I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike....

oh, Lord, Freddie Mercury...you have no idea, rest your soul...but these days...Manhattan...midafternoon...well, I don't want my obituary to start with, "death by wheels and wontons"...I understand the healthy aspect...the speed of getting around...the environmental benefit...but every time I go to cross a street...reaching my toes off the curb...I say a silent prayer...to many gods...all really...who is the patron saint of city walkers?...now we add to the old mix of delivery people - goods and food...newbies on Citi bikes...who disregard all rules of the road...whee - look at me...no helmet...look at my hair blowing in the wind...blocking my vision!...watch me sail through the red lights...against the traffic...flying through corner after corner...the taxi drivers are even shaking their heads...so here's a thought, Mayor Dumblasio...new rules...every bike has a license...number prominent on the back...every bike rider must have a helmet...I wear a seat belt...you, mister beat up Schwinn...you wear a helmet...you can only ride in the bike lanes, same direction as cars...you stop at red lights...employ the homeless...arm them with cell phones...let them take pictures of violators as best they can...hey, it's all a dream I know...but it's the thoughts that ruminate as I attempt to cross 6th Avenue, lunch in hand...heart in mouth...the wheels missing me by a foot...the aroma of wonton soup threatening...

a pox be on your house

no, I don't mean your house...I mean the House...Congressmen, Congresswomen, Senators...and all in between...handwritten notes!...spilling off the margins...I mean with all the taxes I've paid, you think a decent copier machine, right?...but seriously...I'm feeling the weight of all the years I've been on this earth...the weight of watching the bullshit repeat over and over...Republicans...and yes, Democrats..."he started it"...now, stick your tongue out...or your middle finger...then pat yourself on the back...and stick it to the middle class...the new middle class...perpetually paying up...paying down...till we are in the grave...and we are railing against the machine...one of our own making...for the dwindling handful of elected officials who do work hard for constituents...well, I'm sorry for you...for trying for the most part to do what you were sent to do...the hell with party lines, you cried in earnest...and then hit the wall...not 45's invisible wall...but the payoff wall built buy the uber billionaires, special interest groups... and for those elected officials who have grown tired...or jaded...just get the hell out...cause Lord knows your exit packages would keep me grinning like the village idiot...for the rest...those smiling like Satan...cough, cough...I mean Ryan...or smirking over a turkey neck...ahem, McConnell...and even McCain (retire and spend what you have left with family, you earned it)....have fun this Christmas recess...and when you go to your house of worship...do a little soul searching...I mean really searching...see if it's even there...because I'm contacting the real House....Dr. House...to try and cure this fatal disease...pox Americanus...before the patient flatlines as Ray Charles sings over the corpse...

c'mon, get happy!

by the time you read this, David Cassidy may be dead...or clinging to life...or playing at the Paramount...I give up...after another, what I dub, "Tom Petty twit fest"...it's hard to know what the truth is...but in this case...he actually is gravely ill...a teen idol...my teen idol...facing his final curtain...recent disclosures of dementia following all those years of the hard knocks bestowed on our fallen idols...and it is sad...the news was a hit to that younger me buried deep...and I think about all this while pushing the shopping cart past turkeys, and pumpkin pies...Thanksgiving calls...and I just think sometimes that 2018 cannot come fast enough...the storms...the shootings...musicians passing...the tweet storm raining on us every day...makes me want to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV on Thanksgiving morning...watch the parade...the floats...the balloons...the kids smiling in delight...the Rockettes...even Santa...just let it wash over me like it did...in black and white...so many decades ago...back then when the parade was over...I'd put on tights and my patent leather mary janes...slip on a dress...adjust my barrettes...and greet the day with a smile...this year I'm digging deep...gonna wade through the gloomy waters...and smile in thanks...Happy Turkey day, all...and Mr. Cassidy...wishing you a gentle journey...

revenge of the nebbish...

