The End (Temporarily) of My Blogging Days

ReinhardRites was a pretty good idea and will probably become a one-Crone play. But this writing purely to give my insight and opinion is strictly self-indulgence and a plea for attention. I have to put all of that into my regular writing. With the endless blizzards, I'm sitting around here thinking at a time when Social Media, at least for the post-40 set, seems to be dying. What did we expect? Yes, I've made some great friendships. At least one of which rocked me to the core of my Life and my Art, but is, as these sort of things go, unsustainable for regular human beings who have to clean the apartment and get the tires rotated. No metaphors there, I only mean the car. I think that Amour Americaine is my masterpiece, but there are piles of plays and little space for performing one that takes 20 characters, 5 sets and other 10 drafts of development. Once you realize what you can and cannot do on Facebook, it becomes a bit of a drag and I don't have Twitter to flip a dozen downloads in every day and I don't have a dozen interesting events in a day. Anyway, Ceci is over Sixty...she's Sixty-one. Had a lot more gas than I thought she did, but not enough. Think of me as a 28 year old sex bomb walking slowly off into the night in my short, spangled dress, wearing a black wig and fishnet stockings and four inch heels. If I come back, it'll be pure Reinhard and it'll have a damned point to make and some interesting blogs.

Been a Long Time Coming

Sorry that I've been away so long, both of you. I've written 4 drafts of a 2 act play. It takes 4 to get it ready to read and at least 6 to get it to a perfect production moment. While waiting for anyone to want the damned thing, I've started a film script of Amour Americaine. I don't look at the play, but just start setting the characters off on new adventures with tons of "Money" and "Casts of Thousands". By not needing dialogue, I discover new things that can go into the play. I love the visual aspect.

Roxy runs into the apartment and throws his supplies in front of his easel. He tears off his leather jacket and arranges the canvas on the easel and stares at it. He crouches down almost like a wild animal and looks at it, then tears through his bag for a brush and a tube of paint. He stands and confronts the canvas. Then makes one delicate stroke.

SIRIANA (V.O.)
How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

Roxy suddenly splashes a wild band of color across the canvas.  He throws down the paintbrush and tears off his shirt. Barechested, he digs into his bag and comes up with tubes of paint he just squeezes onto the canvas.

SIRIANA (V.O.)
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.

Roxy begins to manipulate the paint with brushes, slowly bringing out the awesome form of a tiger coming toward the viewer.

SIRIANA (V.O.)
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

CLOSE ON the eyes of the tiger in the picture. There is almost a touch of fear in them.
CLOSE ON Roxy’s face, working closely on the canvas, his own eyes almost bright with a spark of insanity.

SIRIANA (V.O.)

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

Roxy falls back on the floor, exhausted. It looks as though the tiger is about to jump on him.

Starting a New Play and Facing Truth in Plain View of All

My new play, named "Art: Modern, Love: Eternal", (which really needs a better title, so we'll call it a working title) has forced me to confront something I'm not comfortable with...the Truth. I have to be honest and that includes with my own foolish self. Oh, it's so easy to write other people's shortcomings, especially when they are obvious, but in this play, I have to say out loud to the world, "I'm a total romantic idiot who believes the best even in the face of facts." I am an enabler and a caretaker. I am a fool. Siriana is me. Middle-aged writer with Multiple Sclerosis who thinks she still has it and finds out with a hard crash that she does not. She attempts nobility. She expects no reward and does not receive it. Not at least where she can hear it. Adapting another writer, I am trying to embrace his romanticism, and yet it is 2011. And yet it is me. Stepping back, I look at the situation and I cannot whitewash it. I cannot sugar coat it. Truth. Truth. Truth at any price. Whatever it costs me. I am sure it will not hurt anyone else because the subject will not read the play or see the play or even care if it is written. That's why we write plays. To make ourselves and our lives more interesting to those who are smart enough to care.

What Exactly Is It That I Want Now?

