GIRLFRIENDS: THE OTHER WOMEN

  I almost called this piece Girlfriends, Slutdom and Mom because they’re all of a piece, a patchwork perhaps, that once assembled became me.

     

        Boys were always easier for me. We liked being outside and played rough, whereas I was never sure how to engage girls in anything beyond dolls, which didn’t interest me. They also tended to stay in the kitchen with their moms. 

        Mom proudly announced that she’d been a tomboy, too, and followed her twin brother in his rough and tumble play. As she grew older, mom embraced the “sexy” Latina image. I think it gave a boost to her self-esteem, but it meant that her goal was to get a man which invited competition from other females. At her core she embraced a 40’s cinematic femme fatale role model and distrusted all women . . . possibly even me. A girlfriend who is of my mother’s vintage recently gave me advice on how to deal with my husband over some petty argument.  “Have great sex and then do what you want anyway.” Manipulative, I said. She expressed no distaste for that word, “There’s a long line of women just waiting to steal him from you."

 She reminded me so much of my mom that I only felt affection and pity for her generation. And wonder. Could she be right? I’ve seen that certain look–threatened, possessive, and defensive–on other women’s faces when they’ve watched their husband’s reaction to a beautiful woman standing in front of them. No, the beauty wasn’t me.  My preferred role is observer, and I love women, need them even. Women take the lead in The Sandoval Sisters’ Secret of Old Blood, and sisterhood is explored in all its contexts: childhood friends, lovers, girlfriends who think nothing of cheating with your husband, a sinister mother-in-law, witchy ex-girlfriends,  daughters, blood sisters, maidens, mothers and crones. 

I’ve written previously of the bullying I experienced in elementary and middle-school (Bullied: Diversity, Differentiation, Distinction). That experience effectively isolated me and I stopped trying to make girlfriends. I had a brief respite in 9^th grade when I lived with my father and stepmother in East Texas. A few girls in my neighborhood actually seemed to like me and we rode the bus to school together. No one was really dating then, but there was adolescent flirtation.

Back to New Mexico for high school and the pressure was on to date. Fortunately, I liked nerdy boys with a sense of humor. An assortment of males liked me; the girl’s locker room became hazardous when a boy sought after by one of the “popular” girls asked me to prom. Sometime in the 10^th grade I was labeled a slut and I don’t think the slur came from a boy. It was the girls who shunned me.

The irony is that even though I’m now an outspoken feminist and embrace my inner slut, I remained a virgin all through high school. I refused to French kiss until I’d cleared it with the nun who taught an after-school religion class. “No it’s not a mortal sin,” she said. I’m forever grateful that she didn’t follow up that statement with what it could lead to. Perhaps she didn’t know, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because I wouldn’t allow my boyfriend to touch my emergent breasts because of the pimples on my chest.

The slut-shaming worked. I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong, but in order to remedy the situation I let down all the hems on my skirts, stopped dating, and stayed home from school as much as possible. The problem with that was 1) my mother’s fear–not that I might not graduate– but that I might not get in enough practice to find my future husband. “You’ve got sex appeal,” she said, which only terrified me more. The second part of that phrase was fine, nothing wrong with appeal. But the “sex” part was a problem made all the more complicated by 2) my extreme horniness and guilt over it. 

What to do?

           Fortunately, I got to go to college in the late 60’s. The Second Wave ruled! Birth control was readily available and there were savvy girls from all over the world at UNM. What was even better, they knew nothing about me. Sure, I was a little weird, but weird was in. I could blend. Somewhat.

I’d always had opinions, but had feared speaking out. My task was to overcome that sense of powerlessness, to embrace outcast status and make it work for me.  Learning to do that was huge and the women’s movement helped me. Not only were there plenty of outspoken women from whom to learn, but I recognized the other me, before emergence, in women who came to consciousness-raising meetings. I could help them.

In grad school, my girlfriends and I had brunch every Sunday and read women’s sexual fantasies out of Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden. Our laughter could be heard from down the street and we could have written our own book of sexual exploits, real and imagined. Peggy, one of the brunchers, met me recently in Venice Beach (A 70’s Redux.)

 Santa Monica Beach, 1977, with my friend Annie (the other bruncher.)

When I started a business, almost all of my clients were male. Female friends were rare. If it hadn’t been for my friend Susan, I wouldn’t have had a baby shower for my first child or a partner in my new business. More women entered the workforce. Now I had female employees and a new challenge balancing friendship and business: I didn’t always make the right decision.

