AUSTIN, TX-- TEXAS BOOK FESTIVAL
Stranger Than Fiction: Me and My Memoir
Sunday, Nov. 2
2:30 PM
FREE, Open to the public
State Capitol Building
Capitol Extension Room E2.026
FREE Parking locations for the general public are:
Granger Parking Garage, 12th & Guadalupe (west of the Capitol)
Visitor Parking Garage, 12th & Trinity; State Parking Garage @ 14th & Trinity (east of the Capitol)
All State parking lots northeast of 15th Street & Lavaca (north of the Capitol)

AUSTIN, TX
Thursday, Nov. 6 Book Lover’s Luncheon
11:00 AM
$28 General Admission
$25 Students, Seniors, JCAA Members
JCC Community Hall
7300 Hart Lane
Austin, TX 78731

HOUSTON, TX
Wednesday Nov. 12
7:15 Pre-lecture ice cream reception
Free to series ticket holders
$9 JCC Members
$13 Public
5601 S. Braeswood
Houston, TX 77096

SAN ANTONIO, TX
Thursday Nov. 13
7:30-9:00 PM
$10 per person or $30 for 2 tickets and a copy of the book
Barshop JCC/ Holzman Auditorium
12500 NW Military Hwy
San Antonio, TX 78231

ATLANTA, GA
Nov. 20
7:30 PM
$10 Members
$15 Non-Members
Park Tavern
500 10th St, NE
Atlanta, GA 30309

I know you're hurting. I know that pain, the intensity of it. I totally know.  I need to tell you this: advice is what you want when you already know the answer. And you do. You know the answer. You just don't like the answer, and that's understandable.

Intellectually, you know all of it. You know the advice you'd give a friend describing your exact situation. You know what your younger self would tell you to do. Intellectually you know that the pain will eventually dull, that there will be someone else, that you can move on, but in the living, you want time to fast-forward to "over it." You don't want to live through it. It's too painful. You want to feel better, even if it means a band-aid. And yet, you never want to go through this pain again. You want to do anything you can to prevent this from happening again. And the sad fact is, you can't.

You're afraid of the unknown. And so is he. It's why he's given you the mixed messages of let's work it out, let's make this work, then waffles back to, "I just don't think we're happy" and "This just isn't working." He actually knows that part is true. He knows that it won't work, that deep down, he doesn't feel it, yet every time he fears the unknown, fears regret, he reneges and tells you he wants to work it out. Or he hears how upset you are and wants to ease your pain. Or just worries if he's making a mistake, so he waffles. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you already have the answer. It's over. And it stings, and there's an ache, and you feel lost without him. But, you're not.

Just because one person doesn't think you're right for them doesn't mean you need to change. It doesn't mean you're broken or damaged. It doesn't mean you aren't good enough or that you're some failure. It's ONE PERSON. I know you thought he was "the person." But he's not. He's a person. And so are you... your own person. You need to take care of her now. No one died and made him God. Your desperate, "I'll change all those things you wanted me to" attempts need to stop. You want to change something, then change your perspective. Figure out what led you here, and learn from it. Yes, you have shit to work on. We all have things to work on, and with the next person there will still be things to work on, sometimes the same things, sometimes all new anxieties or issues bubble to the top. It's never going to be perfect, but it's not supposed to leave you feeling like shit more than you're feeling like "the shit."   

You do not want him back. What you want is safe. You want what you know. You want what's easy. You feel unsteady and you want a security blanket of promises. Only one person can give you that, and you know who she is. You want to be wanted. You want all those feelings you felt at the beginning. You want to hear that you're beautiful, that you're amazing, that he feels soooo lucky to have found you, that you're clever and adorable and that he can't think of anyone but you. No one will ever compare to you. Ever. He'll never ever stop feeling that way, he's sure! You want to hear all of that, so much, mostly because you're getting your sense of worth from him, not from you. You wouldn't need to hear all that if you knew it, if you felt it, if you believed you were already those things. You need to give that to yourself now, no matter how frightening it feels. It's an ending, but it's also a start.   

I'm now listening to the final track of the album, a song titled "You Are the Best Thing." It's the kind of song I live for. The kind I can sing to, spin, and twirl to, with a bend at the knees. It's a red wine of a song--a grand cru. It's the kind of music that makes you think of storms, where you're visiting some ailing aunt (yours or someone elses), and you're stuck in a house you don't know, but you've found a curtain of space on a screened in porch, and it's somehow okay, even without anything to do. It's the kind of music that makes you savor the smaller moments--the ones you think no one else really has.

