Putting My Best Dancing Foot Forward

Every so often I get overtaken by a wave of can-do spirit, generally precipitated by some minor accomplishment that I manage to blow out of all proportion.

Yesterday the feel good came from some back breaking snow shoveling and some clever repair work on the garage door. By the way, for anyone who's ever had to waste money on a garage door service, all you need to do is fiddle with the sensor for a few minutes and, if that fails, kick it really hard a few times. The eerie little light goes back on even though there still seem to be loose wires everywhere, and you're all set.

Anyway, when I am overcome by that rare wave of can-do, I try to roll with it as much as I can and I immediately locate my to-do list, which is fairly easy to do because it travels around with me in my head. It's always there, nagging, reminding me how useless and lazy I am. When the noise gets too loud, I usually take a nap (or pop a pill, depending on the circumstances). But on a feel-good post-can-do morning, I muster up the motivation to face the list, and item number one, as always, is something about plotting a career move so I can make boatloads of money and be self-supporting. Ugh.

The nice thing about living in 2013 is you don't even have to get out of bed to look for a job. All you need is a laptop and a pillow. So I settled in and searched my files for the most recent version of my resume -- that single page that supposedly says everything there is to say about me. Everything that matters anyway. It is silent about my hopes and dreams and all the things I meant to do; that's the stuff that screams silently out at me from all the empty white spaces. As usual, I gave the resume a quick scan and tried to imagine how a prospective employer would react to it. Ugh.

So I abandoned that depressing file pretty quickly and went, instead, to my blog. As long as I don't actually read it, it looks to be an impressive body of work. Lots of words, not nearly as filled up with empty white space as my resume. The most recent post, from the day before, is about the two guys in New York who posted an ad on Craigslist looking for dates to bring to their cousin's wedding. As I gazed at the blur of text from afar -- squinting as if I was watching a horror flick -- I got an email from a friend, telling me she thought it was funny. That's all I needed -- a small pat on the back. I decided to read it more closely, figure out why it struck someone as funny.  I suppose there's a fine line between funny and twisted. My suggestion that I  offer up me and my daughter as dates for the two brothers in return for the chance to write a screenplay certainly straddles that fine line. Ugh. Sort of.

If you've never visited Craigslist, you should. It is beyond creepy, at least in the personal ad section. Vanilla seeks chocolate, chocolate seeks vanilla, dominatrices and submissives seek each other, fetishists seek coco puffs (and I don't think it's the cereal) -- every yin desperately seeking its yang. So a couple of good natured all American boys looking for "activity partners" to keep them company at a family wedding, well -- that's pretty darned tame. For a Craigslist personal ad at least. It took me a while, but I finally found the post I was looking for. It was tongue in cheek -- and I mean that in a pure sense, where someones own tongue is planted in one's own cheek, the one on the face. Completely harmless, and since I am, theoretically, in the midst of a job search, it seemed appropriate to apply.

I sent the guys a brief email, making abundantly clear that I was simply looking for a big screenwriting contract, nothing more. Sure, I mentioned that I would be accompanied by my twenty-three year old daughter, but I gave no indication that I was the kind of parent who would sanction -- much less participate in -- any monkey business involving my children. I said very little, and simply attached the link to my bloggish musings about how the boys and I could benefit each other.

Naturally, I was overtaken by misgivings and a horrific feeling of "what have I just done" the moment after I hit "send." As usual I wondered why these feelings never manage to hit before I pull the trigger but that's another story for another time.  I decided to look at the bright side. Not only had I shoveled snow and repaired my garage door sensor the night before, but I had fully addressed item number one on my to-do list. A resume and cover letter, all pretty much tied up in a neat little already-written blog post. Another day filled with minor accomplishment. I had earned a nap.

Within five minutes, I heard the little bell on my laptop alerting me to the arrival of an email. You guessed it folks -- it was a reply from one of the brothers. He wanted to chat about my business proposal! My imagination began to run amok. A zillion dollar screenplay, an Oscar, maybe even an appearance on the Today Show? Where they'll do my hair and make-up for free? OMG! It don't get any better than this.

