Tag Archive for: Maggie Barbieri

The Comfort Zone

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It’s been a long time since I can say I went “clubbing,” but this weekend, I actually think I did. (It’s been so long that I’m not sure what I did or what it’s called.)

I find that as I get older—and I am now officially middle-aged as of this past Sunday…if I live to be ninety, that is—I can find a host of excuses to turn down invitations; many of them are outside of my natural comfort zone. The activities in my natural comfort zone, as you know if you read this blog, run from vacuuming to reading with some personal training thrown in just so my body doesn’t become flabby and mushy. I usually turn to some of my tried and true excuses to invitations that would take me outside of my comfort zone, which are generally 99% true (thank you, John Edwards for that apt equivocation): “Oh, I don’t have a babysitter.” (Yes, I do; she’s fourteen and a half and lives with us and can take care of her brother ably.) “Oh, I have other plans.” (Only true about 10% of the time.) “My lumbago is acting up.” (I don’t know what that is, but it got several family members out of many a family event, and I’m sure I’ve got at least a mild case of it because as I mentioned, I am middle-aged.) But I have made a vow that if something sounds like fun and I don’t have plans or a flare-up of my lumbago, I’m going. Enough of this hanging around the house, waiting until eleven or twelve o’clock at night to find out whether or not Michael Phelps won another gold medal or if any one of the female beach volley players has busted out of her very tiny swimsuit. (Hasn’t happened yet, but don’t let any man tell you that’s he’s not waiting for that with baited breath.)

So when I was invited down to the lower East Side of Manhattan to see a friend’s band play, I accepted, thinking that this was a perfect excuse to venture out of my c.z. (aka comfort zone). I invited a friend, C., who after two glasses of chardonnay, was a willing partner. The day after the invitation, in the light of day, C. called me. “The place we’re going…that’s in the Bowery, right?”

Images of sooty-faced men playing dominoes in the street next to a soup kitchen floated into my mind. (And yes, all of my references date back to the 1920s and every Shirley Temple movie I’ve ever seen.) I mustered up all of my enthusiasm and responded, “Yes! It’s on Avenue B!”

“That’s in the Bowery, right?” C. asked again.

“I think so,” I said, not exactly sure. I hadn’t been south of 34th Street since 1986. “But I’ve been reading that the lower East Side isn’t like the lower East Side anymore.”

“Ooohhhkaaayyy,” C. said, not believing me.

To make matters worse, the friend who invited me to the band performance wrote and said, “We checked the place out. It’s a dive. Wear jeans.”

C., who wanted to get the most out of a purchase of a summer linen tunic with beading, was disappointed, now having to go back to her closet to plan her revised outfit. We met each other at the train station in the prearranged jean/tee-shirt ensembles and headed downtown, trying to mask our nervousness—and our suburban Mom status—and headed down to a part of town that was once known for its extreme seediness.

“We’ll get off at Bleecker and head east,” C. said with complete confidence as we boarded the 6 train.

“Ok,” I said, reminding her of my lack of travel experience below 34th Street. We traveled downtown, getting off at a stop completely unfamiliar to the two of us. I started to head up the stairs, but C. smartly decided to stop at a map and take a look. It indeed looked like we needed to head East for several long blocks, but it looked doable.

We emerged from the subway, ready to fend off the catcalls of the sooty-faced men playing dominoes in front of the soup kitchen. Instead, a massive Whole Foods rose up before us, hipsters and clean-faced moms and dads going in and out of its shiny silver doors with their recyclable grocery bags filled with organic chickens. Small boutiques and cafes abounded. We walked off in search of a restaurant and found one that had been opened a month, served tapas-style food and ate enough to feel ready to drink pints at the “lounge” where our friend’s band would be playing.

Divey, yes? Friendly, certainly. We walked in and purchased a couple of $5 pints, which if you don’t live in New York and don’t know about our consumer-unfriendly pricing, was a steal. The bartender was lovely. Our friends were already there and we headed into the back room where the band got set to play. Two more delightful servers waited to take our drink orders, smiling and clapping along with the music.

This place was safer and more congenial than my own home when the kids are hungry. I considered moving in. The only drawback was the toilet with no toilet seat, but I figured that lent the place a little “atmosphere” as I looked for something to hold onto in the airplane-sized bathroom. (Which, incidentally, opened right up onto a pool table.)

The band, Lieder, was fabulous. (And if you want to check them out, go to http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=90519476.)

C. and I left around 10:30 which in Mom world is officially one hundred o’clock. We rolled back into our town a little before midnight, exhausted but thrilled that we had done something that we hadn’t attempted since we were young, childless, and adventurous.

