Tara's Rants and Raves

Five in a Row!

2010-07-24T22:09:00Z

Boot camp classes, that is.

I'm not inventing excuses to miss class. I'm not sitting around eating fries. I'm really doing this.

I get to class early to walk laps around the track. This earns me extra credit towards neato prizes. But we'll get to that in a bit. Let's recap the Week That Was:

Wednesday's class marked the return of Jim and Darlene, the married couple who had been on a wicked cool motorcycle vacation. Darlene took a spill off her bike early in the trip (the thing fell over on her!), breaking two toes. She arrived wearing a boot over the bad foot, which led to many a "Boot Camp" joke. It also impressed the hell out of every single one of us. Most people would milk that injury for all it was worth. They'd beg off exercise and play the pity card. Not Darlene. She gamely walked the track and modified all the exercises throughout the class. Oh, and did I mention that Darlene is the eldest of the ladies in our group? She's a dead ringer for Vanessa Redgrave. So if she's hoofin it with a BOOT on her leg, the rest of us have got nothing. We officially have lost the right to bitch. Thanks a lot, Darlene. ; )

Meanwhile, our class was being led once again by Michele, aka She Who Loves Lunges. Not only did we walk a length of track lunge after lunge, she made us DO IT TWICE. The second time, we had to add twists (I've since demonstrated the move to a couple of friends; the look of abject horror on their faces actually made me feel like a total badass, because I had done them. Well, most of them).

We also worked out with those stretchy bands, and let me tell you something, folks: those things WORK. Michele taught us an awesome exercise for your triceps. Since I like you, I'll share it with you:

Stand with your feet comfortably apart, about shoulder-width. Wrap your stretchy band around your right hand and place it on your left shoulder. Take your left hand and grab the slack of the band. Pull down slowly. Do it 10 times. Now do it on the other side.

Ouch, right? But we all agreed it was way better than holding hand weights. You're using your body's own resistance, and there was proof that it totally works. We also tied the ends of the bands together to make a tight enough circle to wrap around our lower legs. Then we marched in place. We looked ridiculous, yes, but after about five seconds, it was Burn City in my legs. Michele knows what she's doing, that's for sure.

I have to tell you: I'm already starting to see some definition in my upper back, and in my arms as well. "Check out those guns!" my boyfriend said the other night. I tried not to punch him, but he was only half-joking. There's actually a bicep there, within what we call the "Bingo Wings".

This morning (Saturday), we returned to yoga practice with Gail , who is a wonderful teacher. This week was much hotter than last week, and we sought shade in a part of our Super Secret Location that wasn't exactly the flattest terrain. Gail patiently corrected our poses, modifying for Darlene, who wasn't even asking for any special help. Our admiration for Darlene just increases. There is not one peep of complaing from this woman, STILL in her boot, IN THE HEAT, doing yoga outside. What a rock star.

At the end of class, the first round of extra credit prizes were awarded. Three of us (Heidi, Lindsay, and Laura) had perfect attendance with extra credit as well (I missed one class because of my trip to Seattle, but I'm catching up!), and Heather and Other Heidi (yep, there are two in the class) also had enough extra credit to enter the drawing. If I recall correctly, Blonde Heidi won an adorable tea set, and Brunette Heidi won these ultra thick running socks that make your feet extra happy when you make them run places.

This coming Monday, we have a nutrition lecture on Mindful Eating. Being the Snarky Snarkerson that I am, it's going to be tough for me to not be sarcastic throughout. I mean, I'm an an adult American woman; I've been more than mindful about every morsel I've put in my mouth since about the age of 13. Still, I'll try to keep an open mind, because learning stuff is good for you.

One other bit of wisdom to impart: 20 minutes of "Just Dance" on the Wii Fit is the most fun way to exhaust yourself (at least, when your kids are in the room).

Hey, I Haven't Quit Yet!

2010-07-21T02:49:00Z

Three Boot Camp classes, and I’m happy to report that I am not dead.

In fact, I feel pretty good. I’m sore where I should be, which is basically everywhere on my entire body. I’ve been resisting food temptations and sticking to something that resembles an eating plan. This is how it’s gone down the past two classes:

On Saturday morning, we assembled under cloudy skies with a guest yoga instructor, Gail. She was a fellow petite, and we immediately began discussing the drawbacks of being short of stature when one likes running (the one in this scenario being Gail, not me). Gail led us through a series of poses, correcting our postures as needed. I’ve done a lot of yoga in my time, and I’ve always loved it. But having Gail put me in the right pose the right way made a huge difference. During one such adjustment, she said, “Well, you’re just doing a whole other thing entirely, aren’t you?” To which I replied, “Story of my life.”

This was the first time I’d ever done yoga outside. It was early enough that there weren’t many others around the Super Secret Exercise Meeting Place, or perhaps the chilly temps were keeping the less-dedicated indoors. I was dressed for the weather and thoroughly enjoyed the class, despite being totally sleep deprived thanks to the accidental adoption of a kitten that had taken place the day before. I certainly felt the work I’d done with Gail when I got up Sunday morning to feed the kitties. The simple act of rising from the bed stirred aches in the glutes. The familiar twinge reminded me that I’d done something good for myself, so I pretended not to mind it so much.

I arrived early for Monday’s class, to earn extra credit. I walked five laps, which went by quickly since I was rocking out to a special playlist I'd made for my iPod. The class itself was mostly a discussion of our individual diet and exercise suggestions, which had been calculated and modified for each person in the class. Like a moron, I had forgotten to bring my printout. Mainly because the pages are hanging on my refrigerator, as a reminder not to eat the hidden stash of M&Ms in the cheese drawer.

My guidelines are totally doable, by the way. There’s nothing so awful that I’ll feel like quitting in a week. 1560 calories a day. Minimum of 30 minutes of brisk walking every day, combined with the classes. Food suggestions and serving sizes. Like they say, it’s not rocket science. Eat less of the wrong things, more of the right things, and move your ass. Often.

However, just because I know this, it doesn’t mean I’d ever do it on my own. Hence my immediate love for the Recess class. On my own in a gym, I’d quit as soon as I felt like it. But we’re a group, and we’re all suffering together, which makes it so much more—well, not fun, maybe, but a lot more enjoyable than on my own with a trainer.

Anyway, I’m eating healthier, meaning lots more veggies and fruits. A little more dairy, a lot less animal protein. Whole grains. You know the drill.

Once we were done talking healthy, we got up and did the oh so dreaded squats and lunges. Tanya MADE US stand in a circle, squat with our hands in front of our faces, and then briskly side step around and around. Guess how long that lasted? Try it. I’ll wait.

See? OUCH. We did that to the right, to the left, over and over. While punching, even. I couldn’t do it. I was too busy trying to continue breathing to see who made it through the whole thing without stopping. Seriously, I sounded like Mel Gibson panting on those tapes. At least I wasn’t swearing like him.

[Which brings me to the Crazy Man on the Bench, who may or may not have been associated with Shirtless Guy With Many Bags. Crazy Man had a big ol can of beer with him, and was a tad too interested in our little gathering, thereby necessitating a move further away from him. He also poured his beer into what looked like a water bottle. I expected him to start running laps, then puke, but happily he finally lurched off somewhere, probably to leer at other people]

So ANYWAY, we finished the class doing MORE lunges, but this time while HOLDING A MEDICINE BALL. And it weighed FOUR whole POUNDS. We held them and lunged. We threw them to each other. We laid down (yay!) on the ground (ick) and did sort of a procession where we passed the ball overhead and also doing situps, something absolutely NONE of us could manage the coordination for while standing. Rube Goldberg would have hated us.

Today I feel even more sore in the lower quadrants. Tomorrow, we have another class with Michele. She likes the lunges, too. Oy.

I might have to fake an injury.

Help, I've Exercised and I Can't Get Up!

2010-07-15T03:49:00Z

Tonight I had my first real Recess Wellness Boot Camp. Tomorrow, I will not be able to lift so much as a pen.

As I indicated in a previous entry, I am a lazy sack of crap. I move only when necessary, and slowly, at that. I believe running is only for situations when a man with a large knife is chasing me. So when I was approached by the lovely women of Recess to blog about my fitness experience, I figured I better grab this chance. The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be, you know. I therefore accepted this generous offer, knowing it would make for funny retellin's after each class. Of course, the actual doing is a lot less hilarious.

I have committed myself to three classes a week: Mondays and Wednesdays at 6:15, and Saturday mornings at 10. Most of our classes will take place outside, at a secret location I can't tell you about, in full view of the public. Aces. Thanks to not having a regular paying job, I haven't been able to afford yoga or Pilates classes, and aside from walking around New York for a week last month, I really haven't done much in the way of fitness. I knew I'd be in for supreme bodily soreness, but I need my ass to be kicked.

So last Saturday, my class assembled for orientation. I was relieved: no actual forced exercise took place, and this class was held inside, at the other super secret location I can't tell you about. Everyone got a bitchin Recess Wellness bag filled with all kinds of goodies, including yummy Dave's Killer Bread, gift certificates for free yoga classes all over town, and a free pass to the Salt Grotto. Yes, the Salt Grotto. Also, we can win fabulous prizes for good attendance and other reasons. I hope at some point I might score a free massage.

We were weighed and measured (YES, I'll tell you. Later*.), our blood pressure was taken, and we broke into groups to take a short written quiz. We had to identify three photos of 'fitness stars' (Jane Fonda circa 1982, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jack and Elaine LaLanne). Then we had to name five whole grains and five food groups. The final question was a multiple choice. See if you know the answer:

"How much exercise does the Surgeon General recommend?

a. 10,000 steps a day
b. 30 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity every day
c. 30 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity three times per week"**

My group missed this last question and had to stand with our arms spread out wide for three minutes (try it; around minute two, the fatigue starts setting in). This was better than the fate Group 1 suffered for missing one of the fitness stars: they had to do the eternally-dreaded lunges across the room; Group 2, having missed something in the whole grains/food group area, had to run around the block. My group felt smug by comparison.

I missed Monday's class, the only class I plan to miss (at this point), so I had to make up my Fitness Test tonight, as well as take the regular class. For my Fitness Test, I had to walk a mile at a fast pace. This meant four laps around what to me looked like the world's largest track. While I'm used to walking a brisk pace when sauntering about the Pearl, hoofing it around a track in 85 degree weather is a whole other animal. I sure was sweating like one by the time I finished, a pathetic 16 minutes after I'd started.

Then, I had to do as many sit-ups as I could, "to exhaustion". I managed to do 40. I don't know if this is a lot to most people, but it is to me. Conversely, I could only do 10 push-ups. Finally, I had to balance in a squat ON ONE LEG for as long as I could. I didn't even bother to count, but I can assure you that it was a tiny increment of time.