We still haven't chatted, but I remain optimistic. I'm giving them time to sift through all the garden variety young hotties who responded to their post and realize I'm the one they really want (or need). And to think it all started with a little bit of shoveling and kicking the shit out of something.

Guests of Dishonor

I must admit I was intrigued by the two brothers who recently placed an ad on Craig's List looking for dates to bring to a cousin's wedding. Their honesty was refreshing (yes, their cousin, the bride, was correct in assuming they would harass other guys' dates if they weren't occupied by their own), and they seemed to have at least some scruples (a fifty-three year old woman was disqualified only because she had an ailing husband, and these guys had no intention of wrecking any homes). Scruples aside, I was kind of encouraged by the idea that a fifty-three year old woman could otherwise be a contender.

When I realized they have every intention of turning this clever little episode into a romantic comedy I was no longer merely intrigued; I was downright horny. Talk about a match made in heaven. Two nice looking -- and seemingly well-heeled -- young men and, well, me. I have all the assets they're looking for: I'm female, I have a daughter about their age (they need a pair of dates; a singlet won't do), I have no ailing husband at home, and odds are my schedule is open that weekend. Best of all, they have a plot without a screenplay, and I have a screenplay without a plot. Okay, I don't have the screenplay yet, but I have a laptop, so no problem. I can't help but feel as if I'm on the verge of winning the lottery.

The pressure is on. The guys have already gotten a lot of hits (they are hard to resist once you see the picture of them in the Christmas sweaters) and they claim they want to select the winners by the end of the week. I'm going to have to be fairly clever to compete with all the young hotties who have responded, like the two who submitted a power point presentation; the wedding is this spring and there's no way I'll be able to figure out power point by then. Pictures of me in sexy lingerie probably won't get me to the top of the pile (unless both brothers happen to suffer from premature sight loss), nor will a reprint of my phone sex blog which outs me as a flannel-pajama-wearing- crossword-puzzle-obsessed loser masquerading as a cougar who actually finds it scintillating to listen to a guy taking care of business while he drools into his cell phone. I think I have to play up the mother/daughter angle (beats the crap out of the tired old "twins" fantasy) and, more importantly, the screenplay. At the end of the day, money talks. The prospect of a lucrative movie deal is going to speak much louder than faux phone sex.

It's a work in progress, but here's what I have so far:

Hello Boys (should sound throaty, even though I don't smoke):

I may be fifty-three, but I got assets and I got skills. My assets? Other than a twenty-seven year old complete set of never used Wedgewood china and a house with more shingles in the yard than on the roof, my ace in the hole is a beautiful and brilliant daughter about your age. And, while most of my friends have already come out on the other side of menopause, I have yet to experience even so much as a lukewarm flash, which gives me the somewhat unique and dubious distinction of being able to get pregnant with my own grandchildren. My skills? Man, do I have skills. (???? Work on this part.)

How does a fifty-three year old woman who can barely remember what she had for breakfast that morning describe her skills, present herself in the most positive light? I have to admit this is a bit of a stumper. I wonder if the guys would be impressed by my double jointed thumbs, or perhaps my expertise in parallel parking. Maybe I'll just take pictures of all my diplomas, let the guys make false assumptions about all the things I can do. Those expensive pieces of paper have gotten me through doors before, and there's no reason to think they can't get me an invite to some silly wedding reception. Not so silly actually; the wedding could finally be the big payoff for all that parchment.

Maybe I should just forget about the diplomas and submit a copy of my yoga teaching certificate. A highly educated cougar might be a little bit sexy, but a cougar who can do a full back bend, well that's an entirely different animal. Toss in some downward facing dogs and an occasional handstand and I'm thinking these guys will be tripping over themselves and each other to parade me around at a big family shindig. Yes, the more I think about it, the yoga angle is the way to go. When these guys realize that I will truly bend over backwards to accompany them to their cousin's wedding, they will be unable to resist.

All I need to do now is convince my daughter to partner up with me on this one. I'll offer to let her pick which brother she wants, even if she sticks me with the older one. When all is said and done, I write a kick-ass screenplay, get a huge movie deal, amass a great fortune, and she doesn't have to worry about supporting me down the road. How can she possibly say no?

