Pfunksfoolosophy

It really is true. That is a line from a musical called, “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown”. The show is almost never in revival, but it’s a good song. The Peanuts characters sing about happiness…we don’t often find our happiness. We’re often too busy trying to find that next paycheck or pay our bills…or make sure we have enough…enough food, shelter, clothing, things we don’t need but want…you know, the American way, right?

I’m not much of a consumer; never have been one. There is very little that I want materially speaking. Ice cream is food, so that doesn’t count. I always want ice cream. Well, nearly always. Breyer’s is my poison. Flavor of choice is Mint chocolate chip, but I’ve been really turned on by the Breyer’s “Take Two” flavor which is orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream. It’s a dreamsicle in a bowl. Sure, technically it’s not two kinds of ice cream…but it’s so good.

My true happiness comes in many forms and they’re such benign, simple things but I feel complete joy when I experience them. Pooper talking to me on the telephone is a sublime pleasure and I ride on that high for quite some time.

Making my mom laugh a good deep belly laugh makes my day. It’s superb to hear her laugh when I know just how tired she is these days. Seeing a smile spread across a total stranger’s face when I hold the door for them or offer them half of my sandwich makes me feel good and warm inside. The fact that I have a sandwich to share is pretty darned groovy also.

The softness of a summer breeze on  my skin as I watch the boats on the Hudson relaxes me and the ease of pleasant conversation with my friends restores my soul.

It’s not two kinds of ice cream, but it’s less calories.

It’s been a couple of days since my last post. The main reason is I didn’t feel I had anything to blog about. How wrong I was…how very wrong…in the days since my last post where I was ditched by that homely man…”Dancing with the Stars” and “American Idol” have both had their thrilling finales. “Thrilling” is pushing it, I know. While I really don’t like to support ‘reality’ television, I found myself watching both shows. I know, I know…brain cells lost to the paso doble…My sister and I used to watch ballroom dance competitions back in the day and  we could do a mean Peabody. You don’t often see that one. It’s a quick step. Very tricky. Let’s see John Ratzenberger try THAT one. 
I’ve gotta tell ya, though…Billy Ray Cyrus was my personal fave…not because he was any good, ’cause he wasn’t. It was that the poor guy was so embarassed. He was apologetic. He was genuinely surprised each week he was saved from the chopping block. Then when he did get the boot, he seemed relieved. Poor guy. He was a treat to watch.

American Idol was a different story. I’ve been watching it with my niece since the Fantasia year. I couldn’t care less when the show first starts and then my kid gets me emotionaly involved and I have to watch every week. My kid is killing me with the show. Every year I tell her that I’m not going to watch and  every year, she gets me to watch it with her while we’re on the telephone. This year was a major disappointment, although watching Simon Cowell’s hair NOT move is a treat. I also enjoy the fact that Paula Abdul is absolutely crazy. Oh, she’s  nuts…but sweet.

On to other things…I start ‘training’ for my gig at the studio today. I’m stoked. I’ll be able  to play the piano after hours and I’ll have plenty of time to write. AND I’ll get a paycheck.
Win/Win….yet again.

Ah, life is good.

Well, I’ve been off the blog for a couple of days in order to process something that happened on Thursday evening. As many of you faithful readers know, I’ve been trying the craigslist dating. I think I’m just doing it to have material for my blog, but it’s free and it’s relatively easy and those penis photos keep on coming so I’m going to have a very detailed coffee table book–it’s a win/win. Although, some of those penises look very, very angry. A couple even looked disappointed. There was no lack of personality in any of them, though and that’s encouraging.

Okay, so I choose one man  who emails me with a charming, witty response and I reply in kind. We exchange quite a few emails, but he’s reluctant to send his photo without having me send mine first. Hmmm, he is the one pursuing me…red flag number one. After a few more emails–stalemate, so I decide to tell him that I’m taking a pass. No harm, no foul.