I joined the class, already in progress. Luckily, I'd missed the full lap of lunges. While I'm well aware that lunges and squats are the best possible things you can do for your lower body, they were also invented by a descendant of Torquemada, if not the man himself. Our guest instructor, Michele, led us through various exercises that included a short jog up a hill ("I was told there would be no running!" I called from the back of the small group), copious usage of those stretchy bands that leave your arms feeling like they're made of jelly, some ab work, and tricep dips off the side of a bench.

The only drawback was having people look at us and sort of laugh. I mean, we were a group of women (our lone male is currently on vacation with his wife, another group member) exercising out-of-doors. Would they have laughed if we were in a regular class at a gym? Well, maybe, but at least we wouldn't have seen them. Also, Shirtless Dude With Many Bags (upon spotting this charming man, I remarked, "Gotta go, my boyfriend's here." I love that my classmates all found it funny. We're gonna get along just fine, we are)? Thanks for smoking so close to an EXERCISE CLASS. Dick.

Other than that, I managed to maintain a great attitude throughout the class (well, MY version of a great attitude: sarcasm-tinged but light-hearted commentary about whatever we were doing). I realized that this kind of fitness class is perfect for someone like me. I hate gyms, mainly because of all those damn mirrors. You get so distracted by every roll of fat you can glimpse on your body as you jiggle in your attempts to get rid of it. Also, I'd always realize I had a major VPL (visible panty line) once I got to yoga class. Outside, you have no idea what you look like, so you really concentrate on the task at hand. I'm also in a group, and we're all in this together. It's a shared experience, one where we're all in the same kind of physical pain. Talk about bonding!

I'm proud of myself for not making excuses and for showing up. I mean, I could totally have blown it off to go to the Cupcake Jones 3rd Anniversary Party (I know I'll feel a tinge of sadness when I see every single one of my friends in the photos), but I made a commitment, and I'm sticking to it. Go, me.

Next up: Saturday's yoga class. I love yoga, mainly because it involves nothing even close to running. But I think by the end of the Boot Camp, I'll be a much less lazy sack of crap.

*My stats. Not that I want to share, but I'm going to need something to compare it to at the end of the class. So shut up with your judgy comments, mmmmkay?

Height: 60 inches
Weight: 123 lbs
Waist: 29.5 inches
Hips: 40 inches (yes, 40. I've had babies. Go to hell.)

**The answer is B

My Poor Brain

2010-07-01T23:04:00Z

There isn't enough room on Twitter to get all these thoughts out. I recently saw a shamanic healer (hey, desperate times call for desperate measures), and she said I do my best writing when I am doing a stream-of-conscious thing. She's right, like she was right about many other things. Like...my whole life, people have told me to keep my mouth shut, to lower my voice. She says I shouldn't do that anymore. She also says I need my own show where I can be seen as well as heard. Let's make that happen.

See? The stream is already beginning. Let's see where it takes us.

I had a different kind of shark dream the other night. If you read the other shark blog, the dreams are always a sign of major stress. Someone dies a terrible death and I can't do a thing about it. The most recent dream, however, was almost exhilarating. I was in the ocean with a guide, a man dressed in a black wetsuit. I don't know who it was, but he was swimming ahead of me. I noticed the sharks all around us. I could see them through the waves. I called to my guide that we needed to get away, that I was scared. "Keep swimming!" he called. "They can't hurt you if you keep swimming!" So I swam as fast as the sharks. It felt as though I was swimming with them, rather than from them. I wasn't afraid. I just swam and I was fine, and no one got et.

No need to make that call to Dr. Freud, people. That one means I'm tough, I'm a survivor, I'm not gon' give up, blah blah blah. Yeah, well: I'm also still having dreams every night about being lost in cities I'm supposed to know well or not being able to find my way out of buildings. Once again, I get it: I'm not where I should be, I need to get to where I belong, but I'm not quite there yet.

It's been a YEAR AND FIVE WEEKS since I lost my job, folks. How much longer do I have to go before I get 'there', wherever 'there' is? Sheesh.

So there's all that job stuff. My shamanic healer says we are throwing out the 'looking for a job' label I've assigned myself and we're focusing on creating something from the start. Something I build. Something I know well and would bring people to me. Sounds pretty neato.

Before I start indoctrinating people into the Cult of Tara, however, I need a paying gig just to make sure I can keep this roof over our heads. I did score a VO gig without having to audition; in sweet, sweet irony, it's for a commercial spot that will run on my former radio station. My dulcet tones will be heard on all 6 of my former employer's stations in town. Ah, the small victories, we have to enjoy those when we can.

It's soul-crushing, however. I know what I have to offer, and I'm sure others are aware as well. If compliments were dollar bills, I'd have a sweet little stack of dough sitting next to me. I am sincerely thankful for the good friends I have who are always trying to help out and do me a solid when they can. Irons are in the fire, they just aren't heating up fast enough for me.

As I've said before, I was not born with the patience gene.

Therefore: it bugs me when someone says they'll call "next week" and next week is this week and the call doesn't come. I don't like it when promises turn up empty, when people who are supposed to have cared about you blow you off with what's basically a form letter, or when the frustration rises up in me to a boiling point that sometimes scares me.

But wait, the people say: there is so much in your life to be grateful for. Yes. And yes. And yes. I know.

But still.

I can catch glimpses of what could be: a book, a radio show, a TV gig, a chance to do something new and different. All are just now small pools of hope, still water not in motion towards anything. I'm waiting for the deluge to fill them up so they can all spill over, run together, and become a river filled with so much bounty, I can live off of it for the rest of my life.

Wow, this stream of consciousness stuff really works. I kind of feel better for writing all of this. Out of my head, into the world. Maybe.

My poor brain, indeed.

It's Now Or Never

2010-06-17T18:32:00Z

My name is Tara, and I'm a Lazy Sack of Crap.

I would rather be on my couch than anywhere else. I believe in pizza as a Food Group. The only time you'd ever see me running outside, where other people could see me, is if I were being chased by an ax murderer.

Now, I'm not entirely sedentary. I play Wii Sports with the kids (sometimes) and I do enjoy yoga and Pilates (occasionally). However, during this last year of self-pity and self-promotion, I haven't had the motivation to exercise on a regular basis. I've lost about 12 pounds since I was laid off last May, thanks to what my mother's dubbed The Aggravation Diet. I am, at five feet tall, a petite flower. Any extra weight on me looks bad.

So while I'm technically thinner than I've been in a long, long time, I am most certainly not in shape. It's not as though I don't know how to whip myself into condition. I'm 41 years old, I know that if I move my ass more and stuff my face less, things will improve. Then why don't you? you snarkily ask.

See: first line of this entry.

However, an opportunity has landed in my lap (or, technically, my inbox). I've gotten a very generous offer from Kaitlin and Tanya of Recess Wellness to participate in their summer bootcamp-that-doesn't-feel-like-bootcamp program. They asked me if I'd join the group and blog about it. Which is really funny, because that very morning, my friend K. and I were discussing me doing just that, although I thought I'd have to figure out my own program because joining a gym or hiring a trainer is financially out of the question. Also, getting into shape is harder as we get older, and this chick is never going to do this unless I have people holding me responsible.

It starts next month. Which means I need to start implementing healthier choices NOW, so I won't pass out on my first day--although that would make for great blog copy, huh? I've already filled out my questionnaire, I'm ready to get started. My favorite question asked about my goal for this program. My answer?

"To get through it without dying."

It should be an interesting summer, folks. I hope you'll enjoy reading about my Adventures in Exercising. Something tells me I'm going to enjoy writing about it more than actually doing it, but you never know. Maybe this Lazy Sack of Crap will transform into a BootCamp Queen by September.

I'm taking bets.

You CAN Go Home Again

2010-06-05T22:05:00Z

I was not very happy in Hazlet, New Jersey.

I was brought up during the 70s and 80s, when no one used the term "dysfunctional family" or considered a father yelling at his child 'verbal abuse'. Growing up under a constant barrage of loud name calling (combined with being bullied by the Mean Girls throughout sixth, seventh, and eighth grades) did not do much for my self-esteem. While my mother tried to un-do the damage my father did to my psyche, it was years before I could look in the mirror and see something right, rather than see everything as wrong.

While I'd made countless trips to New York once my family moved away from Hazlet in 1989, I'd only returned to the old hometown to attend my 10-year high school reunion in 1997 (quick aside: it is a total and utter waste of time to go to your 10-year high school reunion). During that visit, I had a friend drive me past my old house. "This is the house we used to live in," we sang as we slowly rolled by. I didn't ask him to stop. It was still too painful to think about the time I'd spent in that house on Bethany Road.

But on this last trip back East, I felt I was ready to go back to where I'd come from. I had various reasons: first and foremost, I've set my book in that town and in that house, albeit fictiously (and in 1985), and I was seeing it with a new fondness I'd never had before. Writing my book was a completely positive experience, despite the rejections and a lack of an agent as I write this. I'd discovered a renewed affection for that time and that place, both which informed who I was and who I ultimately became. I wanted to see if I could ride through town without feeling the pain of my youth. And I wanted to see what had remained and what hadn't. I'd always thought of Hazlet as The Town That Time Forgot: its people perma-locked in the 80s, with their non-ironic mullets and grammatical incorrectness. With "Jersey Shore" becoming mega- (and, to me, meta-) popular, my timing couldn't have been better (another quick aside: perhaps I should market my book not only as the "Anti-Twilight" but perhaps also "The Antidote to Jersey Shore).

And so it was, thanks to the power of Facebook, I was reconnected with two old friends. Dan had dated my friend Julia in high school; John was another friend who became more, then less, then more again for a very brief time. They went to Holmdel High School, which--as the name indicates--was NOT in Hazlet, and therefore far superior to my own school. Dan and John don't look back upon HHS with the same fondness as I do, although they could see where I'd have been happier as a student there. We had a fantastic group of friends who gathered every weekend to play Ultimate in Holmdel Park. In the evenings we'd sit around and watch movies, or the musicians amongst us would jam, or they'd put on coffeehouses. They were all creative, smart, funny, college-bound kids who accepted me into their group without judgement at a time where I was surrounded by burnouts who made fun of me for knowing the answers in math class and liking The Smiths. Dan, John and I made our plans to meet, fittingly, on Memorial Day. After all, I was about to take the ultimate stroll down Memory Lane.

Dan picked me up at the PATH train in Harrison. It was as though no time had passed. We picked up his lovely spitfire of a wife, Jana (she's from Brazil, full of passion for life and one of the warmest people I've ever met) and continued South until I noticed the sign for Exit 117. Here we go, I thought. I expected tears, or a feeling of being punched in the stomach, but it didn't come. Instead, I took in the view from my window with a sense of bemusement. Times may have changed, I might have grown up and moved away, the economy may be in the shitter, but it's still only thirty-five cents at the Hazlet toll booth.

