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July 20, 2006

I think it’s best if I don’t go to any more meetings. As you know, at the last one, all I did was cry. But yesterday’s meeting was even more humiliating. I didn’t cry at that one, but I did sweat. Like a man. And then I went on to call attention to it so everyone sitting there would be assured that I realize how disgusting I am.

The purpose for the meeting was to discuss my launch party for Miss Understanding, which will be at Bergdorf Goodman on October 24 and I’d be delighted if you were there. In fact, I’ll be sending you all e-vites, unless I have your address, in which case, you’ll get a real invitation. Somewhere on this website is a form for you to fill out but you can just email me.

The party will be a good one. I promise, and hopefully, if Louise Galvin, the celebrity hair colorist to whom I devoted an entire chapter of my book isn’t too pregnant, she’ll be my guest of honor. You have to see her. I won’t say anything else except movie star material.

So Louise was at the meeting, and my new HarperCollins publicist (adorable), and Louise’s team of publicists (beyond charming and gorgeous and dressed to perfection) and me. . .with the sweat rings. I don’t want to talk about it but let’s just say, I’m glad no one saw the magic marker that I noticed on the back of my pants when I got home.

Why do I go anywhere?

You’d think I would have learned my lesson from Chloe, but no. I wore white pants and a white shirt and then just sat there soaking myself.

Anyhoo, here’s what’s happening so far for the new book. Mark your calendars and I’ll have more information soon:

July 26
Hudson News Charity Event
Ovarian Cancer Research Fund
Nova’s Arc Project
Kelly Ripa is going to be there and a bunch of fashion people
Click here to view the event website.
Water Mill, NY

October 6
La Femme Film Festival
Beverly Hills, CA

November 2, 2006
Boston University
Boston, MA

July 11

Kim and I took a tour of the Jewish Home in Rockleigh yesterday. Her high school requires forty hours of Community Service so Kim is planning to sing for the residents, accompanied by her friend Matt, on piano. I decided to go with Kim and take the tour with her for moral support. It can be emotionally difficult for teenagers the first time they visit an old age home.

We got off to a slow start leaving the house and of course we were low on gas once we got started and I had to stop, which made us even more late. I went through a few red lights to compensate for our tardiness, but all that did was upset Kim and make me wish I wasn’t the one who’s always responsible for getting us places, seeing as how I’m so bad at it.

When we got to the Home, we were so late, I dropped Kim off in front and drove around to find a parking space. By the time I got into the building Kim had already been greeted by our escort, the associate director of the volunteer program.

“This is not like any other nursing home you’ll ever see, Kim,” the woman was explaining. “It’s not depressing here at all. In fact we pride ourselves on the fact that it’s so uplifting and cheerful. You’ll notice the place is immaculately maintained. We have the finest chefs and everyone here is happy and friendly. You’ll see. Many people come here expecting to feel sad and they leave wanting to come back.”

Kim was smiling and listening, casually looking around. As soon as the woman stopped talking to Kim, I introduced myself. We shook hands and she told me I had a lovely daughter. “Very mature and warm.”

“She is mature,” I thought to myself, miraculously so.

I was about to say thank you when my eyes drifted down the hall and I spotted a woman in a wheel chair waving her arms. I waved back to her. And then I immediately started crying.

Our escort put her arm around me and said, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Lessing. I understand this is very difficult for some people to see elderly people, but I assure you, everyone here is happy.”

”Call me Stephanie,” I choked.

“These residents are enjoying their stay with us. They accept their limitations and appreciate everything. They will cheer you up if you let them. Let’s look around and if you feel like crying, cry. No one is judging you here.”

“Thank you!” I said, holding on to the nearest railing. I slipped my new sunglasses out of my purse and put them on. Kim took my hand.

“It’s okay, Mommy. I’ll take care of you, but I’m just curious; why exactly are you crying?”

“I miss Grandma Rose!” I sobbed.

”But you hardly even knew her.”

”I know it seems that way, but I knew her a lot better before you were born. She used to buy my sister and I new panties every time she came to visit. She was a wonderful woman.”

”I thought you said she was a complainer.”

”That too, but she was wonderful and a complainer at the same time. I should have spent more time with her. I’m a horrible person.”

“I’m sorry, mom,” Kim said putting her arm around me. “Try to pull yourself together.”

Just then another woman wheeled by us and nodded. At the same time, two men were approaching us on walkers and another woman was close behind in some sort of motorized wheelchair with a flag.

“They can just roll around whenever they feel like it?” I asked, settling myself down by asking unnecessary questions.

“Of course. This floor is for people who are quite mentally capable. They just need assistance transporting themselves, and what not. Let me introduce you to this fine gentleman,” our escort said, walking over to a very cute old man with two canes.

“These are my new friends, Stephanie and Kim. Kim will be volunteering here. She’ll be singing for you in a few weeks. Stephanie is her mother.” As soon as he touched my hand, I started welling up again.

”Why are you crying?” the man asked me.

“I miss my gramdmother,” I said.

I saw our escort give me a look, leading me to believe that I’d perhaps said the wrong thing. But I needed to pour my heart out to him. He looked like the type of person who could really help me.

He looked at me and said, “I understand sweetheart. I miss my grandmother too.”

We hugged briefly and then the man said to Kim, “I’m looking forward to hearing you sing.” Kim smiled and we continued walking.

“We are going in the elevator now to visit the second floor,” our escort explained. The residents on this floor are not quite as self-controlled.

“Will it be scary?” I asked, bracing myself for another emotional episode.

“No, not at all. We’re going to the ‘Free Spirit’ wing.”

“And by ‘Free Spirit’ do you mean ghosts?”

The woman looked at my daughter. Kim nodded at her and put her arm around me again. I got a sick feeling that the two of them were silently plotting to leave me on the second floor.

When the elevator opened, the first thing I heard was a woman screaming, “Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me now!”

“Do you suppose they allow ‘free sex’ up here in the ‘free spirit’ wing?” I whispered to Kim.

We walked a little further and there was the screaming woman right in front of us. She was wearing lipstick and fully clothed, thank God. Our escort walked up to one of the nurse’s aids and asked her why the old woman was screaming.

“She wants her sweater,” the nurse’s aid explained.

“Why doesn’t she have her sweater?” our escort asked.

“She does have it. She’s wearing it.”

Our escort walked over to the screaming woman and said, “I will get you your sweater in five minutes. In the meantime, please meet my new friends, Stephanie and Kim.”

The woman extended her hand and Kim and I took turns shaking it. Her hands were warm and dry. The sweater was doing its job.

“Hello, dahlings,” she said. “Are you cold?”

“I’m a little cold,” I said, assuming she was interested in the truth.

“Take my sweater,” she said.

I was about to take it when Kim slapped my hand. “Tell her you have a sweater in the car, and you’re just on your way to get it now,” Kim demanded.

“Okay, fine,” I said and turned my attention to the woman with the sweater, “I appreciate your offer but I have a very heavy sweater in the car. IF I wore both sweaters, I’d probably be too hot.”

Shortly thereafter we were whisked away to another floor where our escort introduced us to about thirty more residents, all of whom were thrilled to meet Kim and me. One was happier and sweeter and friendlier than the next.

“I’m starting to love it here!” I whispered to Kim.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she whispered back.

”I’d like you to meet my new friends, Kim and Stephanie,” our escort said to a woman who seemed to be guarding the arts and crafts room. She was sitting in her wheelchair, but for some reason her arms were outstretched. I moved in for a hug. It was hard to break away but after a few minutes she let me go.

“Have you been wearing your retainer?” she yelled to Kim.

“Um, yes?” Kim, who has never had braces nor a retainer, answered.

“Good Girl!! Always wear your retainer. Of course you don’t even need it anymore do you?”

”I don’t think so,” Kim answered.

“That’s what you think!” the woman said. I looked at my daughter. She showed no signs of being confused by this woman. “She’s a natural,” I thought to myself. She’s already comfortable with this entirely new way of communicating.

“Your teeth are perfect,” I whispered to her. “That woman is crazy.”

”I realize that she’s not all there, mom.”

“I just want to make sure she didn’t hurt your feelings.”

“I don’t think that would be possible.”

We somehow managed to get passed the woman who was obsessed with teeth and the three of us sat down in the arts and crafts room to finalize Kim’s hours and to sign some forms. Kim sat like a perfect lady, explaining to the program coordinator what songs she was planning to sing and what she’ll need, and how she’d like to continue the program in the fall by getting her school a cappella group involved. The woman was beaming. My daughter is quite impressive in an interview situation. I’ve seen her in action a couple of times and she blows me away. And then the woman turned to me and asked me if I’d like to volunteer as well. I am not quite the interviewee that Kim is and that is why I started crying again when she spoke to me.

”Are you serious?” I asked. “You’d consider having me here after the way I broke down back there?”

”Yes, of course. We need compassionate people.”

”Do you have Bingo?” I asked.

“Yes, of course we do. Would you like to volunteer for Bingo night?”

”Not really,” I said. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to just go home.

“I’ll do the Bingo,” Kim said.

“Stop volunteering for everything,” I whispered to her. “You’re making me look bad.”

”Wonderful!” the woman said. “I’ll put you both down for Bingo.”

”My mom can’t do Bingo,” Kim said, coming to my rescue.

