Dear Celeste: Moving On

I have a feeling that the Dear Celeste column in Bay Currents isn't going to continue much longer. It seems no one has taken the opportunity to write in a question. Maybe the demographics in my area are just plain wrong. In a way, I wish the publisher had picked another topic that I suggested for us to try out.

If Dear Celeste folds after the third time, I will try to sell the idea somewhere else. I still think I could be a "Dear Abby" type, because so many people come to me in real life looking for advice. Maybe in a newspaper that has a better circulation and attracts more attention, Dear Celeste will find her niche.

BHC Program on Journaling

Last Sunday we had a BHC program on journaling. Roger gave it, with his desultory storytelling style. Sometimes he digressed off the topic but he was speaking of his own memories, some of which very definitely should end up in a journal of some kind.

I mentioned that journaling has been shown to help women with metastatic breast cancer survive longer, and that it can be helpful in all kinds of ways. I also mentioned blogs and the ease of keeping a journal online, protected by passwords or other types of privacy if necessary. What I like about online blogs is that they can be embellished by photos and links to other websites, and now even videos (though, I don't anticipate putting videos on this blog anytime soon).

I mentioned also the most famous diary in the world, Anne Frank's. It was Anne Frank's diary that introduced me to the concept and gave me the idea to keep my own. Her diary shed light on the Holocaust, even if there are some anti-semitic liars who want to deny it ever happened. It also showed me that in other times and places, and even under the most difficult of circumstances, a teenage girl was a teenage girl. She fought with her mother and favored her father, and had her first (and only) love affair with the boy upstairs.

I've kept diaries on and off since I was 11 years old, and I've destroyed quite a few of them. A few years ago I destroyed hundreds and hundreds of pages, ripping them up in a Burger King, because I was afraid someone would find them and read them someday. Now I keep a blog that is open to the public, go figure!

Sometimes I've kept specialized journals, a travel journal for instance. Another example would be the journal I kept when I was pregnant, for a psychology experiment. The purpose was to explore bonding between the mother and unborn child, and whether a difficult pregnancy would interfere with it. I did have a difficult pregnancy so maybe I didn't bond optimally with Jason before he was born but I feel I bonded with him just fine afterwards.

I have so many memories and should probably try to put them into a book. Or, I could write them as separate articles and try to publish them, like "Mom's Egg Creams." That's another thing on my to-do list, write my memoirs. I think everyone should journal, because we've all got a story to tell.

Leaving a Job

Last week I left my old job and started working at a temp job instead. The old job was going south rapidly. As far as I can see, I bailed out just in time.

I had misgivings from the start. First, at the initial interview, I was interviewed by two women, one of whom was going to be my immediate boss. She said almost nothing throughout the entire interview. Wouldn't you think that the person who was going to work most closely with you would speak up, ask questions, and try to get to know you better? She didn't.

Then it took them a month to get back to me and offer me the job. I had given up and was looking elsewhere, convinced they had hired someone else and hadn't yet gotten around to telling me. I wonder now whether their front runners hadn't dropped out of the race and left me as the winner by default. In any case, they certainly took their time about hiring me, which was quite surprising given the volume of work they were facing and their desperate need to reduce it.

When I started, I wasn't in the best of shape. Jason was leaving for school the following week. I had tummy trouble that forced me to bring food into the office for breakfast rather than eat at home, because otherwise I would have to dash off the subway in search of a bathroom. These symptoms continued for a couple of weeks around the time that Jason went away.

They let me read old proposals for a day or two, which I devoured in the mistaken belief that what was written in these proposals was similar to the kind of text they would be looking for. Little did I know, these proposals were written by other grant writers before these two came along and re-did everything their own way. Thus, much of the language in these older proposals (a year or so old) was considered antiquated and "wrong."

Maybe that's how things got off base so quickly. I was assigned to write a proposal and right away, the endless rewriting started. As I always say, I am not in love with my own words, and I am always willing to revise or incorporate other people's suggestions. Very quickly, though, the revisions and revisions of revisions undermined my confidence and made me feel that no matter what I did I could not write to these young women's satisfaction.

And young they are, and rather too convinced that they know the only right way to do things. Yes, they may have more experience at writing grants, but they do not have the life experience I have, and they are totally unable to compromise or accept ideas that do not jive with their own. That's going to catch up with them. They may be good fundraisers, but they are lousy managers.

Mistakes? Yes, I made mistakes. As my confidence fell because of the endless nitpicking, I became rattled and missed details I normally would have picked up on. I was shocked at my own inability to spot mistakes. Then again, something very odd happened on my last day there that convinced me that at least some of my "mistakes" hadn't been my fault. I made certain changes to an application and saved them. (If you don't save them, as anyone with a computer knows, you will get a reminder asking if you want to save your changes). I knew I'd done that. Yet when my boss opened the file to look at it, only some of my changes were there, and others weren't. So something was up with the computer, perhaps, that had contributed to my puzzlement and my apparently huge collection of errors.

