Tag: relationships

Fun, You Say? Maybe

If I have a kindred spirit I look to most often among dead writers. I cleave toward Dorothy Parker. She was raw and incisive in her observations and commentary.

Parker was famously known for her wit and sharp repartee. She also talked – and wrote – about sex more than her contemporaries, especially women.

That set her apart. To approach the subject of sex and relationships with a certain derring-do endeared her to me.

I haven’t yet found the courage to talk about sex as I experienced it in my lifetime. Too heavy and loaded in certain memories and affect.

I admit to a certain enviousness in Parker’s ability to write teasingly and often sardonically about men and sex and love.

When asked to use “horticulture” in a sentence, Parker snapped: “You can lead a whore to culture, but you cant make her think.”

Of high-brow college girls, she quipped: “If all the girls at Vassar were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

A high-brow form of Mae West was Parker. She taunted and teased and treated the subject matter with both a sense of familiarity and emotional distance.

It is not surprising to me that her own romantic and love life was less sizzling than her prose on the subject matter. Sayin’ – as I’ve often said before – ain’t doin’.

Such life experiences often scan better in the written word than they do in reality. I can relate.

Herewith, her poem reflecting on trysts and other manifestations of love and sex at the dawn of its disappearance.

No doubt, like Parker says, some men I knew were a lot of fun.

Good for a good time if not for a long time. Others, not so much

The Little Old Lady in Lavender Silk

I was seventy-seven, come August,
  I shall shortly be losing my bloom;
I’ve experienced zephyr and raw gust
  And (symbolical) flood and simoom.

When you come to this time of abatement,
  To this passing from Summer to Fall,
It is manners to issue a statement
  As to what you got out of it all.

So I’ll say, though reflection unnerves me
  And pronouncements I dodge as I can,
That I think (if my memory serves me)
  There was nothing more fun than a man!

In my youth, when the crescent was too wan
  To embarrass with beams from above,
By the aid of some local Don Juan
  I fell into the habit of love.

And I learned how to kiss and be merry- an
  Education left better unsung.
My neglect of the waters Pierian
  Was a scandal, when Grandma was young.

Though the shabby unbalanced the splendid,
  And the bitter outmeasured the sweet,
I should certainly do as I then did,
  Were I given the chance to repeat.

For contrition is hollow and wraithful,
  And regret is no part of my plan,
And I think (if my memory’s faithful)
  There was nothing more fun than a man!

Dorothy Parker

Work In Progress

WordPress prompt: What’s your dream job?

I‘m happy to report I’ve already had dream jobs. A couple of them.

I was a researcher and fact checker at Maclean’s newsmagazine back in the day. That was sweet. They essentially paid me to read profusely and catch errors in articles written by successful, well-known, well-established writers before the articles were published.

Wow. Prestige AND money.

I loved my colleagues in the Maclean’s research department. Each and every one of them near genius. Geniuses in that understated kind of geeky way where those kind of people know a lot but don’t flash it around. They would have made excellent Jeopardy contestants.

So if there has been a recurring theme in my favorite jobs, it has been those where I learned a ton. As part of my radio producer role with As it Happens at CBC Radio, I HAD to buy about a dozen newspapers every day and as many magazines every month. That the CBC paid for! Then I got to read them cover to cover. I felt like I was stealing.

I don’t rightly know why learning and constantly stretching my brain are so important to me. I shouldn’t dismiss it. Had I not leaned that way from early on, I would not have been able to figure out and make sense of the looniness that plagued my childhood.

Smarts allowed me to gather three degrees which did wonders for my resume. The missing link, however, was that my emotional tank wasn’t quite as full. I finally figured out that with $5 and all of my degrees, I could get a coffee at any Starbucks. Likely closer to $8 now, but you get my point.

My real life work has been emotional. I had to learn self-regulation. I had to learn to sit with my pain. I had to learn not to act out my pain or fear or anger. This was by no means a dream job. But it was a vitally important one.

In emotional healing, I had to deploy the basics of project management. I could not achieve my life goals until the foundational elements I missed out on were addressed. That was terrifying but necessary work. A successful outcome was never guaranteed.

Emotional damage cost me relationships. It cost me jobs. It took a lot of what I had been or who I thought I was and threw it out the window. It turned me into someone I am only just getting to know. This me is more stable and more cautious than emotionally overwrought me. Less impulsive than I was in my youth. That alone is saving me a lot of grief.

So growing up has been neither a dream job or a cake walk. But it has been necessary. I’ve offloaded a lot of what doesn’t serve me any more. I’ve picked up some skills and attitudes along the way that I thought would be forever out of my reach.

And I’m living a life that at one time seemed would be an unattainable dream. My learning and growing process has been erratic and full of stops/starts and highs and lows. Like most everyone, I figure

Our minds and hearts are often kinder to us in retrospect than we are to ourselves. I look back now on those dream jobs I had and give thanks that they happened at all. Even situations that went south taught me lessons I needed to learn.

We all occasionally say: “I wish I’d known then, what I know now.” But we didn’t and we couldn’t and now here we are. So, like loving parents, we must applaud and love ourselves for what we’ve learned and how far we’ve actually come in life.

As a wife in a happy marriage with a daily blog I get to write, I’d say this is about as close to a dream job as I ever wanted. A far greater purpose than I could have imagined when I was young.

At the end of the day, no matter how wonderful your work is, and how much satisfaction you get from your career, a job can’t love you back.

That was the greatest learning and takeaway from all the jobs I got to do.

And I’m good with that.

Rent A Relative

This is my brand new, billion dollar business idea. “Rent A Relative, Inc.” Who’s with me?