C. looked at me when she dropped me off. “Hey, that was fun,” she said. “You know, that’s something we should do more often.” I opened the door and got out of the car.

“Sure,” I said, getting out of the car. I had a thought and leaned into the car. “You wanna go to Whole Foods when the kids go back to school for some organic chickens?”

Maggie Barbieri

A Day on the River

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Week three of Maggie’s return to physical fitness began yesterday with a trip down to the River to go kayaking.

I KNOW! KAYAKING! Amazing, huh?

If you recall, I’m not an outdoorsy gal. I much prefer staying indoors, watching television, working on my computer, cleaning out closets…anything that prevents me from going out in the sun. (And no, I’m not a vampire and I feel I must offer that admission since I’m knee deep in “New Moon,” the second book from Stephenie Meyer on the topic of vampires and love.) You can do plenty of physical activity inside—if vacuuming were an Olympic sport, I’d be a gold medalist—but I’m finding that to get the true benefits of exercise, going outside helps.

So, I expressed an interest in kayaking to a friend. She immediately put the word out in the local, thriving kayak community in my town that she had a new potential member and I got an email from another friend who we’ll call R., inviting me to join she and another friend this past Sunday for a couple of hours on the River. I accepted readily, via email on Saturday morning, and then had twenty-four hours filled with regret and second thoughts. I approached R. after church on Sunday and said, “I have two things to tell you: one, I am a spaz. And two, I can’t swim.”

Bless R.’s heart because she didn’t bat an eye at the spaz part, nor the inability to swim part. And I was grateful because having admitted to a few other people that I can’t swim, I have found that their reaction is akin to my admitting that I can’t read. Or walk. “What!? You can’t swim? Why not?” I just can’t. There’s nothing to say. I didn’t have a near-drowning experience—though I did spend a few seconds too long underwater as a kid and that frightened the heck out of me—and I although I am spaz, I’m sure I could learn to move my arms and legs simultaneously while submerged. But I have had a few other things on my plate over the years and learning to swim has always taken a back seat.

And of course, because one has to swim in a bathing suit, that complicates things. Is there anything more unflattering or uncomfortable than a bathing suit? That alone contributes to my reluctance; I don’t see putting myself (willingly) in a position of being taught how to do something while not wearing jeans and a long-sleeved tee shirt with a hoodie tied around my waist.

But back to kayaking. R. and H.—who claims to be 110 years old but who is really an incredibly fit and gorgeous woman in her sixties—picked me up and we went down to the “put-in.” The put-in is at the end of the train station parking lot and prior to my engaging in my new favorite sport, I referred to it as “that place at the end of the train station parking lot.” The put-in was jammed with cars, people, kayaks, and other water sporting equipment. R. advised me, after we hoisted the three kayaks out of H.’s car, to crouch, get my center of gravity, and leap as quickly as possible into the kayak and onto the seat. Easy, right? For R. She, too, is incredibly fit, graceful and athletic.

I stumbled on my first attempt to locate my center of gravity but after that, I managed to throw myself into the kayak’s small seating area without capsizing, although I did almost violate the town’s “NO WAKE” admonishment, sitting just a few hundred feet away. Fortunately, we were in two inches of water, so even if I had, I hopefully wouldn’t have drowned. R. was kind enough to bring a life jacket for me anyway, so even if I did overturn—my greatest fear—and I didn’t knock myself unconscious, I would have been okay. And oh, did I mention that R. is a nurse practitioner! Who can swim! We had every emergency covered.

R. put my oars together and we set out. I went in a circle a few hundred times but then found my rhythm and we took off down the River and under the highway and into an area of my town I didn’t even know existed until this past Sunday. It is a place of overhanging trees, mild rapids, beautiful birds, and tranquility. I’ve been here twenty years and had no idea that this three-mile offshoot of the River existed. We cruised along, R. staying by my side, making sure that I had gotten the hang of it. I had. I was kayaking and immensely proud of myself.

I looked to my left and saw a cluster of kayakers returning to the put-in, already having finished the three-mile loop. One of the kayakers—about fifty feet away from me—put his paddle across his kayak and even with the distance between us and the sun in my eyes, I could tell he was squinting at me and trying to figure out if I was indeed who he thought I was, his shut-in of a neighbor. He turned to his wife, a few feet behind him and muttered something. She, too, stopped and put her oars across her kayak, shielding her eyes from the sun.

Finally, he called out across the water, “Maggie? Is that you?” he asked, still unsure.

I waved back. “It’s me!”

His wife, still shielding her eyes, her face screwed in a mask of disbelief kept her eyes on me. “That’s not Maggie. Is it?”

