Diana's Blog: Quirky Words and Book Reviews

September 30, 2008
Many years ago, when I was a young journalist, I was blessed with a ticket to see Maya Angelou speak. My seat was far back in the theatre, but as she spoke, I imagined myself vividly -- sitting cross-legged at her feet, while she told her stories as she gently rocked in an ancient oak chair. Fantasy, but not. Years before Oprah claimed Maya as her mother, I saw in Maya a mother.
I wanted a mother. A mother who protected me against evil, who shared her wisdom with me, who told me the truth about my strength and my beauty and my talents. Not a mother who allowed a rapist to have at me any time he wanted in our own home, not a mother who was inebriated most of her waking hours, not a mother who disowned me because years later as an adult, I spoke of these things to her. "Did you know this affected my life, him touching me, the drunkenness?" I had asked my mother. The next day she called me back and said "You f**king bitch. I never want to talk to you again." And she hasn't.
So when Maya Angelou's book LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER reached me today, I read the first half in a gulp, tears ripping down my face, and I had to come write. I will finish the book tomorrow, and will write again. She tells of events and lessons to teach her thousands of daughters. Me included. And you. Chapters called Home, Philanthropy, Violence.
She writes "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."
Maya writes about how fiercely her mother loved her. Her mother said to her, "Baby, I've been thinking and now I am sure. You are the greatest woman I've ever met." And Maya decides to cut down on dangerous habits like drinking and smoking and cursing, "Imagine, I might really become somebody. Someday." And my tears come again.
Maya tells the story of birthing her son. Her mother was a registered nurse, crawled up on the delivery table, telling her dirty jokes, and timing the punchline to the next labor pain. As Maya laughed, her mother said, "Bear down." Her mother was a "fearless, doting and glorious grandmother."
I had two sons. But, I didn't give my mother the chance in either case to be anywhere near the delivery room. She and my stepfather flew three-thousand miles to come to my babies' births, but I stubbornly held my babies in -- ten days late in both cases, then 42-hours labor for my first son, 28-hours for my second. My mother and stepfather were headed to their home, airborne, over the country's midsection, when my second son was born. I was afraid. I didn't want my naked body exposed to them again. I didn't want my babies to soak in the fear my body would no doubt produce at the sight of them. Before I was disowned, and they would announce they were coming out to visit, I would fly into a panic that began the moment of the announcement, and accelerated until a few days after they left. I have no doubt my body prolonged labor and delivery to protect my babies and myself from the protracted misery of their visit. I would do it myself.
Maya talks of the pivotal change when she moved from the South with her pious grandmother, to San Francisco, with her Jazz-loving mother. Maya would not smile. Finally, her mother made a funny face, and Maya had to smile. Her mother kissed her and said, "That is the first time I have seen you smile. It is a beautiful smile. Mother's beautiful daughter can smile."
It was Maya's first philanthropic gift, a lesson that she can be charitable with the smile she has to give.
I called my mother's house earlier this year with happy birthday wishes for my stepfather on my tongue. She answered the phone.
I said, "Hi mom!"
She asked "Who's this?" And hung up.
I called back, and got the machine.
My friends asked me "Why did you call? Did you want to suffer more?"
I said, "No, I wanted to say happy birthday."
And tears fell.
So I read Maya's book LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER with great joy at the lessons, even the rough ones. There's a chapter called To Tell the Truth, and in it she urges us to tell the truth, even if we're just answering the question "how are you?" She says if people start avoiding you because you're telling the truth, "you will have more time to meditate and do fine research on a cure for whatever truly afflicts you."
Thank you, Maya, for being a true Momma.

Labels: book review, LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER, Maya Angelou, Oprah

September 29, 2008
I have no idea what drew me to this book THE CURIOUS WORLD OF DRUGS AND THEIR FRIENDS. I abhor drugs. They have destroyed people I adore. And if the level of pain cascades above my abnormally high pain tolerance, I resort to homeopathics, not drugs.
Anyway...the book. It is a compendium of miscellaneous facts about drugs and alcohol -- from cutting agents to operas inspired by cocaine.
It is clever. It could be lethal. It could be instructive. If you take ecstasy, authors Ingo Niermann and Adriano Sack say, to avoid memory disturbance, take Vitamins C, E, or Zinc, or even aspirin, as counteragents. I am not recommending anything here, I am simply intrigued by the natural remedies to the violent substance -- which actually began as MDMA, a psychotherapist's tool.
There are short bios about people who were involved in drugs -- like Boy George, George Michael and Drew Barrymore. Drew came through it all -- after being blacklisted in Hollywood for years -- and now is a successful actress and producer.
The concept of the book is disturbing and compelling. Almost pornographic. I am hiding it from my kids. However, there is no doubt that they have seen the eleven Simpson's episodes dealing with drug use -- profiled in THE CURIOUS WORLD OF DRUGS AND THEIR FRIENDS.
The book sports naughty, shameless trivia -- which means it also has suggestions for getting high without drugs -- try these, if you dare. Runner's High -- takes about an hour to get that blast of euphoria. Sex -- those endorphins start flying fast. You could also stand on your head and let the blood rush to your brain -- better than a caffeine kick. All three ideas, much healthier than the alternatives.
The book is also witty and wicked -- and it does catch the eye. And now, this quick seduction is over.

Labels: Adriano Sack, book review, Ingo Niermann, THE CURIOUS WORLD OF DRUGS AND THEIR FRIENDS

September 28, 2008
DESIRE: WHERE SEX MEETS ADDICTION is a dangerous book. Several times in the book author Susan Cheever tells how she disguises her topic when asked, in public, what she's writing about. Sex addiction, she says, is vastly misinterpreted as porn, and -- despite numerous examples from a president to movie stars who are obviously sex addicts -- as "icky."
She is a sex addict, she says, peppering examples like this throughout the book: finding solace in her ill mother's oncologist's bed when she's supposed to be picking up her daughter at school.
The small, tight, literary volume defines symptoms of sex addiction as broken promises, remorse, and that desperation when the object of desire is present...and when he or she is not present. Cheever quotes liberally from her research, from poet bell hook, for example, who says "Addiction makes love impossible."
Cheever splits the book in three parts -- what is it, what causes it, and what can we do about it?
There are no true, definitive answers to any of these questions in DESIRE. But there are lots of possible answers. Families that are genetically predisposed to addiction. Child sex abuse. Trauma. Rape, and, by the way, women who are sexually-abused are twice as likely to be raped. Over and over.
This is a dangerous book. I read, compare, run and hide. But, secrets -- hiding the truth -- that adds fuel to the fire of addiction. I could feel the steam rising as I read.
At home, as a kid, my mother and stepfather played a scene over and over. Bottles breaking in the night, slurred speech by day -- no question my mother and her side of the family covered the genetic predisposition to alcohol addiction. I never met my real dad's family, but the rumor was that his was a band of alcoholics as well. And, as you know by now, the rapes started at four-and-a-half years old for me, after my real dad was ushered out of the family forever. As a teenager, a teacher lured me into the woods and raped me while a torrential thunderstorm soaked us. A year later, I was raped by a guy who -- the very next day -- gave a seminar to the women on campus on how to protect yourself from being raped. I was shocked when I saw him stride across the stage, but I never told. I was raped by three different husbands whose kids I was babysitting. And, finally, I launched into drinking and pot, finding myself frequently in someone's bed, and not really remembering how I got there. Cheever explains that phenomenon in the book, almost an out-of-body experience. Every time I had a boyfriend, I would fool around on the side -- and the next day, I would rush to the school doctor to get tested. A few years later, when newly married, secretly, one by one, I did three of the four guys on the anchor team at the TV station where I worked, plus the cameraman. Remorse? Oh yes, I felt remorse. My second marriage, I was a terrible flirt, but my husband liked that, so I got plenty of great sex and stayed loyal. When pregnancy, then kids arrived, I forced myself to quit drinking and drugging. And I found myself secretly shopping compulsively. Yes, Cheever says, addictions change objects. I forbade myself to go to the mall unless I had one or two specific items that I had to buy. Christmases and birthdays were still wild! And I forbade myself to go into any bars or hang around people who drank a lot. Tough to do in radio. Then I became addicted to exercise -- and became anorexic. So skinny, I lost my periods for a few years.
Now, I challenge myself to be as real as I possibly can be, genuinely demonstrative, not desiring. No secrets. I want to know Love. Real love.
Cheever says addictions can be treated.
I don't know if I'm treated, because, for now, I'm just staying away from temptation.