Dan drove us directly to the Red Oak Diner on Route 35. It would take days for me to tell all the stories from our times of Oaking. Suffice to say, all the weight I put on in high school was a direct result of late night Turkey Clubs and onion rings. We'd only sit at the booths with the jukeboxes. We were plenty obnoxious, I'm sure, though not nearly as offensive as the drunk teenagers who'd been partying behind the Pep Boys and then stopped off at the Oak to absorb the alcohol swirling around their stomachs.

Today the Red Oak is nothing like its 1980s incarnation. It's been updated and refurbished; the jukeboxes are gone, and they now have a party room with karaoke. And yes, the clientele who partake of the karaoke at the Red Oak Diner are most likely the scariest people on the Eastern Seaboard. But I wasn't deterred by the changes, nor the promise of free Wi-Fi in a place where I'd consumed a good metric ton of french fries with gravy. The turkey club was as good as I'd remembered, my hippocampus instantly stimulated by taste-memory. It could have been a late summer afternoon in 1986, four teenagers sweaty from a day of frisbee in the park refueling at a gool ol' Jersey diner.

Finally, I was ready to swing by my old house. I'd lived there from birth until I was twenty, when my father inexplicably moved us away from everyone we'd ever known to branch out his business in Atlanta. Aside from the drive-by in '97 and a curious peek at Google Earth, I hadn't seen the place in thirteen years. I knew it had changed ownership more than once. Our beautiful cherry blossom tree had been removed and the driveway had been widened, but it basically looks the same as it did when I was growing up.

Dan parked the car. I got out and gingerly approached the front door. There's not a lot of foot traffic on Bethany Road, and I hesitated to ring the bell. You never really know how people who aren't expecting company will react when they open their front door to a stranger, but I took a deep breath and pressed the white button. I'd come all this way; I was only hoping for a brief peek inside.

A man opened the door just enough to reveal his face. I introduced myself and explained that I'd grown up there. "Really?" he said, surprised. "You're the original occupant?" I said my family had been. He opened the door a bit to reveal a glimpse of hardwood floor, something I had not grown up with. An adorable little girl with blond curls stood close to him. "Would it be okay if I just had a tiny peek?" I asked. In the next moment, his wife joined him and welcomed the four of us inside the house.

Their names were Frank and Jennifer, and they'd been living there for three years, having moved from Brooklyn. Jennifer told me she'd often wondered about the original owners, and what the house had looked like when it was first built. Their daughter, Olivia (the same name as my older niece. Kismet!) has my old room at the top of the stairs (double Kismet!); their 2-year-old son, Nico, is across the hall in my brother's room. I told them how the steps were once covered in red shag carpet, showed them where the den had been extended from. I recounted how we'd taken down the paneling in the den and written our names all over the blank walls in marker before they were painted over. Jennifer asked about the fireplace, built-in wine rack and bookshelves; all were my mother's doing. They loved the backyard and the in-ground pool; Frank, quite a handy guy, is redoing the deck and has already built the kids a fantastic playhouse out of the extra wood.

Olivia was more than happy to show off her room to me, and giggled happily as she led me up the stairs. Where I'd had two kinds of complementary wallpaper on opposite walls, she had the same thing with shades of purple paint. The room seemed so much smaller than I'd remembered it being. I told Jennifer how, the day we'd moved out, I'd written a message inside one of the closets. Sadly, a previous owner had painted over it.

Nico showed off his room, complete with a mini-drumkit exactly where my brother had had one with Animal from the Muppet Show on the kickdrum. I didn't look into the master bedroom (no need) or the basement (ditto). The kitchen had been redone, tthe side door closed up to make room for the refrigerator. The bay window in the den had been removed and replaced by a boring flat one that didn't open. I suggested to Frank that they take it out...the breeze we used to get from that bay window was heaven in the spring.

"Are you happy here?" I asked Jennifer.

"SO happy," she immediately replied, and I could tell how much she meant it. "We LOVE this house."

And that's when I nearly lost it. I hadn't been happy in that house, not even close. I barely had any good memories from inside those walls. The only times I'd ever enjoyed myself was when my father wasn't home. I'd logged more hours hiding in my room, listening to music and reading books, than an astronaut does on a typical space mission.

In that moment, I was overcome by an emotion that I'd long been waiting for: closure. I hadn't loved that house, but now someone did. A truly happy family lived there. Nico and Olivia would grow up on Bethany Road and build the kind of childhood memories I never had.

I thanked these lovely people profusely, and let them know that should my book ever see the light of day, I'd send them an autographed copy. I left feeling emotionally lighter than I had in years. I said goodbye to the ghosts that had haunted me, specters that had been chased away by a family filling the house with love and warmth.

I left my old house after spending only about ten minutes exploring the differences that now existed; not just within its walls, but within myself as well. I walked in as someone who hadn't been able to make peace with her unhappy childhood, and left feeling as though I'd solved a deep-seeded mystery. I didn't know I needed to see what had become of the house on Bethany Road, but I did.

Now when I look back on my time in that house, I can say, "That's where I came from, but it's no longer who I am." I couldn't be more delighted for Frank, Jennifer, Olivia and Nico. I wish them all the happiness in the world. They're a wonderful family. As I left, Frank called, "Have a nice life!"

I think I will now, Frank. Thank you all so much.

New York, I Love You

2010-06-04T04:05:00Z

If you read my previous blog entry (and thanks if you did!), you know I was all kinds of looking forward to my trip to New York City. Sometimes, when you're uber-stoked for something, it never turns out the way you'd hoped. Things go awry. The best laid plans, yadda yadda.

Not this time, pal. This time, I got the trip I not only wanted, but NEEDED. Not many things have gone my way in the past 12 months, but this time, the Fates decided to throw this little girl a bone and let me have a wonderful trip.

I shopped with my mom. I spent a day at the beach with my brother and his family (oh Olivia and Bianca, my delicious and exhausting nieces, I love you so). I spent a day in New Jersey that was so fabulous, it merits its own blog entry (which will have to wait until I get back home; I need to process exactly how to convey what that day meant to me). My mother's retirement party--the main reason for my visit--was a beautiful whirlwind of tears, laughter, dancing, and a whole lot of love.

And the people I got to spend time with! Oy, talk about an embarrassment of riches. Not only did I see relatives from afar that I hadn't seen since before the onset of puberty, I met the most amazing women that I'd only conversed with via Twitter. Imagine my shock to suggest a Tweet-Up, only to have Rosanne Cash be the first to say yes (my initial reaction: "Why?"). But thanks to Rosanne being, well...Rosanne (meaning: beyond fantastic), we cobbled together a group of fabulous, brilliant, funny, talented women that included Nancy Franklin, Susan Orlean, Lisa Bonchek Adams, Lizz Winstead, and Sandra Bernhard. It was a fantastic way to spend an afternoon, and I wish I could have a Ladies Who Lunch Day every month. Rosanne will be the first of the group to grace Portland with her presence (in August), and I hope each of them follows her example, sooner rather than later. Check the photo, which in my mind is forever captioned "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other":

There was also a wonderful lunch and stroll with my dear college buddy, Scott Rosann. I can now call Rob Tannenbaum, a total mensch if there ever was one, a real friend after two hours of talking, walking, and a lot of Stumptown iced coffee. And to cap it off, I got to spend time with my oldest friend, Julia Reich. We met when we were assigned to be Bat Mitzvah together (in 1982), and today she is radiantly beautiful, thriving in her marriage and life.

I am so profoundly grateful to my mom's now-ex-boss, Steve, who generously paid to fly me out to be with Mom on her big day. I am thankful to the internets for connecting me with all of these wonderful people I am lucky enough to now know in real life. I will leave New York not exhausted, but revitalized. I received more incredibly helpful professional advice in the past six days than I have in this whole last year. I plan to hold on to all of these good feelings, this great karma, and do what I can to return it in kind. I hope to parlay all of this bounty into actual success, and I will never forget all of the kindness I was shown.

Thank you, universe, for this week. It's made me believe in the possibility that I will actually publish my book, that I will get a paying gig of some kind, that all of this goodness will become SOMETHING. It's all been too great to just end.

Yep...it sure is a helluva town. I Heart New York Again.

Start Spreading the News...

2010-05-14T22:16:01Z

New York City, here I come! In less than 2 weeks, even!

I haven't been to NYC without kids or boyfriend in I can't even tell you how long. All my previous trips to The Motherland have felt less like vacations and more like forced marches. Entertaining kids in the City is easy, but exhausting. On previous journeys Eastward, there was never time to languish with friends over cocktails, aimlessly roam the streets of Soho and Greenwich Village, see a show of any kind, or much else that wasn't kid-related. I adore my sons and don't mind putting their needs ahead of mine, but it would be nice to have a vacation occasionally feel like a vacation. And this vacation is long overdue, coming exactly one year to the day since I got laid off from my dream job. It's truly a much-needed gift.

I am going to NYC thanks to the generosity of my mother's boss. She's finally (FINALLY!) retiring, and he's throwing her a lavish shindig on the roof of the St. Regis. Since I can camp out on the pullout couch at my mother's apartment, there's really no cap on how long I can be there (although my stepdad might disagree). I'm allowing myself a week away from my kids and my boyfriend, so I can have a full week of Grownup Time. The boys will be with their father, so we're good there. I have a pretty dress for the swanky party, and I have my speech all set. I can't wait. I haven't been this excited for a trip in a long, long time. And I haven't felt this good about going to New York in forever.

New York was always my favorite place until I moved to Portland. Growing up in crappy little Hazlet, New Jersey, I escaped to Manhattan every chance I could once I was old enough to take the train with my friends. I ached to live there, and when I got in to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, I couldn't have been happier. My father (aka The Supreme Joykiller) refused to pay for it, preferring me to attend college in Boston. I never understood his reasons, and I didn't want to start out my adult life with $100,000 in school loans, so I ended up at Emerson College. I would have been in school with Philip Seymour Hoffman and too many others I could name, and it kills me to this day that I didn't have the chances in life that I might have had if I'd somehow managed to go to NYU. However, I probably wouldn't have transferred to the University of Georgia when my parents inexplicably moved us to Atlanta after a lifetime in Jersey. And then I wouldn't have met my ex, and I wouldn't have my sons, and everything happens for a reason, so whatever.