Now I was starting to get indignant. Ok, I don’t leave the house very often but a girl can kayak if she wants to, right? And is capable of doing so with the proper instruction and safety precautions, correct? I called out that indeed, it was Maggie, I was outside, on the water, in a kayak and doing it with aplomb. (So said R., so I have a witness. Or just a very kind friend who wouldn’t hurt my feelings.) My friends passed by, still waving, still not completely sure it was me and floated back to the put-in where they stood for a few minutes trying to ascertain why Maggie—someone who has been outside a total of thirty-seven minutes this whole summer—was in a kayak in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

I came home wet and exhausted and told Jim about what great time we had. Like the aftermath of one of my training sessions with S., I can’t lift my arms, but I figure that with enough practice, that will gradually become a thing of the past and I might just end up with the upper arms of Michelle Obama, my upper-arm icon.

The only thing I have to figure out is how to transport a kayak—which I’m determined to buy before the summer’s out—on top of a Mini Cooper. That might be a problem.

Maggie Barbieri

Believe

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All of Evelyn’s ghost talk got me thinking about…ghosts.

And spirits, and the supernatural, and the occult, and tea leaves…which all lead me back to my Irish grandmother, Maga.

Maga—a name she received from me because I could say neither “Margaret”—her given name—or “Grandma”—the name given to her by my older cousins—was an immigrant from a small county in Ireland that nobody has ever heard of—even the Irish. She came to America as a broke nineteen-year-old who crafted a real estate business out of nothing, “flipping” houses after renovating them from a state of disrepair to a state that was attractive to home buyers. She lived in many neighborhoods in Brooklyn, some quite fashionable these days. My mother, her daughter, moved a lot, as they traveled from one neighborhood to another buying and selling houses.

When my mother married and she and my father decided to move to the suburbs, Maga, now a widow, accompanied them, leaving behind her beloved Brooklyn for the sticks. One of our nightly rituals was a post-dinner snack of tea and toast. The tea was really sweet, the toast covered in butter, and the stories scary and eerie. There was the one about her walking home from school (uphill both ways in the snow) and seeing a man sitting on his “honkers” (the best translation we can approximate is “haunches” but it sounded much, much scarier with “honkers” inserted) on the side of the road. When she confronted him, he disappeared into thin air. My brother and sisters still shudder at the thought of a little man, crouched down and scaring a young girl on her way home from school. There was also the story of her father bringing the children together to pray for the victims of the Titanic—which as it happened, was an event that happened the day after this collective family prayer.

But Maga’s special gift was reading tea leaves. She predicted many an event—from my Aunt’s being trapped in a big hole (she broke down in the Holland Tunnel the next week) to a friend of my mom’s, long finished bearing children, bringing another person into her bed. (That was set us giggling for a few days, as this was a very passionate and gorgeous Italian woman who resembled a blond Sophia Loren—we could only imagine who would be joining her.) The other person turned out to be the son she never thought she would ever have, a son who was about thirteen years younger than her youngest child. Incidentally, said child slept with his mother and father until he was eight.

I was there when she took a look at another family friend and felt the presence of an impending tragedy that ended up happening the very next day. She wasn’t specific and she wasn’t sure what was going to happen but she knew something bad was afoot. And she was right.

I can’t explain it and I don’t know what it was, but the woman had a special “shine” that showed her things that were meant to be. What she couldn’t predict was the triumph of the human spirit as my aunt got out of the tunnel and conquered her claustrophobia, my mother’s friend embraced her new child and made him the light of her middle-aged life, and our family friends carried on from the tragedy that changed their lives. There was nothing she could do to stop the wheels from turning but her faith in the world and the divine made her take it all in stride.
Crazy, right? I know how it sounds. But my siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends all had at least one experience where they witnessed the impossible. It has been twenty-seven years since her death but every once in a while we reminisce about the stories she would tell, the things she would predict, and chuckle. We’re imagining what we remember, right? we ask ourselves. We’re embellishing the facts, yes? Who knows.

I had a very vivid dream a few years ago in which I was sitting in my uncle’s kitchen in Brooklyn with him, a place he vacated close to thirty years ago. My uncle–Maga’s oldest–and I were drinking tea and eating toast when my grandmother came in, just as real as ever, and sat down to chat with us. I implored her to stay. “We miss you so much,” I said, crying. She looked at me sadly. “But I have to go home,” she said. “I live in a new home now and I’m so happy there.” I knew that home didn’t mean the place where she had grown up, any of the houses in Brooklyn, nor our house in the suburbs. The way she said home made me believe that she was in her eternal home and that was the place she needed and wanted to be. It broke my heart—I woke up crying—but the beauty on her face as she consoled me made me feel that she was okay where she was. And that she had been near for just a few short minutes.

