Me and a Deer

I have not been professionally published very many times in my life and probably my favorite was when I had a letter to the editor printed in MS magazine in 1994. As you can see, it was in response to a review of the movie "The Lion King." I was amazed they published it at all - it must have been a slow month for letters - but probably the biggest thrill was when I got the call from the magazine asking permission to print it. It was just cool. I also had a letter that I wrote to an author when I was a teenager printed in her follow-up book, but since she changed the names, it's not quite the same and thus I can't really prove it's me other than I still have her original letter back to me and it's pretty close to what she said in the book. And I'm not reproducing it here because it's so completely awful in its teenage angst. Trust me. Besides, that Lion King letter is embarrassing enough.

Anyway - where I started to go with this is that my publishing experiences outside of letters have been less than rewarding as they involved the editor of the local paper not really getting where I was going with an article and instead of working with me on it, just changing it to suit what he THOUGHT I was trying to say. Very frustrating, especially since these were not articles reporting on events, but instead just me telling the story of my experience. One was about going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland in 1995 and included talking about being less than ten feet from Richard O'Brien at a bar, which to anyone who has seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show (preferably multiple times and NOT on video because that's just...wrong) should be nothing less than amazing. Apparently he hadn't seen it or just didn't care. Frustrating. The second one I'll get to shortly, but I just want to first point out that you'd think I would've kept copies of these issues of the paper even if I wasn't happy with how the articles ultimately came out. I didn't. Which is weird since I have school notebooks dating all the way back to 5th grade. Because you never know when those might come in handy!

The reason I bring any of this up is that I have had occasion to tell the story detailed in the second article a couple of times recently and it is still funny, so I figured I'd put it down here where I can't lose it since we all know the internet is forever (and if you want proof, click here). I do wish I had that original article to work off of, even though it got edited in a way I didn't like. The original title I gave it was "Me and a Deer." I was riffing off the Tori Amos song, "Me and a Gun," but, much like Rocky Horror, the editor didn't get it, so took out the quote that I used ("You can laugh, It's kind of funny, things you think at times like these") AND changed the title to something awful like "The Night My Deer Radar Failed." In hindsight, it may not have been as clever as I thought at the time since it IS a song about rape and all I did was crash into a deer. But this was pre-internet so no one was rushing out to look up the whole song and I truly only quoted that one small part. And no, I haven't given anything away by telling you I crashed into a deer, I promise.

So, yeah, summer of 1996 back in New Jersey. I was rehearsing a production of "Taming of the Shrew" (awful) in a town probably 30-45 minutes from where I was living at the time, which meant I was driving a lot. But then again, in NJ everyone drives a lot. As a frequent driver in the more wooded, suburban areas of the state, I prided myself on my "deer radar" - knowing where there's one there's more, times you should really slow down, areas where you're likely to see them, that kind of stuff. Rehearsal ended fairly early as I recall - it was still light out being summer and all, but not even getting into twilight time yet. I left the high school where the rehearsal was and started making my way back toward the highway. As I slowed down to make a left turn, I saw a quick flash of brown to my left and suddenly my whole windshield exploded in my face. I screamed, threw my hands in front of my face, and jammed on the brakes. I think this was probably where the Tori Amos quote came in because even though all this happened in the span of probably less than five seconds, it seemed to also take forever and all kinds of crazy shit went through my head, none of which I remember now but I'm pretty sure the actual Tori Amos song was part of it.

I don't know exactly what happened next or how I ended up out of my car sitting on the side of the road, covered in blood and surrounded by people, a couple of whom were also previously at rehearsal. I think I might have told someone to go back to the school and tell them, it's possible. The deer was also nearby on the side of the road and one of the other actors told me very firmly not to look. The police came and ended up shooting the deer, which was fairly awful. The ambulance also came and took me to the hospital. The director of the show followed in her car so that I would have someone with me. Once at the hospital, the staff ascertained that I didn't have any actual serious injuries, just lots of small cuts on my head from the windshield glass. They advised me to flip my head over when I got home in the shower so that said glass wouldn't go down my back and cut me more. Wait, what? They weren't going to clean me up there? They were just going to send me home looking like Sissy Spacek at the end of "Carrie"? (remember that, btw, it's important) Yes. Yes, they were. But first they insisted that I call my apartment and make sure someone was home. Why? I don't know. Clearly their concern for my well being didn't extend to preventing me from potentially lacerating my back in my own shower by helping me get cleaned up.