The next day, I have an email from him with a photo. It wasn’t terribly flattering, but I look past that and assume that he doesn’t normally have a surprised expression on his face and that he probably combs his hair. Red flag number 2. He must be desperate to meet me if he sent that photo. But I ignore the red flags and forge ahead. Yep, I send him my headshot, which is rather fetching and 10 years old…but I look the same. Don’t know  why that is, but it’s great. He responds, tells me that he’s got to go out of town for a couple of days…which now I believe to be a back up story in case the meeting doesn’t go well, and suggests that we meet that evening. We do.
He’s new to the city, so he tells me that he got lost getting to my favorite watering hole. Quite improbable since I gave him very detailed directions should he take a cab. Red flag #3. He looks closer to 50 than I do. He is also a good bit shorter than he had claimed.

I am taken aback, but I give him a hug and welcome him to my part of the world. We go inside the bar and he commences to coughing like he’s going to hork. I suggest a glass of water. He demures. I am stymied and a bit concerned for his health. He’s not a young man…this could lead to a heart attack. He could fall off the bar stool and break a hip. Who knows? (oh, he wasn’t that old. i’m exaggerating for dramatic effect)

Without going into much more detail, suffice it to say that I thought he was going outside to speak on the phone and he disappeared. A bar patron and friend told me that he took off around the corner. I was DITCHED?!? Why is that funny to me? I mean, he ain’t no trip to Hawaii…I’m sure part of my ego has been damaged but for the life of me, I can’t see how.
Wow…dude ditched me. I wasn’t even planning on letting it get anywhere and the dude ditched me. I had to call him. He told me that he was really, suddenly sick and would ring me the next day. No call. No surprise. He was found out. He wasn’t 30. He wasn’t even 34. He also wasn’t 5′11″.  He also wasn’t very funny. But I got a blog post out of it. He earned his keep. And now on to the next respondent. It’s not so bad,this craigslist…I mean, if you work it right, you get a couple of drinks out of the deal and you’re left to flirt with the cute boys who come in after your date ditches you.

win/win. I LOVE that.

I must be the only person on the planet who has never seen that movie, up until now. Gwyneth Paltrow is the female Andrew McCarthy. Why does she always look like she’s gonna cry, is thinking about crying, JUST cried or is just plain constipated and in pain? How can I dislike her and love both of her parents so? Oy, this movie would have been so much better without her presence. Let’s not even talk about Ben “Joe Rockhead” Affleck being sorely miscast. I have to say though, I enjoy giving celebrities nicknames, so he’s gonna be Brick Affleck and his wife is Googie. She makes 7 layer dip for parties and he mans the grill while drinking Busch beer and smoking Pall Malls.

Back to the movie….aw, why? I love Joseph Fiennes, however. He’s dreamy. A gawky, hairy dream. On a scale of 1-10 for the ‘what the heck is that’ factor I give it a 7.

It could have been something delightful, but it was like watching Masterpiece Theater with a slight Jagermeister buzz. Not charmed.
Sorry readers, that’s all I’ve got for today’s column. Too much happened today that isn’t worthy of your attention.

Well, as you know dear readers,  I’m still on my quest for a romantic partner. Since I am frugal (a nice way of saying cheap) I am utilizing Craigslist, which is a great place to get stuff, but I’m unsure if it’s such a hot place to meet men. Sure, if you’re looking for a little bit of the ’shush’ you’re going to find it there. Remember the penis photos? Yeah, they’re not going to stop, I’m afraid.

Anyway, I placed another ad that was funny, concise and apparently rife with sexual innuendo because I am still receiving offers for a ’sensual time’. I have no idea what that means. My ad didn’t even address kissing. It’s my opinion that if you’re female and you place an ad, there is a hidden message sent to all of the sexually frustrated men within the tri-state area. Still, I am optimistic.

A couple of the guys who responded were funny, smart and quirky enough to pique my interest and it’s going well…to a point. One guy sent me his telephone number as we both felt the email exchange was going great and I called him. When he answered the phone he was eating. I  asked him if he wanted to call me back after he was finished and he told me no. Now, if he and I were old friends I would have told him that his smacking and heavy chomping was killing me but instead I tried to drop subtle hints.  He didn’t get it. I was  annoyed. He kept talking.  It really bothered me. The other thing that I couldn’t stand was that instead of telling me that he couldn’t hear me very well, he kept saying ‘HUH?!’. Why did that bother me? I don’t know. I think I was just annoyed with him to begin with due to the smacking and talking and heavy breathing. Is this guy an asthmatic? I am and I can fully understand, but jiminy christmas.