My ex and I lived in Manhattan from 1994 - 1998, while he did his residency at Bellevue. I worked a series of jobs I hated to make the rent on our Upper East Side fourth floor walkup. The time in New York took its toll on our relationship: where he'd been kind and attentive during medical school, residency turned him into a completely different person. He'd had to learn to harden his heart to provide excellent medical care, to be able to remain strong and professional during the worst possible moments of a person's life. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to turn it off when it came to me. Often I would associate my sadness with my marriage with the City itself; if we'd gone to another place for residency, would our marriage be different? I could blame New York for turning him into Doctor Robot, and for not providing me with a job that made me happy.

By the time his residency ended, I was more than ready to leave Manhattan. Newly pregnant with my first child, I was looking forward to living what I thought would be the cushy life of leisure back in Georgia. Imagine "The Firm", only without framing anyone for murder or wire-tapping your house, and that was pretty much it. Throw money and status at a married couple barely into their 30s, and their eyes will get big with greed. We got our first home, had our first child, and I was bored to death. I didn't have anyone I could relate to, and my husband was always working or sleeping. It certainly wasn't New York, but it also wasn't even Atlanta.

I returned to New York for the first time after the move when Jack was four months old. We flew up to attend my brother's engagement party, and experiencing the City with an infant is quite different than walking around on your own. You see every bit of filth that you might normally ignore. You worry about your baby inhaling bus fumes. You quickly learn that pushing a stroller around a busy city is a whole other animal from pushing one around the mall. It brings to your shoulders a new kind of ache with all you have to schlep around, because you can't just throw it into the trunk of your car. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to raise a child in a city that never sleeps, because all you want is for your kid to crash out so you can too. It seemed so much more difficult than ever before, and I only went back when I had to.

Once we moved out here, I started bringing my kids back with me for family visits. Jack and I were supposed to be in New York for Rosh Hashanah five days after 9/11. I wanted to go back and be with my family, but no one knew what would happen. Jack and I stayed home. The flight we would have taken was the first to land at Newark Airport when they reopened. When I finally did make the trip, it broke my heart to see that gaping hole in the skyline. The World Trade Center had been there my entire life; on clear days I'd been able to glimpse it from my bedroom window when I was growing up. That first post-9/11 trip, it felt like the City was just coming back to itself, like an accident victim waking up after a long coma. It was shaking off the sleep and testing its legs, to see if it could get back to a new kind of normal. It made me fall in love with New York all over again.

Unfortunately, nearly every trip since that one has ended up the same way: with me hating New York City all over again, vowing never to return. Midway through a visit, I'd feel this sudden loss of energy, as though the life had been completely sucked out of my body. Taking two kids on a cross-country flight is twice as exhausting as taking one, and it's twice the crap you have to bring with you. Two kids means they want different things at the same time. The younger one can't keep up like the older one can. Sometimes I'd want to just sit in the middle of the sidewalk, put my head on my raised knees, and cry from the physical exhaustion of maintaining "company behavior" out of the kids' comfort zone.

So this time, I will not have to include the Toys 'R Us in Times Square on my itinerary. I will not have to bring our entire DVD collection for my kids' entertainment on the plane. I will not have to ask my mother to buy special kid groceries. I will not have to stop walking every three feet and wait for Ben to catch up. I will not have to sit at that playground in Central Park with all the sprinklers and worry about some streetwise New York kid knocking down my sweet Pacific Northwest kid while using the F word.

Instead, I'll take the train out to New Jersey to see old friends and see how the town where I grew up has changed since my 10 year reunion in 1997. I'll take long walks and go shopping with my mother. I'll see an old college buddy for deli and laughs. I'll be doing lunch with a group of fabulous women I've come to know and love thanks to Twitter. I'll see my brother and his family, as well as my aunt and my cousin, whom I haven't seen in more years than I can recall. I'll make a speech in front of the people my mother's worked with at her amazing retirement party. I'm giddy and electric with the excitement.

It's the perfect antidote to what I thought I'd be doing on the 1-year anniversary of losing my job. Instead of wallowing on the couch with a pint of Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra, I'll be with family and friends, having a fabulous time, and only feeling slightly guilty about leaving my kids for a week.

Yep, it's a hell of a town, alright.

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

2010-05-02T19:40:00Z

I had another shark dream last night.

I dream of Great White Sharks when I'm supremely stressed out. They started in college, and when I have one, I know it's time to do a little self-evaluation. The dreams are usually very similar: I am standing above a calm body of water, on a pier or a deck of some kind. I look down into the water and see someone. Sometimes it's a lone swimmer, sometimes it's someone on a bright yellow raft. There is a light breeze. I can smell the salt air, feel the warm sun on my face. All is very calm. I look back down to the water and see the fin rushing towards the unwitting victim, and I am powerless to stop what's about to happen. The shark opens its huge mouth and violently takes the swimmer. Sometimes the body is bitten in half. Sometimes it's thrown into the air, screaming for help that no one can give. And I stand and watch, mute and powerless.

Now, it doesn't take a shrink to break that down. I can't control what happens in life, yadda yadda. But last night's dream was different, and it came at the end of a week that was pretty damn great. Let's dive deep (pun intended) into my psyche then, shall we? I actually hadn't had one in a while, so it really threw me.

Last night's dream was the most horrific and violent of all the shark dreams I've had, and I've had some doozies. All I can remember is a man (whom I didn't recognize) being stuck in a huge hole in the ground. I was standing near enough to help him, but I didn't. I watched, passively, as he struggled to free himself. And as soon as he seemed to get some footing, I realized the hole wasn't actually a hole at all: it was the mouth of a Great White. And this man was halfway inside of it, screaming in agony, his face contorted in unimaginable pain, blood everywhere. He reached his arms towards mine and I took them apathetically, not even really trying to help. I watched him suffer as the mouth chewed him. I watched his face go slack as he released my hands, surrendering to his fate. The shark took one last agonizing bite, cutting the man clear in half. The shark retreated and I backed away, leaving the man's upper half on the ground in a pool of blood and water.

Nice, huh?

Here's the thing: I don't know where this one came from. Like I said, this was a great week. I turned 41 on Monday and spent two nights in the company of Pamela Des Barres, Patti D'Arbanville, and several other amazing women writers. Miss P and I went thrift store shopping and out to lunch on Wednesday. On Thursday, I got to meet my friend Ryan's baby son, River, which was totally delicious. Friday night had me at the premiere of the wonderful "Gracie and the Atom", written by another friend, McKinley. I even made it through my son Ben's birthday party without having to speak to either of my ex-in-laws.

So why this vicious dream, from which I awoke gasping for breath at 4:12 am? What's stuck in my subconscious and needs to be resolved?

(you know, aside from not having a job and wanting to sell my book and being an unemployed single mother and I really don't want to have to go back to waiting tables at my age and please let that agent I'm going to talk to later this week like me)

If anyone feels like psychoanalyzing that dream, go for it. Clearly, I have no reason to be stressed out.

Something to (NOT) Talk About

2010-04-23T22:14:07Z

My boyfriend and I took in a bit of culture last night, a move unusual to us in that we're total couch potatoes and usually prefer being home to anywhere else. However, I'd won tickets to "The Chosen" at Portland Center Stage, a play I'd really wanted to see. I had the good fortune of dining next to "Chosen" co-star John Rothman at a local coffee shop, so I even felt a small personal connection to the production. And to top it all off, I am myself one of the Chosen People (holla at my Jews!), so I knew I'd find a lot to enjoy about the show.

We were seated next to a smartly dressed couple who appeared to be in their mid to late 70's. They gave us a nice smile as we took our seats. The play began. And so did their conversation.

A bit of an aside here: I always forget about my crappy seating karma when I go out in public. There is nothing on this planet that peeves me more than people talking during a movie. I think we're all well aware that proper movie etiquette has pretty much gone the way of the dinosaur, or Lindsay Lohan's career. People feel free to talk to each other as though they were sitting happily in their own home. And when I dare remind these cretins of this fact, they look at me like I'm the one who's doing something wrong. Apparently "Shhh!" is akin to "I want to murder your grandma" in 2010.

And when I say crappy seating karma, I speak of the girls with the very crunchy nachos and long fingernails who ruined the end of "Seven" for me in a crowded movie theater in New York City ("Oh, don't even TELL me her head is in that box!"); the parents who brought the boisterous toddler to a 10pm showing of "Dogma" in Albany, Georgia; the group of chuckleheads who thought it was a great idea to allow a 4 year old girl to see "Watchmen" just last year. These are but a few of the more extreme examples. I've encountered your garden variety obnoxious people who don't care if they're talking too loud. I've had to mediate a heated exchange between my boyfriend and a pack of big dudes in the back row at Cinetopia ("Guys," I said weakly, "We're just trying to watch a movie here, okay?" Amazingly, they shut up). The noisemakers with their loud packaged foods, and other egregious breaks in proper public behavior. I firmly believe that the only sentences that should be spoken aloud once the Feature Presentation begins are "I'm having chest pains" or "I think my water just broke." Anything short of an emergency should be saved until AFTER THE MOVIE IS OVER. By the end, all of your dumb-ass questions about the plot will be answered, and you can then ask your buddy who the actor playing the lead was, and what else he's been in. Savvy?

So of course I believe this not only applies to live theater, it applies like ten times more. Because the actors in a play can actually hear you when you make all your stupid noises.The coughing and sneezing are bad enough (last night's audience sounded like the Tuberculosis Ward), but when you speak during a play, it is unbearably rude. Not just to the actors, of course, but to your fellow theatergoers. Theater tickets cost a whole lot more than movie tickets; you'd think that people would be of at least a high enough class to know how to behave during a live stage production. At least when some yahoo mouths off during a movie, none of the actors are going to get offended. But if the people all around you (save for those of us who are poor and have to enter contests to win tickets) slapped down a fat wad of cash to see a play, guess what? They also want to HEAR it! Nutty, I know.

Let's return to our seat partners from last night, the lovely couple who fronted like inveterate theater patrons. Once the lights dimmed and the action started, they did not shut up. First of all, she couldn't hear a lot of the dialogue. What she could hear, she couldn't understand, because there was a lot of Yiddish being thrown around. Now, lest you think I'm not sensitive to the plight of the elderly and/or the hard of hearing (or, really, the plight of anyone), I assure you that's not the case here. I'm plenty sensitive. In this particular case, I was more interested in my own plight, which was being distracted from the play. She could have done with a hearing aid, or (if she's too vain) better seats. We were in Row M, near the back of the theater. Maybe her husband could have coughed up a few extra bucks to guarantee them seating closer to the front? In any case, they murmured at a loud enough volume for others to notice. The boyfriend and I did the throat-clearing and then the "Shhh!" to no avail. The breaking point came quite early in Act 1, when the main characters meet on the baseball diamond. "Did you play baseball when you were a kid?" Old Lady asked Old Man.