So, I called my roommate, Anna, and told her what had happened, reassured her I was fine, and explained that I had to make sure she was home. Here is how the rest of the conversation went:

ANNA: I'm home...but you might want to go to your parents' house instead.

ME: Why?

ANNA: We don't have any power.

ME: What?

ANNA: We don't have any power. The house is completely dark.

ME: I don't care. I just want to come home.

ANNA: Ummm...okay.

I took my bloody self out of the hospital and the director drove me home. By the time we got there, my muscles had really stiffened up and I was moving very slowly both from the pain and from a desire to not dislodge the approximately gajillion shards of glass embedded in my hair. Our apartment was the third floor of an old Victorian house and I gingerly crept up the dark steps, trying not to touch anything as I was covered in blood. I opened the door and looked down the long hallway. Because of the power outage, Anna had lit candles. A lot of candles. Candles on every surface. More candles than I knew we owned. And conveniently, the whole thing was captured on film:

Fortunately, Anna was NOT waiting behind a door with a knife and thus I did not have to bust out my telekinetic powers and do THIS:

I also did not burn the house down. Which I think was nice of me. I DID take my upside down shower and probably ate some dinner. And so life went on.

It's funny as I try to think back on that original newspaper article how little of it I can remember. I don't know if I even brought up the whole Carrie and the candles thing. But I know if I did, it wasn't as fun as doing it this way. Which is why I now self publish. You're welcome.

Memory of Cats

Today I am bringing you a memory about cats. Which is different than a memory of CATS...or Memory from CATS. I could write a lot about all three of these things, actually, and now that I think about it, that is a great idea for a series within this blog. Note to self: write blog posts about CATS.

Anyway...today's blog post comes courtesy of my college roommate, Lisa, who sent me a FB message that I enjoyed to no end. Another shout out to FB for helping keep people in my life who otherwise would be maybe a Christmas card kind of relationship (I can't remember if Lisa and I even send each other Christmas cards, but that doesn't matter). Lisa was actually my THIRD college roommate. We lived in the same dorm starting our freshman year, the fantastic Judson Hall at New York University. It actually used to be a monastery, complete with a bell tower.

My first roommate was Karen and we lived together all of freshman year and the first half of sophomore year. Sophomore year, we got to move into the bell tower proper - second floor from the top, which is the third set of windows from the top in the above picture. Our friends, Jamie and Aaron, lived above us and they took great pleasure in climbing down the fire escape into our room. The elevator in the dorm only went up to a certain level (7th floor, I think) and then we had to climb up the spiral stairs in the tower to our rooms. I should mention here that the bathrooms were on the 7th floor as well, so if you had to pee, you had to navigate your way down two flights of curved stairs. I don't recommend this in the middle of the night.

Karen and I were very different - she was pretty punk and listened to bands I had never heard of (nor had most people, I must add). I was still pretty preppy, NJ suburbs at that point, but somehow we got along. Unfortunately, during our sophomore year, Karen decided college wasn't really working for her. She stopped going to classes and started spending most of her time hanging out with various musicians in Washington Square Park and sometimes even bringing them back to our room. Now, I enjoyed listening to Ellis play his guitar and sing other people's songs as much as anyone, but that didn't mean I wanted to wake up at 3AM and find him standing over my bed! (as an aside, a few good blogs mention Ellis: here, here,  and here. And here is an article about what Ellis is doing almost now-ish. You can also find him on Wikipedia (although saying he was born in 1974 seems...not right) and YouTube. For those who want to know more about Ellis!) Another time she brought a "friend" by who decided it would be really fun to spray my hairspray and flick his lighter on at the same time. I'm amazed that he didn't even set off the smoke detector with that stunt...or maybe we just didn't have smoke detectors. Who can say? She also started corresponding with various prison inmates. When she wasn't doing any of these things, she was in her bed, usually in the  middle of the day.  In short, she kind of lost it so it was no surprise to anyone when she dropped out midyear. I'd kind of had it with the dorm thing at this point myself, so I moved into a little studio apartment near campus with my friend, Cindy. Little being the operative word here. That place was TINY, as NYC apartments are. Basically a room separated into two parts by a partial wall with a loft bed. I had the loft bed and Cindy had a futon on the other side. Her boyfriend spent the night a lot. It was awkward. But that's college, right?

