched a morality play in some rando living room in the NYC. Sharing a demented, delicious part of ourselves with the only other person who would understand.

Are you starting to get the “WHY?”

I stopped texting her a month after she died because I ̶s̶u̶c̶k̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶j̶e̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ w̶a̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶c̶e̶r̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶f̶a̶m̶i̶l̶y̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶e̶v̶i̶d̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶v̶o̶l̶u̶n̶a̶t̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶m̶i̶t̶m̶e̶n̶t made the practical decision to reserve my data usage for the living. Odd how I never texted my dad – but also odd that I never did while he was alive, either – odd that I never felt the trauma of losing my DAD like I do/did losing a friend. Although it doesn’t take a team of therapists to see how braided these losses are to me. They are conjoined twins. Janus. Dot & Bette Tattler.

See? She would get that. 💡💡💡💡💡💡💡

#suchnerds #proudnerds #hashtagnerds

Because the fault does NOT lie in the stars but in the STUPID plot twists someone keeps writing, another friend was diagnosed with the same cancer my father succumbed to, like, minutes later. She WILL be ok, I know.

Yeah, Westley, life is PAIN, but there is also supposed to be fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…

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The Cliffs of Insanity

All the while the countdown clock to my becoming Hawaii years old was a metronome in the background.

While you’d think all that mortality and morbidity would – at the very least – provide perspective, it did not. All the things I have not yet done. I should have done. I must do. I meant to do.

I have a library of unwritten books in my head. I decided to write one of them. It was a damned good start.

18 months ago.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Pulitzer.

_____________________

Is It Going To Be Revenge Theater?

You would be a really good director –

A guy I dated, an artistic genius/misogynist creep, once told me this.

You love to boss people around –

He actually meant it in an uncharacteristically non-sadistic way. He was right. I had been directing since toddlerhood, a cast of cousins who came in from St. Louis every year and we performed spontanious medieval religious drama. In kindergarten already I recruited ̶s̶h̶a̶r̶p̶a̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶r̶y̶a̶n̶ kids from down the block to be in my Disney mashup “SnowDerella.” There was both a custom Carvel cake and an NDA involved.

For over 4 decades I’ve been directing – for schools – camps – assorted organizations – and, really, it is like breathing for me. Mouth breathing, maybe. But breathing. I realized I’d been holding my breath for much longer than a person whose name isn’t Erik Weisz should.

Exhale –

Seeing my dad and my friend cheering me on –

-and trusting that very same universe that grabbed them

– carpe dieming like a boss

– “Shtark Contast,” a newborn theater company, was founded June 2019 and had its first production six weeks later. An Inspector Calls. At Rock Hall Museum, a charming place that is not what one might expect by the name.

But, hey, we still rocked. http://shtarkcontrast.org

Our second production in the books, it is finally showtime for me. That means becoming a ridiculously late adopter to social media. You do not exist without an online footprint. Better yet, other exposed body parts. “Write a blog” was the advice that resonated and didn’t induce nausea the way the words YouTube video do.

That’s what brought us here. And once you open the Pandora’s Box of your pysche it gets awfully messy.

There is no immaculate conception.

This blog – yuck what a gross word – onomatopoeia, something you expectorate? – is my call to adventure. No more refusing the call. No more “ignore THIS part” as instructed by Her card.

Because all of this loss and clocks ticking and toenail clipping is only the penultimate chapter in what has been a v e r y l o n g s u r r e a l i s t i c play, much of it crazy strange, some of it universally thematic, some raided from Barry Manilow’s wardrobe. I’ve been to Paradise AND I’ve been to me. Totally overrated. I’ve been to Arthur Laurents’ home and taken into Jude Law’s confidence and if you don’t know who they are…if I’m name dropping for nothing…f* the world I may be too late. I’ve had live human beings materialize from my person and spent every moment since holding on to the cords like Bruce Willis clinging to Nakatomi Plaza is that Christmas movie. It’s exhausting people. I’ve had opening nights & fashion shows & razzle dazzle & glitter of all colors & thicknesses. I’ve had stalkers & theater parents & bullies & fires & floods & 4 jobs at a time while raising 4 boys + 1 husband. A husband who examines female body parts to pay the bills. SMH. Somebody found his WHY in Victoria’s Secret.

Relax. He’s a Urogynecologist. LOOK IT UP.

This blog is the final intrusion in my quest for stasis. And in order to truly understand something, you have to study it in reverse. Sequential analysis of action is most useful when done backwards.

But you won’t find anything sequential here.

Just backwards.

(Matilda shout out.)

Honey. Please take back the toenails. You can leave them with the collection of tissues and empty Perrier cans at the side of your bed. This house doesn’t clean itself, sweetheart –

(Unclench teeth)

Revenge blog? Lololol

PS: SHE and I have an outstanding disagreement, btw. There are few things in life pizza, beer/absinthe, and a good friend can’t make better. Fight me.