True or False or All of the Above?

Insomnia can sometimes blur the line between reality and fantasy. If there is one. I woke this morning wondering if I had truly read an online news article about a man suing his parents for screwing up his life.

I submitted a story for a writing contest the other day. Though I had been aware of the contest and its promise of great wealth (from the perspective of a struggling writer) and fame (again, from the very limited perspective of a struggling writer), I had procrastinated until I realized the deadline was the same as the expiration date on a carton of milk I purchased. Funny how things creep up on you.

Determined to put something together before everything went sour, I scanned my blog for ideas and started stringing random thoughts together. As if that's something new. A sentence here, a paragraph there -- no matter what the topic, I amused myself finding ways in which to glue it all together. A far fetched association, a cleverly drafted transition, even cheap literary tricks like alliteration -- I dredged up whatever I could to transform a disjointed stream of unconsciousness into a cohesive tale with an important message. A message so elusive I had to actually state it several times, but a message none the less.

My most daunting challenge was deciding the category into which I would submit the "thing," as I have grown to think of it. Poetry didn't seem to be a viable option, although I am aware that really outstanding poems do not rhyme and this piece contains neither rhyme nor reason, which could make it not only outstanding but quite extraordinary. Nevertheless, I focused on "fiction" and "non-fiction" as my two most viable options, and I became paralyzed. As is the case with my blog, the "thing" is at the very least inspired by truth, although I do tend to embellish. Also, as is often the case with my blog, some of the most incredible parts are the ones that are completely grounded in fact. The stuff of life that is so bizarre it requires no embellishment, the truths that are indeed far stranger than fiction.

Ultimately, I decided the "thing" would fare better in the non-fiction category, with its segments that defy the imagination standing out in far more stark contrast to the fact based competition than they would among stories made up of pure fantasy. (I considered entering the "thing" in both categories, but with my chances for glory as slim as they are I didn't want to spring for two "reading fees" or risk some small scale version of a "how dare you lie to Oprah?" scandal.)

When I returned to my laptop at a more humane hour this morning, less handicapped by middle-of-the-night cobwebs, I searched for the article about the guy who sued his parents for screwing him up. There it was, a headline right smack in the middle of the quintessential kind of nonfiction otherwise known as news. Not a dream at all; a thirty-two year old guy was dragging his folks into court, demanding, among other things, that they purchase a Domino's franchise or two. I would imagine the statute of limitations has long expired for this thirty-two year old (I actually did some research on Illinois statutes, and figure at most I only need to fear liability for my negligent parenting for another few years), but I suppose he was just trying to make a point. He actually included an alternative prayer for relief, alleging he would drop the suit if his parents would agree to sit down with him for dinner. Once, mind you. Just once.

I'm assuming the parents will swallow their pride, pull up a few chairs and order a pizza, maybe even their son's favorite kind. Or maybe they'll hire an attorney and spend their life's savings on proving the kid wrong. Who's to say? The truth is, more often than not, stranger than fiction.

The Whole Megillah, in the Biblical Sense

A long time ago (like a zillion years ago) in a far away place (Brooklyn -- need I say more) Purim was a holiday we Hebrew School kids celebrated by sitting through some incredibly long and boring story (the megillah) and waving incredibly obnoxious (even to our young ears) noisemakers every time we heard the bad guy's name. No presents, no secular school vacation, not even a hint of chocolate in the pastries that were supposed to resemble either the bad guy's hat or his ears, depending on the bakery I suppose.

Outside of a vague recollection of a murdered queen, a good, strong and righteous nice Jewish girl turned replacement queen, a king who was putty in her hands, a nice but poor Jewish uncle, and a really bad man who, naturally, hated Jews, I don't really remember the specifics of the story. My guess is it's pretty garden variety fare: a Jew who nobody knows is a Jew manages to convince a likable but kind of clueless gentile to take a stand and pretty much save every other Jew in the universe. We remember (theoretically), we fast (theoretically), and we are reminded, as we often are, that lots of folks throughout the ages have wanted to kill us, and not just because we control Hollywood and vote Democratic.

