Contemplating My Navel (Personal Blog)

Feminine Revolution (June 24, 2011)

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As much as I hated the small town where I completed my undergrad degree, I stopped going home to Chicago after the first summer break.The reasons were many and diverse but chief among them was the inability of my mother and I to stand each other for more than a day or two. It took many years and a lot of therapy to be able to verbalize the internal strife and emptiness in our relationship, that I would later come to understand as my mother’s consistent distrust and competitive spirit where I was concerned.

It was always that way. At the same time that she pushed me to live out her own frustrated academic and musical dreams, I couldn’t do so too successfully or she would weep and insist that I believed I was better than her. If I was finally popular in high school, enjoyed a string of boyfriends and my father preferred to talk sports with me, the son he never had, my mother could be seen glowering not far behind.

For most of my life Gloria was this impenetrable figure, often actively undermining her eldest child’s attempts to grow and locate happiness. During one of the last phone calls we shared before I graduated college and moved back to the Chicago to begin my first job, she came right out and admitted that she found me impossible to love. A year later, she had committed identity fraud against me to the tune of $17,000, and when confronted, took off for parts unknown with little more than a carton of cigarettes and the clothes on her back. I haven’t seen her for 10 years.

There’s much more to say on this topic and a lot of other heartbreaking details to share, but the point of this essay is that the complicated relationship I acted out with my mom affected the way I related to women in general for many, many years. I always had my sister and a couple of very solid female buddies, but by and large, I just didn’t trust members of my own sex. These were the same people who bullied me in junior high because I came from a “weird” family – enough so that I had to change schools. It was a group of women in my freshman dormitory who pranked me with unsolicited subscriptions to Ebony and Jett magazines and wrote “Wigger” on my dry erase board – for the crime of dating a Jamaican man.

Most of my friends, from kindergarten up until 2010 were men – for better or worse. My estranged husband has often accused me of “acting like a man,” which is his mind typically means ambitious, opinionated, invested with a sense of freedom and agency that has kept me from “settling down” well into my 30s. We can certainly debate the merits of questioning my womanhood based on a hard won assertion of individuality, but it is nonetheless true that female friendships and I have often been at odds.

A lot of tough things have happened this year. But one thing that has altered, undeniably for the better, has been the way I relate to my feminine peers. I suppose the transformation began a couple of years ago, when I fled the safety of the corporate world to strike out as a writer. The first mentor I found, the first person to give me a real writing job and connect me with an all-female journalism group, was a talented, gracious middle-aged woman. My current boss at the small publishing firm where I am employed is a woman of fairly high repute, yet you wouldn’t have any idea based on her down-to-earth respect for my talent and genuine concern for my well-being.

I am presently surrounded by all-female co-workers, an idea which would have horrified me not five years ago. But these women, of a diverse age range and experience level, have been behind me 100 percent as I endured the trials of marital dissolution with concurrent health problems.

No matter where I look these days, I am adding some fabulous new lady to my tribe: former classmates from my graduate program, a fellow redhead and fun-loving girl from the gym, an unlikely friendship with the gal who did my makeup before a charity fashion event last year.

Positive female relationships are suddenly everywhere I turn, and I am well aware that this is every bit as much about my readiness to embrace them as it is the quality of sisters I am encountering.

Work/Life Balance (June 21, 2011)

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I have been throwing around this terminology and thinking about this dynamic in my life quite a bit in recent days. I have let the spectrum get out of whack. With the physical and emotional turmoil I have been experiencing this year, time was I was very grateful to have my work to occupy my hours. That’s still true to a large degree. I am challenged, and experiencing growth as a person and as a professional in my day job as well as the diverse freelance projects I have undertaken.

As a working writer, I am never able to shake this fear, and I imagine artists, dancers, actors and other creative types can relate. The fear is that if I say “no” to a particular job, I may be daring karma to turn against me. I will never be offered a gig again. The freelance world is very feast or famine by nature and all I need is to conjure memories of those 4-6 weeks stretches where I can boast nary a byline. The periodic blackouts are scary enough that when multiple editors approach with projects, I am almost too grateful to consider whether or not I can deliver in a healthy manner.

Very recently I have resumed my post as theater critic in the Chicago market. The website for which I submit reviews had dropped Chi-town as an outpost in April of last year, but there’s just too much good stuff onstage in the Windy City for any arts and entertainment outlet worth its salt to ignore. So I’m back on, in a big way. I have four shows to cover between last weekend and July 19. Since it’s summer, ‘tis the season for urban agriculture stories, one of my bread and butter journalist beats. I sit on the board of a women’s press collective and edit the group’s quarterly newsletter, so that has taken a lot of my time and labor. I could continue to delineate specific commitments but you get the idea.

