February 2012
20 posts
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Flashback Friday: What Legacy Looks Like
Of all that is considered Alberto’s Legacy, the gift with the most profound impact on me is the maxim he lived by:
Do the thing you are most dreading. And do it now.
He took this idea out of the ether and applied it to his daily life.
As in, don’t procrastinate or bury your head in the sand about your finances, deadlines, promises or goals.
Write To-Do Lists often.
Complete them swiftly.
...
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(Tour Guide for Many)
“As a fellow widow, I find the words and stories of White Elephant in the Room truly comforting, even when they are heartbreaking. Your ‘rest stops & mile markers’ are invaluable to me. Thank you…from one of the many you’re helping through the grief.” — Anon in America
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Love + Expiration Dates
I’m getting married, a girlfriend announces in her sweet-like-syrup drawl.
Congratulations! I gush. When? Who’s the guy?
Wedding is Wednesday, she replies. We only just met…last week.
Whoa.
There’s a good reason why it’s happening so fast, she adds. And why I’m calling you out of the blue.
I expect her to say she’s expecting.
Instead, she exhales a string of sentences that slay me:
...
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Nine Steps Ahead
Since meeting Phyllis, I find myself applying mascara before heading out for paper towels.
Got reading material?
Is your phone charged?
Did you eat dinner?
(Never know when 15 minutes might turn into eight hours at an ER.)
Suddenly, my mundane errands seem charged with purpose:
That guy dressed like Great Gatsby whose bike is unsteady?
The nanny who’s only paying attention to one of her...
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(Girl on the Verge)
“After reading just a few pages of White Elephant in the Room, I have tears running down my face. The photos, your words, this story: all amazing. I cannot wait to discover the rest. I can’t wait to purchase the book and tell everyone I know about it. I feel honored to have found you before the rest of the world does!” — Ali, Chicago
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Throwback Valentine: Heart-Shaped Puzzle
Last February 14th, I shared pictures of my graffiti heart project.
And was surprised by the reactions:
Why didn’t you text me?
If you do this next year, I’m in like sin.
Yo, I want to make Valentines for New York City.
I’d blushed and promised to throw a heart party next February.
Didn’t really mean it.
A few weeks ago, a girlfriend asked why hadn’t I sent out the invite yet?
To what?
...
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Golden Rules
The cast of my memoir includes plenty of dead people, but one of the live, off-camera characters who has helped shape the book is author Claire Bidwell-Smith.
In addition to being 30-something and a former New Yorker, her just-released memoir, The Rules of Inheritance, also stars several dead people. Her parents, specifically. By the time she was 25, cancer would claim both their lives. In...
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(New Sense of Place)
“Is it just me or is your story…transforming? These recent excerpts and your reunion with Laurie are moving this tale—and my perspective—into new territory. I’m loving all of it. Don’t stop!” — Celeste, England
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Wednesdays With Phyllis
The morning after my ambulance adventure with Phyllis, I stopped by her building.
The doctor gave her an antibiotic prescription, I explained to the doorman. Perhaps she needs someone to drop it off?
Pharmacy delivered it an hour ago, he replied. But thanks for checking.
On the day her stitches were scheduled for removal, I stop in again.
Phyllis? She left an hour ago, another doorman...
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(Inspired Explosions)
“Ten days ago, someone recommended White Elephant in the Room to me. For 10 days, I’ve been voraciously devouring your story. Even though I can relate to loss, I love watching your rebirth, revisions and reunions. The joie de vivre that continues to explode out of you is so inspiring….keep sharing your story! I’m looking forward to the book!” — Heather, Cleveland
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Security Detail
If writing a memoir is like surgery without anesthesia, revising a memoir is like watching a video recording of the surgery: those are my guts? but there’s so much blood! how did the scar ever heal?
I’ve spent the past week rewinding and pausing the video, looking for moments that illustrate how the death of my brother shaped my teenage self and later, my widowed self.
In the distillation...
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Bang Bang
This week, my agent delivered memoir feedback that finds me adding more backstory on who I was before I became a wife.
I’ve hauled out the journal from my West Hollywood years.
Laughed and cringed and cried my way through the last relationship I had before Alberto.
In 2003, I had fallen in love with an Egyptian lawyer named Amoun.
Five months later, he ended it suddenly.
I did not take it...
January 2012
24 posts
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(Rendered. Speechless.)
“I am so rarely speechless. But I have been sitting here for hours, silently devouring every word of White Elephant in the Room.
People at work are starting to get suspicious.
Somehow, I don’t care. I simply cannot do anything but soak up your brave, honest journey.
Keep going. Keep going. Keep going!” — Jennifer, America
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Reset Buttons
Most mornings, I awake wearing last night’s dreams:
Amazon jungles, baseball stadiums, dance floors, high-rise hotels, banquet halls, treehouses.
In these dreams, I’m a sister, superhero, daughter, friend, widow.
But whenever I dream of Alberto, I am a wife:
Laughing together on our couch, half-naked.
Shutting his PR girl out of our hotel room so we can embrace.
Reaching for his goddaughter...
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(Did We Date the Same D-Bag?)
“Today marks the first day since my breakup that I’ve been ‘fine.’ I’m over the sobbing and am trying to figure out how to repo my belongings. Since focusing has been a lost art for me lately, I decided to do something I knew would make me laugh, cry and genuinely feel like love exists: read White Elephant in the Room.
I was stunned when I got to Last Stop: Koreatown....
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(Oh. My. Elephant.)