The nitpicking became close to unbearable just before Christmas. I'd made an error with a report, yes, but I also was subjected to nonsensical changes like substituting text for a bullet list. This is so picayune and unimportant. I am sure that no one ever got a grant or lost a grant, strictly on the strength of the presence versus the absence of a bullet list, especially in a report rather than in the proposal. But here I was at odds with my boss, arguing over whether a bullet list was "wrong" in the context of this report.

Then her boss, too, sat me down and chewed me out over exactly the same issues. One of the complaints they had about me was that I "made" them duplicate their work. In this instance and others it was certainly their own choice! When I was asked what I could do to make the situation better, I could not see a solution. I'd suggested fixing up the electronic files so that they would be more logically arranged and I'd be able to find what I needed faster. This plan was rejected because the head of the department supposedly preferred the filing system as it was. In fact, any suggestions I made were shot down. So I suggested that I be allowed to send my proposals out the door without these two reviewing them. Of course they said no because they "couldn't trust my writing." But it certainly would have cut back on their workload, and it also would have provided a clear test of whether my writing standing on its own could bring in grants, as it has in other organizations.

While my immediate boss was away, I worked diligently and tried to be on top of everything, hoping that this would convince her boss that I was a good worker and that my immediate boss was the one who was micromanaging me. But when we finally talked, 3 weeks later, this young woman also took the attitude that my work was still not up to par, I wasn't familiar enough with the programs, and that I was not saving the two of them any time.

How that's possible I don't know. I pointed out an instance where I was told first to remove some paragraphs from a letter, and later told by the same person to put them back in plus a little bit more. But she refused to see that my boss was the one who was inconsistent, and blamed it on me for not "calling my boss's attention" to the guidelines. The fact is, though, the guidelines were open to some interpretation, and she chose to interpret them one way first and another way a few hours later. And somehow that's my fault!

Then I heard there would be another meeting to discuss my ideas for improving my work the following week, and a review of how things were going. I knew that just giving it a week wasn't a good sign, and I debated whether to resign or to try and hold out for another month to be eligible for unemployment. Fortunately, just at that time, I received a call from my temp agency and an offer for a temp job that pays less but is more diverse, and represented a face-saving way to get out of this no-win situation.

There's a joke about a man who is drowning, and he calls out to God for a miracle to save him. First some men paddle by in a rowboat and they offer to pick him up, but he refuses, saying God will save him. The rowboat leaves. Then a motorboat comes by and the owner offers to save him. Again he turns it down saying God is going to work a miracle on his behalf. The motorboat leaves too. Then, as he's going down for the last time, a helicopter shows up and lowers a ladder to him. The co-pilot shouts to him to grab the ladder and climb up. But no, he puts all his trust in God, and the helicopter flies away, leaving the man to drown.

When he gets to Heaven, he says to God, "Why didn't you save me with a miracle? I trusted in you and look what happened!" And God answered, "Whom did you think sent the rowboat, the motorboat and the helicopter?"

I felt a little like that man because one of my old jobs contacted me while I was working at this place and asked me to come back twice. Both times I turned them down, before things really got bad. A week or so later, when the writing was on the wall, I called the old company back and asked if the job was still open, but it was already taken. So when the temp job came along, let's just say I recognized it as the helicopter!

I was so excited and happy when that temp job came through. For whatever reason, this was the first time in my life that I left a job with another one lined up. Even if this only lasts 2 months at least I had somewhere to go. It was so much better than having to leave with nothing -- which was going to happen if a miracle of sorts hadn't come along. It was great to go to that meeting the next day and tell them I was leaving before they had a chance to rip into me again. I don't know what they were planning to say, and I couldn't care less.

I hope, as they sit up till midnight writing grants, they remember telling me that I wasn't saving them any time.

The Ugly Tax?

Yesterday I read that one proposal for NYC to raise more money from its citizens was to impose a tax on cosmetic surgery. Since it is largely optional except for those unfortunate cases where a person is brutalized by an accident or a mugging, or a child is born with a deformity such as a harelip, I can't disagree with the idea. So many people run out and get their faces tucked and nipped, their wrinkles ironed out, their noses bobbed to look Irish Catholic when they were born Semitic, etc. Why shouldn't vanity have a tax on it?

