Unintentionally Slapstick

"Inspiring You to Reinvent Yourself"

Dear Friends,

Years ago, I asked two colleagues to stop talking about their sex lives in front of me: "Don't you understand," I said, in mock exasperation, "I'm unintentionally celibate!" 

They chuckled, left my office, and we went about our week. Except that Sandy giggled every time she saw me, returning repeatedly to the concept of "unintentionally celibate." 

Just as a staff meeting was about to begin, Sandy and I made eye contact across the table; muttering, "unintentionally celibate," she began to laugh again. 

Here's a nice picture of a nice cucumber. No reason. Why?

"Sandy," I said in mock exasperation, "Don't you understand? It wouldn't be funny if it weren't true!"

"Oh!" she responded, thought a minute, nodding her head slowly. 

"Ohhhhhhhhhhh." 

It was an odd concept. Celibacy, as opposed to “not getting any” or “in a dry spell,” connotes choice, virtue. To be celibate is to be well-behaved, disciplined, pure and strong. In control of one’s destiny. I was unintentionally strong and in control? Yes! I'd much rather have been impulsively screwing up a storm every night and bow-legged with exhaustion every morning. It was my age-right, my birthright. I was racking up virtue points when I should have been racking up notches on a bedpost. It was frustrating. And funny.

I often burst out laughing when I recount my frustrations, and, as I saw clearly this week, so do my friends. I’ve been in NYC, down from Albany for a divorce mediation session that took place on Wednesday. I planned 1.5 days free and close by on either side of the stressful event, in case of debilitating potential Fibro flare-ups. (Thanks to the Have Computer Will Work strategy, I am able to be as productive in borrowed digs as I am at home.)

Making time to connect with friends through the week, I had lunch at a café, dusk beside the Central Park Reservoir and dinner at a corner Italian place. After each get-together, my abs ached and my cells felt over-oxygenated from belly laughter. The stories were the sort that are over-the-top funny because, well, they aren’t really funny at all. Self-deprecating slapstick: Not so-and-so slipped on a banana peel; rather, that’s me slipping on the damned banana peel that I threw down to begin with!  

My friends and I laughed about grunting like old, arthritic men every time we move, the relationships that went insanely south, the most bizarre moments of those relationships, and the grief of lost love and trashed dreams. Conversation sloshed between sharing real pain and giggling over it, being worried and being giddy and strategizing and caricaturizing.

I could barely catch my breath or hold my bladder. At the café, the woman behind us could barely hear herself think. At the reservoir, self-satisfied runners just barely managed to ignore us. No matter – we were thoroughly enjoying the fruits of our failures.

Often, I describe my body with Fibro as a carnival fun house mirror – everything’s warped and unreal. “It would be hysterically funny if it weren’t true,” I say. But enjoying this week so much and remembering back to “unintentionally celibate,” I now see that if it weren’t true, it wouldn’t be funny.

Are you enjoying these posts? Please do share them. It’s fun to see what new countries people are reading me in. I don’t have anyone in Africa or Scandinavia yet. Let’s go, people!

Love, Rhonda

PS. Need writing or editing help? Write me at rhonda@reworkediting.com. 

For the Love of God…

“Inspiring you to reinvent yourself”

Dear friends,

I bought a blender this month, the kind that crushes everything with blades of steel. Not the insanely expensive brand that produces so much friction, COSTCO hawkers make soup in it. I dreamed about that one, imagining it would change my life forever. I love soup, and if I make frozen margaritas, surely beautifully plumed people would flit around me like hummingbirds to nectar? Nah.

I rejected the TV miracle one that looks like a mortar shell and is likely to send smoothie gloop-shrapnel all over my kitchen. On the other hand, I loved my Ginzu knives, so maybe this is good quality. Still, too utilitarian; I wouldn't love it.

No, I bought the Jackie Chan of blenders, the one that chops board-hard carrots like butter. It was love at first blend. Amazing! Kale tastes great with pears, ginger and raspberries, and with carrots, apples, protein powder and chocolate chips. It’s remarkable how kale, almond oil, parmesan and pine nuts turn into pesto with the push of a finger. I have eaten more iron, Vitamin C and fiber than my intestinal track knows what to do with. It’s like after a week at Kripalu, eating vegan foods in bulk.

Thanks, Brunetteanthem.com

Though it might be hard to discern, this post is about the languages of love – or more specifically, my languages of love. My new friend Anna, a fictional representation of a real person  (I am helping a beloved client writing a Roman à Clef—fictionalized tell-all—and this is a good warm-up), mentioned love at her kitchen table Monday.

I had just sealed a deal with her daughter, Rebecca, to work for me this summer, and Anna and I had just agreed to collaborate on a writing project. We had also just conspired to get more food-based iron into her oldest daughter, Callie, who babysits at my house three afternoons a week. My role? Make her smoothies with kale hidden within, of course. Kale for Callie. (The alliteration works with Callie’s real name, too, but if I told you, I'd have to..., well, you know.)  Anna had just texted back to Rebecca, who texted her mom from the basement that she wanted to go hang out with her boyfriend. And I had just told Anna that her ex-husband Bernard, who is my fictional friend and financial advisor, has been trying to get me to stop buying people gifts. “The languages of love,” Anna murmured, in a moment of intellectual flight that hooked me and carried it with me.

