Crazy bitches – MISS ANTHROPE'S HOUSE OF HIGH DRAMA

Outing Myself

I got a lower face and neck lift in November and have been conflicted about going public with it.

I always try to be as honest and open as I can on here. I love the AA saying, “we are only as sick as our secrets.” That has always proved true to me. Plus I believe that we all have the same feelings, doubts, and pains (barring sociopaths, narcissists, psychopaths, bad brain, etc.), and that we bridge gaps and help each other heal by discussing our own thoughts and feelings about our experiences. Those experiences can vary wildly from person to person, but the reactions and feelings really don’t. Writing has shown me that I am not unique and anything that I have felt has been felt by many others.

The problem with being open online is that you make yourself vulnerable to people with bad intent. When you have haters, and I have a couple of doozies (maybe all of us do?), they will distort and weaponize any bit of information gleaned from social media or gossip. I’m risking abuse by talking about a choice that not everyone might understand or agree upon. But I don’t want to live my life in fear of what someone with negativity in their heart thinks. I learned long ago that people will make up all kinds of crazy shit no matter how nice you try to be, so we all might as well just live our lives and ignore the rest.

One of the reasons I feel semi-obligated to talk about this at all, is that no one ever tells us about their own cosmetic surgery, despite the fact that it’s a booming business. Everyone wants to pretend it’s natural, which then causes the rest of us to compare ourselves unfavorably to celebrities who tell us it’s all diet, exercise and facials. We feel flawed or less then, and it’s not fair. Although it is understandable–Pamela Anderson talks about it in her Netflix doc, how she didn’t know that she was supposed to keep her implants a secret and it became the only thing anyone ever wanted to ask her about.

I want to make it clear that for me, it’s not about wanting to look young, which is the usual accusation from people opposed. There is nothing in this world that can replicate the soft collagen of youth and I like being my age. But I want to feel good in my skin and I haven’t felt that for the last couple of years. My face has been getting longer with time, and I didn’t like the droop. And my neck wasn’t making me happy either, I couldn’t wear turtlenecks (which I love) anymore because my neck looked unattractive at the top of the sweater. At a certain point it stops being about enhancing with clothes and makeup and becomes more about disguising and distracting. I don’t enjoy that struggle.

Also, for realz, I don’t know why anyone would be surprised. I’ve never planned on aging gracefully and no one close to me expects any different. When I announced my plan to my siblings, my sister said she was going to tell on me to mom. Which she did, and my mother, who is all about natural and would never dye her hair or do anything to her face, didn’t bat an eye. She knew this was coming.

I had been researching surgery for a few years because I had it in my mind that 60 would be the year, and I turned 60 in October. I still can’t believe I’m this old. It was daunting at first: I don’t have any close friends in NYC who have done anything like this, and I didn’t want to travel outside of my home. Many people I know have gone elsewhere for all kinds of surgery because it’s cheaper. But I wanted to recuperate in my house with my animals, and I wanted to make sure that if someone was going to be cutting up my face, they came well recommended and I could get their help if something went wrong..

I went to two consultations; both doctors that were recommended by a friend’s dermatologist. The first one was fantastic, a great guy with great results–he was upbeat, young and confident in his work. But he is also stupid expensive, like more than many yearly salaries expensive. Like I’d be in debt for a decade expensive. Notable is that part of that high cost is that after surgery you’re sent to a hotel with a nurse who watches over you for 48 hours.

The second guy I saw was still expensive but much more reasonable at less than half the first price quote. This is because he uses local anesthetic with a knockout cocktail of valium and some other pills, saving the high cost of an anesthetist. As much as I would prefer to be fully asleep during any operation, I liked the idea of not having to deal with the aftereffects of anesthetic and having to flush it out of my body afterward. His before and after photos were equally as great as the first guy, and I’m a big one for intuition and I liked the energy at his office. So I chose him. I’m still in debt, but it’s a much less terrifying amount.

The reactions I got when I told people of my plans were either excited or horrified. The excited people were my inner circle, women my age who have been considering the same thing. The horrified people were mostly people who have never experienced botox or other injectables, who don’t really know what any of that kind of thing entails, who think of Jocelyn Wildenstein or the show Botched when they think of surgery, or who simply believe in aging naturally. Which, for the record, is great, just not the path I’m taking.

I think where we live plays a part in all of this too. I live in a city where it’s common for women to do things to their face. If I had remained in the woods of Michigan it might be different and look out of place, so reactions from different parts of the country vary as well.

A few days before my surgery I saw a Facebook post from an acquaintance who looks cool, but has never been a person interested in makeup or beauty. She had a close up of her bare face, along with a paragraph about how aging naturally is the more noble way to go. It was pretty judgey, but most social media posts about plastic surgery are judgey. It doesn’t help that Madonna is purposely fucking up her face for attention, but that’s another conversation. I realized after seeing that post that that there would be some serious judgment if I were to talk about it. But what’s the alternative? To lie and pretend that I’m a natural miracle? That falseness feels yucky to me.

Three weeks after my 60th birthday I went in, and the surgery was intense. I let them film it; if you aren’t too squeamish and care to see the inside of my face, it’s here at Madnani Facial Plastics:

https://www.instagram.com/tv/Ck0uh5dPFru/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Local anesthetic has its pitfalls. I was so drugged up in the beginning that I fell asleep. But it’s a long process and sometime throughout the pills began wearing off and I got panicky. I felt what I thought was sawing, which didn’t help (it was actually pulling and stitching). I knew Sam was in the other room waiting for me and I tried to call his name to get me off the table. But as I became more cognizant I knew that wasn’t going to be feasible so I croaked out instead that I was freaking out. The nurse tossed a couple more pills in my mouth and I was happily out again.

I went in at 6:30 am and it was done by about noon. I was wheeled into a car and Sam took me home. He said he only recognized me by my tattoos and the fact that I was still trying to give orders, despite that I was delirious and couldn’t talk.

The next day I had to go back for a bandage change. My hair was matted down with blood and my ears were plugged up with bloody gauze, but overall it didn’t feel too bad. Thank you, hydrocodone.

I spent the next week propped up in bed high on painkillers. I really love an excuse to watch TV all day while high, but it was a lot. You’re in pain, you can’t lay down fully, you feel like your head is in a box because your ears are covered and you have to keep changing the wraps. It gets boring pretty quickly. My worst day was about five days in because I hadn’t listened closely enough to the direction to take laxatives. Without getting into specifics, I’ll just say that I considered going to the emergency room on that day and will never make that mistake again.

The photo below was maybe three weeks into healing. My face was very numb and my eyes dragged down by the swelling. I couldn’t turn my head to the side or up and down and I couldn’t open my mouth very far. But for the most part it wasn’t too terrible and passed pretty quickly. The bruises took well over a month to heal, I used arnica and took pre and post op vitamins and bromelaine, which helped speed it up, but I did look weird for a while. I went to get my nails done and my Chinese nail lady, who I’ve been seeing for years, asked quietly, “Who did this to you??” I had to have one of the other technicians give me the Chinese word for facelift so I could explain that I did it to myself. To which she huffed indignantly and patted my hand, which may be the most eloquent and best reaction yet.

I don’t have before and afters yet from the doctor, but I tried to take a similar selfie to one I took last summer so there is some way to see what’s been done.

This is last July pre-op.

The one below is a couple of days ago. I took it in the strong light in my bathroom and didn’t filter anything, so it’s not gorgeous. But I wanted to get something clear with a similar nighttime makeup so people can see the difference. I should probably add that I had a fat transfer under my eyes and laser skin resurfacing, so that’s part of what you’re seeing too.

I am very happy with the results. I feel like I’m still myself but I can wear turtlenecks again and I’m not panicky when people pull out their phones to take photos. Which is exactly what I wanted. I have zero regret.

I am happy to answer any questions that anyone wants to ask. A facelift is a frivolous, first world conversation and I understand that I lead a blessed life, that age catches up to us all, and I’m not trying to give this too much time or energy. But I would like to help move this conversation forward in a way that frees us all to be who we want to be, surgery or no surgery. There is too much shame and self-loathing in this world over frivolous bullshit, too much fear wrapped around aging or not looking a certain way. If I can take some of the guesswork out of navigating it, I’m willing to expose myself to that end.

Namaste, beauties!

Kim and Beep

I had a reading the summer from a psychic friend who said that I could be writing entries for this blog more often, as it helps some people. Sometimes I feel like I’ve said pretty much everything I have to say, and I don’t like forcing it unless there’s a specific train of thought eating into my mind. But he said it can be as little as a few words, so maybe I’ll get a little more casual and not turn it into a giant entry all the time. If there’s something you’d like to hear from me, feel free to ask.

Anyhoo, as most of you know, there was a memorial for our beautiful Kim Montenegro on Saturday. It was lovely, thanks to the hard work of Paty Huthert and Dennis McHugh, and I spoke, so I thought I’d copy what I said here for those of you who couldn’t get to Philly.

I also put my beloved cat Beep down last week and then had a birthday. I really don’t care about birthdays anymore, Lord knows I’ve had enough of them, but it is a time to assess and see friends. So it was a big week, too much really, and I’m grateful for all of the messages. Life just throws shit at you sometimes and you have to roll with it. I was so drained yesterday that I had to hibernate; I couldn’t bear to try to form words or respond to texts. But I’m feeling more rejuvenated now and better able to respond.

Kim’s absence will be with me for the rest of my life. She was a sister and a force of nature and I am not the only person feeling her loss. I asked her and Codie to help Beep with his transition and I did feel a warm presence when he left his body, which was a tough moment for me. I don’t know if it was one or both of them or someone or something else, but it was calming to feel there is more to life than what we see with our eyes and that we don’t completely lose our loved ones in death. It’s not perfect, but at least positive.

Thank you to Paty for making sure I got some of her ashes in this perfect pouch that she would have loved.

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KIM

It’s impossible for me to talk about Kim without thinking of the word “beauty”.

Kim taught me to appreciate beauty in a deep way–not just in the superficial meaning of the word, although we did adore pretty people and things. Kim understood true, life-affirming beauty: the heart of a person, the way a home can look and feel, delightful smells, delicious food, and the value of doing something right the first time.