Labels: DESIRE: WHERE SEX MEETS ADDICTION, Susan Cheever, THE BEST BUSINESS SCHOOLS' ADMISSIONS SECRETS, transcending the trauma

September 27, 2008

This is not a book to be swallowed whole, like a grape you pop into your mouth, savoring its sweetness for an instant, then reaching for another.
WIDE OPEN: ON LIVING WITH PASSION AND PURPOSE is a book that inspires you to read and savor each line now, and then again later, plucking the words that resonate, disregarding at the moment words that don't apply. Dawna Markova invites you to grow not only older, but deeper.
She asks questions you can ponder or leave to your subconscious or answer now. "What is it that you want to do with the one, wild, precious thing called your life?" And "If you knew you couldn't fail, how would you live?"
I don't know about you, but I feel tears lift inside me. It's not about what I have to do today, it's that I need to know who I am today.
"What story are you telling yourself about the challenges in your life right now?"
Markova mentions "rut" stories, limiting beliefs, which numb us and keep us where we are, and "river" stories which carry you toward purpose and possibility.
I will be seeing three men today. The first will have his newest girlfriend in tow when we go to lunch -- I haven't seen him in nearly a year. He and I immediately, when we met five years ago, fell into a deep, darkly-intimate place, where we were inexorably linked, but we were a secret from the world. His choice. He is afraid, I think, of falling into that dark space again so he moved far away, and lines up light relationships, one right after another, and both keeps me at bay and wants me inside his life. I loved him, but if I am to love myself, I must befriend myself first. That's a new belief. "Befriending yourself involves telling yourself the complete truth about everything and challenging the thinking that says horrible things will happen as a result."
The second man is a man with whom I can talk about anything. He has invited me to pluck tomatoes from his vines, make salsa at his home, and eat steak and tomatoes after dusk.
And the third man -- new to my life -- will arrive well after dark to pick me up, and we will talk little, and simply enjoy each others' company.
Who am I really? In about an hour, I will dance -- that will center me. I want to dance purely, without limits. I want to say what I mean, but I don't know the answer to that. "What are the courageous conversations you need to have with yourself?"
This morning, I meditated, and found the little five-year old inside, and I held her and rocked her and promised I would listen to her, as I entered the dangerous world of men. Not dangerous to me, the grown woman, but dangerous to her, the little girl inside me.
"How do you make your life too small for yourself?" Living in the past. Although, when the past lives on in our bodies, it must be processed...to make way for the greater passion that is our road-map to our greatness.
"What are your inner gifts and talents...Aristotle said that one's purpose is merely a matter of knowing where one's talents and the needs of the world intersect?...What would have to happen for them to dance with each other?"
Markova says "What you love ennobles you."
And she says "How could you love this day as if you had never been hurt?"
I will take that question with me and go dance.

Labels: Dawna Markova, Passion, purpose, transcending the trauma, WIDE OPEN: ON LIVING WITH PASSION AND PURPOSE

September 26, 2008
Once Upon A Time -- magical words that draw you in and promise you wonder. That's the first phrase I looked up in MAGIC WORDS: A DICTIONARY by Craig Conley. He quotes Dale Carnegie, saying these are "the magic words that open the floodgates of a child's imagination."
Not only that, to all children -- especially for those who are abused and tormented and violated -- "once upon a time" means a powerful new place of hope and safety. A place where wishes can come true. A place where anything can -- and does -- happen.
Transcending the trauma takes magic, as well as patience and faith.
Words -- as a five year old -- I whispered, wanting to be rescued from the violent pedophile who lived in my home: Bibbidy-Bobbidi-Boo. Cinderella's Fairy Godmother's magic words. MAGIC WORDS says the origin is a Celtic spell which meant to "direct a thrown javelin or fired arrow unerringly to its intended target." That is powerful, indeed.
I interviewed Chuck Palahniuk years ago about his book LULLABY, which was about a culling spell -- a nursery rhyme that kills those who hear it spoken. So I asked him if he believes in magic. And Chuck tells me this wonderful story about intention. "He says a prayer is intention. A spell is an intention. A mission statement is an intention. I believe in intention." He says "you have to go out on a limb and set ridiculous goals." His first novel FIGHT CLUB wasn't even selling out its firrst printing when he declared in public that it would make the NY Times bestseller list. Which we know now it did. Chuck says declaring your intention in public does three things -- it gives you an impetus, it's a rallying cry, and it's a public gun to your head because you risk humiliating yourself if you fall short.
Magic. Intention. Prayer. Spells. Mission statements.
As a child, I prayed with my heart to be rescued, but I never said the words aloud. Too dangerous. My punishment for disobeying -- and for being good -- was often to be raped. I was trapped.
But for one amazing gift. And, indeed, it was magical.
My Fairy Godmother was my Grandmother. She did what she could for that day in age, while keeping her place.
She bought me art lessons. And dance classes. And she took me to the planetarium. And to Broadway musicals. And to Disney movies.
My grandmother rescued me the only way she could -- so when violence shook my little kid world, from four-and-a-half all the way up to when I left for college -- I would hear Disney songs in my head "when you wish upon a star" and "a dream is a wish your heart makes,"and I would transport myself to another world by reading, or drawing cartoon characters I'd created, or spinning in circles and dancing.
And I would look to the stars -- in the velvet black night and beyond the velvet curtains -- knowing that there is magic and dreams do come true.

