Newscoma

Anne Bancroft on playing Mrs. Robinson:

“Film critics said I gave a voice to the fear we all have: that we will reach a point in our lives, look around, and realize that all the things we said we’d do and become will never come to be. And that we’re ordinary.”

DAMN. That hurts. Right down to my very soul that statement pains me, but in essence there is a lot to be said about that comment.

Campers, I’m 44-years-old. And occasionally I get the middle-aged crazies. I want my damn flying car I was promised, my loft apartment with the little herb garden in New York that I imagined when I was 15 and the comfort of knowing that everything is going to be okay.  I wanted to be a either a journalist or a casting director (or just independently wealthy.)

I was 15, I remind you.

Being middle-aged is a strange beast. There is much good about it, quite frankly. I don’t care about stuff like I used to, unnecessary things such as trying to pander positive reinforcement, how people think about me or materialistic stuff (which is a dang good things these days) or allowing other people to define me. There is a sense that I feel more comfortable in my own skin, that I feel actually a bit sexier than I used to although I think that comes from the inside and not the outside (damn you Cosmopolitan magazine. DAMN YOU!) I’m more content in making new friends who are going to have to just accept me, or not, because I realized at about 40 that I have no control over what people think about me.

But when the wind is blowing in an awkward way that hits my face at just the right moment, I do feel especially ordinary and that wasn’t part of the ticket when I was a kid. I was extraordinary in my mind of the places that I would go and the people that I would meet. They would need my specialness in a magnificent way. The dreams of youth thwarted by the reality of … reality. That life is not always easy and I was told that so it shouldn’t have been a big surprise, so no one ever fed me false illusions when I was a child.

I just knew I was going to have that loft apartment with the wide open spaces where collections of odd and wonderful things met me each day as I opened the door from a long day at work. Or the smells of the city, that I really adore and wanted more than anything ever. But I made it to the city, and reality hit. I didn’t make it back.

It is what it is.

There is no shame in getting older. The gray in my hair is quite fancy and I love it. It makes me a bit cheeky and naughty where I feel a bit of swagger, something I didn’t have when I was 30. I have learned to listen more than I used to although sometimes I get excited and interrupt (which is something about me I am not fond of and that I’m working on.) I am sad about the discourse in this world and I know that I will be long gone before it is fixed as it’s been with every human before me.  I like my small feet and my laugh. I like that I’m a bit different just not in the way I imagined at 15.

Sometimes I run away from me, but then there are times I don’t.  And recognizing that may be a sign of wisdom. Or it could be that I’m just ordinary.

Either way, it’s all I have.

Arthur Guinness

My sister and I are not afraid to tell you that we are menopausal.
There are a ton of women, including one I work with, who constantly tells me she’s never had any hot flashes, night sweats or psychotic tendencies. I tend to disagree with her as I’ve seen her go off about small things that would usually roll off anyone else’s back and if I were her, I’d just say that these fits of nature is the mid-life crisis that we are all going to go through whether we like it or not. If this is her normal behavior, I think a Xanax would be in order.
I believe that having menopause to blame is a fine thing. As I’m too tired and not up for an affair with a stranger and too broke for a little red sports car, I’m just embracing the menopause thing and hoping we get through it unscathed. I must admit, I’ve tried to live recently like I was still 21. Yeah, that’s working for me. (Snark :/)
“Why are you crabby?” A random person might ask me.
“Because I’m menopausal and I will cut you,” I respond before falling into a pile of tears over the cuteness of an aardvark in a sweater or realizing that I have lived over half my life and have little to show for it. I then go lock myself in a closet with a bag of Cheetos, blaring music that was popular in 1983 and hit my head repeatedly against the door for getting into news.
See, it’s a great tool, this menopause thing, as an excuse to be a blubbering mess.
I jest, but it sort of sucks.
Homer turns 41 on May 12th. She asked me a few weeks ago if some of the feelings she was having are the first signs of menopause. (For you younguns out there, go back to being a12-year-old girl and then multiply your confusion over your body changing by three. That’s the way it feels and I’m being very realistic here.)
I told her I thought that probably was what was going on.
“Turning 40 was cool,” I said. “But turning 41 was, you know, being in your forties and for some reason, that was horrible.”
“Yeah,” she responded. “When did this happen?”
I think I said something like I didn’t know and then we got caught up in a whirlwind of puppy drama. Puppy Drama is a staple at Chez Coma since the great puppy-off of Aught Nine. Although all the puppies have good homes and are gone, there is still the one pup that Homer fell in love with still in the house and Mama Pinks, who is probably not even a year old.
So there are basically two puppies in this abode with two menopausal sisters named Pinks and Arthur Guinness. Arthur is a mouthy little guy and constantly tries to stand on Mabel, who doesn’t like it, as she is a regal old lady. Well, regal is pushing it but she’s my youngest dog and she’s 10. Pinks, on the other hand, just runs and slides a lot. This is her favorite game. Run, then slide across the hardwood floors, then she runs again. Pinks is endearing herself to me because she looks like she’s always smiling and she howls like a coyote. I like that. She won’t be smiling in about a month when she visits the vet, but that’s another story for another day.
Squirrel Queen calls Pinks two names: Curtis and Goose. I have no idea why.
What were we talking about?
Oh, yeah, menopause.
Did I mention it blows?