I am living my dream. I never asked for the riches and fame of a J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, and as I am neither a novelist nor seek media attention, I don’t think there was much risk of that happening anyway. I long to be Gail Collins of the New York Times when I grow up, but that may never occur. Honestly, I can live with that. My ambition was to be a writer. That’s all. I never attached any imaginary barometers for success to my goal. Could I write full time and pay my bills? Yes? Cool.

But I am having some trouble leaving enough space in my new world for myself. I am not allowing the time required for rest, strategic planning, friends and family. In my quest to keep myself honestly occupied, this was never my intention. I have a couple of aunts in Wisconsin who are going to be really disappointed in me this weekend. They understand my deadlines, but I used to complain vociferously when my estranged consultant husband would continually prioritize work over family. I have unwittingly become that of which I always disapproved.

I know a lot of smart people out there in the writer’s community. How do you folks achieve and maintain a work/life balance? How do you do it all without depleting yourself or failing the most important people in your life?

Red (June 18, 2011)

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The summer I turned 13 years old, I made a bold move, as far as junior high attempts at self-expression are concerned. Having been born with otherworldly pale skin, green eyes and freckles, I decided that my naturally golden brown hair was a mistake of nature. I corrected this error by walking to the neighborhood Osco Drug store, selecting a box of Ms. Clairol in the brightest shade I could find, and dyeing my hair red for the very first time.

My father was not amused. My mother, an imperfect figure to be sure, but bred with a little hippie in her, was reasonably supportive of my attempt to individualize. The outcome of that first DIY dye job was more purple, at least initially, than the Angie Everhart deep red that I coveted, but when I looked in the mirror, I felt more like me, even if I lacked the vocabulary to articulate the sensation.

Except for a brief Kurt Cobain-era foray into black (a horrendous choice) and a 2007 flirtation with blonde highlights (the things we do for love), I have been known for my ginger locks ever since. Though my chosen color (see picture above) is not exactly natural looking, the complementary physical attributes I enumerate in the first paragraph conspire to fool more folks than you might suspect. Though I am a German-Italian mix by cultural heritage, I have a great time high-fiving drunken well-wishers every St. Patty’s Day. I don’t have it in me to break their little inebriated hearts with the truth, and besides, who doesn’t enjoy free beer and kisses?

Much of my life is built around trying to overcome spiritual insecurity and meekness. Nothing says “I am a force to be reckoned with,” even if in reality, I am nearly paralyzed by my own second guessing, like a shock of big red hair. When your locks draws this much attention, it allows for a lot of other physical imperfections and subtle mood deficiencies to slip by unnoticed. It’s aesthetics and convenience rolled into one colorful package.

As I rode my bike (red, naturally) home from the hair salon early this afternoon, I caught myself wondering if there is a way to dye my soul red, so to speak. Like the head of hair I saw in the looking glass as a teenager, my spirit is a little deflated. Unemployment, divorce and cancer in quick succession tend to take the wind out of one’s sails. But I am in good health once again, having beaten the “Big C” into remission. I have been happily ensconced in a satisfying day job as a ghost writer for four months, and for half of that time, I’ve had the opportunity to start getting accustomed to living alone. There are days I actually enjoy it.

I am taking small trips, accepting new physical challenges and learning to be kinder to myself in every sense of the word. But nothing yet has felt like the sort of clean break from my confused past, an assertion of a bold and adventurous individual, which a box of hair dye provided in 1991.

So this summer, I am searching for red.

The Weiner Fades Away (June 16, 2011)

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And so the sometimes funny, mostly pathetic and certainly odd spectacle of the Anthony Weiner social media scandal will takes its rightful place asa pop cultural footnote later today, if reports are to be believed. The beleaguered congressman wins major points for stubborn tenacity, but ultimately the growing list of icky online encounters with women proved politically impossible to surmount.

Weiner was able to weather his odd series of lies, before Andrew Breitbart literally caught the man with his pants down. He survived growing Democratic establishment calls to step down after it was reported that he exchanged messages with a Delaware teen. But as Charlie Sheen and Tiger Woods can attest, those porn stars will get you every time.

Earlier this week, ex-adult film “actress” Ginger Lee held a press conference with lawyer Gloria Allred by her side, where she asserted her moral fortitude in refusing Weiner’s technological overtures. Thus, “I did not sext Anthony Weiner,” assumes its natural position as the summer’s most popular t-shirt slogan.

Lee articulated the “nightmare” of being asked by Weiner to lie about the nature of their exchanges. I am sure being asked to keep mum about messages from a man you’ve never personally met is far more harrowing than a life spent on the pole having dollars shoved down your g-string by drunken, dirty and potentially murderous “clients.” And Gloria Allred – is there any person of ill repute you WON’T represent? This lady should have her legal license sprayed with Valtrex.