Doubling down to catch up after a long break. What exactly am I expecting life to bring to me at this point? Children are a definite "NO!", but I never wanted children. Romance? No, that doesn't often happen in this country at this time to women my age and could be dangerous to the Bank Account. Sex? I am amused that Retirement Homes have outbreaks of STDs. And while Ceci, my young Avatar, was terrific at sex and enjoyed it more than most, it's really not that big a deal to Sue although she could use a cuddle now and then. Or am I pretending not to care to protect myself from disappointment and embarrassment over my aging body? I do know that I love writing, even though it's never paid off. It would be nice for my words to reach an audience, payment or not, but I still have a lot to learn. People? Definitely, although I still have the social skills of a teenage ox, I'd like to keep getting to know how to just talk to people and laugh with people and care about people. Since I have time on my hands, I should volunteer...although Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady would be far too busy with the kids, the house and the husband to have to do that. I don't have to do it either, I want to. I want to see that I have done some good, made a difference and to Hell with it being done by an Old Maid. It's time to just be a Human Being, for, after all is said and done, that's what we all are.

Fantasy is Death

From the time I was 4 years old and realized that my parents were insane, I turned to Fantasy as an escape. Now that I am watching a dear friend being destroyed by fantasizing (it leaves no time for reality), I am forced to confront myself. I remember my first fantasy was Roy Rogers, as I had seen him on television. I was going to be rescued by the handsome cowboy. I never stopped after that. I daydreamed about Mike Nesmith of the Monkees and John Lennon of the Beatles. After that, I created fantasy heroes of my own and then, I started to meet real men, and after some upsetting experiences such as rape or heartache, I would retreat for hours into my own world. Fortunately, I was able to turn some of these into plays, but in the meantime, I was marrying the wrong men...sleeping with the wrong men...and worst of all, ignoring my education. After the breakup of my common law marriage to a total raving lunatic, and a string of hideous, inadequate and deceitful men, I stopped dating. After being diagnosed with MS, I started to save my money and get my life in order, but never the education. The education is my greatest regret. Recently, I have been dancing around the fantasy world and almost losing. I might have alienated a few friends and family, but my New Year's resolution is to simply stay grounded in reality. In New Jersey. In my poor, old, diseased body that is the only one I have. No one is going to ride in on a horse to rescue me. I guess, just like the modern cliche says, I have to be my own Prince Charming.

Back from Vacation and Life in the Slow Lane

Spent the last week in West (By God) Virginia, visiting my sister and her husband. They have two sons, one of whom still lives nearby with three boys of his own, and, of course, a wife. They own houses and cars and go to church and work every day in health care, so they feel good about what they do to earn a living. This is what most Americans do and do we, the artistic elite, the rebels and the opinionators really understand them? Is this why we have to hug both coasts and laugh at them  while they, in turn, shake their heads at us and take the car in for a lube job while the wife gets the groceries because these things must be done. Did we escape some nightmare or miss the boat? My Coastal friends have much but seem to be missing out on the spouses, kids, and houses. I get a nagging feeling sometimes that...yes, we are missing something that it’s too late to recapture. I’m not talking about breakfast at Shoney’s but the real things. The love of a spouse or a child. I have a friend holding out for the absolutely perfect woman, with an exacting list of her requirements down to her height. Surprise! Surprise! He hasn’t found her after a thirty year search. What about the two or three good guys who bored me in College but would have been great husbands. Where are all those bad boys, those exciting boys? Gone. Gone. Gone. I’m not saying we should regret our lives, but perhaps we shouldn’t be so fast to laugh off the lives of those who are creating the next generation and making a rich and unique life that can be a family.

What is it to be a Man?

Does equality mean we are the same?
Can we ever be the same?
And if we are not, what happens to equality?
We defined manhood too narrowly, my Love,
And now, we are watching its realities rip wide
Through your life.
And I am awestruck that you remain standing,
but I am also not surprised.
Today, you are a man.
You feel the Samurai blood in your veins.
The Viking blood...the Crusader.
You face the dragon alone.
Clear your mind and see the monster.
I remain silent to let you concentrate.
This is how I must be Samurai.
And Viking and Crusader.
It is not my battle, my Love.
You must fight it alone and win it alone.
It is the only way for the lessons to burn
deep into your brain and soul.
Today, you are a man.
And  so am I, despite my female sex.
Because I am strong enough to let you go.
I want to run to you and hold you tight,
but that would let the Dragon win.
So, I remain silent to let you concentrate.
Even if I never see your beautiful face again.
I must remain silent to let you concentrate.
As you will do for me one day.
Because that is what Men do.

