I know I wrote, en passant, about being a co-founder of the Dead Father's Club with my college friend, Alice, way back in 1971. Have I not been therapized enough that this is still a big deal? Yes, and yes. If you are following me thus far, you either have lost a parent (through divorce or death) or you haven't. If you have, you know that if it happened when you were a child, before you totally convinced yourself that death was a reality, this is what it is like: you are standing on a small rug, and someone pulls it out from under you, and you fall and get hurt; and no one can make it better. Because you learn at a young age you are not safe. There is danger. And those who you hope will keep you safe are busy keeping themselves alive. And that is the name of that tune. And when I speak of the Dead Fathers' Club, which I will do on numerous occasions, keep it in mind. The first thing you must realize about children who have been abandoned, be it by death or divorce, is that their first feeling is that there is no one who can be trusted. Adults lie. They will lie again. So how, as a child., do I protect myself?
My husband's father died when he was eight. He and I have very few things in common, but the fact that the truth about life and death can be shocking is among them. He grew up in a Greek Orthodox community. I grew up as a Jewish American Princess. They lied to him, too. We both had stepfathers. It was never the same.
Why am I mentioning this now? Because today was the first day of my twin daughters' winter break; and I practically begged them to come with me to the remake of "True Grit", done by the Coen brothers (love them), about an independent, articulate, wounded 14 year old daughter who wants to avenge the murder of her father.
This, to me, felt like a potentially bonding experience. I mean, I went to the the damn Harry Potter movies, despite my lack of interest, just so they'd know I was there--not that I think there should necessarily be quid pro quo...but knowing what I knew about the movie, and about them, I thought they'd enjoy it. I know, movies are tricky (not to mention the fact that one has to sit through at least six coming attractions. Doesn't anyone remember that we all have short attention spans?)
And I am delighted to say, although they DID ask me how long it was; they enjoyed the remake, too. I have precocious daughters who will, I hope, never truly know what it is like to be fatherless children where no one, no one, can make it better. But that they called their father at work and said, "If someone killed you, I would try and kill them," makes me happy. Is there something wrong with this picture? Ahhh, keep it to yourself. 'Tis the season.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Seriously, heal thyself.
I work part-time at a hospital where amazing things happen.
I am a licensed social worker, but because I am only employed there two days a week and a lot of my work is off-site, unlike my peers, I don't have an office anymore. People got territorial --it happens--so after about six years of having my name and graduate initials on a door, I was relegated to Life in a Cubicle. It is challenging to therapize in a cubicle (or to search for an empty office in which to do so), and it initially felt like a corporate reprimand, but I quickly learned it could be worse. It could always be worse.
I get along famously with the woman with whom I share a cubicle wall. This is a good thing, as, for all intents and purposes, we practically sit on each other's lap. She is the Clinic Director's Administrative Assistant, and she knows how to make the trains run on time. As we are at eye level, I know that our first takes on most hospital situations are so similar, there are moments I think we were separated at birth, except for the fact that she is, like, 22 years younger than me and was born in Barbados. She makes coming to work much more bearable, but I wouldn't play poker with her.
Life in a Cubicle also gives me some insight into the newly minted doctors who have just found employment at this hospital. I don't mean to spread a wide net, but it makes for better copy; and the fact remains that most of these recent medical school graduates (Ivy League, one quickly learns) behave in a manner that implies they believe that their job was getting into and through medical school.
"Hey, Dr. Oz," I itch to respond,"Great job getting through school. NOW you have a JOB. Get used to it! Learn about the corporate culture! You're getting PAID."
I don't say it. To them. But when they come into the administrative offices (where my cubicle is located), look at the copier, and without even giving it a try say to me--who they assume to be an administrative assistant, given the seating chart--"Does this copier work?" I just smile and say, "I have no idea." If they don't bother reading the directions aimed at 12-year-olds and just throw up their hands and say, "How does this work?" I reply, "I have no idea." I'm still smiling, mind you. Then they say, "Who do I call to fix it?" I just shrug my shoulders.
Jesus H. Christ, why don't these kids know that they should immediately learn the difference between gatekeepers and those who couldn't care less if they spontaneously combust. If my cubicle mate is present, she immediately helps them in a manner more gracious than they merit. But I particularly like it when they think she has memorized their work schedules, like that isn't their job. When one of them comes in and asks her, "Am I on call this weekend?" I immediately duck my head. Although the AA will behave in a professional manner, I will not.
I won't grab the Young Turk and yell, "Hey, how high up on the food chart do you think you are? I'm not your mother. You figure out your schedule," no matter how tempting. But I will be forced to stifle the urge to snort in a very unladylike manner.
So, listen up, Dr. New Doctor: you might be an MD and fulfilled your parents' dream, but you're new at it. Because you know your pancreas from your duodenum, this doesn't mean you shouldn't know that there are certain rules and rituals in the workplace. Close your mouth, open your eyes; see how things work. Not only will you find you get what you want, it will improve your relationship with your patients, er, clients, in the long run.
