Musings, ramblings and stuff that seemed cool at the time
If you’re not busy at 7 EST on Sunday, Dec. 11, why not check out a gun virtual book club event! The dynamic Latrina Graves McCarty will be hosting the event on Facebook Live! Join us at her page as we talk about “Black Widow” and the journey (you know how I feel about that word) that got me here!
I am paraphrasing “New York Mining Disaster,” the most bizarre BeeGees song ever written, to tell you that I am probably not quitting Twitter, my most frequent mode of communication here on the social media whatevers. But a lot of you have, and who knows what’s gonna happen, so it seemed like a good time to re-up my other sites, including this one and my Substack newsletter, both of which I have abandoned like a 90s shopping mall. Very sad.
The good news is that this is a good time to write more, if just silly musings that don’t fit into my Baltimore Banner column. Also I’d miss you guys!!
Programming note: I am moving this tribute to our chaotic fictional Black brethren and sisteren to the blog rather than the newsletter, so that I’m not Spamming y’all and you stop loving me.
I doubled up today, as I didn’t get to write yesterday, but I’m no quitter. Ask my kid at bedtime. He wishes I was and he’s always disappointed.
So today, I introduce to you the Chaotic Chorus. The Pandemonium Players. Behold: Cephus and Reesie Mayweather (David Alan Grier and Kim Wayans), “In Living Color”‘s gloriously terrible singing duo. Their names seem to be a parody of Bebe and CeCe Winans, the famous and infinitely more talented sibling gospel duo, but they’re closer to if Ashford and Simpson were in a Donnie and Marie tribute band with no budget and a musical director who hated them. They sing off key, their banter is maddening and the best part of that they’re gleefully unaware of how terrible they are.
Behold their appearance as the last wish granted for a man on death row, where they say “Somebody’s not smiling!” at a man literally sitting in the electric chair. Or my favorite, “Get Off The Lord’s If You Ain’t Got Correct Change,” featuring the stirring “Don’t Talk To The Driver.” (If you know my sister, ask her to tell you about the bus etiquette video she did as a young actor, where she is, indeed, the person who talks to the driver, and was actually recognized by someone who had ridden a bus where the video was shown.)
The bit works because it, and the performers, embrace the silliness and go for it – the cheap sets. The bad costumes. The flammable wigs, and the idea that we know this isn’t that much of an exaggeration from stuff that’s out on the road. It’s hilarious, because it’s terrible and it knows it. Embrace that terrible.
I meant to write something on Tuesday, but waiting gave me something really good to write about – not that it’s not usually good. But this is gooood. It’s about Derek Jeter getting into Cooperstown almost unanimously.
This means that everybody but one voter was enthusiastic about the former Yankee being voted into the Hall of Fame on his first-ever ballot. And because the world is the way that it is and people love stupid controversy, a lot of writers are focusing on the .3 percent of the vote he didn’t get, not the 99.7 that he did.
And boy is that relatable! I am happy to say that I am mostly well liked, that as far as I know, the public opinion of me, such as it is, is positive. More than positive. But like most humans, my brain and heart can’t let go of the small portion of attention I get that is negative. Most of the time, it’s racist trolls on the Internet and that’s cool to ignore, because they’re like the guy who booed everybody at the 1990 Zeta Phi Beta “Showtime at the Apollo” show I did at the University of Maryland where I only sang one verse of “When I Fall In Love” so I could get out quick – they exist to boo people and you can’t take that personally.
It is possible that the one voter who didn’t go for Mr. Jeter is a troll, that they’ve gotta be different, that they doesn’t believe in unanimous ballots, because everyone’s gotta work for it. Maybe they’re just a jerk. Or maybe they really don’t think he’s earned it. Which is weird, because…Derek Jeter.
But sometimes we feel how we feel. And I try to remember that in my life – whether it’s readers or critics or co-workers. You are not everybody’s jam. And that’s OK. Even when you’re 99.7 of the people’s jam, you want to close in that number, but you can’t. It’s not realistic.
So what do you do with that? Decide that your worth is based on who you know you are, that your efforts are solid, and that if it’s important to achieve things based on other people’s opinions – like a new job or Miss America or the Hall of Fame, you have to trust that you’ve done enough. That you know who you are and that you are good. When I started pitching my book “Black Widow” I knew that everyone was not going to like it or get it. I got turned down about 15 times before an agent said yes. And we got turned down probably the same amount of times to sell it before two publishing companies made an offer.
What I’m saying is that you can’t sweat everyone not loving you. Even Derek Jeter has said that he doesn’t care who that “no” voter is, and that he’s focusing on being appreciated and voted in and loved. I had a review last week from the notoriously picky Kirkus Review that mostly liked the book but had to mention that “Black Widow” wasn’t “a top-shelf” grief memoir. And you know what? That’s fine. The reviewer’s praise was not complete. But it was solid. I don’t have to be top-shelf. Not everyone needs the Ritz-Carlton. I am happy to be the Courtyard By Marriott of grief memoirs. Comfy, clean and gets it done.
And when we focus more on getting it done than being universally beloved, I believe we get more right.
