My own père died eight years ago this July. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t wish for our relationship to have been different. But the reality was far harsher than this fantasy piece post on Daily Motion. Still in our own very imperfect ways I would like to believe that I have learned to understand why he was who he was, and that he sees the woman who I have become, and is giving me his love from great unknown.
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The broadcast is timed to the second, each moment controlled, measured, and recalculated as the segment unfolds live on the air. One missed cue, leads to another and the show can quickly unravel into chaos.
I always get a crushing pressure in the middle of my chest before the show starts. My anxiety constricts the flow of breath to an impalpable silence. I’ve forgotten how to breathe. Can I anticipate where the errors might be? Can I take measures to prevent it from happening? I take in a quick, deep gulp of air and release it, molecule by molecule, with slow, precise control; my chest raised, stomach tucked in, forcing the pain under my sternum to ease.
I remind myself that controlling time is not my job. Like the cult, art-house film Metropolis, I’m just a gear in a larger wheel. If I do my part, the wheel will turn on it’s own. Time belongs to the Line Producer, and then the AD, and is simultaneously communicated to the floor by the Stage Manager who says, “We’re going on in ten, nine, eight….three, two, __.” “One” is never said out-loud. Instead the talent begins their monologue like a horse released out its iron gate.
The show starts, and to my surprise, most of my anxiety dissipates. There are no retakes, each moment is broadcast live and then it’s gone. Mistakes, when they happen can’t be corrected. I can’t control this reality. These moments are constructed for me. I’m only responsible for all the other moments of my life, after the euphoria of another day at work subsides.
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I was quietly watching an interview of Chris Rock on the Charlie Rose Show, on the local PBS station. He said, (and I’m paraphrasing), that when you are starting out in your career, you get excited about traveling for work, because the hotel you’re staying at is nicer than your apartment in Brooklyn. You work as much as you can, because everything is about “getting out of Brooklyn.” I laughed and looked at my broken tiles, uneven floor, and the slight crack in the wall above my bedroom closet. My apartment is definitely not as nice as the Hilton, it has more of an old world charm of a bygone era. Finally someone who spoke with some honesty about the flip side of living in a dense urban area.
I don’t romanticize the ghetto either, not like I did when I was twelve and dreamed of living in a large loft in SOHO, where I could hang out with my rock star boyfriend. Brooklyn, is what it is…grey, ugly, at times violent, and harsh. There is no pseudo-intellectual, generation-x, downwardly mobile yuppie, left-leaning liberal explanation to justify the behavior of the Drunk Witch, not even gentrification. She has manipulated, threatened and lied to just about everyone who has tried to either help her or confront the situation, all under the guise of being unfairly persecuted by everyone else in the building.
She’s so bad now, that she has started threatening other tenants. Rosa, a sweet, Puerto Rican woman who lives with her family on the first floor, will often stick her head out the front window of her apartment to talk to other neighbors on the street. The Drunk Witch told Rosa that she was going “Set the niggers on her and her family.” Never mind that, as I have written in previous posts that the Drunk Witch is white, and I have doubts that she has any friends, let alone, someone who would hurt or maim her enemies in the building. But I also have an aching suspicion that my landlord has not been motivated to legally act until newer tenants like myself, generally white, more affluent, who also pay a larger portion of the rent roll, started to complain. And in the lull of his inaction, the Drunk Witch has become very confident of that she will never actually be held responsible for her’s.
At this time, I did not know what has set the Drunk Witch off on this latest rampage. These episodes have become more intense, unpredictable and prevalent. I had simply resigned myself to enduring this last leg of the race, as my landlord had given her three months to pack up and leave the building. But the end of February had come and gone, and she was still there.
There were the usual ploys and last ditch efforts to make herself out to be the victim. She even got her mother into the act, when she had her beg our landlord to not kick her daughter out, because she was just an eighty year old woman, who uses a cane, who can’t handle Drunk Witch’s outbursts, while the Drunk Witch literally laid herself across the hood of his car, refusing to let him leave. Her own mother doesn’t want her.