Okay, so we commence to talking about writing and movies–two of my favorite subjects. Seems he’s got a dim view of the publishing world, chiefly because of his inability to get himself published. I sense that he’s a bitter person, but I forge ahead because making snap judgments isn’t my style. At some point, he’s got to say something amusing or at least interesting. He interviews me for about 15 minutes, but I suspect it’s just to get to know me. But it DOES feel like he’s grilling me. How do I extricate myself from the conversation? Miracle of miracles, my friend calls me and I am released!
Here’s the tricky part…he calls me back later.

He tells  me that our conversation was ‘interesting’. I am not interested. He seems  sweet  enough, but he’s older than I would like and he’s just sorta like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. I think he fancies himself some kind of literary rebel. He may very well be one, but he just seems bitter and jaded and wholly self-involved.

We end up talking for about a half an hour. Well, ‘we’ is a loose one…HE kept talking. I stopped listening the moment he told me that his favorite band  was The Rolling Stones. Me no likee. That’s just nuts, right? I have got to figure out a way to get rid of this guy, but I’ve got nothing in my arsenal. He keeps talking.

Well, here’s the long and the short  of it: I don’t want to hurt his feelings because you take a great big risk emotionally when you answer a personals ad to begin with and taking it to the telephone level and THEN striking out? That’s got to suck. I’m no prize, though. He’s got to be thinking, ‘This chick is a bore and a half. She’s not even talking. She’s grunting or murmuring. Must be a frickin’ genius.’

Looks like I’m going to take the coward’s way out. That’s right, the time honored ‘fade away’. He’s really left me no choice. I simply don’t like the negativity. He’s a downer, man. SO, instead of telling him that, I’m gonna pull back. It’s my only hope. On the positive side, he may not call or email me again. Poor kid. Hope he gets home okay.

This just in:

 http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/05/15/skittles.gone.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

I am so happy that there are lost Skittles out there spreading their rainbow of flavor.

Things have been just a little too deep on this blog lately. What happened to the comedy?

I thought I’d divulge another secret…I’m deaf in my right ear. The deafness was caused by a one in a million allergy to erythromycin. When you hear, ‘one in a million’ …think of me. ( i think the actual odds of someone losing hearing permanently from the allergy is something like  one in 240,000)  It’s so rare in fact that it’s not even listed in PDRs as a possible side effect. Anyway, as you can imagine my life is filled with enough challenges without having to ask people to repeat themselves, so I lipread as often as I can and if that doesn’t work, I try to figure out what someone is saying before asking them to repeat.

This doesn’t always work because there are a LOT of words  out there that sound alike. Some of them are naughty words. Funny story about that.

Stop me  if  you’ve heard this  one before:

Around the time that Tim Burton’s “A Nightmare Before Christmas” was released, there were plenty of commercials to entice my pre-teen kids and they wanted to see  it desperately. Finally, they sat me down to watch the commercial…well, they screamed for me and I came running, thinking they were kililng one another…that’s another story…anyway, I watched the commercial in total silence as you can’t read the lips of an animated creature and when it was over told the kids that they could not go to that movie and they couldn’t make me take  them  no matter  how much they begged me.

They exchanged a perplexed look and left the room. For once I received no argument, such was  my tirade. My brother, who calls me Pookie, turned to me and asked me why I was so adamant  about them not seeing the movie; afterall, Tim Burton directed ‘Pee Wee’s Big Adventure’ one of my faves of all time.

I looked at him like he had six heads and said, ‘I don’t know when broadcast television started becoming so lax with the language, but I will NOT let them see this  movie if the main character is going to use that kind of profanity!’ My brother shook his head. He knew that I had misheard something and he was just waiting to hear it.

“What did you think he said, Pookie?”

“He said ‘I OWN the effing thing’ ! What kind of talk is that for a kid to hear?”