Back to that time long ago in that place far away  (Brooklyn circa 1960's, not Persia circa biblical times), hardly anybody dressed up in costume for Purim. Occasionally, when the Hebrew School staff was feeling energetic, they put together a Purim play, which meant at least two lucky girls got to dress up as queen, although one would have to play dead. And one extroverted boy would get to dress like a scoundrel and act like a psychopath, much to his own delight as well as the delight of his parents. The rest of us just sat in the audience and endured. We Jews do that well -- we've had a lot of practice. And the really pious among us would put together baskets of seasonal delicacies, theoretically for the poor but often for the neighbors. It's always nice when religious observances involve some sort of giving, even when the folks on the receiving end aren't particularly needy.

Fast forward to Midwestern suburbia circa late twentieth century, when Purim had somehow become a Jewish Halloween. All day carnivals at temples, kids in Jewish neighborhoods everywhere dressed up in the finery of ancient royal kingdoms. Candy getting tossed around with abandon, sugar overload keeping children and their weary parents sleepless, all in the name of assimilation. No need to reconcile participation in a uniquely American type of festivity rooted in heathen tradition with ones Jewishness. A new early spring holiday seemed to have been born: Challah-ween, perhaps.

None of this has been too hard to swallow, even for a cynical and aggressively non-observant Jew like me. But apparently Purim has evolved much more completely than it has here in midwestern suburbia, in, of all places, Israel. I read an article today about Purim in Tel Aviv, that bastion of secular Judaism where Jewish identity and nationalism is, nonetheless, as powerful as it is in the plaza alongside the Western Wall. There was no mention in the article of ancient kingdoms and Jew-haters and hard working Jewish uncles in rags. It was all about the Purim parties, costume parties that would put any American Halloween party to shame. The goal in commemorating Purim, according to the article, is for women of all ages to get decked out in the sluttiest, sleaziest, most revealing and most sado-masochistic outfits they can squeeze themselves into. The men? Well, I'm not sure what they do other than show up, but I didn't see any mention of complaining.

Does this signal the decline of civilization, or at least the decline of Judaism as we know it? Despite the appalled comments at the end of the article, I doubt it. I grew up a captive audience to an annual megillah reading and sporadic Purim plays and vile pastries called Hamantashen and probably know less about the origins of the holiday than your average dominatrix at a Tel Aviv Purim party. I certainly live, day to day, with fewer reminders of how that kind of history tends to repeat itself.

Slutty? Who gives a shit? It's not like they're throwing naked orgies in temple social halls. As far as I know. And if you read the story of Purim carefully, any Bible story really, it seems to me civilization hasn't really declined that much at all in the last two thousand years, spiked heels notwithstanding.

A Girl's New Best Friend

My bags are packed and I'm off to Lake Charbarkul, somewhere in the Ural Mountains. There may not be gold in them thar hills, but there are lots of mysterious looking Russians hanging around willing to pay top ruble for some pebbles.

I'm not all that keen on really long airplane flights, but I bet Aeroflot mixes a mean vodka martini. With maybe a borscht chaser. Well fed and in a bit of a drunken stupor I should be able to nap most of the way. And if I drink enough, maybe I'll be able to stay warm while I pick my way through the frozen tundra of an icy mountain lake and dig around for some small chunks of burned meteorite. How hard can it be?

No matter how many rubles I can get on the Russian black market, I'm keeping at least one rock for me. It may look like a pebble on a vast beach, but on my finger it's going to be like that upgrade all the other chicks in the neighborhood get about the time they turn forty, only cooler. No more feeling like the kid from the wrong side of the tracks; I'm going to have a rock on my finger the size of Montana but with a far more interesting pedigree. Sure, I've had to wait more than a decade since most of my friends scored the wife trophy, but when I start waving my hands around and showing off my wares I'll be the talk of the town. In a good way, for a change. Nobody needs to know I had to drag my ass halfway across the world and trudge for miles in snow boots to snag it; I already have a little blue box stashed in my purse just to throw them off. (The truth is, before I spring for airfare, I'm going to dig through the pothole I've driven through every day for the past two weeks; there must be some heavenly looking rocks in there, along with big chunks of my car.)