Maybe looking into the mirror and buying into society's dictates that everyone must look bright eyed, bushy tailed, and under 30 years old is a flaw that should be taxed. But then shouldn't we also impose a tax on the advertising industry that convinces us we aren't up to par? It seems to me our concept has become: if you don't look like Brad Pitt or Paris Hilton (name your celebrity flavor of the week here), you're downright ugly and your face and body need fixing. Oh, maybe working out excessively should be taxed also. Anyone who works out more than the recommended amount might have to pay a tax on it too. But just how would we find that out? Checking on people's gym attendance? We've got enough Big Brother watching us as it is.

So yes, let's tax cosmetic surgery when it isn't warranted because of unusual circumstances like an accident or an obvious deformity. If you want it just to cover up the fact that -- gasp!! you're getting old..or you just feel plain butt-ugly...yes, you ought to pay a tax to the city for being so vain. Do I hear Carly Simon singing?

Bet you think this song is about you.

Another Great Evening with the BHC

Last night we had another great evening with our friends from the Brooklyn Humanist Community. We met at Robin and Michael's apartment in Kensington. It's one of those great old buildings, probably dates back to the 1930's, with some lovely detail in the rooms that you never see nowadays. Archways, glass doorknobs, etc. Robin and Michael have two beautiful cats, an orange one and a dark silver tabby with quite a voice. They are both adorable but Falstaff (the tabby) is a real lover.

We got underway a bit late since a few people had a hard time getting there. The potluck dinner was terrific: a huge salad, vegetable lasagne, and a yummy pasta salad with roasted pine nuts on top. For dessert we had strawberry shortcake with a heart shaped cookie in honor of Valentine's Day.

The topic was "Moral Ideals," and the discussion as usual was broad-ranging. Because we started late and spent a good deal of time on the first six paragraphs of the chapter, Kurt decided we would finish up the discussion on the rest of the chapter at next month's Reflection.

It wasn't so much the words that were said but the warmth that was felt in that room. We are so fortunate to have stayed friends through all that happened, when some other friends were lost because they cast their lot in with the other side at BSEC.

At the final go-around everyone mentioned that warm feeling and how much we care for one another. I'd like to see us grow and expand but if we never do, we'll still have each other. And that's wonderful.

Flying

In some of my dreams I used to fly. It hasn't happened lately. But I can remember that amazing feeling of floating off the ground, sailing through space. It wasn't always easy, sometimes it felt like I had to make a mental effort to stay up there. But what a feeling it was, when it happened!

Today I found out that it is possible to book a flight and go into a weightlessness simulation chamber on the plane, where you can experience the same weightlessness that astronauts feel when they are in outer space away from our gravitational field. Of course, it is plenty pricey. But it sure looked like fun. Anyone, any age, can do somersaults in the air and float all over the place for 90 amazing minutes. I would sure hope I didn't throw up and ruin it, after spending almost $4,000.

Stephen Hawking, one of my heroes, has done it. That must have felt wonderful to him, as he has been confined to a wheelchair for most of his life. What a feeling of freedom it must have been.

I wonder if I could get that donated as a prize for a fundraiser somewhere. Now wouldn't that be cool? I sure think so!

In any case, it's on my "bucket list" of things I will do in this lifetime before I kick the bucket. Just think, if I keep adding to the list, maybe I will be like Stephen Hawking and forget to die!

Here's the link for Go Zero G. Picture me weightless -- without dieting.

The Terror Dream, by Susan Faludi

I recently completed The Terror Dream, by Susan Faludi. She brings a fascinating feminist perspective to the way the nation reacted in the aftermath of 9/11. To tell the truth, I found much of what she said completely surprising and realized that I was not at all aware of some of the events she writes about. She talked about the backlash against feminism that caused women journalists who took the "wrong" viewpoint on 9/11 to be shut out of the media. In fact, she claims that even the conservative women who agreed with the conservative line were dropped into near invisibility.

I have to admit that I did not notice any of this. In 2001 we still had a TV set but of course, destruction of the Twin Towers ruined a major broadcasting point, and for several months we could only get a single channel. It was grainy, at that. If you had cable TV, which we did not and still don't (in fact, we've lived without a TV set at all for about 3 years), you got good reception, but ours was terrible. So I missed out on broadcast news reports, and I wasn't paying that much to print or radio after the initial horror sank in.

To tell the truth, I didn't see much of what Ms. Faludi reports. I didn't experience a surge of media propaganda urging me back into housewifery after 9/11 so the big brave men could rescue us helpless females. Maybe that's because I was already a stay at home Mom at that time, and had just finished a four year stint of homeschooling Jason. I was, and am, in favor of mothers staying home with their children, though I would never presume to tell the next woman that she was "wrong" for making the opposite choice.

What I did see was some people choosing to get out of Manhattan out of a valid concern for their own safety. This affected men and women alike. I know one man who worked in a nearby building, so close that he is now haunted by memories of seeing unknown objects hurtling from the upper floor windows, and then realizing to his horror that these were people, jumping to their deaths to avoid death by fire. He gave up his government job and stayed home in New Jersey, choosing to take an early retirement and run his own business from home.

