writecause – find yours

I accepted a teaching job yesterday at the ad school and will be teaching copy skills on the weekends. I don’t know how much longer I will be living in Miami but I figure I have spent enough of my time here living in limbo and on pause, I have to do something pro-active – aside from politics, that is. I actually didn’t want to go to the school meeting because I didn’t want to break my stride in a writing frenzy – nearly ten hours a day (holy bajesus no wonder my back hurts) and I’m afraid of losing Jodmentum – not to be confused with ‘Pinhead, schmuck, can’t we kick him outta the party once and for all, Joementum Lieberman.’ He has an E. I have a D. (They have the golden arches, we have the golden arcs.)

I’ve been writing feverishly these last few days, finally piecing together a mental puzzle that I call my ‘Often Abandoned for Happiness, Freelance and Law and Order reruns’ novel. I made it all make sense, so we’ll see how long this Starter of many, Finisher of few holds her candle to it.

During the day I take breaks, check Facebook, sometimes MySpace, work on the DFAM website, deal with freelance clients and I’ve developed a habit of flipping my phone in my hand like a worry stone. Yesterday I was doing that. Then I started scrolling through the phone numbers.

I do that sometimes as well. Take stock of what’s inputted, contemplating which ones to keep, which to lose. There are many numbers that I have purged from my phone book this summer. Some I wish to erase from my memory though the digits and the subconscious drive to dial them haunts me like a phantom limb. I have friends out there, hello Chicago, whose numbers have changed and the new ones I’ve yet to input into my phone. Numbers of people who called me ‘friend’ though acted none the part. Number of those who I thought were my friends but were just passing acquaintances at best. Numbers deleted of those who tore my life apart and done’d me wrong. Numbers of people who proved through action or inaction that they were taking up memory space in my digital rolodex.

And then there’s the number to my Aunt Dee. I can’t bring myself to delete it, yet there’s no need to dial it. It was disconnected, like her oxygen. She died this summer of Emphysema.

It’s safe to say, without feeling like I am overstepping any my Aunt’s infamous You-Think-That’s- Bad- Wait-Til–You-Hear This examples of personal drama or tragedy, that I have had a shitty summer. A summer of profound loss. (And I am not even getting started on the loss of my civil liberties.) In fact, ‘07 as a whole, not so fantabulous as the years have gone. If G-d was pulling the tablecloth from the table that is my life, one could easily picture everything flying off, splattering to the ground, shattering into millions of pieces and a bellowing booming voice saying, “Crap, that wasn’t supposed to happen. My bad.” It’s the kind of summer that my friend Craig responded with, “Well, at least you have your health,” which was quickly followed up with, “Well, at least you have your sense of humor.” Riiight. My macabre, ‘I laugh in the face of adversity and at funerals’ sense of humor.

It’s been a summer of right crosses, double crosses and sucker punches to my gut, the kind whose damage can’t be controlled with a panoply of blue pills. This summer, I didn’t just dip my finger into a metaphorical glass of Passover wine, touching my plate reciting the plagues I faced during my Exodus. The non-drinker as I am, I was submerged and plugged into the freaking bottle until I thought I was either going to drown, suffocate or develop cirrhosis of the liver. Frogs schmogs. Locusts Schmocusts. I had: Displacement. Break-Up. Unemployment. Death. Illness. A run-in with airport security for attempting to bring a 4oz. used-up tube of toothpaste onto a red-eye flight out of Alaska. Termites. Barometric Pressure issues. MySpace cyber-stalkers running Intellius searches on me. I warned people to paint red X’s in lamb’s blood over their doors.

Now I am credited with being a resilient little Weeble Wobble, but this summer I had me a beach pass to the Sea of Despair and I was being pounded by some seriously fierce waves. (Sometimes I’m so good with the metaphors.. makes me wanna stand back. Kiss myself. Ayyyye!)