Recently, my brother sent his naughty three-year-old daughter to a chair in the corner of the dining room and told her to sit there until she composed herself. While in the kitchen, he heard her talking, an animated one-sided conversation about the injustice of having to sit in the chair, protestations about her innocence. He had heard her do it before and chalked it up to childhood imagination. But he heard some specifics in her rant and finally asked her who she was talking to.

“I’m talking to Maga,” she said. “I always talk to her.”

Draw your own conclusions. I know that I have.

Maggie Barbieri

Reentry is a…

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…well, if I have to spell it out…

Anyway, I’m back from San Francisco, the City by the Bay, and my favorite next to my hometown, New York. The trip was fun-filled, exercise-filled, food-filled. We are ful-filled, as a result. The first part of the trip was work, if you consider talking about yourself and your books work. (I don’t.) A piece of advice: if you live in the Bay Area and can get yourself to San Mateo, run, don’t walk, to the M Is for Mystery bookstore on Third Avenue. I was fortunate enough to have been invited to do a signing/reading there (a shout out to my two new friends, Judi, the Millbrae librarian and Kevin, a fellow East Coaster now West Coaster) and was amazed by their stock, their staff, and all of the extras they offer. I got a lovely M Is for Mystery baseball hat which I sported around San Francisco while I was there. The store is owned by a charming man named Ed Kaufman and he is a mystery aficionado. Anything that you might want, he has. He has the most impressive collection of signed first editions (including Extracurricular Activities!) I’ve ever seen and I was fortunate to pick up a copy of Lisa Lutz’s second book, Curse of the Spellmans (more on that later).

Since I was traveling with two teenage girls, most of our trip was spent shopping and eating, although we did manage to get in some culture while we were there, hitting the DeYoung museum. The DeYoung is a nice, manageable museum in terms of size and boasts a tower from which you can take in a panoramic view of San Francisco. It’s not high enough to be scary for those of us who fear heights, but it is high enough to get a bird’s eye view of this fabulous city. But I still wouldn’t get too close to the glass. I did that at Coit Tower and managed to bang my forehead right into the protective plexiglass, alarming the other Tower-goers and forcing my two teen companions to disavow any knowledge of me as a person.

We also made a trip to the Palace of Fine Arts, a spectacular structure, in my opinion. There is a hands-on science museum on the grounds called The Exploratorium, and any fears that I had that this would skew young and not be interesting to the teens were soon squashed. While they ran around the museum taking in all of the experiments (including one which challenges your sense of convention by having you drink from a toilet that has been configured into a water fountain), I sat on a bench and people watched, which is probably one of my favorite hobbies. The parade of Bermuda shorts paired with sandals and socks was just too spectacular to miss.

Our afternoons were spent refueling (the girls) and reading (me). (I wore them out, what with my insistence that we climb every hill in the city.) While I was traveling, I started reading The Spellman Files, Lisa Lutz’s first novel about a family of San Francisco private investigators, which couldn’t have been a better pick, not only because it was set in the city I was visiting but because it was one of the most entertaining reads I have consumed in a while. If you have a chance, get yourself a copy (now in paperback). This is not your ordinary family—one of the family members begins her P.I. career at the tender age of six—nor is it your run-in-the-mill story or plot. I promise you that you will be entertained. I started the second book, the aforementioned Curse of the Spellmans, during the trip as well and enjoyed it equally, if not a bit more because I had gotten acquainted with the characters already.

The best part of the trip was reconnecting with two old friends (shout out to Rose and Chris!) who attended the book signing, shuttled me around San Francisco and Sausalito, and made my trip very special. I can’t begin to tell you both how much I appreciate your support.

So back to reentry…it’s tough (I’ve cleaned up my act a little bit…but the old profane Maggie will return soon). I still have jet lag four days after arriving home, I can’t find my phone charger, my suitcase is still open in my bedroom filled with dirty clothes, and I’m way behind on work. Was it worth it? Without a doubt.

Maggie Barbieri

On a Wing and a Prayer

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“I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“What can I do?”

How many of us have said these same things when we have heard that someone is walking a bumpy road or enduring a trial? The answer is simple. For number 1: pray. For number 2: say a prayer. For number 3: same as number 2. It’s that simple.

And you can always do the tuna casserole if you have to keep your hands busy. That works pretty well, too.

Life is alternately hard and easy. It is a series of ebbs and flows. Sometimes, you are riding a wave of good fortune and mild seas while at other times, you are adrift, navigating bumpy waters, hanging on for dear life. Sometimes it’s other people who are in the midst of bad times. But one thing is for sure, we will all experience some kind of hardship and we all need each other to see us through. Cherish the good times and reach out in the bad. Because by reaching out—by saying “I need you, I need your prayers”—you will be allowing others to do what they can to see you through the rough times. Accept it graciously because without the ability to receive, nobody will ever feel the joy of giving.