Back in the day when there were only three channels on the air and the highlight of our week was watching Angie Dickinson and Earl Holliman on Police Woman each week, I used to read a lot. Mainly because I wasn’t that fond of Pepper although I did sort of like Starsky and Hutch. Her name was not Pepper, but that’s what they called her on the show because that’s what they did back then. I guess it’s better than Kitten, which just didn’t have the ferocity of Pepper. I do not know why TV execs did those things, but they did.

That Paul Michael Glaser was kind of goofy cute although I did think that Hutch, aka David Soul, was a greasy blonde. (Hutch, I just wasn’t that in to you.) And that whacky Huggy Bear just sent me laughing on the floor. And yes I wanted a Gran Torino and I still do. And to wear short shorts. Shut up.

Seventies television shows had a somewhat schizophrenic quality about sexuality about them. Sexy, but not too scary for a tween who was trying to figure all this stuff out in her mind (that was saved for the villans who smoked and always had a busty chick on their arm, slightly sweaty, telling, yet not actually disclosing that some naughty business may have just happened in an unseen frame before they hit the screen but that was left up to us decide. Of course, I always decided they had.)

So I read a a lot because I got bored with Pepper and Starsky and Hutch and even Dan Tanna from Vegas after about three episodes.) I’ve often wondered how I consumed the amount of books I did as a child.

Let’s reflect, shall we, on the kind of books I read.

My mother  was often criticized for letting me read books with adult content, meaning Stephen King books, Food of the Gods, To Kill a Mockingbird (which I read at 8-years-old thank you) or any horror novel I could get my hands on because it just wasn’t done. But, you see, it was because I’m the child of a boomer. The boomers set new rules for their kids. I have no commentary if that was a good thing or a bad thing it just was what it was. I would ask my mother after reading these said books which dirty words I could say (she was adamant about none, thank you very much) until I learned that I could use the word bitch in reference to female canines. My mother had to rethink this position and I sometimes wonder if she ever clouted herself on the head for allowing me to read more mature literature, if you can call Food of The Gods that which was basically just a trippy book about pot smoking, literature, because it was not. I don’t think my mother knew the content of that book at the time.

Of course I made her take me to the movie which was based on the H.G. Wells story, which I didn’t know at the time and I liked much better than the novelty trends of the first Food of the Gods which was basically a piece of poo. The movie introduced me to Wells which I consumed like a vandal. Ahh, Marjoe Gortner, what happened to you, my big rat fighting friend and former evangelist who left the revival circuit.

So why am I pondering these things this morning. I have no idea quite frankly but sometimes my brain gets full of the burning weirds and this is what is on my mind on this chilly Tuesday.

And, you have to admit, Pepper was hot as was that Gran Torino. Long live muscle cars that no one can afford to fill with gas anymore.

Yeah, I’m feeling all my age today.