Ceci Thought She Would Find Love. Ceci Was Wrong.

I hate self-pity. Whatever is wrong in my life, is my fault. Whatever is right, is to my credit. I am going to die without knowing the love of a man. Oh, don't get me wrong, I have had more sex than even I can imagine, but I have never made love. Not once. Oh, I thought it was Love, Capital L, but even the men I married told me flat out that they did not love me. Why did I accept this? Why did...why do...I agree with them? And now, it is officially too late and I have to accept that. It's not easy. I thought I had accepted it fifteen years ago, but I realize now that there's still that tiny seed of hope that even the Multiple Sclerosis virus can't kill. I wish it would.  Maybe I just want to make love once before I'm in a wheelchair. The last time was bad, really pathetic and he acted like he was deigning to give a pauper the Golden Scepter. More like the Plastic thumb, but he made me feel like it was my shortcoming (joke intended). And now, at sixty-one, it IS all lacking, dying, graying and leaving and I can't say it's not. That's what time does and I am proud that I accept it. Men don't have to accept it. They are surrounded by a sea of "extra" women and can pick and choose. I only want to choose Love...but Love will never choose me. Love will be distracted by the sea of "extra' women and I have to learn to accept it and glory in being surrounded by a sea of Sisterhood. As I say at the end of my play "Tourjours Seule"...what the Hell choice do I have?

Final Half of the 2000 Word Dialogue About my Mother

Lesson Number Two...Always Worry About the Worst That Can Happen.

When I talk to my mother, I have not yet finished the sentence when she starts listing everything that can go wrong. “Mom, I finally joined the YMCA today, and...” “You can hurt yourself on those machines.”  “It’s crawling with germs and you’ll never have a healthy day again!” “What if they aren’t insured? Did you check on that? You’ll get hurt and lose your job and your medical coverage and you won’t be able to sue them and you’ll run out of money die living under a bridge.”

Mom wasn’t that cautious when she was a teenager. I remember stories of stealing spare tires to sell to the Wartime rubber drive. She told me that she started smoking at fourteen and had her first engagement at fifteen, to a boy named “Al.” She dropped out of school at sixteen, and the engagement was broken off. Now, when my mother was around nine or ten, and with Great-Grandma Berner feeding her only eggs and Pepsi Cola...Mom made friends with my Aunt, Betty Lou Boring, who was the same age.  And she also was not an Elizabeth, but a Betty.

Betty Lou’s family had a house and Grandma Boring, while being a bit retarded...sorry, intellectually challenged... was a great cook and Grandpa Boring’s alcoholism hadn’t yet wrecked his ability to a living, so they had food and real breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Mom saw the advantage to being Betty Lou’s friend because she was invited to the dinner table. She was twelve years old when the oldest Boring son, Carl, went off to war.

She was fifteen when Dad returned from the Pacific Theater and as he said...he noticed that she had grown up.When the engagement to the mysterious Al broke up a year later, they started dating and, despite the smoking and the engagements, my Mother was a virgin on her wedding night. She was very proud of that...and very angry that my father had been with two hookers in his life.

Poor Dad! He had spent the war driving officers around Honolulu. Yes. He joined the Army, ready to die and spent the entire war in Honolulu.  When the Oriental soldiers of the Fighting 100, the One Puka Puka were sent to Europe, they had to be replaced by Americans and that was my Dad. Motor Pool. Driving officers from bar to brothel.

I mean, come on! The girls felt sorry for him sitting out there in the Jeep all night and gave him a few freebies. Who wouldn’t accept the gift? I’m sure they are all cream of the crop, beautiful and desirable. And I thank them for their contribution to the morale of our fighting men.

Lesson Number Three: Do Not Allow a Man to be Human.

Now, things got confusing when Mom had a second daughter. One daughter was fine, but the second child, the one who demanded to be born despite Mom’s attempts to prevent it, was supposed to be a boy. Mom’s always said that there was “something wrong with me” from the day one. She implied it was mental, but I often wonder if there was supposed to be a wee wee down there, meaning that I could take care of her. Now, she had two girls to marry off to rich men and she was not happy.