So what I think really happened is that those who could find an alternative to working in lower Manhattan got out of there, and I can hardly blame them. Particularly now that we are hearing that the air quality was not safe as we were led to believe, these people made the smart choice.

If there was a conspiracy to cast women as the victims and men as the heroes, I wasn't aware of it. I was aware that some people were doing chest-beating and blaming American policies for bringing this terrorist attack on ourselves, and that made me quite angry. People were murdered, everyday people who went off to their jobs in all innocence that morning. Maybe some were greedy CEO's but there were also working Dads and Moms who had no part in any international conspiracy to rip the third world off, and they didn't get to come home again. There were janitors and other low-level workers probably getting minimum wage, to all intents and purposes pretty darn oppressed themselves, and they died too.

So I was angry when I heard these apologists making "bad, bad America" remarks, and for once in my life I was pleased for a very short while that Bush was talking tough. Of course, afterwards he completely screwed up and lied to us and I reverted to my usual stance on him and his party. But when Faludi wrote about several women who made these apologist type of remarks and the virulence that was heaped on them, I couldn't help saying to myself, "So what? They deserved it!" She does have a point that it wasn't fair if the men who said similar things weren't criticized in the same way.

But the most interesting part of the book was the last few chapters where she pointed out something I never thought of before: that America does have a history of "terrorism" on "our own soil." She refers to the colonists and later the frontier people who were attacked by the Native Americans. At that time, it seems, the American response was to try and cast men as the heroes defending their families from the "savages," just as men were cast as the exclusive heroes of 9/11. Women were cast as the victims even though men were killed too, and some of the women who were taken captive were quite capable of defending themselves.

Apparently, the true stories of some of these captives who killed their captors (and sometimes innocent children) when making their escapes were covered up and replaced by sweet tales of helpless, terrified victims who were rescued by big strong all-American white men. In fact, some of the captives were so well treated by their captors that they married men of the tribes and were heartbroken when they were "rescued" and forcibly returned to white society. From the alteration of these tales to create a false image of American men staunchly defending their women and children (when in fact they often were the victims of these attacks themselves) comes the John Wayne image, particularly as depicted in "The Searchers."

I found the book quite interesting, but I have to admit I didn't experience that push to return to the hearth, since I was already there. I also saw nothing in the media that seemed to be especially aimed at women. It seemed to me that men and women alike were quoted in the aftermath of 9/11 as wanting to spend more time with their families.

So while this was a fascinating book I felt the author's stance was a little off base. However it goes into a chapter of our history that I knew nothing about before reading the book, except that I knew that women sometimes found they had more rights in tribal life than they did in American society, and sometimes resisted being "rescued" from their captors, whom they had grown to love. It's worth reading, even if I don't fully agree with Ms. Faludi.

"Dear Celeste"

My latest project has been launched. I'll be writing a "Dear Celeste" column that will appear in the Bay Currents newspaper, which comes out biweekly and serves the Sheepshead Bay and surrounding neighborhoods. The initial article came out on Yournews.com a few days ago.

I'm hoping to answer some interesting questions and gain a following, and down the road, if this takes off, maybe syndication is a possibility. So please read the article when it comes out in the Bay Currents, and send in a question for me!

Three Thoughts

Three quick thoughts for today:

One:

It's Steven Hawking's 66th birthday. Good for him! Hawking is one of the people I admired and hoped to be like when I had cancer. He was given a death sentence many years ago, in the sixties, I think. But he forgot to die, and instead he went on to marry, father children, and become a brilliant scientist.

Two:

At the library I saw a new book titled Kockroach. It's a reversal of the Metamorphosis story where a man turns into a giant cockroach. In this story, the cockroach turns into a man. What a revolting thought. I wonder if that is what was wrong with some of my old dates?

Three:

A 114-year old woman decided to re-register to vote. It's amazing that she is even breathing, let alone lucid enough to vote. Not only that but she lives with her grandson...who is 82. In those days they married young!

"Atonement"

Bruce and I used my free movie passes to see "Atonement" today. I'd read the book a couple of years ago and discussed it at a book club at my local library.

The movie was excellent, and seemed very true to the book (although I don't remember everything now). Young Briony is quite full of herself, and full of romantic fantasies but no real understanding of love or sexuality. On one fateful day in 1935, she has her ego knocked about when her cousins don't want to take part in a play she has written. She witnesses an odd scene between her older sister Cecilia and Robbie, the bright young man who doesn't fit in, as he is the son of one of their servants. Later, she delivers a note to Cecelia that Robbie gives to her by mistake, and she reads it first. It's a highly erotic note but Briony misreads it and believes it proves Robbie is a sex maniac.