Now, a moment here, if I may. This couple was clearly not on their first date. They looked like they'd essentially become cojoined, they'd been together so long. If she didn't know about his boyhood activities (and really, shouldn't she, by this stage in their lives?), it's both a statement about their marriage AND her lack of common decency. They weren't in the lobby during Intermission discussing what they'd just seen, leading to a walk down Memory Lane while sipping their wine. Oh, no no. They were still watching it and they were talking no matter how many times we shushed them and oh my God will someone just please kill me right now.

It's basic human decency. If you're out in public, act appropriately. Keep in mind that you've actually left your home. Remember manners? Yeah, those. You wouldn't go out the door straight from the shower clad only in a towel, would you (Portland readers, keep that snarky answer to yourself)? So please, for all that is right and holy in this world: once the show starts--and I mean this with love, I really and truly do--please please please just shut the fuck up.

: )

I Could Have Been Phoebe Prince

2010-04-17T01:08:00Z

By now, I'm sure you've become acquainted with the horrifyingly tragic news about Phoebe Prince, who killed herself as a result of bullying at school. This story haunts me. Because it could easily have been mine.

Bullying has existed since the existence of life on Earth. The bigger creatures harass and kill the smaller ones. It's Darwin's Survival of the Fittest, the Circle of Life. However, it's one thing to watch a lion tear apart the carcass of a gazelle on the Discovery Channel; it's quite another to stand by and let human beings eviscerate one another.

When bullying is permitted in schools, when kids don't report it for fear of being victimized themselves (the "unwritten code" that seems to exist in every school in every town), when adults look away under the guise of letting kids be kids, we all suffer for it. We lose smart, pretty girls like Phoebe, who don't yet have the self-esteem to see the cruelty of others' for what it truly is: jealousy. Jealousy turns an already hormonally insane teenage girl into a evil monster filled with venom. In Phoebe's case, it seems to be born of the classic high school love triangle gone bad. The pretty Irish girl, once popular, had fallen from grace and had to not only tolerate verbal abuse, but the evils of the text message and internet as well. The way misinformation is now passed around, it takes only seconds to destroy someone's reputation, something that is already a delicate and fragile thing at this age.

And now, because a bunch of kids thought it would be a blast to torment this particular girl for no reason other than they could, Phoebe is dead. She was encouraged to kill herself on Facebook postings. I can't even find words to describe how much that disgusts me. I got told that once, too, a long time ago, just not for the entire world to see. I can't imagine what it would have been like if we'd had cell phone cameras and You Tube when I was in grade school. I'm beyond grateful to have grown up in the electronic Dark Ages, because localized humilation is plenty bad enough.

My own experience with the Mean Girls began in sixth grade. We had all known each other since Kindergarten, but I had spent the previous year in the Gifted and Talented program in another school in our district (that's a misery for another blog). Returning to my old school, back with all my friends, I started sixth on the highest note of my life at that point. But about a month into the new school year, things started going downhill. I honestly can't remember what exactly started it, but I know the first time I really got into trouble with my friends was when a boy at Hebrew School liked me instead of one of them. First, it was prank calls. Then, it was being excluded from the circle of about eight girls that gathered together every morning on the playground. It got progressively worse.

The ringleader--though she always denied it--was Stacey (in the interest of not getting myself into trouble, I'm not using last names). We had always been close, but when boys started noticing me and not her, well...you do the math. Stacey's closest partners in crime were Debbie, Debbie, Debbie (last names beginning with S, R, and W), Jennifer, and Kristin. The boys watched as they tormented me on a daily basis. Soon everyone had caught on that it was not cool to be my friend. I sat alone at lunch. That was the worst part of the day. We had to eat at our desks, and everyone ate in groups. The Cheese Ate Alone. It made me an easy target. I always made sure to have a book with me, so that I could pretend I didn't hear them. Soon, I developed the ability to shut out all sound when I was reading. It often came in handy. I knew they were talking about me, that the laughter I was almost not hearing was directed at me, but I learned to not let them see me upset. But they were tough, mean kids, and they were relentless in their verbal torture. One time, it was so bad that I asked the lunch lady if I could go to the bathroom and just kept walking until I got home. My mother wasn't there, and I ignored the ringing phone. Mom rushed home to find me fully clothed under the covers of my bed. I refused to go back to school ever again.

Somehow, I was coaxed back. I recall the Principal lecturing my homeroom class. Yeah, that really helped...helped things to get even worse, that is. I was followed home one day and someone yanked my hat off of my head, one that my Grandma Dorothy had knitted for me. After the kids played Keep Away, one of them threw it into the sewer. My notebooks would go missing from my desk, only to be found in garbage pails, wet in a bathroom sink, or hidden in one of the ceiling panels above us. I didn't have to do a thing to provoke an attack; my mere presence was disgusting enough for them.

My memories of sixth grade shut off after that. I don't remember anything from after Christmas break. I went to a sleepaway camp that summer, and worried about going back to school for seventh grade. At that time, there were no middle schools in my crappy little New Jersey town, so all of the elementary schools went from K-8. You went to the one nearest to where you lived. There were no private school options, unless you counted Catholic school. And since I'm Jewish, that was out of the question. I had no choice but to return to the scene of the crime.

You'd think the summer break would have mellowed out some of the meaner kids, but you'd be wrong. They picked up from where they'd left off in June. They made fun of what I wore, my hair, the fact that I'd gained weight over the summer, my braces. I stopped speaking up in class entirely unless I was called on. I wanted to be invisible. I have a memory (though I can't recall what provoked it) of my entire homeroom, seated and waiting for the dismissal bell, chanting "Nobody likes Tara" over and over. My teacher gestured to me to leave, and kept the class behind. I ran to the front of the school, where I hoped my mother would be parked (I begged her to pick me up every day instead of making me walk, but sometimes she couldn't get there after school). I knew I couldn't outrun anyone. Thankfully, she was there. I remember getting into the car, nearly passing out from lack of air. Running while crying is tough on the lungs.

This problem with the kids at school had done a lot of damage at home as well. My father, not the most compassionate human being to begin with, couldn't understand why they were ganging up on me. "You must do something to make them treat you like this!" he once barked at me. My mother was trying to save my sanity while also protecting me from the abuse I was getting from all sides. They'd both dealt with the endless prank phone calls, discussions with other parents and teachers, and they were running out of patience. On this particular day, when I recounted to my very angry father what had happened, he got even angrier. At me. I didn't want to go to Hebrew School that afternoon; plenty of the kids from my class would be there as well, and it would just get worse. I wanted to stay home and hide. It enraged him.

"You just sit there and take it like a little wimp!" he exploded. "I want you to go to Hebrew School, and I want you to beat the shit out of that Stacey ____!"

My mother yelled his name, objecting. It wouldn't do any good, it would get me into trouble at Temple, and when does violence solve anything?

You go, he said to me. And I better get a call from the Rabbi telling me to pick you up.

I didn't want to. But I was more afraid of my father than I was of the kids at school, and this was a no-win situation. I'd lose my Bat Mitzvah, maybe get my family kicked out of the Temple. The next day would be a nightmare when everyone else found out. I could beat up Stacey, but what would stop the rest of those bitches from ganging up on me and beating me up?

The consequences seemed irrelevant, anyway. I had stopped caring about myself. I had instead simply started believing what the Mean Girls said to me every day. I was fat. I was ugly. No boys would ever like me. It would have been better if I'd never been born. The world would be a better place without me in it. I believed all of that to be true. No matter how many times my mother sat on my bed and stroked my hair and told me every last good thing about me, I had been deeply damaged. I had lost the energy it took to maintain a good attitude. I was exhausted from the effort. I wanted it all to end.

So I did it. I went to Hebrew School, asked Stacey to step out into the hallway, and launched myself at her. I knew I was screaming and crying, and she was yelling for me to get off of her. Jennifer came out of nowhere and latched one of her claws onto my head and tried to pull me off of Stacey by my hair, but I just kept wailing on her.

Finally, a teacher separated us. We were brought to the Rabbi, who was mortified by our behavior. Stacey got away with playing the victim, as I knew she would. We were told our parents would be contacted, dismissed back to our class, and I remember walking out of the Rabbi's office feeling as though I'd swallowed a lead balloon. I know my father was mad that I hadn't been sent right home. Father of the Year.

That night, I imagined the next day at school and what it was going to be like for me. My father refused to let me stay home, champion that he was, so I knew I was going to be in for it. They couldn't really get to me until after school. I imagined myself laying on the pavement, everyone taking a kick at me. I'd look at the sky and think of my mother's mother, my Grandma Ethel, who'd died when I was seven, and whom I still missed ferociously. I imagined her greeting me with open arms, happy to have me back with her. She'd make me feel safe. It would be nice to let go of all the pain in my life and just float away to a place where I could lay my head in her lap and be calm.

The next morning, my mother tried to give me a pep talk, something about walking in there with my head high because I had finally stood up for myself. Instead, I walked into a verbal assault. Choruses of "How could you" and "Oh poor Stacey" surrounded me all day long. At lunch, the Debbies and Kristin loudly plotted their afterschool revenge on me. "I bet her MOMMY is coming to get her," Jennifer chimed in. You better believe she was.

As soon as we were dismissed after the final bell, I walked as fast as possible to my mom's car. From close behind me, I heard them:

"Hey, you fat shit, where are you going?"
"Hey, you fat coward, why don't you fight ME next?"
"Fuckin fat BITCH, I should kill you!"
"No, she should kill herself, save us the trouble!"
"Yeah, you ugly fat bitch, go home with your Mommy and fuckin KILL YOURSELF!"
And the laughter. Is there any sound uglier than a bunch of grade schoolers laughing that evil group laugh?

My mom drove me home. I went up to my room. I thought about dying. I'd read you could die from swallowing a whole bottle of aspirin, so I considered doing that. I didn't want to do it in a way that hurt. I thought about what the other kids would say. Would they laugh? Would they feel bad? Would they be relieved? And then I laughed at myself, because even in the most selfish moment of my life, I was worried about what THEY would think. When did that ever end? And why should I give them any satisfaction, anyway? My mother would also never recover, and I couldn't do that to her.

So I decided to not kill myself. I decided to ignore what everyone said about me, although the emotional damage was certainly present and palpable. I had terrible dreams of being pursued into the woods by an unseen presence, my brain's way of dealing with all the repressed anger of my waking life.

I continued going to school. I found a friend, Stephanie, and we stuck together into our high school years. I tried out for Chorus, which I had to do in front of the entire grade. Even with the catcalls and jeers, I got up and I sang. I don't know where I got the balls, but I got em.