Junior year, Lisa (who had also moved out of the dorm midyear) and I decided to find a place together, which we did way over on the west side. It was a duplex down, which is a fancy way of saying one bedroom basement apartment that we paid way too much to live in. But it was fun. One of the first things we did after getting settled was adopt a kitten. I don't know why we did this, but it involved a field trip to the animal shelter on the far, FAR north side of Manhattan (really it might not even have been Manhattan at that point, I can't remember. I just know it was far and took a long time on the subway) to pick out said kitten. He was a tiny black and white tuxedo kitten that we named Harlow, after the actress, Jean Harlow. I had, and still do have, a serious thing for old movies and movie stars. I'm pretty sure this was the poster we had of Miss Jean.

Harlow as cute, as all kittens are, but he grew into a behemoth of a cat. Lisa kept him after we graduated, so I don't know off the top of my head how big he eventually got, but I want to say it was in the neighborhood of twenty pounds. He was huge. But here he is when he was small:

That top picture also shows you something of how cool our apartment was. The bedroom was on the upper level, then you came downstairs to the kitchen and living room. The window on the stairs looked into the kitchen which had, I have to say, awesome flooring.

Anyway, back to the present day when I had the following message exchange with Lisa:

LISA: My kids found that kitty book you wrote notes about Harlow, and then we made Greek pizza, and now I'm playing fleetwood mac...Haha, thought I should say hi and see how you're doing since clearly you're working on my mind at some subconscious level!

ME: Well awesome! However...kitty book??? I have no memory of this at all.

So Lisa sent the following pictures (click to enlarge so you really get the full effect):

LISA: Does that jog your memory at all?

 ME: Terrifyingly, no!!! It's clearly my writing and definitely seems like something I would do and yet..

I've looked at these pictures many times since Lisa sent them and I still have no memory of this book. But I LOVE that she still has it and now I do too.

At the end of the year, we got another kitten - a complete troublemaker of a calico that we named Gable, to stay with the gender flipped, last name of movie star thing that we decided we were doing. Here is Miss Gable (actually pictured in our Hoboken apartment), as well as the poster we had of her namesake:

    

Last, but not least...in case I never get around to actually posting about CATS, here is the beyond words fabulous Laurie Beechman as Grizabella. Enjoy!

An American Childhood

Like most people, I suspect, I have a very love/hate relationship with Facebook. Right now, as we are in the midst of a presidential election cycle, it is very, VERY easy to hate FB. I weary of the utter nonsense and the hateful, lying memes that people share without a second thought. I have no problem with your opinion differing than mine (even though I'm right, of course) - what I do have a problem with is you posting things that are simply not true (and this also goes for people who DO agree with my opinion!). It's not hard to fact check things, although I realize that would get in the way of your own agenda, but please try. And after I or someone else point out said falsehood, have the good grace to remove said post. Or at least acknowledge the mistake. The world is hard enough to navigate these days. As many a meme says, you are entitled to your own opinion, of course - you are not, however, entitled to your own facts. And neither am I.

That is the dark side of FB. There is, mercifully, the bright side, the part that I love - being able to connect with friends from all facets of my life, even though we are scattered all over the globe. In my first Stitch Fix post, I referenced my friend, Katie, several times. While she calls me her oldest friend in the best sense of the term, I cannot return the favor because FB has allowed me to reconnect with Amy, who lived down the street from me when I was little little and was my best friend until I turned seven and we moved away. I actually have a post about that street that I haven't published yet - but I'm getting ahead of myself.

As I resurrect this blog, part of my motivation is to write down stories for my daughter so she will always have them. Doing it publicly like this will allow other players in these stories to add their perceptions and reminiscences, if they so choose. And it is because of FB (and the internet in general, obviously) that they will be able to do this. I started this conversation with Katie a couple of days ago, as I was writing the Stitch Fix entry, and I told her that I would start this Wednesday. So here we are. It's now Friday as it took me a couple of days to write it all.

I need to flip back to the political thing for just a sec, though. One of the popular motifs these days is that there is "real" America ('Murica) and then there is the rest of us - the lefty liberal, do gooder, communist, atheist, freedom haters who are out to destroy this country. Ugh. I will freely admit to being many of the epithets thrown at me and I wear them proudly. But it doesn't mean I hate the United States or freedom or even Christians. It doesn't mean I am not a "real" American - can we please note for a moment that the title of this whole blog is Apple Pie for Dessert? I love apple pie, I go to baseball games, and I had what was probably a very typical American childhood in the 1970's.

See how it came back around?

While I have tasked Katie with writing the actual story of how we met because she just tells it better than I do - I can tell you it involved catching caterpillars, woolly bears to be exact. When you touch those suckers, they curl up into a ball and look just like tribbles from "Star Trek."