Cecelia, on the other hand, is turned on by it, and she and Robbie have a tryst in the library. Unfortunately, it is witnessed by Briony who now believes she has witnessed an attack. Later in the evening, when her twin cousins run away and everyone goes out to search, Briony sees her cousin being held down on the ground by a male attacker. She accuses Robbie, knowing it's not true, but sticking to her story when she's questioned.

Robbie goes to prison as a result of her testimony and ends up serving in World War 2 since he was offered a release in order to go into the army. The war scenes are nightmarish, especially the scene at Dunkirk, with drunken soldiers reeling every which way, wounded and crippled people, horses being shot to avoid them being taken by the enemy, and soldiers riding abandoned amusement rides.

Briony becomes a nurse like Cecelia and tries to do penance for the lie that haunts her. But she can't wash away the guilt no matter what she does. As a writer she envisions a somewhat happy ending, in which Robbie and Cecelia are married and happy together, but they will not forgive her; they insist that she write letters exonerating Robbie and apologizing for her perjury.

But in fact, as she states at the end, now an old lady with a fatal illness, that's not what happened at all. In fact, Robbie died at Dunkirk, and Cecelia died during a bombing six months later. They never saw each other again and never had a chance at the happiness they could have had if Briony had told the truth about the person who committed the assault.

I won't reveal that, though I've probably already revealed too much anyhow. This was a sad movie of three lives destroyed by a little girl's lie. For Briony's life was destroyed too, she was haunted by her guilt and never found a man of her own or had any family.

Why did she lie? Bruce asked me this when we were leaving the theater. I think it was a combination of things. She was a self-centered rich kid who was mighty put out that her brilliant play wasn't lapped up by her cousins (who were distraught over their parents' divorce). She had a crush on Robbie at one time, and probably was angry that he didn't return her affection. Plus, she just didn't understand erotic love, and completely misinterpreted what she saw between her sister and Robbie. And then there was the class issue. It was so much easier to throw the blame on a lower-class person, especially one who had been allowed to rise above his station. People were quite willing to believe that he would be the rapist and not the upper class person who actually was the attacker.

I liked this film a great deal and I recommend both the movie and the book.

A Wedding in the Toilet

I just read a filler article in AMNY about a couple who are getting married in a restroom, where the bride will wear a gown fashioned out of toilet paper. The dress was designed by the winner of the 2007 Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, sponsored by a website called Cheap-Chic-Weddings.com.

At least if the marriage doesn't work out, they've got an alternate use for the dress....

Is "Happy Holidays" Too Politically Correct?

This afternoon, weather permitting, the Brooklyn Humanist Community is going to hold a discussion this afternoon about saying "Happy Holidays."

Apparently quite a lot of people find it insulting and annoying to hear "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas." For the most part I have not heard many Jews complaining about this.
Personally, I generally just respond in kind. If a person wishes me Happy Holidays then that is my answer. If they say Happy Hanukah, so do I. If they wish me Merry Christmas, I answer the same. Who cares that I don't celebrate Christmas? It doesn't matter to me. If it is a sincere and friendly holiday greeting I could not care less how it is phrased or which holiday is mentioned.

While I can see why some people don't like "Happy Holidays" because it takes the Christmas out of Christmas, on the other hand there are times and places where it is better to be neutral and just say "Happy Holidays" to one and all.

I certainly wouldn't say "Happy Kwaanza" to every person of color I meet, because it's not fair to make the assumption that just because her skin is a certain shade, she must be celebrating this holiday. So why would I say "Merry Christmas" to everyone without wondering if someone is feeling left out?

On the other hand, as I said, if they wish me a Merry Christmas I will wish them the same.

Two incidents that recently happened on the subway I use most, the Q train, bring this whole issue into another focus.

First, one night during Hanukah, I was on the train with Bruce and Jason when two Hasidim got on the train. They were probably of the Lubavitcher sect that believes the Messiah will come when every Jew is observing all the rules and regulations of strict Orthodox Judaism. So, they proselytize among Jews (but not to non-Jews).

One of the men was going up and down the subway car, asking everyone if he or she was Jewish. If the response was positive, he would hand them a tiny box of some sort (I could not tell what it was..prayers for Hanukah, a set of candles? maybe) and tried to also give them a plastic container of doughnuts. On Hanukah it is customary to eat fried foods to remind oneself of the oil that miraculously lasted 8 days instead of only one.

When he came to me I ignored him and Jason did too. Bruce was sitting a distance away and was taking a nap on the way home. This crass fellow actually woke Bruce up to ask him if he was Jewish. Jason became quite indignant and was ready to have words with this man if he came back to him. The Hasid came back to me and asked again if I was Jewish, and I loudly said, "I don't want it!"

