THE KAFKAESQUE QUEST

*edited 3/28

Nora Ephron feels bad about her neck.

What makes me feel bad is that I do not have a graduate degree.

I graduated college in 1982. Due to a variety of circumstances, I never made it through graduate school and the lack of a graduate degree has stalked me through the better part of the intervening two and a half decades.

At times, the quest for this degree has felt almost Kafkaesque.

Not that I needed the degree to be what I wanted to be, namely a writer...or even, what I became professionally, namely a publicist.

However, a graduate degree (from the university of my choice) is something that I wanted to have for its own sake, a trophy of my academic achievement, yes, but really a memento of my triumphant ability to rectify a ruined chapter in my personal history.

Yet 25 years have passed since college and I still haven't gotten it.

So, today, I undertook to drive up to Yale in order to talk to the head of the Graduate Program in American Studies. In truth, I have spoken to an endless stream of people -- both at Yale and outside of the university -- about this program since the early 1990's when I first heard about it while researching a story for the New York Times.

(Somewhere in the American Studies office -- if not at the FBI -- there is a fat file with my name on it and a record of my numerous queries. There is also probably a letter from a mental health specialist who was contacted at the time of my fourth query by a concerned administrator.)

Of all the graduate programs that I have not attended (over the past 25 years, I have had also similarly badgered other universities around the country) Yale's American Studies is the one I'm most fixated on attending.

Both for its content and for its very Yaleness.

As a university, Yale looms large in my imagination. It is exactly the kind of college I had dreamed of attending. Because of that, it possesses the power to counteract the negative effects of being forced to attend a school for which there was not even an admissions process, let alone noble architecture and a rarified academic environment.

And today, even after the director kindly gave me a reality check on the likelihood of someone who has been out of the academy for so long being accepted into a doctoral program (though journalists were indeed accepted into the Masters program in American Studies), I was hardly deterred from my ambition.

Putting aside the inherent worth of the course of study itself or the myriad ways in which my studies would inform my writing, I feel that getting this degree would be my personal tikkun, a way of healing a longstanding hurt in my life.

(Recently, I wrote a short story that centers around a Jewish girl in Queens in the 1970's, locked in a battle with her parents over her right to tap into that American rite of passage called "going away to school." Needless to say, that pretty much forms the backdrop to my own story.

As an adult, I do understand that in my parents' eyes "going away to school" was synonymous with doing drugs, sleeping around, getting pregnant, dating non-Jews, breaking Shabbat, getting tattoos, eating non-kosher, joining Jews for Jesus, joining the Hare Krishna, running off with the Maharishi and other activities I was dying to do.

My dad, who had been a congregational rabbi during the sixties and seventies formed this opinion after counseling to the parents of such wayward teens. Thereafter, he vowed to avoid their fate by keeping us close to home.)

The experience I was deprived of as a teen has become fetishized in my mind, tinged with longing and unattainability. Driving through New Haven today, I was adrift in a reverie, seeing myself in every passing undergraduate.

Working on my laptop at the internet cafe on York Street after my interview, I allowed myself to pretend that I was a card-carrying member of the Yale community. I had my Cafe Americano, my wireless hook-up and my paperback of Isaac Babel on the tabletop. Though feverishly engaged in sending and answering e-mails and speaking to clients on my Blackberry, I might have just as well been doing school work.

I was busy -- if not busier -- than the Yalies around me.

Even dressed in Manhattan all-black, I felt utterly at home in this Connecticut college setting.

So I feel in most college towns in America.

I am pulled to academic environments in a spirit that is drenched in the quest to belong.

Those close to me know that, even thirty years later, I feel cheated out of the undergraduate experience I dearly wanted and deserved, I might add, by virtue of having been a well-rounded and high-performing high school student at an elite NYC high school.

Yet, in their fear for our future, my parents decreed that the local branch of city college was the only college option available to their children.

And so...if I have looked towards graduate school as a chance to set everything right, restore things to the way I wanted them to be, give myself a shot at the opportunity that was denied to me when I was 17, why have I failed to actually attend graduate school?

Oh, a complex of reasons...financial mostly, but also relating to the business of not being able to juggle motherhood and graduate work...which seemed infintely more tricky than juggling career and motherhood. Jobs happen during the day when kids are school. Studying, doing research and writing papers often take place at night and on weekends and that would have meant no time with my children.

Even if I had figured how to finance the degree and prevent my family from starving while I took a break from wage-earning, I could not fathom finding this time or having the space to be a student.

I was fairly certain that I would have to drop out due to the sheer impossibility of doing my course work, indeed, I did start one program while nursing a baby, raising two elementary school-age kids and working full-time, only to drop out after six weeks due to the ridiculousness of the undertaking.

The logistical obstacles were real, yet there is another, deeper, more intrinsic reason for the Kafkaesque nature of my journey to grad school.

I hadn't really given myself permission to pursue this dream. On some level, I didn't quite believe that I deserved it.

Now, as I watch my children navigate their way through their respective academic and life journeys, I am filled with pride and excitement, for them and for myself.

I do not seek to control the variables in their lives. I don't wish to shelter them from threats to life values I hold dear. I don't necessarily want their lives to mirror my own. I honor their experimentation. I believe in their intelligence and their character.

And I am thrilled by the opportunities that come their way, the horizons that are opening up to them.

By giving my children permission to grow independent of my constant supervision, I reach back through time and give permission to my adolescent self, encouraging her to pursue her dearest dream.

It is a pleasure to reacquaint myself with my inner adolescent. For someone who was stashed away in storage for 25 years, she looks pretty good and her mind is every bit as sharp as I recall. Energetic and inquisitive, she is caught in that glorious moment of teetering on the threshold of transition; the door to her future is swinging wide open and she is trembling with excitement and apprehension.

What is most pronounced about her, my adolescent self, is the bright flame of her personal intellectual ambition. In the dark of the intervening decades, it has grown even brighter. At night, when the light of this computer screen illuminates my dark apartment, it glows with sheer brilliance.

My mothering is not complete, nor have golden coins begun to rain down from heaven. Middle Babe's college tuition will need to be paid for the next four years and Little Babe's high school and college career looms in the distance. Big Babe may need some financial assistance. The piles of unpaid bills persist. There are no winning lotto tickets on our kitchen counter.

Still, the Three Babes are older, which means that I have a shot at being able to disappear into libraries on weekends and evenings to complete my course work.

It might not be next year and it might not be New Haven (hey, Columbia also has a really good American Studies program...and it's right across the street from the Urban Bungalow), but the feisty woman-child who is my inner and my eternal self has informed me that the journey I have branded as Kafkaesque is about to take a page out of sci-fi, traveling into the future in order to heal the ruptured past.

*Original post read as too long and maudlin. Two days after the visit to Yale, I'm able to get a better grip on the experience. Thanks for living through the (public) rewrites. BB

MOM ON A LEASH

With HOBB’s arrival home from India (if ya haven’t already done so, check out the action on http://www.coveringreligion.org/), my resolve to flee to a sanatorium in Switzerland was sidetracked when he showed up sick...so sick that he slept for two days straight, emerging from the bedroom only to stagger through the Urban Bungalow in a state of complete and utter disorientation.

As Alfie the Pomeranian (http://alfie-pomeranian.blogspot.com/) had failed to learn how to keep house -- and as HOBB looked like he might die without someone to tend to him -- I cancelled my Swiss Miss adventure and turned into Bungalow Nursebabe.

Bereft of my relaxing retreat, I drowned my sorrows in Low-Carb Mini Bundt Cakes instead, courtesy of a home-delivery from the Fat Free Experience. You can read about it two posts back or visit www.fatfreeny.com.

But as HOBB’s illness receded, I began harboring escape fantasies once again. Not that I’m keeping count or anything, but after a week of driving Little Babe to school twice, attending Parent-Teacher conferences by myself, parking the car and doing massive food shopping and shlepping all the bags upstairs myself, I did feel entitled to a vacation…if only for one night.

HOBB good-naturedly agreed, assuring me that I should take off while he retrieved Little Babe from his after school class and spent the evening in a special Dad ‘n Son-a-thon. In his e-mail to me of 5:25 today, he wrote (and I quote): “Make sure you go to the gym tonight! I want a happy [embarrassing term of endearment deleted] on my hands.”

Well…here is how my “happy” night turned out.

5:45: Leave the Urban Bungalow with Katie the Intern for the ATM at Lerner Hall. Pay her, chuck plan to take subway down to gym and opt to walk in unseasonable warm weather.

6:00: Call from Little Babe, expressing surprise that I did not pick him up. I reassure him that he will have a great night with Dad and I’ll be home to say sh’ma with him.

6:10: Stop in to peruse cute yet shockingly expensive frocks at Liberty House. Flee store and find solace at Steps, where entire outfits can be had for $15.

6:15: Enjoy walk down Broadway though the sidewalks seem covered in smeary dog poop, the gutters are filled with filthy slush and the corners are populated by screaming bands of high school kids.

6:30: Opt for manicure at under-populated salon where staff wear red satin Chinese tunics. Two seconds into manicure, I ask for 10-minute backrub.

6:35: HOBB calls. Wants to know how I am. Wants to know where I am. Wants to know what time I’ll be home. I pretend I can barely hear him and hang up.

6:45: Backrub commences. Joy, joy, joy.