The cell phone rang about 30 minutes ago but I just didn’t have the strength to pick it up. It was one of those calls asking me to come help with a project. I knew who it was. It’s one that I won’t get paid for, and I’ve already had the caller reschedule it twice. He calls, reschedules, calls, tells me his busy. I’m busy myself right now.

I’m home. Thinking and not thinking at the same time.

I guess you would say I’m in the zone, that place I go when I’m tired and needing to decompress.

It happens. I’m human.

I just need to sit with my dog in my lap and listen to the rain as it is beating down on the metal roof as if Buddy Rich was banging his drums on the overhead clouds. I left for a few hours to head to work and caught up on things. Mundane it might seem, but I’m paid to read and make decisions which isn’t a bad life at all.

When I entered the office, I was sopping wet, water running down the front of my shirt settling into in the hollow of my chest and streams of rain running off each strand of my curly hair. There is a mirror in the bathroom when you walk into the newspaper which is an old bank and you can see yourself if the door is open.

It was open.

My face was covered in droplets of water and streaking down my glasses.

I shook my mop of hair and headed down the hallway that leads into the insert room.

“You are wet,” one member of the insert crew said. I could tell they were laughing. Spirits were high and I was secretly pleased. I like to hear pleasure in a person’s voice.

I just smiled and nodded, hopping not to slip on the 50-year-old tile which is as slick as ice when it’s wet. I walked carefully. I’m clumsy. I have to take care. I tend to not pay attention but I did today.

Yes, I was drenched.

I put down the two bags I always carry and tried to squeeze out the water from my shirt in a trash can. It didn’t help and I made a mess. The phone rang and I picked it up but missed the call. I was given the number by the receptionist and I called it back. It was a cheerleader call, the local girls had won a national competition.

It’s part of what happens at a small bi-weekly.

One call after another, asking questions that I could fortunately answer. The same chatter I hear everyday.

Sometimes I feel like the old newspaper office breathes and is alive. People laughing, phones ringing, a proof thrown on my desk. Salaries diminishing.

Me wondering where I will be next.

I picked up the proof. Thin.

My hands, still wet, smeared the ink on the front page leaving a surreal image of three prisoners in court. One of them is a man I’ve known forever, sentenced for a crime he admitted committing. I should be sad.

I’m not.

I went through emails, made small talk about a lady who has lung cancer. She ran the competing newspaper during WWII while the men were at war. I’ve spent hours reading the archives that she worked on, the pages tightly bound in a huge leather book, when women weren’t given this opportunity. When the men returned from the hardship of war, the owners of that time relieved her of her duties. A new hardship then begun for her.

That’s always bothered me. She was eliminated because she wasn’t a man. This was nearly 70 years ago and she has written for the paper writing a local “people” column I work at until she got sick a few months ago.

My mind is on her today. She’s always been on my mind.

Always.

My head is exploding from the sinus everyone has. No one is unique here although my teeth feel like they are sitting on raw nerves. I’m dry now, curled up in a recliner with a blanket on my legs but I still feel the chill of the wet morning.

There are times that you have to decompress. There are times that you have to take stock of those little, tiny moments that only last as long until the next moment begins.

Sometimes it hits me I’m 43-years-old. And, occasionally, I need a moment.

It’s not a bad time in the least. It’s just a time of rest.

I’m waiting for my Shuffle to charge. I will then read a book and just breathe.

As we delve into my navel gazing world of my middle-aged crazies, I have to tell you about the degree of apathy and passion I’ve experienced lately.

The apathy comes from that there are things that I do not have any control over. And my apathy spreads to drama in others lives that I also have no control over. These are things that have made me a bit more peaceful within my busy brain. Maybe this is acceptance.

Now to the passion which I have to tell you I’ve felt quite a bit of lately. It’s quite satisfying.

As I get older, I have found that things that used to make me crazy no longer bother me. Other things give me explosive joy that I used to care nothing about.