In an instance like this, making a distinction between those who celebrate Hanukah and those who don't, and then pushing their agenda on those who admitted to being Jewish, was quite offensive to me. I would have certainly preferred to hear, "Happy Holidays!"

In another incident also on the Q train that Friday night, the fourth night of Hanukah, a group of about 10 college-age kids got on the train and loudly wished everyone a Merry Christmas. A small group of maybe 2-4 Jewish kids around the same age responded, "Happy Hanukah!" Whereupon the Christmas celebrants set on the Jews and beat them up.

The one person who came to their defense was a Muslim. Now, there is someone who probably deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, and he has the two black eyes to show for it.

In the aftermath of this, it turns out that the Jewish fellow (who had his nose broken by the so-called Christians) invited his newfound Muslim friend to celebrate Hanukah with him.

The aggressors were found to be a bad lot, with web pages showing them playing with guns, and with a sheet already documenting other hate crimes. They are going to be prosecuted for a hate crime, which serves them right. As Mr. Potter said to George Bailey, "Merry Christmas to you -- in jail!"

Here again, supposing they'd come on and shouted "Merry Christmas," and the Jewish kids had said, "Happy Holidays!" Would there still have been a violent incident? Maybe, since these little cross-wearing hoodlums were obviously looking for trouble anyhow. But saying "Happy Holidays" might also have defused the whole thing.

Then again, maybe it's better to name the holiday (thereby naming your religion) and find out then and there who your friends and your enemies are.

If it warms up and the ice goes away by 11 AM, I will bring up these two stories during the discussion. If not, I've at least mentioned them here.

Silly Job Ads

Every day, I peruse Craigslist looking for possible job openings for Jason and for some of my friends who are looking for work. Once in a while I run across some very strange and funny advertisements!

Last week someone posted a job ad for an administrative assistant at a company where "one of the co-founders is a dog." Therefore, being a dog lover was part of the job description, but as the poster put it, "The final requirement for this job is that you not be allergic to the co-president."

One might also want to add that you shouldn't be terrified of the co-president. I suppose no cats need apply.

In another ad for a dog walking company, the final job requirement was that the applicant not be "an uptight weenie." Therefore, when revising Jason's cover letter, I added the sentence, "I solemnly swear I am not an uptight weenie."

Still, they haven't called. I wonder if they are afraid he can't cut the mustard.

I could probably start a separate blog lampooning the outrageous and sometimes hilarious demands bosses ask of their prospective employees. I'm sure it would make entertaining reading!

Article on "Holiday Gifts" to be Published

Another of my articles has been accepted for publication. This time, it's a semi-sardonic essay on holiday gift giving, tied in to the many toy recalls this year. The article will appear soon on www.yournews.com, under the 11229 zip code.

It would probably make Ebenezer Scrooge proud, because generally I don't favor expensive gifts! However I do favor gifts to charity, and old Ebenezer would not be pleased with that approach until after his series of mind-altering dreams. I favor gifts of memberships or magazine subscriptions, that you can enjoy all year long.

Anyway I do wish everyone a Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanza and a Happy New Year. And do check out the website so you can see my thoughts on holiday gifts.

Breast Cancer, 10 Years After

Ten years ago today I had my mastectomy. I was terrified. Not so much of losing a breast, but of waking up to hear that it had spread throughout my body, and that I didn't have long to live.

Although I'd had some warning signs for two years, mine was an unusual type of breast cancer, known as Paget's Disease of the Nipple. It manifests as what looks like a rash or some skin problem on the nipple, and therefore is often ignored until it has spread. That was what I feared. The survival rate was lower than some other breast cancers, because women who had it tended to go to dermatologists, who weren't always sharp enough to take a biopsy, but kept issuing creams while the cancer grew and entrenched itself.

Also, because it looks like a rash or a callous, it doesn't raise the same level of alarm that an actual lump would raise in a woman's mind. It's pretty rare, showing up in only 2 out of 100 cases of breast cancer.

Fortunately, the dermatologist I went to recognized that it could be more than a rash, so he took a biopsy.

After the mastectomy on December 1, 1997, I felt great about my survival chances until December 22nd when I had a bone scan that revealed a suspicious mass in my left femur. On Christmas Eve (Merry Christmas to you, doc!) my oncologist told me it looked as if I had metastatic cancer in the femur, and if so it was a question of how long it would take me to die. Not pretty news by any means, and I lived in terror for the next seven weeks until in February I had an orthopedic biopsy.

I never learned the name of the mass in my femur, but it wasn't cancer and it wasn't going to kill me. That was all the information I needed.

At the time I became very spiritual and prayed a lot, read lots of spiritual books. Since then I've become a little more apathetic about my spiritual life again. Everyday life and its concerns takes over. But some things have changed forever. There's no such thing as a routine doctor appointment anymore, and any little symptom I have gets magnified into possible cancer in my mind.