I am a licensed social worker, but because I am only employed there two days a week and a lot of my work is off-site, unlike my peers, I don't have an office anymore. People got territorial --it happens--so after about six years of having my name and graduate initials on a door, I was relegated to Life in a Cubicle. It is challenging to therapize in a cubicle (or to search for an empty office in which to do so), and it initially felt like a corporate reprimand, but I quickly learned it could be worse. It could always be worse.
I get along famously with the woman with whom I share a cubicle wall. This is a good thing, as, for all intents and purposes, we practically sit on each other's lap. She is the Clinic Director's Administrative Assistant, and she knows how to make the trains run on time. As we are at eye level, I know that our first takes on most hospital situations are so similar, there are moments I think we were separated at birth, except for the fact that she is, like, 22 years younger than me and was born in Barbados. She makes coming to work much more bearable, but I wouldn't play poker with her.
Life in a Cubicle also gives me some insight into the newly minted doctors who have just found employment at this hospital. I don't mean to spread a wide net, but it makes for better copy; and the fact remains that most of these recent medical school graduates (Ivy League, one quickly learns) behave in a manner that implies they believe that their job was getting into and through medical school.
"Hey, Dr. Oz," I itch to respond,"Great job getting through school. NOW you have a JOB. Get used to it! Learn about the corporate culture! You're getting PAID."
I don't say it. To them. But when they come into the administrative offices (where my cubicle is located), look at the copier, and without even giving it a try say to me--who they assume to be an administrative assistant, given the seating chart--"Does this copier work?" I just smile and say, "I have no idea." If they don't bother reading the directions aimed at 12-year-olds and just throw up their hands and say, "How does this work?" I reply, "I have no idea." I'm still smiling, mind you. Then they say, "Who do I call to fix it?" I just shrug my shoulders.
Jesus H. Christ, why don't these kids know that they should immediately learn the difference between gatekeepers and those who couldn't care less if they spontaneously combust. If my cubicle mate is present, she immediately helps them in a manner more gracious than they merit. But I particularly like it when they think she has memorized their work schedules, like that isn't their job. When one of them comes in and asks her, "Am I on call this weekend?" I immediately duck my head. Although the AA will behave in a professional manner, I will not.
I won't grab the Young Turk and yell, "Hey, how high up on the food chart do you think you are? I'm not your mother. You figure out your schedule," no matter how tempting. But I will be forced to stifle the urge to snort in a very unladylike manner.
So, listen up, Dr. New Doctor: you might be an MD and fulfilled your parents' dream, but you're new at it. Because you know your pancreas from your duodenum, this doesn't mean you shouldn't know that there are certain rules and rituals in the workplace. Close your mouth, open your eyes; see how things work. Not only will you find you get what you want, it will improve your relationship with your patients, er, clients, in the long run.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Pink List
The first college I attended, and the only one from which I made any lasting friends, was Kenyon, in Gambier, Ohio. Mine was only the third class which included women, and an odd mix we were, indeed. My girlfriends ran the gamut from the First Runner Up of the Miss Canton Football Hall of Fame--who had never before met a Jew--to the New York City born-and-bred daughter of a famous television show producer. And there we all were, trying to make sense of everything from washing machines to birth control, housed on campus in the new dorms in the middle of the sticks of Ohio.
Our dorms were brick on the outside, cinder blocked within; they couldn't have looked more different than the upperclassmen dorms which were located on the other side of Middle Path. They seemed to reflect both the history and mystery of a small liberal arts college. Our dorms were institutional looking in the worst sense of the word. Most of the rooms housed two students, but there was a sprinkling of single rooms tucked into corners.I wasn't as bothered by the fact that my first roommate made me shudder as I might have been for two reasons: I had known from day one that she was going to be history, and Alice had a single.
Alice was also a freshman who lived on my floor, sharing my bank of bathrooms. She and I were inexorably drawn to each other from day one. We founded the Dead Fathers' Club, we both knew how close to the line we could let the other go before reeling her back from danger. We smoked way too many cigarettes, especially in her single room, which was a little bit bigger than a shoe box. And once a week, on Friday afternoons, we made it a point to reconnoiter there to draw up The Pink List.
I'm quite sure The Pink List got its start after we took turns listing the various people who had done us wrong the previous week. I hated whoever hurt Alice, and she was as protective about me. Rather than lose track of these shitheels, we decided to write down their names. We'd recall the actions of each particular offender, look at each other and solemnly say, "We hate him (or her)," and Alice would add the name to the list. The funny thing about it was that once the ritual was completed, we'd pretty much forget about those who had committed the heinous crime. I mean, once the moving hand had writ, we didn't plot revenge, wish the person evil, or, in many cases, even remember how they made the list. Hell, we might even have dinner with them in the cafeteria that night. Composing the list was all we needed to do to expunge the evil juju from our consciousness.