6:47: Cellphone rings. Two feet away from me. Chatter commences. I am relaxed, taking in the sound as ambience. No stress.

6:50: The bitch is still at it. I lift my head suddenly and demand that she shut the $%^ up. I ask her if she has failed to see me having a backrub about 24 inches from her blabbering mouth. She looks shocked. Then she retaliates, telling her caller that she is being “accosted” by a customer. (I will skip over the particulars of this fight. It is very depressing that the concept of consideration needs to be disputed. Readers, weigh in on this issue, please.)

7:00: I leave the salon feeling furious, upset, shaken, disappointed, confused and agitated. I run into two cops on the beat, a guy and a woman. I ask them about indoor cellphone usage laws or regulations. They report that there are none; that it is up to the proprietor of the business. I tell them the story of what just went down in the nail salon. They express shock at the behavior of inconsiderate cellphone gal. Their empathy actually makes me feel a heck of a lot better.

7:10: I start composing an Op-Ed in my head about indoor cellphone use being a lot more dangerous than in-car cellphone use because it leads people like me to thoughts of murder, whereas in-car cellphone use might only result in a car accident. I decide to take up arms against the sea of cellphone talkers invading these bastions of R and R. I reflect upon the feasibility of petitioning nail salon owners to enforce cellphone restriction rules…and then abide by them. I recall another incident in the not-so-recent past, where another nail salon visit was utterly ruined by another yapper…and where the owner of the salon was similarly passive. (You can read about it in a previous post).

7:18: I stop at a Starbucks and order a Grande Americano. I ask the barista about obnoxious cellphone users. She tells me she wants to write a book about being a barista in NYC. She said that most of her customers are major a-holes.

7:20: I realize I ought to high-tail it to the gym, which I haven’t visited since earlier in the week if I want to have a good workout, a steam room visit and a shower. After all, I have to be home in two hours.

7:30: I stop in at the Gap on 86th Street. I try on four pair of knee-length shorts, all of which make me look like a middle-aged camp counselor.

7:40: I stop in at Origins and buy some products. I ask the cashier if the store has a cellphone use policy. She tells me that there is no such policy but she is amazed by how loud and inconsiderate many of the customers are. I find solace in this and tell her my story. She nods in grave commiseration.

8:00: I stop in at Filene’s and use the bathroom. I meander through the store and then leave, realizing I will have less than an hour at the gym. Nearly everyone at Filene's is yapping on their cellphones.

8:10: I get to the gym. While I am changing, I realize that I smell of stress sweat.

8:15: I wash my pits and spritz myself with perfume.

8:17: I climb aboard a treadmill and tune in to Law and Order. Bliss.

8:20: My cellphone rings. It is Little Babe. He is tearful. I whisper to him that I cannot talk; I’m on a treadmill. It’s not nice to talk inside the gym. He is upset. His mouth hurts. He’s tired. He wants to go to sleep. When will I be home?

I tell him to brush his teeth and call me when he’s in bed and ready to say sh'ma.

8:30: Little Babe calls. He’s in bed. I whisper sh'ma to him over my cellphone. I am gasping from the effort of walking at 4 miles an hour and climbing at an incline of 7 while singing in Hebrew. I tell him not to wait up for me.

8:45: Little Babe calls. He cannot fall asleep. What time will I be home?

8:50: Little Babe calls. He’s not sure his friend should come for the weekend. What time will I be home?

9:00: Two and a quarter miles on the treadmill; three-quarters of a mile to go. I run to the bathroom. My phone rings. It is HOBB. “What time will you be home?” he asks. I remind him that I have been on home duty for two solid weeks and deserve a bit of a break.

9:03: I forget about finishing my treadmill workout. Instead, I do three sets on the pull-down machine. I vow to finish my weights at home. I vow to do my abs at home. I vow to go to the gym the next day. I vow to leave for Switzerland after Shabbat.

9:10: I shower hurriedly.

9:13: I duck into the steam room for an un-relaxing two minutes.

9:15: I shower and hurriedly slather lotion on myself.

9:17: I throw on clothes, while talking a mile a minute to a friend (mostly about how much in a hurry I am), put a baseball cap over my wet hair, grab all my stuff together and run out of the locker room.

9:23: Hail a cab. Think about stuff I might have left in the locker room. Call HOBB en route. Find out I need to repark the car.

9:36: Arrive home. Find the car. Drive around a few million blocks. Find a spot. Call my mother as I am walking down Morningside Drive to find out about her latest injury. She's semi-hysterical that I'm walking along Morningside Drive by myself at night. In the middle of the conversation with my mother, Little Babe calls.

I thought he was asleep. He is not. He is in tears. He is in pain from the sores in his mouth.

What he wants to know is, when will I be home?

THE SECRET TO LINDSAY'S DISTRESS: MAMA DINA.

Who is the most retarded Stage Mom in America?

No, not Kathy Hilton. (I didn’t ask who the mom of the most retarded celebrity in America is.)

The most retarded Stage Mom in America is none other than Dina Lohan, mother of Lindsay, profiled here in today’s venerable New York Post. Check it out at: http://www.nypost.com/seven/03212007/news/nationalnews/lohan_moms_pain_nationalnews_todd_venezia.htm.

After reading the entertainingly snide write-up, I just had to send a shout-out to Dina, Kathy, Lynne Spears, Jarnette Olsen (the twins’ mom)…and all the other mothers who pushed their babies into the limelight and then stood on the side, clapping delightedly as their lives turned into public nightmares:

You guys have screwed up.

In a major way.

In a way that cannot be blamed on poverty and lack of opportunity.

In a way that will be hard to undo.

Hey Deens, when the world looks at your daughter and “trashes” her, calling her a slut or drunk or bimbo, you might wanna stop and consider the validity of these charges and whether it is time to assess the role your own parenting (or lack thereof) has played in turning that adorable and gifted star of The Parent Trap into an utter train wreck.

As mothers, we have a daunting responsibility to nurture and protect and guide our children. Therefore, it is not in the best interest of your daughter when you act as her pimp. It is not in her best interest when you act like her best friend, going clubbing with her, drinking or hooking up, or even tottering around in her Jimmy Choos.

It is not in her best interest when you are such a media whore that you grab every opportunity to vogue for the cameras, flaunting some adolescent version of the Good Life as if you have discovered the meaning of life.

Tell me, Dina...do you really think that sipping champagne in a limo is such a big freaking deal? Don't you think that at 44, it's more than a bit pathetic that you are so dazzled by the glitz and glitter of Hollywood? Don't you realize that we're all laughing at you?

It seems that as long as Linds is in the headlines – whether for flashing her privates or falling down drunk or getting into car crashes or showing up late and hung over to film sets – you believe that she is living – as you claim – the American Dream.

Wake up, Dinaleh.

DEALING ON AMSTERDAM

Whilst driving up to Little Babe's school tonight, half an hour late for parent-teacher conferences (yeah, the thing I hadda register for online last week...and, oh, btw, HOBB is in bed, sick after returning from India. Poor little poopsie.) I got a furtive call on my Blackberry.

"Hey, I'm on Amsterdam and 116th," said a voice over the crackling phone line. "I've got your stuff. Roz said I might catch you."

My heart leapt with joy. Earlier, while racing from a meeting on East 59th Street via cab, Roz called and apologized for not delivering my Fat Free Experience Mini Bundt Cakes earlier in the day.

I'm positively addicted to these things but they are hard to find, flying off the shelves at Fairway within minutes of landing. Just yesterday I noticed a phone number on the wrapper of the coffee cake confection I had just scarfed down and called. The friendly Roz told me that I could arrange weekly deliveries...to my home!!!!

Somehow, the morning delivery got off-track, but now Mitch the driver was in my nabe, having just delivered a batch to Garden of Eden.

"Great!" I barked over the phone. "I'll meet him while I'm digging out my van in about 5 minutes." As I clicked the call off, I quelled the inner voice that I was already late for the parent-teacher conferences and a quick transaction on the street would not delay me any more.

Well...five minutes came and went as the cab deposited me next to my snowed-in van. No sign of Mitch. Getting into the minivan, however, I met Little Babe who was walking Alfie the Pomeranian (http://alfie-pomeranian.blogspot.com/) and who watched in shock and awe as I drove my way out of the snowbank, lurching forward and backward, weaving, pitching, nearly killing half the faculty of Columbia University.

Amazingly, I got the minivan out, shouted goodbye to Little Babe through the open window and started burning rubber to make it the second half of the parent-teacher conferences. As I was humming along Amsterdam Avenue, Mitch called to say he was on my corner.

Oy. Dilemma. I deliberated for about, oh, half a second before executing a quick Youeee and screeching down Amsterdam. Parked in front of Camille's, there was Mitch, holding two cake boxes with my muffins. I pulled up alongside him, smiled winningly, handed him the cash and drove off with my fix.

Fresh from their Bronx bakery, the little low-carb bundt cakes are pretty close to heaven. And almost guilt-free. Especially if you forget about parent-teacher conferences.

So, here's Bungalow Babe's hot tip for the week. Visit http://www.fatfreeny.com/ to arrange for a home -- or curbside -- delivery of these goodies.