This is not to say my whole summer was devoid of any pleasant moments. Though few and far between, and rather Dickensonian, there have been a few placid, dare I say giddy, moments through the maelstrom. I launched my website, one that was truly indicative of my personality, well at least one facet of it. I started blogging – not an accomplishment with the zillion out there, but I’m out there in the interhoosey. I reconnected with long-lost friends – thank you Facebook. I traveled. Got hit on by sleazy building managers who like to shoot things and spin-out in their ‘73 Cougars. I started writing a novel. And poetry too boot. A dear friend got engaged to an amazing guy. Another is having a baby. My parents finally had the floors redone. I interviewed and also worked at agencies that respect my opinion. I gained weight – which is a huge accomplishment. I designed the DFAM logo and am working on their new website. I visited my family, friends and an old buddy from Australia. (I was, truth be told, miserable the entire time there, but if I am making a list the visit goes in the bad and good column and I list each person separately thereby here to for making it outweigh on the good side and SO THERE to the figment of my imagination, keeper of that which sucks of my summer.) I found the case to my iPod. And I filleted my first fish.

Which brings me back to my Aunt’s cell phone number. The number is, of course, an intangible item, simply a digital storing on a phone. But I’m a ridiculous sentimentalist and this translates into I find it hard to throw things away. Quite recently, with the help of my mom, I threw out 35 pounds of paper and innocuous crap – kept at my parent’s house – not even my own apartment. My goal was to parse it down to an expandable file box. Do I need to hold onto magazines from 1998? Nope. Some things, like the 9/11 copy of Newsweek I bought in Amman, Jordan I kept, as well as the first issue of George. Letters from my ex-best friend of 20-something years, Chucked. Political strategies from campaigns gone by, See Ya. Last year’s credit card receipts that appeared nicely organized in a year-end statement courtesy of VISA, Confetti Time. Reams of paper full of concepts from my old job, Nuthin but net. IRA notices from four years ago, Ticker Tape. Medical papers – two Bloomingdales bags full serving as a testament to my wonderful time in Thailand and the subsequent year… actually those went back in the closet. Then I found birthday cards. I generally don’t throw those away. I still have one from my brother that he gave me when I was seven. And I’ve kept every one my folks have given to me. I found one from my Aunt, who except for this past year, always enclosed a check for 35 dollars. Like her phone number in my cell, it went into the file box.

Which brings me back to her. Though the number doesn’t ever appear in my answered, missed or dialed categories, I realize I keep my Aunt Dee programmed in part because I miss hearing her bitch, moan and complain (a ray of sunshine not exactly she was), but also because it gives me perspective. And a summer of lost and gained perspective this has been. As shitty as things have been they could be worse. (Note to G-d, if there is one:  this is not, I repeat NOT, an invitation or challenge. I am not Robert Conrad and I do not dare you to knock it off.)

But just for safe measure… everyone go get a flu shot. A cootie shot. Reach out and touch someone. Right the wrongs. And if Lake Okeechobee turns into blood… seriously, it’s not me.

In a summer of sad dirges that I have listened to until I could listen no more one song comes to mind. It’s not directed at anyone, though if my Aunt suddenly learned how to use a computer and is blogging in the afterlife she’d be insulted if I didn’t dedicate it to her. It’s more melancholy actually than slit-your-wrist sad. I won a t-shirt for singing it on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Dee truly would be so pleased to know that as bad as my summer has been, she once again beat me in the ‘You Think That’s Bad?’ category. Really. She lived for this shit.

In My Life

There are places I’ll remember,
all my life though some have changed.
Some forever not for better,
some have gone and some remain.
All these places have their moments,
with lovers and friends I still can recall.
Some are dead and some are living,
in my life I’ve loved them all.

But of all these friends and lovers,
there is no one compares with you,
and these memories lose their meaning,
when I think of love as something new.
Though I know I’ll never lose affection,
for people and things that went before.
I know I’ll often stop and think about them,
in my life I love you more.