I’ve had several friends turn 40 lately. I’m not in the advice business, but I will tell you one thing. Don’t let those gray hairs get you down but also, if they do, own it. Night sweats that keep you up at night, think of it as your own personal swimming pool (yuck, I know but still … ). When folks get under your skin, that’s your issue. What other people say or think about me is none of my business as was the motto of my mother and now that I’ve got some seasons on me, I understand what she was saying back in the day. It’s their crap, not mine even if my feelings get hurt a bit.

And, as life sometimes throw us curve balls, I had no idea in my lifetime that I would own a pit bull who showed up New Year’s Day.

Since I started writing this post, I got older. Embrace it campers, it’s not so bad.

Feeling all philosophical this morning.

I woke up this morning with a huge case of the middle-aged crazies. I’m usually more than all right with getting older but every once in a while, I have a meltdown.

I noticed the gray. I like the gray in my hair quite actually. It’s at the temples. My hair is as ash-blonde though (or was) so now there are white streaks slowly moving in. I stared at it contemplatively as what does one do. I stared into the mirror, squinting because I’m now in trifocals, and grimaced.
I realized I’m in my mid-40s and it totally knocked my cranium about.
And then I had to have a conversation with my inside voice. Shut up. You know you have these too.

Me: Arrgghhhaaaa!
Inside Voice: Get over it. So you have some gray hair. I think it’s kinda sexy.
Me: Arrrgghhhaaa!!
IV: You could be dead, you know. Lord knows I don’t how you made it this long.
Me: (calming down) I’m … I still wear Chuck Taylors. I can’t be getting old.
IV: Consider yourself seasoned.
Me: What about the sleep deficit thing? What about that? It’s like that Stephen King book “Insomnia.” Am I going to start seeing little doctors cutting the life ribbons on people? Am I?! DAMMIT!! AM I??!!
IV: Quit being so melodramatic.
Me: My staff didn’t even get my joke last summer about my car being Steve Austin! The joke doesn’t work it they don’t even know who he is.
IV: It was funny.
Me: I thought so too.
IV: You are going to be all right.
Me: I’m not dyeing my hair.
IV: Good for you.
Me: Seriously, people always are telling me to dye my hair. Hell, I’m getting a Mohawk. Where’s my Sex Pistols Album. (I started singing “Bodies” as loud as I could in the middle of the night.)
IV: Not a good look for you I’m afraid. And you will scare the dogs if you do it.
Me: And I’m not buying a flat iron. Why does everyone want me to buy a flat iron? Most people get perms for crying out loud.
IV: You’ve never had any fashion sense. These things are beyond you. Just own it.
Me: Bite me.

This conversation went on for two hours. My inner voice told me many things but the most prevalent ideas where that A.) I’m vainer than I knew and B.) I possibly need a live-in life coach.
If you haven’t hit 40 yet, this might not make any sense to you. If you have, I have a feeling you know what I’m talking about.
And I’ve lost my love for PopTarts.
What the hell is that all about?

I think a lot of us have been floundering a bit lately. I was pleased for a Christmas respite because life has been a roller coaster this past year. Things didn’t work out the way I wanted it too necessarily but I believe it worked out the way it was supposed too.

I had to grieve. We always, as humans, have to grieve no matter how large or small the pain in our hearts.

Such is life. I’ve sought to close my mind to static and it’s helped. I’ve made my first New Years Resolutions for myself in years. I’m talking probably two decades. We will see how that goes. It’s more about a spiritual foundation on being comfortable with all of the aspects of myself instead of running in place as well as avoiding my own fallibilities. I watched Howl’s Moving Castle yesterday (seen it before) but I was struck how Sophie’s character became peaceful in her old age and how she became at one with herself.

I guess I’m just being sentimental.

Change for change’s sake is ridiculous. Change to move forward or to learn needs to be cultivated and thought of with depth and intelligence.

And without fear but with some caution.

I enter my mid-forties this year. I’ve always thought 44 was the year that you are in the mids. I’m comfortable with it. I’m comfortable with the gray in the temples of my hair (I actually think it’s kind of sexy.) I don’t need hair dye or anti-aging cream or people telling me what they think I need to hear. I don’t need anything but a good conversation, a quiet thoughtful debate or a smile.

I don’t need pats on the back, although they are always nice to have.