YES, MAUREEN. MEN ARE NECESSARY*

*to take out the garbage, walk the dog, do the dishes, move the car, replace light bulbs, change the toilet paper, figure out online Parent-Teacher conference sign-up forms, etc…

This evening, at approximately 5 p.m., a momentous event will take place in the life of Bungalow Babe.

HOBB (Husband of Bungalow Babe) and Big Babe, who have been traipsing through India for the past 12 days, will return to the bosom of their family. (To see what they have been doing in India, visit www.coveringreligion.org)

In their absence, this particular bosom has sagged. So much so that major reconstructive work is called for.

And while the mental recovery will take some time (experts estimate that twelve days in a sanatorium should just about do it. See the previous Bungalow Babe posting, Woman on the Verge), the physical effort will commence in about five minutes.

Starting in about five minutes, all evidence that the Urban Bungalow has been inhabited by a Woman on the Verge (plus a delighted Little Babe who had a “sleepover” in his mom’s room with Alfie the Pomeranian every single night and missed a total of FIVE school days during this 12 day period due to sickness AND a snow day last Friday. Thanks a whole lot, Hashem. You’re a real pal) will be obliterated as Bungalow Babe (together with her dedicated cleaning Lady, Lady [her real name]) springs into action.

Some of the reconstructive efforts entail:

*Tossing out the piles of newspaper which have accumulated around the apartment (largely unread) like so many Stonehenge monuments

*Putting away the piles of clothes that lie draped over the office chair in the bedroom, a testament to the fits of sartorial decision-itis that have only increased in the absence of the menfolk. These piles have migrated from the master bed, where they lay for at least four days, making a pleasant nest for Alfie the Pomeranian, until Little Babe complained that he didn’t like sleeping next to suits. Bungalow Babe actually got used to it

*Removing the challah-crumb-infested Shabbat tablecloth from the table, putting away the challah tray and washing the wine-stained kiddush cups

*Finding the various unread mail deposit sites around the apartment and gathering all the important looking stuff into one pile to place on the dining room table, now cleared of the Shabbat tablecloth

*Finding the missing New Yorker with the great cartoon of the writer on deadline plus the issue of the Forward that had an opera review written by Big Babe

*Washing the fleishig dishes in the sink; removing the clean milchig dishes from the dishwasher

*Throwing out the used fish pan that has lived on the fire escape for the last twelve days because it is truly disgusting now that it has been snowed and rained and hailed on. (But the spatula inside of it with the plastic yellow fish head can prob. be saved.)

*Finding the missing phone receiver (where the *&*^ is it????)

*Pouring the sour milk down the drain once the fleishig dishes are done

*Throwing out the empty bags of chips and boxes of crackers that populate the shelves. Somehow, it seemed like too much effort to discard these over the past twelve days

*Getting rid of the abundant evidence of takeout food

*Putting new toilet paper rolls on the toilet paper holders. Right now, they are resting on the bathroom floor, to be perfectly truthful. Bungalow Babe considers herself virtuous to have risked her life by climbing atop a kitchen counter yesterday and successfully retrieving the bag of new rolls by batting at it wildly with a broom until it came flying off the top of the kitchen shelves while Little Babe ducked for cover.

*Relocating the recycling material to the basement. As of this morning, there are enough empty Poland Spring bottles in the Urban Bungalow to make a homeless person rich

…and various and sundry other tasks that will remove the illusion that, in his absence, the Urban Bungalow has been inhabited by a grunge band .

Meanwhile, there are a whole host of tasks that Bungalow Babe will not even attempt, i.e. – replacing the light bulbs, digging the minivan out of its icy snow bank, replacing the steering wheel fluid, for starters. Bungalow Babe is hopeful that the mere sight of these tasks will ignite compassion in HOBB’s heart for her ordeal of having to run the Urban Bungalow in his absence.

Of course, the return of HOBB and Big Babe will also be celebrated by the requisite balloons and Welcome Back signs, provided that Bungalow Babe finishes the project she was supposed to do over the weekend but frankly blew off for the pleasure of going out with a friend to Makor on Saturday night, attending a Congressional Breakfast on Sunday morning and taking Little Babe to a production of Di Yam Gazlonim, the Yiddish version of The Pirates of Penzance on Sunday evening (visit www.jccmanhattan.org. It’s playing for two weeks only. See it! You’ll plotz!)

In other words, having a life.

It is now 9:15 am. The new workday and workweek has begun. Lady has arrived, thank God. Little Babe went to school, undeterred by illness or weather. Bungalow Babe’s professional Inbox is pinging, signaling the arrival of work-related e-mails. Alfie the Pomeranian is snoozing happily on the master bed, curled up next to the outfit that Bungalow Babe wore to yesterday morning’s Congressional breakfast and might likely recycle for today's 1 pm meeting.

Get those happy zzz’s in now, my little furry friend, because once HOBB returns home, the honeymoon is over.

WOMAN ON THE VERGE

MEMORANDUM

TO: HOBB*
FROM: Your Wife, Bungalow Babe


The purpose of this memo is to inform you of my intention to leave the country the very minute you arrive home from your 12-day trip to India, which commenced last Wednesday and will conclude this upcoming Monday.

I anticipate being gone the same amount of time as the duration of your trip, most of which will likely be spent at a sanatorium, if such places still exist.

(In fact, the minute I finish this memo, I will start Googling sanatoriums – sanatoria?? It is possible that I might even find a discount package through Expedia or Orbitz. But why am I even thinking about the cost?? I will be billing it back to you, dear HOBB.)

Do not misunderstand. I am not leaving in a fit of rage, rather in a blur of exhaustion.

Mental, physical and spiritual.

I simply need time away from my life, which has begun to feel like a horror film directed by John Waters.

I think it was while I was cleaning up dog poop at three in the morning that I realized I need to distance myself from the ordeal of nearly two weeks of unrelenting duty on the domestic front, a tour which included:

• Alternate side of the street parking nightmares, complete with interminable – and fruitless -- late-night searches for a good parking spot for the following day, ticket-happy traffic cops and sociopathic parking spot thieves


• Dog walking adventures featuring a constipated Pomeranian who decided to turn into a prolific pooper on Day Five


• Four consecutive sick days for Little Babe and then reams of catch-up schoolwork and homework; wasted time waiting for late school buses on most mornings and then a frantic flight down West End Avenue in hot pursuit of the school bus on the only morning that the driver was on time and we were late; indignant calls to the company when the driver yelled at Little Babe for failing to get off the bus “fast enough,” causing him to fall down the steps and the other kids to laugh


• Life-threatening efforts to retrieve the toilet paper from the top of the kitchen cabinets where you stored them for some sadistic reason


• Heart-stopping attempts to replace the four light bulbs that decided to blow in your absence


• A couple of hours spent researching and ordering party supplies for Little Babe’s Luau party from Oriental Trading Company


• An anxious hour spent figuring how to fill out parent-teacher conference forms on line (WTF!)


• Back and forth e-mails with Middle Babe’s doctor in Jerusalem over the best way to have funds wired to her for Middle Babe’s treatments


• Plaintive requests for Richard the Super to come and fix the bathtub when the drain stopped draining


• Conversations with John the Contractor about the renovations we requested for the summer


• Supervising the nameless plumber on the replacement of the broken faucets in the kitchen and bathroom


• Mad dashes through Fairway to stock up on food


• The preparation of nutritious breakfasts and dinners for Little Babe


• The sacrificing of all of my extracurricular activities in order to take care of Little Babe and make sure he practices his cello….not to mention the regular stress and work of running my own business or the looming and often converging deadlines or the fact that I haven’t made it to gym this week – or (most pathetically) even onto our home treadmill, located in Middle Babe’s bedroom – or the paltry quota of two to four hours’ sleep I allow myself in an effort to finish my work commitments.
  
  In other words, I have had it.
  
  I’ve been there.
  
  I’ve done that.
  
  I’m outta here.
  
  The sanatorium room I will request should have a view of snow-capped mountains, or the ocean or perhaps an enchanted forest. As this sanatorium will likely be in Switzerland, I intend to spend my days with tall, healthy, non-neurotic Swiss people who will administer massages, manicures and pedicures, take me on restorative hikes through the Alps, protect me from visitors, administer medicinal doses of chocolate several times a day, smile a lot and agree with everything I say.
  
  While away, I also plan to have some advanced facial treatments that will obliterate the telltale signs of stress and sleeplessness. And perhaps I’ll have my hair professionally colored instead of the over-the-bathroom sink production I undergo once every five weeks. I’ll make my hair the color of bittersweet chocolate. Perhaps actual chocolate can even be used in the process. And I'll have a chocolate massage to go with that.
  
  During the day, when I am not having treatments or hiking through the Alps, I will sit in a cozy theatre, watching DVDs of every great movie I’ve ever wanted to see…and missed. Or watch the film versions of every great book I had hoped to read…but haven’t. And eat Caesar Salad the entire time. Without croutons and anchovies but with extra cheese.
  
  The cost of my stay will include daily sessions with a world-renowned psychologist (or even psychiatrist…what’s not to like about drugs?) from Vienna. In our daily therapeutic hikes, my new shrink will enable me to achieve profound insights into my psyche. The mysteries of my life will finally be revealed, in fact, I will realize that it all makes for a great (and marketable) screenplay. Together, we will have transference and counter-transference and when I am ready to return home, I will be tranquil, wise and fully-evolved.
  
