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?

Barb is doing quite well and is home. Here is her note from today:

There's no place like home, Dorothy!!

I actually cried on the ride home. You know things could not have gone better for me during and after surgery, but I will not lie to you that the two weeks leading up to it were the worst nightmare I have ever been through. Just the not knowing and waiting have been the most horrible part of this all. Anyway, I am home right now and have just devoured a Casual Clam Greek Salad. I hope I don't live to regret that. I have had nothing but a liquid diet since the night before surgery. I just wanted a salad and no meat.

Now, all of the weird info and questions. They already took off all of my dressings. I have a caved in hole in my right chest. However, I do have cleavage. The cleavage is from the top part of my chest and the hole is from the mastectomy. I have two drainage tubes coming out, one of which they will remove already on Tuesday. This is way soon according to all of the earlier information I had. I am glued together, they don't really do stitches. I have on my new camisole, so from outward appearances, I look the same. It is comfortable to wear. I can't do any showering or water until Tuesday, so I just wear my camisole and house dresses. My pain is like someone hit me or if I worked out too hard at the gym. I am taking a Vicodin every six hours, when needed. Nothing at all compared to the broken back. I can use the computer and do anything where my arm goes no higher than a 90 degree angle, this week. Next week, I am to do exercises to raise my arm at or above my head level. After that, it is up to occupational therapy. I have home health care and occupational therapy starting tomorrow.

The hospital experience was as good as it can get while being in the hospital. My poor roommate was a young girl with a 7-year-old daughter. She was sick the whole time we were there. She had surgery the same time as I did and she is not able to go home tonight as she is running a fever. She is not doing that well. She was there with her husband and mother-in-law. She has had a rough time of it during chemo also. I can't imagine going through all of this with a young child at home too.

So, for the next few days, I am taking a rest and nursing myself into a strong and healed person. Home health care will be here. Starting Monday, John will go back to work and I have a group of nurses (girlfriends) who have offered to come and help if I need it. I am thinking I won't. It sure is nice having my peeps. I feel as if I have been on a long and tiring trip and now I just want peace and quiet and time to collect my thoughts and heal my body.

So, it will be an early good night, but I just wanted to write my letter and let you know how everything went. "Barb's Law of Inverse Proportions": The amount of worry and stress that a person puts into fear of the unknown is inversely proportional to the amount of time that should have been spent in worry and doubt. I would have been much better off spending all of that time on some other thing that could have used all of that wasted time and energy. Just repeat this to me at the next crisis I have.

Love you all and thank you for all of your answered prayers.

Love, me

And thanks to all of you guys who have added Barb to your prayers and kind thoughts. I may be an organized religion drop-out and a cranky cynic, but I will never argue about the power of prayer, positive thinking, and of course, (most of all) love.

~ell

The Lovely Barb goes in for her mastectomy today. Here is part of a note she wrote this morning:

I got up and worked around doing some last minute things. I am making sure I have the right clothes when I come home. I have received about four letters from women that just have had mastectomies and they counsel me to make sure I have large mens' button down shirts. I guess there is a lot of manipulation of the drain tubes for the first few weeks. Nothing stops, the world just goes on.

I hope that the week is going well for all of you. I am almost to half-way done. I count chemo I and mastectomy as half, then chemo II and radiation as the other half. So, we are really celebrating "over the hump" on Wednesday. Just enjoy each day, that is the key.

I took my sleeping pill last night, so slept until 5:30 this morning. I am up now just getting things ready. I have no fear in my heart, just anxiety about getting it over. I know that God is sitting here and probably impatient himself because I am so hyper. It is hard to let go sometimes. Anyway, onward and upward. Next time we talk I will tell you all of the funny hospital stories. Let's hope they don't include anything about cutting off the wrong boob. LOL Love me.

Dearest Person from Milton Keynes:

How are you?

Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

Just wondering.

~ell

damn the soccer moms in their mini-vans
damn thee, carload of brown boisterous boys
who threw fast food bags all over the road, laughing
damn you assholes on your cell phones (it's so important)
as you steer your box on wheels toward me, oblivious
get off the god damned road

it's still summer here. Hot as hell, but so pretty.

The lovely Barb is housebound until her surgery on the 27th due to her lowered resistance to germs and general ickyness that we may spread to her. Send good thoughts her way.

not family friendly, nope

except for the c-word. I only use that maybe once a year and then only under the most extreme of circumstances and I never put it in writing. But hell, shit, ass, bitch and fuck are regulars. And yes, I went to college and am aware that there are other ways by which to express myself but I guess I am a crude simpleton at heart. Must have been all those Partridge Family episodes that did something to my brain.

PS--Amber--did you notice they added CSB? They most have tapped our phones. Fuck. But in a good way, since it landed us CSB.

dropping eaves

overheard in the check-out line at Publix:

Woman on cell phone: "I was married to Jerry for 18 years and we had three kids but I cannot remember one single conversation we had..."

Joe's 9/11 memoir

If you get a chance, read Joe's first-person account of what he witnessed in NYC on 9/11. Thanks, Joe.

In memory of Cecile Caguicla, 9-11-2001

For Cecile:

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form -- no object of the world.

Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.

Ample are time and space -- ample the fields of Nature.

The body, sluggish, aged, cold -- the embers left from earlier fires,
The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;
To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns,
With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.

~Walt Whitman

This post is a tribute to one victim of the inexplicable horror that altered all of our lives forever five years ago today.

Cecile Caguicla, 55 years old, of Boonton, New Jersey, was an assistant vice president of finance at Marsh & McLennan, Inc. She worked on the 98th floor of the World Trade Center tower one, where she perished along with 20 of her co-workers and 2,749 other innocents on September 11th, 2001.

That morning, Cecile attended mass--as she did every day--and walked to work with a friend. She was last seen that morning by her friend, Maria, stopping to buy a blueberry muffin in front of the building on her way in to work.

Cecile came to America in 1975 from her native Philippines. She was a lover of the arts and celebrated and embraced beauty in whatever form she found.

In its series to honor each victim of 9/11, (Portaits of Grief), the New York Times profile of Ceclie described a generous woman content in her life and strong in her faith who loved and was loved in return by many.

Cecile is survived by five sisters, 18 nieces and nephews and innumerable extended family and friends. Her family's tribute to Cecile can be read here.

To read personal tributes to other 9/11 victims, visit the blogger memorial project to honor the 2,996 here.