Labels: Chuck Pahalniuk, Craig Conley, Disney, FIGHT CLUB, LULLABY, MAGIC WORDS: A DICTIONARY, magic., transcending the trauma

September 25, 2008
I miss Java. My old dog. Mostly, I'm a cat woman, but Java taught me the biggest lessons. OLD DOGS ARE THE BEST DOGS features photos and stories of other peoples' old dogs. Don't read it unless you don't mind crying.
One old dog, found chained to a doghouse, had very bumpy skin. The new owner took 11-year old Hank to the vet. The doctor pried out tiny, hard lumps with a scalpel one by one. They were pellets. Hank had been used for target practice. There's 15-year old Honey Pie who was adopted from a rescue group that called her a mean dog. One night, the family cat, who was ill, crawled into Honey Pie's bed, and contrary to his known character, he let her sleep there. Even stood guard protectively. The cat died the next day. And, there's the 16-year old Jack Russell terrier, Stanly, who was sent home from the vet's office after he lost his virginity there...only to escape the next morning and show up at the vet's office again, looking for more loving. Now he is known as Manly Stanly.
My Java was a full-blood Labrador...who was scared of the water. Actually, she was scared of a lot of things. But she was so sweet. We chose her from a half-dozen puppies, because when we walked in for the first time, she and several other pups ran over to us. Java had a piece of red yarn tied around her neck, and as she raced her siblings, she stumbled over the ribbon, rolled over, and popped up smiling at us. She chose us. We called her Java because of her high energy. Her middle name was Mojo, because she seemed magical to us.
There were four of us humans who lived in our home, and one by one, the other three left. Within four months, it was just Java and Jasmine -- my black cat rescued from the animal shelter -- and me.
I would stand up from my desk, and Java would be laying right under my feet. I would be in my bedroom, and turn around, and she would be right under my feet. I would be cooking, and turn to open the frig, and nearly stumble over Java. She was always under foot. And never minded when I almost fell on her.
Walking Java fell to me. I was the only one left. I wasn't used to dogs, really, but I took her on a daily walk around the block. As the last two years went by, I sometimes walked backwards, because she was so slow it wasn't a workout by any stretch of the imagination. At some point, Jasmine began joining us on walks, so it was me and then Java and then Jasmine. Neighbors would pull over in their cars and point and laugh at the cat that was going for a walk.
One of the last walks we took, before Java's body gave out forever, came as I was struggling with a career issue. The CBS station where I had worked for four years flipped format, and laid everyone off. I was parting out my other skills to make ends meet -- podcasting, voiceovers, media training, writing, anything I could think of. I had applied for a communications director job at a worldwide athletic company based in my town. As Java and Jasmine and I walked, I heard in my right ear (yes, at times I'm clairvoyant) that even though my credentials were good, the company would hire someone else in two weeks. And that's what happened. As Java and Jasmine and I walked, I answered, saying "I want security!" and suddenly, dripping into my mind came pictures of the small jobs that had fallen into my lap lately, and as this dawned on me, I heard, "What do you think Faith is?"
Just as the message bloomed, the miracle happened. Java paused, and I stopped, and looked down. And, there on the sidewalk was a shiny penny, heads up. Penny from heaven. I plucked it up, and it sits with a stone painted Faith in a see-through bag made of a ribbon on my desk.
I wish I could stumble over Java one more time.

Labels: book review, Gene Weinbarten, life lessons, Michael S. Williamson, OLD DOGS ARE THE BEST DOGS

September 24, 2008
I get on the treadmill at five this morning to read Brad Meltzer's THE BOOK OF LIES, finishing just ahead of our 7am interview. Brad blends mythology and legend and Biblical forces into a thriller, and the threads come together in a fast-paced mesmerizing tale.
This morning, in our interview, Brad tells me that a woman in one of his crowds for the previous book, THE BOOK OF FATE, stood up, and told him an amazing story. She was related to Jerry Siegel who created Superman. She says Jerry's father was gunned down, so the boy developed a character who was bullet-proof.
The main character in THE BOOK OF LIES, Cal, is a failed government agent, who, as a young child saw his father shove his mother -- her head hit the corner of a drawer -- and she was killed. So Cal lost both his parents in one night. He never sees his dad after he is released from prison -- until Cal finds his long-lost father Lloyd lying for dead in a park. That's when the adventure kicks into high gear.
THE BOOK OF LIES is really about parents and children. Brad laughs and says "I've written the same book eight times."
Brad tells me that a scene between Lloyd's young girlfriend, Serena, and Cal, comes from a conversation that he and I had had about my childhood last year when I visited Florida. Brad changes the age in the book, from my four-and-a-half to Serena's eleven, and he changes the specifics of Serena's memory. Brad says what I told him inspired him to write this into Serena's character.
She says "Do you think you're the only one whose life didn't turn out the way they dreamed, Cal? When I was eleven years old, my mother married a man who...well, shouldn't have been around eleven-year old girls...I still pay for those years...when I finally told my mom, she threw me out because she couldn't handle that it might actually be true." Then Serena reflects on how it felt to go out and splash in a puddle, like one she used to jump in back when the family could afford camp, and how reliving that moment was blissful.
What Brad tells me -- and what I read -- gives me goosebumps. It makes what I went through all the more real.
What Brad doesn't know, is that Serena was my favorite name when I was a kid.

Hours after reading the book and after the interview, tears begin falling softly down my cheeks. His message settles deep into my bones, that we must accept ourselves for who we are, and that we must tell our stories.
Permission is a mighty thing.

Labels: book review, Brad Meltzer, The Book of Lies, transcending the trauma

September 23, 2008
I wonder if one of the key reasons MBA graduates are so successful, is all the focusing they must do on applications to business school. I just finished reading the cute little paperback, THE MBA APPLICATION ROADMAP, and, as in all the other MBA admissions books I've read, applicants are forced to specify every one of their goals and dreams, to make stories out of every accomplishment. Well, gee, that's what the brilliant authors of the Law of Attraction books tell you to do. The big difference, is that every nuance is written into these applications to business school. Leadership, accomplishment, career path, strengths and weaknesses. Everything is celebrated! Which leads to gratitude. Which is the key in Law of Attraction. Being grateful raises your vibration, attracting what it is you say you want. I'm not saying everyone who applies gets into the biz school of their choice, certainly that is not the case, but the concept of setting your intention, being grateful for all the good qualities you have and then hitting "send" lifts you higher than any other method.
Authors Stacy Blackman and Daniel Brookings also advise you to step out -- read a lot of different books, aim high. If you want a school, and you don't think you can get in, go for it anyway! Stepping out -- no matter what phase you are in in Life -- leads to unexpected and fabulous rewards.
Stepping out is not necessarily easy at first. For me, I could speak on the air -- no one was watching me talk on the radio -- but I was afraid of standing before a crowd to talk. This was several years ago. A friend of mine who runs a business networking group for women asked me to give a talk. I leaned heavily on audio cuts of bestselling authors to illustrate my story, and it was highly personal. But I gave the speech to more than fifty women, and was shocked when several approached me to compliment and thank me. A total novice at speaking, my knees were still shaking.
One of the women who came over to me, Annette Klinefelter, is the local leader of Girls, Inc. These girls came from damaging childhoods, like I did, but the group exists to rescue them, and boost their self-confidence.
A few months later, Annette called me about a fundraiser for Girls Inc -- it was the inaugural Power of the Purse, and she chose a group of local celebrities to join with local purse designers to create purses that showed the personality of each celebrity, and then the purses would be auctioned off at a gala event.
I was paired with purse designer Jenna Bertels. I told her I love quotations, and I'm all about inspiration. So we designed a black messenger bag with a fuschia lining, with inspiring quotes embroidered in gold thread.
The night opened, and decked-out women wearing shoes far more expensive than even my jewelry arrived. The celebrities were well known in Portland -- TV news anchors, singers, actresses. During dinner, the young girls of Girls Inc paraded down the runway -- these smart and beautiful girls -- and displayed the celebrities' purses. Most purses went for about five-hundred dollars.
And then the beautiful young girl walked down the runway wearing my purse. The bids started high. There was a flurry of bidding. My lips opened, but there were no words, as I sat at my table of ten, and saw hands flying up around the room. For the purse I had inspired. A friend next to me said, "See, you didn't know how popular you are! Look at this! Pure evidence!" Now my knees were really shaking.
Finally the bidding was over. The purse Jenna and I had brought to Girls Inc pulled in the highest bid of the night, by far -- over $1200.
The night had a number of winners. The Girls, for being strong, smart and beautiful. And, me, because I was finally beginning to feel that way, too.
Just for stepping out.