  I’m sending out this memo to you, dear HOBB so you don’t wonder where I am when you return home. Out of the deepest sense of compassion for you, I have decided to leave before you return because I honestly think I might kill you if our paths cross on my way to the sanatorium.
  
  Your loving wife,
  
  Bungalow Babe
  
  PS: I’m putting Alfie the Pomeranian in charge of Little Babe until you get home. Later tonight, I plan to teach him how to pick up the mail, make dinner and lock the door.
  
  PPS: Don’t try to call or e-mail me. I am giving my Blackberry to our cleaning lady.

PPPS: Did I mention that I'm writing this memo in the Jury Selection room of 111 Centre Street? Yeah, I have Jury Duty today and tomorrow. Did you contact the New York State Court system and set this up in advance???

PPPPS: I will be staying in the most sun-drenched room at the sanatorium to make up for the twelve days of living in darkness. Little Babe has been doing his homework and practicing cello by candlelight. My attempts to replace the four broken lightbulbs in our apartment have all failed.

________________________________________________________

*Husband of Bungalow Babe, in case ya haven't figured it out by now.

CELLPHONES, DRUGS AND ROCK-HARD ABS Part Three

(NOTE TO READERS: Since posting this entry last night, I had a personal realization and have updated the post as a result. If you saw this post anytime before 11:30 pm on 3/14, you haven't seen the latest version.)

Last week, I was really burning to write about anorexic women at the gym and how upsetting it is to watch them wander listlessly through the workout floor, barely managing to lift weights, traipsing feebly on the treadmills, drowning in overlarge clothes, staggering through workout class, publicly engaged in a war against their bodies.
I wanted to communicate the horror of seeing these women naked in the locker room – stripped of buttocks and breasts, skin invariably turned a waxy yellow, Auschwitz-like victims of their own internal concentration camp transplanted onto the pleasure-oriented landscape of 21st century Manhattan.
I wanted to write about the complex reaction they evoke in me – a mixture of pity, worry and outrage. Like coming upon a homeless child on a street corner or walking through a cancer ward, my soul contracts at the sight of these skeletal gym rats. They are pathetic, these dying women on the workout floor, come to absolve themselves of the sin of imaginary fat.
I have spent entire workouts covertly monitoring them as I sweat my way through 45 minutes of Law and Order-fueled treadmill torture, worried that they might drop dead any second. I have been disturbed by the failure of fitness trainers to remove these women from harm’s way with a gentle intervention…and quick call to 911.

I have pondered the responsibility of fitness clubs towards anorexics and concluded that any facility dedicated to health and exercise needs to install vigilant monitors who might offer intervention in the same way that restaurant managers would be compelled to administer a quick Heimlich maneuver to a patron who has started to choke.

It is not, as the director of the Dodge Fitness Center at Columbia University once told me when I voiced my alarm at the growing number of anorexic students at his facility, an invasion of privacy to intervene. That is utter bulls#*t.

Intervening when you witness a suicide-in-progress is a moral imperative.

And while I fear for my starving sisters, I admit that I also experience anger at them for failing to overcome the habit of denying their bodies’ basic needs, a habit popularized by adolescent girls running from their sexuality, their mothers, the encroachment of adulthood, their emerging selves.

Rather than embrace the often-fattening pleasures of life, adult anorexics are stuck in a romance with the concept of self-abnegation, they practice masochism every minute, feeling purified by their hunger, strengthened by their resolve to forego pleasure.

Spiritual purists, they disavow interest in their corporeal existence. And though they intend to make themselves holy, they inadvertently sin, dishonoring God by tampering with God’s most glorious design – the human body – desecrating it through deprivation.

So, this is what I was burning to write about last week, this and the fact that, lately, as I observe these bony, brittle women at my beloved gym, I am aware that my extra winter poundage has necessitated the addition of cellulite-control leggings beneath my little black running shorts.

However, as this week dawned, the issue began to recede from my radar screen. Feeling duty bound to tackle the matter (having referenced it in the past post) I began writing but the prose didn't flow out of my fingertips. I found the going difficult, the subject eluded me, seemed foreign, barely held my interest.

Still, I soldiered on, determined to make good on my promise, choosing to segue from the scenario of starving women to my own winter weight gain. Here is the rest of what I wrote:

It is also impossible to ignore the fact that my abs are hardly rock-hard due to my winter penchant for eating pretty much whatever I like, including the vanilla Haagen Dazs I am currently inhaling…straight from the half-gallon container, I might add…with little spoonfuls tossed to Alfie the Pomeranian who has magically appeared computer-side, lured, no doubt by the scent of vanilla wafting through the apartment.

Yes, it is weird writing about anorexics while eating ice cream at midnight. Weird and ironic... or weird and appropriate.

Life affirming, even.

Haagen Dazs at midnight is the opposite of anorexia. (Unless you go and throw it up afterwards, but that is really bulimia.)

Indeed, I am feeling elated as this creamy confection melts on my tongue even if my belly is not bikini-ready and my thighs and butt need to be encased in slimming black spandex before I’ll appear in public. I am feeling elated even while acknowledging that I'll need to wear those leggings a little while longer before my inner fitness dominatrix prevails and chains me to an elliptical trainer and carb-free regime.

HOBB is away in India with Big Babe, Middle Babe is studying in Israel and Little Babe is asleep in my bed next to the pile of clothes I’ve neglected to put away since HOBB left the country last week.

Like amassing piles of clothes, eating ice cream at midnight is one of the pleasures and privileges of adulthood.

That, and watching late night television, perhaps an episode of Law and Order, until I wrest myself from the couch to return to the deadline project due at 10 am tomorrow morning. And that is where the original post ended.

But readers, as I read and re-read the post obsessively, I felt agitated. Yes, I had written about my honest reaction to starving women at the gym, revealing myself to be less than, or more than simply compassionate towards them in their plight. However, there was something else going on, something I was afraid to touch. Something that was at the core of my annoyance with anorexic adults, something that explained just why I felt compelled to dive into a half-gallon of Haagen Dazs to make it through the writing.

It had to do with my adult self confronting my starving teenage self, seeing myself in the extreme waif-like women, averting my gaze from the reminder of what it was like to be obsessed with overcoming my appetite, being unable to bear what I might have become.

It had to do with standing inside and outside the mind of the anorexic, feeling the draw of denial as a sham way of gaining some control over my life. It zapped me back to a nightmarish time of being forced to inhabit a role I did not choose, of feeling like a prisoner in my own life.

And though I have moved beyond that time, travelled light years out of that hell, the default mode for the stress and disequilibrium in my life is still the mode of self-denial.

So, what was left unstated in the original post is that I see myself as I was in the desperate dieters at the gym. And because of that close identification, I want to yell at them, shake them out of the hell they are in, move them into adulthood where autonomy generally allows us to create our own reality, rewrite our destiny, even.

In my life, I have slain the false god of self-destruction, refusing to capitulate to his decree.

The midnight Haagen Dazs is therefore my trophy, elixir of sticky delight and sweet dreams, the essence of my healing.

CELLPHONES, DRUGS AND ROCK-HARD ABS Part Two

It has often been stated that youth is wasted on the young.

How true.

But infinitely truer…and hardly ever stated…is the fact that drugs are wasted on the young.

Remember back to your high school and college days? As much fun as it was to get totally wasted then, it is infinitely better to get trashed with the brain and body that you have now.

After all, there is so much more to escape when you are an adult.

Two nights ago, I found myself at an Oscars party on the Upper West Side. Minutes after the arrival of a giant hero sandwich stuffed with (kosher) cold cuts, the host pulled me aside.

“You seem of the generation that would be cool if I asked you something,” he said in subdued -- if ungrammatical -- tones.

“Yeah?” I was suspicious and curious all at once. Every babe in the big city knows to be on guard for pervy questions at parties.

“I have some pot-laced cookies. Would you like one?”

I must issue the following disclaimer: I am against the use of illegal substances. I have told Big Babe and Middle Babe (Little Babe is too innocent to even contemplate doing drugs…or even talking back to his teachers) that I would be most unsympathetic if they were ever busted for possession of drugs.

The only time in recent memory I smoked dope was three years ago in Amsterdam where it is illegal NOT to smoke dope. I did it more for the experience than the buzz. The truth of the matter is that, debauched youth aside, I never really liked pot. It made me feel dumbed down, like my mind was trying to run in a swimming pool.

But being offered a marijuana snack on the Upper West Side was an irresistible offer.

“Sure!” I agreed, looking towards the couch where HOBB (Husband of Bungalow Babe) was cramped uncomfortably, watching the early, irrelevant Oscar nominations and winners. The confection would not be up his alley.

“Have you eaten anything?” my host suddenly asked.

“Uh, yeah…apple slices and peanut butter before I came here,” I offered. He looked relieved.

“I meant, you didn’t have any of the meat sub, right?” he explained, “because the cookies are milchig. They're made with butter.”

I laughed. Where else in the world – outside of the Anglo-populated neighborhoods of South Jerusalem – would anyone be simultaneously concerned about his guests getting high and inadvertantly mixing milk and meat?

My host handed me a baggie filled with biscotti-shaped blondies.

“How much?” I inquired.

“I ate two before the party and I’m totally wasted,” he said, looking totally wasted. “It’ll take about an hour to kick in.”