I had a couple of years of bumpy seas myself. The first thing that was done for me, en masse, was a prayer service at my church. Very simple, very plain—just a darkened church with some votive candles, my favorite songs, some prayers from the heart—but the room was filled to the brim with people I knew, some I didn’t, and some just acquaintances. The word had gone out: one of us needs help. And everyone responded. I didn’t need anything else.

The group was diverse in every way possible: by age, by faith, by economic status, by hometown. But it was one thing that they could all do, to say, as a group: “We’re here; we love you; we’ll help you get through this. We are doing something.”

And if you have ever felt the power of someone, or everyone, sharing your collective burden, you know that it is a comfort. Together, despite our many differences, we came together to pray.

Prayer is a funny thing: some people embrace it, while others eschew it. I feel that prayer is a way to put positive energy into the world and to me, there’s nothing negative about that. When we pray—and I don’t care to which God or higher power you pray or we’re talking about—we focus on a power or energy that is beyond us. And if it centers us and takes us out of ourselves and into a different space, it’s all good.

One of us needed help today. So five of us gathered at a critical hour in this person’s life, when she would submit to a test that would tell her if what the doctors thought they saw on another, more general test, was indeed cancer. As we held hands and offered prayers between the silent spaces, I felt a power pass between us, an energy. And as the tears flowed from her best friend onto the individual hands of each woman, we acknowledged that we are here. We are doing something. We are praying.

Maggie

Bye, Tim

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Believe it or not, two or three weeks ago, I began writing this blog and typed the words, “Is there anybody better at calling b.s. on people than Tim Russert?” But being as we here at the Stiletto Gang are a bipartisan, non-political bunch who don’t talk about politics, religion, or sex (at least not in polite company), I shelved the post, thinking that I would come back to it at some point when I felt a little more impartial on the subject.

It was meant to be an homage to my Sunday-morning boyfriend, Tim Russert, but I figured I had time to work on it so as to cast the proper light on one of my favorite pastimes, watching “Meet the Press.” But Scott McLelland was the guest the morning that I began writing the post and let’s just say that I don’t feel impartial about him in any way, shape, or form.

And then the unthinkable happened. My hero, Tim Russert, died suddenly last Friday of an apparent heart attack. And all I kept thinking was “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” Except I did know what I had. What I had was a Jesuit-educated, Irish-Catholic political junkie who became the go-to guy for all things fair and impartial. He was our mouthpiece, the guy to call b.s. on all of those politicians, pundits, and spin doctors. He was one of us, but way, way smarter. He was a son, father, brother, husband, uncle. He was an Everyman from Buffalo, New York. He was a giant of journalism, keeper of the proving ground for candidates and elected officials alike. I have watched many Russert interviews over the years, but the one that got me started on this post a few weeks back is one that will stay with me for a long time. It was a butt-kicking of the highest caliber, but done in Russert’s always polite, always respectful way. It was the interview he did with weasel numero uno Scott McClelland.

And so begins the post I started on June 2, one day after McClelland appeared on “Meet the Press”: Is there anybody better at calling b.s. on people than Tim Russert?

I had this past Sunday morning free and as luck would have it, “Meet the Press” was beginning just after I had finished preparing a lovely sandwich of leftover chicken sausage on a roll and poured myself a big glass of Diet 7UP. I settled in to find out who Russert was hosting this day and it turned out to be turncoat extraordinaire, Scott McLelland. For those of you who don’t pay close attention to the best-seller list, politics, or lying mclyingpants in general, Scott McLelland is a former Bush White House Press Secretary, and by his own admission, someone who repeatedly lied to the American people during his employment. A sample? The administration, namely, the President, lied about the circumstances (e.g. WMD’s, link to Al-Qaeda) leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. McLelland, good boy that he was, stood at the White House press secretary podium and laid out the case for going to war, invoking the very lies he had now laid out in his new book. What else? He/they lied about leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity to the media. He/they screwed up the response to Hurricane Katrina. And the list goes on.

But I don’t want to write about politics or how I feel about these lies and screw ups. What I want to write about how Tim Russert, a.k.a MY NEW HERO, questioned little Scott McLelland, a man who is now profiting from the lies he presented and perpetrated after being on staff for seven years serving the President. My moral outrage wasn’t enough, nor was the sausage sandwich I was eating. What I needed McLelland to endure –and exactly what he got—was a televised tongue-lashing from Russert, the beauty of which can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXCL9x8k1nk. What you’ll see is McLelland in all of his glorious, double-talking duplicity. And Russert with all of his smart guy, “you sure you want to play it that way?” questioning style.

