2019

What a year. Damn.

Spring. I was all, "I want to enjoy what time we have left." I'd been offered summer school. Ruth was dying. I started taking Zoloft.

Summer. We lose Ruth, then the next month, Randy's father Grandpa Bob. And then, from a virulent cancer, Mia's guinea pig, Little Prince.

Fall. Going back to school is a blessing for all of us. Mia's doing well with supportive teachers. We start taking her on college visits. Nora is thriving as a high school freshman and cheerleader. I'm working with a new team, and studying Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond.

Niles North American Lit/ U.S. History field trip to the Writers Museum, the Field and the DuSable Museum of African-American History.

That Sunday felt like a last chance, the last temperate day before winter. The surf was so loud at Gilson Beach I could hear it from the parking lot but I never considered going to the placid Skokie lagoons instead. Once I got past the breaking waves, I thought I could handle the swells, no problem. I launched and I was able to keep the kayak — her name is Cinnamon Bark— perpendicular to the surf but I couldn’t get the timing right and the waves were crashing on top of us and starting to fill up the boat. There was only time to wish that I’d brought something to bail out water (I never do) and to remember flashes of capsize scenes from Castaway and Moana. And then I was in the trough and a cresting wave was rising up over my head. The feeling was less fear than a sick dread. The wave broke over us and I turned around. No way to get past them. In the way in, I tipped over. I lost my paddle, my flip-flops, my phone and my dignity.

Thank You, Chanel Miller

You need to hear every single word of Chanel Miller's powerful poem at #GlamourWOTY Awards. pic.twitter.com/aAr7GkQbSr

— Glamour (@glamourmag) November 12, 2019

 

I don’t give a damn / What you were wearing / I don’t give a damn how much you drank / I don’t give a damn / If you danced with him earlier in the evening / If you texted him first / Or were the one to go back to his place. / People may continue to come up with reasons “why it happened” / But the truth is, I don’t give a damn.
But I do / give a damn / How you’re doing / I give a damn about you being okay / I give a damn if you’re being blamed for the hurt you were handed / If you're being made to believe you’re deserving of pain.
The only reason I am standing here / Is because people gave a damn about my well-being / Even when I did not. / They reminded me that I carry light / and I deserve to be loved / Even when I forgot.
They gave a damn. / That’s why I am who I am today.
So here’s the takeaway. / When we step up for survivors / when we stop sealing them off in shame / When we quit interrogating them with stupid questions
Look what happens.
Books are written, laws are changed, / We remember we were born to create / To not only survive, but look hot and celebrate.
Tonight you must come away knowing / That I will always, always give a damn about you / The way you gave a damn about me.

Comic Sister

Ten years ago today I went to a kids' Halloween party with the girls, all three of us in costume, only to find that I was the only parent to dress up. And yet, Facebook memory reminds me, "my chagrin was sham." Ha, ha, I can remember the feeling if not the particulars.

I'm still a big ol' hambone and an experienced soloist in matters both musical and social so it's no sweat for me to perform a Shel Silverstein poem with lots of drama for the Reading 01 kids and make little Baileen clap.

"I like how you put emotion into it."

"Thanks, Baileen!"

(Baileen is a bit of a kindred spirit; in her white gloves and black suit with purple bowtie today she was unusually silent, but handed the curious a pencil drawing of a marionette with the caption, "Don't break character.")

I will credit one of my favorite fearless comedians for her big and loud inspiration. I'm on a Catherine O'Hara kick of late, spurred by a late arrival to the Schitt's Creek party. (Try saying it with the "c" to make the name more, er, palatable.)

I've been a fan ever since her Lola Heatherton ("I wanna BEAR YOUR CHILDREN!") days at SCTV in the eighties.  Apparently not enough of a fan though, to realize that CATHERINE O'HARE VOICED SALLY IN THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS! Did you know this? How could I not know this?



Sally's song



Are you watching O'Hara's new show? She plays Moira Rose, the mother of a family of filthy rich and selfish one-percenters who fall on hard times and retrench to the small town that her husband Johnny (played by Catherine O'Hara's long-time comic partner Eugene Levy) bought for their son as a joke birthday present.

Despite the expected hijinks and fish-out-of-water tropes and delicious schadenfreude for our hapless rich family, there's a rare moment of poignancy at the end of season one when the usually self-absorbed Moira calls David "as handsome as your father on the day I married him." I'm going to claim that the raw truth of that moment shook me and sent me to check my suspicion that Eugene Levy was related to the man who plays his son. But even I can't believe that I forgot or missed the fact that Eugene and Dan Levy were father and son! So so sweet.

And the fashion! DAMN! The running joke is that the entire family is always dressed to the nines, Johnny the father in a series of immaculate open-collared suits, daughter Alexis in bo-ho Coachella gear, David the son in androgynous sweaters in black and white, the same color scheme as his chic as hell mother.

Alexis's gorgeous feathered hat

via GIPHY

Alexis's beautiful big bowed blouse

So much to love here, including the dry exchanges between David and Stevie the desk clerk (Emily Hampshire) at the seedy motel where the Roses end up. Dry as dust, dry as desert, the two nearly out-wry each other in quiet, loaded delivery. Stevie wins every time.

It's heaven, though, to watch O'Hara as Moira. Comic genius.



Moira's bravura commercial for Fruit Wine



Watch Moira's reaction to her husband's suggestion to plant flowers.

September ‘19

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Starts out strange and wonderful as a comedy about a child abuse and rape victim, abruptly shifts in the second half to a less interesting recovery narrative. The first half of this first novel by Gail Honeyman presents the indelible character of the walking wounded Eleanor Oliphant: prickly, odd, critical, drunk all weekend, alone. She'll get a make-over, of course, because this is that kind of book. Gets her hair cut, make up done, replaces her bad shoes and her shopping cart for more chic options because retail therapy is therapeutic, right? The "twist" at the end is no twist if you've been paying attention. I'm happy that Eleanor is happier, but she was stunning as a misanthrope.



View all my reviews

Post Summer School Addendum

Can I just tell you three, no, four more things about summer school? It was such a revitalizing experience -- I hope you get those days of work when you are so in the flow that when the last bell rings and the kids finally leave the room after all the last minute conferences/when you emerge from the controlled chaos/when you put down the seven balls you've been juggling/when you have a precious moment to reflect, it feels like you're breaking the surface into another world. Seriously, that was the feeling on the day they did their cumulative Socratic Seminar and I wasn't even leading the show, just observing and taking notes. Damn.

But a couple of other moments I don't want to forget: Nini calling out, "Is Shugs Avery a woman? I thought he was a MAN!" and the other kids yell "No!" and Nina yells, "So they're lesbians?" and the other kids yell, "Yes!" and we're like half way through the book. And later when Nini says, "This is the most evil book I've ever read" and I have to point out the line "when you can't git started without asking the bottle, you in trouble" but he still says he won't tell him mom about what's in the book.

It all feels very far away, on the other side of Ruth's funeral service and the good first week of school where I'm back in the support role I love but the first day back with kids I ran into Basmine in the hall with another kids and it was so good to see her and I asked if I could give her a hug and she said, "I was just telling my friend that he should read The Color Purple" and my entire year was made. My job here is done.