I didn’t want to stagger home to Little Babe through the snow in a state of utter intoxication. “I’ll have one,” I said.

The blondie tasted surprisingly hearty, made evidently with whole grains, real creamery butter and actual pot. I was envious of the baker: I personally had no idea how to bake such treats, or to bake in general. Finishing the snack, I wove through the crowd, found HOBB and squeezed in next to him on the couch.

“I just ate a pot-laced cookie,” I told him. “In case I start to act weird or anything.”

HOBB looked at me like I was a teenager who had just broken curfew...again.

“Do you want one?” I asked, uselessly.

The party wore on. The Oscars unfolded. Ellen changed her outfit three times. The winners staggered to the stage, grateful, astounded, triumphant. The montages were cool…especially the one of the foreign films. Everytime the camera landed on Jack Nicholson, I suppressed the urge to leap through the television set and smash him on his billiard ball head with a golf club. Our host devised a plan whereby he would lower the TV volume and play Zydeco music during the commercials, which was clever, if a bit annoying.

Around 10 pm, HOBB stood up, stretched and announced his intention to go home. I stated my intention to stay. We arranged for me to call home at 10:30 to say sh’ma (Jewish bedtime prayer) with Little Babe. Guests came and went. I called home at 10:40 to say sh’ma with Little Babe and sent kisses over the phone. HOBB told me that Big Babe was coming to the party. I looked up and there was Big Babe, standing in our host’s bedroom.

This was the second party he had come to in search of his parents. We had left the first one, hours ago, it turned out, but he didn’t know that. He had left several messages on my Blackberry but I hadn't checked it for hours. He looked chilled and annoyed from shlepping through the snow.

Suddenly, the dope took effect.

Here’s the thing about being a parent: you have to maintain a semblance of responsible adulthood at all times. Even if your kid is 22. Even if they have probably done harder drugs than you. Even if you are at a party.

“Hey, your mom’s cool!” one cute girl told Big Babe, as we stood near the food table. She had just come over to talk to us and perhaps pick up Big Babe. I don't know what I said, or if I even said anything at all but she thought I was cool. Maybe it was the red velvet jacket I wore or my long strand of black beads from Paris or my four-inch high Isaac Mizrahi boots or my H&M black dress. Whatever. It was cool to be cool.

The dope made me dopey. I started laughing at things that might not have been remotedly funny. I cannot remember exactly what they were except for one thing, when Big Babe was leaving the party. The host stood by the elevator and it seemed like his 5 o’clock shadow had deepened appreciably over the past hour. I shared my observation and the two of us fell over laughing hysterically.

“Hey, your mom’s a real party animal,” said the host.

Big Babe left with an inscrutable look on his face.

Fast forward to later in the evening, after I arrived home to catch the final awards. HOBB was sitting on the couch, annoyed (it turns out) that I had not left the party with him. Little Babe was snuggled next to him, upset to have awakened and find his mother still not home. He had been wrested out of sleep, he reported, by the theme song to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which played during the Lifetime Achievement Award segment for composer Ennio Morricone.

(Little Babe had recently discovered this theme and had been humming if for the entirety of the previous week – one night, when I asked him to cease and desist, he claimed he was unable to get it out of his head! -- and then, on another night we had both burst out laughing when our cabbie’s cellphone rang with that very melody.)

Imagining Little Babe lying in bed, lured to the living room by that iconic cowboy movie theme, I laughed. It was funny, after all, that Little Babe was being stalked by the theme to The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

Then I noticed Big Babe, sitting on the other side of his dad and little brother, looking at me with disgust.

As best as I can remember, my behavior at the party earlier that evening was unremarkable. I didn’t dance on the tabletop, say anything off-color, behave in an undignified manner. Nor was I completely wasted, just loosened to the point where everything in the world seemed funny to me.

And I had returned, after all, to the bosom of my family. It was not even midnight. Soon I would be walking through our overheated apartment decked out in a t-shirt and shorts. Because he was still awake, I would shortly tuck Little Babe into bed. The next morning, I would be hauling his little butt out of bed to get him ready for school. And after the bus left, my work day would kick into motion.

It sure was great to escape the deadlines, demanding clients, difficult decisions, family responsibilities and general sense that the world sucks at the Oscars party. It was great to not think about our financial woes, upcoming meetings and programs and the terrifying To-Do list that crowns every day of my work life.

One little pot-laced cookie at an Upper West Side Oscars party. It was a milder high than two glasses of red wine. It was soothing and fun. It was unexpected.

It was great and all, yet a mom is a mom is a mom, even if she is a Bungalow Babe.

And the message I got loud and clear was that there is a motherly code of behavior that precludes the ingestion of certain substances when the kids – even if they are the same age that you were when you got married to their father – are present.

Next Up: Rock-Hard Abs

To hide her winter weight gain, Bungalow Babe opts for cellulite-control leggings at the gym while worrying obsessively about the anorexic women...and whether they will die during their workout.

Moral dilemma of the day: Do gyms have a responsibility towards their obviously anorexic clients...the ones who look like Auschwitz survivors? Should they continue to let them work out or intervene?

Personal ethical dilemma of the day: Why, when faced with these sick -- if not dying -- women, does Bungalow Babe experience more anger than compassion?

Stay tuned for the final installment of Cellphones, Drugs and Rock-Hard Abs

CELLPHONES, DRUGS AND ROCK-HARD ABS

PART ONE: Cellphones


For anyone who has doubted the existence of Divine retribution, I present the following tale:

On a recent Shabbat afternoon, Bungalow Babe found herself in a nail salon. Being shomer shabbos (in a frum Conservative way) getting a mani-pedi would not normally be on the list of kosher activities for a Bungalow Day-of-Rest. However, due to her vigorous treadmill workouts (and penchant for traipsing through the streets of Manhattan in Isaac Mizrahi boots with four-inch heels (http://www.target.com/), there were formidable calluses on the soles of her feet. In addition, her hands looked like hell from several months of nerve-wracking, business-related stress that caused her to gnaw on her cuticles and ignore her nails to the point that they had become lethal weapons.

As there was a bar mitzvah that night…and as Shabbat would be over by the time it came to paying… Bungalow Babe decided to slither inside the salon (glancing hither and yon to make sure none of her Ortho friends were anywhere to be found) and chap some Me Time.

Selecting an appropriately f*%k-me color for her toes and more understated tone for her hands, Bungalow Babe removed her sneakers, rolled her running pants above her knees, climbed into the upholstered pedicure throne, lifted her feet onto the rim of the tub -- bubbling with aromatic hot water -- and awaited the removal of nail polish by the subservient woman who knelt before her.

A shock of icy cold as an acetone-saturated cotton ball assaulted her toenails and then the hum of mindless relaxation as Bungalow Babe picked up the Us Magazine (or was it Star?) left on the pedicure throne beside her. It was the issue with a recently baldified Britney Spears. Ah, joy. Service to one’s feet and celebrity gossip. Stripped of their chipped polish, Bungalow Babe’s feet were firmly tapped, signaling that it was time to dip them into their bath.

Ahhhhhhh. Bliss so extreme that it obliterated Bungalow Babe’s desire to even open the magazine. The hot soapy water surged and swelled around Bungalow Babe’s feet, every foot-cell singing in joy. Her eyes closed, her head rolled backwards. The pedicure lady lifted one foot and then a tinny symphonic rendition of the William Tell Overture filled the salon.

“Yeah! Hiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!! How are you????? No, I’m getting my nails done. On the West Side. A little place, I don’t know the name. Hey’d you get my e-mail from yesterday???? What’s going on????????????????”

Bungalow Babe’s eyes popped open. She turned her head towards the front of the salon where the manicure stations stood. She trained her ears and focused her eyes. There were three people having their nails done: an aristocratic older gent, a middle-aged woman in a winter white corduroy pants suit and a thirty-something woman in a velour running suit – the type favored by suburban moms -- long frizzy hair obscuring her face, cellphone balanced between shoulder and ear.

“Really? That’s great!!! What are they asking per month? One thousand? For a three-bedroom! That’s amazing! You can’t get that in New York!!!”

Her voice rang out through the relaxed quiet of the salon. The elderly gentleman looked at his manicurist and raised an eyebrow. The lady in the white pants suit shuffled the photocopied pages on her lap that she was attempting to read. My pedicurist turned her head towards the front of the store, frowning. The proprietress of the store stepped outside to talk on her own phone.

For the better part of twenty minutes this one-sided phone conversation went on. Inane tidbits of some bimbo’s personal life filled the air of the salon, invading Bungalow Babe’s private space...as well as everyone else's. Even as Ms. Yappy-Pants moved from the manicure station to the nail dryers, the conversation kept going. At about the 21-minute mark, Bungalow Babe blew a fuse.

“Hey, Big Mouth,” she shouted from the pedicure station towards the dryer. “We’re tired of hearing your private conversation. Take it outside.”

The lady in the pants suit immediately smiled at Bungalow Babe and mouthed “thank you.” The storeowner gave an exasperated shrug and glanced desperately towards the inconsiderate client. The gentleman looked like he might skewer the Taliban Talker with his walking stick. The nail technicians simply seemed resigned. Having spoken her peace, Bungalow Babe settled back in her seat, opened up Us or Star Magazine and prepared to find out who’s taking care of Britney’s kids while she publicly self-destructs.