Now, it's not just a bottle of wine and a sofa with my bare feet kicked up, a shade of Bordeaux on my toes. It's all that and more. Now it's me on a sofa with a swirl of wine and a daughter with hair in her eyes and a pink hideous flower-shaped purse in the crook of her arm, clawing her way into my lap with a Junior Jellybean Book. I'm no longer listening to backup singers, but giggles in my ear and across the room. It's not just wine in my hands. It's hands on my face, and a nose rubbing against mine. It's a picture book with a muppet holding a stop sign. And I couldn't ask for more than this. This delicious soundtrack of my life.

Do you hear what I hear? Well, you can...

I wonder if it's like a wedding dress. You know, something that when you try it on, you just know it's the one. I'm waiting for that to happen, but with the twenty or so stories I've come up with, I don't feel that about any of them yet. It's why I'm hoping it's less about the story I'm telling and much more in the telling of it.

It's no small task: establishing the characters, and how they fit into Stephanie's life, carving out where the show will live (apartment, hangout spot, office, etc.), all while showing her frame of mind, externalizing her internal struggle, setting up conflicts between characters, defining desires and needs. Her desires can't be vague, either. "She wants to find herself," just ain't gonna cut it. They have to be specific enough that the audience knows the moment she gets what she wants. Or doesn't.

Her opponents (regular opponents, not random men who ask her to go dutch on a date) need to attack her greatest weakness so she's forced to grow. And these opponents have to be necessary, with their own weaknesses and opposing values, yet share similarities with her, too. Each of her opponents has to attack her weakness from a different angle, and in as different a way as possible from one another. All this, and it has to be funny. It is, after all, a half-hour comedy. I might think too much, but I need the answers to these questions before I can think about the funny. I need the bone structure so I know it has longevity. I've actually already worked that bit out and am now left with the task of creating the story I'm going to tell, of all the possible stories in the book. In less than thirty minutes, we need to know where Stephanie is now that she's divorced, what it is she wants, and get a sense of what's in store for her now...and all while referring to myself in the third person.

Then tonight, I'll need to shift gears and speak about chubb rub and chunky-dunking. I'm not really planning on reading from Moose, but I might just slip in a quick page or two, to give the audience a better sense of the book. You know, show, not tell what the book's about. I NEVER know what to select. It's the same issue I have with choosing just one pilot story. There's so much there. So many topics covered, and I only get one chance to convince people to stick around and watch it, or read it. From those of you who've read the books, I'm listening.

Abigail refused to wear her cat ears by either ripping them off her head, wailing, or by throwing herself to the ground, just lying there. If only "just lying there" got us all out of things we didn't want to do.

It's official. After Halloween, the store windows stop. They skip right over Thanksgiving and already have me thinking of the December events, aside from the twin taters turning two. I realize money is tight, that it's hard, that people are losing their jobs, taking less pay, eating home a lot. I know I'll be making scrapbooks as gifts if there's time, but with all I have going on, it's been hard to find time for such arts & crafties. Instead, I procrastinate making fun lists, this one in particular dedicated to my love of New York. It's not finished, but it's a fun start. Except now all I want to do is listen to Christmas music and eat a toasted bialey with a touch of salted, melted butter. Lox are optional. But alas, I have a cold and should instead go watch television, wear socks, and drink salty soup.

See more of my NY NY Holiday

• 1/3 oz grenadine
• 1/3 oz peach schnapps
• 1/3 oz blue curaçao

Drinking game of the night: drink every time you hear the following, "Too close to call," "Record Turnout," or "Historic Election."

Please drink, or at least vote, responsibly.

I pouted when McCain came up to the podium to give his concession speech, not because he lost, but because as he and Palin waved and gave their thumbs up to the crowd, I thought, "It sucks to lose. That has to be so hard." It takes character to lose with grace, even when it's expected and part of the job. It's hard to feel rejection, or loss, or even failure, even if it was out of your hands, even if it had to do with factors beyond your own control. And then to let it go, to wake up the next day, and to simply go on... that's what really makes any of us a success. And for the record, I voted for Obama.

*And to save you some time, here's a photo of Rahm Emanuel.

In choosing what to read from Moose now that I'm touring a bit for the Jewish Book Fair, I sometimes leave it until the last minute--you know, gauge the crowd. I'm not exactly going to read a passage about slap bracelets and stonewash to a generation that doesn't know from playing M.A.S.H. (Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House). Certain things just don't translate out of context, or out of generation.

