I don't need a nametag

one of the more interesting things about my job is that a few times a year I share close quarters for a weekend with famous people.

A company I do some writing for hosts a literary event each fall and invites writers who are about to or have recently published a book to attend and meet their adoring readers, do some readings, sell some books, blah, blah, blah.

Some of the authors are not known so much for their writerly skill, but are invited because they have name recognition--because they are famous for something else and they happened to publish a book. The genres range from fiction to nonfiction, poetry, memoir, cookbooks, books on sports, books on war, books on death, etc. Some of the authors are respected journalists or accomplished novelists. Often, the books are "all about me" whines like Howell Raines' book (former editor of the New York Times. Jayson Blair. Crash and burn. Yeah, that guy).

The authors who attend are feted and fussed over all weekend by bibliophiles and grasping corporate wonks who fancy themselves players, and celebrity whores and the whole thing just fucking fascinates me, especially the VIP crap.

As I mused over the alphabetical order of the bags of swag assembled for the VIPs at 6 AM last Saturday it occurred to me for the 100th time in the previous 24 hours that the people whose names were so carefully printed on tags pasted to the black handles of each bag didn't need any of the crap in those bags, and further, why the hell does everyone seem to think that they do? I mean, does Arianna Huffington ("all about me" book) really need or want a bookmark, specially commissioned chocolates, an embossed journal, watercolor notecards, on and on and on? And who decided Arianna was deserving of living a charmed, limousined life? Huh? Who? How the hell does this happen?

How is it that celebrities/famous people/people of note/people whose names and faces we know/rate this sycophantic "special" treatment? To the observer(me) the weekend was the most absurd circus of bullshit gyrations and ass-kissing-as-an-art-form I have ever seen in my life. And God help you if you fail to deliver a free event t-shirt to the celebrity. They love that free stuff and they will climb over you to make sure they get it on their way out the door to go schmooze in the VIP suite someone else paid for.

During the weekend I observed Martina Navratilova (just wrote a fitness/"all about me"/ book) sitting in the VIP dining room munching on a tuna sandwich specially ordered from a nearby deli for her and delivered by a runner because she didn't like the spread the caterers put on while Lynn Sherr (20/20 correspondent, just wrote a "all about me" memoir) signed books and sipped a double vodka martini. The people she personally inscribed her books to did not know her, but they had paid a lot of money to attend an elbow-rubbing reception and meet her and have their books signed. She arrived late and the fans never got to meet her but she did sign their books as she sipped.

Actress Meg Tilly (just wrote a novel/sorta all about me) sat quietly in a corner and made notes on white index cards before she did a reading from her book "Gemma." Tilly was a huge draw partly, I think, because she recently acknowledged that a previous work of fiction she published which detailed profound child abuse was largely autobiographical. A recent interview with Rosie O'Donnell didn't hurt the attendance at her reading, I'm sure. She sat away from all the literati and jotted notes, oblivious to the hustle of limo drivers and event coordinators rushing back and forth past her chair. Her husband, who refused to tell anyone his last name all weekend (I don't think anyone ever even asked him or really wanted to know, but okay, shh, it's a secret) sat beside her, fiddling with his Blackberry, oblivious as well.

By the way, Tilly looks exactly like she did in "The Big Chill" except for some distinct Susan Sontag-ish silver streaks in her dark bobbed hair.

Why is it that none of my male friends know who she is until I say: "You know, the chick who could put her ankle behind her ear in 'The Big Chill'--the one Jeff Golblum's character was leering at and drooling over..."

..."Oh...THAT chick, yeah..." they say, smiling wistfully.

The chicks all say: "Meg Tilly? Oh yeah, the post-partum crazy nun in that 'Agnes of God' flik." Yeah.

Meg seemed decent, real, gracious, normal. I never spoke to her, but she seemed pretty okay, like she could hang with my group of girlfriends.

Most of the others were living their press releases. They really believe they should be VIPs. They are elite and special (not like me or you) and they don't expect to be treated any other way. What a fascinating way to go through life. Handled.

The VIP thing. It's such bullshit. Phony, calculated, cynical bullshit. It all reminded me of The Emperor's New Clothes. We must all drink the Kool Aid. You are important and special and I will tie my ass in a knot to make you happy and feel special because you are SO. FUCKING. SPECIAL.

The thing is, I have friends who write brilliant, beautiful prose but they will never be read or published or elevated to the same stature as the folks I spent last weekend with and so as I observed all the schmoozing and hob-nobbing and air-kissing I wondered: "what's the difference?" Luck? Pathology? Fate? Karma?