“I don’t know. It’s about an hour’s drive from the Valley. Not during rush hour, that’s longer. You should really consider living inside the city….”

A flash of rage shot through Bungalow Babe. Unbelievable. Was it possible that Motor Mouth didn’t hear her? Was she deranged? Some new breed of insensitive, self-absorbed, entitled monster? Did she have no desire for privacy? And if not, wasn’t she at least worried that someone was going to beat the crap out of her?

“Shhhhh!” At first gentle and then insistent. It was the pants suit lady, now actively upset. “Shhhhhhhh!”

“Well, first I’m going to go to the gym and then I’m meeting friends and then…”

Pants suit lady and Bungalow Babe locked steely gazes. The store manager breathed fire. The senior citizen was bursting out of his suit like the Incredible Hulk. Something was about to go down.

“When did you see him? Yeah? Did he tell you that we spoke last week?” Logorrhea Lady finally stood up and put her coat on without dislodging her phone from its spot between her shoulder and ear. Her hair still hung over her face. It was impossible to see her face but I knew exactly who she was.

She was the Avenging Angel of Shabbat, come to remind Bungalow Babe of the importance of honoring the spirit of the Day of Rest, created to protect us from the ubiquity of commerce and our contemporary modes of communication…the myriad assaults of the modern world that wear us down as we make our way through secular time and space.


Next up: Drugs


It has often been stated that youth is wasted on the young.

How true.

But infinitely truer…and hardly ever stated…is the fact that drugs are wasted on the young.

Remember back to your high school and college days? As much fun as it was to get totally wasted then, it is infinitely better to get trashed with the brain and body that you have now.


Read more in the next posting of Bungalow Babe in the Big City

KEEPING IT BRIEF

Brevity is the soul of wit…or lingerie, depending on whether you are Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker.

Evidently, brevity is also the soul of blogs.

Or so Bungalow Babe recently learned in an e-mail from an exhausted reader. The knackered-out reader wrote:

I read the blog post about the shabbat guest from hell when you first posted. Ok, I read about a third, and then stared wild-eyed as I scrolled through, amazed at how LONG it was. Have you read other blogs? This is a medium where brevity is prized.

Hmmm. Or… hrrrmph! Then again, hmmm.

So, my posts go on a bit, ay?

Let me think about this a bit…okay, I'm finished thinking.

As I knew the writer to be a thoughtful, friendly chap, I did engage him in an e-mail dialogue about the matter. As I also know him to be closer in age to Big Babe, I view him as a member of the Sesame Street generation, trained to tire of information unless it is being presented in byte-size snippets by Big Bird, Count Count or Cookie Monster.

Bungalow Babe doesn’t do byte-sized snippets.

Then again, because my weary reader is part of an important target audience, I will waive my commitment to ponderous, essay-length posts to present the following:


SESAME BUNGALOW
Brought to you by the letters A-Z

A is for Anna Nicole Smith, who is dead, and anti-Semitism, which is alive
B is for Britney Spears, now bald on the bottom AND the top
C is for carbohydrates -- friend, enemy, lover
D is for Death, which I blogged about yesterday
E is for England, the only place more depressing in winter than snowy NYC
F is for Fairway, where I’ve bumped into Ed Koch twice, and Jake Gyllenhaal once
G is for Gawker
H is for Hashem, because Hashem is my homeboy
I is for Israel, where Middle Babe is spending her year
J is for Jerusalem, city of my soul
K is for kleptomania, an urge I suppress every day
L is for Loehmann’s, opening “early 2007” (like, when exactly?) on the Upper West Side
M is for Mendelsohn, Daniel, whose book I intend to start reading tonight
N is for narcolepsy, a disease I used to confuse with necrophilia
O is for Oprah Winfrey, hero and humanitarian
P is for Paris Hilton, whose celebrity signals the end of civilization
Q is for Queens, borough of my yoot (youth for those who never saw My Cousin Vinny)
R is for Reality TV, a trend that makes me suicidal
S is for Sarah Silverman, genius; Sacha Baron Cohen, genius; and Sephora, the ultimate girl playground
T is for tuna, my main food group
U is for underwear, a rare article of clothing in Hollywood these days
V is for VAGINA, because it has its own monologue
W is for the retard in the White House
X is for SEX, because it is more fun than xylophones
Y is for YOU, my reader!!!
Z is for….help me out, here, reader.

Please send in your entries for the Sesame Bungalow alphabet, Letter Z.

Next on Sesame Bungalow:

Bert and Ernie, rumored to be gay lovers, apply for admission to rabbinical school.

The Only Thing to Fear

Little Babe stood in the doorway of our bedroom calling to me in a stage whisper.

“Mom! Mom!!!”

It was the Friday night that capped a week of endless workdays, and now sleep – overdue and entitled -- gripped me like a possessive husband. I was drugged with exhaustion, glued to my dreams but my maternal instinct proved too strong. My eyelids parted like heavy drapes. I turned my face to the door. Seeing me, Little Babe closed the door in back of him and tiptoed to my side of the bed.

“Mom,” he said, leaning in towards me, sitting on the bed. “Mom, I’m scared…but I don’t know why.”

“C’mere,” I mumbled, my mouth refusing to cooperate with my wish to comfort my frightened child. I pulled back my blankets and Little Babe slid gratefully inside, molding himself to my left side. I pulled the blankets over the two of us and felt him trembling.

“Wazzamatta?” I asked, stroking his head. I heard his teeth chattering. Outside the room I could hear the voices of his sleepover buddies – all three of them. Turning to the right, I found the digital display of the alarm clock.

12:35.

It was too late for Little Babe to be awake. It was too soon for me to get pulled from sleep.

“I don’t know,” said Little Babe between chattering teeth. “We started talking about death and what happens after you die and I suddenly got all hot and cold and scared and shaky.”

“Shhhh,” hissed HOBB (Husband of Bungalow Babe) grumpily from beneath twenty layers of blanket. “Shhh yourself!” I snappishly muttered. Jeez. If you’re not gonna be the go-to parent, the least you can do is be an uncomplaining member of the support staff. After all, no one is interrupting your sleep with talk of death fears.

“I don’t know why I’m so scared,” Little Babe repeated. “But I just started feeling really strange….”

“Anxiety attack,” I interrupted my small son, speaking so incoherently that the word banana came out of my mouth instead.

“What??” he asked, his body still humming, but a bit less so. HOBB grumbled in his sleep. Alfie the Pomeranian trotted out of the closet and arrived bedside, peering up inquisitively into our midnight tete-a-tete.

“Hey, look,” I told Little Babe, now fully awake. “Alfie knows you’re upset. He’s here to comfort you!”

Instinctively, we looked towards HOBB whose back was turned to us. HOBB had outlawed Alfie’s ability to be on our bed. Naturally, I defied this edict at every turn. When HOBB was not home, Little Babe and I were in the habit of jumping on the bed and inviting Alfie to join us in a big snuggle, which always ended with him licking the insides of our ears and thoroughly grossing us out.

It was too tricky to include Alfie into our family snuggle right now, so I just patted his little blond head, then turned my attention back to Little Babe, who had lowered his hand for Alfie to lick.

“An anxiety attack is when you get scared about something and your body reacts in a fight or flight way.” I could hear Little Babe listening. “Nature gave us a superpower, which is adrenaline, in case we need to run away from bears or lions or whatever. But sometimes, even when the bear or lion isn’t there but the fear is – and we aren’t using the adrenaline running away – we get an anxiety attack.”

I was impressed at my ability to give a biology lesson in the middle of the night. So, evidently, was Little Babe. At least, the trembling in his limbs stopped.

“They were talking about what happens to your body after you die and being buried and where your soul goes,” he said. “It just began to freak me out.”

Thantaphobia.

Little Babe and I looked it up a month ago when we were surfing the web in search of strange fears. Among the laughable (to our minds, at least) phobias were aeronausiphobia – fear of vomiting secondary to airsickness; aulophobia- fear of flutes; coprastasophobia- fear of constipation; Dutchphobia- Fear of the Dutch; hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia- fear of the number 666; lutraphobia- fear of otters; octophobia - fear of the figure 8; pentheraphobia- fear of mother-in-law; Walloonphobia- fear of the Walloons; and that classically inexplicable phobia -- zemmiphobia- fear of the great mole rat.

But other phobias seemed reasonable. Such as trypanophobia- fear of injections or spheksophobia- fear of wasps. Or thantaphobia -- fear of death. Thantaphobia hardly seemed like it deserved to be lumped in with phobias.

Who was not afraid of death? Wasn't the absence of a fear of death more of a pathology?

It strikes some of us sooner and deeper. One of my earliest memories is that of crying bitterly at the concept of my own non-being and my mother attempting to comfort me by painting a picture of a parallel universe: a heaven that included our house with all the furniture and toys intact and every member of the family in a neighborhood that looked exactly the same.

I remember nodding and sniffling, wishing to be reassured, failing, feeling like I was falling into an abyss.

What could be more human, more central to the human condition than the fear of death?

Wilbur’s hysterical cry, “But I don’t want to die!” in Charlotte’s Web goes straight to the heart of the matter. Whenever I contemplate the prospect of imminent death, I am certain that I would never be among the noble ones who greet the end with stoic dignity.