The first time I met Kim, in the mid-80’s, she said, within the first ten seconds of laying eyes on each other, “Hi! You’re so beautiful! Who are you? Will you be my friend?”

I had never been greeted like that. What adult just happily asks a total stranger if they want to be friends? I was shy at the time and this openness and generosity of spirit threw me. She was so fearless, and it immediately shifted my energy from guarded to open. I fell in love with her on the spot. We became inseparable at that show and for many years. I wanted to look like her, dress like her, talk like her. I wanted everyone to know that this amazing creature was with me, my friend. She was the most exciting and entertaining person I knew and I loved taking trips to Philly where we’d ride around in that boat of a Buick, smoking cigarettes and waving at the guys who shouted at us. It was heaven to me.

I quickly discovered that she greeted most people with that level of enthusiasm. She would walk into a crowded room and light up everyone with her warmth, saying, “Hi! Hello! I love your jacket! You have pretty eyes! What’s your name?” She genuinely liked humans, something completely alien to me, and she saw beauty in everyone and wanted to get to know them. She SAW you. She listened. I was constantly dragging her out of places while some random and annoying person cried on her shoulder or tried to invade our party. She was regularly pulling stray lunatics into my apartment and life, then when they became too much, which they inevitably did, I’d have to act as bouncer and bad guy because her heart was too soft to do it. She had absolutely no discernment when it came to people and it was a huge pain in the ass sometimes. But it was also a testament to how much love she gave so freely.

Kim taught me to appreciate quality, to really look around the room at furniture and art, to savor what we saw and heard and consumed. She taught me how to fold those fucking jeans exactly the way she wanted them to be folded. She wouldn’t let you bag her groceries because she had her own rules about it. The level of control could be exhausting, but we all reaped the benefits of that attention to detail. Her orbit was a warm place to reside. She remembered little things. She always made sure we looked into each other’s eyes when we raised a glass of wine. When we went to restaurants she would tear the crust off of the bread and eat it while handing me the soft middle, because she knew I didn’t like the hard parts. It was a minor gesture but its meaning was grand. I never see a loaf of crusty bread without thinking of it.

Romances came and went, and we had our disagreements and downtime, but at the end of the day there was always a safe space of kinship. I could always trust her. Kim was imperfect, stubborn, and self-destructive at times. She often didn’t get out of her own way and it was frustrating. But she was also a blazing star, a shining beacon of creativity, affection, intelligence, honor, hard work, hilarity, fun, and enthusiasm. Her energy was infectious, there were times it felt as if we floated in a shiny bubble of her making. She was as easy to love as she was easy on the eyes.

The last time I saw her, when she wasn’t really verbal anymore, everyone at the table had a glass of prosecco and she did her thing–raised her glass and looked deeply into my eyes. I knew what she was saying and that it was the last time I would have this, and I think instinctively she knew too. I held her gaze, raised the glass and said, “I love you. You know that, right?” And she laughed her sweet laugh and nodded.

I know that this was not my first lifetime with her, and I know I will see her again in whatever form we take. I am grateful she didn’t languish for years, she would have hated the idea of being a burden to anyone. And I’m so grateful to her close people for the work and heartache they went through to make sure her last days were good. I am grateful for all of it, every minute, good and less than good. I know that this world will never be the same for me without her in it, and I will never be able to raise a glass of red without feeling her in my heart. But I also know that she would want us all to live our lives to the fullest and to remember her with joy. So that is what I shall endeavor to do.

Goodness

I recently realized that I am grateful to be at an age where I have only 20 or 30 more years to be in body on this plane, maybe less if there is some surprise around the corner that I don’t foresee.

This is in no way brought on by depression or a non-love of life. My life is the best it’s ever been. It’s peaceful and abundant. At the moment I am typing this on the terrace of my dream apartment with the exact dog and cat I want sitting next to me. I have no personal beefs going with anyone, the villains seem to be ruining their own lives lately, and everyone in my close orbit is lovely and supportive. I have a job I genuinely enjoy. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been, barring being at the end of recuperating from my first case of covid, which even that was mild.

But a yearning is growing, a yearning for the peace and ease of a different kind of existence free of guns and maga and sadness and illness and bad religion, maybe free of gravity and body, something bigger, grander. Not this minute, or this year, or this decade. I still have things I want to do in this life that I love. But I can feel a pressing of sorts, like I’m pushing at a membrane of consciousness that wants to break free. Maybe it’s not death at all, maybe just a readiness for a deeper kind of existence?

I don’t know. As I wonder if our country is in the middle of a fall of what might turn out to have been a very short empire, I can feel myself becoming disconnected. Not in a bad way, more in an oversaturated, I can’t foam at the mouth about it anymore. I haven’t given up the fight, I’m just internally quiet somehow. Like I can feel how temporary everything is, including me.

I get a lot of information from dreams. I have never been especially gifted psychically, but I travel a lot in my sleep and all kinds of magic can and does happen. I once accidentally flew to an alien planet and crash landed into a meeting of sorts. Happily the surprised aliens seemed amused and very gently flew me back to my body, like putting someone’s escaped dog back in their yard. Then after my father died unexpectedly I was able to process a lot of sadness and unfinished business in my sleep. We had long, meaningful conversations that I believe really happened. But even if it wasn’t real, only my subconscious talking back to me, it helped. I have come to believe that we can, and do, get important inner work done when our conscious mind is shut down.

I don’t like to write about my most recent ex (six years ago now) too much because he has a new life and deserves privacy, and because it’s in the past. And honestly he probably doesn’t deserve the airtime. But he brought me some real awareness in a dream last night that I think could be helpful to share.

He visits me in dreams regularly. I believe this is because he stopped speaking to me and moved onto his new relationship at lightning speed while there was still a lot left to process after our own thirteen years. At least on my end, as it was a devastating loss for me. And I took on all of the blame and felt like a genuinely vile person. I lost my mind during that period and completely self-destructed while I put him on a pedestal as the Good One.

I was raised in an atmosphere of Catholic self-loathing and a denial of intuition. I was herded into behaviors and thoughts that didn’t resonate with my inner voice and actual needs and personality. And because of that I had to relearn how to trust that intuition and sometimes have a hard time seeing my own desires and behaviors clearly. So I have always assumed deep down that I am irreversibly flawed and undeserving and that’s why I make such a mess of relationships.

There are SO many moments and events in my life that I wish I could do differently. I am not a no regrets person. I regret saying something shitty to a kid at a teen party in 1979. I still think about the look on his face and wish I could take it back. I have all kinds of self-blaming little anecdotes like this categorized and filed away in my brain. So you can imagine the internal dialogue that goes on with the big stuff. It’s exhausting.

Anyway, at some point I got irritated with these regular nighttime visits from this person who doesn’t care a whit about me during waking hours, and I said to myself, as I am a big believer in stating intentions out loud: “Enough! I choose to stop these stupid dream meet ups that lead nowhere and just make me feel sad. You are UNINVITED.”

It’s been great for a time, no visits. Until last night, when this fucker called me on the phone in my dream. Called me on my dream phone! Even in my sleep I knew this was a pretty clever way to get in. I looked at the dream phone as a truly comical and unflattering photo of him came up, and rolled my dream eyes and after a moment of internal debate I answered.

I said impatiently, “What??” And as soon as I said that he was in front of me in person and we were talking again.

After some of the usual jokes he said, “I couldn’t be alone. I needed someone.”

I responded lovingly, with no heat or sadness: “I know. But I had to go. I couldn’t do what I needed to do within that. It had nothing to do with how much I loved you. Because I did, and I miss you every day.” He smiled and nodded.

I woke up right after that, fully awake and blown away. Because I finally, finally felt clear. This entire time I have been operating under the belief that my simple badness made me destroy that one chance at growing old with someone. That I am and will always be too broken and this is simply the great tragedy of who I am. Which is, stamped with a big label: 100% Damaged Goods.

This is in no way a slight on Sam, btw, for anyone who is wondering what the hell I’m talking about because I have him. Our relationship is equally important to me. He, and it, have been instrumental in helping both of us heal from past trauma, and it has been an incredible gift after a lifetime of dysfunction to get a do-over with someone worthy, where I finally do and say the right things without creating more regret. And he is steadfast in a way that has taught me how to trust. We are always kind to each other and there is a lot of love and support. It’s just not a traditional partnership and we live apart and it remains very free.

Back to the dream train of thought – I have always considered myself a nontraditional person. I never wanted kids or a house, I never really cared about having a big wedding. I just wanted to move to the big city and live a rock and roll life. Which I did and continue to do, albeit with a much earlier bedtime these days. But underneath the rebel outerwear, I continued to carry judgment about myself and relationships that were very traditional.

I always assumed that after a period of wild oat sowing I would find “the one” and that would be it. But I kept choosing the wrong people well past that phase and if they weren’t terrible then I would take on the role of the terrible one and destroy it myself. So when I did finally find the one, despite my best efforts I still managed to smash it into a million pieces just like all the others.

What I hadn’t considered was the idea that our soul, or higher self, or whatever you want to label it, has plans for us that don’t necessarily have anything to do with what our brain tells us we should have or do. Right after that break up happened I saw a fantastic tarot reader who told me that I was doing inner work and that’s why it had to be this way, that I hadn’t run into the ditch but was on course. I wanted to believe her but I also secretly believed that maybe she just didn’t know how royally I had fucked things up.

Now I’m realizing that there was a reason I was pushed in the deepest way to break from my ideas of who and where I was supposed to be. And who all of us are supposed to be, which is attached or at least desirous of attachment. And that maybe those assumptions actually had very little to do with what I truly needed or wanted, just like when I was a kid.

This seems pretty basic looking at it written down, but to me it’s not. Because it means that I am not broken, which is something I never even dared to consider. It means that although I definitely careened through those events like a monkey on a motorcycle, I was on my path. It means that my soul simply had another plan for me (and maybe his did too) that I only thought was flawed because I viewed it through eyes clouded by upbringing, society, expectation, fear of loneliness and pain, fear of hurting people, all of that. And that maybe, instead of just being chaotic devastation, it was meant to be a graduation of sorts.