”Why not? It’s easy!” the woman said.

“She gets very emotional during games.”

“I understand,” The woman said.

On the way back to the car, I put my arm around my daughter and marveled at how mature she is, and how I want to be just like her, when I grow up.

“Can I drive home?” she asked.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

July 10

You know that hummingbird thing that happens to your eyelid every now and then while you’re just standing there talking to somebody. Well mine does that all the time now. Ever since I had the laser. I can’t even tell you how weird it is to have an eye that’s constantly trembling.

At first I thought, “Huh! That’s funny, my eye is fluttering.” But now I’m thinking that the laser damaged a muscle or something. The first couple of times it happened, I’d point it out and say, “See what’s happening to my eye?” But now I can’t even concentrate on what people are saying anymore because all I can think about is that my eyelid is about to fly away.

I’ve conducted several experiments to try to nail down what causes the involuntary one-eyed flirting, but the only thing I’ve been able to come up with is that it happens no matter what. If something crashes to the floor, my eye starts batting. If someone says something to me like, “Hi,” or if the phone rings, or a dog walks by, or the UPS man pulls up, there it goes. It’s like there’s a little micro chip in there whose job it is to alert me to any movement or sound that’s taking place in my neighborhood.

I’m not sure how long I can go on without holding up some sort of sign that says, “I’m not winking at you. My eye just won’t stop moving.”

I could always get an eye patch but then there’s always the chance that my eye will continue twitching under the patch and then the patch will start bouncing up and down and people will think I’m doing magic.

I don’t want to be the person in the room with the magic patch. I just want to go back to being a normal person with two stationary eyes.

Of course there’s always the possibility that the right pair of sunglasses will hide everything. And I did see a very cute pair in Oliver Peoples the other day.

I mean what else can I do?

July 5

I'm going to get my other eye lasered today but on a happier note, check out: www.galleycat.com today. Scroll down cause I'm last. I'll post the whole review later today, when the eyedrops wear off.

June 29

It’s very early in the morning. I might even still be sleeping. It’s hard to say because it’s very dark in here and I’m too tired to turn on the light. Today is the day I go for my eye laser surgery. The surgery that will cure me of a disease I inherited from my father. A disease which will remain unnamed because only old people get it.

I’ll let you know how it goes. . .

You know, it wasn’t that bad. It was sort of fun. I heard the laser burning its little Superman ray right through my eyeball and yet I couldn’t feel a thing. At one point I thought I might have died and was having an out of body experience, but then I realized that my other eye was still working, so I was, in fact, seeing the nurse’s shoe. It wasn’t a little ghost shoe or anything.

After the procedure was over, which took about a minute, I had the same sort of headache one gets when gorging on ice cream, which didn’t bother me at all because I’m used to that sort of thing.

When I got home, I took my eye drops inside the house and stared at them. The type of surgery I had has no impact on eyesight whatsoever, but I kept feeling as though I was seeing with some sort of superhuman vision that no one had yet discovered was a rare side effect of the surgery.

I tried to use the laser surgery on and off throughout the day for sympathy but I had already blown it by telling Dan and Kim and Jesse that it didn’t hurt.

“Can someone get me a Diet Coke, please? Because, you know, my eye and everything.”

Nothing. Not even an answer.

Later that night I decided it was probably best to keep dust out of my eye so I made a little patch out of a piece of tissue and some string, but the string wasn’t tight enough so the tissue kept falling on the floor.

“Why does the dog have a tissue in her mouth?” Kim asked.

“That’s my eye patch. It fell.”

“Mom, you don’t need an eye patch.”

”I like to keep my eye dust-free whenever I get a hole in it,” I explained.

But no one was buying that either. As a last resort I put an ice pack on my forehead and sat on the couch with my eyes closed.

“Now what are you doing?” Jesse asked.

“I’m trying to reduce the swelling.”

“Of what?”

“My cornea.”

“I’ll give you fifty bucks if you can tell me what a cornea is,” Jesse offered.

“It’s part of my eye,” I said, with my hand out.

“Not good enough,” Jesse said putting a pillow under my feet.

And then he sat next to me and put his head on my shoulder and asked me if I felt okay. I told him I was fine.

“When you go for the other eye I want to come with you,” he said.

“Me too,” Kim added from out of nowhere.

I didn’t see that coming.

June 16

I forgot to mention that David Goodwillie was there last night. First of all, have you seen him? I know I’ve told you this before, but it’s very important that you listen to me. Go to the bookstore and get, “Seemed like A Good Idea At the Time.” The book is amazing, blah, blah, blah, I laughed, I cried, but more importantly, his picture is right there on the back cover. I swear to God. It comes free with the book. And the truth is Goodwillie is so funny and so perceptive about what it means to be twenty-something in New York, “when the world was (literally) on fire,” that I almost forgot I was old.

Kate Garrick, my agent, was there as well. She’s David’s agent too and she’s another one of those people who make me want to gather all sorts of descriptive words in her honor. She is fast becoming the super, uber, it, that, the agent that everyone needs to have, but can only get if they make her laugh out loud. It’s sort of an odd criteria, but it works for her.

So striking was Kate last night, so tall, so freshly scrubbed, so leggy, so blonde, so endowed with such a great big country girl smile and such itty bitty cuffed city shorts, I had to take a double take. How did I ever come to know such a person? From a few feet away, she’s got super model written all over her, but upon closer inspection, her brain takes over and you almost forget what she looks like. Then she becomes the smart girl in the big city, who sees everything, understands everything, and doesn’t even care that she’s just standing there knocking everyone out. She’s too busy thinking.

If your job is to keep track of what’s happening in New York. Take notes. They’re it.

June 16,2006

Last night Jami Attenberg read from her new novel, “Instant Love,” at Borders (Columbus Circle) to a full house of incredibly supportive fans. She was so funny, so adorable, so wide open, and so humble as she talked about the trials and tribulations of falling in and out of love in New York that I almost raised my hand and asked if I could be her new boyfriend.

Jami, according to her blog, is going away for a very long time. I forgot to ask her where she’s going, but I know one thing, and I will tell her this before she leaves, because I can predict these things . . .  she won’t be coming home alone. Anyone who reads “Instant Love” will instantly fall madly in love with her. It’s just one of those books and she’s just one of those people who get under your skin. I foresee a very happy ending.

In other words, this time around, she’ll be beating them off . . . with a stick.

June 12

All my life I dreamed of wearing glasses. I envisioned myself taking them off and putting them back on, wiping the lenses with my shirt, one at a time, absent mindedly, while I contemplated good and evil, heaven and hell and exactly what heel height is the absolute limit for a sling back. I saw myself sticking them on top of my head and then forgetting where I put them. I especially liked to imagine myself with my glasses at the edge of my nose. For some reason, the idea of me having my nose pinched by a pair of glasses gave me great pleasure. I was so desperate at one point; I took to wearing my sunglasses while reading, to fool people. And that is perhaps how I ruined my eyes.

Finally!

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I was when I could no longer see what it said on my shampoo bottle. I looked at it for a full five minutes to make sure I couldn’t see it. I’ll never forget that day. That glorious, miraculous day when I could no longer read.

I went for my exam on a Tuesday, which was so much fun, I didn’t want to leave. As much as I wanted glasses, for some reason I forgot what I came in for and nearly pulled a facial muscle trying to see those little hieroglyphics on the bottom row. I eventually caught myself, remembering my motive, and stopped trying to hard.

And then it was time to pick out my frames!

For some reason, none of the frames at Northern Valley Eyecare looked like the ones you always see on sexy librarians who let their hair down in slow motion. They all looked liked the ones that belonged to actual librarians.

“Where’re the ones that Tina Fey wears?” I asked.

“Try these,” the woman said.

And so I did. But I didn’t look like Tina Fey. I looked like granny from the Beverly Hillbillies.

A few hours later, most all of the glasses were strewn all over the counters. People were stepping on them and salespeople were quitting. I couldn’t help myself. I knew I was being selfish but I had to find the right frames or what was the point in having glasses in the first place?

“Why not take a few pairs home and live with them for a while?” the saleswoman finally suggested.

“But none of these have any lenses,” I protested.

“Yes, but maybe you just need to get used to the frames before we go ahead and make up your prescription.”

“But everyone will know they’re not real.”

”Well, then maybe it’s time to just pick a frame and be done with it.”

She obviously had no idea about anything.

And then, out of nowhere, I found them. They were sitting right on top of the counter the whole time. I don’t know how I missed them.

I put them on and took them off in front of the mirror over and over again to make sure they were the right ones.

“What exactly are you doing?” the woman asked me.

“I’m making sure these are the right glasses. My hair has to fall in front of my face when I take them off, otherwise they’re not doing their job.”

The woman started writing up my bill immediately. She practically stuck her hands in my pocket and took out my credit card and signed the receipt.

After she came back with my card, I asked her for the glasses.

“They’ll be ready in a few days,” she said.

“A few days! But I’ve been waiting all my life for this moment.”

”I don’t know what to tell you. We all need to go home now and get some rest. They won’t be ready until Friday.”

Friday came and not a moment too soon. I woke up early and waited for the store to open.

I ran in and asked for my glasses. The woman behind the counter handed me the glasses and told me to try reading to make sure I was comfortable with the prescription.

“Oh, they’re fine. I can tell by looking at them.”