Instead, I envision myself like Wilbur the Pig, crying, “But I don’t want to die!!” snot and tears running down my face, making noise, screaming even, grasping onto a banister, an ankle, a tree, refusing to let go.

Big Babe was hit with severe fears of dying when he was four years old. About half an hour after I put him to bed, he used to call for me from his room, first faintly, then more vociferously. When I arrived in his room, I would invariably find my child pale and wide-eyed with fear. “I started thinking about it again,” he would inform me and we would talk about it until he fell asleep. A few years later, he became obsessed with the words “Game Over” on video screens and formulated his concept of death around this.

We sent Middle Babe to a therapist when she was ten after her teacher reported that she seemed obsessed with death. What occasioned her obsession was the fact that her beloved Grandpa Marvin had just died. Middle Babe reluctantly went to the therapist – whose wandering eye and West End Avenue hippie décor distracted her – for exactly two visits before she informed us that she wasn’t obsessed, merely sad.

Fear of our mortality seems so natural to our humanity that the consciously-dying among us need to be given special kudos. My late mother-in-law Judy summoned us to a bedside “living will” chat when she was at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital, letting us know her dying wishes. The beautiful, gifted and expressive Shira Ruskay invited friends and family to healing services led by the singer/songwriter Debbie Friedman and I marveled as Shira wept openly, knowing this was her leave-taking. Rifka Rosenwein wrote about her terminal cancer and what it meant to know that her death would leave three young children motherless.

I am breathless with awe in the face of this bravery.

“Mom,” said Little Babe, yawning as he stretched out beside me. “Can I stay here a little bit?”

I scuttled over, closer to HOBB who slumbered deeply, a log fallen in the forest of sleep. “Yes,” I said, fully awake now, my mind racing to recreate the scene that unfolded in my living room, the conversation between four pre-adolescent boys on a Friday night on death and dying.

Among the four boys was a child of a prominent family whose uncle was killed in a freakish accident a few years earlier and who just lost an aunt over the summer. Over Shabbat dinner earlier in the night, the child had made an off-hand allusion to “people dying” in his family.

HOBB and I exchanged glances; we were friendly with his grandparents, the parents of the young man who had been killed, the in-laws of the young mother who lost her battle with cancer.

Did this child, whose family the Angel of Death had recently stalked, initiate the midnight conversation? Or did the subject arise as it inevitably did after the telling of ghost stories late at night during a sleepover?

The world of Little Babe and his friends is indeed more death-saturated than even that of his older siblings. My own childhood and early-adolescence seem like a Disney dream by comparison, sheltered and sequestered from such monstrous realities as suicide bombings, terrorist seiges of schools, videotaped decapitations, pictures from executions by hanging, war casualties, AIDS, the memory of 9/11.

Outside of the warmth of my bed, the wind from the Hudson whipped the west-facing windows that overlook the Columbia campus. Alfie the Pomeranian had settled down bedside, vigilant and protective, curled up atop my discarded sweatshirt, breathing in the scent of his beloved humans.

Beyond my bedroom, Little Babe’s friends spoke into the night, their voices growing fainter as the minutes ticked past. Snuggled next to me, now breathing evenly, was their 11-year-old host, deeply asleep.

There are boys who fear ridicule, there are boys whose worst nightmare is to appear soft or babyish or uncool or tethered to their mothers. Little Babe is not cut from that cloth. His biggest fear – at the moment – is fear of death. And the comfort for this fear is not to be found within the depiction of a parallel universe, a celestial apartment overlooking the campus of Columbia university inhabited by the ghost version of our family, but in the heaven of the present moment, the tangible reality, his trust, my love, the warmth beneath the blankets.

Endless Life/Endless Lies

Earlier this week, one year after the prolonged torture and murder of Ilan Halimi, a young French Jew, at the hands of the self-named Barbarians -- a band of mostly Muslim thugs living in the slummy outskirts of Paris -- the Halimi family had his remains disinterred from a French cemetery, flown from France to Israel and buried at the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem.

It is not clear to me if this cemetery is the same as Har Hamenuchot, where my paternal grandparents and my father-in-law are buried.

Whether it is or isn't, imagining Har Hamenuchot as Ilan Halimi's final resting place brings me some solace for it is the most noble and awe-inspiring cemetery I can imagine.

After reading the moving account on JTA’s website (see the story at www.jta.org) I sat in silence for several minutes, thinking of Ruth Halimi, Ilan’s mother. I thought about her missing her handsome young son every single day, torturing herself with thoughts of how he died, “like a dog,” as Kafka would have put it, wandering naked, bruised, burned and mutilated through the Parisian outskirts, bleeding to death.

I thought about the 23-year-old Ilan Halimi slipping from life, wondering why he had been singled out for such a fate. I thought about the shoddy investigation conducted by the Parisian police who refused to treat this case as racially motivated. I thought about the mostly-Jewish crowd of 1,000 who turned out in the streets of Paris to demand justice for his murder. I thought about the myriad citizens of Paris -- passive, silent -- with Ilan’s blood on their hands.

Ilan Halimi was tormented for 24 days before he was released to die like a wounded animal in the open. Each day must have felt like a year or a lifetime, indeed, the days parallel his life exactly…24 days for 23 years, plus one for good luck, as they say in America.

But there was no good luck for Ilan Halimi. Only the hope that his posthumous homecoming would bring him, his mother and all their loved ones some peace.

May his soul be bound up in endless life.

It would have been nice to end on this poetic note and yet, the perpetuation of endless lies compels me onward.

If it weren't so serious, the surreal story about to unfold could almost be categorized under You Can't Make This Stuff Up.

I read earlier today that Israeli-Italian author Ariel Toaff, a professor at Israel’s Bar Ilan University, is “astounded” by the horrified worldwide reaction to his book on blood libels, Pasque di Sangue (Bloody Passover).

The book, published recently by a private Italian press, reportedly raises the possibility that there is a factual basis to the timeless anti-Semitic canard -- the rumor of Jews using the blood of Gentile children to bake matzot.

Blood libels run through history like a recurring nightmare, spanning centuries and countries, inspiring the deaths of millions of Jews. The recent PBS special on the resurgence of anti-Semitism had a clip from last year’s hit Egyptian mini-series that treated the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as historical fact. Sitting on my living room couch, I watched in disgust and disbelief as a troupe of Egyptian actors played out a scene where a young boy’s throat is slashed by stereotypically hook-nosed Jews. The very next scene features the villainous Jews eating matzah made with that special secret ingredient -- Christian kiddie blood.

This image was broadcast around the world and seen by millions of unquestioning viewers. The series' young female producer defended the show on camera, denying that it was anti-Semitic in any way. She seemed to be affronted that anyone would view it as such.

But screw her and her Jew-hating countrymen. I’m more interested in the pathology of Toaff.

As of today, though Toaff claims to be utterly baffled by the outcry against his book, he has halted its distribution, issued an immediate apology for passages that might be misrepresented, misconstrued and used against Jewish people and offered to donate the proceeds of sales of his newly-edited book to the Anti-Defamation League.

Quite a stunning turn-around.

But here is the most stunning aspect of the story: Who is Ariel Toaff? None other than the son of Elio Toaff, the former Chief Rabbi of Rome.

Omidog.

That is no typo.

It is an expression of the world turned upside down.

I have just read a Daily Telegraph article on the affair (www.telegraph.co.uk) and pass it onto you. In this particular article, the son of the Chief Rabbi of Rome substantiates the blood libels, saying, in the same breath, that no one should take it out on contemporary Jews because those who actually crucified Christian children were fundamentalists and small in number.

A comparison is even made between these alleged blood-guzzling Jews and Muslim terrorists, that is, the college professor says that one shouldn't conclude that all Muslims are terrorists -- and persecute them -- because a small number of fundamentalists indeed are terrorists.

Omidog.

(Let me suspend my disbelief for a second and get all compassionate. Could this guy have some kind of organic mental disorder, like a brain tumor???? Is there a doctor in the bungalow? Could someone weigh in on this one??)

Even the cursory research I have conducted indicates that Ariel Toaff seems to speak out of both sides of his mouth, stating that the so-called ritual murderers both did and didn’t occur. In this vein, I must link to the following: http://krumasabagel.blogspot.com/2007/02/bloody-confusion.html, which has a good overview of this matter.

And hopping back to the Telegraph article, it states that Elio Toaff has been among those to speak out against his son publicly and vociferously.

In the hierarchy of parental pain, just a few notches beneath the rung occupied by the parents of Ilan Halimi, there is surely a place for parents whose children are murderers – or accessories to the murderers – of their own people.

Elio Toaff now occupies this place.

And the blood of Ilan Halimi, not fictitious Gentile children, has been used to bake the bread of our ongoing affliction.

I Almost Stabbed Someone at My Shabbos Table

She was 22, the same age as Big Babe, my oldest son, a senior at Columbia University. Thank G-d he wasn’t at the Shabbos table, ‘coz I swear, he woulda killed her first.

Anyway, it was a recent, freezing Shabbos afternoon on Manhattan’s Morningside Heights and our wonderfully overheated apartment was a refuge of delish smells and cozy camaraderie. Having spent the morning at our synagogue, the six-block long walk formed a perfect segue from shulworld to the sanctum of our home. We had two beloved families joining us – one with two adorable tykes, the other with an almost supernaturally beautiful baby – and then this newly-wed couple…he in his mid-twenties, she, just 22, barely out of her adolescence.