What are my languages of love? I am a love polyglot! I do speak gift. How could I not buy the What da Cluck T-shirt for a friend who raises chickens? A spring jacket for a toddler niece? A hand-painted mug in her favorite colors for a friend who turned 50?

I also speak a hybrid of schoolmarm, Jewish mother and soft-bosomed auntie. I see to your education and that there are childproof locks on the cabinets. I scold you for talking trash and kvell over your every achievement. (Kvelling is Yiddish for celebrating a loved one’s/student’s accomplishments in a joyfully connected “And s/he’s mine!” sort of way.) I hug you, coo at you and rub your back. I laugh at your jokes and listen to your music. I use endearments and touch your hair or shoulder when I walk by. I say and text “I love you” often. If you are an infant, toddler, dog, cat, goat or alpaca, I talk a stream of pleasant sounding nonsense to you, often responding to your garbled verbiage with, “I know, baby. I agree with you completely. What do you think about X (world peace, those Mets, etc.)?” If you’re a teenager, I meet your ideas with wondering questions – you sparked my curiosity! I cook you soup.

Speaking of soup, I was trained from birth to speak food: smoothies with iron; pesto in little jars for everyone; a Passover seder for non-Jewish friends replete with brisket, Moroccan chicken, fresh-made horseradish and beets, matzo ball soup and innumerable kugels; brunch out; ice cream. Coffee fixed the way you like it. And I am also an avid listener to the language of Food.

I can listen and jabber on for days in Daughter, Friend, Lover and Sister. 

Parents Fran and David. Taught me many love languages

I speak resume and cover letter and their parent language, editing. I speak Stay at my House, Borrow my Car and What do You Need beautifully, along with Breathlessly Funny Shared Story-Telling. I am fluent in Hold on, You’re Safe, though much less so in I’m Letting Go Now. I overuse the cyber love language, Facebook, and cannot get enough of I Love Hearing Your Love Languages.

When alone, I use my ESL–extra-sensory love–to scan the well-being of those with whom I have not spoken today, this week, this month, and sometimes even, this year. I use this vibratory language to wish them into greater well-being, celebrate with them, ease their fear or grief, and let them know that I miss and love them. In many cases, a greeting card would do better, but I speak post office haltingly and have never quite gotten the rhythms of Remember My Birthday or Happy Anniversary.

Languages of love:so satisfying to think about this morning! Thank you, fictional Anna, for sparking this train of thought. I’ve loved it. Now off either to make my breakfast smoothie or take my early morning nap. Probably the nap; I love naps.

Love, Rhonda

Time Travel

"Inspiring You to Reinvent Yourself"

Dear Friends,

The message was  dread-inspiring: "Please call me, I've got news," said in that sad voice meant to soften a blow. Bad news was in store. Someone had to have died. 

Someone had: the mom of three high school friends. I was in the school choir, but not particularly close, with the twin boys my age. But their older brother was a different story. Mitchell was my first crush, my first date, my first kiss, my first boyfriend. We saw the first Star Wars film on the first showing of the first day of its local release. (And I have the "May the Force be With You" pin to prove it.) 

I've been Facebook connected with Mitch since about 2005, but not at all with the twins through the 37 years since we graduated. There is also a younger brother who was a little kid when we were teens. 

Mrs. Schwartz , Mom to her sons, and Maxine or Magi to friends and family (so I learned yesterday). Mrs. Schwartz and I spent little time together -- it wasn't what you might imagine, with her raising four boys as a divorced mother: I was not the daughter Maxine never had. 

While I doubt I made an impression on her, Mrs. Schwartz made a huge impression on me. This woman, "Mrs." to no man, was the first brash, independent and sexy over-sized woman I'd met. She had what she needed and lived as she liked (from my adolescent perspective, anyway). She raised four boys firmly and with no fuss. 

When Mrs. Schwartz wanted to sun her ample body, she wore an itsy bitsy bikini. This snapshot serves me as a coaching image: a tanned, sweaty, bikini-clad Mrs. Schwartz entering the house to get an icy drink. For nearly 40 years, it pops up to remind me -- a perpetually over-sized woman -- that I may dress as I wish and I may feel sexy without approval from the Thin Police.

So I drove to Baltimore for the funeral. To comfort the Schwartz boys, whom I knew when I was a girl exploring her femininity, and to imbibe memories of the first woman to show me that Sexy, like a bikini, should be worn however one chooses.  

Hugging each Schwartz brother for the first time in decades, felt like honey tastes. Watching the alchemy of laughter, tears and memory morph their faces into those worn by the boys they were made me happy. 

I met Mitchell's magnificent wife and nearly adult offspring. I caught up with his closest friend -- the one who called  to say I should be there -- and the third in their three musketeers-style friendship. I re-met my own brother's childhood friend, a fellow public and Hebrew School traveler. Weekly, these boys amused themselves with a hearty game of Kill the Guy with the Yarmulke at the bus stop and on the synagogue lawn. 

I traveled down through New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Time yesterday. Today, I will travel up to New York and the present, savoring the sweet sights, sounds, memories and tastes of Mrs. Schwartz's farewell. From my view, this fabulous woman went out as she lived -- loved and in style!

Thank you for reading. If you are enjoying Reinventing Rhonda, please share it with your friends. If not, please share it with those whom you wish to annoy.

Love, Rhonda