I was initially entranced with the whole Q and A but became even more mesmerized by the astounding amount of research that went into Russert’s line of questioning. For every equivocation, there was footage of McLelland at a White House podium, contradicting what he just said. For every statement of McLelland fact (what we normal folks call “lies”), there was a shot of him embracing the President, or Karl Rove, or Scooter Libby, people who he now claims lie without losing a moment’s sleep, who have put the lives of American servicemen and women in serious jeopardy . For every time I said, between mouths of sausage sandwich, “ask him this!”, Russert did. And not in a nanny-nanny-poo-poo, gotcha kind of way, but in a matter-of-fact, “let’s see you get yourself out of this one” way.

But when all is said and done, Scott McLelland sold a ton of books that day, but hopefully, after a stint on “Meet the Press” feels just a wee bit guilty about it. Because he’s profiting from the lies and Russert, in his polite, yet firm way, let him know that.

We need more Russerts and fewer McLellands. We need guys—and by “guys” I mean men and women—who write books revering their fathers, books that talk about the struggles of the middle class. We need less lying, sniveling, turncoat rats and more people committed to truth and justice. I don’t care who we get it from—Democrats or Republicans. All I hope is that someone thinks about a guy like Russert, a stand-up guy at that, and thinks, “that’s who I want to be like.”

Bye, Tim.

Maggie

Perception versus Reality

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It’s that time of year again when college graduates flood the job market in record numbers, only to be subjected to dire pronouncements of media talking heads warning of the dearth of suitable employment for our country’s best and brightest. That’s one problem. The other is that it is also the time of year when those same college graduates have to readjust their thinking—that is, take their diplomas, swallow their collective pride, and take a variety of jobs that have little or nothing at all to do with their major course of study. It’s the old perception versus reality conundrum. Your perception—the job market’s reality.

As an English/French major back in the 80’s, it never occurred to me that there were few, if any, jobs out there at a level I thought I was suited for available to someone like me. Sure, if you were a nursing major, like the majority of students at my college, you could have come out of college and begun nursing immediately. If you majored in accounting, you probably landed a job that involved crunching numbers. And if you were smart enough to be a computer science major back then…well, we know where you are now. Counting the cash from your Microsoft stock splitting a billion trillion times since graduation. But if you graduated with an English/French major, your options were limitless and limiting, all at the same time. You were qualified to do a broad spectrum of things, probably, but just not what you thought. I wanted to be a writer. But unfortunately, none of the writing stores were hiring.

Thankfully, twenty-three years ago this month, I left college lucky enough to have a job in pocket when I processed across the stage. Sure, it only paid $13,000 a year, and sure, I wouldn’t get any vacation time for a year, but one thing was certain: I had to take it because not taking it would mean that I couldn’t live in my old bedroom in the family homestead. I could come back home but I had to be gainfully employed. Now that I’m older (and a mother), I can say that that sounds eminently reasonable. Back then? Well, I wasn’t thrilled. It was one of those jobs that I never thought I’d have to do; it involved typing, filing, answering phones, and being an all-around girl Friday to an editor-in-chief at a publishing house. I never had to get his lunch, and he was the nicest man in the world, but I did spend many day hunched over a broken down copy machine, looking for the paper jam that it proclaimed I had produced. I should have known that this was the only type of job I was qualified for after graduating with my liberal arts degree but I was sure that I would interview at a few places for this type of position only to have the interviewer say, “There must be some mistake. You are completely overqualified for this job. You are brilliant! A gift to the literary world! We will make you an editor right away!”

I remember wandering the streets of midtown Manhattan at lunchtime for the first few weeks eating hot pretzels from street vendors (because that was all I could afford) and reminding myself that I was a writer, not an assistant. It became something of a mantra.

But you know what? I worked with a lot of “writers not assistants” and they were all extremely bright and talented people, and much happier in the job than I was. What did they know? Were they just broken down? Had they completely supplanted their dreams and aspirations? Maybe. But they were a great group and I made good friends. Vicky Polito, Friday’s guest blogger, is one of them. I ended up having a lot of fun at my job, met some interesting people, learned some amazing things. I worked with writers and at that point in my life, that was enough to help stoke the fire inside of me to keep writing. I stayed in the field, in house, for fifteen years, and after that, another nine as a freelancer. Turns out I really liked what I did. And I was good at it. I eventually rose to the rank of editor and when the demands of that job became too great for me, I started freelancing. And writing again. It all came full circle.