Today at the Austin JCC, before I took to the stage, I found a good passage about the time I'd missed a teen nutrition class in Fran Levine's basement and was hurled into the adult world of food therapy for a weekly weigh-in session. Perfect. I'd read about the time I asked Fran for advice on how to deal with the fact that my mother always bought my father a goodie for after dinner, and how it drove me crazy because he'd hide them from me, but I'd always find them. It was a funny scene, in particular, as such a young girl, to be in a church basement somewhere hearing adults confess their eating sins. A woman ate a jar of fruit spread but didn't think condiments "counted." One woman was a Holocaust survivor and couldn't leave food over on her plate. One man got on the scale and said the letters, "M.S" to Fran, hoping she'd deduct three pounds from his weight. He'd seen her do it for other clients before. "Henry," Fran told him, "M.S. stands for menstrual cycle."

Cute story, I thought--you know, to read to a crowd of women who could, whether or not they've ever had body image issues, relate. Except as I read silently, half-way through the passage, I realized, at the bottom of the page a "scene" was coming. Words I didn't want to read aloud just after reciting a prayer over the bread.

"I always find whatever he's hidden and eat some. The other day I found an apple pie in his bedroom dresser!"  I didn't mention the fact that I'd gone in there to grab his Truly Tasteless Jokes book. I'd read passages for detailed scenarios then masturbate to words like "bush," "spread," and "cream."

When it was my turn to address the crowd of over 250 women, I decided instead to read a "dressing room" scene with my mother and skipped the "self loving" moment above in favor of a "self-doubt" moment about fart sounds and pruning breasts because well, people were, after all, eating.

PSYCHO MAMA HISSY FIT TIME: Listen to clit rock and dance like fools singing along to lyrics about being "over it."

BUILDING TIME: Wooden Blocks, Legos, Stacking Rings (Talk about shapes, colors, sizes, and COUNT), Shot Glasses

FREE PLAY: Play with cars and trains (show how they can link and follow roads on play mat). Use dump truck and show how you can fill and empty it. Dolls and stuffed animals: put them to bed, feed them, nurture them, push in stroller, brush hair. Wear hippie clothes and bells on our toes, then see how many people we can stuff into a VW van.

SORTING TIME: Animal Hospital and Farm Play. Otherwise, it's time to reorganize mama's makeup drawer.

SIGNING TIME: Watch Signing Time Video as Lunch or Dinner is being prepared

MUSIC TIME: Play "music together CD" and take out musical instruments (Must be supervised, and I must be inebriated)

ALONE TIME: Can hide under table covered with blanket or in old cardboard box or in that playhouse we have. Or I can just lock myself into the bathroom and pretend I'm busy.

PHYSICAL TOYS: Tunnel time with pulling and pushing toys, ride on toys, tires, boxes. Otherwise, just wrestle them to the ground until they scream uncle.

SCARVES TIME: Play with different colored scarves, see how they float in air, talk about colors, play hide and seek with them, or go to Hermes and shop.

FOLLOW THE LEADER: A parade of follow the leader, and singing sequential songs like Hokey Pokey, If You're Happy And You Know It, Wheels on the Bus and Old MacDonald, helps them learn sequences.

STORY TIME: Read books in Spanish & English, read nursery rhymes (Ideally, turn on a story time lamp) like one of these to start this special ritual. Essential to teaching them how to lie properly. Yay, "fiction."

PUPPET SHOW TIME: Play with finger puppets & regular puppet show. Give Lucas and Abigail old socks with faces drawn on them and teach them how to do puppets. See Story Time for pointers.

PRETEND & PLAY BALL TIME: Catch, throw, roll, kick. When lose attention, teach how to imitate animals: hop like rabbit, tiptoe like birds, waddle like ducks, slither like a snake, do crab walk. Then pick up your self-respect. Do the ASL sign for each animal. Can also repeat or combine this with stories and songs that include animals.

I was startled for a moment when I saw a Halloween gag on my window. "Ha, ha," I thought to myself. "Norma got me this time." There, outside my window, she stuck a pipe cleaner tarantula. Then I looked a little closer. HOLY MOTHERFUCKER. It was moving. Right there, on the window, beside my front door. A TARANTULA. Where the fuck am I living? Seriously. Who sees tarantulas?! Pictures of my window and our guest, who decided to be fashionably late for Halloween:

Slightly less troubling, I then googled this creature to see what people were saying about it's death factor if you're jabbed by one of these buggers. Guess what I found? People touting them as great "beginner spiders." As in, what a great pet these guys make. They're totally underestimated. Yeah, I don't know who these people are, these exotic pet owners who prefer reptiles to puppies, but a tarantula is NOT a goddamn pet. Look at it. From this picture, it looks like it has one cyclops of an eye, with a gaping hole in the middle, that I can't help but think of as an ass instead of a mouth. It looks like one of those anal sex porn DVD covers, where they show some gaping ass action as an enticement to buy. Then I watched this video on tarantulas, watching a man who looks like he'd be the type to have a tarantula as a pet, fondle his friend, telling us all about the tarantula nemesis. How thoroughly disturbing. And yes, I'm judgmental. One of my closest friends in college had a pet snake in her dorm room. She once showed up at a judge's house wearing nothing but a trench coat, heels, and her pet snake. He asked her to leave. So would I.