Keogh, O'Briant & Brown, 1979

Girlfriends are still not easy. More often that not, I let them pick me. As often happens, friendships with women grew easier when I entered my 50’s. I’d relaxed, accepted that some women were not going to like me, and that it wouldn’t hold me back from expressing myself or reaching out to them. Older women have experience, both good and bad, and we all just want to have a good time. Here are some vintage thoughts from some of my girlfriends. They reflect my experience now. I'm so grateful to have arrived at this point, something I don't think my mom ever achieved:

Susan:  “My women friends have outlasted everything in this life: husbands, parents, youth, and now . . .  Even if we're not together, our laughter still rings in my ear.”

Bonnie: “No matter what I was slogging thru in terms of  family stuff, work, life in general, girl friends sustained and supported me more than any other relationships.”

Melody: “Laughter; tears; support; brutal honesty; fun; sharing of wisdom; gossip; fashion help; basic survival; boy-friend hating; physical, mental & spiritual healing; having someone really listen to our story-telling without judgment; reminders that we are worth loving, even if we do not love ourselves at times!”






Me and Anna, Runyon Canyon, 2012                  

Cindy, Missy, me: Cuba, 2012

Happy and peaceful women.

Quintana Blas Olleras,1851-1919

Winding Roads With Old Friends

My first boss and mentor at ASU, Dr. Bernie Jackson, said birthdays were not a good measure of the passing of human time.  He preferred the term 'age-days', those unpredictable twists in life when you arrive at a point where you feel that you're in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.  They've been rare for me, but when it happened I felt time as if it were a tangible substance.  My generation would call it being in the moment. 

Most of us recognize those passages after they've happened.  A shift in perspective may occur, not so much in values or what interests us, but in how we view ourselves in the broader context of the world. With this usually comes acceptance; that's the age-day.  My trip to the East Coast for the ILBA solidified my recent age-day for me, and my friend Susan played a pivotal role.

My plan was to visit her in New Hampshire for three days and then spend four days in New York doing what I usually do while there: plays, dining, drinking, galleries, art and more art.

Susan and I have known each other for over 30 years.  We started at the same executive recruiting firm in Beverly Hills, and along with another team member, split from that business and formed our own company.  This after a little over a year in the headhunting biz.  I was the instigator, but Susan was right in there with me.  If you looked at the two of us back then, you might of thought we were a mismatch.

                                          Nice Girl  vs  Trouble

                                     
       

In many ways, we couldn't be more different.  She comes from a close-knit family, albeit one with a few kinks.  Still, her family dramas could be shown on network TV whereas those of my family could only be viewed on late night cable.  Susan is friendly and outgoing and makes friends easily.  I'm shy, but forced myself to drop my reserve during my business years.  My natural temperament suits a writer's life, but my "acting" extroverted permanently fractured that protective shell.  I'm a combo now. During this visit, I discovered more of the ways we're the same.

In her last year in the business, I became pregnant and got married.  Susan was my only  significant female friend in L.A., and she threw a baby shower for me.  Her mother was there, another woman who worked for me, and two of Susan's friends.  It's because of Susan that I was able to experience a normal event in a woman's life.  That sisterly gesture comes easy to her.  Susan is a community builder, a comadre. I mostly just try to pass for normal.

With Susan at Pine Point, Maine

A cocktail with a comadre would be nice here.

Susan came back to L.A. once in the intervening years. She remarried and had a son. We met once in Reno where she was attending a conference, and I've been back to visit her two or three times.  I've always enjoyed country walks and never get tired of looking for moose.  The weather turned cold. My shorts and flip-flops remained packed while I snuggled down inside borrowed fleece.

Moose Alley

This time she took me to the National Forest Bog, which wasn't like an Irish Bog (my only other Bog experience) with mummified remains in it, or so thick you can dig up the peat and burn it. 

 This is a lookout at the bog.  I think you hide in here and use binoculars for birding.

Clouds reflected on the surface of the bog. 

A Lady Slipper, an endangered flower thriving in the bog.

Susan drove without the dictatorship of a GPS.  She grew up here and knows the loops, short cuts, and back ways.  Conversation flowed.  We had quiet, comfortable moments.

Mommy and colt

Across the street is the shot I really wanted.  An abandoned house.

I wonder what stories the ghosts who live here might tell?

Susan and I in North Conway. White Mountains behind us.

So where is the age-day here?  My self-realization didn't arrive until New York, brought home by a young Serbian bartender whom I taught to make a skinny margarita and the Polish family sitting at the bar with me.

Next stop, NYC:

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Family Ties: What We Talked About At Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, my son brought home the most delightful girlfriend.  I’m so pleased that he loves us enough to share her.  They cuddled and cooed all weekend. 

He hummed a happy song every morning as he made his coffee.  I’m usually the first one up, and sit in the relative quiet with my laptop and play.  In the past, he'd groan a hello and head outside for his breakfast cigarette.  No longer.  He's quit smoking, and his "Good Morning!" is electric.  The network news is usually on in the background, and never failed to spark conversation.

