See Dick, See Jane, See SALLY

One of the many faces of me.

Pictures That Drive Me Crazy

Have You Seen This Man?


"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." John Wanamaker

Actually, he's Dave Burwick, SVP and CMO, Pepsi-Cola North America. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice guy. And Pepsi happens to be my cola of choice.

But I gotta tell you, every time I open a page of the New York Times online, he's there. Across the top banner and on a full third of the right hand column. I'm having a hard time reading the articles. I feel like he's watching me.

Frankly, it's starting to get on my nerves.

Plus, I can't figure out why he's shilling for Yahoo. What, Pepsi doesn't pay him enough?

Just, you know, wondering.


Have You Seen This Woman?

MICHAEL S. WIRTZ / Inquirer

"The average American woman is 5-foot-4 and weighs 140 pounds. The average fashion model is 5-foot-11 and weighs 117 pounds." American Obesity Association

I have no idea who she is, but I'm inclined to hate her regardless. Her picture appears in The Philadelphia Inquirer today to illustrate an article on preparing for swimsuit season. Next to her image, the copy reads: As the weather warms, women do battle with their bodies - and their self-images - all to put on a swimsuit.

The article's author, Tanya Barrientos, is one of my favorties. And while her tongue is often firmly in her cheek, she's always got solid things to say. In the article she lives up to the teaser, talking about women, bathing suits and self-image issues.

But in the paper, framing Ms. Barrientos' words, the model's flawless form covers virtually the whole page. At that size you can see her face clearly -- it's scrunched up in a moue of horrified dismay. Together with her body language, the message is clear: She's upset with the state of her body.

Oh please.

This is what's wrong with our country's view of women. Absurdly insulting mixed messages. And outrageously unattainable ideals.

Real women have real self-image problems. And for all I know, when that model looks in the mirror, she sees Kirsty Alley.

If so, I hope she gets help. If not, don't flaunt her at the legions of women who actually do.

Somebody's pSychological Survey

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal." Albert Camus

There's a survey making the rounds of the blogosphere. It has absolutely no redeeming social value. But that's part of the fun.

Some harmless self-indulgence. A tiny glimpse into another person's psyche -- in this case, mine.

You know you'll be thinking of your own answers as you read. Please share.

Three names you go by that won't give away your identity: Mom, Honey, Psycho Bitch (but in a nice way).

Three screen names you've had: SmartNFunny, LOSTHoney, VerbalVixon.

Three physical things you like about yourself: my laugh, the right side of my brain, my smart-mouth.

Three physical things you don't like about yourself: my hump, the big wart on my chin and my cackle ... oh wait, that's wrong, I'm a Bitch, not a Witch.

Three parts of your heritage: Jewish. Royalty. What else matters?

Three things you are wearing right now: my wedding ring, my dignity and ... forget it, this is a question aimed at singles.

Three favorite bands/musical artists: Billy Joel, Van Morrison, Bruce. What, like anybody else comes close.

Three favorite songs: Fire, sung by Bruce, the Pointer Sisters or Robin Williams as Elmer Fudd. Crazy (like that's a stretch) by Patsy Cline. And At Last by Etta James. If you haven't guessed, people generally view my music collection with an A Ha! and a What The?? Hey, I'm a Boomer. We have impeccable taste in greatness and schlock.

Three things you want in a relationship: humor, heat, humdrum. Don't knock it til you've laughed, loved and then settled back with a good book or reruns of The West Wing.

Three physical things about the preferred sex that appeal to you: Wow. That's a nicely phrased heterosexual question. My answer: Clean lean hands, broad shoulders (physically and metaphysically), and the ability to dance under a Marguerita spell on a beach.

Three of your favorite hobbies: reading, writing, hanging with my best gal pals. No, we don't go to clubs; we're just old enough to prefer sitting around my living room with wine and beer and popcorn and M&M's. And young enough to talk about sex in the kind of detail that would curl your hair.

Three things you want to do really badly right now: eat Twizzlers, listen to music, write ... wait, I'm already doing that. If I wanted to do something else, I wouldn't be sitting here.

Three things that scare you: drunks, angry people and I'm not telling you the third one.

Three of your everyday essentials: Thinking about my son. Making the bed. Pepsi. In that order.

Three careers you have considered/are considering: I have, in fact, done them all. Unless you count Miss America, Nobel Prize Winner for Literature or Secretary of State.

Three places you want to go on vacation: Tahiti, Paris, Alaska. That was a straight answer, don't ask why.

Three kids' names you like: Dude, Puppy, Chica.

Three ways you are stereotypically a boy: I love baseball. I won't drink beer out of a glass. And I drive fast. I mean Really fast. Oh, and I hate to cook. So that's four, big deal, what boy ever followed directions?

Three ways you are stereotypically a girl: I eat like one. I walk like one. I don't get a headache from shopping.

Three celeb crushes: Paul Newman, Aaron Sorkin, David Ducovney (used to be Jerry Orbach too -- RIP). Note: the only celeb with big lips I can even stand to look at is Mick, and at least his are real.

Three things you want to do before you die: publish the damn book already, become a cool grandmother (not for a while yet, OKAY), live to see a cure for Cancer and Republicans.

