How about, Shaz, next time you go to work, the mall, or a labyrinth, you glide, slide, and twirl a bit? Wink, smile, and wave? Dip, bend, and high-five? Strut, saunter, and beam?

Just a bit?

Teeny, tiny? Or, you could just walk, Shaz. – The Universe

“Choices, choices, we all make choices” was my ex’s ex’s battle cry whenever he headed off in a different direction, leaving her behind, behind.  He wasn’t chasing skirts; he was fishing for striped bass or joining a couple of buddies on the tennis court but he was flying without his co-pilot and she wanted more time in the cockpit (no pun intended).  They were likely unconscious decisions on his part; the man was simply doing what the man wanted to do. But that included having fun without her and she didn’t like it.  Who would? Continue reading “LIVING UNSCRIPTED: The Choices We Make” »

I was invited to Susy’s 30th birthday party last week.  She’s a total knockout beauty who’s parleyed her friendships with single super-yuppies into a high-end event-based dating service …and parleyed that into a possible reality TV series.  Naturally, I was flattered to be included on her list of fab friends, but seriously?? Manhattan’s Meatpacking district on a Thursday night looks like a Saturday night (don’t these people have to get up for work in the morning??) when not one little girl (and I mean tiny) has got less than 10 inches of thigh showing, Continue reading “LIVING UNSCRIPTED: 30 Is Half of 60” »

The world is filled with many colorful characters, Shaz,

one or many of whom would be absolutely thrilled to play along

in any drama you’d care to create —

romantically, socially, financially, comically- – any.

You just have to let me do the casting — have to.

Truly thrilled,

The Universe

“…so he said let’s give our relationship a shot and I said really?? Really?? After 17 years, NOW, you want to give us a shot?” Emma was back from Branson with Mr. Vegas, who followed her to New York for a few days, in prep for a possible move here… “He’s done this before you know…” she added, just in case we seemed too happy for her, “We spend a solid block of time together, it’s wonderful, I get excited, he goes off to Europe for a three week gig — and I hear from him 6 months later, he’s back — and engaged!”

Gasp! (Oh no!) we sighed collectively as Adele’s “Someone Like You” played poetically in the background… Pailey, Karen and I leaned in closer, listening to Emma’s every sentence, looking for clues that could help her move forward with the man and the moment she’s been waiting for since Hilary redecorated the master bedroom in the White House (for another guy with commitment issues).

We were up on the roof at Karen’s on the second of two nights I had in NYC between Johannesburg (OMG fantastic trip!) and Tampa (where I was heading down to play house with Bond, James, for a couple of weeks) enjoying each other as much as we were enjoying the picture perfect summer nights. Getting together was Pailey’s idea and it was about time we hit the roof — four out of the original five gal pals (JB moved back home), one roasted chicken, a few carrots and a couple of bottles of Pinot Griggio…

Emma was still up at bat, “I told him I have trust issues from too many other times when I thought ‘this was it’ and it wasn’t; he really hurt me and I asked him why he did that — I told him blah blah blah boo boo boo….”

Her exact words became a blur as we watched the fight break out between her vulnerable child with-in looking for guarantees and the intelligent independent woman who dealt with too many broken promises over way too many years. Somewhere along the way, she hit the wall of non-believing and that’s probably where she’s been comfortably nested, — until sometime in the Spring, when Mr. Vegas started weaving his way back in to her life…

Interestingly, in the process of expressing her thoughts and feelings in the safety of “just us,” the rest of us could see Emma reaching back into her basket of childhood misdemeanors and making him accountable for his past misconduct with the same tone her mother must have used with her.  Her sentences started with “I feel” (as they should), but delivering a barrage of doubt in a matriarchal finger-wagging tone (even if her finger wasn’t actually wagging) at the very moment he’s offering up happily-ever-after, is maybe not the best way to handle his moment of enlightenment… And, of course, the real issue became obvious: does she really want what she always thought she wanted???

Karen was on the other side of the table — and so were her relationship issues.  Tool Man was in Florida for a month, buying his first potential rental property in a brave attempt to supplement his retirement — but he didn’t ask her to go along with him.  Hurt, she was felling a bit more critical of his hand-to-mouth lifestyle and growing less patient with his friends — and although one can make perfect sense of why and how he’s doing what he’s doing, it was their longest separation to date and it was giving Karen pause. The debate between her heart and her head was picking up steam but whenever her head seems to gain too much momentum, she falls back to seeing his small gestures as huge (and maybe for him, they are) and calls it all wonderful (hoping, perhaps, the positive declaration will rain down some cosmic love potent to end all love potents). Some answers we only get in hindsight…

Pailey didn’t say much … Happily for the rest of us, she didn’t mention CEO but he’s been showing up in odd places so I’m sure they’re still connected.  Nope, her share was about enjoying Tantra (too recently separated to be exclusive) and a recent date she’d had with a Florida guy who could be a serious contender for long-term partner.  Sadly, their second date wasn’t as good as the first, so she was wondering what was going on with her, with him, with them — and hearing/seeing what I was hearing/seeing, from the other two at the table.