“You need to try them, Mrs. Lessing.”

Mrs. Lessing. How cool is that? The glasses were already sending the right message. A woman with glasses.

I slipped them on and began walking around the store, casually glancing at myself in every mirror, with each glance, whipping them off and slowly putting them back on. I did this for quite some time. Until I felt nauseous.

I sidled up to the saleswoman and whispered, “Something’s not right. I think I’m going to fall down.”

”Try not to look through them unless you’re reading,” the woman explained, shaking her head.

“Seriously? What good are they if I can’t walk around in them?”

”They’re only good for reading. Try them sitting down.”

”You mean I can’t wear them if I get up? What if I’m wearing a gray cardigan with a white tank top underneath? I’ll need these!”

”I’m sorry but they’re strictly for reading.”

”But nobody even sees me when I’m reading. Just forget it. I don’t even want them now.”

Somehow the woman convinced me to take them home and try them for a few days after I convinced her to make me another appointment so I could get a prescription for glasses that can be worn all the time, i.e., with cardigans.

I took them home and started reading, and surprisingly they worked beautifully so long as I didn’t lift my eyes off the page. I also figured out how to wear them around the house without feeling completely hung over.

I just close my eyes.

June 2

And speaking of Jamie Attenberg, she has a new book coming out that is a MUST READ for anyone who is a person. It’s called, “Instant Love.” Jamie is brilliant and laugh-out-loud-I-wish-she-was-my-best-friend-funny. Read her blog. I love her.

And speaking of David Goodwillie, yes, it’s true, his party was a smashing success and he looked adorable as always. People were descending upon him in droves and he never missed a beat. The guy was born to entertain both on paper and in real life. “Seemed Like A Good Idea At the Time” is the novel we were celebrating and it’s definitely something to be celebrated. Buy it and read it. That’s all I’m going to say.

And don’t forget to check out his picture.

Just because I deliberately stayed home to watch Oprah one time in my entire life, one time! My kids will never let me live it down. It was the day James Frey was being hung for being a writer who made up a story (who would have ever thought) and Jesse called me to come get him at school, of all places, just when Oprah was telling James that even though he disgraced her, he still shouldn’t kill himself.

All I said was, “Can you wait like two minutes, I’m watching Oprah?” and now Jesse uses that line for everything.

“Jesse, can you come down here and clean up this mess?”

“Can you wait like two minutes, I’m watching Oprah?”

“Jesse, hurry up and get in the car; we’re going to be late for school.”

”Can you wait like two minutes, I’m watching Oprah?”

He gets a laugh every time, as well as a couple of extra minutes. Oddly enough, it’s become one of those things that started out as a joke, but now he’s actually doing it. Like when I started calling my friends, “babe,” because I thought it was hysterical, and now I always call them, “babe.”

So we’re sitting there watching Oprah the other afternoon, and one thing leads to another, and the next thing I know, we’re watching Dr. Phil. And it’s a show about Pedophiles. And I tell Jesse, “Dr Phil just said this show isn’t appropriate for children.” And Jesse says, “Mom, you can’t live your life by what Dr. Phil says. He’s practically Jerry Springer.”

“Dr. Phil is a very smart man.”

”Mom, please don’t say stuff like that. Just watch the show.”

“But Jesse. . .”

“Shhh.”

So we watched the whole show, including the part where the sicko mom, who, in the interest of protecting her kids from predators, tricked her two teenage boys by setting herself up with a bogus myspace profile, pretending her name was “Sweet Candy” just to see what her boys would do when “Sweet Candy” asked for their phone numbers.

Who wants to guess what happened next?

Right. So the mom goes on national television to embarrass the shit out of both of her sons for liking girls. True, she could have been a forty five year old man posing as a seventeen year old girl, but what kind of a mother would go out of her way to make sure her kids never trust her again? And what kind of a doctor applauds a mother for messing up her kids in front of a live audience? For the record, if any of you are contemplating having children, never, ever trick them as a means of protecting them.

About five hours after Dr. Phil ended, Jesse and I found ourselves back in front of the television. This happens sometimes, especially when it’s raining. This time we were watching “The Butterfly Effect.” Fortunately, Dr. Phil wasn’t in this Scary movie, but as fate would have it, there was a pedophile in the movie just the same.

In “The Butterfly Effect,” for any of you who missed it in theaters a couple of years ago, Ashton Kucher travels back in time, by way of a nosebleed, to prevent the events he blacked out as a child from happening. Events that subsequently ruined all of his friends’ lives. Events like being molested by one of the kid’s dad.

After a full day of thinking about grown men who molest children, I came up with an idea.

I want to be in charge of punishing every single one of them.

I think this is the only way.

Here’s what I would do:

First, I would adhere them, one at a time, with electrical tape, to my car, (I guess I’d have to rent out a warehouse or something where I’d lock the rest of them up until it was their turn) and drive through the car wash. I saw someone on “Jackass” do this once. Apparently, it’s freezing in there.

After that I would just continue driving around town, in winter, except at this point I’d have the guy holding up a sign that says, “I just forced a child to have sex with me.” I’d drive through the sickest, scariest neighborhoods on the planet. Places like Tenafly and Scardsdale and Woodmere and just let the soccer moms kick him until his limbs fall off. And then I’d probably drive to the Grand Canyon or something, and pull over, and get out of the car, and find a boulder, which I would place on the accelerator. And then I’d watch him sail down to the bottom and then I’d go down and get him and drag him back up and put him in jail, but only for a few years, and I’d make sure I got to pick his roommate.

After a few years in jail, I’d get him out on bail and book him on back to back talk shows. And then I’d go back to the warehouse and get the next one.

I started writing another book. I tried not to, believe me, but what's done is done.

I'll try to continue blogging once a week or so, (probably every Wednesday or Thursday -- those are my best days) unless something happens in between and I can't help myself. Like what happened today, for instance -- when I went for Jesse's end of the year conference having just eaten a bran muffin. I can't even tell this story.

I'll also be redoing my website, so keep checking. I promise it will be worth it. And I'll try to hurry up with the new book.

That morning:

Me:
Jen, go buy Danica Lo’s new book, ‘HOW NOT TO LOOK FAT’ and then turn to page 128 and email me.

Jen:
O.K.

That night:

Jen:
I bought it and I found the blurb you wanted me to read. It almost sounded like you wrote it, I swear to God. Except it wasn’t that funny.

Me:
What?

Jen
I mean, obviously wide shoes only make you look wider, and what fat guy is going to make me look thinner unless I strap him to my body to cover my stomach.

Me:
Wait. Didn’t you see my name right below the quote? That’s why I told you to buy the book.

Jen:
I can’t believe I missed that. Where exactly was your name?

Me:
Right under what I wrote.

Jen:
I can’t believe it. I guess I was sort of rushing when I looked at it. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how funny that line was. I mean, really funny.

The next day:

Jen:
I just called to say I’m still really embarrassed.

May 16

Here’s the interesting thing I’ve learned about getting older. It makes you smarter. Even if you are unable to retain any sort of factual information whatsoever, you will still get smarter, much the way fruit gets sweeter if you leave it out long enough. Even if it wasn’t that sweet to begin with, it will improve.

As you get older, things just suddenly seem more obvious. I wish I could tell you why. I know it has nothing to do with experience. I’ve yet to meet a single person who has learned anything from any of his or her mistakes. I think it just happens naturally.

At this point, I can just look at person, and within fifteen seconds, I can tell if they’re full of shit or not. It used to take years for me to figure something like that out. The light just shines brighter now. Things were never this plain.

This wouldn’t be a bad thing if every time I figured something out, I didn’t make this face, which causes a little wrinkle to form.

My grandmother was so smart, her whole face was covered in smart wrinkles. She looked terrible that smart.

Of course I could always get Botox and make the smartness disappear, but we all know how that turned out last time. I bled, remember?

All women will come to realize this unfortunate truth about aging. Of course men will too, but who even cares what they look like. The point is wisdom makes you look bad. Actually there are some people who manage to age normally and still look dumb (i.e., youthful) but that only works because they don’t have any teeth in their mouth. Those of us with teeth, simply cannot get old (smart) and still look dumb (young). Even if you have surgery, your smartness (oldness) will show up on your hands and your hair will stop moving, which is another dead giveaway that you’re old. No one really knows why people’s hair stops moving around at a certain age, but it does. That’s how you can tell if an older woman is wearing a hairpiece. If it’s bouncing all over the place, it’s not hers.

Sometimes when I’m driving around or something, completely oblivious to the aging process, one of Jesse’s friends will say something ridiculous, and I’ll feel one of my old eyebrows go way up. I’ll try to push it back down, but it shoots right back up, because it knows the kid just lied. Every time this happens, I quickly look in the mirror to see how old and wise I must look to these little kids with their smooth cheeks and round, unsuspecting eyes. I try to hang my mouth open and stare, so the kids won’t feel uncomfortable in my company, but as soon as I have to swallow, my smartness reappears like tree rings.

There’s no sense in trying to hide it. No amount of stretching, paralyzing or moisturizing can train the face to stop knowing things. No matter what we do, our wisdom will outsmart us, betray us and force us to look old.

You should see the face I’m making right now.