If there are any liberal arts college graduates reading this blog, take it from me: if you have a passion, like writing, you’ll find a way to do it. But you have to be gainfully employed. It’s no fun being a starving anything, particularly a writer. Because if you are weak from hunger, you won’t be able to pick up a pen never mind sit in front of a keyboard for hours. However, if you are employed, even at a job you think is beneath you, it will all work out. You will dance, paint, write, act, or do anything else that your liberal arts degree prepared you to do. Maybe not right now. But someday soon.

Maggie

Being Green

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To borrow a line from my old friend, Kermit, “it’s not easy being green.” And it’s not easy going green. But dang it if we’re not giving it the good old college try in my house. I’ve been reading a lot about what it takes to have a greener household and I’m doing my best—as well as encouraging the rest of my family members—to join me in this pursuit. Here are a few of the things I’ve been doing that supposedly, if done en masse, will have an effect on the environment. And here are some of my musings about these suggestions.

1. Driving a more gas-efficient car. As you know, if you’ve been keeping up on our humble blog, I traded in my gas-guzzling station wagon for a hipper, more stylish, and way more gas-efficient Mini Cooper. I’m getting thirty miles to the gallon and loving it. And frankly, the kids and dog aren’t all that squeezed into the back seat. They’ve each got their own cup holders—the kids, not the dog—and that seems to mitigate any discomfort they feel in having their legs wedged up against the back of the seat when my husband, he of the long legs, is driving.

2. Using those new-fangled light bulbs. Can’t remember what they’re called because it’s so dark in here I can’t read the package. But I installed a few of them. I’ve noticed that they don’t turn on quite as quickly as regular old light bulbs and they definitely don’t throw as much light (which, if you are of a certain age like me, works beautifully—I look ten years younger in our living room). So, could I install lower-wattage light bulbs and get the same effect? Not sure. But my daughter informed me that although these new light bulbs last longer, there is now some evidence that there is not good way to dispose of them. Once again, you can’t win.

3. Walking instead of driving. This one sounds great in theory. But we’ve entered “cute sandal season” and that impacts the suggestion to walk instead of drive. You can’t walk any measurable distance in a three-inch wedge heel. Trust me. Instead, I’ve decided not to leave the house which is in its own way a reasonable sacrifice to make, don’t you think? And truth be told, I’m not a big fan of the outdoors in general.

4. Eating one non-meat meal a week. Try getting your kids to eat quinoa. Enough said.

5. Taking three minutes showers. Works for me because if you’ve read #3 and #4, I don’t really work up a sweat. Doesn’t really work for child #2 who plays lacrosse on muddy fields. But he’s a gamer. He’s given it a try. Suffice it say he’s just not that clean.

6. Turning off your computer. I’m going to use this excuse come December 31st when my next manuscript is due. (It’s late?! I was trying to save the planet!)

7. Growing your own food. See #3.

8. Buy a composting toiler. I discussed this several posts ago. It’s an idea that really hasn’t taken hold here at Chez Barbieri.

So, what are you doing to go green? We here at the Stiletto Gang offices would love to hear your suggestions for anything you’re doing to help the planet. Or walk in three-inch wedge heels.

We have our priorities, after all.

Writer’s Block

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I’m dealing with an intense case of writer’s block. I am so fearful of putting pen to paper that I have started and stopped writing this week’s blog about fifty times. (Wait until I finish the first one I started on television shows…that will surely put you to sleep and make you hope that my writers’ block continues for a long, long time.) I have been reading Evelyn’s daily recaps of Mayhem and wondering how in the heck she’s going to seminars all day long and then coming back to write. (And actually making sense, to boot.) So instead of wallowing in my writer’s block haze, I’ll describe some of the things that I do to counteract writer’s block and see if any of them speak to you fellow writers out there.

1. I perform the “one-woman show.” It is performed by one woman—me—and viewed by one being—my dog. (Except for the time I didn’t realize the contractor had come back to sand the spackle that he had put on the walls. He is still talking about how much he enjoyed my rendition of “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.”) It consists of dancing, some singing, and the occasional monologue, the general subject being “Why Can’t I Write Today?” Interpretative dance with lip-syncing usually opens the show—seen bi-weekly in my attic, or more frequently depending on when a manuscript is due—with Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” being a personal favorite to get things rolling. The end of the show usually consists of a slightly out-of-breath blocked writer falling into her desk chair and turning off her computer with the one finger that she can still use after all of the gyrations that went on during the one-woman show.

2. I read every cookbook I have, cover to cover, searching for that perfect coq au vin recipe. I haven’t actually made coq au vin yet because I usually get so hungry reading the cookbooks that I end up walking into town for a chicken salad on rye.

3. I call every friend I have who I know will either be at their desk at work or at home. Most of them have caller ID now and don’t answer the phone when they see my number come up.