Essentially, I couldn’t trust in my own goodness.

So on a more global, or at least friends-who-are-reading-this scale, I am telling you some embarrassingly personal stuff because I know from writing experience that if it’s happening to me, it’s happening to someone else. What if some of those things that you and I are inexplicably driven to do, that land you in foreign, often uncomfortable territory, are a step toward something deeper and more spirit enriching?

And what if we forgive ourselves for not being who we thought we should be – richer, prettier, in a happy marriage, admired by our peers, whatever. What if we’re supposed to have all these horrible and wonderful twists and turns and if we open up to or at least forgive ourselves for change we didn’t ask for, we will have an easier time processing the sadness and loss that inevitably comes with that change? What if we let go of all of these expectations and just try to be our best selves no matter where we land? And what if, if we are trying hard to be our best selves, we simply trust in our own innate goodness and allow life to unfold with a few less regrets?

Epic, for me at least. So I guess I’m grateful this asshole found a way to get in last night.

Love to you my friends. Please be safe and kind to each other in this bananas world we live in right now.

Kali Ma

First, this entry started out about one of my BFF’s, Storm Large, as she just slayed on AGT and is back on again on Peacock tomorrow.

But my equally awesome friend Elizabeth Grey covered it so well already that it feels unnecessary to add anything else, so this entry morphed.

Liz’s piece is here, read it, you won’t be disappointed: STORM WATCHING

Okay, let’s get on with it…

My current life is somehow copacetic, joyful even. It’s a new feeling.

I have discovered that the more I focus on my own inner healing and awareness, the more the outer smooths itself out with little or no assistance. It’s like learning how to drive: when you first get behind the wheel you keep looking at the front edge of the car and it wobbles back and forth, then you learn that if you change your focus past the front bumper and onto the road, things straighten out.

I am not the first person to figure this out; we hear it all the time. But no one ever mentions that it takes forever. It’s taken me decades to see results, starting from the 90’s when I realized I was fucked and got a therapist and bought and slogged through every self help book available (“Women Who Love Too Much”, anyone?).

But maybe no one sorts anything too well until later in life? Who are these people who have their shit together in their 20’s? It’s infuriating. I feel like I’ve been navigating a dark room with a lighter for much of my existence, and I’ll take clarity wherever and whenever I can get it.

I’ve spent much of my teenage and adult life focused on romantic relationships. I can’t even look at my teenage diaries, they’re so cringey and obsessive over boys and relationships. Wanting them, gaining them, falling in love, falling out of love, losing them, fighting within them, feeling bad about my behavior around them, feeling mad about other people’s behavior in them, throwing them away, losing them, mourning their loss, trying to get them back, etc. Obsession has been my best frenemy and the murderer of so, so much sleep. It has been all-consuming of both heart and brain; it has caused me the most pain, drama and embarrassment in my life. And it has taught me much, so much about myself.

When I lost my ex, or rather made it too difficult for him to stay, I took it very hard. It wasn’t as much the loss of romance as much as the loss of the person altogether. If the one person who is supposed to be THE person decides to never speak to you ever again, then the logical conclusion is that you must be the worst person on the planet. And I always assume everything is my fault anyway. So I blamed myself for all the bad stuff, exonerating him in an unrealistic way that made it impossible for me to feel okay about myself. I mourned that loss deeply and with great confusion, and with it I mourned the loss of the hope that I could be a good, healthy partner to someone. I mourned the dream of happiness in one special person. And mostly I questioned my own value to anyone anywhere in any capacity.

I have always fought a battle between what my brain knows I should do and what some deeper part of me insists I’m gonna do regardless of that acuity. I have stood at the edge of many metaphorical cliffs saying to myself, don’t jump, it’s gonna hurt, don’t jump, PLEASE don’t jump.

But I always jump. And then as I’m plummeting downward toward the inevitable crash I think, “Christ. Here we are AGAIN. You ASSHOLE.”

I hate falling, but I can’t stop from jumping. I hate change, but I make sameness impossible. Why? Why can’t I just BE GOOD? Clearly this must be due to being a deeply flawed human; why else would I choose to love terrible people, choose to behave in destructive ways, choose chaos over peace? I have felt a great shame and sadness over my own craziness, real and imagined.

But I finally get it. And I’m finally at peace with all of it. And losing that relationship was the leap that put me here. Not because not having that person in my life brings me happiness, but because I learned through that chapter that I did not come here in this body and life to master the perfect relationship with one other person or even a series of persons. I am here to master the relationship with my spirit. My soul has shoved me past logic so many times because those lessons/tools/information were not going to come any other way. Of course I prefer to learn and evolve through joy, and sometimes I do. But for whatever reason I, like most people, usually need a little hard experience to get the point.

When I was in the throes of my deepest sadness and regret I got some therapeutic energy work done and the woman working on me said, “I keep hearing the words ‘I’m sorry’.” I burst into tears and said, “Those words are a mantra on repeat in my head all day and night.” Those words were too small to convey the oceans of sorrow coursing through my system, so they just looped around through my being 24/7, like the blood in my veins.

She closed her eyes and took a moment and said, “But I also just got a clear image of Kali dancing in your heart.”

Ooh, that’s fancy! I liked that, although didn’t immediately feel better. But the work did help and the image of Kali has remained with me. Kali Ma, the fearsome great mother who destroys to create and heal–gotta shout out a big thank you to my friend Carla Kali Ma Salls for first informing me about this amazing Hindu goddess well before I was paying real attention to the spirit realm and its archetypes. If you aren’t currently aware of Kali, do a bit of googling, you won’t be disappointed.

So I knew that vision was to inform me that my heart was strong and knew what it was doing even when the rest of me was not yet on board with the plan. And that I had made some painful, life-breaking choices to burn shit down, burn that baggage from this life and probably others, to release dense energy that needed to go in order for me to become more whole, more self-forgiving, more forgiving of others, lighter, and closer to my divine nature.

Some people reading this will say that this is grand talk from someone who has a boyfriend. To that I will say that this information doesn’t change depending upon whether anyone is in a romantic relationship or not, it just happens to be the particular theme for me in this lifetime. Everyone has those places in their lives that lessons seem to revolve around–money, jobs, health, children, friends or romance. It’s all relationships anyway.

But to answer anyone with curiosity on my personal details – Sam and I have been able to create a trusted support system for one another. He is solid in ways that I’ve not experienced before and I believe he came into my life to help me propel and heal during a time when I needed a soft place to land. It is a safe place for both of us. But because we are at opposite ends of the adult spectrum, our connection is by no means a traditional partnership. We both make a lot of allowances for each other’s freedom and we both know that eventually we will have to make some kind of shift to accommodate the differences in our ages and trajectories.

That’s fully okay with me. I want him to have all the good and bad experiences in life that he’s meant to have, like falling madly in love with someone his own age and running wild with it. It’s hard for a 20-something rock star to run wild with his 50-something girlfriend who is currently obsessed with caftans and prefers a nice glass of champagne on the patio to partying with bands til the sun comes up. I’ve already had all those crazy rock and roll adventures that are new to him and at this stage in life I aspire to Lisa Vanderpump, not Sable Starr.

Although who are we kidding? Maybe more Dixie Wetsworth?

Whatever the outcome I know that my happiness is not dependent upon a relationship status. This is somewhat new for me.

Personal details aside, this is what I wish to impart: those parts of us that are most flawed and cause us the most pain are meant to be there because they are our greatest teachers. We are here in this life and body to learn and experience, but we have to pay attention and listen for the messages if we want to move forward. Sometimes we are pushed to operate in uncomfortable territory and it is dreadful. When we are in the middle of the pain or upheaval it’s difficult to get the information and it always seems to take far longer than we’d like.

In the case of my ex it has taken me years to get clear on what that was all about, to forgive myself and forgive him, and to see how perfectly our imperfections operate in order to bring us closer to our deepest selves. Which is, in my opinion, the true version of God: divine law, divine nature, divine energy, divine love– where we can reside in peace and wholeness.

Forgive yourself. Forgive them. Listen to your intuition. Let go of expectations. Love your present as best you can. Don’t cling to your past or get boxed into a corner by your past stories. Do the work and it will get better. I promise.

Oh, and get fucking vaccinated if you haven’t already. Don’t be a dick.

I bow to you, my friends.

Death By a Thousand Cuts

I talked to a friend yesterday who told me that he ran into what I guess could be called a frenemy. Said frenemy is a woman that I worked with years ago– beautiful, intelligent, similar East Village history. It was not a great combo; I found her abrasive, unnecessarily defensive and territorial, overall a very difficult coworker. At the time I hated every second in her presence and I’m sure she didn’t adore me either. But I could see that she had some good qualities in dealing with other people, and I got over it with time. I thought she did too.

I liken this later time in my life to senior year in high school, when everyone has managed to get close to the finish line and the cliques don’t matter so much. There is a camaraderie of making it through together. It feels the same, for the most part, with all of those rivalries and beefs we had in our youth. The grudges have faded and we’ve matured enough to get past some of the issues that created them in the first place.

The last time I saw this woman was a couple of years ago at a memorial for another mutual friend. We had a nice conversation about what had been going on with us since that job, and I felt good about our interaction and was grateful and pleased that things were friendly. I thought we were great.

So friend who ran into said frenemy said that she told him that the last time she’d seen me I was crying in a dive bar. Now–the part about me crying in the bar is undoubtedly true. As mentioned many times here, I went through a very difficult period a few years ago, and I was drinking and crying all over the damn place. BUT, that was most definitely NOT the last time she saw me and she knows it. The last time she saw me I was not crying or intoxicated and, side note, was wearing really good shoes and an excellent dress.

I was at first confused, then irritated. I thought about sending her a message asking essentially, “Bitch, why??” Why must you perpetuate this ancient, dried brown bad blood by purposely talking shit? Why, whyyyyyyyyyy??? Then my second thought was that if I were to send a message then I too would be perpetuating and it would turn it into a “thing”. And I’m practicing not turning a thing into a thing or being a “right fighter” (thanks, Dr. Phil!), meaning that I understand that I don’t always have to have the last word, and that it’s not my job to harass people for not thinking I’m as awesome as I think they should.