Granny to the Rescue

"Two things reduce prejudice: education and laughter." Dr. Laurence J. Peter

I had two grandmothers growing up, one we loved to hate, the other we just plain loved.

Grandma was "the bitch," a sour, bitter woman without a genuine iota of warmth or human kindness.

Granny, on the other hand, was youthful, charming, funny, warm and loving -- in short, the coolest grandmother in the known universe.

Though 100% Jewish on all sides, there were no "Bubbes" or "Zaidas" in our family when I was a kid. Well, wait. There was my grandfather's mother, a wizened old lady in her 90's with a tight white bun who, in my memory, was always in a wheelchair. She also had a cane (why, I don't know, and no one else seems to know either). But she used to poke at my sisters and me with that cane, as if she'd turned over a rock and these strange rotund little girls had tumbled out. She gave us the creeps.

I'm not sure I ever knew her real name. She was referred to in the family only as--all one word--Littleoldbubbe. It wasn't until I met my husband and heard stories about his own Bubbes that I sagely put two and two together ... and, ohhhhh, the light dawned. Little. Old. Bubbe. Duh.

Back to my grandmothers. And a vignette that sums up why we felt about them the way we did. When I was in junior high I got a very short haircut. I'm guessing some movie star made it all the rage, probably Audrey Hepburn. I, however did not remotely resemble Audrey ... if you need a clue, think Annette Funichello. (And if you don't know who she is, fageddaboutit). I was, to put it kindly, chubby. Very. But the one thing I had going for me was luxurious, thick, glossy, curly hair, that deep blue-black color that shines in the dark. Why my mother let me cut it off is a mystery. Maybe she hoped I'd look enough like Audrey to stop eating so much.

However, such was not to be. I emerged from the hairdresser with a halo of tight frizz -- the first Jewish Afro of the 60's. I was horrified. Mortified. My mother told me I looked "lovely, stop whining." My "boyfriend" (i.e. an eighth grader I had a huge crush on who occasionally smiled at me in the cafeteria and on the playground, and had once kissed me during Spin the Bottle at a party) took one look at me coming toward him down the school hallway with my new do and closed himself fully into his locker.

Death to my ego. Forget broken heart, I passed Go and went directly to Devastated Spirit. I had been shot out of the sky and left for dead, not even worth a heartbeat check. I ran all the way home--not a small feat for a chubbette like me--dehydrating, not from sweat, but from an amount of tears I didn't know it was possible to shed. We're talking buckets, gallons, huge vats of tears. The kind that leave you gulping air, making those pathetic hhhunh, hhhunh, hhhunh noises from deep in your chest like an asthmatic dog.

Granny was visiting, ohyesohyesohyes, she would comfort me. But oh god, no! Grandma the bitch was there too! She took one look at me, turned to my mother and uttered the immortal words that still echo in our family lore, "She looks like a nigger-wop."

I was dumbstruck. Mouth literally agape. We didn't use those words in our family. We didn't even think those words. In fact, that was probably the first time I ever heard either of them spoken out loud. My father the Jewish businessman was of necessity a registered Republican, but he and my mother were both All-The-Way-With-Adlai. We came to the table every night dressed for dinner, prepared to discuss politics and world events and books and ideologies while served by a White cook and a White maid -- local farmgirls, no "schvartzas" in our liberal home.

I think I had read the "N" word in To Kill a Mockingbird when I was about seven. I was savagely smart, not a great attribute for a fat girl, but an excellent way to submerge myself in worlds more interesting and less painfull--at least to me--than mine. I taught myself to read at age four when the one chapter our mother read to us nightly from Little Women wouldn't do. I felt about the March family the way today's kids feel about Harry Potter. And frankly, I'd rather be me in that regard.

So those horrible words were out there, stinking up the room as three generations of women stood trembling in varying degrees of distress. "WHAT did you say??" my mother demanded in outrage. Not the best move.

"I said she looks like a nigger-wop," Grandma reiterated coldly to our shocked faces.

Granny into the breach, with the reply of the century. "Well I don't like those words, but yes, I suppose she does," she said without missing a beat, "Lena Horne and Sophia Loren."

You should only have a Granny like that.

What's Up with The DS Links?

"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Okay, busted. I have another blog, with a more global theme. Politics, Religion, Current Events, Media, Anti-War, Pro-Liberal. Rants and opinions I couldn't stop writing if struck by a tornado.

But some of my posts there turned out a skosh more intimate than I'd intended, providing glimpses into my personal life that better belong here on PS. Hence (I just love saying "hence"), I have ported them to PS from their original moorings without changing the DS urls.

Give me time, I'll be filling this sucker with newly minted musings and life lessons both learned and ignored.

Meanwhile, it wouldn't kill you to get a little taste of what's happening in the real world, outside my head -- and yours.

So Why Are We Here?

"Strange as it may seem, my life is based on a true story" Ashleigh Brilliant

I write. You write. We all write. Some of us better than others.

This is my place to write--as only I can--the story of my life.

It's a doozy. Some of it you've experienced yourself. Good, we can commiserate, relate, tawk about it.

A lot of it you probably won't believe.

But it's all too real, I assure you.

Frankly, nobody could make this stuff up.

Although John Irving comes pretty close. But since he's a guy, we don't have a winner.

Suit up and c'mon in ... quick, before you air-condition the whole neighborhood.