May 11

We moved to Tenafly, New Jersey when I was in tenth grade. My next-door neighbor was in eleventh grade. I met him a few days after we moved in. I was slipping out of my house, early in the morning, to walk the dog. Oddly enough, he was slipping into his house at the same time, which must have been around seven A.M. He waved to me and my dog ran over to him. She sniffed him for a few minutes and then came and sat by my feet. He told me he’d been partying since nine o’clock the night before and how wasted he was. I told him his fly was open. He thanked me, pulled his shirt off over his head, and then collapsed on his front lawn.

We walked to school together the following Monday and every day after that. He was big on confessing things; he never stopped talking, and I was very into giving advice. One of the things he told me was that he was planning to spend his old age on drugs. He was really happy about it too. I, in turn, reminded him that he was already on drugs.

He went on to point out that there are many ways to be “on drugs.” And that the drug plan he had for his golden years was entirely different than the one he was currently enjoying.

“I’m going to live on acid and write,” he explained.

The world was his oyster. Anything was possible in his perpetually altered state of consciousness. And I didn’t see reality offering up any sort of cure for what was ailing us at the time, so I didn’t bother to talk him out of it.

Still I worry about him, even now.

I picture him in his nineties, walking around with his fly open, and very dry skin, smiling at people, telling them how much fun it is to be old. For some reason, I see him with a long, white beard, like in the last page of Johnny Appleseed, the one where he’s wearing a metal pot on his head.

I once asked him why he was so enamored with hallucinogens. I couldn’t imagine the appeal, especially since every kid I ever knew who did LSD had a snake story. He teasingly explained that it all started when he walked in on his mom and dad having oral sex.

“And if that isn’t enough, my mom was watching TV the whole time he was doing it to her.”

As a rule, he painted a grim picture of his parents, but I’m pretty sure any sort of a hallucination would be better than seeing your mom that bored.

“At least they were getting along,” I said.

I had a similar experience, not nearly as bad, but I told him about it anyway, to make him feel better.

I was running down the hall to my parent’s bedroom to tell them that I’d just imagined a cure for cancer. I’m not sure what the cure was exactly, but it had to do with time travel. And I’m pretty sure they were having sex at the time.

That’s it. That’s the whole story.

I realize that doesn’t qualify as a full-on sighting, nor is it even in the same league in terms of posttraumatic shock potential, and the truth remains that I’m not even really sure if they were having sex. There was no physical evidence of any kind. Just a hint of annoyance that I was banging on their door for so long.
But still. It was enough to confirm that it could happen.

Fortunately, I didn’t let their marital relations push me over the edge. I instead took to calling them on the phone when I had something important to tell them in the middle of the night. We always had two lines in our house, perhaps that’s what saved me.

I once showed my neighbor this tiny little scar I have on my pinky which always intrigued me because I have no idea how I got it. He then proceeded to take his pants off and show me his scar. It started at his ankle and trudged all the way up his leg, a three inch wide, three foot long caterpillar, tapering off somewhere in the mid-inner thigh area. A full Frankenstein. Apparently he’d put his foot through a glass-sliding door on purpose. I didn’t bother to tell him about the time I touched the tip of a lit candle with my wet finger.

My neighbor’s parents eventually divorced, as did mine (which proves sex will only get you so far) and both of our families moved. We lost touch sometime after my freshman year in college, but I still think about him all the time.

The way he was headed, anything could have happened to him. It’s entirely possible though that he grew up at some point and traded in his original retirement plan for a house in the country, a set of golf clubs, or the chance to see the world the way the rest of us saw it -- with our clothes on.

Either way, I hope I never run into him. I’d hate to see what happened to him if he never grew up and I’d really hate to see what happened if he did.

May 9

Breath-holding statistics for the Lessing Family

Dan Lessing: Disqualified for refusing to play
Stephanie Lessing: Ten seconds
Kim Lessing: Two seconds (because she forgot she was holding her breath and started talking)
Jesse Lessing: Three minutes but he was faking.

I tried not to watch, I really did. I even said, “You realize that we’re not watching this under any circumstances.” But then Jesse, who can’t be outwitted, called me in because his leg was bleeding (it wasn’t) just as David Blaine was pulling that girl’s teeth out of her mouth, right before or after he gave the hookers his roulette winnings.

I’m sorry but that was an amazing stunt. We spent the rest of the evening trying to pull each other’s teeth out, but to no avail. You actually have to be a magician for that sort of thing.

After watching the entire thing, from beginning to end, including the commercials, I have a few concerns. I’m thinking that David Blaine might be a hologram.

My other thought is, if, in fact, he is a real person, that he may have failed on purpose. If so, what a great lesson for our children. Never stay under water for a week on television.

May 5

In one half hour, Kim Lessing will sit down in a classroom and take the AP History state exam. The fact that my daughter even signed up for that class is astounding. Let’s remember that her mother once stood up in front of the whole class and gave an oral report on Women in India, when in fact, we were studying the American Indians. I know that sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. Can you even imagine how much I wasn’t paying attention in class that entire year?

The truth is I vaguely sensed that the assignment was somewhat of a departure from what we’d been studying, but I figured there must be a reason for it and who was I to question the curriculum? I just did whatever I was told. Or at least what I thought I’d heard.

I remember how the class applauded when I finished speaking. The boys went insane. And then the teacher explained to me where I went wrong.

I felt like Roseann, Roseanna Danna.

A few weeks ago, while Kim was still studying for this particular history exam, I asked her, “When do you guys study American History?”

“Next year,” she explained. “Right now we’re studying European History.”

“Oh right. That makes sense because we came in much later.”

“Exactly,” she said.

“You know, it’s funny that you’re taking this class. I was never much of a history buff myself.”

“So I’ve heard,” Kim said.

“Who told you?” I asked.

“Daddy told me when you first met, he was taking Howard Zinn’s class (for any of you who are on my history level, Howard Zinn wrote the “People’s History of the United States”) and you said something like, ‘Well, when our ancestors came over on the Mayflower. . . .’ and then daddy said, ‘Hold on Steph, you don’t actually think our ancestors came over on the Mayflower. . . do you?’”

“I was confused.”

”I know. Daddy explained that you thought you were a Pilgrim.”

“I didn’t think I was a Pilgrim. I just meant that the original Americans came over from England. I somehow lumped our family into that group.”

”So what you’re saying is you thought you were a Jewish Pilgrim?”

”I never even thought about my religion or where my family fit in. I just remember taking American History and learning that we came over from England to settle in the new land. I even know a little song from a play we did that year, ‘Fifty, nifty united states from thirteen original colonies.’ That’s why I always remember how many colonies there were. And besides, daddy was taking me too literally. I knew I didn’t come over on the Mayflower. I knew my parents and grandparents were born in America. It just never occurred to me that my great grandparents didn’t come over from England like everybody else’s. I knew we weren’t English but we never talked about stuff like where our great grandparents came from. I never even thought about it. I just assumed they came from someplace yonder and I didn’t take Western European History until after I met daddy.”

“So did you ever figure out where you came from?”

“Yeah, Russia. How weird is that? I so don’t feel Russian.”

“That’s because you’re a Russian Pilgrim,” she said patting my head.

May 5 or 6, I can’t see my calendar from here.

I have the official winner of the pink polka dotted surprise. Remember that contest? Well, it turned into an actual movement, but, because I’m not political, I had to put a stop to it. Those of you who got way more involved than is healthy know what I’m talking about.

Those of you who chose to ignore it, I applaud your resolve.

Those of you who forgot about the contest, I can’t really blame you. There wasn’t much to it.

And the winner is . . . Susan Emerson.

Come and claim your surprise Susan.

Hint: umbrella

May 2

I once made the mistake of telling my children that Dan was ready to have kids way before I was.

Jesse uses this mistake against me pretty much every day.

“Mom, I mean, mother who didn’t want children, can you come up here for a minute and help me load these cans of soda into my vending machine?”

My point, however misunderstood (and subsequently abused), was that Dan was ready to have kids at a remarkably young age. I think he was twelve or thirteen when he heard the first paternal tick. By the time he met me (I was seventeen. He was nineteen) his patience was all but shot. When my parents came to visit me up at BU, that clinched it.

“That thing you have with your parents is so cool. I want to have that with my kids,” he said, as soon as they left.

“We will,” I assured him, “Some day.”

“I love the way you grab your mom and hug her. I want to have that kind of relationship. I hope my kids will feel that comfortable with me.”

“Our kids will hug us the exact same way,” I assured him, patting him on the shoulder.

“I want a normal family with normal problems. I want my kids to have everything you had growing up.”

“They’ll have it. They’ll have it, I promise.”

“I actually want it now, though.”

”Right now?”

”Yeah, right now.”

“Now’s not good.”

“Yeah it is. Now is perfect.”

“Actually, no. It’s not good at all.”

“Why not?”

“Because we should wait until we finish college and I’m old enough to drink, full-time.”

We did wait. We waited until I was almost ready, but still petrified -- which was nine years later. Of course we broke up a few times in between, and then lived together, and then got married, but, in the end, I gave birth to Kim.

I still can’t believe my body knew what to do and that she was an actual baby. I thought for sure I’d give birth to a cyst or something. But there she was, this little, funny creature with hands and eyes and just the tiniest hint of static electric fuzz on her head.