nebbish...like most words it loses so much of its essence in translation...actually,  I think all Yiddish words lose 95% of their "flavor" in translation...and so you have a nebbish..."a pitifully ineffectual, luckless, and timid person"...Saturday night I winced watching SNL host Larry David draw a somewhat painful common thread amongst several of those high profile men accused of sexual assault and intimidation...that being religion...Jewish...and for Larry David...a man I usually find quite funny...I kept thinking no, no, no you're missing the point...(let's not even discuss the concentration camp shtick)...the common thread...and this extends to Spacey and other gentiles in this group as well...is what I call the "nebbish factor"...the men you walked past in life...those who sat awkwardly invisible at the end of bars...who you ignored, or worse, bullied in school...ah, what power and money can do...Weinstein, Spitzer, Spacey....the list grows...years of them very visibly in the media...successful politician or actor or creative force or money-maker...all masking lurid behavior silenced with that power...many women, and men, who have been perusing the tabloids of late have been silently nodding in agreement...perhaps remembering being on the receiving end of very unwanted advances from bosses and other figures who dictated their business advancement or paycheck...or maybe you cannot understand why it took people so long to speak up...if so, you are either lucky enough to have never been on the receiving end of sexual harrassment or worse...or you are forgetting that the evolution of a safe and balanced work environment is the perpetual one step forward, two steps back...because all I can think of as this happens is that ugly memory of a vice president of my department in the 80's...at a very well-respected cable network.... introducing him to my husband, my fiance at the time...and him glaring...a very polished, impeccably dressed nebbish, joking how we must be glad that my yeast infection cleared up...and we stood stunned...what to say?...oh, I know some of you reading this are laughing...thinking, it was only a joke...well, it never is a joke if the one telling it could destroy your future career in the time it took for a witty response...and it is nothing new...the casting couch was never a sale item at Sears...but if we want to move forward then we can't lose sight of the work we should be doing...let's not go down a rabbit hole of floundering punishment (because who is Netflix punishing if everyone at "House of Cards" loses their jobs?)...try the crimes in a court of law...make sure company policies have real teeth...and really treat the disease at the root...your sons are not all princes...your daughters should never trade their souls for the crown...

we skipped the light fandango...

this morning I turned on the news...for which I, at first, sighed with relief...yes, we had power!!!...and then it was Mueller Monday...a little more than 9 months of 45's term and I am freakin' exhausted...it is relentless...turn off the media and then there's Mother Nature...pissed as all hell...and those musicians...those who would sing me to sleep...or croon to me in my car, literally keeping me from going insane driving on Long Island...well, they are all leaving for that great wide open...and now it is just about Halloween...and there is no movie, costume or creature that is scarier than Kim Jong Un and that haircut, and his sadistic rhetoric to match...and so I find myself digging in a bit...getting ready, like the proverbial bear, for hibernation...but that Procol Harum lyric has become an earworm..."we skipped the light fandango"...and I ponder the meaning...but realize how incredibly stoned the writer was and laugh...yep, laugh...cause whatever the hell it means, I know that as the DC fan spews shit on all of us for the next few months of Mueller Morsels...I know I want to skip that light fandango...do cartwheels across the floor...and I laugh once more till I see this week's Rolling Stone cover smiling at me from the coffee table...Tom Petty and those baby blues, and mocking grin...and those tears well up inside...trick or treat...as winter beckons...

Travels with my aunt...

I put on my lipstick...and there are tears...”you have to wear lips”...my late, dear Aunt Harriet’s voice in my head...memories flood my heart...my yearly summer visit...a week at Lake Carmel with my beloved cousin, Jennifer, and aunt and uncle...the daily adventures...the late afternoon chase in the car after that Good Humor truck...giggles way into the night...then, paintings at the MET...oh, yes...Harriet and art...paintings throughout her home...her beautiful oils of ballet, bullfights, portraits...then I am 15...and she takes me to my first ballet...Nureyev!...the music, the lights...the climbing in to our seats after the light are out...always late!...and all those wonderful, spirited discussions...with bagels...with chocolate...around tables...in my grandparent's house...in Vermont...in Florida...and of course, Montauk...she was so intelligent...the best sparring partner...she was one of the strongest people I ever knew...I do not know how she kept going when life hit her so hard...maybe, it was for the pure joy her grandchildren would give her...and for the love and life lesson she would give them...now if I pause...I can hear them all laughing and yelling around that table...Harriet...my dad...Sharyn...my dear Uncle "Boss" (Godfrey) and her beloved Nicole...all those giggles tossing the waves of Montauk...rest in peace and love...

heart of darkness...

I read the news today, oh boy...here we go again...you know how it goes...you turn on your phone...or the tv...and today's disaster du jour greets you...I'm beginning to hate my phone...and this new tragedy demands a response...in  a twitter second...sadly, we are a numb society...we try to put back pieces in rote movement...we hang on to our own sanity by very frayed threads...but this morning...my mind raced and kept going back to the same thought...how could one person be so evil...was he always like this...how did it remain so invisible to those around him...or was it there, underneath, too ugly and terrifying to confront...I truly believe that when we climb out of this cesspool of despair in Vegas...that it is imperative that we focus on the heroism of every day men and women...do not glorify evil but elevate the good...and when this becomes another horrible footnote in our new narrative...maybe it's time to examine...to carefully and quietly examine the heart of darkness of twenty-first century mankind...after all...if we do not find the root of this disease we surely cannot survive...and I want our survival to be that film that leaves me crying tears of hope...not some over-budget, bloated disaster burning a hole in my pocket and leaving me empty...and now as I prepare for a cavalcade of faces...those lost in an early October night raining bullets...I say for all of us...rest easy, the faithful departed...and viva Las Vegas...