Except that she was already Lady Macbeth – calculating, conniving, nakedly ambitious.

She knew what she wanted, this little pisher* with her glam Shabbos sheitel*. And what she wanted was for her soft-spoken, pious, scholarly husband to go to Law School, make lots of money and enable her to stay home, raise kids AND have enuf disposable income to hire a housekeeper so she could go to the gym, get her nails done, go to movies, come into “the city” with friends, shop without dragging the kiddies along and generally be a pampered princess (and devoted mommy) for the rest of her life.

But it wouldn’t be like she didn’t really have a career because his career would really be her career, you see. She was pushing him to go to Law School! She helped him with a recent speech! Everything he achieved in life would be because of her! Men, especially when they were smart, were surprisingly inept in areas that women were really good at!

As her ill-informed words fell like hailstones on our Shabbos meal, I wondered if this girl had been raised by the Jewish version of Kathy Hilton. Looking across the table, I saw my other friend, an assistant principal of a high school, the one with the new baby – I’ll call her Esme – looking nauseated.

Though there was a war waging in Iraq, the recent shocking death of Anna Nicole Smith, a black guy and a woman running for US prez and the impending opening of Loehmann’s on Broadway and 74th street, my gold-digging guest went on and on, oblivious to world events other than her own.

Over salad, turkey and cholent, she laid out her life plan for us, couching it all within a campaign against working mothers, plying our full-time mother-friend – I’ll call her Jen – with saccharine praise and enthusiastic approving nods, poking her husband in his bony ribs with a triumphant “you see??” every time Jen said something remotely positive about being with her children, exclaiming “a working mother could never have made a dessert like that!” when Jen revealed her glorious chocolate cake, completely ignoring the hilariously obvious fact that most of the pre-dessert meal had been shopped for, paid for and cooked by a full-time working mother (the cholent and turkey having been shopped for, paid for and cooked by a full-time working father).

Get out, I silently implored her young husband as he sat there, conditioned into a comatose state by his relentlessly-yappy Jappy wife. Get out while you still can. I was driven to bite my cuticles listening to her grating voice hammer home each point aimed at proving the unworthiness of women who actually toil to earn money while at the same time raising their children. I glanced at Esme, evil working mom, as she held the beautiful child whose life she was obviously screwing up by supporting her in addition to breastfeeding her.

When the sweet young husband had the temerity to point out that his own mother raised him well, despite being a physician, his know-it-all bride actually qualified her mother-in-law’s achievements by proclaiming her a workaholic.

It was at that moment that I had the urge to drive the challah knife into her chest. With violin music screeching in my ears (ree, ree, ree, ree…think of the shower scene in Psycho), I picked up the knife and…

The fact that I am blogging from the comfort of my overheated apartment instead of Rikers Island is proof that I restrained myself, excusing myself from the table to bring dirty silverware and plates into the kitchen. Jen followed quickly.

“What an idiot!” she whispered, eyes wide, mouth contorted in horror. I stared at Jen who has never said anything mean about anybody in her entire life and then the two of us collapsed in giggles next to the refrigerator.

Omigod, I thought, steeling myself to return to the table. If Big Babe ever showed up with a monster like this…

But Big Babe was raised in a prince and princess-free environment, together with Middle Babe, his 18-year-old kickass sistah, now spending her post-high school year studying and raising hell in the Holy Land, and their baby bro Little Babe, an adorable 11-year-old anime enthusiast and cellist whose truest passions are for small animals.

Our home, for all its clutter and loud voices and – until last year – lack of normal furniture, dishes, tablecloths and cutlery, was built on the combined efforts of parents who both earn and nurture. It has been messy and imperfect and yet marvelous in many a way. Our kids were raised by a father AND a mother who had equal responsibility for keeping the family ship afloat, equal parenting authority and equal decision-making power.

Our kids were read to and shlepped to our business meetings. Our kids were hugged by us and by our babysitters, who were mostly terrific. Our kids overheard our business calls when we were compelled to work at home because they were sick. Our kids were raised on daddy's chicken soup and mommy's roast chicken, daddy's paycheck and mommy's paycheck.

Sometimes it was – often still is -- hard as hell. We work well past the end of conventional work hours. But everyone does. We take our laptops on vacation. But everyone does. Our kids get sick at the absolute worst times. But that is always when kids get sick. Important meetings have to be cancelled. We’ve walked into conferences utterly unprepared. Projects are done on deadline or late.

Unless you have made peace with the prospect of complete child-neglect, all efforts to balance home and work are both noble and ridiculous. There is no balance. You just have to get used to having a lumpy life with days where it feels as if you are f*&#ing up your job and your kids and your marriage and your sanity, days where simply brushing your teeth is an achievement.

And sometimes you feel literally and physically lumpy. You haven’t been to the gym or even on your home treadmill in a week…or a month. You can feel your cellulite recruiting new terrorist cells. You are developing a secretary’s spread where your firm round buttocks used to be. You are eating Doritos because you are so stressed out. At 11 o'clock at night. And you’re allergic to corn products.

And there are times that you wish you married someone rich because this truly sucks, to be working all the time…to be feeling like crap, to have to endure the glares of your co-workers who think you’re a slacker because your son’s heart has been broken and you needed to spend two hours listening to him vent on the phone, or your daughter got in trouble for sneaking her boyfriend's puppy into her Jerusalem dorm room, to have cancelled your haircut appointment more than six times in the past two weeks because you simply do not have any free time, to have not read more than three opening chapters in as many novels over the past year because you fall asleep every time you turn your attention to something other than kids or your work.

And there are times when your heart feels like it will break from the sorrow of not having the time to really do the things you consider crucial to living: time spent with friends, time spent in nature, time spent pursuing higher education, time spent fulfilling your calling as a writer if you chiefly earn your income through another means.

But that is not unique to people with children and demanding jobs. The world is filled with the heartbreak of the unfulfilled.

It just feels more pressing and poignant for those of us who have been raised with the chutzpah to envision everything we might have, everything we might be.

There is a lot to this issue of men and women, marriage and money, fulfillment and responsibility, childrearing and career-building. Yeah, the presence of a high wage-earning husband would have likely made my life much easier in many ways. I’m sure that HOBB would likewise say that a rich wife would have made HIS life easier in many ways as well.

But we married each other without a checklist.

We married each other. Complete and imperfect.

We may have argued and bemoaned our insolvency and our 24/6 work schedules and 24/7 parenting responsibilities but we never set out to mold the other into a Stepford Spouse, according to our own specifications. We made a home and a family that has felt full unto bursting with ideas and adventures and passionate discussion and friends.

And I will happily admit to a tremendous feeling of pride in my ability to provide financial support to HOBB and the Three Babes, knowing that the sweat of my brow has helped to sustain my family and create opportunities for them. And because of my work, my world has been broad and challenging, taking me beyond my own family, whisking me off to faraway places, putting me directly in touch with important issues and people who have changed the world.

Between the bleary-eyed exhaustion, there has also been a tremendous amount of soul-satisfaction.

Thinking about the transparent ambitions of Little Miss I-Want-It-All-And-Dammit-You-Better-Give-it-To-Me I want to applaud her clarity of vision, the peace she has made with her inner spoiled brat. Honestly. She knows what she wants, and it ain’t deadlines and conference calls at 8 am. She wants the decorated home and the kids and cute European fashions for them…and for herself. She wants her hair done. She wants her sheitel restyled. She wants a housekeeper. And then she can cook when she wants and keep house and boss everyone around.

The girl does know what she wants.

Still, it was a shock for this product of 1960 to hear that among people my children’s age, the Mommy Wars are more compelling than the threat of global nuclear war. It was unbelievable that a shallow girl from Queens, born in the eighties, could so easily diss hardworking women of her mother’s generation, seeing neither valor nor value in their contribution to the world she lives in.

But maybe that’s what it was about, after all. Rebelling against mommy.

And what was her mommy up to, anyway, when Lil Lady Macbeth was small and impressionable?

“My mother wasn’t really into being a mom,” she revealed at one point in the meal, tossing her fake hair and shrugging. “She would leave us with my grandparents and run around, doing stuff. She didn’t work but she didn’t enjoy being with small kids. Recently, she said that she regretted not being around for more of my childhood.”

The sins of the mothers are visited upon the daughters for seven generations.

Seems like someone should look into spending some quality time on the couch getting in touch with their inner abandonment and rage instead of trying to force their husband to capitulate to an extreme make-over while compulsively trashing working mothers whose ability to operate in two realms only shines a brighter light on her slacker mom’s inability to even be present in one.

COMING NEXT:

Hey, Bungalow Babe is back! So much to say, tons to catch up on. Yeah, yeah…I know I haven’t blogged since the summer. Life has been crazed yet interesting and some big changes are just around the corner. I’ll fill you in. Read on. Hugs.

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*Do I really need to explain pisher??? A callow youth, based on the concept of a baby, known for wetting its pants.

*Yiddish for a wig worn by religious Jewish women, ostensibly for reasons of modestly. More often than not, the faux hair is way more attractive than their G-d-given locks. Explain the concept of modesty here, please. If ya wanna be modest, put a shmatta* on your head.

*Yiddish for rag