I need to smile.

The end of the year is always a time of reflection.

What do I need? Love, respect and honesty. Joy, laughter and hope.

I’m older but my heart is young.

One thing I’ve learned in 2008 is that if you are looking for your own personal joy from other people, you will always be disappointed. If you look for joy with other people, you will always win.

I’m in a rut. And this is going to get personal which I haven’t written as much about lately because I didn’t want to bore the life out of you, so if you don’t want to read this as I process it out, go look at this picture of zombie Santa.

(more…)

Sometimes I wonder if I was born in the right generation. As Busy Mom calls it, I’m a sandwich generation girl.

I watch my nieces talking about the Jonas Brothers, Johnny Depp (yes, he’s beautiful) and Zac Efron.

But for me, it will always be about those movie starts where I would watch old movies on Channel 3 out of Memphis when I was a kid.

Which brings me to Rod Taylor. Man, I’ve had a crush for years on him. He was exquisite. I know Cary Grant is a no-brainer but Day-um.

Sean Connery was also amazing back in the day, but Scottish accents makes me stupid.

Can you tell I’m watching a biography of Alfred Hitchcock?

Waxing nostalgia today for some odd reason.

I admit there are times I lose my mojo. On this blog (which has happened recently), as a woman, as a writer, as a professional business person, my spiritual essence and just as a human being.

But I’ve been thinking that I guess I need to get over it or at least process the reasons why that sometimes situations, either nationally, locally or personally, wear not only myself, but many of us down.

This week, I’ve felt all of my 43 years on this planet. I have been pondering the future too much instead of focusing on the present. Yes, I do get the middle-aged crazies sometimes. I usually just embrace it. Growing older is pretty cool to a large degree. I can’t do anything about losing what little retirement I have, and believe me, that has weighed on me. I hope I have time to make it up but only time will tell that tale. I’ve been running away from some issues I’ve been having to deal with but jumping up and down in place.

I’ve lost 20 lbs. in the last two months fraught with worry and self-induced stress (not all of it, but some of it.)

So, I’ve been trying to create a list in my head. What makes me unique? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? What do I need to change? What should I embrace because it’s part of me and what should I exorcise because it’s toxic?

These things are relevant in the big picture. We are more than our politics, our work life, our blogs even. I think I’d much rather have hope than trepidation.

I’ll be working on the blog a bit more in the next couple of weeks. I ran into a wall in my own brain about the technical aspects of it. Bear with me. I got, and it’s hard to admit, scared.

As for the personal growth, well, I have two decisions to make. Some of it depends on what happens on the job plane which is at a roadblock right now. We will see what happens.

I like change, believe it or not, but sometimes I feel as if I’m drowning.

Time to start swimming, I’m figuring.

With all of that said, I realize I’m not alone and that does help.

Do something everyday that scares you. I need to remember that.

Eleanor Roosevelt said “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.”

I love that statement.

I do.

I know quite a few people that act like the world is out to get them and suck the oxygen out of the room when they enter it. I have felt that way before myself during down periods. Yes, we run into brick walls sometimes. We deal with unpleasant people who build themselves up by breaking others down.

Why is this on my mind this morning? I think it’s because, as I guess you can see by the changes on this blog, that I’m undergoing a transformation. And I’ve tried to surround myself with people who are comfortable in their own skin and who are not only empowered but empowering.

I get tired of people thinking they aren’t good enough, because THEY ARE.

This line of thought started this morning when I was talking to Homer about the incident last week. We were discussing, after a I did a bit of digging, that this has happened to other children and after a bit of raising hell, I think it will be dealt with appropriately.

Everything has a root system. I feel like everything is connected in some form or another. It’s my way.

But the difference of me being a woman who turns 43 years old in three weeks and a child is that I have learned through years of stops and starts that Roosevelt was right. Children don’t know these lessons unless they are taught them but it’s also a matter of just living.

My mother, the wise sage that she was, used to say “Never give someone not worthy free room and board in your head.”

Because our heads lie to us sometimes. So, what do we do?