So I let it be. But I like to fester on things for as long as humanly possible in order to maximize internal suffering. And as I was gloomily ruminating (gluminating!) over it, I happened to catch a woman on TV discussing a seemingly unrelated topic, specifically about how movies have often negatively shaped female comparisons and opinions about ourselves, that somehow felt related. Because I am guessing the answer to the why question is a lingering feeling of competition and a need to cut a competitor into more bite sized pieces. So it feels like I’m being nudged to work on this a bit.

The BLM movement has caused me to examine my own personal role in perpetuating racism and white privilege, and it’s been both eye-opening and saddening. I am sad that it’s taken 2/3 of my life to ingest this information, and to understand fully that I have to be proactive in all of my conversations, thoughts and encounters if I want to be a part of the solution.

So along with this I am now also realizing that I must do the same with women. It is imperative to change some ingrained, learned behavior if we are ever to disassemble another prejudicial system–the patriarchy.

This is more complicated for me. First, just typing the word feels yucky. Not because I don’t feel that it exists and needs to be dismantled, but because I don’t like winging it on subjects that feel too large for me. I like to stick to my own little dust-ups and the information I can glean from them.

But this is indeed a personal dust up, if only inside my head. It’s clear that for her there is some residual dislike. In my mind it’s unwarranted, but not unexpected, because women are always suspicious of one another, and often shitty as a result. We slice each other to ribbons with sharp little criticisms, bits of whispered disapproval. gossip that sometimes lies, often exaggerates or gets it at least partially wrong. We undermine our own personal integrity with publicly sanctioned, often whispered, sometimes funny abuse of each other, which rewards us with a temporary feeling of control or superiority.

I have always been a girl’s girl, but I can also act as insecure and mean as anyone else when feeling attacked or defensive. I love words, humor and getting into people’s heads, so I can easily tear someone up either to their face or behind their back with those three things. I want to do better, do the right thing, and I’m definitely closer to it. But I’m realizing that maybe just trying to be nice isn’t the point, isn’t as far as I need to take it.

So what does taking it further entail? I don’t want fake niceness with people I don’t like. It seems kinder to be honest with someone than string them along passive-aggressively. I believe that if I am speaking my truth that gives the other party the control and freedom to live their own truth. So even if it’s not enjoyable in the moment, it’s a cleaner way of living.

So maybe it’s the way we deliver that honesty? I don’t want to give up my dark sense of humor, it keeps me afloat. But what about all the tiny, unnecessary ways that we injure each other without self-awareness, often without the other person’s awareness, under the guise of humor, or even worse, faux concern? The way we judge someone we don’t know or don’t like by weight or appearance, the way we make some snide comment or joke that we quietly know is unfair or bending the truth. And even if it is the truth, couldn’t it be possible to convey that information with compassion and empathy instead of with a sting?

I’m still sorting it out. I feel much more of a kinship with Cersei Lannister than Gandhi. I would very much enjoy blowing up my enemies with green fire while sipping wine. I come up with terrible nicknames for people in my head that no one needs to hear. I tend to snicker when someone who has tormented me falls, probably because it puts scary things/people in a more manageable, less threatening box, which feels empowering in the moment. Winning a war is comforting.

But in the end it’s only a seductive illusion. At the end of the day it denigrates both parties energetically/vibrationally. So that means that in order to move forward I have to start viewing a person as a full entity rather than that quick, disdainful assessment and boxing up that keeps me feeling safe.

This is almost scary; it feels too vulnerable. I’m finding that the first step for me personally is just to keep my big mouth shut. Utilizing a filter is pretty new to me, but I’m guessing that if I get more adept at carefully choosing words, the thoughts might follow. So forgiveness in this case, I think, doesn’t mean pretending it didn’t happen, but it means I can let it die on the vine without retaliation or comment. And I’m grateful for the awareness that came with this little dig. I’m thinking about it, writing about it, and hopefully gaining knowledge from it.

I’m thinking that it could be possible to approach dislike with integrity. It isn’t about reaching for sainthood or trying to be liked by everyone, which can be a form of self-judgment anyway, like “I will try to be better, and then maybe I will deserve love, but I can never be perfect, therefore I can never be loved.” The snake eats its tail.

Any time someone decides that I am behaving in a way they dislike or disapprove, the first criticism leveled at me is always “For someone who spends so much time pretending to be spiritual, you sure are… [insert insult here].” Possibly. It seems strange to criticize someone for working to improve, but it’s an easy dig in my case. For me, any spiritual leanings are primarily about finding ways to live and think that remove pain and create joy, because I hate feeling bad and much prefer to feel happy. So the goal, whether you call it spiritual work or not, becomes simply about protecting one’s peace of mind: I don’t want to waste one more minute of my life dealing with competitive schism because it makes me feel bad.

And then if that feels palatable, we can move to the admittedly more global/spiritual level, and consider that if we shift our own personal consciousness to be happier, that in turn nudges the collective conscious closer to a world in which we don’t have to make a decision on whether to deal with bitchiness or not, because it no longer exists as a standard or readily acceptable means of relating to one another.

Women can do better, people can do better, and I think many of us are ready for it. I do believe that we are in the age of Aquarius and that a new world is slowly coming to fruition. But it’s at a glacial pace and I get disheartened sometimes when I look at things on the large scale. These little changes feel more doable. I can’t control the world but I can control my small piece of it, and maybe influence someone whose small piece is adjacent to mine, and then boom! Patriarchy dismantled, all animals and children are treated with respect and kindness, people notice my awesome shoes and forget they saw me crying in a bar in 2016.

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Wot, fisticuffs?!

I have been debating posting this story (below) that I read recently at a livestream benefit for The Wild Project. I have all these tales from the past that people love, but that are most definitely not coming from a 2021 kinda woke place. Which is part of the reason that my friends love them, but sometimes I’m afraid to stir up certain old energies publicly, especially after a devastating break-up promptly followed by an unwarranted series off attacks I received in 2019 and 2020, starting with the laptop dummies, an ex’s impossible-to-placate girlfriend, a pissed off junkie I barely know, and a misogynist fool who is inexplicably angry at me because Sam doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. It was a parade of meanness, to the point that I have had so much vicious and erroneous shit said about me and to me via the internet that the attention is almost flattering.

Happily all of that misdirected hatred being flung like monkey poo seems to be in the rearview mirror. I’m sure they still hate me, but if I am not put in a position where I have to respond, they can feel however they want. The upside to all of that is a shiny new, much thicker skin and the lightness of emotional freedom.

in the good old summertime i dont care GIF

I was trained from an early age to mistrust my intuition and instinct, to say yes when I wanted to say no, to feel constant shame about my very being, my body, my thoughts, and to hide away my true self and true feelings or risk being punished or mocked. I have spent much of my adult life trying to understand what happened, how it unconsciously directed so many bad choices, and to clear out that baggage. I am only now becoming able to forgive myself for all of my shortcomings, and to at least contemplate the idea that I am not a bad person. Maybe even a good one? The mind boggles at the possibility.

I know that I have been given certain gifts this lifetime in order to speak for and to like-minded people who have similar experiences and feelings, and to allow a window into a life that some people would like to experience. I feel that connection and obligation when I write and I always try to be as true and honest as I can be within the confines of not outing or harming the people in my orbit. The attacks left me fearful and somewhat voiceless, but I’m ready to get back to what the Universe keeps nudging me to do, which is simply write it down when it circles my brain.

Okay, so with all of that in mind, here’s the story I read. I thought the theater would have the livestream up for viewing after the event, but it’s just as well that they didn’t because it was so effing cold in there that my nose ran and I shook so hard that it appeared I might have some substance issues of my own. If they ever do post it I’ll add the link. This is edited for a live situation, meaning some details are cut out for brevity’s sake.

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Betsy was going to get it.

I was Queen Vixen of the Cycle Sluts from Hell goddamnit. You did not fuck my man and walk away unscathed. I did not operate that way. I was a powder keg of emotion on a good day, and this was definitely not a good day. Or week. Or month.

I lost countless hours of sleep festering over the details: imagining her and my faithless boyfriend in bed together, smiling at each other over their clever deception. Then in order to keep my heart from exploding in agony I would imagine all the ways that I would make them suffer. I pictured tearing her throat out with my teeth or pushing my long fingernails into her eyes, blood spraying everywhere as she screamed in pain and terror.

This did bring some brief comfort.

She knew she was in trouble and laid low for months. I went everywhere with an army of loyal mean girls and we had a strict code about right and wrong, meaning mostly that we got to do whatever we wanted while less locked-in females did not. We brooked no disrespect in our scene.

I kept an eye out constantly but by the time she finally showed up at a Manowar concert at the Ritz, I had almost forgotten to scan the crowd for her basic brown bob. So it was a surprise when she passed me in the fray of people, distracted and smiling with friends.

The audacity. I felt myself go hot; red flashed behind my eyes and flooded through my body and my vibrating arm shot out of its own accord before anyone could register what was happening. Cycle Slut sisters Dolly Dagger and Nyquil Nancy slammed into my back as I stopped short and lunged.

I snatched Betsy by the front of her shirt and yanked her face close to mine. I held my lit cigarette an inch from her cheek while tall, scary Nancy and always-up-for-a-scuffle Dolly glared backup behind me. We were dressed in our uniform of short leather jackets, cut off denim shorts and thigh high leather boots, looking (intentionally) like something out of a 70’s B-grade biker film.

Time slowed and stretched. Betsy stood very still, her two friends frozen wide-eyed behind her. Her eyes flicked down to the cigarette and back to me.

I said, “You fucking bitch. You whore. You think you can just show up and hang out now? You think you still have that right? I’m going to fucking kill you, you know that? I’m going to kick your fucking ass.”

Still glancing at the cigarette millimeters from her cheek, she replied in a shaky voice, “There’s nothing to fight over. I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want Curt. You can have him.”

I smiled grimly and hissed, “Oh, but I don’t want him. I want YOU.”

I shoved her away from me and she stumbled backward into her friends. A long-haired dude watching nearby said, “Hey, that last line was pretty good! Did you make that up on the spot?” I ignored him and stomped away to try to get my pals working security to throw her out of the club.