Those girls didn't totally defeat me, but they hurt me. I had an immediate dislike of all new girls who came into my life, so deep was my mistrust of my own gender. It was years before I could make lasting friendships with other women. I developed a sharp, sarcastic wit to use as a suit of armor, and sometimes as a weapon with which to defend myself. I have done a lot of soul-searching and self-analyzing and today I can say I'm happy with myself.

Phoebe Prince will never have that chance. She never got the help and support she needed and deserved. She'll never be able to find solace in a new friend, or tell her story to other girls who may be struggling with the same problems. She won't experience heartbreak or true love. She won't be singing any sweet Irish lullabies to her babies. I ache for her mother.

Human nature can't be changed. The weak will still be overpowered by the strong. But it's time to keep a closer watch on bullying in our schools. As bad as it got for me with mean notes and constant phone calls, the techno-bullying of today is a million times worse. I tell my story to my kids, to make sure they never treat anyone the way I was treated.

To the Phoebes of the world, I want to tell you something, and I want you to take this in: You are not alone. You are not the only one who feels this way. There is a person in your life you can talk to, and you already know who it is. Don't be afraid to let your voice be heard. Speak up. Make it stop. You matter. You are important, you are strong and beautiful, and you deserve a long, happy life where yours is the only opinion that truly counts. You can make it through this, because I did.

Teenage Humiliation, or Getting More Than My Two Dollars' Worth

2010-04-05T16:19:00Z

There was no such thing as "stalking" back in the 80s.

I mean, there WAS, of course; we just didn't call it that. We saw what happened to John Lennon. But that was a crazy person. Regular people who have a thing for a famous person don't usually shoot them. Regular people usually just go to a famous person's movie, or read magazine articles about said famous person, and leave it at that.

But hormonally charged teenagers cannot be considered 'regular', can they? Especially not ones who never really had a boyfriend but instead had a best friend who liked making phone calls to famous people.

When I was a junior in high school, my friend Pam was a serious influence on me. First of all, she didn't go to my school, which made her instantly cooler. She introduced me to strange music, like Einsturzende Neubauten and Feargal Sharkey. She's the one who brought me to my first thrift shop, leading me to wearing "dead peoples' clothes", as my mom would say. She had a passion for low-budget vampire films, onion rings, and Canadian hockey.

That last detail is what led to us searching the New York City phone book on a regular basis. In 1986, you could still find the listed phone numbers of rising celebrities who most likely weren't even aware they were listed. Pam had managed to get numbers for a few of the New York Rangers, as well as a bar in Canada that she called regularly, just to hear the bartender's accent. I know you're rolling your eyes at that last one. I never understood it, either.

And so it was that during one sleepover, as her fingers did the walking, Pam gasped somewhere in the C's.

"H0ly fucking shit, Tara," she said. "JOHN CUSACK."

"Where?" I shrieked, jerking my head around the room.

"Dipshit, in the phone book!"

"That can't be OUR John Cusack," I replied.

"Our" John Cusack. As if we were the only teenage girls who had discovered him. "The Sure Thing" had quickly become one of our favorite movies, and we quoted it at length whenever we could. But there was also "Class", "Sixteen Candles", and that 80s classic, "Better Off Dead". Woe was the person who mentioned the monetary increment of two bucks.

"TWO DOLLARS!" we'd yell. "I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!" (Everyone gets that joke now, but few did back then. Yeah, we were always ahead of the curve, Pam and I.)

"I bet you it's him," she said.

"Why would he be listed?" I asked.

She shrugged, exhaling smoke from her billionth Virginia Slim. And then, she dared me to call him.

At this particular time in my life, Pam could probably have gotten me to eat paste naked in the middle of Times Square, so making a phone call to a cute actor wasn't really a daunting task. Especially not after calling John Van Biesbrouck (Pam's current hockey obsession) to ask him what he wanted for his birthday.

I dialed. It rang. We got an answering machine with two male voices, discussing their plans for the evening. One was definitely OUR John Cusack. They were apparently going to a club called Heartbreak, which was hot at the time. We, in turn, were sixteen and living in New Jersey. And it was a school night. We weren't going to show up at Heartbreak.

But we had his number. Eventually, he'd answer.

One night soon after our discovery, he did. At first, he pretended he wasn't himself. I mean, random chicks are calling, the guy's gotta protect himself. But, with Pam goading me on, I managed to make myself sound cool enough for the "real" John to take the phone. After some witty banter, I'd convinced him that I was not only smart and cool, but also pretty enough to actually meet in person. We decided to meet under the arch in Washington Square Park on the following Saturday. I told him I was short with dark hair and that I'd be wearing a black jacket.

Pam didn't go with me. I begged her to shadow us, to make sure I didn't totally humiliate myself on my own, but for reasons lost to the ages, I ventured into the City solo. On the train, I tried to think of cool opening lines. What if he stood me up? He was an ACTOR who probably dated leggy supermodels or skinny actresses. I tried not to bite my nails and hoped I looked thin enough.

I waited under the Arch, nearly driving myself insane with worry and anticipation. I checked out every tall guy that passed me. I imagined him checking me out from across the street, deciding I wasn't worthy of his time, and going on about his day. And then, suddenly, a guy quickly ducked under the arch and back out. It was so fast, it took a second to register.

Our John Cusack. He showed.

He ducked back in. "Is it you?" he asked. We shook hands. I admitted my embarrassment. He shrugged. "It's cool," he said. "Wanna walk with me? I have some videos to return."

So we walked to Tower Records (oh, Tower...how I miss you), chatting about music, movies, and what New Jersey teenagers do for fun. "The mall?!" he sneered. I could only apologize. Like it was my fault I lived in LameLand. I desperately wished I had something so unique about me, he'd overlook the eager teen thing and like me anyway.

I recall him being impressed with my list of current favorite films. After Tower, we went to a diner. He got a cheeseburger and a beer, and I remember questioning how he got served when he wasn't 21 yet. While he hadn't made "Say Anything..." yet, he was very much in Lloyd mode: the long coat over a Clash shirt, the bouncing of the jittery knee, the way he spoke in run-on sentences. And he was just so damn cute.

Alas, a great romance simply wasn't in the cards. At sixteen, I was too young to be anything more to him than a silly girl who had somehow managed to get to him. He was on the cusp of a great career, and I had to study for finals. But he was totally nice, if a little unsure how to process my blazing hot teenage crush. If nothing else, I thought, maybe we could just be friends. And, no. A hot 19 year old actor doesn't need a 16 year old 'friend'. We parted with an awkward hug (he's just so tall!) and I had myself a story to tell when I got home.

The next time I tried calling Our John Cusack, the number had been changed. I couldn't really blame him for that.

I've followed his career since then, of course. We all know how successful he's become. My decades-old crush continues (despite "Serendipity" and "Must Love Dogs"). In fact, he was the first celebrity I ever met, and that encounter helped me learn how to be chill around the Famous. It came in handy when I met two of my other major heartthrobs, John Taylor and Dave Grohl. Three down, one to go.

Look out, Matt Dillon. You just might be next.

The Luck (?) of the Non-Irish

2010-03-17T21:47:00Z

What do you do when you KNOW you're right about something, and it seems like all the odds are stacked against you?

I've lobbied for a great local radio station for the past 10 months, ever since I got laid off. People have told me to give it up, to "get over myself", to forget about it, to move on. I have, somewhat. I no longer pine for the 94/7 studio; I know I'll never set foot in there again. I'm volunteering with KZME, and it's great to be surrounded by people who share my passion, even if we don't have the money we need and I'm still living off unemployment.

Every time I turn on the radio, I play a game called Anything Good? I have six stations preset in my car, and I punch each one to hear what they're all doing at whatever time it is. The answer to Anything Good? is more often no than yes. Rarely have I paused to wonder what I was hearing, because I already knew. This morning in the car, it went like this:

Preset 1: Green Day
Preset 2: Jimi Hendrix
Preset 3: Harvey Danger
Preset 4: Colbie Caillat
Preset 5: Green Day
Preset 6: Red Hot Chili Peppers

I mean, SNORE.

But I should just shut up, right? I mean, why bother fighting? Since I seem to be one of the few people in Portland who believes that "commercial" and "local" are not mutually exclusive. I mean, who the hell do I think I am, huh? I should forget about it, concentrate on the book that I'm shopping to agents (which I am, TRUST ME; I am uber-focused on that like a mofo), and let the mediocrity on the airwaves continue because I'm Daniel and corporate radio is Goliath.

Yesterday, maybe I might have agreed with you. I beat myself up daily for allowing my passion to get me into trouble, so much so that maybe I'm getting a bad rep. When a man speaks up for his beliefs, he's a visionary; a woman speaks out on her passion, and she's a whiner. It gets me so angry and frustrated, I don't know what to do. Sometimes the thought of continually having to prove myself is exhausting. It would be a relief to just release this intense love into the ether, like letting go of a toxic ex-lover, to purge myself of it so I can begin the next stage of my life.

But today, I got this email from a former listener:

Hey Tara, I just felt compelled to send this message your way.

I honestly one day turned to 94.7 when I was hoping to hear my favorite dj.. I find some random. I never knew you were let go until I dug a little deeper to find out what happened. I still don't honestly. I would never imagine them letting go of someone who completed and was such a crucial asset to the station. Anyways, I'm sorry to keep this at the surface for ya.. I just wanted to let you know from a loyal fan, that you are amazing. I hope whatever your doing now you are enjoying. And I wish you the best of luck. Don't ever change a thing about yourself. Your rad. Thanks for taking the time to read this by the way..

*always a fan -- Andrew

And then I called Dosha, to make a massage appointment. They had me in their system under my old email. The woman on the other end of the phone said, "Oh my gosh, you're THAT Tara? I miss you so much, I listened to you every day!"

That's twice in one day. On St. Patrick's Day. For a non-Irish girl with one hell of an Irish name. So maybe I get to borrow a little of that Irish luck?

People still remember me, which is fantastic. Especially when I spent the first 36 years of my life feeling invisible. So I'm gonna keep fighting for great localized radio, while also doing lots of other things. Someday, it's going to really happen. And then I can tell everyone that for once, I was actually right.

Oh, and Erin Go Bragh!

A Regular Person's Take On the Oscars

2010-03-08T05:45:00Z

I'm not a film critic. I don't host a TV show. No one pays me to air my opinion about movies. But when all the pros complain about the state of film and how bad the Oscars are, no one in the industry pays attention. They just keep rolling out the crap. So I might as well throw in my own opinion. Because, unlike the people who review films, I pay for the movies I see. And as a person currently living off unemployment, I have to be super choosy with where my meager entertainment dollar goes. I've managed to see only a handful of the nominated films, and I purposely avoided "Avatar" (and will continue to do so).