Labels: Annette Klinefelter, book review, Daniel Brookings, Girls Inc, Stacy Blackman, THE MBA APPLICATION ROADMAP, transcending the trauma

September 22, 2008

What a novel way to sell books! Just back from a thirty-eight minute movie about STATE BY STATE by Portland Indie Powell's Books, I pluck my volume from my stacks, and open it to my home state, New York. I read a fabulous Jonathan Franzen interview with New York state herself, after having his questions vetted by assistants, and after visiting with a geologist. He reminisces how much he loved New York when he was young -- how now it is all about the money. She (New York) toys with him, saying it was always about the money -- he just didn't notice.
We don't see Jonathan in the movie, but we do see Tony Bourdain who writes about New Jersey, the other state in which I grew up. "Nobody claims New Jersey," he says in the movie. Except for Frank Sinatra and Bruce Springsteen. In his essay about New Jersey, Tony says there was an enthusiastic effort some years ago to get "Born to Run" adopted as the state song -- hilariously inappropriate, he says because the song is all "about getting the f**k out of New Jersey."
Which is why I claim New York...as he does, because technically he can, too, having been born in NY, before his family scurried him across state lines to Bergen County, NJ when he was an infant.
But Asbury Park, Tony says in the movie, is a city of "hopes and dreams." Oh yes! The jewel of the year was that week spent in Asbury Park, with its blistering hot sun and tepid, wild waves, its butterscotch ice cream and the hotel babysitters who taught me how to make lanyards. What I loved, was to lay on the blanket until I sweat rolled into my eyes and hair, then dash into the waves to cool off, and dive back onto the blanket, flipped onto the other side, to bake again.
Years later, I would live in Florida, Iowa, Seattle, LA and mostly Oregon. The first visit to the Oregon coast was a shocker. It was summer, and I brought my bikini and suntan oil, a blanket to lay on and little else. The clouds were heavy, it was too cold to lay down on a blanket, and dipping a toe in the water didn't happen a second time.
I've come to love Oregon -- despite the fact that it spit me out when I first arrived, acting so New York, with a new husband straight from Texas. Him with his cowboy hat and boots. Me in my high heels and short skirts. Outsiders. Definitely outsiders.
But I'm from New York. And I'll always be New York. Jonathan says, quoting New York State's Personal Attorney "You're saying you fell in love with her."
He replies, "Yes! And I had the feeling she loved me, too."
Me, too! I think, as I read. Just please don't tell my Oregon friends, I love New York.

Labels: AND PREMONITIONS OF NEW YORK'S DESTRUCTION, Jonathan Franzen, Matt Weiland, New Jersey, Sean Wilsey, STATE BY STATE, the shore, Tony Bourdain

September 21, 2008
Here's a fashion designer who loves women: Isaac Mizrahi, who claims to have begun his career shortly after his diaper phase ended. What I love -- Mizrahi says he chases for the answer to the question "What is style?" like King Arthur searches in his quest for the Holy Grail. The fashion designer wants all women to feel beautiful. His new book HOW TO HAVE STYLE encourages women of all ages and sizes to find pictures that inspire them and pin them to a corkboard. That's the starting point. It's a beautiful book, full-color, slick shiny pages inside a stark white cover. Feels good. Which is, no doubt, the point.
There's a 24-question self-study, with answers needed to -- colors you wear most frequently, favorite colors, how do you want to be remembered style-wise, and so on. I'm thinking fuschia, pink, black and Lycra. Lots of Lycra. I don't know what he'd do with me. I do know that I cleaned out my closet about six months ago, piling up gently-worn clothes three-feet deep the length of my treadmill -- and gave them all away. I still have a full closet. Thing with me is, I tend to stay the same size, if I buy clothes, they are classics, and I haven't yet acquired the ability to give away one piece when I buy one piece. Mizrahi doesn't have anything to say about that. He does have a hard time with the woman in his book who goes shopping every day. There are eleven others, and except for the evening wear, some of the resulting fashion outfits IMHO were a bit strange. But I love the before-and-after hairstyles. Mizrahi warns in the beginning of the book, that he is chosing a dozen ordinary women, and is not going for the before-and-after thing.
He does anyway.
It reminded me of a before-and-after photo shoot I got involved in right after college. I was working in a boutique PR agency in NY, and when I applied for the job, I walked in so unfashionably gauche, I have no idea how I got the job as an assistant to one of the AE's. Our two clients were a hair stylist and the manufacturer of fashion glasses.
My unruly wavy hair -- okay, crazy naturally-curly hair -- fell to mid-back and I wore aviator glasses when I skipped contact lenses. I was at the shoot to help out, and was sent scurrying on quick, short orders for a few hours. Before I knew it, I was in a hairstylist's chair. I must have been asked, and given permission, but I don't recall. It felt like a whirlwind -- stylists buzzing around me, clipping, and dying, and trying various eyeglass frames on me.
Shortly after, I got married, and moved from New York City to Iowa City to be with my new husband. One day, I was in line in the grocery store, glancing at the rack of magazines in front of me. I plucked a WOMAN'S DAY off the rack and began flipping randomly through the pages. The magazine fell open -- and there was my before and after shot. The crazy hair and wire-rimmed aviator glasses on the left, full on. And the after. My brown hair was short, and shot with golden highlights, giving way to a bundle of curls on the top. My right hand, fingers splayed as if I were holding a cup of tea, instead touched the corner of the big fuschia eyeglass frames, head gently tipped flirtatiously. I read the caption -- my "before" style dominated "my delicate features."
The NY sophisticated look didn't play that well on Iowa TV, where I soon turned up as the noon weathergirl -- so I grew my hair long again. And except for the big hair of the 80's, when I was thrilled with those crazy curls...and except for a failed attempt a few years ago to chemically straighten it -- when about half of it got baked into a crew cut...I keep it just below my shoulders. And iron it straight.
Mizrahi would probably cut it again.

Labels: before and after, book review, HOW TO HAVE STYLE, Isasc Mizrahi, WOMAN'S DAY

September 20, 2008
The things we women do to ourselves to be beautiful.
I begin reading GOING HUNGRY -- just out in paperback -- and I feel panicky. The subtitle: WRITERS ON DESIRE, SELF-DENIAL, AND OVERCOMING ANOREXIA, edited by Kate Taylor.
Body image stuff. Petite, 5'4", 115, athletic build, I get compliments -- and harshly disbelieve every word. What do the offered words mean? Does the complimenter want sex? Does he remind me of my stepfather who told me that my lithe young body was beautiful? I am haunted now, as I recognize my stepfather's prelude to feeling me up. He gave me self-worth with one action and stripped it away with another. I weighed less than one-hundred pounds until I left for college. I was five feet, one and a half inches when I married a few years later, and about 107. In my early thirties, I grew to five-four. In my thirties! I once read a study about stress and childhood. Growth is inhibited by stress. Is getting kissed on and felt up and raped by my stepfather stress? Was it a blessing -- or not -- that I didn't get my period until I was nearly fifteen?
I flip through the pages of GOING HUNGRY, looking for a story like mine. Anorexia. Bulimia. I didn't do anything deliberate in those teen years -- many of these writers grew big, or so they thought, and began the bingeing until they got too skinny. By then, their eyes saw their bigger bodies, no matter their bones poke out everywhere.
The things we women do to ourselves to be beautiful.
One woman writes how her brother's friend photographed her at age twelve, still a kid, but beautiful, and she decides that's how she wants to look again, so she peels off weight...and luster and sex drive and no one recognizes her as the girl in the picture.
Another writer talks of the new bingeing -- eating scantly, then exercising for hours.
Oh. Did that.
In my later thirties, I was doing therapy around this early trauma, and my kids were young. I started teaching jazzercise, working out as often as I could, got up at 2:50am, stayed up until the last PTA meeting was over and the last out on the Little League games. And, my period vanished. I gave away my pads and tampons. I felt like people were laughing at me for that. It wasn't menopause -- haven't been there yet -- it was anorexia. I found a nearly-nude picture from that era. I was skinny, bony, my face chiseled with sharp cheekbones, my ribcage and hips looking like weapons. I was voracious for sex, but not for food.
Now I dance. For me. And I dress. For me. And I reach to connect with the beauty some say they see. For me. Transcending the Trauma.
The things we women do to ourselves to be beautiful.