As the VIPs greeted one another and smiled their big publicity-shot smiles and traded stories of their big lives, I observed the wait staff buzzing in and out unnoticed. The festival coordinators who had worked their asses off for months to put together a seamless event were ignored, hands extended were brushed aside because a fellow VIP was just beyond the hand of the regular Joe and had to be gotten to. The VIPs must connect and embrace in a ritual that keeps their secret power from seeping out to the poor, regular people.

As Meg and her husband dodged through the crowd on their way to the dessert table I overheard a wealthy turkey-necked patron remark to her equally turkey-necked and bejeweled companion: "...it's such a disappointment--I remember her as being a young girl in those movies..."

I don't know. But I think being invisible is probably not such a bad thing.

why I am a bad journalist

I got a call today from one of my readers insisting that I write a story about his friend's $80,000 hyperbaric chamber which will cure anyone of any disease if they are placed in it and the pressure is set correctly. His friend and all his fez-wearing lodge buddies were on Oprah with their chamber, my nuts-o reader said, so my paper should cover it. Further, he said that if I don't write this story he will complain to the editor about the fact that I passed on his pitch to cover him sawing the mayor in half and running a sword through her head to celebrate the town's anniversary. He is a retired magician.

As we were saying our goodbyes he said: "Hey, wanna know a secret?" to which I foolishly replied "Sure" (damn my reporterly curiosity).

He drew in a dramatic breath and whispered sexily: "I love you."

for Bob

Bob really dug this song:

All My Life's a Circle
Harry Chapin

All my life's a circle;
Sunrise and sundown;
Moon rolls thru the nighttime;
Till the daybreak comes around.

All my life's a circle;
But I can't tell you why;
Season's spinning round again;
The years keep rollin' by.

It seems like I've been here before;
I can't remember when;
But I have this funny feeling;
That we'll all be together again.
No straight lines make up my life;
And all my roads have bends;
There's no clear-cut beginnings;
And so far no dead-ends.

I found you a thousand times;
I guess you done the same;
But then we lose each other;
It's like a children's game;
As I find you here again;
A thought runs through my mind;
Our love is like a circle;
Let's go 'round one more time.

this is exactly what my ass needs, don'cha think?

when Amy arrived with the two main food groups -- beer and brownies -- well, shit, ya'll, I just knew the afternoon would be a good one. And I was correct. There was much jaw-jackin' and winkin' and smokin' and cussin' and huggin' and kissin'. Damn, it was good to have all my girlfriends in one place (and have it not be a hospital waiting room), if only for a little while. As we sat on the deck and soaked in the sun, I closed my eyes and listened to their voices tumbling over each other's mixed with the noises of Kip bustling around cooking and cell phones jingling and Warren Zevon on the stereo and the dog tearing around the house. Chaos. Heaven.

Later on, we piled into my car and drove across the bay to see Julian. We sat in his back yard between the koi pond and his 100s of exotic orchids, candles flickering, him telling us about his latest boyfriend drama.

I then discovered, while rummaging in my purse for my camera, that I had accidentally picked up Kip's camera when leaving her place that afternoon, so we commenced snapping a bunch of really inappropriate photos with Julian as a willing model and accomplice. Julian's neighbor, Mike, stopped by in the middle of it all and happily took some group shots. Kip has never met Julian, so she will be totally mystified by the photos of the bald black man with his face dangerously close to my cleavage. We have bets on whether or not she will actually say something to me.

Close to midnight we sat in the living room as Caroline crooned and Julian played and they argued about how she can't turn the pages fast enough to suit his tempos. She sang "Will You Still Love me Tomorrow?" while Jen and Regina and I provided back-up. I sang "I'll Fly Away" as Julian clucked and shrieked "Faster girl! Watch your pitch, girl!" I swear, no matter how gay a man can be, you cannot get the Baptist choir director in him to shut the hell up. The highlight of the evening for me: the merlot and Julian's rich bass doing a wistful rendition of "The Nearness of You." That man can sing, amen.

"...She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last."
~Willa Cather

Fall has arrived and even sort of here in Inferno (Florida). I take Miss Daisy for long, long walks at night, usually around 10 PM because it allows me to stroll unencumbered by the forced socialization that comes with walking the dog between the hours of, say, 5 PM and 9 PM. I don't want to engage in pointless, meaningless polite chatter with people just because our dogs choose to sniff the same mailbox pole or each other.

I want to pop my iPod into my ears and listen to the Moody Blues. Or listen to the song birds chirping because they do that here at night, which is lovely and eerie all at the same time.