However, I did see "The Hurt Locker", at a special screening at the Portland Women's Film Festival where Kathryn Bigelow was in attendance. And even then, in the months B.A. (Before Avatar), I predicted this film would go a long way. I knew it would be lauded come Oscar time, and when Ms. Bigelow was nominated, I knew she would win.

So I watched the telecast, as I have every year since I can remember. I recall the glory years when Johnny Carson hosted, and it felt like a great big cocktail party. Then there was Billy Crystal, the best host in recent memory. This year's show had to be one of the worst I've ever seen, which was a sincere disappointment. It was promised to be the best ever, and...NOT. In the past decade, the Oscar broadcast has become a running joke in the industry, because it's too long and it's too boring and everyone's always coming up with ways to make it better.

This is where I come in.

As a veteran of more than (I hate to say) three decades of Oscar-watchin', I have come up with a list of suggestions for next year's Oscar producers. I'm the one you want to please, the person who's sitting in their yoga pants on the couch, eating Oatmeal Squares out of the box (this may or may not be a rhetorical setup). Here's how you make the show worth watching again.

1. One Host to Rule Them All. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin should have KILLED together. Instead, their patter was awkward and mostly unfunny. They were better when presenting separately. And I think this year will make everyone pine even more for Billy Crystal and his outrageously hilarious medleys and film montages. Bring him back. This show needs a solid leader who can keep it moving.

2. Keep The Clips to a Minimum. Speaking of montages, enough already. Yes, you're the Oscars, we already know you're there to honor the movies. But it's time to quit patting yourselves on the back with this kind of filler. The salute to horror films was a waste of time and editing. Films not really in the horror genre were shown ("Marathon Man"?), and the fact that the Leprechaun from "Leprechaun" was shown on the Oscars makes my stomach hurt. The only montage we want to see is the In Memoriam reel, aka The Dead People Montage. And this year, Farrah Fawcett was left out, which is an embarassing oversight for the Academy.

3. No Dancing. Ever. This isn't the Grammys or "So You Think You Can Dance to Film Scores". The Oscars did us a solid this year by sparing us the usually unbearable live performances of the nominated songs by showing a quick clip reel. Why couldn't they do the same with the Best Score nominees? Now whenever I see Jeremy Renner, I'm going to think of him having to watch a dancer do the Robot in a "Hurt Locker" dance sequence. You might as well call that sequence The Bathroom Break.

4. Pare Down the Broadcast Categories. I realize the mother of the guy who won Best Documentary Short Subject is kvelling somewhere, but the harsh truth is that a hearty portion of the viewing audience couldn't care less. They want the meat. They want the big categories. They don't want to have to sit through a guy muttering his way through a list of thank yous. If you want people to watch the show in its entirety, these are the categories they care about:

Best Picture
Best Director
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress

A smaller portion of the viewers will care about costumes and sets and sound effects editing. Perhaps those categories could be awarded earlier, and broadcast on ABC Family. Then, once we hit the prime time, you go live on ABC at 9pm, and pack those six categories into a tight, 2-hour broadcast. That way, when it's getting to the point where your eyes are rolling back in your head because it's so late and you just want to see WHO WINS ALREADY, the sight of five different actors coming out on stage to honor the acting nominess won't make you want to throw your glass of HI-C at the screen.

4. Hire Smart People for the Pre-Show Coverage. It's clear Kathy Ireland was fresh off the Fembot assembly line when 'interviewing' the nominees she cornered. Why not get actual movie buffs to host your pre-game, so that their questions aren't innocuous and condescending? They may not be as telegenic, but these actors see pretty people all the damn time. Get someone who knows something about film to ask the questions next year. PLEASE.

5. Get More Civilians Involved. The biggest joke about the Oscars is that it's like the high school prom, only everyone is rich and pretty. We get to watch the insiders' party, but without us little people, there wouldn't be all that money going around to make their movies. The emotional connection isn't there, because most of us don't know what it's like to wear fancy gowns and ride in limos and get to find out what George Clooney smells like. Next year, let some non-industry people come on board to live-blog the show from a non-jaded perspective. Or have a contest to have a movie fan stand on the red carpet and do interviews. Make it more interactive with handheld audience cameras. Basically, I just want a way in, and those are some cool ideas.

It's supposed to be a FUN show, and right now, it's kind of like being forced to go to your grandmother's funeral. I got more laughs off my Twitter feed than from the actual show. I doubt that's what the show producers were going for. It's time for the Oscars to catch up with its audience...whatever's left of it, that is.

The Stephen King and I

2010-02-16T02:35:00Z

When I was a sophomore in high school, I wrote a paper for my Honors English class comparing and contrasting the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. While there was plenty of material at the library on Lovecraft, I couldn't find too much biographical material on King, whom I worshipped at the time.

I was as ballsy then as I am now, so 15-year-old Tara Dublin wrote a letter (on PAPER, even!) to Stephen King, and mailed it to him via his publisher. I told him about my paper, that I was a big fan, and asked if THE DARK TOWER was available anywhere, because it was out of print at the time. I didn't really expect much, but I had learned early on that it never hurts to ask, because the worst thing someone can say is no. And I figured if it never got to him, I'd cobble together whatever information I could get from magazine articles. He's a busy guy, after all, writing stuff to scare the bejeebus out of everyone, and I was just this little girl from New Jersey.

So imagine my surprise when I received a packet of information from Stephen King just a few weeks later. It was a generic, fan-club type mailer with his bio- and bibiliographies. It also included a photocopied letter from Mr. King, explaining that in the past, he'd had the time to answer all fan inquiries himself, but there was now so much mail, he couldn't keep up with it. It's understandable. But at the bottom of that page, he'd personally typed: "Hope I'm not toooo late with this info. Good luck and hope you get an A! SK"

I brought that letter to school to show to my English teacher, Mr. Martin. He was duly impressed, as were many of my friends, and my mother. This was the same year I had my first ever letter published in a magazine (a missive to PEOPLE magazine regarding Band Aid), so my mom predicted I was headed for my own fame via the written word.
I simply basked in the fact that Stephen King had taken the time to read my letter AND to type out a personal response to me. It was just cool, the first of many celebrity encounters I would come to have in my life.

Shortly after I turned in my paper, I got another surprise in the mail. Check it out...it's become one of my most prized possessions:

If you can't quite make it out (it's framed and I don't want to handle it too much), this is what it says:

5/31/85

Dear Tara Dublin:

Thank you very much for your interest. As of November 1985 Don Grant in Kingston, Rhode Island, told me THE DARK TOWER is officially out of print. If you're still interested in obtaining a copy, may I suggest you contact a reputable dealer of used books and out of print editions. May I also suggest you refuse to pay more than $50.

Stephen King
Forgot to enclose this information
with the stuff for your term paper.

Now, I ask you: how COOL is that? Stephen King didn't have to write to me. He was probably working on MISERY at the time or something. That just rules. And if that wasn't enough, check this out: Stephen and his wife Tabitha own The Zone Corporation, a central Maine radio station group consisting of WZON, WZON-FM, and WKIT, which has the tagline "Stephen King's Rock 'n' Roll Station." I mean, come on. The man supports terrestrial radio as well. DUDE.

I look at this framed postcard every day of my life. I remind myself that Stephen King was on the brink of poverty when "Carrie" sold. I tell myself that if my book does indeed ever get published, I will answer the hopeful kids who write to me, because Stephen King set the example of how to remain a class act while being a big deal writer at the same time.

And if anyone out there actually knows Stephen King, shoot him this link, would you? It's the only way I know how to thank him for being such a badass all these years....and for helping me get an A on that paper. ; )

Here Comes Your 19th Nervous Breakdown

2010-02-10T19:01:00Z

Yesterday was bad.

It didn't start out that way. Yesterday (February 9, for those reading this at a later date) was gloriously sunny and warm for this time of year. Thanks to a connection at KINK, I had passes to a session with the Barenaked Ladies, a band I'd always liked in a casual way. I was curious about how they'd sound without their main lead singer, who'd parted ways from the band a couple of years ago. And, to be honest, I wanted certain people over there to see me and remember that I'm still kicking around town, and I'm available.

My sweet friend Ann joined me, and as we were led up to the KINK Live Lounge, I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach. I used to do this all the time, host sessions with bands. And now, I was a guest, just another face in the crowd. Still, I put on a brave face, and said my hellos to the wonderful people on the KINK staff that I've had the pleasure of meeting before. Ann and I settled in and the band took the stage. The BNL are known for their sense of humor, and they didn't disappoint on that level. But what people forget about them is that they're also seriously talented musicians. In the middle of their set, they played their new single, "You Run Away". It's not a funny lark like "One Week"; in fact, it's the polar opposite. You can hear it HERE.

When Ed Robertson sang the line, "I made a mess/who doesn't?/I did my best/But it wasn't enough", I lost it. I started crying. CRYING. In public. Because of a line in a song, and also because that part hit home, and it hit hard.

I made a mess of some professional relationships because of an unfortunate slip of the tongue, and I still am feeling badly about that. I am also still unemployed, which makes me feel like a failure in a lot of ways, and so right there in the KINK Live Lounge, my all-day Pity Party began.

After the session was over, we were offered a tour of the radio station. Now, I didn't really need it, having had been over there the week after I was fired (and thank you again, Dennis Constantine, for your kindness in that meeting). But Annie had never seen a radio station, and so I indulged her. I was fine until we were led into the booth, and there was my ex-competition, Steve Pringle, doing his thing. He's a really good guy, and we joked about how he'd had that gig long enough, he was ready to move on, and he should take an extended vacation so I could fill in, ha-ha.

That sealed it. The lump I'd been holding onto moved from my throat to my stomach and settled there. It was one of those moments we've probably all had, where everything is dark and everything you think has a finality to it that could become self-fulfilling prophecy: I will never be on the radio again.

I mean, I know I'll be on the radio again. I'm still all about KZME, and someday they hope to give me a show once it's live. So there's that. My "time off" has been occupied with some good things, like being able to volunteer with the Human Rights Campaign. But I walked out of KINK with a dark cloud over my head nonetheless.

Then I went over to Cupcake Jones, to support Live Wire Radio, and lo and behold, it was filled with so many fabulous and talented people. In the 45 minutes I ended up standing around (and drinking surprisingly tasty $8 "Champagne"), I encountered local writers, performers, and a notable filmmaker, all of whom I consider friends. And all of whom had a job, or a class, or a rehearsal to go to. The stone in my stomach twisted and burned, and yet I kept smiling. I adore these people and support their every effort, and it wasn't jealousy I was feeling. It was disappointment, in myself. Because the only place I had to go was home (with a pit stop at Whole Foods).

It just made me ache for something to finally happen already, DAMMIT.