Dad decided, the day I became taller, to treat me like a son. I mowed the lawn, I changed spark plugs and I was never trained about hair and makeup and clothes. My biggest flaw, you see, was a 142 i.q. Oh, the cliché! A loner! Reading her books and writing her plays. Advanced Math, which I was terrible at, and Advanced History, where I was brilliant and became an unrepentant Left Winger Liberal forever. Classes full of geeks and nerds and loners. All of rushing home to our rooms at night.

Kathy, my sister, was the twin set belle of the ball with a hundred giggling friends and a busy social life. Therefore, when economics forced my mother to work...God forbid...I was ordered to take over the house at the ripe age of eleven. Kathy had a social life, I did not, so the choice was painfully obvious. I burned the first meal I cooked and was severely chastised for not having food for the family.

Lesson Number Four: If You Don’t Have a Prince, Clean the Hearth.

Mom took the three to eleven shift as her act of revenge on having to work and basically, I never saw her again except for this snarling creature on weekends who sat brooding on the couch, flicking the end of her cigarette and yelling orders to everyone except my perfect older sister, who wore twin set sweaters and dated a steady stream of boys.

My Mother told me bluntly, that I had to earn my keep. They had not planned me but I had insisted on showing up, I had to earn my food and my bed. At the age of sixteen, they stopped paying for my clothing, so I had to get summer jobs at nursing homes and baby sit for children I neither liked nor understood. I asked my sister a few years ago if she had to earn her clothing money. She did not know what I was talking about.

I was trained to serve. I was trained to feel bad about my mother’s horrible life and that all I was fit for was to take care of her. And the only way I could make her happy was to lie and say I didn’t mind. It was fine. Sorry, I burned the pot pies.

Lesson Number Five: It is up to Me to Fix Your Life



There is nothing so selfish as claiming to care and to love. Ergo, you want to change the object of your affection to something better, something happier, something more that suits you...all right! Suits me. Me. Me. That suits Mom.

To truly Love is to accept. "Love alters not when it alteration finds." I repeat Sonnet 116 over and over but do I really believe it or is it just to make myself look better? And the sad part of this is that all the lying and begging and improving is that I have twice had to leave the men in question and I left them in tatters, unable to function. I did all the work and paid all the bills and they were left more helpless than ever. To say "be a man", is something both men and women should aspire to as it makes us feel more human. We survive on our own and sometimes as equals, but never when I am the Mother, easing the way far too much. Sometimes, I have simply not let my men be men. I have not let them find their own way and feel their own success. I destroy with Love and that is a terrible fault I should apologize for the rest of my Life.

There’s nothing more liberating than realizing that all the lessons you’ve learned...are wrong. They have taught you through error. Through disaster. And I can see them so clearly. They’ve been drummed into my head and all the words stand out as WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

I was reborn. I am my own Mother. I was finally able to learn.

It flew into my life last July. Like a wild California Condor. As noisy and as free. Don’t try to stop it. Don’t try to fix it. Beautiful! Oh, yes, the creature is in great danger, but I will not interfere. I will not try to fix it or help it. It has to find its own way through hills and valleys that I can’t comprehend. Don’t translate what it’s saying...let me just hear the Music of its call. If it wants to light on the ground near me and let me touch its feathers, I will, but if it just wants to show me the spectacle of it flying overhead, then I count myself lucky. I wrote this piece of verse to show the new lessons I am learning on my own, with the help of true friends.

No More Deals. No More Expectations:

You know what The Deal is.
It means, if you Love me...
You will do x, y, and z.
So, if you do not do these things,
you do not Love me.
It’s not that difficult.
Just do the x, and y, and z I choose
What are they?
You shouldn’t have to ask.
If you have to ask...
You do not Love me.
So, I leave.
And have nothing.
But why does anything at all have to happen?
What a lovely mind.
What lovely hands.
That I want to stare...
Does not require the same of him,
But if I sit quietly and undemanding,
I will never have to turn my back.
Scream Feminism as loud as you like
Age makes a woman less desirable.
Weights, running, botox, dye.
You’re still the same.
Read.
Paint.
Think.
Enjoy the Freedom.
Enjoy the View.
Of his lovely hands.
And ask nothing more.
How sweet it then is,
When he chooses to do something for you.
Especially if it’s not on that damned, silly list.