One night, Jimmy ambled into Alice's room--he so totally had a crush on her--and picked up The Pink List, saw his name on it and asked, "What's this?" Alice and I froze, then burst out laughing while responding with the obvious, "It's The Pink List." Jimmy seemed to know better than ask more questions. How did this magical list teach us forgiveness and spiritual cleansing? I don't know and I don't care. The biggest mystery is how the hell Alice ever had anything pink in her room in the first place.
Our dorms were brick on the outside, cinder blocked within; they couldn't have looked more different than the upperclassmen dorms which were located on the other side of Middle Path. They seemed to reflect both the history and mystery of a small liberal arts college. Our dorms were institutional looking in the worst sense of the word. Most of the rooms housed two students, but there was a sprinkling of single rooms tucked into corners.I wasn't as bothered by the fact that my first roommate made me shudder as I might have been for two reasons: I had known from day one that she was going to be history, and Alice had a single.
Alice was also a freshman who lived on my floor, sharing my bank of bathrooms. She and I were inexorably drawn to each other from day one. We founded the Dead Fathers' Club, we both knew how close to the line we could let the other go before reeling her back from danger. We smoked way too many cigarettes, especially in her single room, which was a little bit bigger than a shoe box. And once a week, on Friday afternoons, we made it a point to reconnoiter there to draw up The Pink List.
I'm quite sure The Pink List got its start after we took turns listing the various people who had done us wrong the previous week. I hated whoever hurt Alice, and she was as protective about me. Rather than lose track of these shitheels, we decided to write down their names. We'd recall the actions of each particular offender, look at each other and solemnly say, "We hate him (or her)," and Alice would add the name to the list. The funny thing about it was that once the ritual was completed, we'd pretty much forget about those who had committed the heinous crime. I mean, once the moving hand had writ, we didn't plot revenge, wish the person evil, or, in many cases, even remember how they made the list. Hell, we might even have dinner with them in the cafeteria that night. Composing the list was all we needed to do to expunge the evil juju from our consciousness.
One night, Jimmy ambled into Alice's room--he so totally had a crush on her--and picked up The Pink List, saw his name on it and asked, "What's this?" Alice and I froze, then burst out laughing while responding with the obvious, "It's The Pink List." Jimmy seemed to know better than ask more questions. How did this magical list teach us forgiveness and spiritual cleansing? I don't know and I don't care. The biggest mystery is how the hell Alice ever had anything pink in her room in the first place.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Early Divorce
I am heartbroken. One of my favorite couples has just come out, in a very public way, to let the universe know they are, after two years, calling it quits. Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds, you ask? Oh, Lord, no. I totally know why they got divorced. They were married in their twenties, right? What, in the name of all that is holy, do people in their twenties know about marriage?
Wait. Let me restate that. What do gorgeous, Hollywood money machines who are hotter than blue flames when they steal away and wed think are going to happen? Do these children know that marriage is work? Heavens, no. Work is something for which they get paid. Relationships aren't cash cows, why should they have to work at it? "I am having a bad time. I quit." Okay, I get it. It's not as though they had one of those $1,000,000 weddings where they sold the rights to Okay Magazine for another couple of thousand. They were young, in lust, thought this was the right thing to do. They were wrong. Big whoop.
I am talking about Michael C. Hall and his co-star/sister/actress Jennifer Carpenter. When I first read about their marriage, I thought, "What could be cooler? An A+ actor playing a serial killer who is marrying a co-star who, in the show, totally gets him and loves him and who has got a mouth that makes mine look cleaner than the inside of a bottle of antiseptic solution?" And they are both over 30 years old. And he had cancer, and they both made it through the illness. But no. Now it's over. And it is so not any of my beeswax; but if I find out that Julia Stiles had anything to do with it....well, I will not be a happy camper.
Wait. Let me restate that. What do gorgeous, Hollywood money machines who are hotter than blue flames when they steal away and wed think are going to happen? Do these children know that marriage is work? Heavens, no. Work is something for which they get paid. Relationships aren't cash cows, why should they have to work at it? "I am having a bad time. I quit." Okay, I get it. It's not as though they had one of those $1,000,000 weddings where they sold the rights to Okay Magazine for another couple of thousand. They were young, in lust, thought this was the right thing to do. They were wrong. Big whoop.
I am talking about Michael C. Hall and his co-star/sister/actress Jennifer Carpenter. When I first read about their marriage, I thought, "What could be cooler? An A+ actor playing a serial killer who is marrying a co-star who, in the show, totally gets him and loves him and who has got a mouth that makes mine look cleaner than the inside of a bottle of antiseptic solution?" And they are both over 30 years old. And he had cancer, and they both made it through the illness. But no. Now it's over. And it is so not any of my beeswax; but if I find out that Julia Stiles had anything to do with it....well, I will not be a happy camper.
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