After that, it was only a matter of time. She continued to avoid venues and parties that I might venture into, which was pretty much anything rock and roll based on any night. She would show up here and there, never staying if she spotted me. And I always made sure that she spotted me. I reached out through the crowd and slapped her hard on the back of the head as she walked through the Scrap Bar. I shoved her at the Cat Club. She had a friend with her, a seat-filler who looked a bit like me and considered herself my competition. She got in my face and shouted, “Leave her alone, Raff!”

I said, “You’re gonna get it too, you fucking cunt.” I snatched her bondage cap off her head and threw it into the crowd. It sailed over the dance floor like a Frisbee.

“Go get your hat, twat. You look like shit without it.”

Eventually though, Betsy tired of life underground. There was a lot of fun to be had back then and she was too young to stay home.

Raging Slab headlined a gig at a club called Downtown, and it was one of those nights where everyone and their bass player showed up. My band, my unfaithful boyfriend’s band Blitzspeer, Joey Ramone, Circus of Power, White Zombie, the Hells Angels… Everyone attended this show, including her.

I was primed for it, and when she walked a little too closely to me as I took a swig of beer, I chose the opportunity to spit a mouthful of liquid directly into her face. It was harsh; I shocked even myself with the crassness of it. She looked stunned for a moment as beer and spit dripped down her face, and then her expression shifted awake and she jumped on me, grabbing for my hair. Her sister pounced on Nancy. Other girls jumped in and within seconds there was a full on girl brawl on the dance floor: hair pulling, screaming, bystanders getting knocked out of the way. I’ve never seen anything like it, before or since.

I had been counting down to this moment. Betsy was not a person to me anymore, she was simply the Enemy, capital E. She embodied all the pain and betrayal, real or imagined, that I’d experienced up until then: the self-esteem obliteration that comes with being raised Catholic, daddy issues and abandonment of death, the diabolical behavior of high school girls, date rape, Curt’s incessant lies and verbal cuts, myriad major and minor heartbreaks, real or imagined. I was drowning in sadness and anger was the only thing that kept me afloat. I had managed to climb out of the Midwest and recreate myself as a big fish in the rock and roll pond of New York City, and I should have enjoyed it, but sadly I never did. Instead I lived like there was a war on. All I ever thought about was defense. Better to burn than to feel burning tears.

I exploded outwardly, tight fists swinging at her face. Betsy continued to pull my hair trying to hold my head down. I flung my purse off my arm and grabbed at her hands with one hand and punched upward with the other, where I knew my fist could connect. She was no match for me but she held onto my hair with a deathgrip. I kicked her off her feet and shoved us both to the ground.

I wore a Zack ring, which was very popular at the time, solid pewter with heavy jagged edges pointing straight upward. It was a small but evil weapon. I slammed my fist into her as she crouched on her knees, now just trying to protect her face with her hands and the ground. I could only make contact with her forehead, but I hit it with full force. It felt good to hit her, hit something firm and real for a change. I couldn’t feel the ring cutting into my hand.

The fight was broken up quickly enough; the boys grabbed their flailing girlfriends and dragged them apart. Betsy and friends left or were ejected and our side retired victorious to the bathroom for clean-up. My bag had been stolen. I had a bleeding scratch over my lip and my hand ached from so much pounding, the ring finger cut and bruised. We fixed our faces; I wiped away the blood on mine. Nancy and I hugged and I said, “I fucking love you man!”

I could not have been happier. We went back to the bar where Butch, the president of the Hell’s Angels, had a celebratory kamikaze shot waiting for me. But as he handed me the glass his eyes widened and he said, “Cops are here, you gotta hide.”

Someone shoved us into a back room, but it was too late. Seconds later the door flew open to reveal two cops with Betsy behind them with a swollen, bloody forehead. It looked like raw meat. Nancy and I were handcuffed in front of all of our friends and led wild-eyed out of the club.

I was stunned. This possibility had never occurred to me. No one ever called the cops in New York in the 80’s. You just duked it out and then went back on about your business. Sometimes you’d buy each other a drink afterward and become best friends.

I was held in the 9th precinct, then chained hands and feet to a group of other female arrestees, then hauled in a van to the Tombs, where I spent the better part of a weekend laying on cold concrete, learning the intricacies of crack use and street prostitution. It was the longest 30 hours of my life. Curt called my mom to tell on me and she laughed and said, “Well, she’s your problem now!”

I was lucky. Nancy went to jail too, so I had a friend along for the dry bologna sandwiches and wailing junkies writhing around us on the floor. Our arresting officers liked us and gave us candy bars and helped me pass off the ring surreptitiously to Curt before going in. Otherwise it would have been considered a weapon and brought with it a felony assault charge. Rock writer Lisa Robinson wrote about the arrest in the Post, and Bob Gruen photographed me leaning on the cop car, so the band got some press out of it. Eventually Betsy dropped the charges in exchange for my promise to stop tormenting her, which set me on the road to some of the deeper lessons in my life: humility, compassion, forgiveness… impulse control. She went on to get a black belt in karate, I’m assuming, just in case. We are friendlier now and I promised that I wouldn’t make her look too bad. She’s a mom now and I changed her name here.

Decades later Betsy told me that after the fight she went to a friend’s house to get a knife, to wait in front of my apartment and kill me when I came home. The wannabe in the bondage cap talked her into calling the police. I should have beat her up instead, I discovered later that she was calling Curt late at night behind both our backs; Betsy just managed to get there first. In any case, I think I probably would have preferred the early morning knife fight back then. I thought I was going to die young and that kind of end could have made me a legend. Curt would be sorry, she’d go to prison, my friends would hold a big memorial, it would have been glorious. But life sometimes has other, more mundane plans in mind. Still, I get a good giggle out of thinking about it. So much passion! Like West Side Story but with sluttier outfits.

A few years ago, a much better boyfriend than Curt, upon hearing this story, rolled his eyes and said, “You can’t just beat everyone up, Mary.” To which I replied, “Well, I know that…NOW.”

It is certainly easier to be 50 than it is to be 20. It’s taken me a long time to understand that when we operate defensively we are often at our most offensive. But that which does not kill us, makes us friends on facebook, and that’s kind of okay.

Survival Mode

I have always been of the opinion that most people are decent and do their best, but 2020 is doing it’s own best to test that opinion.

This year has separated us out in extreme ways. The obvious – Red vs. Blue, rich vs. poor, those are easy to see. But there’s a deeper rift. Fear and inability to adapt to change make some people behave in terrible ways. We are seeing so much rage in the streets, in social media, in the news. It’s daunting, to say the least, especially when people are already worried about money and their health. Having to look over your shoulder to go to the grocery store when you already can’t breathe in a mask feels like too much. Not knowing when you can go back to work and stopping by Facebook to get hit in the face with conspiracies and rage, that’s too much. It’s all too much right now.

I started this blog on myspace, for my close friends. I had always kept a diary as a kid so writing stories and thoughts came easily. It was both an outlet and a means of connecting with people I liked. I had maybe 10 readers on a good day and I was fine with that. Over time it expanded and if I’m writing regularly I get 2000-3000 hits a month. During that shift an awakening happened for me in which I realized that everything I felt: sadness, joy, pain, confusion, etc., were exactly the same things that everyone else felt in their lives and psyches. It was a light bulb switching on. Then added to that gift, I discovered that my expression of my own feelings helped other people feel less alone and make sense of their own feelings. I get emails, Facebook messages, texts, and the connection and healing brings me joy. And through that connection I was able to understand the lofty spiritual concept of “all one” that I had been struggling with up until then.

I have never been private about what is happening with me, unless to protect someone else. My attitude has always been that I’d rather people get the story from the horse’s mouth than through a game of telephone. And because I have been in a bubble of positive messages and connections, I never imagined that there would be a contingent of watchers who do not wish to connect, who view the world with suspicious and jealous eyes, and to them my stories meant to entertain or inform look like bragging. These people do not rejoice in others success or wish others well. So this blog, and my social media can also a place to mine for ammunition.

It’s disturbing.

Over the last two or three years I’ve both found a lot of happiness and success, and at the same time have had the absolute shit beaten out of me. The one person I thought would always love me and be in my life cut me out altogether. Then came the two dummies with their never-ending, very public laptop theft smear campaign that went on for months and months. Then I got attacked and called an embarrassment for posting old photos of me from the 90’s with someone else’s boyfriend. Got over that, then fake pages designed to humiliate me and my friends were created on Facebook. And during all of this there was a smattering of people that I had blocked on Instagram and Facebook who still managed to get to my page, using spouses and friend’s social media, and then commenting on their pages about anything I posted or did. Grown people waiting like spiders for real or imagined transgressions to pounce upon and publicly suck dry.

Again, disturbing.

I am always determined to understand the reasons for bad moments because I don’t want to have to repeat any lesson that comes my way. I’ve had enough of learning things the hard way. I don’t have the anger I used to carry; it’s been replaced by curiosity and a desire to heal. So each time one of these things has happened I’ve asked myself, “What have I done to create this for myself?” Or maybe more accurately, “What is the energy that I am vibrating that is aligning with hurtful energy?”

Sometimes it seems that some people are shitty and jealous regardless of how nice you try to be to them. Sometimes I get the reason for the experience. After laptopgate I finally stopped caring what people were thinking or saying about me and that was an important step in my evolution. It was a painful way to burn off baggage, but it worked.

I thought I was past any more of that nonsense, lesson learned. Then last week I received an overlong, threatening, vicious, unhinged diatribe from an acquaintance who doesn’t like that I don’t like Trump. Up until that time this person had been sending me nice messages here and there so I never imagined that there was an issue. In this lengthy missive I was called grandma, a joke, a braggart, a scammer, ugly, embarrassing, pretty much any insult you can hurl at a woman of a certain age, along with a final threat to troll my neighborhood (having paid attention to where I live) for some kind of old lady throw down. And the most frightening, unwritten message was in between the lines: I am being watched very closely by eyes with malevolent intent behind them.