I've never thought myself to be as materialistic and as concerned about appearances as I seem to have become. But as my father used to tell me after I'd lose a tennis match despite my brand new racquet and cute new outfit, it's not how you play, it's how you look. Winning ugly may still be in vogue (after all, a win is a win), but since I'm not in the game for any big prize money (if that isn't an understatement I don't know what is) I'm going with losing pretty. Small consolation maybe, but if I'm going to have to spend the rest of my life parked in a double wide not knowing what it's like to be showered with undying love and affection and diamonds, I might as well enjoy a few moments of watching people turn green with envy.

If fifty can be the new thirty and brown can be the new black, then why can't a black pebble of uncertain origin be the new diamond? Time to think outside the little blue box.

Lowering the Bar Mitzvah

There is a bar mitzvah in our midst. The morning Starbucks crowd is abuzz this morning with talk of cocktail hours and evening attire and socially appropriate behavior at an hour more reasonable (in some folks' minds) than the one that is the context in which we know each other. 

It's been almost four years since my last bat mitzvah. Aside from an occasional wedding or funeral, I haven't spent much time since then hobnobbing with Jews clad in their finest black. Which is a good thing, I suppose, since these days I find it hard to stay awake past nine o'clock. Not a problem at funerals, but it's kind of humiliating when the folks on either side of you during the hora find themselves dragging you around the dance floor on your heels, your Spanx hanging out like Raggedy Ann's bloomers. 

As I jokingly threatened to show up at tonight's shindig as a drunken uninvited guest (my Starbucks buddies thought it would be great; they have absolutely no idea how downhill things go for me after ten in the morning), a friend of mine arrived and diverted my attention from my fantasies of dancing the night away. Closer to my age than the bar mitzvah throwing crowd, he told me, somewhat sheepishly, about the trauma he had suffered the night before when a neighbor popped in for a visit. 

"I fell asleep while we were talking," he told me, still reeling from the shame. 

I just stared at him, wondering why he thought that was so outlandish. "So you don't regularly fall asleep in the evenings when people are talking to you?" I was baffled by the pained expression on his face. 

This time he stared at me. You'd think I had said something odd. "Of course not. And it wasn't even nine o'clock." 

Now I was really confused. I couldn't even imagine how he was awake enough to hear the doorbell at nine o'clock at night, but obviously this guy is nocturnal. I tried to reassure him. "Maybe you ate something funny? Or maybe the neighbor fell asleep too and he is completely unaware of your little nap?" Both seemed to be reasonably likely alternatives to me. He got up, politely telling me he had a lot of work to do. "At least you're rested," I said, thinking he needed a little encouragement. He gave me what I thought was a bit of a fake smile. 

Anyway, back to the bar mitzvah folks, who were still chattering away about the upcoming evening festivities. The dad, feigning nonchalance, was clearly nervous. Will there be enough alcohol? It's a party for thirteen year old kids and an adult crowd made up mostly of Jews. Worry more about the sweet table. Will I be able to find the right words to say when I speak to my kid? Who cares? Nobody's listening; they're thinking about the sweet table. Do I have to tell my wife she's my soul mate? No, but it beats telling her your girlfriend is your soul mate. Really, say it if you can manage it with a straight face. There's no down side. 

The good news is he seemed calmer after I offered up my support and wisdom. I felt vindicated, and a little warm and fuzzy, the way you tend to feel when you perform a random act of kindness. His smile was genuine, not like the one my friend was sporting when he darted away from me earlier. I think I just relate better to morning people. 

After he left, his friends were wondering whether there would be drinking at the service before the party. I told them I didn't think so, and that it probably wouldn't be appropriate for them to bring their own booze. They seemed disappointed. "Is it okay to drink before the service?" one of them asked. 

They're morning people. I tried to imagine how on earth they would even stay awake long enough to make it to cocktail hour if they had a drink before the service. Of course they're a bit younger than I am, so maybe they can muster up a bit more stamina for special occasions. With the necessary caveats, I told them I thought it would be okay, in moderation. 

If I decide to crash, I'll definitely be drinking before I go. Lots of coffee that is. With a chaser of migraine pills for the extra caffeine, just in case the afternoon baristas don't know how to make a potent brew. It's not that I don't trust them; I just relate better to morning people.