But, I'm also grateful for the ten years I've lived cancer free, and I hope to remain cancer-free for the rest of my life. I got the chance to see Jason grow up and graduate high school. Now that he's in a transitional period, I need to see him heading in a useful direction. And I still haven't given up the hope of dancing (stiffly) to classic rock at my grandchildren's weddings.

So onward I go, with ten years survival now, and high hopes for future survival. The odds were with me but they were sure scary for a while there. I've been blessed, and I need to remember that when the petty things get me down.

Happy Anniversary to me!!

Implicit Association Test

Want to find out how prejudiced your unconscious is? Try the Implicit Association Test. This test asks you to quickly associate attributes with various concepts (age, race, gender roles, etc.) and rates your unconscious prejudices by measuring how long it takes you to associate a "good" word or a "bad" word with a certain category.

So, for instance, if you find it easier to associate positive attributes with "young people" as opposed to "old people," then you have a preference for youth over age.

It's an interesting concept except that I wonder if it's really true. The way the test works is as follows: first you identify faces or names with the concept. For instance in the young vs. old test you had to press the e or the i keys to identify faces as "young" or "old." Then you identified "good" vs. "bad" attributes. Next you identified young vs. old faces again only they were now on the opposite side of the keyboard. Then they pair "good" attributes with "young" and "bad" with "old." Finally they switch again and "bad" attributes are paired with "young" while "good" attributes are paired with "old." If it takes you significantly longer to identify good attributes with old as opposed to identifying them with youth, then you're biased against old people.

So, what if you just get used to hitting the keys the way you were first trained? What if it is harder to switch gears not because you are prejudiced against the group in question but because you already learned to associate the attributes with your right versus your left hand? I wonder. In any case the results were interesting but not too surprising (and no, I'm not telling what they were). Try it for yourself. It's an interesting diversion!

My Life with George

I suppose My Life With George by Judith Summers jumped off the library shelf at me because I had a cat named George from 1984 to 1997. My Life With George is the story of Ms. Summers' relationship with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, or "What I Learned About Joy from One Neurotic (and Very Expensive) Dog."

In George the Cat's case, he was neurotic enough (almost starved himself to death while Bruce and I were on our honeymoon and we left him with one of my co-workers, who proved to be too neurotic herself to cope with a frightened and unsettled cat). But I didn't allow him to become nearly expensive as Ms. Summers' dog.

My Life With George isn't just a cute dog story. Ms. Summers goes into depth about the role George played in her family. She decided to buy George on a bit of a whim, after her husband and her father died within days of each other, and her son was begging for a dog. The dog did in fact bring laughter and joy back into the bereaved household, and was a big factor in helping the two of them heal.

But on the other hand, George himself was a handful, spoiled, willful and overly dependent. Ms. Summers admits she didn't have the spine to make George behave, and she gave in over and over again to his whining and sulks. But from her description of George's behavior, just about anyone would probably have a hard time getting this pooch to do as he was told. Her encounters with animal psychologists were pretty absurd, with them ascribing deep hidden meanings to George's behavior (piddling on the carpet was supposedly a bid for attention).

So, as she described, George had a profound impact on Ms. Summers, on her son Joshua (who, coincidentally, is Jason's age), and also on her various relationships with men after her husband's death. The first fellow was driven away mostly by Joshua's opposition, but George's behavioral eccentricities didn't help either. The second was a dog lover and very tolerant, adored by George and Joshua, but Ms. Summers herself could not muster any passion for him. And the third adored her and it was mutual..but only when they were in a romantic bubble of unreality away from her daily life with Joshua and George. To some extent he had a point about her overindulgence of the dog, but he was also intolerant and resentful of a relationship that existed before he came along. The breakup was inevitable.

(I remember seeing a great bumper sticker at a cat show years ago: Men come and go, but the cat stays).

And yet, even with all the ups and downs and the distressing effect on her love life, she continues to love her naughty little doggie, and at the end of the book, is off to indulge his whims yet again. It is, in all, a sweet story about the love between humans and their animal companions. Ms. Summers should definitely put a bumper sticker on her car: "I'm owned by a dog." Anyone who is an animal lover will appreciate this touching story.

Ms. Summers has written several other books including The Empress of Pleasure: The Life and Loves of Teresa Cornelys, Queen of Masquerades and Casanova's Lover.