It was disconcerting to say the least. Then while processing that, mere hours later I got another message from a blocked person, a grown man with children and a business, reiterating that everyone laughs at me for my age and braggadocio, that I scam for a living and have no real friends. I answered as compassionately as I could and told him not to contact me again. And then because I didn’t respond in kind, later that night he set up a fake instagram profile to try to humiliate me. So boom, another person lurking in the shadows, watching and waiting for the chance to attack.

I have been given a lot in this life and I know these people think I’ve taken too much. I write stories about my rock and roll adventures because my friends find it entertaining, these people assume it’s because I’m trying to put myself up on some kind of pedestal which they must then knock down. My relationship with Sam infuriates many because he is so much younger. It’s as if I’ve taken all the steak at the buffet table. My work life is chugging along and the rewards are visible, so I must be kissing ass and scamming to make that happen. And I have been called beautiful for too long, it’s high time to let me know that I am no longer young enough to be told that again.

Anyway, my intention for this blog is not to drum up a conversation about my haters. We have much bigger fish to fry and I get that this is an elegant problem when most people are in survival mode. I tell you all this because it is making me think about what kind of mindset is necessary for survival right now. So what I really want to talk about is how we remain in the light during a year when there is very little of it to be had. And I want to understand how we take care of ourselves in this current world of lurking haters, self-serving leaders, and divided opinions.

I think this is a dialogue we need to be having with each other on the reg. We cannot survive this time period intact without constantly supporting and loving each other through it. I would not be able to take the high road with my current haters if I didn’t have a support system of loving people around me who remind me every day, through their actions and words, to not step into the muck that is being placed before me. I want to be able to pay that forward somehow.

I watched and posted a short video recently in which a woman stated that we are going to be seeing more and more rage over the next few months, and that it is our job as light workers not to allow it to become part of us. But what does that mean? How can people not feel afraid, angry, hurt, frustrated, overtaxed, and desperate under the current circumstances? And how do you keep from reacting or operating from those feelings?

I believe that our souls are in the matrix experimenting with different ways of being: different bodies, different experiences, many lives. But even if you think the same way, those lofty ideas don’t help much in the physical world when rent is due and there is no income or our loved ones are ill. It’s annoying to hear this shit when reality feels so real right now. But my mother and her new agey sources continue to tell me that we chose to be here during this pivotal time because we were ready to act as light workers or we were up for the challenge in some other way.

This is my mindset today, and I hope it can help any of you who are struggling: I understand that it’s okay to feel and acknowledge the overwhelming anger and frustration, but at the same time I can still make a conscious choice on how I react, on whether I perpetuate and pass on the negativity or let it stop with me. Maybe it’s just a drop in the bucket of collective consciousness, but it appears that every drop is needed right now. And at the end of the day I’m simply happier if I don’t engage in the bullshit. I want to be happy. I want you to be happy, even you haters, not because I’m a saint but because I’m selfish and your shitty vibrations impact mine.

Lastly, it’s my birthday tomorrow. I’m turning 58. I’ve never written my exact age because I don’t like being tethered to any number when there are so many other factors. But because so many of the insults hurled at me lately have to do with my age, sadly from people who are in the same age range, it feels appropriate to say it this year. I have no shame about my time on this planet, and my value doesn’t begin and end with whether I’m deemed fuckable or not. You can’t injure me by calling me old or grandma. That’s the beauty of reaching crone status: we don’t have the time and energy for your petty shit when there’s a world that needs fixing.

Namaste, bitches. Thank you for all that you do every day to make this world a better place.

It’s Not Me It’s You

I’m currently reading an autobiography by someone in a famous band. It’s a great read but I’m not going to type out the name here because I prefer to fly under the search engine radar so that it’s primarily friends reading this.

A million years ago, in the 90’s, I had a moment with the singer of the band in said book (not the writer). Essentially he saw me at a show, liked what he saw and pursued me fairly intensely. He won me over (not too difficult to do back then if you were skinny, attractive and in a band), we hung out a few times in New York when he was here, spent a weekend in Philly together, and then he dropped me like the proverbial hot potato. In mid-phone call. Like one minute I was getting postcards from the road and we were chatting about something fairly benign on the phone, the next he said he had to go and hung up abruptly and I never heard from him again.

Well, never heard from him again in any real way. About six months later he showed up at my job looking sheepish, primarily because his bass player was dating my friend and she dragged them in. He apologized and said he’d take me out to dinner the next day and to make a reservation wherever I wanted. His band was filming for VH1 unplugged in the morning and he asked if I wanted to go to that as well. I said no because I was in the middle of bartending until 4 am and I didn’t want to have to try to look cute that early in the morning, but that I’d see him at dinner. Which I did not, because he ghosted me again after I spent a day excited about it and planning out what to wear. So essentially he blew me off hard, twice. I cried into takeout with clean hair and a red dress laid out on the bed.

It was a bummer. And he got so stupid famous so quickly right after we met that his photo and voice were everywhere. It stung to know I was on the outside of that. But happily it hadn’t lasted long enough for me to get seriously hurt and I would never have been able to handle it anyway. I was in no mental or emotional shape to take on a rock star at that level. So it was all for the best.

But at the time I didn’t see that, I just thought that I screwed up majorly, as usual. That I was too open about liking him and about who I was and it caused him to lose interest. In the beginning when I didn’t care he was all over me, once I opened up about who I really was, not as cool or sexy as I put on and in actuality pretty midwest normal, he was gone in a flash of roadrunner smoke. I got over him but I didn’t get over the idea that I was the sole fly in the ointment.

I had one photo with him from that brief time that a friend sent through myspace that I didn’t keep, because it was terrible. He and I were walking down the street together but looked completely separate energetically. I had my usual big, stupid, no idea I’m about to get stomped on grin on my face, while he appeared decidedly unhappy. We’d might as well have been on different planets. It was a visual representation of what I couldn’t see.

And then every time I ran into him over the years, which happily wasn’t often, it was some less than ideal situation in which I was still suspect. Like I was having a crap week and ended up sitting by myself in a dive bar one evening after work, visiting a bartending friend and sulking into a glass of whiskey, trying to be deep and jaded like a character in a noir film, but looking less than stellar in slightly tearstained, day-worn makeup and some crappy basic work outfit. In he walks with a much more put-together girlfriend with much cleaner hair and no runny mascara. Oh yay, hey, it’s me, the weird lonely woman you screwed a few times, drinking in a bar by herself. Nothing depressing to see here! Or another time when I passed him on the street looking cheap as hell in an accidentally too lowcut dress for the time of day, covered in dog hair and saliva as I wrangled my brain-damaged Pekingese who happened to be in mid-seizure at that moment. Bet you’re sorry now that you let go of all this magic, you bastard!

I am the Lucille Ball of rock chicks.

I recently told my business partner that the thing to remember when fighting with me is that I secretly believe that all conflict is due to me being fatally flawed, so if we ever have a bad argument he just has to wait it out to win. I will get angry and argue stridently, but then I’ll go home and dissect all the ways I should or shouldn’t have done or said this or that. And then I’ll feel so bad about myself I’ll eventually capitulate to whatever is placed on the table.

I also had a conversation with my supersmart friend Grace, one of those ones where you sit in your apartment after a night out and just break it all down with tears and oversharing. She listened to me spill about the pain and confusion I still feel at times about the losses over the last few years, how hard it has been for me to heal and and how deeply it hurt me that some key people I loved simply stopped caring about me. This was coupled with the added insult to injury that at the same time that these deeper abandonments were happening, strangers were going out of their way to hurt me over imaginary laptop theft and old photo posting*. It was all too overwhelming to be coincidence, but why?

*See past blogs if you’re interested.

I mean, I know the spiritual reasons why – change, expansion, growth, clearing old energy to make way for the new. Blah, blah, barf. I get it. But that mental knowledge doesn’t change how the heart feels. And because of the aforementioned secret thought that every action and reaction around me is bearing upon my behavior and “badness” or “goodness”, not being able to fix these connections means that I failed. My failure. Not good enough. Never good enough. If only. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. The brain contorts in excruciating fashion.

Happily, Grace said something pretty basic that I needed to hear, which was “You can’t control people. People have their own trajectories and demons and feelings separate from anything to do with you, and you can’t always create the outcome you want no matter what you do or say.”

I hadn’t considered that. What is this lack of control that you speak of?

So now I’m reading this book and guess what! It turns out that this particular guy who I assumed was amazing and who rejected me for not being amazing, is in fact BATSHIT CRAZY. Like more than usual singer crazy. Like bipolar and narcisisstic crazy. Like impossible to get along with crazy. Like someone I don’t know that I’d want to be friends with crazy. Like exactly like a psycho, sociopathic ex-bandmate that I will never speak to again crazy.

Oh.

OH!

OOOOOHHHH!

So could it be possible that this particular rejection, and maybe others in my life, may have had less to do with my awesomeness or lack thereof than I assumed? Maybe that one photo just captured me being my optimistic self and his darkness in that moment was his own? And in following that train of thought, does that mean that the decisions of others are not necessarily directly influenced by the things that I do or say? And does this mean that the world, in fact, does not revolve around me??

Impossible! No! This cannot be. And yet….

The amount of thought and energy wasted on that one situation that could have been dismissed almost immediately, then add that to the myriad situations one has in a lifetime–the mind boggles. Suffice to say that I’m pretty glad I picked the book up.

So when will we be able to relax and allow ourselves to be who we are and shine clearly without all that fog? I dunno. I’m not sure it’s possible to move forward without truthful self-examination, but where does dissection end and flagellation begin? We screw up, we get up, we do better next time. Some people get us and like us, some people never will, and some people seem like they do but then let us down. That’s life. I’m tired of thinking about it in any other way than to focus on the people and opportunities that lie in front of me. The rest, at the end of the day, is all noise.

At least until #45 and the coronavirus take us all down.

I kid! I kid!! Namaste, bitches. Wash your hands.

Armageddon

Ugh. I have resisted writing on this topic for so long.

As much as I like to be as open and honest as I can be, there are many limitations to writing what is essentially a public diary – I can’t spill other people’s secrets, I don’t want to stir the pot with that small cadre of foul people who seem to live to watch and comment upon what the rest of us do in the trolliest of fashion, I want to focus on the good stuff, etc. And of course I would prefer not to put myself out there as uncool or unsexy, which this most definitely is.