Like Mom says...Susie has a vivid imagination.

The First Half of the 2000 Word Monologue About My Mother

Lessons I Learned From My Mother The Hard Way

I’m probably the only woman coming here tonight without a whole lot of positive things to say about my Mother. Mom has always been angry...and no, you can’t you tell her to stop. You can’t understand what she’s been through, because she’s decided that it is the worst life that has ever happened to anybody in the entire History of Mankind. I know. I know. Slavery. Holocaust. The Plague. You and I know they were worse, but Mom only knows what she knows, and it was pretty rough.

Mom has no nice, noble memories of the Depression or of her Mother, Sylvia, who got pregnant when Good Girls didn’t do that. And that’s where the lessons start. The story I heard, which, by the way, Mom will deny I ever heard, and then quietly take you aside and tell you that she worries about my “imagination.” The story, which I have no reason to create from thin air, was that Sylvia had two boyfriends, an Irishman and a Ukrainian, and in 1930, before DNA tests, the Courts had to choose one of them to be declared as Father. Irish or Ukrainian? Irish or Ukrainian...who was it? Ukie boy loses! Irishman off the hook. And I think my cheekbones show their wisdom.

Now, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in the 1930’s, they called people things like “The Ukrainian.” My illegitimate Grandmother Sylvia’s mother was Minnie and her father was “The Swiss”, and that’s all I know of him...except I do have to wonder if it was a literal seduction or an actual rape. The line between the two, in those days, in that small town, was very thin and usually broke in favor of the male. Who knows what relationship my Grandmother had with either the Irishman or the Ukrainian...but the Hunkie, as they were also often called in Johnstown, got caught.

And so, Sylvia and Oskar Molchin married by Court Order in the Year of Our Lord, 1930 and then, she gave birth to Betty Jane. Not Elizabeth. Never Elizabeth. My mother is Betty Jane. Oskar couldn’t wait to get out and ran for a divorce when my mother was two years old. Sylvia, facing starvation in Depression 1932, had to marry someone, anyone. Any man. I believe that his name was Brownstreet or Brownstone, or something with a Brown in the beginning. I believe they had other children, whom I have never met. Half uncles and aunts and cousins and nieces and nephews whom I have never met. And if they don’t want to track me down, they can all happily go to Hell.

I was told that the new family moved to New York City in 1938 and old number two did not like Betty Jane Molchin,  another man’s child. I was told that they lived in poverty with little food, but I don’t know if there was abuse involved or if Betty Jane wrote to Elvina, her Great-Grandmother, (the one who arrived after the Johnstown Flood) about the problems. My sister knows the details because she is a Nurse and it’s all right to tell a Nurse, but not a Playwright. Not a question so much of Angels of Mercy, but that I stand in front of an audience and tell family secrets. Like I’m doing right now.

At any rate, I was told that my Great-Great Grandmother, Elvina, at the age of seventy, all four feet eight inches of her dressed in widow’s black, got on a train to New York to bring back my mother And for this...for keeping her out of starvation...for this...my mother never forgave her. She had to believe that Sylvia wanted her and would have fought for her if Elvina hadn’t interfered. But, I know better. Sylvia wanted to stop fighting with her husband. Sylvia had to keep her husband. She didn’t want to starve.

Logical or not, my mother never forgave her Mother. She did, however, get one lesson out of it. You had to have a man. Even if you sacrificed a child, you did it to keep that man. I know. That sounds ass backwards, like she would have learned to fight for the child, but the child had no income. The child could not take care of the Mother. The man had a salary. The man had the final say. The man ruled the roost. And you needed someone to be taken care of because you were female.

Lesson Number One. A woman is nothing without a man.