Labels: anorexia, bulimia, GOING HUNGRY, Kate Taylor, stress, transcending the trauma

September 19, 2008
It's getting a little crazy with all these social networking tools. There are -- according to the experts -- 850 of these sites. That's not a lot. Within a year, there will be a quarter-million. Right now, I have Facebook, LinkedIn, Classmates, HiFive, and a few more weeks of PerfectMatch. I quit something called Queque -- I never could get the spelling right. Somehow I got joined to that site -- I don't recall actually joining -- and then I found that the only people who showed up wanting to connect with me were young women from England -- all in their early twenties, and all very seductive. It was a bit weird.
And you may notice that I didn't list MySpace. I kept MySpace for awhile, even got a young friend to teach me how to jazz up the presentation and send cool artistic comments to my friends, but I always ended up feeling left out, like I was in high school again, watching all the popular kids. Except with MySpace, I couldn't hide behind a role like I did back then -- the journalist or the class historian.
You know what really makes me nervous? When someone I don't know wants to be "my friend." If I ignore the request or say no, wouldn't that person feel left out? I don't want that to happen. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. What do you do, anyway, when someone you don't know pops up in a box -- often with a shaded out rectangle where there would be a photograph -- asking to be added? Right now I have 17 friend requests for Facebook, 5 for Plaxo, a challenge from LinkedIn to find friends from college and places I've worked, HiFive keeps kicking me out saying it doesn't recognize my email address, the very email address it used to welcome me, and Classmates won't let me read the email I've received until I pay them money. Isn't that extortion? Arghhh! I can't handle the pressure.
So I picked up HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS USING LINKED IN by Eric Butow and Kathleen Taylor. LinkedIn is the leading business-networking site. It has 21-million members at this moment, and is adding 1.2 million every month. That is a lot of potention contacts. Arghhh!
Butow and Taylor say to choose your contacts carefully, maybe even talk with them over the phone, and to freely eliminate connections when they "are no longer needed." You can archive all this coming and going, as well. The authors suggest that if you don't want to give a recommendation or to accept a connection, to respectfully email a reason why, if the email address is included.
Oh, so it's business.
I can handle that. I'll use my rejection metaphor when necessary. It works like this -- since, I am petite with reddish-brown hair, when I do an audition and I don't get the job, I just tell myself they wanted a tall, skinny blonde. No matter what I do, I am never going to be a tall, skinny blonde. I know. The blonde part is possible...but, Christina, my hairstylist, says only over her dead body. And we wouldn't want that.

Labels: Classmates, Eric Butow, Facebook, High Five, high school, HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS USING LINKED IN, Kathleen Taylor., MySpace, PerfectMatch, Plaxo, social networking

September 18, 2008
One cool thing about being a journalist -- you get to learn a little about everything. Lately I've been immersed in podcasts -- radio shows -- about MBA programs. And, while my formal education ended with a BS in Journalism and Communications from the University of Florida many, many (do I need another "many?") years ago, I am being tempted to immerse myself in an MBA program for the purposes of expanding the side of my brain that's fairly withered from lack of engagement with finances, marketing, accounting, and other business aspects.
This is what I love about the Universe/God/Life. There you are, doing your life, with its to-do lists, and its relationships, and its work, when all of a sudden, some intriguing project drops into your lap that you really didn't ask for, and-- like a twig that's dislodged by a fast-running stream -- your brain gets knocked into high gear to do something you've never done before.
So tonight, I'm reading HOW TO GET INTO THE TOP MBA PROGRAMS by Richard Montauk, and everything is in this book. I'll have to ask him tomorrow during our interview if there's anything that's not in his book. This interview is for a podcast about admissions books, but it's also -- subliminally -- beginning to be for me. I am seriously considering going for my MBA.
Earlier today, I interviewed Paul Bodine whose book PERFECT PHRASES FOR BUSINESS SCHOOL ACCEPTANCE is due out in November. He emailed his book, and I read it. The biggest concept that leaped out at me from Paul's book is that it's not about selling yourself to get into a school -- you don't start with the school. You start with yourself. You are a Hero in search of your Holy Grail. What is that Holy Grail? That is the story that must be told in your MBA applications. Paul says "See your life as a story. Make it vivid, although remember, it is non-fiction."
We are all about our stories. The thing is -- like authors Debbie Ford and Neale Donald Walsch advise -- do not get stuck in your story. Awareness and gratitude set you free.
During my childhood years, when I was a target for violence, I learned risiliency. I "took off" in my mind -- with books and angels, to other times and places -- and I made it through alive. Then, I shoved every bit of that horrific story back -- far away from any thoughts -- and I boarded that story up. Until one day, when I was an adult and strong enough, the nails popped out, and the boards fell off. I was ready to process the violence and to heal. That story formed my character, trained my brain to be fearful, and sent me in search of my Holy Grail. The Truth.
Transcending the Trauma is an exhilarating process! Now it is time to confront every unreasonable fear and recast those damaging beliefs. Moments of extreme timidity and feelings of second-best don't belong any more.
Hell, I've jumped out of an airplane, run the rapids, and introduced Kenny Loggins on-stage. Might as well go for my MBA.

Labels: Debbie Ford, HOW TO GET INTO THE TOP MBA PROGRAMS, journalist, Neale Donald Walsch, Paul Bodine, PERFECT PHRASES FOR BUSINESS SCHOOL ACCEPTANCE, Richard Montauk, transcending the trauma