She looked up at me as soon as they put her in my arms and I instantly knew she was my kind of girl. The only kind of girl I like really. She was trying to talk to me from the minute we met. Eye to eye talking. Big, big conversations were going on between us. We hit if off right away.

As the years went by and Kim became more and more entertaining, I knew I had to think of a way to thank Dan for coming up with the idea of having her in the first place. Something really over the top.

“She’s like the coolest person ever,” I said, watching her scale the side of our house at age two. “I never thought I’d meet a person with the balls to pull her own hair right out of her head just for fun. Let’s make another one!”

You should have seen his face. Having Jesse was the perfect way to thank Dan for talking me into having Kim.

When Jesse was born I used to hold him with my arms straight out as though I was presenting the world’s largest birthday cake. “Look at this! Would you look at it!” I’d yell at anyone who dared cross my path.

I’d never seen anything so utterly and completely male. All ten pounds of him. I was a female ape, beating my chest. To this day, I imagine Jesse saying, “It’s not that big of a deal, mom. Can you please put me down? You’re making us both look foolish.”

“You really should put him down, mom,” Kim would say. “You’re just about to drop him anyway.”

Always the realist, that Kimmy.

That’s why we put her in charge of our home and finances.

And because we made that decision, surprisingly early on, things run pretty smoothly around here.

Now that Jesse is twelve, he’s made some of his own rules. We only eat take-out and I’m not allowed to sing. Sure I’d like to sing, but we never argue with our kids. We assume they know better, seeing as how they’re the “next generation,” and therefore biologically superior both in height, wing span and their ability to do math.

Oddly enough, Kim thinks it was wrong of us to put the kids in charge.

“Mom, stop telling me to go out partying when I want to stay home and study. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I just want you to have fun. Is that such a crime?”

“Actually I’m underage, so yes, it is a crime and besides, I enjoy studying.”

”That’s only because you don’t drink enough.”

“You’re ridiculous. I’m raising myself here! This is all wrong. Tell me to go to bed or something. Anything!”

“Go to bed.”

“I’ll go when I’m done studying and can you please go and check on Jesse? He’s taking apart all the computers in the house and reconfiguring them. And he just smashed open a guitar for parts. Make him stop.”

She’s right about Jesse. He does take apart a lot of stuff. He also transfers obscure operating systems onto his Ipod. I don’t even know what I just said so where do I come off telling him what he should and shouldn’t do? The only thing I ever say to him is “Can you please not leave your backpack in the middle of the school parking lot? I’m afraid someone might run it over.”

That’s my only rule. This is true what I’m telling you by the way.

The thing that’s really cool about Jesse is that he’s really sarcastic and his humor is so cold and cutting, you can’t help but wonder about him, but then if you show him a picture of a puppy or something, he just falls right to his knees. It just kills me the way he looks at anything cute, and then looks at me -- to make sure I saw what he just saw. Something about that look connects me to this kid in a way that nothing else can. Forced dinners at a specific time don’t make kids look at their mom that way. Neither do punishments, “discussions,” religious rituals, nor anything else that parents try in vain to keep their kids in line.

Turns out, all those parenting books about the importance of structure are wrong. It’s all about puppies.

When I want to spend quality time with Jesse, I walk into his room. I don’t “make time.” I just barge in and sit on him or something until he agrees to hang out with me.

“God, you’re so annoying. Okay, fine, I’ll play one game with you, but that’s it.”

It sounds like I’m forcing him, but you have to see the face. The face that wants me there, even though he’s “busy.”

Every now and then Kim puts her foot down when things get out of hand, but that’s only because she has a lot of homework and Dan and I like to wrestle in the upstairs hall, just outside her room, and sometimes we get a little boisterous. I can’t blame her for getting annoyed. Dan has a very loud voice.

When I agreed to have kids, I didn’t think about how I would handle homework and routines and discipline. I knew I would suck at all three of those things but I also knew I was ready for the important stuff. The stuff that comes up late at night when they ask me things and I know at least some of the answers.

My only real concern about bringing people into this world was that I wanted them to love each other the way I love my sister. I knew there was no guarantee that they would even like each other, but it was something I wanted very badly. Enough to play tricks on them.

I had a lot going against me with the big sister, little brother combination but that didn’t stop me from manipulating them for my own personal gain. So whenever one of them was mad at me, I’d send whichever one it was into the other child’s room so they could gang up on me. That’s it. That’s my whole technique for raising children, right there.

For those of you who find this bizarre method of child rearing intolerable, I invite you to mess with Jesse, and then bear witness to the wrath of Kim, and then come talk to me.

Before my children were born, I took Child Development classes at the Bank Street School as part of a masters degree program that I found very intriguing at the time. My focus was children’s literature, a program lead by a ninety-year-old woman whom I adored. Her name was Claudia Lewis and the thing I loved about her was that it always seemed as though she was constructing her thoughts at the very moment she was revealing them. Her students got to watch her think. That was her gift. She had powerful thoughts about how children should be taught. Powerful, passionate thoughts, and yet she never raised her voice above a whisper. She fascinated me. A ninety-year-old woman who walked to work and used her days for thinking. Whoever heard of such a thing? Her entire life had been spent in academia and all of her work revolved around helping children.

“Shall we just watch them play?” she thought, aloud.

I think so, yes.

As soon as I had Kim, I lost interest in those classes. My real child proved infinitely more interesting than the theoretical variety and although I tried to bring Kim to a few open discussions, I felt my time was better spent sitting somewhere else, just looking at my daughter, alone.

I’m still “just watching” Kim and I’m still watching Jesse.

I have no idea what I’m doing. All I know is that I can’t take my eyes off them.

I guess the rest remains to be seen.

April 28

First of all, Happy Birthday to my sister whom I love and adore and idolize and whose children I worship.

Secondly, I’d like to thank those of you who wrote to me yesterday to try to make me feel better about the fact that I don’t know anything. I appreciate what you’re doing. But nothing any of you have said has made me any smarter. I still don’t know where Singapore is and I’m actually looking at a map right now.

One other thing before I finish the blog I’m going to post this afternoon. Do not go see Scary Movie 4. Not even if you have a twelve year old son or brother who begs you to do so.

It’s not worth it to please other people. That’s how not funny it is.

April 27

All I ever think about is funny stuff. That’s it. From the minute I wake up until I go to bed, I think about something someone said that cracked me up (usually it’s something that wasn’t meant to be funny) or people’s hair. It’s true. It’s so true I can’t lie. But unfortunately, I’m also a little stupid. And that’s the part that concerns me.

It scares me what I don’t know. It scares me that I walk around this world, going to the bank, and then King’s, not knowing anything really. I don’t know any geography at all. You think I’m kidding but I’m not. I can’t even name all the countries. Doesn’t that scare you a little? I’m a citizen of your country and I don’t really know what they mean by east and west. What if I turn a little, then where’s east? East compared to what? Who’s to say where east really is? It was just someone’s idea and we all went all along with it. What if he was facing the wrong way when he started the whole east thing?

My neighbor is a state senator. I recently hired a housekeeper who told me he’s a bad guy. How come she knew that and I didn’t? I live right next door to him. She just got here from Hondorus. And I just spelled Hondorus wrong. I know because it’s underlined in red. That’s the only way I know anything. If something isn’t underlined in red, I don’t know it.

I’ve complained about this before, blamed it on the fact that I grew up in New Jersey, a place where we’re not required to take regents, but the truth is it’s my own fault. I’m too lazy to bother obtaining knowledge. If something’s not funny, I don’t care about it.

But I’m worried. I can’t say I’m not worried. I’m worried because I brought two children into this world. And I think they’re catching on.

April 26, 2006

There are two people in this world who call me Stephanie Lessing. Laurie Herman was the first. Amanda First was second.

I met Amanda Saturday night. She was a guest at my daughter’s dinner party. And by dinner party I mean floor party. And by floor party I mean everyone socialized, ate and slept on the floor, including Amanda, who deserves better, because she reads my blog. It was an informal gathering to say the least. That’s why we were so surprised to find our bananas so lavishly decorated with condoms when we came down for breakfast the next morning. It was pretty funny, but Amanda had absolutely nothing to do with it, I can assure you. Adorable thing that she is. Did I mention she reads my blog?

Amanda introduced herself to me and asked, “Are you Stephanie Lessing?” -- to which I replied, “Yes, I’m Kim’s mom.”

“It’s so nice to meet you Stephanie Lessing,” she said. It was at that point I realized she would be calling me by my first and last name forever. These things happen.

When Clint de Ganon (my husband’s oldest friend) met Dan for the first time he asked him his name, to which Dan replied, “Dan Lessing.” For some reason, Clint thought he said, “Dan last name.” And for the longest time, Clint thought Dan’s name was Dan Last Name. I know that sounds odd, but they were five.

When a little boy named Doug Beimfohr met Von Rollenhagen for the first time, he asked him, “What’s your name?” -- to which Von replied, “Von Rollenhagen.” But Doug thought Von was referring to himself by his last name only. So when they had gym the next day, Doug kept yelling, “Von Rollenhagen, Von Rollenhagen, pass me the ball!”

My point is this sort of thing happens all the time. And it’s sort of flattering in a way. Otherwise I would have said something to Amanda first.

I got an email this morning from Ticketmaster telling me, “Don’t Miss Madonna.”