4. I read. But not anything that is similar to what I write because I fear that I will start sounding like someone else. So, I read the manuals that came with my stove, dishwasher, and dryer; the tags on my pillows (some of which I have ripped off, despite their warnings); the back of shampoo bottles (there’s a lot more on there besides ‘lather, rinse, and repeat,’ you know); and papers that I’ve already read. I know a lot about what happened last week, but sadly, not enough about what’s going on right now.

5. I shop online. And yes, I do realize that if my writer’s block continues, I won’t be able to shop online because I won’t have an income. Interesting conundrum, yes?

6. I watch television. Interestingly, I just took a break from writing this blog and turned on the Food Network where, much to my surprise and delight, Anthony Bourdain (who I love about as much as anyone can love a chef who eats gross things for a living) was talking about writer’s block. He was sitting in front of his computer typing the words “chicken and ribs…chicken and ribs…chicken and ribs…” over and over again while attempting to write an article on his trip to St. Martin. God bless you, Anthony Bourdain for letting me know that I am not alone.

So, what do you do? I know what Evelyn does and I know what the writers in my writers’ group do, but I’m interested to hear your coping mechanisms. And if anyone writes back with the advice to just “shut up and write,” I promise you will receive an unflattering characterization in my next book. It might be just the thing to end my writer’s block, though.

Maggie Barbieri

Bathing Suit Season

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God, I hate this time of year.

It’s time to start thinking about bathing suits, a time that is met with a collective sigh of dismay from most women (except all of those size twos who apparently don’t shop at Old Navy, leaving us size 10/12 [depends on the day] to go through racks and racks of their leftovers). I just received two of my favorite magazines in the mail and cracked them open only to find that it was that time of year again. Time to talk about bathing suits! Yay! And then, one of my favorite clothing lines sent me an email. Guess what time it is? Time to look at bathing suits online! Double yay!

Magazines now feature the ubiquitous article entitled something along the lines of “which suit is right for you?” (Answer: none) Are you big-busted? (Yes) Small-busted? (Never) Pear-shaped? (More like oboe-shaped) Short-legged? (Yes) Muffin-topped? (Yes) Double-chinned? (Yes) Fat of ankle? (Sometimes) Well, then we’ve got a suit for you!

My sister, who recently shed close to twenty pounds (yet I still talk to her), and who won’t have a problem donning a fashionable suit this summer, summed it up very nicely by asking: What if you have multiple problem areas? In other words, what if you are small busted, muffin-topped, double-chinned, and fat of ankle? What then?

I have a multitude of problem areas, or so my brain tells me. I think the reality of the situation is far better than I think yet I cling to this notion that one’s body must approximate perfection before one puts on a bathing suit. So, what to do? Short of dressing in a burka—and I have given it some thought—I have a couple of suggestions. The first: I’ve embraced the idea of the kaftan, which apparently, is making a comeback. (Cue chorus of angels, please.) I haven’t tried it out yet but I do have one on order from the same online catalog that had the headline screaming the approach of summer and bathing suit season, replete with “women” (and I use that term loosely—my nine-year-old son has more curves and he weighs a few ounces more than fifty pounds) cavorting in bikinis. Because, let’s face it, if you can wear a bikini and play volleyball without rupturing something, you are a “cavorter.”

The second: I have also purchased a pair of UV-protectant “swim tights” and a matching rash guard with a mock turtleneck. Both are made from a stretchy kind of material that can get wet while protecting you from head to toe from the sun’s rays. While both would suggest that I am avid swimmer and can be found frolicking in the surf, this is not the case. Can’t swim. Never frolick. But I want to be able to sit on the beach and watch everyone else swim and occasionally get my feet wet, so I need something that allows me to go into the water yet keeps me protected from the sun. I tried both pieces of swim apparel on and have to say, I don’t look terrible. Which, in my world of bathing suit self-loathing, is a rave.

Bottom line? I’m not going to go to the beach in jeans and a t-shirt, as I’ve done in summers past. I am determined to at least go to the beach in swimwear even if I don’t go into the chilly Atlantic, content that I’m not going to make a splash with my swimwear. And I’m going to be content knowing that the all-flattering suit does not exist and that almost every other woman on the beach has had the same experience that I’ve had over the years—this one’s too small, this one’s too big, the leg holes on this one were made for a stripper, the one with the skirt makes me look like a Mom from 1965, and on and on. But ladies, I confess: I do look at all of you on the beach, but I never judge. Your bodily imperfections look perfectly okay to me as they do to everyone else. Our imperfections are mostly in our own minds and we need to get out of our own way and enjoy ourselves. Even if we are wearing a kaftan, swim tights, and a mock turtleneck rash guard, all at the same time.

Deal?

Maggie