September 17, 2008
The smell of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies swells up to greet me as I enter Carol Gardner's home. You may know her as Zelda -- the books and greeting cards with the funny bulldog. This is our first meeting -- we've been connected by Colleen Sell who edits the A CUP OF COMFORT books. I have a story in two of Colleen's compilations -- MOTHERS & SONS and WRITERS.
Carol and I have read each others' websites, and now we want to hear the stories. We make ourselves comfortable on the black leather L-shaped couch, surrounded by poster-sized Zelda pictures with inspiring sayings. Zelda as a boxer. Zelda in a wickedly funny red spiky wig and black vest. Zelda in a tux. Remember, Zelda is a bulldog.
We trade stories. I open "I love the way Zelda came to be..."
Carol, her short blond hair tucked behind her ears, tells me that she was in the middle of a divorce, and her attorney said "Get a therapist or get a dog." She got Zelda.
A few months later, it's Christmastime and a friend tells her about a pet contest. So Carol plops a Santa hat on Zelda, and applies bath bubbles to the bulldog's chin, and snaps the winning photo. The caption was something like this: "I got a dog for my man -- not a bad trade." Carol had spent the past decade or so in advertising. She tells me you have to be daring and different and smart.
It's my turn.
"I've always been in radio," I say.
"No," Carol says, "begin at the beginning."
Thoughts swim nervously over where to begin. It is not an easy story to tell and we have just met. People wince. Cry. Turn away.
But then, I feel like I've known Carol all my life.
Her eyes fill with tears, and her arms get goosebumps as I tell the complete story. I begin with the romantic beginnings of my maternal grandparents. My grandmother was born in Peru, and was the top RN in the ER at a NY hospital. My grandfather was born in Sydney Australia, and played his Stradivarius for royalty around the world, finally settling in NY. They were introduced by my grandmother's sister, who played piano at age four at Carnegie Hall. It was a first marriage for both of them -- and they were both well over forty. My mother was born when my grandmother was nearly fifty, and her brother came along five years later. It was a romantic home, filled with music and magic and healing.
I skip ahead in the narrative here so as not to bog down the blog -- to the place where my mother chooses a tall, dark handsome pedophile, casting aside my father and cutting him out completely. And she and the stepfather, my little brother and I move to the Jersey suburbs -- close enough to my grandmother for weekend visits, but far enough away that she doesn't know that my violent handsome stepfather is raping me. My beautiful mother becomes alcoholic, schizophrenic and suicidal.
I tell Carol of the magical interactions that I've had with authors, who have each, in their own way, gifted me with their wisdom, in a caring way, so I could transcend the trauma.
She prompts me, "You've written a book about that."
"Yes, a memoir, BookMark. It's in the hands of my agent, looking for a publisher."
Carol says thousands of people could be inspired by the book.
And the wisdom I've been graced with -- I want to teach that, so others can transcend the trauma.
I survived because of my Books.
Carol survived because of her Bulldog.

From our brokenness comes humor and healing and inspiration.
And the fresh cookie with melting chocolate chips -- that helps, too.

Labels: BookMark, bulldog, Carol Gardner, Peru, Stradivarius, Sydney, transcending the trauma, Zelda

September 16, 2008
I have been procrastinating all night. I don't want to do this book. Don't want to. Which means that I must. It is HEALING RAGE. When I first saw the title, I thought Healing was an adjective, not a verb. Distance, that's what I do.
I often say that the right book crosses my path just when it is the perfect time.
I don't get angry. Not at all. The first glimmer of possible anger, I address it, deflect it, and curse myself for what I must have done wrong. My therapist says it is time to let the rage out.
"What rage?" I ask.
My new massage therapist says my liver is tight with anger. Unexpressed.
Anger is Danger. See the words! They are the same!
The walls of my childhood home shook with anger. The walls bore the holes left by my stepfather's fists and my mother's hips from when she fell after drinking. His middle name was Fiore. For years, I thought it was Fury. When I discovered that Fiore meant Flower, I figured that was what made him so angry, having a middle name like that. I forgive them both everything.
It was my fault.
Being raped by Fury when I was four, five, six and older, was my fault.
Being loyal to my real dad, which made Fury angry enough to rape me, was my fault.
Seeing my real dad beat up by Fury and sent away forever, was my fault.
I open the book and see that Ruth King says trauma gives birth to rage, and we hold rage in our bodies. Types of trauma that give birth to rage: emotional neglect (like my mother not protecting me and trying to kill herself?), verbal abuse (like Fury yelling obscenities?), loss (my real dad gone after I was six), physical violence and sexual abuse (like every day.)
King wants the rage child to be expressed. Remember that version of Aladdin when he let the genie out of the bottle? That was one pissed-off genie.
I have a punching bag that I bought a few months ago -- I take probably a dozen swipes at it at a time, then walk away. I do kick-boxing once a week! I dance! My body can express some of these emotions, but Ruth King also suggests meditation, creating a stillness practice, and recording dreams. The energy that is trapped in rage, she says, needs compassion to be released.
My therapist believes it is most effective if someone caring bears witness to the rage. I haven't allowed that yet. Way too frightening. That little rage child, the one wearing pigtails and sucking her thumb -- a stopper for these trapped emotions, peers out with wide eyes. "You want me to do what?"
I left her behind. King would classify the adult me as Distracted -- I stay busy -- and Devoted -- I am intuitive, caring and a perfectionist. That's the Flight version. There's Fight -- Dominance and Defiance. And there's Shrink -- Dependence and Depression.
I know that I am Transcending The Trauma. Better boundaries. Less blaming myself. And believing that that little girl with the pigtails was one amazingly strong soul who deserves to express her true feelings. All of them.
Dancing does it. Writing works. Lighting a candle enlivens me. All of me.

Labels: abuse, HEALING RAGE, peace., rape, Ruth King, therapist, transcending the trauma, violence

September 15, 2008
It was a complete disaster on Wall Street today. Dis-aster -- from the Latin meaning against the stars, or the plan. Thousands lost jobs or money or both, as Lehman declared chapter eleven, and Merrill Lynch was gobbled up by Bank of America for metaphorical pennies, and AIG was flailing. The Dow plummeted 504 points by the end of the day, the worst one-day fall since 9/11. There was no Uncle Sam to rescue, dressed as a knight in shining armor. Not this time.
Wall Street is licking its wounds. It was in freefall this morning when I talked with Chioma Isiadino from her home in New York. We were about to discuss her book, THE BEST BUSINESS SCHOOLS' ADMISSION SECRETS. In our interview, she said candidates will have to decide what to do if they are applying to get into an MBA program and get their pink slip. Or, if they suspect they soon will, should they jump ship? One thing is for certain, the sheer volume of applicants will no doubt increase dramatically. But Chioma and Scott Shrum, the author of YOUR MBA GAME PLAN, whose book I read tonight, agree that if you are laid off, you cannot give the board the sense that you are applying to their school because you have nothing better to do! Briefly explain what happened, then illustrate how business school fits your life plan.
Chioma emphasizes your ability to articulate your brand, which is the heart of her book. Scott's book has a handful of chess pieces on the cover, and that is a great metaphor for his content. It is greatly appreciated that Scott opens with the reminder that no one is perfect, and applicants must strategically round out their dimensions -- community service (it is a must!), GMAT score, hobbies, international exposure, professional experience and transcripts. He mentions eleven different profiles from consulting and creative to marketing and military. I was delighted to see his comment under "creative" that if you want an MBA, that makes you qualified to apply. And then of course you get to be extremely creative in your essays tying your wild adventures to B school.
It all ties back to your life plan. What was writ in the stars? Certainly few people on Wall Street wished for disaster today. I have come to believe that the mysterious forces -- that shake you from a comfortable seat -- are the most precious.
I work in all media, but radio has been my primary industry for a couple of decades. I'd never been laid off -- until a couple of years ago, from a CBS station -- and that sent me scurrying to the corners of my mind. What are my skills? What do I love? With whom can I connect? It opened my eyes in a new way. At an on-camera audition I found on craigslist, I met Mercedes Rose, a local voice talent who introduced me to voiceover classes that began to push me out of the "news" box. I began dancing all out -- hip-hip, groove, Zumba. I was already interviewing authors, and began media-training them. One author introduced me to her agent who has mostly high-tech clients, and suddenly I'm doing podcasts for them. And I spotted an ad from an LA-based Dinner Grrl looking for radio interviewers for her show MBA Podcasters. Ah! And now I'm seriously thinking of going for my MBA. And I wrote the memoir I promised myself at age seven that I would write someday.
That so-called disaster actually put me back on course.
And when I was on my way to Penn State to do a podcast last month, and had a flight delay in Philly, I bought this tiny dancing Swarovski star on a silver chain as a reminder -- to keep dancing on my own path.