Because, there's also the book thing. I've sent it off, and it's in the hands of a very capable agent, who is going to decide my fate. He will either say yes or no. He will assess my talent, he will decide if what I've written is something people other than my mom will want to read. So I'm waiting on that. And like the wise philosopher Tom Petty once wrote, the waiting is the hardest part.

I feel like I've been in this eternal holding pattern since May. And I don't like it. I'm frustrated, I'm anxious, I'm worried about my mortgage and my sons. Mostly, I'm exhausted from keeping up the front. I'm keeping it together, but barely. With every step forward (the agent, the performance I did last week), there is a yank backwards (dead car battery, broken dishwasher, boyfriend not getting the job we thought he was going to get). My new mantra has gone from "This too shall pass" to "Well, this is another funny story to tell Oprah", mainly just to make that joke.

But I'm tired of joking about my life. It's enough already. I can't keep putting up this front for much longer, kids. I burned my 2009 calendar, I'm trying to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, but even an optimist is entitled to the occasional journey into the abyss.

If anyone needs me, I'll be smashing the crap out of tennis balls on Wii Fit.

ME AND MY BIG MOUTH

2010-01-25T18:12:00Z

I have a big mouth. I talk a lot. Sometimes, my passion gets the better of me, and I end up saying stuff that's taken the wrong way, and people I care about get mad. I could skywrite a thousand times my intentions, but once you make people mad at you, it's really hard to make them un-mad. But still, I'm going to try.

I was asked to call in to a local radio show this morning, on 101.1 KUFO. Kidd Chris, the morning host, openly bites the hand that feeds him, complaining about the state of radio. Last week he was ranting about how, when anything goes wrong in radio (be it sales, ratings, the coffee maker's broken), they fire the DJ. That falls into the "It's funny 'cause it's true" category, so I sent him an email. The fact is, there aren't many people who know what he's talking about on a personal level. We had a nice email exchange, where he learned about me and how I'd been fired, and he invited me to call into his show this morning to talk about it.

Now, I thought this over carefully. Did I want to be back on Portland radio? Hell yeah. Did I want it to be on KUFO? Not as a first choice, but this was offered to me as a chance to speak openly about Portland radio. If nothing else, I could make a plea for a great local station because of all the people who've been fired in this last year. So I accepted, knowing that he'd probably try to go to dark places, and I was going to do my best to not go there with him. There was banter, there was a chance for me to make my plea about the power of radio at the terrestrial level, it was going fine.

And then came the old "Why don't you just do a podcast?"

I have to tell you all this: I have heard that about 1,000,000 times since I got laid off. Unfortunately, I replied with a very offhand comment about how 'anyone can do a podcast'. And that pissed people off. People I admire, and care about, and want to succeed because they are all so very good at what they do.

Here's the thing: while anyone CAN do a podcast because of the technology that is out there, NOT JUST ANYONE can do a GREAT podcast. I believe with all my heart that I am not capable of doing a great podcast. Not unless there's a team of people to help me. Because I have no techie skills, no fun sidekick to chat with, no money to build a home studio, and frankly, because I'd rather be an employee than a boss. It's so much work to maintain a great podcast, and I really don't know how the people who are so good at them make them work day after day.

I liked going to work, being in the studio, having the guidelines to put together a great show. I still believe with all my heart that one day, I'll have that again. In the meantime, I suggest you all bookmark PDX.FM, as I have. Because the people on there have everything it takes to make great podcasts. Not only do I admire them, I'm jealous of them. I know I can't do what they do. And I hope they keep doing it, because the internet is a better place with them on it.

To all the podcasters in Portland, please accept this as a heartfelt apology. I will certainly be more careful about what I say and how I say it in the future.

Ode to Jack

2010-01-08T04:37:00Z

My firstborn baby boy, Jack Henry, turns 11 today (January 8th). He shares his birthday with Elvis, David Bowie, and Stephen Hawking, among others; upon learning this soon after his birth, I decided he was sure to be a musical genius.

And oh, he is that and more, my Jack. People tell you how much you will love your children, but your body can't comprehend it until your child that you've carried inside you is placed in your arms. In those first few seconds of our life together, Jack opened his eyes at the sound of my voice and looked right at me. From that moment on, we were tight. Those early months and years, where we spent so much time getting to know each other, are the most delicious of all my memories. I talked to him constantly from birth, so that he would pick up language early; his first word, at 13 months, was "car." Like me, he read early, and often. For the first three and half years of his life, I was his main teacher until I handed him over to the wonderful people at his Montessori school. By then, I knew he was brighter than I, and I wouldn't be able to keep up with his intense desire to learn.

Jack has gone through all of the typical boy phases: obsessions with construction led to many years of Bob the Builder, then Thomas the Tank Engine (the latter now his younger brother's main hobby). There was a brief period of dinosaur fascination, but then The Lego Years took hold. Just before he turned 6, he put together a Lego ship all by himself. It took him hours, but he was happiest when building from that age until about a year ago.

Now we are into the Long Rule of The Video Game, an era I see no end to. But Jack also loves music, and is currently all about The Beatles. He is learning the guitar, still plays the violin, and is an excellent swimmer. He would still rather read than do most anything else. Jack is sweet and kind, a pure hearted soul who doesn't have a mean bone in his body (unlike his younger brother, The Booger) and goes out of his way to make sure everyone around him is doing well. His empathy knows no bounds, and if he doesn't become a chef, like he's currently planning to do, I could see him being a wonderful veterinarian someday because of his love of animals.

My baby, my boy. My son. He was this little tiny peanut baby in my arms, eleven years ago.

And now he's this big 11-year-old, nearly as tall as I am, brilliant and beautiful, smart and loving, infuriating but hilarious, a wonderful big brother and a fabulous dining companion. I could not have asked for a more perfect first born child than my Jack Henry. Oh my man, I love him so.

Highlights of 2009

2009-12-31T19:54:00Z

I know I've been bitching plenty about this year (and my mother says I never complain, ha!). I wanted to try to begin the new year with a good attitude, so I decided to make a list of good things about 2009. Positivity begets positivity. SO, here we go!

1. Of all the people that died this year, I wasn't one of them.

2. My kids still think I'm awesome and my boyfriend didn't dump me despite the constant crap.

3. My friends and family stuck by me without judgment and with plenty of encouragement.

4. I had the greatest birthday party of my entire life. Those of you who were there, I cannot thank you enough. I will hold the memory of that night with me forever.

5. I reconnected with a very special old friend, whose live show was the best of the year.

6. I wrote a book, which my editor believes WILL sell in 2010. Please, publishing peoplegods, please.

7. The world's greatest cat continues to live in my house.

8. The Hangover and I Love You, Man made me laugh so hard, I forgot that I was depressed.

9. Them Crooked Vultures made me love music again.

10. Um...cupcakes? Yeah, I ate a lot of cupcakes this year.

Well, at least I tried. There just wasn't a whole lot of great things in 2009. Everyone seems to be in agreeance on this (my favorite Durst-ism of the past decade), so I'm putting a fork in this bad boy and calling it done.

This time next year, I'd like to be blogging about how mind-blowingly radtastical 2010 was. Oh, yes, how I'd like that.

Bring On 2010 Already!

2009-12-02T17:22:00Z

I am SO over 2009.

2009 kicked my ass in ways no other year could match. 2003 tried, what with Ben being born early and spending 12 days in the NICU at Emmanuel Hospital. 2005 wasn't too kind, neither: that's when I got divorced and began Ms. Tara's Wild Ride of Stress that carried into 2006, another not-great time. That was the year I developed a heart condition and had to have a surgical procedure to correct it.

2007 and 2008 decided to cut me some slack and let me have some good times. Thanks for that.

But oh, 2009, you have been one big, bad bitch, and you need to go. I realize you're gonna stick around for a few more weeks, but let me be the first to send you off and give you the kind of eulogy you so rightly deserve.

I have come to bury 2009, not praise it.

While it started off as the most promising year in recent history, thanks to Mr. Obama taking office (and when a year has its peak in January, you know you're in for it), it rapidly declined into a fiery shame spiral of death, fear, panic, poverty, and uncertainty. The weakening economy, the war in Afghanistan, and a never-ending line of celebrity deaths dominated the headlines. The news was so bad, we allowed ourselves to watch reality TV show marriages collapse and followed a floating (and passenger-less) balloon for hours.

While my personal life at home thankfully continued to thrive, my professional life suffered its greatest blow in 2009, and I am still in recovery. Being laid off from a job you loved is bad enough; being laid off from a job that puts you in the public eye is harder. Everyone who knows you is watching to see what you'll do next. In public, I put on a happy face and let people know I wasn't taking it lying down. But oh, at home? Let's just say the summer of 2009 passed in a haze of hysterical crying, pot smoke, and diarrhea. I lost at least 10 pounds thanks to what my mom calls The Aggravation Diet. My sweet, devoted man (who dealt with his own crap this year--stand by) stayed by my side and did nothing but encourage me. I never expected to be a 40-year-old unemployed single mother, but here I am: a statistic. I never thought I'd ever have to worry about money, but here I am: scared about the holidays and whether or not we'll have a house to celebrate in come December 2010.

I found out who my real friends were; certainly not the ex-co-worker who simply sent me a text the day after I was canned: "R U OK?" Seriously? We worked together for five years, and you can't even be bothered to write out the words "Are" and "you"? Get bent. Those I expected to stand by me vanished; others whom I didn't know well surprisingly stepped up and have become close allies.

Thanks to 2009 being such a JERK, I was able to devote time to writing, something I've always loved to do but never managed to get serious about. So I wrote a book. In about 5 weeks. I am working with a fantastic editor and hope to get an agent. But something tells me it won't happen in 2009, because 2009 sucks ass and doesn't want me to succeed or be happy.

2009 took my friend Marc's mother Megan, and my boyfriend's close friend, Will. Both to cancer, both at different stages in their lives. Megan, close to 70, felt she'd had a wonderful life and was ready to go out on her own terms. Conversely, Will suffered from stomachaches for well over a year, finally went to the doctor, was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer, and died roughly two weeks later at the age of 28. Tell me, what do you say when something like that happens? Don't roll out that "God has a plan" shit. 2009 was the year that made me start to question everything we've ever been taught about a supreme deity. If there is a God (and we can get all philosophical some other time), I'm guessing S/He was on vacation the entire year.

So goodbye, 2009, and good riddance to you. From the OctoMom to the Twilight Moms, from Jon & Kate to Spencer & Heidi, from Sarah Palin to Glenn Beck, you have brought us enough misery to last a lifetime. I'll be very glad to close the book on the '00s, the oughts, the whatever-the-hell-they-were.

Come on 2010, please be the year we need you to be.