My Mother does not believe that a woman should have to work for a living. My Mother does not believe a woman should drive a car. She should be special. SHE...she be special. My Mother should, for once in her life, be so special that someone would want to take care of her. And damn, if she didn’t find it, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I would have loved to have my older sister, Kathy, the Nurse, help me write this, but she pretends not to hear a subject she does not wish to discuss, and Boy, is this ever one! She totally accepts my Mother’s concept that she had the worst life ever and gives her total sympathy. Kathy never questions. Kathy accepts. I can’t. I write plays. Anyway, my Mother returned to Johnstown, a hamlet still recovering from a second flood that was almost as bad as the first but at least did not involve a rich man’s dam falling on top of them. Just the rising river. Rising and rising till it could only spill into the streets and knock things down, but at least it did not involve a rich man’s dam falling on top of them as it did in 1889.

The Internet Cannot Replace Reality, No Matter How Hard we Try

Perhaps the Wikileaks excitement is one of the final throes of the Internet madness. Nothing will be a secret ever again. We may as well stand in the street naked screaming all of our secrets and thoughts and after awhile, no one will care...and I'm starting to think that's happening now. For some of us, who are shy and isolated, social networking provides that cliche...that mask and protective shell we can blossom under. Writing used to do that, but it's so hard to get produced or published. But you can do it on the internet, even if it's just like this...unseen by anyone. I have gotten behind the mask of a few people and let them behind mine and I wonder now....was I taking this all too seriously or did I learn those personal things only contact can tell you and make better friends or ruin carefully set illusions that can never be rebuilt or forgiven? I am going out again today to meet people, but I know that I will not be aggressive or friendly enough. I cannot use a secret name or a mysterious photograph to hide me. One of the fun things to watch on Facebook is a game I call Passive/Aggressive Facebook. It is a terrifying game for those with nerves of steel and too much free time. Posts are loaded and erased. Comments are altered. Stalking among the Profile page actions run rife and everything is denied. I have to take a shower and go into New York City today. If the Big Apple isn't enough for me, I really have to get some more hobbies.

I Have Not Yet Begun to Write

At another one of the Oppressed Majority (Women) Seminars in New York today, I was brought to a realization about one thing and it shook me to the core. If you come in to sell your script and it is all about you, you will fail. The script is not about me. It is about the actors and the director. The designers. And most importantly, it is about the Audience. I often say that a Playwright is the only artist forced to present a canvas in which she has not used all her colors. The actors are, say, the red and the set is the blue. We cannot begin to perceive what the finished play will look like until it is framed in a theater and yet we must make the reader and the listener get where we are going and what we want. We have to make them picture it vividly.  A play is not a picture in a frame. A play isn't even a movie that is set in stone, and, while shown to many audiences, is not flexible. Every performance of a play is its own work of art because of the actors and the audience. The laughs will happen in different places every night. I remember seeing an actress performing "Suddenly Last Summer" the day after she had gotten terrible reviews. She burned the building down! She heard what they said and she made Williams sing. And that's what theater is, children. One performance at a time. I thought I had good plays. I thought I knew what I had to do. I have not yet begun to do it for you. Watch.

Love and Other Things We Don't Understand

I lie when I'm in Love. Maybe that's the problem. Perhaps I should be the Saucy Wench, the Impish Tease, the Task Mistress, and not my usual pile of Clinging Goo. I want the other person not so much to feel better but to feel better about me. There is nothing so selfish as claiming to care and to love. Ergo, you want to change the object of your affection to something better, something happier, something more that suits you...all right! Suits me. Me. Me.  To truly Love is to accept. "Love alters not when it alteration finds." I repeat Sonnet 116 over and over but do I really believe it or is it just to make myself look better? And the sad part of this is that all the lying and begging and improving is that I have twice had to leave the men in question and I left them in tatters, unable to function. I did all the work and paid all the bills and they were left more helpless than ever. To say "be a man", is something both men and women should aspire to as it makes us feel more human. We survive on our own and sometimes as equals, but never when I am the Mother, easing the way far too much. Sometimes, I have simply not let my men be men. I have not let them find their own way and feel their own success. I destroy with Love and that is a terrible fault I should apologize for the rest of my Life.