If I never saw Madonna again for the rest of my life, I would not miss her. I wrote back to Ticketmaster:

Dear Ticketmaster,

A few things:

One: I don’t like Madonna. I think she spends too much time working out. People who spend too much time in the gym are thinking about their bodies way more than they should, (and by that I mean ‘way more than I think about mine’) unless they’re training for some sort of sporting event which requires perfect muscle tone.

From this point forward, I would like to be in charge of how much time Madonna, and every other person, spends at the gym. One hour a day. That’s all. Anything more than that irritates me.

Two: Madonna is not a long enough name. That’s why I don’t even like saying the word, “Madonna.” It lends credibility to the idiotic notion that Madonna deserves to have a shorter name then the rest of us. From this point forward, I would like to be in charge of what people call themselves. Madonna is now, Madonna Cohen.

Three: I was hoping that her career was finally over. I actually prayed to God that it was over. I can’t stand seeing her change outfits and hairstyles and then hearing people say she’s reinvented herself again. Can I just say that changing your hairstyle and clothes is not the same as reinventing one’s self? Having a sex change operation qualifies as reinventing one’s self. Becoming a murderer out of the blue is almost there. Switching from a torn bridal gown to a Versace pant suit is called shopping.

Four: Even though I renamed Madonna Mrs. Cohen, she’s still not Jewish and I resent the fact that she’s not only taken on the lifestyle of my people (shopping/gym/shopping/gym/shopping/gym) but that she’s actually trying to pass herself off as a Jewess. No Jewish mother would ever let her daughter wear such a pointy bra. You’re not fooling anyone Mrs. Cohen.

Five: You can’t just change your accent and expect people to think you were born in England. I can’t stand that. Can you please ask Madonna to stop talking like that?

There are other things, but I’m wasting too much time on this. I’ve got an 11:00 Pilates appointment and I need to pick up a pair of those white Chloe wedges at Bergdorfs before they’re all gone. They’re the most adorable shoes I’ve ever seen in my life. One of a kind, like a virgin.

Sincerely yours,

A fan

Anyone who visits the Demarest Nature Center knows about the owl family. Those of us who walk our dogs in the woods have been watching the mother owl sit and stare at us for months. I revolve my whole day around seeing this womany, feathered creature turn her head a quarter of an inch.

And then, a few days ago, one of my fellow dog walkers, a runner named Lori, spotted another owl in a tree across the path. This owl, she somehow determined, was a man.

“How can you tell it’s a man?”

“Take a look,” she said, handing me her binoculars.

“Ah, now I see,” I said, wondering what I could possibly be looking for.

“And look over there. See the babies?”

And there they were, two fluffy little frail owls huddled next to each other in another tree.

Not knowing anything about owls, I wondered why the mother and the father were in separate trees from each other, as well as their babies. If I lived in the woods, I’m pretty sure Dan, Kim, Jesse and I would all live in the same tree. Different branches, sure, but not whole other trees.

Today, when I went back to visit the babies, I couldn’t find the mother or the father. I started wondering around in circles with my head up to the sky, searching every branch of every surrounding tree. I eventually tripped on a stick and fell flat on my face. I quickly got up, making sure no one else was around, and brushed myself off. I continued my search, but I’m not very good at finding things, and I’m pretty sure I was crying at that point.

Abandoned birds just kill me for some reason. So does falling on my chin.

When I was a little girl, there was a family who lived next door to us with five boys. All five of them were bad. My best friend was their sister, Ellen. They used to find ways to torture us pretty much every single day, most of which involved dead animals. We lived in an old fashioned suburban neighborhood with bell and basket bike riders and kickball games in the cul de sac. Our backyard was an enormous pristine park surrounded by acres and acres of woods. It was always sunny. Very John Watersesque. Particularly because of my ominous neighbors, lurking in the trimmed hedges.

Ellen and I and her brothers grew up in the woods behind our houses. Ellen was a tomboy who looked ridiculous when she got herself cleaned up. Almost like a transvestite. Her brothers were filthy, horrible boys with crew cuts and caked dirt under their nails and they were always making me cry. Oddly enough, I often imagined myself married to at least three of them.

The worst thing they ever did involved a baby bird. Ellen and I had found a bird’s nest in our favorite tree –- the tree with the perfectly rounded, Crayola green crown, the kind that only exists in kid’s drawings and my backyard.

We made the inauspicious mistake of telling her brothers.

A few hours later, we were sitting in Ellen’s family room, watching TV, when two of her brothers, (not my favorites) knocked on the back door to tell us to come outside. When we went out to her backyard, one of them was delicately cradling the bird’s nest in his dirty hands. Inside the nest was a bald baby bird with veins all over its head, one broken egg, and one tiny, yet to be hatched, egg. I felt the tears coming as soon as I saw the baby bird open its mouth. I knew it was hungry and that its luck had just about run out.

And then her brother flung the nest like a Frisbee over his fence.

I ran home to tell my mother what happened and she agreed to help me find the baby bird. We searched through the leaves and sticks beyond the two yards, but we couldn’t find the tiny bird. I had no idea how far he’d thrown it or even in what direction. He’d just tossed it over his head keeping his eyes fixed on me. I can only assume I was looking back at him; the bird could have been anywhere.

My mother told me to go inside. She promised me that she’d find it. She came in the house about fifteen minutes later and told me that she’d found the nest and that she’d put it back in the tree, and that the baby bird flew away as soon as she went to pick him up.

I never went back to check on the nest, preferring to take my mother’s word over the truth. And I see no need to check on the owl parents either. I’m sure they’re there. It’s best if I walk the dog on the other side of town for a while.

April 20

Oh my God. I was only kidding about being a good matchmaker. It was a joke. A blog. A ruse. Now I feel terrible. I can’t possibly find all of you people dates. I will try though. But you can’t just tell me your age and hair color. I need to know what’s wrong with you, so I can fix you up with someone who won’t care. I can’t work with information that involves how many inches off the ground your head is or where you live. I don’t read geography, palms, weight or jobs. I read deep-rooted psychological problems that fit perfectly with other people’s deep-rooted illnesses. I read neuropathways (which apparently is not a word according to my spell check). This is the secret to sound matchmaking. If you honestly want me to do this, tell me what you’re afraid of. The fact that you like Chinese food isn’t helping me. Just one thing though, if perchance, your neurosis is scary or gross in some way, please understand that I’m extremely squeamish and I might pretend I didn’t get the email.

April 19

I don’t think I was meant to be a writer. In fact, I’m sure of it. My true calling is matchmaking. You can’t even imagine how good I am at it. It’s a little scary.

As soon as I meet a single person, I start going through my little mental Rolodex. I don’t need to ask anything about the person, such as if they’re gay or straight or moody or prone to overspending, I just know. It’s like a sixth sense. I actually envisioned my mother’s second husband before she even met him. We still talk about this, twenty five years later.

I’m not bragging about this special talent I have. On the contrary, I feel a little embarrassed about it. It makes me feel nosey and overly Jewish, but what can I do?

When I saw Dan for the first time, I was seventeen. He had a bunch of earrings in the wrong ear (I think someone played a trick on him), an Afro the size of Pluto and he was wearing orange sweatpants and black clogs (the kind with backs), and yet I knew.

“This man will one day be my husband,” I bellowed, arms folded, my foot tapping to the choppy beat of my impaled heart.

Both of my parents were crying.

“For this we sent her to college.” My mother was punching my father when she said this, but I stood my ground.

“You’ll see,” I told her, wise beyond my years.

And now look at us.

When my sister said she was going to marry Jamie, my hair literally stood on end.

“What happened to your hair?” my sister asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“And why is your nose bleeding?”

“I can’t answer that either,” I said.

And now look at them.

Everyone should always listen to me.

April 18

I have a reoccurring pimple. I realize this isn’t news, nor is it something most people expect to find in a blog, but, nevertheless, it reoccurs.

I have no idea what to do about it. I’m too old for this. And because I’m too old for this, people assume it’s a growth. An old age growth.

Should I explain to these people that what they’re staring at is, in fact, a reoccurring pimple, or should I let them go on believing it’s an old age growth? More importantly, why do I care what people think of things that reoccur on my face? Is it because I’m vain or afraid of dying?

This is the question I will ponder on this glorious spring day and I invite you to do the same.

April 10

I’m leaving for Florida on Thursday for Passover and to celebrate my parent’s anniversary. It’s their second marriage and so far so good.

Both of my parents are happily remarried as a matter of fact. My original parents were married for 24 years. Both second sets will easily surpass that. I guess you’re either good at marriage or you’re not, no matter how many times you do it.

April 11

I’m putting the final copy edits to rest as we speak. I’m slipping them into an envelope and shipping them off to May. So hard to believe this mess will one day be a book but that’s the magic of publishing.

In the meantime, I’ve got a lot to do to get ready for Florida. I need to get a manicure, a pedicure, a new crop of T-shirts and I’d like to lose at least eleven pounds by Thursday.

The one thing I’ve taken care of is my hair color. Yes, I’m sorry to say, I went so far as to color my own hair. With my own hands. I’ve done this before but I’ve never admitted it.
“What color is my hair?” you ask.

I’d have to go with beige.

I don’t recommend this color.

And one other thing, before I go. Never, ever, ever try to dye your eyebrows to match your hair. I want to die right now.