I mean, there are already “rent a girlfriend” agencies. They offer an attractive and agreeable companion who can accompany you to any one of a number of events to show that you are socially viable.

I wonder how often those transactional “dates” turn into “actual” relationships. I mean it is a lot more honest and upfront than a lot of our culture’s haphazard dating rituals.

If you already have the quid pro quo worked out, then arguably it would be much easier to set up the working parameters of an actual relationship.

Actual “homegrown” relationships are messy and often unpredictable. Interpersonal relationships are dependent on a myriad of factors that act on our loved ones over which we have no control. Teachers. Bosses. Traffic and road rage driven drivers. Difficult colleagues. Difficult clerks and pushy salesclerk. Banks. And increasingly, airlines.

If a sexual dalliance is your desire, there are countless other agencies that offer those services. Once and done. Or two or three times if you are testosterone heavy. That’s the man side. I admittedly don’t know much about the woman side of the equation. My “experience” is restricted to Richard Gere’s bold performance in the movie, American Gigolo, back in the day.

Men selling love and sex is not as popular a notion in our culture as the idea of women dispersing themselves sexually for fun and profit. But that is kind of a running theme in our society. Women usually bear the brunt of responsibility for sexual “deviation” regardless of the circumstances or perpetrators.

The exchange of sexual favors for money is a whole other well-established business idea than I have. And it has been around a lot longer than my business idea.

What I hate about real relations is history. It is hard if not impossible to escape. So just as you are trekking along on some happy afternoon outing, you find out that that thing you just said reminded them of something you did or didn’t do when they were 11 years old.

Apparently you never acknowledged that slight. Or you didn’t take it seriously enough. Or you never made up for it. Sufficiently. Or you don’t understand what it did to them.

In the face of such “feedback,” I am often rendered moot. Not only do I not necessarily remember the offending incident, but have to take my “relatives” word for it that I did what I did and I didn’t do what I was supposed to do to atone for the injury.

A rented relative could be counted on to never bring up past unpleasantness. They would have no knowledge of what you did or didn’t do in the past. You may miss the fact that they don’t remember the good things you shared in the past.

But this arrangement does hold the inherent guarantee that all present “relations” (to coin a phrase) would be smooth and easy.

When you are “done” with the hired relation, you could just stamp their time card and send them home. No commitment to the weeklong stay . No awkward silences after Uncle Freddy got too drunk (again). And “mistakenly” bumped into niece Sally’s chest.

No senseless revisitation (as happens way too often) in arguments when the sins of a lifetime are drug up and hurled at married partners with vicious precision. None of this resolves anything. It creates new wounds. It perpetuates the old wounds. Nothing is resolved.

The relationship doesn’t grow or move forward. The dynamic simply gets stuck in the sand. Tension is the predominant tone as the injuries lurk under the surface ready to rise up instantly in the face of renewed triggers that revive them.

So it makes perfect sense to me that hiring a relative for important family celebrations and visits makes infinitely more sense. No senseless anxiety about whether we are measuring up to Aunt Mary’s unflinching hosting standards. No wonder about what Christmas gifts to send to your grandparents when they are already millionaires and own everything imaginable.

That estranged son that causes so much unrelenting pain? Switch him out. Invite a “rent a relation” to make the rounds of Christmas parties with you. Or a husband even. The possibilities are endless.

Now I’m the first to admit the idea is pretty fresh and unformed at the moment. It will need work to bring to fruition.

But scoff if you will, in this age of AI and robots and technological advances, I honestly don’t think we are too far off. I want to get in on the ground floor.

There are relations I love dearly and wish to keep in my life forever. Still there are no guarantees. But since I have fairly light relationships with several existing family members, if pressed, I would love to have an agency to call up and have them send over a sister or two for Christmas dinner to jazz up the celebration.

I think it is a brilliant idea. And what worries me, is that in this day and age of disconnected and fragmented human relations, there is a ripe and ready business opportunity right in front of our noses.

So again I say, scoff if you will and I ask, who’s with me?

Twelve to Thrive

I fell in love with American-Italian educator Leo Buscaglia in the 80s. And not specifically because he was known as the “Dr. Love” professor.

Felice Leonardo Buscaglia (March 31, 1924 – June 12, 1998) was a professor of special education at the University of Southern California. When one of his students committed suicide, he was moved to investigate the meaning of life and the causes of human disconnection.

For Buscaglia, love and learning were the keys to a meaningful life. He was a gifted public speaker and often appeared on PBS giving his lectures on our vital need for interconnection with fellow human beings. He also deeply believed in education and exploring the many wonders of human life here on this planet.

I remember one of the funnier anecdotes from his lectures about growing up with a “demanding” father. With warmth and humor, Buscaglia recalled how every night at the dinner table, he, and then his siblings, were asked in turn, “What did you learn today?” Woe betide the sibling who had nothing to share. The shame must have been withering!

Buscaglia eventually taught a course at the University of Southern California called Love 1A. They were always filled to capacity and often oversubscribed. He was the first to state and promote the concept of humanity’s need for hugs: 5 to survive, 8 to maintain, and 12 to thrive.[4]

He wrote a bunch of books. Fittingly, his greatest bestseller was simply called Love. At one point, three of Buscaglia’s books were on the New York Times’ best sellers list at the same time.

Buscaglia explored and promoted the importance of love and loving relationships to human beings. His lectures may be deemed a little over the top in a culture where the almighty dollar is touted to be the primary source of all happiness and pleasure.

I miss him and his voice. I miss his message.

In our troubled era of mass murders, and suicide and online bullying, I miss the presence of Leo Buscaglia more than ever.