I Haven't Opened the New York Times in Two Months

I don't know exactly what is going on with my brain, but I no longer care about the news. I no longer know what news is as it has been so warped. Even the television seems to have no relevance. It's obvious from the elections that the electorate is not interested in facts and did the people who voted for Obama think that they were only allowed the one vote? Where did they go? I get the impression that everyone is sitting around waiting for a miracle. The lottery or a rich spouse. OK, I'm on Social Security and I pay a lot, but I have medical care. My apartment is warm and the only flaw is the woman upstairs is going insane and walks back and forth 14 hours a day which will eventually make me insane, but it's relatively cheap for NY area. I have too much food and am attempting to lose weight. At this rate of expenditure, my money will...probably not run out enough to force me on to Medicare. I have decided to ignore the Multiple Sclerosis and pretend I can walk. But is that all there is? I have a novel and now 4 plays in the works. (What I learned from my mother contest. Great! Let's see how inspiring negative lessons can be.) But have we given up on Social Progress? Have we given up on truth? Are the bigots and know-nothings winners. Come on, Leaders! I need someone to follow since Obama lost the air.

"Freedom's Just Another Word for" ...Hello...Hello?

It took Ceci another six years to get free of D1. The collection of newspapers, boxes and cans simply pushed her out of the apartment, but at least she had forced him to move up the New York City and had started a sort of career in the Theater, writing plays Off Off Off Broadway. There had also been another flirtation with a married man, but hardly a love of her life. He was hitting on every woman in the theater group to see which one would help him get out of the marriage. Ceci wasn't THAT dumb. So, she found an apartment in Montclair and left, even leaving the cat behind. It took a year to get D1 totally out of her life as he'd show up at her door, but at last she did. She said goodbye. Ever since then, it has only been goodbye. And now, the men barely noticed. The pool was dwindling and the ones still left out there had a damned good reason to be left out there. That's the thing, just when the men were feeling extra value due to their rarity, their value was dwindling because they could not commit to a woman. I think that it's not the losing that hurts, it's the goodbye. It is hard for women. It takes thought. It takes courage. And men barely notice. Men cut their losses fast and move on to the next one. And here I am again, heart in my hand, standing alone. No more men. It's time to get truly liberated. Get political. Get real. Alone.

That Old Devil Biology Keeps Rearing It's...Um...Head.

Which half of the sky do we hold up? It has to be the one with the clouds and wind. The part where there are downdrafts and tornadoes. Still, many of us do try to put the burden of everything on a man. Perhaps that's what I'm mourning right now. Not that I'm not sharing the burden with a man but that he never took it all off my shoulders. I was never valuable enough to do nothing but stay home, supervising the household. And if that's so valuable, why do men leave? Men don't leave. Real men don't leave. Any man can leave. I'm just starting to get a handle on the biology of it all. (No jokes on the word "handle".) Right when it's too late. Men don't want infinite numbers of children, but they feel the urge to go at it as if because that's what nature has set them for, if they are not mature enough to control it. I don't think women want infinite numbers of children or men. We want to have pleasure. We want to have love and affection. Most men do, too and it all works out for most of us for all of our lives. Men don't have enough money to buy infinite lingerie models and sadly, that's the only way they can get them. (AWWWWWW). As I've said before, Nature protects us from rape and kidnap by making more women than men, but it also makes for loneliness and frustration. All the machines on earth can't replace love and protection. And that goes both ways.

What Are We Doing About This Mess of a World? Seriously.

The woman who lives above me has panic attacks and worries about people killing her. She has barely left the apartment for a year (since the boyfriend left her there) and spends the entire day walking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, occassionally stopping to drop something. She should worry about ME killing her, but it is a wonderful metaphor for self-obsession destroying women. She doesn't volunteer to help the Poor. She doesn't battle the Tea Party. She doesn't have friends or lovers, she is just surviving with no idea why. Sometimes, I think that I am no different. I belong to various committees at Church. I belong to a few political organizations, but too much of my time I am obsessing about aging and men and Love, like I am doing right here. And nothing ever changes. Notice my delicacy. Notice my needs. Yeah...so? Don't the Poor and the kids and the disabled need a lot more? Delicate? Please! If you don't fall down, you're healthy and keep living. What am I contributing other than the sound of a whine? Why can't we be happy being loved for our leadership and skills? Perhaps that's why I'm not a leader and I'm not educated and I'm not helping anyone...pure, unadulterated self pity mucks up the work. And trust me, the self-pity is a human thing, for both men and women and grows worse in this economy. Damn it, no! If this whole exercise doesn't lead to making me a better human being, then I may as well be like the woman upstairs, walking back and forth like a Gerbil for 16 hours a day.