Heart Murmurs

What's up with the Pope giving up the papacy right smack in the middle of Lent? Sort of makes your average Catholic feel a bit ridiculous about giving up something as insignificant as chocolate. 

I suppose with Valentine's Day coming right on the schmutzy heels of Ash Wednesday giving up chocolate can be kind of a big deal. For me, since chocolate is a a major (if not the major) food group, it would always be a big deal, so it's a good thing I was born a Jew and am never expected to deprive myself of anything for more than a day. Catholicism is not for the faint of heart. 

Which is why it makes sense that an elderly gentleman with a pacemaker has decided to live out the rest of his mortal days praying and writing in a more quiet section of the Vatican while someone else deals with the corruption and in-fighting that has plagued the church since the beginning of time. Well, not the beginning of time as those wacky scientists see it, but you know what I mean.  The big question, then, the one that has all sorts of experts shaking their heads and wagging their tongues, is which crimson-capped pontiff-in-waiting has the cardiological capacity to deal with all this crap. The papacy might be better suited to the feint of heart, someone possessed of a bit more gamesmanship than your average pious cleric. 

Apparently, the scandal-averse Benedict is not leaving without one final stomp on the head of immorality, even if it's not exactly the immorality within the Church. Close enough, though, at least geographically. The Pope's stunning abdication will, in all likelihood, have a direct impact on politics in Italy, stealing the media spotlight away from Silvio Berlusconi in his effort to regain power in the upcoming elections. The sleazy and very wealthy former prime minister has enjoyed considerable momentum in recent weeks by taking full advantage of his media empire. But no amount of money can compete with the intrigue stirred up when the closest thing to God on earth decides to relinquish his heavenly throne before he actually gets to heaven. Heady stuff, even for the most cynical Catholic. 

One expert on the Vatican has suggested that a perfect candidate for the papacy would be Jesus with an MBA. Hmm, a Jewish boy revered by his mother even though he chooses business school over medical school. Not totally unrealistic these days, I suppose, given the state of health care and skyrocketing malpractice premiums. 

He should have a good cardiologist, though, just in case.

Sites and Sounds

Like a lot of people these days, I speak a language I still don’t understand, and I visit places I am not quite certain really exist. I am powered (empowered?) by search engines, I blog, and I travel more often than I care to admit to a place called Facebook where I can keep up on the private lives of people I barely know. This morning, my odd vocabulary just got bigger, and my list of intangible must-see destinations has expanded. As long as I stop at a place called Twitter (where I can speak in a strange tongue called tweet), I have a free pass to enter a place called Medium, where nobody seems to care that I usually wear a small.

Acclimating to new places is always a bit difficult for me. There are unfamiliar faces, unspoken rules, unwritten expectations. Medium is virtually unexplored, exploding onto the land of virtual “look at me, look at me” destinations like an undersea cyber quake. It beckons even the most introverted among us to venture onto its primitive shores, promising to be something other than your average social media site. A place called Medium that is anything but average. Almost as strange as the idea of a species called blogger publishing private diary entries to the world at large.

It should be no surprise that I struggle as I continue my journey through novel Internet terrain. At fifty-three, I am still reeling from my trip last summer across the International Dateline to a place called Japan, where people cross within marked crosswalks and stand waiting forever for lights to turn green even when there are no cars in sight and would consider taking an extra candy bar that accidentally falls into the retrieval bin of a candy machine immoral if not felonious. At least in Japan I was on terra firma, no matter how small and vulnerable and utterly disconnected the place appears to be on the map.

I take comfort in knowing how far I have come, even though it is clear I still have a long way to go. After more than six hundred blog posts I feel as if I am inching closer to finding my voice. There is no reason to think I can’t flex and stretch my imaginary vocal chords and figure out how to “tweet.” Or at least chirp. And there is no reason to think, after several years of keeping up with the outermost secrets of friends and their friends and friends of their friends on Facebook, I can’t acclimate myself to a new culture of folks in a place called Medium, a place that no amount of crisscrossing the International Date Line will get me to. No matter where it is, I feel certain I will be among friends. And their friends, and friends of their friends.