And me? I’m still floating around in the grateful zone… I was in town for two days and nights and maxed out both: I treated me to fingers, toes and a professional blow-dry in prep for a major investor I picked up over a biz breakfast — and an elegant evening reconnecting with The Ambassador, who was still promising me everything I ever wanted — and waiting somewhat impatiently for my more permanent return, post Labor Day.  And then, I love the four of us, chowing down on fun food, examining our love relationships and seriously dissecting every sentence looking for the meaning of life and the elusive happily-ever-after.

Of course, I chose to believe we are living our happily-ever-after…

I’d BBM Brielle from South Africa when she was at LaGuardia with Alice (her old babysitter) heading back for her senior year at college and she responded kindly… I SKYPED Alice afterwards “Okay, so why is she being so nice to me??”

“She didn’t say a bad thing about you,” Alice was pleased to report, “I told her, your mother is a good woman… She’s just unlucky in love.”

Unlucky in love… Mmmmm, am I, really?

I listened to Emma — and offered how fabulous (hello?!) that an incredible romance may bloom at this critical time in both of their lives; I looked at Karen and smiled at where she is now (in a rooftop apartment, overlooking the world — well, our world at least) and the fact that her loving Tool Man motivated her to reach for all this.  I looked at Pailey, who, to her credit, is looking for love in a lot less places — and finding it mostly in herself.  And pointed my own finger at me, sitting on the roof, with a glass of wine in my hand, with three pretty special ladies. Yes, my “ex” is a total asshole and my 8-year-on-again-off-again heartbreak has moved on, but Bond, James, was waiting for me in Tampa — and The Ambassador was waiting to catch me if I fall… Luckily I was unlucky in love — or I wouldn’t be enjoying my life as much as I am, now.

NOTE TO SELF: good casting, Universe.

Hock und Sterb (“Hook & Stab,” the nickname of a thorn tree that grows in the Bush)

There are few more striking symbols of Africa than a thorn tree —

its gnarled branches, graceful form, jagged thorns and abundant blooms,

in many ways reflecting the paradoxes of the continent.

— www.wildwatch.com

Picture this: a king size bed under a white tented canopy in a floor-to-ceiling windowed room with a Continue reading “LIVING UNSCRIPTED: A Thorny Paradise” »

I wasn’t quite sure that anyone would really understand my resistance to settling back down in to a routine when I got back from my six-month travels, but when I gingerly mentioned to one of my investors that I wasn’t ready to unpack my bags — “just yet,” she responded with “I’d love to lose my furniture…Just get rid of it and travel.” Her husband was in the backseat, listening in to our conversation and wrote me in an email later that week, that he, too, would love to break free the shackles of responsibility and take the time he’s earned, to do/see what he’s always wanted to do/see — while he still can.  They’ve actually done a good bit of exotic traveling in the last few years but always on organized tours for specific amounts of time, not open-ended and certainly not by the seat of their pants. Continue reading “LIVING UNSCRIPTED: A Life of Couch Surfing” »

“There’s A Fine, Fine Line

between A Lover, And A Friend.

there’s A Fine, Fine Line

between Reality, And Pretend;

and You Never Know ’til You Reach The Top

if It Was Worth The Uphill Climb…”

I drove down from the Catskills to the end of Long Island on my two days off from the musical Pailey and I were working on, to celebrate Brielle’s (my youngest) 21st birthday and Nick’s (my son) 27th. Nick flew in from California to help Brielle organize a weekend bash out at the house my ex and I still own jointly — and I surprised her with a pair of Tiffany champagne flutes for the first toast. Continue reading “LIVING UNSCRIPTED: Nix the ‘I’m Done!’” »

“I don’t want to brag or make anyone jealous or anything,
but I can still fit in to the earrings I wore in high school.”

– “Cathy” greeting card

Summer in the city and my gal pals were looking great. Emma, still confidently single, cut out wheat and had already lost a chunk since she left me in London… Karen, handcuffed to Toolman (whenever possible), added jogging to her yoga and biking routine so she was fit as a fiddle; Pailey was still hot-to-trotting on the on-line dating scene, working out regularly in the gym & gorgeously petite –and JB was back on track with her Mr, planning their first vacation alone together in years. I, on the other hand, was paying the price for all the wonderful cheese I discovered my last couple of weeks overseas so my earrings were, indeed, the only things in the suitcases I was still living out of that I didn’t have to wiggle in to. My bad. Deal with it. Continue reading “LIVING UNSCRIPTED: Back in the Saddle” »

I’m home.

At 59, divorced and empty-nested, I opted out of the life I was living to travel for six months, visiting people I know and love overseas.  I sublet my apartment and left the country the day before Thanksgiving to the day before Memorial Day with three suitcases, a round trip ticket to Paris and a general idea of the countries I wanted to go to in between … I had no expectations– – and experienced the trip of a lifetime. Continue reading “LIVING UNSCRIPTED: Long Journey Home” »

I started walking… not even looking at Emma who was on line at the Royal Opera to get tickets for Sunday’s matinee. “I dropped my jacket somewhere” I moaned in her direction as I headed in the opposite, retracing my footsteps, out in to Covent Garden, around the corner, then right, past the Lion King, crossing the street where we came from, eyes focused towards the ground… on to Waterloo Bridge, looking down, left, right, for the matching jacket to my pants, that I was carrying on my arm because of the extraordinary warm weather… If you lose it, you’ll find it, I kept repeating, speed walking across the Thames. Continue reading “LIVING UNSCRIPTED: Lost & Found” »