Part of my superpower as a life-long Features writer is relating seemingly random things to each other and writing pithy, moving and meaningful pieces about them. Thus, I’m going to make a connection between hanging out with a group of widows – my people – for the weekend, relationship goals, a fictional minivan murder and Peter Cetera’s gorgeously schmaltzy 1986 masterpiece “The Glory of Love” from “The Karate Kid II.”
Yes, Daniel-San figures prominently into my current love philosophy , just not in the way I thought in 1986 when I was hanging ripped-out glossy “Bop” magazine posters of Ralph Macchio in my locker. Wonders never cease.
So, I watch an NBC show called “Good Girls” about three moms who become a criminal enterprise, and it’s dark and funny in ways that make me feel bad about laughing. That happened in last week’s episode (SPOILER!) when a truly despicable guy was accidentally run down with a minivan by the (sketchy) woman he’d blackmailed into a relationship. The whole thing was set to chorus of “The Glory of Love,” where Mr. Cetera earnestly pledges to be “a man who would fight for your honor” and “the hero that you’re dreaming of.” But everybody here is awful, nobody has any honor, and in the end, the lady becomes her own hero, in a way, by getting rid of the man she was kind of trying to love. It’s super-cynical and mean, and it made me start thinking about my own approach to love.
And no, that doesn’t include running people over with my minivan. I don’t even have a minivan. Or run people over. Y’all can put the phone down.
What I mean is that like a lot of little girls, I grew up loved the idea of a man being willing to fight for me, to selflessly face dragons and wars and evil karate guys to save me, and to keep me safe. I used to and still do wear that Peter Cetera song OUT in the car. Back in the day, I was imagining the handsome man who was going to lay it all on the line for me. Decades later I married my late husband Scott, who was that man, but with a twist. Scott was not a cute young karate guy – he was a chunky middle-aged guy who fought most of his battles with sharply worded emails and calls to people’s managers. But I have no doubt he would have taken off his rings and thrown down for me if necessary. He had my back, in all things, and the thing that seemed most heroic about him is that he knew that I would fight for him, too.
Which is to say he was the hero that I’d been dreaming of, and I was his hero, too. He saw me not as a helpless damsel who needed someone to save him, but as his partner in a mutual, lifelong love story in which we always saved each other.
Then Scott died, and I couldn’t save his life – a thing I’ve had to forgive myself for, because I don’t have time to wallow when the kingdom still needs saving, the rent needs to be paid and this child still needs raising. I thought about that during my annual visit to Camp Widow, a weekend conference of bereaved partners where we try to make sense of the love and life we’ve lost and find the tools to start cobbling together a future that isn’t remotely what we wanted. We’ve all been broken, and are at varying stages of bleeding and scabbing over and slowly healing. These people are my heroes, particularly the ones just months into this awful journey, who somehow cut through the shock, put on shoes and came to a widow convention. That’s miraculous. What I’ve done, I think, is to honor the hero Scott was by making good on his belief in me and getting it done. I am my own hero.
This has extended to what I’m looking for in my next partner. I still want someone who is willing to fight for me. Not for my honor – I can do that. I’ve done that. What I need is a man who’ll fight for my budget by not freeloading, who’ll fight for my mental health by not gaslighting me or dismissing me when it makes him feel better about himself. I need a man who will fight for my career by standing by me and supporting me rather than belittling it because it’s not about him. I need a man who’s impressive enough as an adult, as a father to his own kids and a potential father to mine, to make me look up to him, and to trust him to have my back. I want a man who fights for me and my self-esteem by making me a priority in his life, not a placeholder to make him feel better until something better comes along.
In short, I need a man whose ego doesn’t require someone who needs saving, who sees me as a symbol of his own strength. I can’t do that for you, and you can’t do that for me. I want a partner, not a knight who sees me as a conquest. I fought with Scott, I’ve fought without him and now I need another partner who’ll toss me a sword (or give me space to kick, if we’re going back to our “Karate Kid” theme) and be willing to fight alongside me.
We’re saving each other. That’s the kind of glory I’d love.
I’ve been blogging for a while, either for my day job at the Palm Beach Post, or the Sweet Midlife With Lynne and Leslie, a blog I write with my sister that neither one of us really update enough. Sometimes, blogging seems easy- here’s what in my brain and hey everybody look at me.
And sometimes it seems dumb, like why should anyone who’s not me or the therapist I don’t currently have care about what’s in my brain? What makes me so special?
That’s something I’m still trying to figure out.
So here’s what I’m thinking about right now: I’m a 47-year-old woman, who 8 years ago married this cute guy she’d met in high school, resolved to make the next 50 years we would have together so good that we wouldn’t mind having missed the previous 20 together.
We got 5.
Rather than shake my tiny fist at God and dissolve into a puddle of regret and baked goods, I focused on things I can control, like writing, being a good mother and hopefully being healthy enough that I stay alive for the next 50 or so years. I’m gonna be hella old. But with the space-aged polymers and such, I’ll hopefully look good. Good-ish. With some filters and stuff.