She carried on for most of the day, and the police had been called to the building three times, before there was a loud, violent banging on my door. Drunk Witch, as usual had assume, I was the one who called. She feel especially persecuted by young, single women in the building and will target them for verbal slaps. I left the door unanswered and turned the TV up, as I heard her daughter in law beg her to come away from the door.
Later, my landlord confessed, he had given her yet another chance, but that starting tomorrow, he was going to his lawyer’s again and “the gloves were coming off.” Yeah, okay, whatever you say. Maybe I’m just more suited for the Upper East Side.
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To say that the thought of being with some like Alfalfa makes me feel safe, and that’s the reason I like him, would be to minimize his attractive qualities. I don’t want to do that. Alfalfa stands on his own. His trademark cowlick and gosh-jolly voice make me laugh, not at him, but because, I have a bit of faith again in some portion of the human race and my cynicism lifts. Believe it or not, there is joy you can’t contain when you meet someone who you find attractive AND you believe in them.
Alfalfa has changed me a bit. I ask myself, before I write about someone, if punching up the sardonic voice in my piece will unduly skew the truth or cause undo hurt. Alfalfa is funny without being hurtful, and it’s what I should aspire to as well.
The miracle, that someone like him could actually thrive in our fishbowl makes me feel that there are possibilities for my career. Up until now I have worked for money, and given up on my ambitions of doing what I love so that I didn’t have to break those rules. I may be blond, but what hurts more than than the trashy catcalls I get from some perverted stranger on the street, is the thought that I would have to “act blond” in order to “make it.”
A couple of years ago I was on a remote video shoot and I helped a married cameraman set up and get the job done while his sound-man/camera assistant lazily sat on his rump.
Grateful for my effort he said, “I should have you come along with me on these.”
I beamed and answer, “That would be great!” believing that I would finally get my opportunity to expand my craft.
“So do you have a boyfriend?” He asked slyly.
“What difference does that make?” I flatly stated. I never really worked with him again. Alfalfa is my hero, he seems like a fundamentally decent person who hasn’t stooped to conquer.
In general my lack of faith is a form of protection. I’m usually the critical thinker who’s looking for the angle that someone plays and decides with some determined detachment how to protect myself. I know all about the Pollyanna, the hypocrite, and the player. They exist everywhere, in small towns and big cities alike, and I’ve dealt with many of those soul-sapping phonies. He doesn’t seem like any one of them. This surprises me. I like surprises.
A mutual acquaintance said yesterday, “He is such a dork!” The truth is all I have ever dreamed about…is someone like him holding my hand and meaning every words he says to me. To actually lay next to someone I can trust, would mean that the hard constriction between my chest could ease, I could allow myself to feel, and express those feelings without reservation. I have never been able to do this, with nobody, not even my own birth mother or father. There are parts of me that nobody has access to. I don’t want to be this way, but I refuse to be completely vulnerable, if I feel as if someone has an angle and they need me to fulfill their hidden agenda. I want to trust so that I can finally feel that hunk of burning love that is touted in fairy tales and the movies. I want my moment in the sun!
Unfortunately, I’ve never been with someone who was really a match through and through. This reality makes me sad. In part because my family, friends and the world at large believe that I must be hiding on purpose. “Tragic” childhood circumstances that I can not change would give that impression, but I’m not. It has just never happened. I’ve always been disappointed. No one is sadder about that fact than I am. No one wants their happy ending more than I do.
What I get is that Alfalfa listens. I like that, because I’ve spent the better part of the last twenty years being the best friend, the good grand-daughter, the loyal companion, and the confidant. What I want now is someone who can return the favor. Reciprocity is key. And yes, I have a bit of a crush on him. But this Spring because Mr. Who? has yet to reveal himself, I find that there is a slight void that needs to be filled. I hope that Mr. Who? turns out to be just like Alfalfa, maybe he’s even better.