April 5

So many manicures are the inspiration for hard news these days; I hate to jump on the bandwagon. But, here’s what happened to me in Closter, New Jersey.

I kid you not.

I have one hour to kill before it’s time to pick up Jesse. I look down at my nails. Only one is polished. I decide to get a manicure.

I drive along the main street of Closter deciding where to go. There are at least fifty places to choose from. I’ve been to thirty of them, which leaves me with plenty of choices. I scan carefully, holding up the traffic behind me, until I spot a brand new one. Perfect! No germs.

I park right in front, skeptical of the fact that it’s empty, but assume it’s because it’s new and the competition is obviously fierce in this town.

I walk in and look around. It’s really a very beautiful place. I like hot pink and orange. I really do. It’s a real upper.

Two women are seated at one of the nail tables. Toward the back, there is a row of pedicure chairs facing a television. I love TV and briefly consider getting a pedicure, but I only have an hour and besides, there’s a man, fully clothed sitting in one of the chairs, with his shoes on. This is not unusual. He is the owner. The woman, who appeared to be getting her nails done, quickly scurries away. This is not unusual either. She’s not a customer and she’s sorry for sitting in what will soon be my chair.

“Pick a color!” the other woman yells to me.

I jump.

“Okay, thank you,” I say and walk over to the wall of polish.

As always, there are two hundred bottles of polish on the wall. But I can’t find either of the two colors I like.

“Do you have SweetHeart or Meet Me At the Jitney,” I ask.

“Yes, we do,” says the manicurist.

She then begins turning over each bottle to read the names. I already know it’s not there but I don’t want to insult her and I already know I won’t be back.

Eight minutes pass.

“Pick other color,” she says.

“Okay,” I say and pick up Limousine. I don’t really like Limousine. It’s too pink, but time has already become an issue.

And so the manicure begins.

“You don’t have to file them,” I say. “I already filed them this morning.”

I never let them file. They always shape them into little squares and that embarrasses me.

“No file?”

“Yes, no file.”

“File?”

“No, no file.”

And so the filing begins. And slowly the little square tops emerge.

”Take rings off,” she says.

I put my rings on the little ring holder.

“I really need one of those,” I think to myself.

And then she begins cutting my cuticles, which I really didn’t want her to do either, but it’s too late. I notice that she’s not shy with the cuticle cutters, by any means, and I see a little bubble of blood forming in the corner of my thumb.

”Sorry for blood,” she says.

“That’s okay,” I say, knowing I just got AIDS.

She dabs it with a little square cotton pad that she sprayed with something very acidic.

I try not to scream.

And then she rolls up her sleeves. She’s about to apply hand cream to my hands that she will massage into my own hands and it is at this point that I notice her wrists are covered in scabs.

Do not ask her what the scabs are, I tell myself. Just close your eyes and get through it. I try to visualize myself getting through the hand massage and the polish change, paying her, getting in my car, driving home and submerging my hands into a vat of Clorox and then calling my doctor to schedule a full work up.

“What are those scabs on your wrists?” I ask, ignoring my inner voice and hoping she’ll say, “Nothing to worry about. Those scabs where I try to kill myself. They not contagious.”

But instead she says, “I don’t know. They itch me.”

I want to die.

She keeps putting more lotion on my hands and she’s turning my right hand over to massage the area where my thumb and index finger are joined. This palms-up position forces me to rest my other fingers directly on her scabs.

I’m trying to control myself but I have a fear of scabs. I can hardly even say the word, “scab.”

But then I say, “Have you seen a doctor?”

“I no have time, but everyone ask me about this. Is very noticeable?”

”No, not at all. I was just wondering because one of them looks like it’s infected.”

“No, that from scratching. I scratch all day to stop itching.”

”Oh look at the time!”

I give her an enormous tip. Enough to have a blood transfusion and run out. She runs out after me with an invitation for twenty percent off my next treatment.

I take it from her and assure her I’ll be back. When I get home, I shower with Tilex and look up “Skin rashes” on Web M.D.

I call up the salon and ask to speak to the manicurist. Luckily it’s not too busy so she picks up the phone immediately.

“You have poison ivy,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says.

April 4

I walk my dog in the Demarest Nature Center every day. I used to love playing in the woods as a kid so I’m more comfortable there than anywhere else. I’m not sure what it is exactly. Maybe I just love mud.

Or maybe it’s the smell of damp leaves or the creaky wooden bridges or the total luxury of being alone.

There’s always some little surprise -- a bright shoot or springy patch of moss, or a family of deer with stark white tails moving in the distance. Today when I bent down to pick up a stick, there was a little cluster of purple flowers at my feet. I threw the same stick in the stream, over and over again, and each time Mikki sat at attention waiting for me to throw it, anxious to prove herself, willing to jump in that freezing water to rescue a stick.

She goes swimming every day in that stream, looking for the familiar bottle-green necked ducks she loves to chase. She gallops after them until they start quacking, and then she stops short, turns around, and swims away, looking at me, as if to say, “Was that okay?”

But the thing I love most about our little country walks is killing ticks. Sometimes I smash them with a rock or sometimes I pull one off my dog, throw it on the ground and watch it for a minute or two, studying it’s blood-filled body until I dig my heel into it, punishment for biting my dog. Or sometimes I wait until I get home and put it in a cup and then run boiling water over it.

There’s just something about nature, I can’t quite explain.

April 1, 2006

We’re back from Beaver Creek. I swore I’d never go there, but what’s the use in swearing.

It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting; I thought everyone from my town would be there, in full Prada regalia, but it was late in the season and the crowds were gone. It was just the Lessings and the family with really long hair. And a lot of little kids.

I spent the first day of our trip in town at the pharmacy getting Kim’s asthma prescriptions filled, because she left all her stuff at home. While I was waiting, I went to Radio Shack and some sporting goods store and bought a million pairs of gloves for no reason at all. I still think of my kids as very little, helpless creatures who will lose a glove and instantly get frostbite.

When I returned with all the gloves, Dan reminded me that it’s spring.

The next day, I sat at the base of the mountain waiting for them to come down. I spotted Jesse first and waved him over.

“How long have you been sitting here?” he asked me.

“Not long -- two, maybe three hours at the most. I couldn’t find you guys.”

“What have you been doing here?”

“Nothing, why?”

“Why aren’t you skiing?”

“I don’t feel well.”

”What’s wrong?”

“Mountain sickness,” I said, with my head down.

“I’ll go get you some water,” he said, and then a few seconds later, Dan and Kim appeared.

Kim skis with headphones, so she waved at me from whatever world she was in.

“What happened?” Dan asked.

I looked over at my daughter, enjoying her music, looking around at the other skiers. Carefree -- one of them.

“Well, I skied for about an hour or two, but then I fell ill.”

“You fell ill? What does that mean?”

”Nausea, dizziness, headache and shortness of breath,” I said, having memorized the brochure on high-altitude symptoms.

“Why aren’t you in the hospital?” he asked.

“Because.”

“Because?”

“Yes, that’s right. Because.”

“It’s the chair lift thing again, isn’t it?” he asked.

“That too,” I admitted.

The truth is I’ve developed a crippling fear of heights and it prevents me from wanting to ski, as well as die. Dan and I have developed a unique way of dealing with my phobia. We both pretend it’s not there. For a few years, I didn’t ski at all. I just hung around, but then I discovered full-day private lessons. They seem to help. For some reason, if I’m not anywhere near my children, I’m not nearly as afraid of falling out of the chair lift.

“Sign up for a lesson,” Dan said.

“Okay,” I answered, as though this was a new idea.

An hour later, I was waiting for my instructor with my skis leaning against the fence.

When he arrived, we shook hands and I said, “Hi, I’m Stephanie Lessing, and I think you should know, I can’t go up in the chair lift.”

“We’ll just have to climb up the mountain then,” he said.

We both laughed, as the sweat came spurting out of me.

He put his arm around me and said, “Nothing is going to happen to you. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re perfectly safe.”

“But I have two children,” I explained.

“I understand,” he said, “Put on your skis.”

This is why I love ski instructors.

I put on my skis and started shuffling behind him.

“How many times have you skied before?” he asked.

I did a quick, silent mental calculation. I skied for the first time in high school. Just the one time. And then, in college, about four or five times, and then, when we first got married, two or three more times and then nothing while the kids were babies, and then, let’s see, we started them at about five or six, so that’s another ten years of skiing.

“Twice,” I said.

“Okay, then. I have an idea. Let’s take the bus over to the beginner’s learning area.”

“Perfect!” I nearly screamed.

When we arrived at the pre-school center, I was beaming. I turned to Nigel and asked, “Can we stay here the whole time?”

“Let me see how you ski,” he said.

“We have two choices here,” he continued. “We can either take that little mini chair lift or we can start over there,” he said, pointing to a group of children flaying their arms on a small hill. I looked over at the chair lift. And then I did the unthinkable.

“Let’s take that,” I said, pointing to the wide, flat conveyer belt that was slanting somewhat uphill.

“Magic Carpet it is,” Nigel said.

I followed close behind him and then I asked the question I’d been meaning to ask all along.

“Do you feel like laughing?”

“No, do you?” he asked

“Sort of.”

I traveled up the carpet, which took about six seconds, listening to the tiny conversations of the toddlers all around me.