American Jewish Historical Society

Today Bruce and I visited the American Jewish Historical Society, a mostly-free museum an avenue block off Union Square. This is a museum created as a partnership between 5 organizations, and each one contributes exhibits to the museum. I'd never heard of it before but stumbled on it while looking for free things to do in New York City. Their website is at www.ajhs.org

There was an excellent exhibit on the historic synagogues of Turkey, with beautiful photos of synagogues, some of them centuries old. It was fascinating to read about the Ottoman Empire in which Jews and Muslims coexisted peacefully and Jews were invited to help shape the Ottoman Empire. Too bad that mutual respect can't seem to exist today, although it does in Turkey (unless the fundamentalist Muslims are able to take over there too).

Besides the beautiful photos, the researchers kept a travel diary that was fascinating to read. One excerpt described a rabbi who travels 22 hours each way every weekend in order to bring Shabbas services to a town that has only 4 or 5 remaining Jews. Now that's dedication!

Another exhibit was on Jewish Chaplains at War: Unsung Heros of the "Greatest Generation," 1941-1945. This described the extraordinary efforts put forth by the Jewish chaplains during World War II, how they comforted the wounded, buried the dead, and sustained the faith of all troops without regard to race, ethnicity or religion. They also made efforts to help the Holocaust survivors rebuild their lives. They worked closely with Christian chaplains for the first time and brought the spirit of ecumenicism back to civilian life at the war's end.

Several chaplains died while on duty. One was on a ship that was torpedoed. He and 3 other chaplains of other faiths gave their life preservers to the escaping sailors, and then held hands and prayed while the ship sank. Their sacrifice was honored on a postage stamp.

The Yeshiva University Museum had an exhibit on Dreyfus but we preferred to stay in the free part of the museum, and, that exhibit room didn't look all that big. (Bruce wandered into it by mistake while looking for me). I was in another side room looking at an exhibit built around the mesivta, the separation between men and women in the Orthodox synagogues. I'd always resented that separation so it was interesting to see how the artists interpreted it, with cutouts of women, the mesivta on one side and a depiction of the woman's character on the other.

There was a photo exhibit of Jewish writers. Many of them I've read, but many others I have not. Now if I see their names I will remember and perhaps read their books.

This was a delightful and serendipitous find. If you're visiting NYC check it out!

Bearded Lady (Reprise)

Friday I went and got my hair colored and cut for the first time in months. I take my time about it and I let the skunk stripe of gray hair grow out too far along my part. It was finally time to do something about it so I did.

The hairdresser kept pushing me to get my face waxed. I kept saying no. She even offered to do it for free the first time. I began to think of a drug peddler, offering school kids that first joint or pill or snort for free, knowing they would get hooked and come back for more. Finally I said to her, "What part of NO don't you understand? It's only two letters!"

Thank God for assertiveness training. I read those books 20 years ago and they still stand up today.

She says I'll change my mind someday and get a waxing done, but she's wrong. I won't. I had waxing done and not only did it hurt like hell, the hairs on my upper lip and chin came right back the minute I stopped. The same thing happened with electrolysis, which burns and stings, no matter how much local anesthetic they rub on your face. It's supposed to kill the root so that the hair doesn't grow back again. Oh, really? Well, I found that more and more hair grew back, so either it wasn't true or else the tiny electric shocks stimulated more growth in the nearby hair follicles.

In any case I am almost 53 and I am through torturing myself to make those hairs go away. If I find out that laser treatments are painless and permanent I might consider it but otherwise I will just shave off the long hairs and let it go at that. I have to say again that I admire Jennifer Miller for taking what could have been a devastating blow to most women, a full beard, and turning it into a positive and really the focal point of her life since she organized a circus.

I've got a fantasy. I'll stroll into my hairdresser's salon arm in arm with Jennifer Miller and we'll both flip her the bird. No waxing for me!!

Blogs of Note

Yesterday I checked out some of the Blogs of Note catalogued here on Blogger. One was about global volunteerism and seems to draw on the contributions of a number of people who have travelled to foreign countries in order to volunteer their time, energy and skills. It was inspiring to read about various experiences (and travel tips -- such as pedestrians do not have the right of way in China!) and how they changed the volunteers' lives. Here's the link: http://www.globalvolunteers.org/blog/

The other is on the ethics of blogging, and deals with issues such as blogging anonymously, what kinds of rules should apply to blogging, blogging in oppressive regimes, etc. Here's the link to this blog: http://ethicalbloggerproject.blogspot.com/

I recommend both highly. Finally, we have a published comment from a gentleman who claims to have written a book on the meaning of life. Please read his comment and do check out his blog, who knows, he may be on to something. Granted, in Douglas Adam's book, Life, the Universe, and Everything, a massive computer that had been working on the ultimate question for millions of years finally arrived at its conclusion: the answer to life, the universe, and everything was 42! It would probably take humanity and all the other sentient life forms in all the galaxies another billion years or so to work out what that answer meant. But whatever his answer, his blog is sure to raise some questions worth pondering.