Autumn is here and there is much to do and think about it and I do my best thinking while examining a flattened lizard in the street with Miss Daisy. We marvel at how it has smooshed into the contours of the shell-rock road, baked in by the sun so that is looks like a Jurrasic specimen just unearthed by breathless archaeologists with toothbrushes.

Laura is here from Alabama and we will all gather at Kip's this afternoon. I am so excited about nestling into the collective bosom of my pack of she-devil home-girls I feel like crying with relief. The word that best describes it: release.

Tonight we will drive over the bridge to visit with Julian and sip sangria in his back yard festooned with twinkly white lights and candles the size of third grade children. He has promised to wear clogs and a red caftan and sing me an Elton John song or two.

The blonde cutie on the left is Dante. He was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks after the lovely Barb was diagnosed. Like Barb and her inflammatory breast cancer, he has a form of cancer I had not heard about until this summer--germ cell cancer.

Dante's mom, Jen, works at the same elementary school where several of my girlfriends teach. She just had a baby girl, Dante's little sister. They had one month of bliss before Dante was diagnosed after a fall on the playground and a trip to the pediatrician who noticed lumps in his pelvic region.

As much as this latest cancer diagnosis to hit close to home has rocked and horrified me, I had no intention of blogging about it ever because it felt so intrusive and so not my place. But Dante's family could use some help, and so if you stumble across this and you feel so inclined. send up a prayer or send a donation. Here is a link to a site that Dante's dad, Chris, started to keep friends and family updated on what's happening. We had a fund-raiser two weeks ago and raised almost $4,000, but every little bit helps, especially since they are practically living at the hospital these days.

There are no whys or wherefores that make sense here. This is not the will of any God I can think of. It just plain sucks and that's all I have to say about it.

It's been a tough, shitty week for my girlfriends. Here is an update from Barb (an excerpt from an e-mail she sent to let us all know about the pathology report)

"...They did find a cancerous mass in my breast even though it did not show up in the PET scan or the MRI, they also found cancer metastasized to one of my lymph nodes. Even though we saw none of this on these reports, microscopically they found it during my pathology from surgery. What does it mean? Well, it means I still have cancer in my body and lymphatic system. The very best news was that the surgeon got the mass from my breast out with all clean margins. The surgeon said that surgery went well, but we are at the point I was when diagnosed. I have a bad form of cancer that grows and spreads rapidly...so now it is up to the next chemo and radiation to see what happens.

I think I had fooled myself into thinking that the cancer had been eradicated, but now I know I am back to the fight I was originally at diagnosis. I can do it, but it does take its toll. When you start losing body parts and have things change on your body, you are not the fully formed fighter you started out as. I am not feeling sorry for myself, I am just very depleted at this point."


We are all feeling a tad blown out. But that's okay, we're resilient. If we can put up with men our whole lives, we can manage cancer, damn it. We have a girl gang party set for next week. Laura will be visiting from Alabama. The alcohol will flow, the expletives will fly and we will all feel better because we are together in one place and that seems to matter a lot right now.

rock the vote, peeps

I am a blue girl in a red state that looks to be getting redder yet, Lord, save us from Katherine Harris. Sheeesh. But maybe the thing with Foley going down (pun not intended) in flaming (again, not intended) disgrace will help...who knows...

We Floridians are so proud.

The point is we all need to get up off our asses and vote. The deadline to register is very soon (like October 8th in some states) so if you're not registered get thee to a Post Office or DMV pronto and rock the vote.

the evils of the red bull and the bull's eye

The Target just put in a Starbucks. Target and Starbucks (my two favorite drugs of choice)under one roof!! Be still my heart. And even though I feel like a spoiled stupid java whore when I pay $4 for a venti nonfat latte, I can't stop myself. And when Randy (AKA "Miss Otis") and I have too much caffeine thanks to Starbucks, we try on every ill-advised trampy item of clothing in the junior section and think we're all cute and stuff. Then we get kicked out of the dressing room. But are we embarrassed? Hells no, sista! Get me a shot of pumpkin spicy espresso!!! It's fall, y'all and my best girlfriend and I gots some shoppin' to do!

okay, yes, another bit of petty thievery from the wonderful Frank, however, I have convinced myself that being the humanist he is, Frank will not mind. This is my fav postcard of the week. I also liked the one from the girl who slept with her best friend's boyfriend and now has remorse, but that is so pedestrian, really. I mean, who among us has not had at least one flamingly whorish moment?