Labels: Chioma Isiadinso, dancing, Dinner Grrls, disaster, Dow, Mercedes Rose, online MBA program, Scott Shrum, star., THE BEST BUSINESS SCHOOLS' ADMISSIONS SECRETS, voiceovers, YOUR MBA GAME PLAN, Zumba

September 14, 2008
For the past couple of years, I've been hosting and producing podcasts for MBA Podcaster, and an idea has been growing. Have you ever thought of completely shaking things up? If the universe doesn't do it for me, I do it.
I'm toying with the idea of getting my MBA. After reading THE BEST BUSINESS SCHOOLS' ADMISSIONS SECRETS, I understand that there is no toying with an expensive high-stakes idea like that, but this book gives so much wonderful information, that I can imagine writing the essays, describing my passions in business terms, and getting back into the classroom. The author, Chioma Isiadinso, emphasizes authenticity and credibility.
There are two drivers here. One is, that I have been watching my main industry -- radio -- being decimated. Hundreds -- no, thousands -- of talented newspeople, air personalities, and program directors being laid off, and if they are replaced, it is by someone who will work for one-fifth the pay. True. Meanwhile, the CEO's are receiving multi-million dollar bonuses.
As I work on these MBA podcasts, interviewing students, staff and professors, I see how protecting the bottom line is often the only thing that matters. This is what is being taught to the next generation of CEOs. I have noticed a small fraction of students who -- in their projects -- try to keep layoffs at minimum. I know that I need to beef up the finance/marketing part of my brain, at first for my own work, then to create successful businesses that can regenerate talent and use the sense of unlimitedness, instead of scarcity as the prime force.
The second, is that when I list off what I do -- Interviewer, Radio and TV Host, News Anchor, Media Trainer, Speaker, Podcaster, Author, Writer, Emcee, Voiceover Artist and On-Camera Talent -- eyes glaze over. About a year ago, I noticed the confusion in a businesswoman's eyes as I got halfway through, and I said "I'm a Multi-Media Entrepreneur."
"Ah-ha," she said, pleased she now got the focus.
So now I want to really be a Multi-Media Entrepreneur. After I finished an interview at Ross School of Business, one of the professors, Jeff deGraff stopped me in my tracks. "You're an impresario, that's what you are."
Cool.
Now what.
Isiadinso's book lets me know that I am definitely in the minority -- not a banker or a business consultant or an accountant -- but that that could be to my advantage. She does a wonderful job of describing how you can stand out from the crowd if you are a banker or consultant or accountant. It's a book she begs you to mark up and make your own.
I learn every day in my career -- a career of my own making -- and maybe, just maybe I should investigate this idea of getting my MBA. Everyone wants to make a difference. Sometimes you have to change lanes to do so.

Labels: Chioma Isiadinso, Jeff de Graff, THE BEST BUSINESS SCHOOLS' ADMISSIONS SECRETS

September 13, 2008
I figure I'm about a third of my way through life. Maybe one-fourth. But then, you never know. Using this math, when I was about one-fifth of the way through, a lumber truck barreled down a steep grade through twelve intersections in town, hitting the pickup I was riding in, just behind my passenger seat. I died. Came back.
Ages mystify me. As does destiny. Fate. Chance encounters that become the magnificent fork in the road. When Simon meets Garfunkel. And Elvis wants a bike for his eleventh birthday but that costs too much so he gets a guitar instead. And when Cassius Clays' bike is stolen, he takes boxing lessons. These are a few of the fascinating moments in A BOOK OF AGES from infancy to 100 years old. Seems the author Eric Hanson was taken by odd biographical details, charting them for years until they blossomed into the most amazing book.
Interviewing thousands of people over the years, the question I am passionately designed to ask -- and I find the appropriate words for each different subject -- what happened in your life to get you where you are now?
For me, I know the lack of truth and honesty in my family, and the elephant in that living room, propelled me to be a journalist -- to be a seeker of Truth, to be as close to the source as I could possibly be, and to be insatiably curious.
In my third year, as you may know by now if you've been following my book blog, my mother left my father, and moved with my stepfather, younger brother and me -- out of my grandparent's fabulous New York apartment -- whose rooms emanated with love and music and healing -- into the suburbs, close enough to visit NY, but far enough away that we were isolated, so that no one outside this new nuclear family could observe the violence, the suicide attempts, the rapes, and the alcoholism.
So I look up age Three in this book. At three, Elizabeth Taylor enrolls in ballet classes, 1935. Sigmund Freud sees his mother naked, 1859. Mozart learns to play the harpsichord, 1759.
At age four, Mick Jagger meets Keith Richards, 1947. James Thurber's family buys a dog that bits people, 1899. In 1906, Ray Kroc is taken to a phrenologist who says the boy is best suited for the food service industry. Formative stuff.
Age Six -- my favorite: Leonard Bernstein's Aunt Clara sends her piano to Leonard's house to be stored in 1928...and he asks to have lessons. When I was a kid, my grandmother would take me to see Leonard Bernstein in concert. He filled me with music. When I hear music, to this day, I see choreography in my head, thanks to him.
Our lives turn on these seemingly small details in life. It is all a blessing, no matter how cruel. Ray Charles, losing his sight at age six. Joni Mitchell, stricken with polio, and, while hospitalized, discovers that she loves singing, and loves that others love her singing. At age thirteen, Anne Frank receives a diary for her birthday, and later that year is forced, with her family, into hiding.
How rich our lives are because of tragedy! As horrific as my years from four until eighteen were, I would not now trade them for an easier life of trustworthy love. From the pain, comes a depth of compassion in interviews, the ability to see angels, the doggedness and resilience to chase down the actual Truth.
And for the writers among us, there is hope. George Bernard Shaw writes five novels over five years -- each rejected by publishers. He decides to write a play instead.
And for the artists at heart. At age 87, Pablo Picasso creates more than 800 new works in 1968 and 1969.
And for the musicians. At age 95 in 1978, Eubie Blake plays the piano at the White House.
For the dancers, at age 96, Martha Graham is choreographing a new dance for the Barcelona Olympics when she dies in 1991.
Be in motion, be flexible, and be open -- destiny is writ in the stars, and even a chance encounter can propel you onto your perfect path.

Labels: A BOOK OF AGES, destiny, Eric Hanson, fate, life journey, transcending the trauma, truth