“This is the most moving blog I have ever come across on Tumblr. Just started reading tonight and I am hooked. Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing and sharing all of these stories.” — Caroline, Brooklyn
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Keep Calm...And Call An Ambulance
On Ninth Avenue last night, the blaring horn of a moving bus startles me.
Up ahead, I see the reason for the honk:
A white-haired woman is trying to cross too much street in too little time.
In a panic, she starts to lose her balance.
I sprint toward her and in the beam of bus headlights, her bags and cane and legs go flying in opposite directions.
She goes down headfirst, a millisecond before I...
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(In the World of Life + Death)
“I’ve encountered many people in my life. I’ve traveled the world. I’ve taught thousands of students in college, from the U.S. and from abroad. I’ve had philosophical conversations that sometimes have changed my life or changed others’ lives. Yet you are the first I’ve ever encountered who has the power to write about life and death with a clarity that is...
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Seasons from a Previous Life
Helluva season, pal.
The line is from Wedding Crashers and it startles me out of a snowy Sunday nap.
I blink at the TV set and at an unexpected memory:
Wedding Crashers was the first movie Alberto and I ever saw in a theatre together.
He had turned up one June Thursday on my West Hollywood porch for what became our third date:
Just a weekender bag, a bouquet of flowers and a big...
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Rhapsody on Blue + ICUs
Joan Didion is a storyteller with whom I feel a strong and visceral connection:
Her references to fire season in Malibu. Berkeley’s English department. An adopted daughter. New York’s magazine industry. The shit show of shooting in Mexico. A husband’s sudden heart attack.
Tonight, a line in her latest work, Blue Nights, gives me pause.
Didion is struck by how many of her memories involve visits...
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(Beauty for Ashes)
“I’ve just discovered White Elephant in the Room and I am not exaggerating when I tell you I’ve been reading for 10 hours straight, breaking only to pee, eat and wipe tears. First and foremost, your strength. It astounds me. Second, your writing has the ability to place me in the moment with you, seeing what you see, feeling what you feel. I admire your courage to be so raw and so open. Third,...
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New Life for Old Things
Today I receive an email blast from a church I’m involved in.
Their homeless program is in need of men’s items:
Razors, clippers, aftershave, shampoo.
All of these things are in my bathroom.
All of these things are collecting dust.
All of these things were left behind by a man who has no earthly use for them.
I gather the things into shopping bags.
Razors, clippers, aftershave, shampoo.
And...
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(From Her Adoptive Mother)
“I love this photo of my beautiful daughter and the amazing woman who allowed me to be her mother. Thank you for making Laurie’s 18th birthday such a special day in her life and mine.” — Lisa, North Carolina
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Teenage Dream
We’re rocking the same nail lacquer on our toes.
Ordering the same thing for lunch.
Telling stories with the same spastic limbs.
Ending sentences with the same last-word emphasis.
She shows me her car, her high school, the boutique where she works weekends.
We find ourselves gushing over statement tees and scoffing in unison at the spandex.
By the time we duck into a photo booth, she seems like...
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(Cover to Cover)
“In all of my years of reading and writing, I’ve never wanted to read a blog ‘cover to cover’ but that’s precisely what I just did on White Elephant in the Room. What a story—and what a gift for telling it! I came so close to crying but managed to keep it dry (the meds must be working!) until those reunion posts. Big happy tears for you. Cannot wait for the book/s....
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The Sound + The Ineffable
I knew we’d meet one day, I confess. But I had this definitive idea of where I hoped to be when we did.
Laurie nods.
And though I’m closer to that place than I’ve ever been, I haven’t quite arrived yet—
But you’ve lived, she interrupts. You’ve traveled the world—and written a book! You’ve met famous people and skydived and swam with sharks! You’ve gone to Mardi Gras and...
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(Needed. This. Today)
“Today I am packing up my life and feeling like the the past 5 years have been boyfriend to boyfriend, apartment to apartment. In this next chapter, I will have to settle in my own space. My.very.own.space. I haven’t had my own space since 2005. The concept of living alone terrifies me, and the concept that I might never find love…even more so.
But as I sit here reading White...
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(Forming the Words)
“I just found White Elephant in the Room and tears are running down my face. I can’t digest your words fast enough but the more I read, the more beauty and resilience I find. I look forward to buying your book and hope you will continue sharing your life with us. Through your story, you empower not only women, but people all over the world who have experienced love and loss. You are...
December 2011
31 posts
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Destination: Daughter
Your destination, the GPS repeats, is on the right in 600 feet.
I am in Cary, North Carolina.
Only 600 feet from reuniting with the daughter to whom I gave birth 18 years ago today.
I find my destination.
My phone.
My voice.
Are you here? she exclaims.
Yes…are you here?
Oh my God! Yes!
Come outside?
Yes!
We’re still holding phones to our ears when she emerges.
Our eyes meet and our phones...
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(Can't Contain It!)
“I am itching with anticipation for your next entry! I hope you realize you have the support of Tumblr behind you, cheering you on, and hoping for the best in your life. You and the beautiful story of White Elephant in the Room continue to touch all of us in so many different ways.” — An Admirer, India
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Lucky Is...What Lucky Wears
I’ve packed outfits for meetings with Vogue editors.
Dinners with international hoteliers.
My own wedding brunch.
And yet.
This two-day trip to North Carolina has me scratching my blonde head.
I mean, how many times do you meet your 18-year-old daughter for the first time?
How many times will we replay this reunion in the years to come?
So, yeah: the outfit.
My favorite Paige jeans and lucky...
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