The “this” I’m talking about is “the big change”. That phenomena that happens to all women when they reach a certain age. That thing that renders us the butt of jokes, unfuckable, no longer valuable or interesting, hardens us into crones to be relegated to one small corner to either never be heard from again or heard from too much as we complain about the price of wine while collecting cats and pretending not to notice the eye-rolls of strangers. Young women make sure to mention that you’re old if young men act too interested, young men look through you instead of at you. All the cliches of the disappeal of aging are upped to the final level once you admit to no longer bleeding.

The Best Jewish Jokes in 'Big Mouth' Season 3 - Alma

I too made the old comments regularly. This is me at the 5 minute mark on Morton Downey a few decades ago telling someone they’re too old to rock. So cocky. So fertile. So dumb.

So here I am many moons later, a bit less arrogant and now feeling conflicted but compelled to talk about this dirty secret that’s not so secret. I can’t stay on the downlow anymore because every time I have a conversation about it with a friend we end up telling each other something we didn’t know and then marveling at how confusing it all is. The majority of us are in the dark regardless of how much information is out there because it doesn’t fully make sense unless you’re living it. And most everything you read is so fucking positive and glossy that it only serves to frustrate and isolate if you’re not having that kind of experience. Which so far, no one that I know is.

Men, you need to know this too if you have any women in your life over 40. If you’re gay, kudos to you for side-stepping the whole mess. But even then it can’t hurt to understand why some of your female friends are suddenly acting so weird.

So allow me to be the one to sing the dirge. Periomenopause is armageddon. Full on devastation ARMAGEDDON. It is the zombie apocalypse of the female soul. It is hot, ashen death on a flaming horse, galloping into your life and wiping out everything safe and known in its path with a black scythe forged of confusion and sadness. It is the red wedding, albeit with less blood.

Many years ago I asked my mom what to expect and she said, “Eh, it’s not much. A few hot flashes here and there.” So I danced into my forties thinking, “I got this.” Completely forgetting that my mother is hard as nails and not one for fussy bedside stuff, despite being a registered nurse. When I was a kid we pretty much had to have a limb hanging off before she’d get concerned. Example: Myv sister cut her head open and needed a stitch or two. Mom took two chunks of hair on either side of the cut and tied them together. There, you’re fine, don’t touch it for a while, walk it off.

Which is not to say that she isn’t/wasn’t a loving and nurturing mother. She just had too many kids and didn’t get overly excited very often. This works in my favor in some ways; I’m not easily flustered by illness and don’t need a lot of attention when I’m sick. I’m calm in a crisis. One time, when I was very young, in the epicenter of the HIV crisis, a shitty doctor at a free clinic took a look at my baby starter tattoo and leather gear and told me I probably had AIDS. Instead of panicking like most people would, I told him he was an asshole and walked out. My friends were astounded at my lack of concern. It wasn’t that. I just knew from a young age that my destiny was going to be of the walking it off variety.

So I had a certain pride about my hardiness and entered the thunderdome unconcerned and unprepared. After that conversation (lies!) with my mother, I did read up on it casually, pre-symptom, but only because people kept handing me books about the topic. I guess they assumed it was time to get me thinking about it, maybe they knew something I didn’t. I would flip through the pages and quickly get bored with the science. The gist, it seemed, was that there would be some minor discomfort here and there, but that it would also be this wonderful, special time of change and growth.

Turns out not so much wonderful or special. But the discomfort was present and accounted for. One day I woke up and hot flashes had arrived. I thought, why am I suddenly on fire? Am I dying?

The term hot flash only brushes the surface of the experience. It’s like calling Godzilla a gecko. It’s in the vicinity, but a few miles away. One minute you are a normal, functional, rational human being and the next you are out of your mind with the raging desire to tear off your clothes and run screaming into the street begging someone to throw cold water on you. Why don’t the books describe that?

One time at the start the ex and I were having sex and I had a flash in the middle of it. He said it was like fucking the sun. And then in a “flash” (see how I did that there?) they were happening every hour. At night I would fall asleep only to wake up an hour later burning up, to then throw off all the covers and open the windows in the dead of winter, fall back asleep, then wake up freezing a short time later. Rinse and repeat.

I became chronically exhausted from lack of REM sleep. I couldn’t think straight and was often prickly and weepy. Finally after months of trying every useless, often expensive, black cohosh bullshit product on the shelves, I went to my gyno, an adorable little Chinese lady who thankfully finds me entertaining, and took her by the lapels of her white lab coat, looked into her sweet, warm, brown eyes and snarled, “Fix this!!!!!!!”

Okay, I didn’t actually touch her. I think I probably cried and complained until she got the level of desperation. She put me on hormone replacement therapy, which did help. I still had hot flashes but less frequently so I only woke up once or twice during the night. I read up on it in earnest this time and found numerous reasons to throw books across the room. One woman talked about how she loved how it felt like she was burning off her old self, and she cherished the flashes for ushering her into her new, energetically fresh world. I made a mental note to to find her and smother her to death with a leftover maxipad, once I got a full night’s sleep.

I have read that many women suddenly decide to get divorced when they hit this stage in life. One minute things are fine and the next he’s gotta go. I’m guessing it’s because the nesting urge fades. When you have all those breeding/coupling hormones flowing in your body you will gladly do what it takes to be in a relationship. You will feather that nest with sandwiches and blowjobs to make sure your partner is happy and thinks you’re wonderful. Once that need to breed shifts, you think, “Make your own goddamn sandwich. And bring me a fan and some ice cubes on your way back.”

I’m not saying that the desire to be in a relationship disappears, but it shifts for many. In my case the vase cracked open in all the weak spots and the room was flooded. And because I didn’t fully understand what was happening to me, I couldn’t find my way back in time to repair it and keep from drowning. I needed to take some time off to run wild in the streets and sort out my head and he couldn’t deal with the madness. I hurt him too much. So he grabbed the first non perio-woman he could find and moved her into his apartment immediately, where things could again be safe and warm, never to look back again. It was devastating.

Meanwhile, my brain was so hot it was on constant overload. I picked up a then 24-year old boyfriend who is somehow oddly fearless in the face of lady issues. I drank and partied like I was 24 myself. I wept and wept and wept. I think I cried every night for a solid year. I’ve talked about this a lot already, but in the context of perio-menopause–at its peak I felt I was too damaged and crazy to continue and swallowed a bottle of pills while drunk and weeping. Which of course scared the crap out of my family and friends and didn’t do much to make me seem less crazy. Up until the change I’d always been able to keep a bit of a lid on the madness. Now it was really out there for the world to see. And the ex didn’t even send a text to see if I was okay. That was a big pill to swallow in itself but indicative of how far I had been swept out to the deep, black bottomless part of the sea, by my hormones, by this shift in life.

It was not a healthy or happy time. But is a zombie apocalypse of the body and soul ever healthy and happy? Unless maybe you’re some kind of super evolved uberwoman who has the good nature, healthy upbringing and foresight to view it all as a holy flame burning off the dead branches of our wise tree selves. Which alas, I am not.

But it does turn out that it kind of is exactly that. I did exorcise much stuff that needed to go–pain and shame that had been buried in my cells my whole life. I am infinitely clearer and stronger because of it. I can honestly say I’m happy now. But I would have preferred to get here via the cool breeze of wisdom feathering across my face instead of the hot balls of hormonal chaos teabagging me til I gasped for air.

So here’s what I have for you through my own trial and error. If you’re at a certain age and feel like you’re going crazy, it’s most likely because you are. If it feels like it sucks that’s probably because it does. Talk to other women your age. Try not to destroy your relationships until you can get a hold on what is real and what is hormonally charged. But don’t beat yourself up too much if you do, and if your psyche is screaming at you to take a step backward or forward, be brave and do it. Just know that some people may not want to wait for the dust to settle and losing them is a chance you might have to take. Life has a way of forcing change whether we’re ready for it or not.

Practically – read anything Dr. Christiane Northrup has to say. She’s not annoying and she knows everything about everything. Try all the herbal remedies that people recommend and then when that doesn’t work don’t be afraid to go to your doctor and ask about hormone replacement therapy. Don’t let anyone shame you into thinking you have to do it “naturally” if that option isn’t helping.

And lastly, and most importantly, know that this too shall pass and if you do the inner work you will come out better on the other side. I finally shed 15 lbs that I’ve been trying to lose for a decade. It melted off with very little effort and I know it’s because my hormones are evening out and my body is ready for a new, very much alive chapter. I still feel sexy and vibrant. The idea that it’s a death of all things feminine is a lie, just like these happy women saying it isn’t a death is a lie. It is most definitely a passing of who we were. But like all deaths, it’s also a portal into a new season.

Probably the season of the witch, but I’ll take it, and gladly.

Okay, let’s not talk about this again. If you see me in person, you keep your filthy whore mouth shut unless you’re waving a fan and asking me for ice cubes.

Nadege

I’ve been debating on whether to write this because it’s a mixed emotional bag and I don’t want it to get misconstrued. But Nadege deserves to be remembered and I can feel that she wants me to put this out there.

When I first saw Nadege, in the late 80’s, she was a drug addict bumming change on Avenue A. She looked like an exotic cat fallen on hard times, slightly ratty around the edges but compelling. Her eyes were remarkable, green and slanted, wide-set in a face with wide cheekbones and a quirky slash of a mouth. She wasn’t classically pretty, but she was beautiful. She was sullen, so of course I liked her. I gave her all the change in my purse.

I had a nightmare of a boyfriend throughout that time period who then became my husband for a short time in 1990. He was beautiful, also with green cat eyes wide-set in a face with wide cheekbones, also a drug addict, although on again off again due to my constant codependent hammering. He was the most faithless human being I have known then or since. He was also always broke and had no problem letting me cover all the bills while he smoked weed and cheated on me nonstop with whatever stripper or grade C groupie that was available on any given night. I was so in love with him that I couldn’t see straight.