The laughter came out of him like a howitzer.

I was confused. I was dead sure I had heard correctly and felt that for once righteous indignation was in order.

“Pook…he said ‘I am the PUMPKIN king’. How could you have misheard that?”

He left the room, I called the kids back in and we went to the movies.

I felt like my friend’s deaf grandpa who always answered the wrong question. I felt like Emily Litella from Saturday Night Live (when it was funny and Gilda Radner was still alive).

“Nevermind”

I think being partially deaf is a blessing. It keeps you laughing and wondering…and it’s good to have as an excuse to ignore people. Win/win….I love that.

Actually, I’m looking forward to going out into the world.  The 24 hour laundromat is a haven for characters and since I am a writer and observer of the human condition in addition to being a stand up comic, it’s a cornucopia of material. I hope my favorite drunk/crack head makes an appearance. I’ve known her since I moved to NYC five years ago.

She’s still quite lovely and has most of her teeth. I’m not saying that to be funny, she really is captivating to watch. Her movements are graceful and her eyes don’t always have that dull thousand mile stare that most addicts posess. Her name changes each time I speak with her but when I first met her, she called herself Sandy.

Sandy is probably closer to 35 than she looks but she has incredible bone structure and smooth dark chocolate skin. I think in another life she would have made a great model. There’s something about her spirit that makes you root for her sobriety, but deep down you know that she’s going to wind up in Potter’s field soon. I give her food and direct her to Bellevue to dry out, but she never remembers how to get there and she disappears for a while. Just as quickly, I forget about her until I see someone with her build pinballing down the street. I hold my breath until the figure grows closer in my vision and I let out a sigh of relief and sadness because part of me wanted it to be Sandy just to know that she was okay.

My friends tell me not to give her any money, not to help her but I have to try. She’s doing desperate things because she’s in a desperate condition. Certainly, no one forced her into her addiction, but I think about what I would want if heaven forbid, one of my kids became like Sandy. I would want someone to keep trying. I would want someone to care about them.

Maybe one day, when she’s not completely fiending for her next hit, she’ll recognize me and remember that I want her to get well. She’ll see her worth and she’ll accept help.

Another day…another prayer…another wish for Sandy to turn up to help me fold my laundry for a couple of quarters and a sandwich.

Happy Mother’s Day!

I used to feel uncomfortable when people would wish me a happy Mother’s Day because I had a clear definition of motherhood back then. A mother was someone who had given birth to the children she raised. If you’d adopted children, you were entitled to accept that ‘blessing’ from others, but if like me you had raised the offspring of your departed sibling, you just didn’t count. I’m not sure why I felt that way since I had made every pediatrician appointment, nursed colds, flu, and the chicken pox. I’d changed diapers, toilet trained and taught children how to ride a bicycle. I’d cried when I didn’t know what to do when they cried. I’d wiped away tears, applied Band-Aids, helped with homework and explained where babies came from. Still, I just didn’t think I was a Mom.

After a while, I came to realize that it isn’t biology that makes a mom. It’s the sleepless nights, the frustrating nights of homework, supper, bath, ‘I don’t want to go to bed’ and ‘Why are you treating me like a baby’ that you get through with laughter, love and appreciation for the individuals in your life who bring you so much joy. Motherhood is all about sometimes NOT being given a pat on the back for what you do. It’s about not knowing the right thing to say but going ahead with the best tools you have to offer your child. Motherhood is exhausting, anxiety ridden, exhilarating and more rewarding than I ever thought anything could be. My kids are young adults now, but they’ll always be my babies.

Apart from the great live theater, the restaurants, the shopping, there is something that only New York City can offer you and that’s a good long walk with a diverse cast of characters to watch along the way.

Today, I met with a guy who thought I was ‘one sexy mama’. Normally, I would just say thank you and move along but this time I had to ask him what would make him say that when I was covered in a thin layer of the results of a hazy, hot and humid day.

Without missing a beat, the man said “Cause you just IS! Look at your posture! You are a queen!” I smiled and told him that I had no money for him but I did appreciate his kind remarks. As I continued down the street he called to me, “Bitch!”

I love New York.