       This morning, I thought nothing of picking up my pocket sized phone and tapping in a few letters to find out how long orthodox Jews wait to cut their sons’ hair. Or check to see how many people out there liked the photo I posted of me and my dog on Facebook. Gone are the days of lying awake all night pondering the answers to bizarre questions or carrying around cumbersome albums on the off chance you run into someone you know. Or someone someone you know knows. Or knows of.

       So, armed only with my laptop and a charger (and maybe a change of underwear just in case the Internet connection goes down) I am off to check out Medium. With a brief  layover in a place called Twitter.

Pickling the Ivories

I had a bad day yesterday. Nothing earth shattering, but unpleasant all the same. Stupidity I wish I could undo, disappointment on the face of my daughter that no amount of mama bear love can fix. She appears to be just fine. I still ache.

Come to think of it, I've had a string of bad days. Earlier in the week, my dentist diagnosed me as a chronic clencher. My teeth are on the verge of becoming stubs, their premature erosion an unsightly barometer of my stress level. Knowing me as he does, he assumed it would be pointless to suggest I simply stop stressing, so he offered me what he thought was a better and more realistic option. Botox. Inside my cheeks, mind you, so there would be no collateral benefit to the wrinkles on the outside. The botox would simply weaken my jaw so that I could clench to my heart's content without spending the rest of my days gazing at a set of teeth smiling at me through a glass on the nightstand.

I'm not all that keen on injecting poison into any part of my body, particularly if it doesn't make me look younger or thinner. No doubt when I get through the simultaneous hormonal havoc of peri-menopause and my daughter's teenage years and my abject fear of being destitute and my extreme aversion to writing my own resume (I have no problem with helping others sell their wares) my jaws will unclench and maybe, with any luck, my teeth will have a fighting chance.

Which, naturally, still does nothing to stem the deepening of the crevices on my cheeks. Yep, the bad days have been going on for a while now. Minding my own business in Bloomingdale's last weekend (actually, escaping the sheer madness of watching my mother shop for my daughters and indoctrinate them with her somewhat rigid views on fashion), I was accosted by a young sales clerk. "You look amazing," she told me. Assuming it was my remarkable sense of style and the relaxed look on my face from the anxiety pill I popped before heading out, I fell for it, reveling momentarily in what was clearly my head turning effortless beauty. "Come with me," she continued. "I want to show you something."

My confidence soaring, I followed her, certain she was about to introduce me to an agent who would launch my mid life modeling career. Not so much. She ushered me into a chair by a table filled with all sorts of miracle anti-aging creams and potions. My hopes of new found fame and fortune (and becoming the envy of fifty-somethings everywhere) were dashed as I realized what she had really meant was "you look amazing for someone so ancient." She might just as well have called me "well-preserved," or, worse still, "a handsome woman."

While I despaired, she went to work, dabbing my left eye and left cheek with so much goo I looked as if I had just fallen asleep with the left side of my face planted in a plate full of butter. "It's like botox," she assured me. Why is it that everyone is pushing botox on me? "Take a look, the difference is incredible." I took the hand mirror, which happened to be on the magnifying side so I could see right through all my pores to the back of my skull. By then on the verge of tears, I took the liberty of flipping it to the other, slightly less frightening side. The only difference I could detect was the sheen. Shiny wrinkles on the left, matte wrinkles on the right. And to think the products, combined, would only cost about six hundred dollars.

I escaped with as much dignity as I could, explaining I would be back because, really, how could I continue to parade myself around looking this way. The young sales clerk with the plump, smooth cheeks gave me her best fake smile (retail-speak for "fuck you"), barely masking the disdain she felt for my slovenliness, not to mention the complete waste of her precious time. Needless to say, I was clenching my teeth.

The wrinkles, the stubby teeth, the poverty, the crushing disappointment of not being discovered as supermodel material at the ripe old age of fifty-three, they may indeed all have my jaw in the permanent clench position. They don't make my heart ache though, so really, who gives a shit? If I could only find a cure for my daughter's disappointment, erase the forced cheerful smile on her beautiful young face, I'd gladly make the best of my own toothless grin.