Usually he turned his forays into new vaginal territory into sordid little affairs that always ended badly. We had a pattern: I would find out, freak out, attack him and the female either physically or verbally, break up with him in a huge screaming match, he would continue to fuck the new person and some extraneous others until he got bored and sad, then come crawling back. I would usually find a really nice boyfriend and then ruin it to take him back. It was all awful, and whenever I think about it I feel deeply grateful that I will never have to take that cosmic class again.

So one day I showed up at boyfriend’s band rehearsal to pick him up for the night, and Nadege was there. I didn’t know her name at that point and it seemed suspect, so I asked pointedly, “Why is that junkie here?” He told me that she was newly sober and hanging out with his sober singer. Hmm… She wouldn’t look at me and since we were the only two non-band members in the room, it felt rude and uncomfortable. I decided I did not like her so much after all.

You can guess where this is going. Shortly after that boyfriend started exhibiting all the signs of having started a new affair, which was essentially not coming home when he was supposed to and acting smug when I grilled him about it. After a couple of days of my haranguing he admitted it and I broke up with him…again.

I quickly sleuthed out who the latest one was–that fucking French doper. No wonder she was such a bitch at the rehearsal. I hit the ceiling. I want my change back!

I would see her out at clubs and it made me crazy. I wanted to set her on fire. I was at the top of the NYC band hierarchy at that point and had a pretty extensive gang of rabid girlfriends who would back whatever I decreed, so I advised everyone that if they spoke to her they were dead to me. So they glared at her dutifully and one time at the Cat Club I spit a big wad of gum into her hair. She told me later on that someone pointed it out to her and she said, “Oh yeah, that’s Raff…”

Boyfriend quickly tired of this conquest and I missed him, so when he snuck into my building and left a giant, elaborately carved pumpkin in front of my apartment door on Halloween, I took him back.

A couple of months later found me in sweatpants carrying a bag of laundry heading to my apartment on First Street. I saw Nadege walking in my direction and became hot with rage. As we passed each other I spit in her face, a ridiculous gesture considering the giant bag in my arms that I could barely see over.

Nadege called after me in her thick accent, “Raffaele! I want to talk to you!”

I said, “Go fuck yourself, you fucking bitch. I will fucking kick your ass right here in the street!”

She was unfazed and shouted at the back of my head,

“Wait a meenute! Listen to me. What I deed was wrong. But I ‘ave paid for eet. I paid. Hee made me pay.”

I stopped and turned around. She continued,

“I ‘ave paid. You ‘ave paid. Eee never pays. Eee should pay!!”

All rage drained out of me. I set the laundry down on the sidewalk and eyeballed her up and down. I sighed and said, “Do you want to come up for some tea?”

She smiled and said “Yes.”

Much to boyfriend’s chagrin, we became immediate best friends. She began dating the sober singer of his band. When I left boyfriend/then husband for good, she helped me pack all of his shit into garbage bags and lug it down five flights from my place, into a cab, and then up three flights into his singer’s apartment before they got back from a trip to LA. We both dated guys in The Black Crowes for half a second and she comforted me when it became clear that Chris Robinson was just not that into me while Johnny Colt was way more into her.

Then our paths diverged. I had my band and my constant search for enlightenment. Nadege had meetings and her sober friends but she could never get comfortable. She hated stripping but it’s all she knew how to do to make money. She had countless, often brilliant, get rich quick schemes but she didn’t know how to follow through with any of them. She could have been a professional dancer but never had the training. I would stop by her apartment to hang out and she would lay in bed with the blinds drawn, chain-smoking and complaining in her thick accent. It felt claustrophobic.

We all knew she wasn’t going to be able to stay clean. She stopped going to meetings and started this weird polyamorous affair with an ex-boyfriend and an angelic looking Irish kid that Madonna put in her sex book. Nadege fell in love with the kid and obsessed about the two men all day long. Then she met Christopher Walken at a party and felt that a friend she was with had cockblocked her. It was as if she felt a window to new possibilities had been opened for a second and then slammed shut onto her fingers. She couldn’t get over it. She watched “King of New York” over and over again. She’d say, “Wait. Wait! Watch this part!” Rewinding and studying his face in close-ups. She figured out where he lived and sat across the street for hours. Once she had a pizza delivered to his place to see if he would answer the door.

I tried to talk to her. I tried to talk her out of things like that, to motivate her to fix her life, but she couldn’t. I thought we were alike but we weren’t. I grew up in a dysfunctional but loving Midwestern family and had been taught that when things sucked, you suck it up and get on with making it suck less. Nadege had been abandoned and abused and was never given the same tools or support. She was, inside, an eternally sweet, broken little girl.

I played a show opening for Motorhead at the Ritz wearing an outfit that was a direct copy of her style, which was always on point and ahead of anyone else. I had also had a couple of outfits custom made copied from things she had created. She was upset, and told me so. I didn’t understand her reaction; in my mind we were the same person, why would she care? Looking back, it’s easy to understand: I had everything and was still callously usurping the little bit of turf that she had to herself.

Shortly after that she dove headfirst into full junkie mode and we stopped hanging out. She would call me at weird hours of the night to check in, always with shocking stories of coke-paranoia barricaded apartments and holes in arms so big that the plastic part of the syringe went in. I listened patiently and clucked at the bad stuff and told her to stop it and that I loved her. The bodega underneath my apartment started selling coke, so when she went there to buy she would hit my buzzer and I would come down and give her a hug. It was like she was an occasional visitor from another, much darker planet.

She started hooking on 12th Street. She lost her front teeth and her skin looked scary bad when I would run into her on St. Marks Place. I managed Coney Island High and watched her from the window in front of my desk, going in and out, in and out of a building full of cheap rooming houses that she lived in directly across the street. She told me a john paid for her to live there. We existed mere feet from each other and couldn’t have been further apart.

Then one day she called me to tell me she was clean. It was a miracle. She’d gotten a deadly infection in her knee from a bit of dislodged needle, and once in the hospital friends had grabbed the opportunity to hustle her off to rehab in Florida. I was so happy for her. She was happy, she told me she didn’t think it was possible and she had been waiting to die that whole time.

She hated Florida. She got a job as some sort of security at an apartment complex and rode a golf cart around at night, which I thought was hilarious. She called me regularly to report in on how bored she was. And eventually, because she couldn’t support herself in the States, she decided to go back to France. She began painting, and she was great at it. She painted furniture and clothing and eventually gorgeous, colorful, spooky paintings that came straight out of the deepest recesses of her soul. I was so happy for her; finally her creative nature was manifesting itself.

But that excitement was short lived when I realized the dynamic had not changed. The phone calls were still a stream of consciousness revolving around all things Nadege. She never wondered or asked what I was up to; I just listened and gave advice which was ignored. Her mood was still depressed.

I was over it; the novelty of having a somber French junkie BFF had worn off years ago. She came to visit New York and was a huge pain in the ass the entire time. She had gained weight and refused to wear anything but five inch heels because she thought it made her look thinner. She was broke and couldn’t walk in the shoes but wanted to shop. So I paid for cabs to take her to the cheaper stores in our neighborhood. She couldn’t find anything that fit her and complained incessantly. She broke her heel so I paid for a cab to take her to the shoe store. Then while she was waiting for it to be fixed I took her out for food. She ordered pasta and mashed potatoes and dessert and complained about being fat. I sighed and paid the bill.

It was exhausting in a manner that went beyond physical or emotional. It snapped something in me. I couldn’t bear to continue the same circular conversations we’d been having since we met. I desperately wanted to be happy; she seemed determined to remain as unhappy as possible. She sent me messages through myspace that I mostly ignored, until I finally broke down and told her how bad that visit was for me and how rough it was to be her straight man for decades. She said that she “wasn’t going to take my inventory” (an NA/AA phrase) and didn’t want me to take hers. And that she loved me.

Agh. I felt bad. I loved her too. I never wanted to hurt her. I just didn’t have much more to give.

More time passed. She continued to call me faithfully every couple of months. I picked up one out of every three or four phone calls, when I had the time and patience to listen to her talk about herself. I hate chatting on the phone, it makes me anxious. She loved it. She sent me pictures of the intense paintings she did and insisted upon compliments. I told her I wrote, numerous times, she never looked or asked me about it. She said she wanted to write a book about herself. I rolled my eyes. It was infuriating, although truthfully it would make a great story.

One day she told me, very matter of factly through facebook, that she had lung cancer. My first thought was “Of course she does.” She’d been smoking and wanting to die since I met her. It pissed me off. Her life had been such a colossal waste of beauty, grace, intelligence and creativity. Just a giant wallow in never-ending French junkie existential bullshit. And now she was going to die. Great. Just great. She would finally have a real excuse to lay in bed all day long. My second thought was, “Shit. This is really happening.”

We continued the same way we had. She called me regularly; I ignored most of the calls. Finally I called her back and she told me she was now bedridden for the most part, that she had found her connection to God, and that it comforted her. She had people taking care of her. She didn’t sound happy exactly, but she sounded positive. It was nice to hear her funny little voice. We covered as much as we could in that call. I told her that I loved her and I wanted her to feel okay, and that this hard life was almost done for her. I knew it was the last time I would speak to her, although she would call again.

Our mutual friend Robert Butcher was the one to tell me that she was in the hospital and had only hours to live. He gave me the number to call, which I didn’t use. I thought about it. I looked at it for a while. But I felt that I’d said everything and I was still so mad at her. It felt as if another call would be continuing to entertain the nonsense. I didn’t want to concede. I know this doesn’t make sense; I’m sure some people are going to think it heartless, but it wasn’t that. I love her. I loved her. And underneath the defensive irritation, I was relieved for her more than anything, happy that she was so close to freedom. I wanted to meditate on it while she lay mostly unconscious, and send her the loving energy that I could. Which I did.

When we are very young, we have no idea that time will pass so quickly. We think opportunities and beauty will flutter around us forever like butterflies in an eternal summer. I will keep Nadege in my heart and mind’s eye in that youth and beauty and promise. I know that she is near me and she is free. I’m grateful for the lessons, for the unconditional love she had for me, and for her patience with my impatience. There will never be another like her.

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PHOTO BY ROBERT BUTCHER

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