But I digress. In a weird way I was sort of pulling for Weiner to get through this crisis. I maintain, as I asserted last week, that there’s nothing illegal about being a bad husband and lying to the media. I insist that it should have been the decision of his constituents whether or not he continued in his elected capacity. But at a certain point, conventional wisdom must intervene in order for life to go on. The glut of images, “victims” and gossip showed no signs of slowing, and Democrats, who were enjoying a comeback of sorts after the upstate New York special election, were set to strip the congressmen of his committee posts.

I do believe that Mr. Weiner has bigger problems in life than retaining his job. The “therapy” thing is bullshit but I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of damage control that is required in his personal life, and at the end of the day, home and family is what matters most. I don’t walk in wife Huma Abedin’s shoes, but with a baby on the way, she has some complicated decisions to face. I truly hope that the Weiners are able to find a way to move forward in a healthy way – whatever that might entail.

I will not join the “good riddance” chorus here. This is a sad cautionary tale with an unhappy ending, an answer to the question what can happen when power, hubris, human appetites and the stalkerish capabilities of the Internet converge to cause a promising public servant to publicly self-destruct.

CNN, I Can’t Quit You (June 15, 2011)

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God help me, but I adore Elliot Spitzer.

When I separated from my husband in April and moved into my own apartment, a serious decrease in income necessitated a downgrade of my cable services. Goodbye HBO, so long Showtime, and even the basic package I agreed to was a step down from the hundreds of HD channels at my disposal in a former life. No worries. I am a busy and resourceful girl and besides, the network TV stations were in the throes of wrapping up their episodic seasons.

Now that it’s June and my serials are on summer break, options for amusing myself while I eat dinner, clean the house and work out my Power Hoop, have become limited. My go-to for years has been CNN when all else fails. However with the gearing up of the 2012 U.S. Presidential election (particularly the GOP primaries), the continued unrest in the Middle East, the trial of Casey Anthony and the antics of Anthony Weiner, my always more than passing interest has taken on a life of its own.

I need help. I can’t enough of Fareed Zakaria. He may be the wisest man in the world and whether it’s his regular program GPS, or one of his illuminating specials, such as “Restoring the American Dream,” I wish I could empty his brain into mine.

The gay community scored a real coup back in May when adorable and charming weekend anchor Don Lemon came out of the closet. I think a number of my single sisters will join me in finding it terribly unfair that the two most gorgeous members of the CNN news team, including the venerable blue-eyed stallion, otherwise known as Anderson Cooper, are out of our reach. What’s left for us? Wolf Blitzer? Bah!

My love for all things CNN does not extend to John King, who for whatever reason never fails to remind of John Tesh (maybe it’s the whole “Blonde Frankenstein” thing – thank you Howard Stern), and is furthermore, a crushing bore. Ditto Soledad O’Brien, who I have noticed has become increasingly marginalized by the network since her April test in the weekly 7PM slot was deemed “unwatchable” by CNN Worldwide president Jim Walton. So why is she still there?

Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty quench my thirst for curmudgeonly old men who have seen it all. Commentators and panelists David Gergen and Jeffrey Toobin never fail to elicit my interest. Ditto Roland Martin, who is always as excitable as he is intelligent.

Sanjay Gupta, you make me want to contract an unusual disease just so you’ll drop into my living room to do a special report.

And I can’t leave out my favorite CNN ladies. Dana Bash, Candy Crowley and Kiran Chetry – I heart you all.

I started and will end with an explanation of my most controversial CNN crush – Elliot Spitzer. When Parker/Spitzer debuted early this year, I didn’t give it a snowball’s chance in hell. Elliot, the former Governor of New York, remains a political punch line in many circles, and Kathleen Spitzer may be a hell of a writer, but she doesn’t give good TV. At all. The partnership had all the chemistry of a flat Diet Coke.

Mercifully, the brass at CNN realized that their true star is Spitzer. I may receive hate mail for saying so, but he fills the void in my heart left by the death of NBC’s Tim Russert. Spitzer will ask the tough questions. He knows he has nothing to lose and seems grateful enough for this career second act to leave it all on the court every evening. He will ask anybody anything and seems immune to squirming. He truly does not give a shit, and I love it! I am surprised the show is still able to book guests. That’s what I call keeping them honest.

Alright enough because clearly I could go on all day. For variety’s sake, I tried to give MSNBC a whirl last night, but the fit just wasn’t there. If watching CNN until my eyes cross is wrong, then I just don’t care to be right.