Katie and I were two years apart (we still are - duh -  but somehow the age gap doesn't seem so meaningful as it did then); although we played together for many, many years, in my mind I am always nine and she is seven - fourth and second grades, respectively. This makes her utterly fascinating to my daughter who is currently nine. I watch my daughter now and while there is much more girl drama than I ever had at that age, I am still envious of the ease with which children can form friendships. A simple "do you want to play" and they are off and running, which was exactly how Katie and I proceeded. We both loved to read, adored music, and had vivid imaginations that we gave free rein to at every available opportunity. We spent the bulk of every summer outside, exploring the woods that ran through our back yards and culminated at the end of the cul de sac in a forest that seemed huge at the time. The cul de sac (or turnaround, as we called it then) is no longer there; when I was in high school, a road was built to connect our neighborhood with the one above it. But looking at Google maps, it appears that the woods are still alive and well - and I just did some more googling and learned something I never, ever knew - those woods actually have a name! Three Falls Woods...because, as I was about to point out, once you got inside the woods and followed the right trail, you came to the falls. We didn't go all the way out to the falls every time we went on the trails - my memory is that they were a hang out spot for teenagers at the time. I definitely remember seeing a beer ball or two when we would go!

The creek that the falls fed into ran behind the houses across the street from mine and flooded at least twice that I can remember when I lived there. The big one was in October 1981, seventh grade. I remember it started in the night and my dad came and woke us all up to see. My sister, who is four years older, thought he was waking her up to go to school so she showered and did her hair and got dressed and everything before she realized what was going on. She was pissed. I just thought it was cool. The next day, Katie and I met up and put garbage bags around our legs to wade in the water. A news truck came by and filmed us and we DID get on the air briefly. When we returned to school, someone asked me about it and was quite scornful about the garbage bags...I wasn't cool then and I'm not cool now. What can you do? This is a video compilation of news footage from the flood. However, we are not in it. I guess it wasn't Channel 3 that came by. And there seems to be a lot more footage of East Syracuse than Manlius, but it's still interesting.

Most of the time, the creek was pretty tame. We played in it and around it. There was a lot of shale in the creek, which was fun to hit with another rock and watch slice apart in a way that rocks didn't seem like they should do. Often in our outdoor adventures, we were joined by our friend, Jeremy, who lived across the street from me. They say the average person eats a pound of dirt a year - I'm fairly certain the three of us ate more than our fair share growing up. I don't think we were ever clean during the summer.

Indoors, Katie and I were enchanted by many things, among them: music, books, Muppets, Atari, Legos, Darci dolls, and a new channel on our cable system, HBO. I'll get to each of these at a future time, I hope, because they all deserve their time on the stage. But I have to say that music is my most enduring memory as it formed the framework around which we built so many of our adventures. We played most often at her house, which was a super groovy split level built in 1966, according to Zillow. The stereo and her parents' awesome record collection lived on the lower level and we spent hours upon hours listening to music, lip synching to the songs (dying of embarrassment when her brother would catch us), and weaving elaborate tales that incorporated the songs into something we just called "The Game."

"The Game" had no fixed plot line or rules. We could play it indoors or out, with or without music (although I always thought it was better with music). Our roles varied, depending on what we were obsessed with at the time. For one period of time, it was crucial that Aslan, from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, play a role and we probably fought over who got to be Lucy and who got to be Susan (it's always better to be Lucy. Always.) We really liked Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan for a while. As we got a little older and fell in love with magazines like Teen Beat and Tiger Beat, our focus shifted more to pop culture figures and we would become Olivia Newton-John and Catherine Bach or the two girls from ABBA. We were rarely the celebrities living their regular lives (and by rarely, I mean never), but instead were having grand adventures that were usually influenced by books or movies. Some I can recall are Jaws and The Omen (we can talk about the inappropriate entertainment we consumed at another time, but I should point out here that we discovered the soundtrack to Hair at an age where none of it made sense and we tried to look the words up in the dictionary and it STILL didn't make sense...which didn't stop us from adoring it and singing it at the top of our lungs). And as I said, this was always better with music and we always found a way to work the songs into the narrative. Because when you are about to be eaten by a 20 foot great white, you should sing! Clearly, we anticipated Disaster! A Musical by about 40 years.

This is merely a start. But you have to start somewhere, right? Memory is a funny, tricky thing and I am sure I am misremembering things and others can feel free to clarify. I am also sure there are many things I am forgetting and I hope, as I said above, that others will share their stories as well.