Well, we learn that we are human. That we are capable of forgiving ourselves for mistakes we make. That no one else is responsible for our state of mind except ourselves.

Growing older is a wonderful thing, really. I’ve learned that if other people are talking about me, then they are giving someone else a break. I even make up rumors about myself sometimes to see how it goes viral in my town just to amuse myself.

You see, the bottom line is that I hope that I can teach my niece that she is not responsible for other people’s asshattery. That she is above that and those people are inconsequential. I tell her that they are fun vampires, sucking the fun out of a room. She has one life. Live it. Do something every day that scares you. She smiles shyly, but I know she is listening.

She is going to be just fine.

Eleanor was right. We have to take ownership of our own psyche.

This is your early morning dose of middle-aged Zen.

I talk about heading into middle-age quite a bit. It’s obviously on my mind.

You know, ’cause it’s happening to me.

With that said,  I’ve been making a bit of peace with it. Now, if I could do anything I wanted to do, I’d be a world-famous media critic, world-famous movie critic, be living in a warehouse apartment in downtown Nashville, Knoxville or Memphis (or NYC), people would just randomly offer me jobs that offer a lot of money because they think I’m groovy, yada, yada, yada … or possibly I could  just win the lottery so I could go on a two-week cruise and then I could head to the South Pole to see a real live penguin.

Yeah, I have simple things I want to do. And I’m shallow. That’s me.

I told you about my friend who isn’t feeling well. Yesterday, Squirrel Queen and I went and hung out with him for a big part of the afternoon. He’s being moved to Memphis on Monday and is looking into a world of unpleasantness with surgery and chemotherapy.

We laughed. He was scared but dealing with things so honestly and bravely that I just wanted to squeeze him. He worked as a stand-up comedian in the past, and he talked about how scared he was the first time he went on stage. He is the GM of a radio station now, and he told funny stories about how he thought that Squirrel Queen, he and I were urbanites living in a rural community and how it was so bizarre that no one really gets that.

As there is a golf-ball sized tumor in his kidney, I teased him that we could really just hurry up the process by taking out his kidney and leaving him a bathtub of ice with a note on top of him that does that old urban legend about organ thieves about leaving the tell-tale note that says “Call 911. We have removed your kidney.”  You know the old tale.

And we laughed.

We talked about when we were in radio together (believe it or not, he did a radio show with Squirrel Queen where she did sports, then about a year later, I was a news director at another station while he was the morning drive guy.)

This was all about 15 years ago.

We all have history. We are all friends. He told us he loved us and we told him we loved him. He asked us if we believed in God. We talked about faith.  He said he was most likely an agnostic but then he wasn’t sure about that.

He said he thought though that God could be the universe and that if God is everywhere, then that all made sense to him.  We talked about the personal relationship we had with the universe. We talked about how organized religion wasn’t really our cup of tea.  We talked about having hope in desperate times.

And, three old friends sat in a hospital room and I left feeling a great deal of love and affection but, as it goes, I also felt powerless and helpless because my friend is sick.

He wanted to go to Vandy for treatment. Insurance won’t allow it. We were there when he got the call saying he would have to go to Memphis.  A very sad moment as he was processing this new information and how to tell his wife.  He was worried she’d be upset. We talked about how insurance was messing with his ability to direct his own health care.

The cancer has metastasized. It’s in his hip and shoulder now. He can’t walk. He’s having trouble with mobility.

He’s got a hard battle in front of him.

So, last night I came home. And I cried although that would piss him off. But I wasn’t crying for him as much as the tears flowed over the loss of innocence and certainty. That there are health battles, and other wars to be fought ahead as we have entered our forties and there is an urgency to get things accomplished more rapidly.

I cried because we have new journeys and they are as difficult as the old ones we had in our teens, our twenties, our thirties.

No one ever said life was easy.

And, I’m selfish. I wanted, for one moment last night, to just pack up and go but you can’t run away from yourself or the people you love.

Because, what I wanted to run away from was getting older.

And after I bawled my eyes out, well then I felt better for all of us.

Because, you know, we have each other.

And that is of the good. It gives me hope that in the end, all you really have is love.