When it was my turn, I skied down the hill, making long, wide turns, trying to remember to keep my skis as close together as possible.

“Your turns are quite good. How many times did you say you’ve skied before?”

“I can’t remember. Can we do that again?”

“If you’d like,” Nigel said, scratching his head.

We did the magic carpet at least six more times before he insisted that we try the mini chair lift.

“I don’t think I can do it,” I said.

“It’s taking you less than three seconds to get down this little hill. I think you’re ready for the beginner slope.”

And so we mounted the mini lift, and Nigel did that thing that all males do on a chair lift. They kick your ski with their ski.

“Please don’t touch me,” I said.

“What?”

“Your ski. It’s touching my ski. That makes me feel like I’m going to fall.”

“I’m sorry. I was just trying to kick some snow off.”

“Don’t be sorry. I just want you to know, I might pass out.”

“No, you won’t,” Nigel said.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Because no one has ever passed out or died or gotten hurt with me and I don’t intend to let you be the first. Just look at me,” he said

I try not to look at people when I’m scared, so this was something new.

“I’m thinking that it’s best if you look up.”

I concentrated on staring into one of Nigel’s eyes, wondering what he must think of me -- a grown woman, afraid.

“I’m scared of things, too,” he said, reading my mind. “Not heights, particularly, but there are things I avoid. You’re way ahead of me, because you’re up here, doing the thing you thought you couldn’t do. And it doesn’t matter if you do a double black diamond. It only matters that you’re back on skis and the truth is you ski remarkably well for someone who has only skied a couple of times. The important thing is that you’re having fun.”

“Am I having fun?” I asked, my voice cracking, wishing he hadn’t mentioned double black diamonds.

“I think you are. And I think you should be very proud of yourself. We need to get off the chair lift now. Stand up.”

And before I knew it, I was skiing down as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

All around me were tiny little children, on one ski, but I didn’t even care.

We took the mini lift up and down for two hours. I asked Nigel if he was bored.

“I’m happy if you’re happy,” he said. And then we started talking -- about Nigel, instead of me, for a change. He’s never been married. He’s traveled the world. He’s not much for big cities and he grew up just outside of London. He despises the French (no surprise there) but loves France. He wants to stay in America; I suspect because he likes American girls, and his parents are retired. The whole time he was talking, I was stopping myself from asking him what size boot he was wearing -- just in case I ever decided to write a book about him.

At the end of the lesson, Nigel and I hugged and exchanged email addresses and I promised to request him next time. We took the bus back to Beaver Creek and I ran off to find my family. I spotted Jesse first, flying down the mountain on his snowboard. I felt my stomach flip, but instead of sitting down, I stood taller and waved to him.

As he made his way toward me, I looked up at the main chair lift. I focused on one chair and watched it soar up the mountain until it was out of sight. And for the first time in years, I wanted to get on it, and ride it, like a magic carpet.

But, unfortunately, it was time to go home. And besides, there’s always next year.

March 26

I never blow my nose in public. I assume this is because nose blowing repulses my mother and I’ve come to accept that we believe the world sees us through our mothers’ eyes. In other words, I don’t want to repulse people. But today, I had no other choice. I was reading, “Falling Through the Earth,” on the plane home from my Chicago signing and it just came pouring out of me. I was crying because I think I love my father in the same way Danielle loves hers and I just feel so sorry for both of us.

And then I started reading Susan Henderson’s manuscript, “Don’t Turn Out Like Me: A Troublemaker Starts A Family,” and I started laughing, but then I started crying again.

I happened to have had a tissue with me, and well, the truth is I used it.

And then I left my coat on the plane, which made me want to start crying all over again. The coat was my mom’s. It was the only practical coat I ever had, and now it’s gone.

The good news is the Chicago signing was a huge success. So much so that I didn’t even care when I got bumped off my flight home and had to stay overnight. I should have gone right back to the store to sell more books but I didn’t want to seem greedy. Instead I went to my room, turned on the TV and ordered up. This is my favorite thing in life -- ordering in. I plan to move back to the city as soon as Kim goes to college, just so that I can call up for food. Although, if you ever stay at the Hilton in the Chicago airport, don’t get the Cobb salad. It was awful.

* * *

Dan and Kim picked me up at the airport and we met Jesse in the parking lot of the animal hospital where my cousin works. It was dog adoption day and I promised Jesse we’d check out the truckload of dogs that arrive each month. By the time we got there, Jesse had already fallen in love with a brown spotted bloodhound, beagle mix with opposable thumbs. I can’t stand dogs with thumbs. And it kept scratching itself. And its face wasn’t that pretty either. But I felt sorry for it. It had a lot of problems that I don’t want to go into. For one thing, it smelled. And its nose was running.

“What is it exactly about this dog that you like?” I asked Jesse. I had my eye on a white German Shepard that had one ear up and one ear down. I’ve always wanted a dog with two different ears.

“Look how cute she is?” he demanded.

”Jesse, she has fleas,” I said, taking the mismatched ear dog out of its cage.

”Those aren’t fleas, it’s dirt.”

”Are you sure it’s dirt?” I asked, while the dog I’d fallen in love with tore out of its cage before I even had a chance to grab its leash.

”You don’t like her, so forget it,” he said.

“I don’t not like her,” I said, running around in circles after the hyper lunatic I fell in love with.

“Yeah, you do. So just forget it.”

“How about if we get this one!” I asked, panting and coughing, trying to corral my dog back into its cage. There’s nothing like a frisky dog.

“Let’s just go home,” he said. And he was right. We shouldn’t have been there in the first place. We were leaving for vacation the next day.

”But I can’t,” I thought, eyeing the keys to the truck. I was seriously considering taking them all and setting up a kennel in my backyard. How does one take home one dog?

I looked into the cages of all the dogs we weren’t even considering. They were all sitting there wondering where they went wrong.

“Is it my tail? Because I can tuck it under if it bothers you?”

“I’m usually much more energetic, but I’m exhausted from the trip.”

”Do I seem too old?”

I could actually hear my heart breaking.

In the meantime, Dan left to go home and get Mikki to see if she would take to the dog Jesse wanted so badly. When we brought the puppy into our car, Mikki inched her body toward the car door and turned her head, as if to say, “Can somebody please get that thing away from me.”

”I don’t think Mikki likes her,” I said.

“Are you kidding? She loves her,” Jesse protested.

“Jesse, she’s totally ignoring her and she’s drooling out of disgust.”

”That’s just because she’s shy.”

This went on for quite a while until I noticed a friend of mine walking around the parking lot with a black lab puppy. I walked over to her to distract myself from having to make a decision.

“I see you got suckered into coming here too,” she said.

“Well, actually, my cousin works here. And we’ve been thinking about getting another dog.”

”My daughter really wants this one” she said, pointing to the little puppy. I took a closer look at the dog. It appeared to have a tumor growing out of its stomach.

“Are you going to buy it?” I asked.

“I might,” she said, “Are you going to get one?”

“I might. By the way, you might want to ask about that growth.”

”What growth?” she asked.

I pointed to it and she thanked me.

She left without a dog.

I walked back on the bus and continued eyeing the rest of the dogs. Every single one of them looked sick and tired and miserable. There they were, all lined up, asking for a home, and people were picking them based on the position of their ears, the cuteness of their eyes or the color of their fur. It occurred to me that I should be looking for tumors instead of cute ears, and that I should be picking the ugliest, sickest, most repulsive dog I could find, because he’d have the least chance of finding a home.

Up until the moment, I didn’t even want a dog that needed a tissue.

We went home without a dog. We were leaving for vacation the next day anyway. It really didn’t make sense.

But the truck is coming back next month and I’m pretty sure we’ll be on it. And I know we’ll pick the right dog.

March 24

I'm leaving in five minutes to do a signing in Chicago. Please visit me if you live near the airport. I'll be in terminal 3 at Hudson Booksellers (O'Hare). I'll be there from about 12:30-4. I'm anticipating three and a half hours of staring into space, so it would be nice if a person happened upon me.

March 22

I’m supposed to find a picture of myself from middle school to be used as my author photo for the Judy Blume anthology. A very cute idea. But the thing is I don’t have one. Most of our photo albums disappeared when my parents got divorced. The earliest photographs I have are from college. I might have to use one of those if I don’t come up with something soon. It’s not like I looked all that different in college than I did when I was twelve -- especially since I’ve had the same hairstyle since second grade. I did the Farrah flip for one year, but then I got too lazy to even do that, so it’s just been hanging here like this ever since.

I ripped my whole house apart trying to find some little shot of me as an adolescent. I got so desperate at one point, I considered using a picture of Kim. We look almost exactly alike. Who would ever know? Except that Jennifer O’Connell reads my blog.

Of course there is that one photo. The one with me in the Saturday Night Live white pantsuit. The one I’m actually holding in my hand -- the one that makes me want to die every time I look at it. It’s sort of small though. And I’d have to cut my sister out of it. She’s wearing the same pantsuit, which makes the whole situation twice as embarrassing. I don’t think Jennifer wanted a full body shot anyway. No, the more I think about it, this wouldn’t be right. I’ll just have to keep looking.

March 20

Tomorrow is my husband’s birthday but I’m hoping he won’t notice.

March 17

Do you ever sit around trying to imagine what it’s like to be a seventeen year old boy? Me neither. But you’d be surpr