Posing the Posie

It was not uncommon, over the years, for me to gaze lovingly at my husband after I had spent a few days with my mom and tell him he was starting to look really good to me. Maybe I should have visited more often.

Friday evening, when I powered up my phone immediately upon landing at LaGuardia to make sure the world had not suffered any catastrophic changes in the two hours I had been five miles up, I was greeted by a text from my newly minted ex-husband. "Don't kill anybody this weekend," it said. Sweet that we are still in the habit of giving each other "Honey Do Lists." Or, I suppose, "Honey Don't." I assumed, of course, he was referring to my mother, but just in case he was really worried about the multi-generational fireworks I assured him our daughter and I had not exchanged a single harsh word during the flight. (I neglected to mention we had been seated five rows apart.)

For most of us, it's the little things that pull us through the toughest moments, the small bits of joy that remind us life isn't all that bad. For me, when I visit mom, it's the little things as well. The infinite number of petty annoyances that make my blood boil and turn me into an angry, raging lunatic with a morbidly undeveloped sense of humor.

The topics never change, but they seem to always catch me by surprise. The back-breaking weight of her three ton Louis Vuitton pocketbook, which she must carry with her at all times as her quest for a lighter one has yielded nothing. "What, you think I'm going to carry around some cheap thing?" Her insistence on having a conversation with me as I navigate my way through the terrifying drive from the airport to Brooklyn. Her hearing loss has had no effect on her ability to chatter away non stop. "I can't understand you unless you look directly at me," she says, exasperated. It's good she cannot hear what I'm saying as I grip the steering wheel with white knuckles and pray that I won't die on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, that my daughter will live to go to college.

There are the endless instructions. "Turn here,"  even though my signal has been on for at least a minute. "Watch out!" she gasps, causing my heart to leap into my throat. I have already long been well aware of whatever it is she suddenly thinks I should watch out for. "Don't park so close to the pole on the left," she commands as we pull into her building's parking garage. Now that one was new. For years, I was reminded constantly to back in as close as I could to the pole on the left, leaving ample room on the passenger side so that when Josephine from apartment 3A swung open the door of her massive Cadillac she wouldn't scratch mom's Honda. Did Josephine die? "You are too close to the pole," my mother screams. I miss Josephine.

The next few incidents (some of which involved noting what a nasty human being I am, which is, I suppose, really the point) are too difficult to articulate, too incomprehensible. Let's just say I don't know what the answer is to the age old question as to whether, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, it made a sound. I do, however, know that if my deaf mother calls out to me and I respond but she is refusing to look at me, I did not respond. In fact, I never respond. Case closed.

Growing up, I always ate breakfast at the small round kitchen table with the wrought iron ice cream shop chairs with the bright yellow cushions. I never tired of reading the three framed pictures above the table. One offered up a recipe for garlic bread, which is kind of funny since my mother has never tasted garlic bread and thinks garlic (pronounced "gawlic" and spoken with almost the same level of disdain as  "goyim"), is a vile substance favored by folks of the lowest classes. Another was entitled "Calories do Count." If I were to identify the one item of furniture in my mom's apartment that reflects not only her personality but her core belief system, it would be that picture, deceptively framed in cheerful yellow.

The third picture always puzzled me. It was called "Posing the Posie." WTF? My mother hates flowers (they smell and they are messy) and I cannot imagine she has ever had any interest in floral arrangements. Yet she chose this picture, and hung it in what was really the most well traveled spot in the house. It is instructive and detailed, tyrannical almost. Hmm, come to think of it, this one is right up there with the calorie counter. It shouts out orders, it is my mother personified.

My ex will be relieved to know there has been no bloodshed, and he will not have to visit me in prison with, as he suggested, a cake buried in a saw. (That sure would've been something to look forward to, though.) My mother is turning eighty-two, and she will continue posing her posies and dictating arrangements for herself and everyone around her, shouting out instructions  until she can no longer speak. And she will always believe that calories count more than most things. As for the garlic bread, that remains a mystery.

Maybe there's more to her than meets the eye, stuff that, because she's my mom, I'll never really know. Maybe it's because I don't want to.