I recently found myself in Palm Springs. No, that’s not precisely true. I was in Rancho Mirage, a different place altogether. I’m assuming Palm Springs had an organic beginning, a spring that attracted a man, an Indian perhaps, who warmed himself in the thermal waters, that one man eventually led to another and soon there was an encampment which grew into a village that grew into a town and, in turn, a city. Rancho Mirage was invented, like yesterday, well, the 70’s. I had never been in an invented place before, one that doesn’t need to exist except for the fact that it does. And, when a dust storm blew in one night, it felt like this “mirage” could just as easily disappear as it had appeared. Continue reading “Self-Invention”
Mad or Merely a Woman?
Recently, I thought I was going crazy so naturally I wanted to turn to my family for help. But then again…
Pretty much every member on my father’s side of the family is prone to exaggeration. (Me included.) Ask a simple question, you’ll get a wild answer. For instance, one of my uncles longed claimed that he gave his wife 47 orgasms the first time they made love. He repeatedly told this story in front of his three daughters. That’s how given to exaggeration we are that a puffed up story is way more important than anyone’s sensitivities. Continue reading “Mad or Merely a Woman?”
Staying Aloft
Why am I on all fours, bum high in the air, my head hanging upside down with a vibrator pressed up against my ear? Maintenance, of course. How else to battle a persistent and recurrent bout of vertigo than to rattle my brain with a dildo? Continue reading “Staying Aloft”
My Brain Is Killing Me!
Why can’t I control my brain? Seems so unfair that I am completely at its mercy, especially since I’m not sure it has my best interest at heart.
Today, for instance, I have a song stuck in my head. In fact, for the last week or so, I’ve woken up every morning to some dreadful tune, actually not even the whole song, just a phrase which is being repeated endlessly as if caught in some hellish neural loop. All of which has me convinced that I have a brain tumour. Why else would Adele be lodged there taking up space better reserved for, oh I don’t know, writing, or at the very least imagining having sex with Clive Owen? (I chose him because he looks like a great kisser, though he is knock kneed which isn’t so great. See how even here the brain interferes? Leave my fantasies alone for god sake!) Continue reading “My Brain Is Killing Me!”
Toss Me
My family’s country house is falling down. Literally. Unfortunately, it won’t come down in a ton of bricks. Rather, since it’s a two hundred and fifty year old log cabin it will, eventually, slide into oblivion. Right now, though, it looks like a Friday night drunk slumped on the curb, head to chest, hands folded across his belly, drooling and in threat of pissing himself. When it finally does go (perhaps with a shove by me) I’ll be relieved. The bloody thing has been a repository of memory for far too long. I want it dead, buried and gone.
What the hell is a matter with me? Is there nothing I won’t throw out?
Honestly? I don’t think there is. Continue reading “Toss Me”
A Surviver’s Guide To Being Scared Shitless
There are a couple of things I used to boast about when I was a kid. One, spoken with great pride, was to tell every person I knew: the postman, the baker, my teacher, my best friend’s father, anyone really, that my Dad was bankrupt. And not for the first time. In fact, he had already clocked three other bankruptcies!
I now realize that this probably isn’t true. From the great height of adulthood, and knowing how prone to exaggeration my father is, it seems more likely that most of those bankruptcies were job losses with only one, or two, being a dyed-in-the-wool bail out from under crushing debt. But my father always spoke of losing everything with such gusto that I did too.
The second isn’t so much a boast, rather a grand chance to be a know-it-all. “The greatest evil,” I would say, “is money making money.” Although I had no clue what this meant, I had heard it repeated so often by my father that I thought it must be the sagest of sage wisdoms. And it appealed to the burgeoning absurdist in me.
Every once in a while one of my sisters or my mother would catch me in the middle of my act and, looking truly mortified, hustle me off my stage. But I’d be right back out there the next time giving ‘em all I got. Continue reading “A Surviver’s Guide To Being Scared Shitless”
Cry Me A River
I can’t stop sobbing. What started this morning as a localized cry has blossomed into an all day jag. Indulgent as this may seem, I actually fall prey to this once or twice a year.
The first time I fell head long into limitless tears was nearly twenty years ago when my husband’s brother-in-law suddenly died and I found myself thrust into my first experience with death. Bracing myself with the thought that there would only be a funeral to deal with, I soon found out that before the burial there was something called a visitation where friends and family come and visit the dead body. Continue reading “Cry Me A River”
The IRS Wants Me To Do What?
Whenever I got caught being bad as a kid (which, boastfully, was far less than deeds committed) my father in his deep, sonorous voice would command me to “Present myself for punishment.” I don’t blame him for making this absurd request. After all, he’s from that weird generation steeped in corporal punishment, boarding school sadism and, through no fault of his own, he is…well, British.
What’s the IRS’ excuse? Continue reading “The IRS Wants Me To Do What?”
I Am Not A Duck
I am not a duck. This is the only reason I can come up with as to why I am a writer. But I fear this might not be enough. After twenty years of writing; a published novel, another one making the rounds at this very moment, numerous magazine articles, a couple of screenplays not to mention this blog, I’m still not sure if I have the right to call myself a writer. Continue reading “I Am Not A Duck”
A Present? Please, Don’t Bother.
I’ve never had much luck with gifts. I remember one sleety, grim Montreal afternoon just before Christmas sitting in the vestibule of our high school hangout with my friend Laura when she said, in the most solemn manner, “My present to you is my presence.” Now seeing it written down it makes perfect sense, even if it does smack of a certain vanity on her part. I mean who the hell was she? But at that moment, having just smoked an enormous joint and having spent the last half an hour deep in discussion as to who Alvin Tostig was, her offering not only came out of nowhere but it made no sense. As I stared incomprehensibly at her, poor Laura was forced to offer her “gift” over and over so that by the time I figured out what the hell she was talking about it was blanched of all spontaneity. Continue reading “A Present? Please, Don’t Bother.”
Subscribe by email