These are some of the things we discussed:

1. Social workers burning out because of onerous rules imposed from above that prevent them from actually helping people.
2. Obama being a tool of the capitalist regime.
3. Thomas Edison stealing patents and being an all-round scumbag.
4. The divide between the ultra-wealthy in America and everyone else widening.
5. The Vietnam War ending because the Viet Cong wouldn’t give up.
6. The military cover-up of rape of female enlistees and civilians by American combatants.
7. Obama reneging on his promise to get us out of Afghanistan.
8. America kowtowing to Israel.
9. My objections to being called old-fashioned for quoting, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” 
10. The American government doesn’t really want to capture Osama bin Laden; he’s a red herring, and most likely already dead.
11. Local government control is better than big government.
12. There is no longer a middle class in America.
13. Every American should have access to quality healthcare.
14. People talk about their pets in order to avoid substantive conversations with their fellow citizens.
15. Thomas Edison arranged to have an already doomed circus elephant electrocuted.  His only objection was that he preferred to say the elephant was “Westinghoused.”
16.  A college education doesn’t mean much anymore in terms of getting meaningful employment.
17. Employers don’t want employees who think.  This might lead to asking for benefits.
18. Not calling me old-fashioned.
19. Using the term “mentally ill” rather than crazy when referring to the person heading toward you on the sidewalk who is gesturing widely and talking loudly, and who has no visible Bluetooth.
20. Addressing the question of whether pc terms help make society better.
21. Transgender issues: can a female personality trapped inside a man, or a male personality trapped inside a woman ever be allowed free expression and acceptance without having to resort to surgery?
22. Are compassion and pity the same thing?
23. Monogamy as a social construct to control property.
24. Living outside the grid.
25. The overuse, misuse and abuse of the word “like.”
26. The French Revolution being ill devised since it led to Napoleon.
27. Tours of Israel where you’re shown only what they want you to see.  They don’t want you to see any Palestinians.
28. The American tax rate for the wealthiest citizens was 90% during WWII; been sliding down ever since.
29. The traditional who, what, when & where of journalism has been replaced by opinion in the guise of real news. 
30. Democracy has failed in America.  People feel powerless and disenfranchised.
31. Blackwater runs our military drones, not the military.
32. World hunger could be ended with under $50 billion.
33. Blood diamonds, Congo gold, and human rights violations to make a few men rich in the world.
34. P.O.C.'s are people of color.  I'm a diluted one of those.
    
35. Patience comes with experience, not with age.
36. The importance of never referring to me as old-fashioned.
    

Thanksgiving day was sunny and we walked to a local deli for brunch.  Dinner was later than I'd planned, but everyone pitched in and it was delicious.  The conversation was scintillating, and everyone pitched into that, too.  We didn't agree on everything.  Often, we needed to define and parse our terms to discover how close we were in our feelings about the world.

I felt like we were in a Norman Rockwell painting, a really radical one, where the family loves fiercely - each other, their words, their ideas for their country.

Sex and the City in my City: The Girlfriend Movie

Mega-crowds of women in L.A., dressed outlandishly in 4-inch stilettos and toting designer bags, in which they've smuggled pre-mixed Cosmos, are standing in line to see Sex and the City, The Movie.

The film is over two hours long and unlike the television series is a melodrama, rather than a comedy. The writing isn't great and it takes forever to get to the climax. The Manhattan fashion world ­- where freakily skinny females are idolized, as are their ugly handbags - doesn't translate to the big screen as successfully as in, say, The Devil Wears Prada.

But that isn't the point for the women planning to see the movie together. At its heart, it's about girlfriends - their bond, their history together, their view of romance and LOVE. The love is not just for each other, but for Manhattan, which is the studly paramour of all these women.

The narrator of the television series, Carrie Bradshaw, says this: "There are those (relationships) that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."

For many of us, the love given and received with girlfriends is what sustains us through marriage, divorce, teenagers and aging parents.

The Sex and the City phenom is also about Dreams and Youth, and the demarcation into Power and Middle-Youth, a generous description on my part because these babes - Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda - have aged, but not without a fight.

Saw it first with a movie savvy girlfriend. Afterward we sipped Cosmopolitans, and shredded the movie. Waiters stopped by to chat and gave us the inside story on the hordes of women streaming through both before and after the movie, every one in search of the retro, now archetypal, Sex and the City cosmo fix.

Liked the movie more the second time for the unadulterated girlfriend experience. Got to sit in between my two friends, a cool position to experience these girls, both those on screen and the ones next to me. We had cocktails before and closed down a bar after, and we laughed hard and long together. These women know me and still manage to love me.

A good night at the movies.