I'm heading off to Houston today, where I'll be speaking at the JCC with ice cream in hand tonight. The woman who runs the program asked if I was open to taking questions from the audience. Could that, she asked, be the format for the evening? Absolutely. I love questions. So in the spirit of them, today I'm open to yours. Got questions? I'll try to answer all of them. Post away.

OOOOPS! I JUST REALIZED TONIGHT THEY WANT ME TO SPEAK FOR 45-50 MINUTES. THE QUESTIONS FORMAT IS FOR TOMORROW NIGHT IN SAN ANTONIO! I totally love winging it anyway. I can talk about myself forever anyway.

ALSO, I will answer all your questions, so if you see one I've skipped over, it just means I haven't had time to respond yet, but I WILL respond. It might just take time.

Update on Phil's Health: He feels fine. He has always felt fine. Symptom-free. He went to the doctor yesterday and returned with a huge arrangement of flowers for me. For no reason. It made me happy and a little wary. What's he not telling me? And in his way, he couldn't answer my questions straight up. He drip-fed me little bits of the appointment throughout the day and night, little pockets of information. What I know: his genetic testing came back negative, except we know that of people who 100%; have this specific genetic defect, only 50% test positive for having it. So it gets us nowhere. His pacemaker is working, hard. All the time. His ejection fraction is low, 45 I think. It's concerning. But we'll see if it's trending down, since his ejection fraction used to be at 65 (though I remember it being at 70, he disagrees). So we're seeing if it trends. He'll need an ablation at some point, but he refuses to talk about it. He's still in atrial fibrillation and at a high risk of stroke, even being on blood thinners. The longer he stays in a-fib, the harder it will be to repair it. His quality of life, they tell him, will take a turn (moreso than usual), if he stays in a-fib, though they don't know when. I asked the doctor what he would do if it was him, or if Phil were his son, what would he tell him to do, and he said, "I'd do whatever I had to, to get out of a-fib." Phil is going to see Natale (a very well known electro guy) next week. We'll see what he says.

What Scent Do You Wear: You can see the perfume I wear by clicking here

Weekends in fall are reserved for many things earthy and sweet. This one brought proper clothes shopping for Lucas (we've started to call him Luke) and Abigail. While I was away, Phil had emailed me photos of them. And I replied, not with "how cute" or "adorable," but "creepy, they need new clothes. He looks like an accountant, and she looks like a ragamuffin." So, off we went, shopping list in hand. Cable knit sweaters (ooh, or those Irish knotted ones), brown thick corduroys, tweed dresses with leggings, footsie pajamas and faux fur boots.  Speaking of boots, we ventured to Nordstrom on our way to Janie & Jack (my all time fave) to stop at the shoe department for Phil.  Nordstrom, aside from offering free alterations and piano music, has a half-decent shoe department. It's no Neiman Marcus Last Call, but it will do. Shhhhh, don't tell. Identifying a Lacoste sneaker with a velcro strap, Phil said, "Look, Izod," then asked the salesman if they had it in his size. We sat and waited, and my period cramps were appreciative.

"I need socks" Phil explained as he walked toward the stock room following after the associate. Little did I know just how much. If it had been a scene in a movie, you might see me wince. Had it been "You're a Stinky Cheese Man, Charlie Brown," there would've been a brown cloud of dust rise to bitch-slap me across the face. But this was real life, and that, right there, the indescribably rancid smell that bordered on vinegar and smelt roe, simply had me draw in a deep breath from over my shoulder. Then I held it, as if I were in a car, passing a cemetery, believing if I held my breath until we were a safe distance away, I'd have good luck. Phil began to laugh, that laugh you can't help. That moment where you've smelled up a room and not only do you know, but you know the people around you know it. He laughed until he couldn't breathe. Add some serious insult to injury, this was no ordinary salesman. He was old school, sitting on his leather measuring of a stool, pulling stuffed knots of paper from the shoes, wiggling the tongue. He was right there, that close, to the enemy.

Already in the process, Phil swiftly pulled on the "communal socks," wrong on so many levels, and attempted to push his way into the shoes, hoping the quicker he was, the closer he'd be to containing his offense of a foot. Phil looked at me, giggling like a school girl. I bowed my head, shaking it as if my child had just smeared a dookie across the teacher's desk. The associate asked if it felt right.

The shoes didn't fit but the moment did.  This is what makes life memorable. Now go bust a pit on someone you love.