September 12, 2008
Whether or not you agree with the politics of Senator Hillary Clinton or Governor Sarah Palin, they have changed our world. In the most powerful nation in the world, which prizes its democracy, the right to vote was bestowed on women less than ninety years ago. And it is only this year that two strong women have broken through to be seriously considered as a president and as a vice-president.
With that in mind, I open a little paperback called GREAT QUOTES FROM GREAT WOMEN. I say little, because it measures 3" x 5". The first woman to become a state governor was Ella Grasso, born the year before women won the right to vote, died in 1989. She says "I would not be President because I do not aspire to be President but I'm sure that a woman will be President. When? I don't know. It depends. I don't think the woods are full of candidates today."
Remember Shirley Chisholm? She ran for the Presidential nomination for the Democratic party in 1972 and won 158 delegate votes. She said, "Tremendous amounts of talent are being lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt."
And the first woman to be nominated vice-president of the U.S. Geraldine Ferraro said, "We've chosen the path to equality; don't let them turn us around."
I know of several women whose three-year old girls begged to watch Hillary Clinton on TV during her momentous speech in which she stepped aside and backed her opponent, Barack Obama. Three year old girls!
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Eleanor Roosevelt.
The book is full of inspirational quotes, some political, some comedic, some historic. There are two quotes I have embraced in my life. One is in the book. One is not.
These words by actress Helen Hayes are in GREAT QUOTES FROM GREAT WOMEN. I also memorized them for an acting class I once took. We were told to find a passage that resonated. In some small part, I chose the quote because when I was at a vulnerable stage in my life -- right after college, barely able to speak with or without permission, I was working at a boutique PR agency in New York, setting up for an event, and in walked Helen Hayes. The client was a hairstylist, so we had effectively taken over a beauty salon, closed it, in fact. The actress was unexpected, and she not sent away -- Helen Hayes was the only person in the entire salon who was not working on this event. What struck me was her stature and the powerful energy she eminated as she entered the salon. No one could say "no" to her; no one would want to. She was stunning, even in silence. Elegant.
Helen Hayes' words which impressed me:
"Yes, I have doubted. I have wandered off the path, but I always return. It is intuitive, an intrinsic, built-in sense of direction. I seem always to find my way home. My faith has wavered but saved me."
And the quote that awakened me -- which was not in the book -- is from Anais Nin:
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

Labels: Anais Nin, Geraldine Ferraro, GREAT QUOTES FROM GREAT WOMEN, Helen Hayes, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Shirley Chisholm

September 11th, seven years later...
On a somber day such as this, it doesn't feel quite right to review a book that has as its roots the destruction of New York -- even while it is literary and well-researched, and even while it is about the books, movies, and art that have targeted Manhattan for hundreds of years. At the same time, when I received Max Page's THE CITY'S END: TWO CENTURIES OF FANTASIES, FEARS, AND PREMONITIONS OF NEW YORK'S DESTRUCTION a few days ago, it brought back childhood memories.
My grandmother, an RN in the ER at Lenox Hill Hospital for decades, lived on the Upper West Side from the time she was twenty-something until she passed nearly seventy-years later. I lived with her until I turned school-age, and my mother transplanted our little family to the Jersey suburbs. It took just twenty minutes to get back into the city to visit my grandmother.
I remember when the Empire State Building was the tallest on the Manhattan skyline, and when there was talk of building something taller. I vividly remember discussion that the towers would be too tall, that they couldn't possibly be structurally sound, that they wouldn't last. Nevertheless, I saw the space in the NY skyline fill in with the towers, and they were gorgeous. But I kept the sense that the towers were as permanent as the lights today that ceremonially fill in the space where the twin towers once stood before 9/11 . When I looked at the newly-constructed towers, I saw, instead the space.
A couple of years before 9/11, my two sons, and then-husband and I visited NY -- a homecoming for me after more than a decade. A first time for my sons. We took elevators and stairs and stood at the very top of the World Trade Center, our hair blowing in the wind, a magnificent 360-view of the city. We were charged with amazement and power and vertigo.
Even with this, the sense that the towers would vanish remained. I can't explain it -- childlike stubbornness? A prescience? Comics, some of which are beautifully depicted in Page's historical book?
The morning of 9/11, I walked into the gym just after 5:30am Pacific time. 8:30 Eastern. I got on the treadmill, started it rolling at a comfortably fast walking pace.
Moments later, like everyone else in the room, I was stunned as I looked up at the bank of televisions, all showing the same bright blue NY sky and billowing clouds, flames, terror. The same shot of the destruction and devastation wrought by the hijacked Flight 11 over and over and over. It became hypnotic.
That easy walking pace -- that became hypnotic as well. A vision appeared to me -- a vision I would write about, which would be sent around the world in several e-newsletters over the next few days.
This vision was more real than the treadmills and the televisions.
In this vision, my grandmother came to me, dressed in her RN uniform. She told me she and many others were ready to help. She waved her arm for me to look again at the scene. I looked and saw a solid rosy hue about three-feet above the streets of Manhattan. She bid me look even closer, and I realized that what I was seeing was a field of angels spread wing to wing. The rosy hue was the love they were emanating.
The vision held steady -- and at that moment I understood that out of that cruel tragedy could come a world that embraces love.
The rosy hue of thousands of angels wing to wing. Just imagine.

Labels: 9/11, AND PREMONITIONS OF NEW YORK'S DESTRUCTION, angels, FEARS, grandmother, Max Page, rosy hue., THE CITY'S END: TWO CENTURIES OF FANTASIES, twin towers, World Trade Center

September 10, 2008
We live in a different world now. Before 9/11 and After 9/11. TOUCHING HISTORY: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE DRAMA THAT UNFOLDED IN THE SKIES OVER AMERICA ON 9/11 walks that dividing line. Lynn Spencer's intensely intimate story is all the more believable because she is a commercial pilot -- and because she interviewed nearly every key player in the airline industry involved in the major events on 9/11.
Spencer ticks off minute by minute, and the horror of what happens feeds in. I feel a rolling panic as it becomes apparent that nearly every pilot, controller and military commander had to first stretch to comprehend that a terrorist attack was under way. Then, they had to make their most well-reasoned decisions in a flash, with almost no guidance from the highest levels. And for one man -- the Operations Manager of the FAA -- it was his first day on the job. The curtain pulls back as first he learns a plane is missing, then that it is highjacked, then that it is used as the first missile into the World Trade Center. Then he hears a tape of words spoken by the first hijackers "We have some planes." Not one plane. Planes. This book -- stark facts, quick glimpses of feeling, sparks of intuition -- is one goosebump after another.
One of the bittersweet moments happens at Boston Logan Airport. A Delta First Officer waves to the first officer aboard United Flight 175 -- and he "feels a strange, hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-your-neck sensation." The Delta first officer then greets his captain -- both fans of the Simpsons -- and he recounts the episode when Homer puts his jelly donut down on the control panel, and sets off a spill. The First Officer of Delta 1989 tells his pilot "If anything happens to us today, I'm going to tell you I love you, and the rest is up to you."
Delta 1989 is sandwiched right between American Airlines Boeing 767 Flight 11 and United 175.
Goosebumps and heroes on every page.

Labels: 9/11, controllers, Delta, FAA, Lynn Spencer, pilots, TOUCHING HISTORY, United, World Trade Center

September 9, 2008
Neale Donald Walsch and I have met for interviews in Portland Oregon several times at two different hotels and a radio station, and in Beverly Hills in the most astonishing suite at the Four Seasons, and most recently in a tiny manager's office at a local Borders.
We sat knee-to-knee in the back room, and we just talked. Of course, there was a mic in my hand, but to me, it is a magic wand, gathering in wisdom.
There is so much content in HAPPIER THAN GOD, that in the interview I found myself simply dancing with Neale through whatever ideas popped up.
One of Neale's points in the book is to get out of your story so you can truly live your life. Too many of us are stuck in who did what to us when. That's gossip. Not good. Awareness, very good.
Another tool is illusion. Do you think what you're living is your life? Not really. Everything is an illusion. Stay with me here. It's a mind-bender.
Before I interviewed Neale. Before I even received his book. I had the most real dream. I told him about it:
"I was at a gathering, and there was a performance going on. I was being given notes as to how to improve this performance, as I was doing the performing. I wanted so much to be the best I could be that I was taking notes very diligently, thinking how would I improve, what things would I do."
"And, suddenly I saw the strings on the performers/me in front of me," I told Neale, "They were puppets in front of me,