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You know you wake up on a Sunday morning in the a foul mood because you lost an hour of sleep due to day light savings time, (pushed up 3 weeks early in the states). You turn on the television and all that’s on is depressing political commentary and sports. You look all over your apartment and all you see are chores, bills, and dust-bunnies needing to be swept up. Your friend’s cat just died. Your scary, drunk neighbor is having another loud, domestic squabble with her boyfriend, that has carried over from the night before. And existentially, you are having a debate with G_d about you purpose in life when nothing seems like it will ever be resolved or changed.
Then a friend sends you an email link to “the dancing frenchman” and everything seems a little more light-hearted and human again. I think it is beautiful that the same culture that gave us Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, and every other important, yet a “little too serious for their own good” philosopher, also has a sense of humor about itself. It’s so human. I LOVE IT!
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Natalie was the name of a very helpful salesperson who spent the better part of an afternoon unlocking the cabinet that stored each pair of glasses, and patiently handed them over to be tried on. She had tact and knew how to gracefully inform me which pair looked right for the shape of my face, and which ones were not so hot. Had it not been for her, I would have walked out with the first frames I tried on. Many close calls and bad choices were averted.
Some of the glasses were just plain funny looking. There was one pair of Chanel frames with a tiny plastic flower perched on the corner. I looked like my mother’s elementary school picture from the 1960’s.
“You look so INNOCENT!” Natalie cooed and giggled.
“I also look like a thirteen year old. No one will take me seriously.” I retorted. It’s bad enough that I’m petite and blond, and have a round, heart shaped face, normally associated with adolescents and toddlers. I wasn’t going to take the chance of being mistaken as someone who belonged to the daily school tour that came into the studio to have their picture taken behind the evening anchor’s desk.
She handed me another pair that had the right shape, but there was a very conspicuous, gold, designer logo on the side, along with some sparkling bling bling.
“I work in newsroom” I stated flatly,”Think classic and black.” Since getting a full-time position at a network, what some might call a “normal” job and a weekly paycheck, I’ve become a little more conservative in dress. I can still wear jeans, as long as those jeans are coupled with a pair of Tod’s and a silk shirt. My hair is pressed. My makeup is done. I can still be myself, but I must be far more put together, than my standard, jeans out of the laundry and a semi-clean t-shirt, hair in a pony tail, production look from just a year ago.
She dutifully continued to hand me frames for over an hour until we both agreed upon a square shaped, black, frame with a small logo on the side. It said everything I needed it to. Namely, the wearer of these glasses is smart yet feminine, insightful but not a know it all, polished, but not a snob. Take her seriously, pay her well, and look into her eyes, not her…. You get the picture.
After being the grateful recipient of Natalie’s fashion advice. I came to the conclusion that I fail, on a regular basis to see myself clearly. Or at least I’ve failed to successfully exude an image that translates to the outside world. I’ve had bad hair cuts aggravated by home perms and red hair dye. I’ve paired florescent green tights with a light grey mini-skirt. I was chased down Astor Place by a male heckler for that one. And I’ve worn clothes that were either too baggy, tight, or see through, all without knowing the offense I was creating when I sported the look.
No one knows what to do with me because the painful truth is I’ve never gotten it “quite right”. The clothes that were great six months ago, have a tendency to morph overnight in my closet into scary creatures that threatened to embarrass, constrict, and fall apart at a moment’s notice. And so I stand with with some reserve and trepidation in front of my closet each morning, praying to the goddess of good taste, to guide my hand.
It’s difficult to match the inside, how I feel, and want to express myself, with the outside image that the world sees. I’m always learning the nuances of this art. My newest motto: start with the classics, get comfortable in your own skin, and hope, maybe, with good glasses, I’ll finally be able see myself a little more clearly.
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