What is Love? Baby, Don't Hurt Me...Again

So, around 1978, Ceci had acquired another insane boyfriend, D1 M. invited D1 to a party Ceci was giving and while, when he kissed her, D1 never closed his eyes, betraying his insanity, Ceci once more gave in to the thrill of male attention and let him stay the night. Sex was his forte. Life, not so much. He was living with his parents, "working" for his parents (pay for no work) and collecting every piece of paper, tin, etc. he touched as his touch made it valuable. He refused to say "I love you." Ceci was in her secretarial job at the Community organization when the door open and the Man Mountain we shall call D2 entered. Tall, muscular, hair down to his shoulders and a ZZ Topp beard, all dressed in denim, D2's eyes met Ceci's and the room cracked with chemistry. Did we mention the wedding ring? Or the kids? Ceci and D2 began chatting immediately, having lunch together...he would drive her home. D2 forbade her to speak of D1. It was only a matter of time until the kissing began. Then, the secret nighttime phone calls behind wife's back. Nothing more. One day, the office closed early and he drove her home, four hours before he was due home. They looked at each other. Talk about "I would not love thee half so much dear, loved I not honor more." Neither could hurt a woman or children, so he turned away and drove off. Ceci was shattered and numb, vulnerable to D1 as...something...anything. She became lost in daydreams and stayed there for twenty years, not even noticing who or what was happening to her. It was a recipe...for the modern female experience.

A Biopsy and a Sonogram in One Week is Enough

Despite this nasty little bout of Multiple Sclerosis, I've stayed fairly healthy, lost the weight enough to bring down the blood pressure, but not enough to be the mistaken for my former self. I'm wondering if they'll let me hold off on the thyroid pills till that twenty is gone? And something appeared on my gum that had to be excised and sent to the lab. Enough! How the Hell long am I supposed to live anyway? Do I want to be one of those retired people with nothing to do but drive from dentist to doctor, trying to eke out another week? Yes, if it is your Beloved, go for it, fight for it...I'm talking about me, who's looking at a wheelchair. I'm only 61, but already on a cane, which ages me ten years. I have to wear a jaunty hat and stride like a man to keep from looking like I need a Boy Scout. Managed to have two days of play readings. Discovered that a battery powered device can't replace everything about a man. Not the touch of his hand or the feel of his shoulder and all in all, that was a nice thing to remember. Nothing happened. We are friends and I thanked God for a moment of grace and gallantly stepped aside again for the Army of younger gals whom he prays are awaiting him. Started my first novel and found it goes well. Here comes winter in both senses of the term and am I ready? Can I shout loud enough and make enough pretty colors in the sky so I'm not shoved aside. We shall See.

Ceci Returns to Philadelphia in a Novel

As I've been threatening for years, I am writing a novel about the theater world that I know. It is about hanging on to the label of actor, playwright, director, whatever, even when you have never earned a cent in it. It is especially meaningful in the vast jungle reaches of that wilderness called The Upper West Side. You can have your friends work for free, rent or get the loan of a space and voila! You are still OF the Theater, if not IN the theater. Your friends and family buy tickets. You might even join a union or two but no health plan without income. But you are OF the theater. Cobble together the paying jobs, wear that jaunty little hat and carry your H&H bagel down the street with your New York Times. The gang gets together around the piano on a Saturday night and you are OF the Theater. And for those who live this lifestyle, on the Upper West Side...they are content. They are living in Nirvana. In Paradise. It is the dream found one way or another and God bless them. How different or how happy would I be if I had at least achieved that instead of being stranded on the wrong side of the River? How did Ceci get from Philadelphia to the Gates of Paradise and get left in limbo? It's called Flounder On A Roll, named for a sign in a deli in Manhattan Plaza and it is on it's way. Hello Beebee...do I recognize that leaf?