Learning life lessons. Really slowly.

Are you one of those irritating people who knew, from a very young age, what you wanted to do with your life?

If you are, and you achieved that career goal, well, bully for you, congratulations and get off my website.

But if you didn’t know who you wanted to be, or you knew and never quite got there, I think you and I may have a profound kinship that should be celebrated over appletinis and fried cheese.

You see, for my money, there’s nothing wrong with standing in your bedroom in your 20′s (or 30′s, and well, actually, maybe your 40′s) singing, “Who am I, anyway…am I my resume?”

This is a Chorus Line reference, and if you didn’t get it, clearly “Broadway Star” was not the future career you envisioned. Broadway Star WAS one of the future careers I envisioned. Along with Trumpet Virtuoso, Nationally Syndicated Newspaper Columnist, Travel Writer, Advertising Mogul and Television Sitcom Creator.

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not being clear about your goals. I mean, from a very young age it was obvious to me that I was destined for greatness (although this appeared to be news to everyone else, who considered my litany of widely varied career options a desperately unfocused need for attention). As far as I was concerned, it just wasn’t clear how that greatness was gonna manifest.

Example: after being blown out of the water by a trumpet player who had the temerity to upstage me at the high school state band finals (a minority student who, by my calculations at the time, should have been busy dealing smack or selecting a tasteful gang tattoo), I decided to abandon the dream of becoming the next Miles Davis.

Example: following an audition for the Six Flags theme park show, where I sang Some Enchanted Evening while performing a tap combination, and the judges just stared at me open-mouthed, I determined that my fame did not lie on the Broadway stage.

Example: when the editor of the college newspaper found my column too “breezy” for the school newspaper (even after I reminded him that it was a humor column, not a series of op-eds on the Iran Hostage Crisis), I concluded that newspaper syndication was a pipe dream.

Although I knew there was something great out there for me, I was always ready and willing to move on to the next career possibility.

Hmmm. It’s funny. Now that I look back, perhaps I wasn’t being patient in my search for greatness. Maybe I was just being too willing to give up. Maybe I was being too thin-skinned. Because, truth be told, whenever somebody implied I wasn’t good enough, I not only believed them, I agreed with them and then ran home to eat Ding Dongs and cut myself.

In fact, I became so good at this self-flagellation that when the actress Tracey Ullman called me in to meet with her about a spec script I had written for her HBO series, and she praised me to what felt like a ridiculous and distinctly unwarranted degree, I tried to unwrap a Ding Dong right there.

But then, sometime in my 30’s, I turned the corner. I began working in television marketing and realized that I was pretty darn good at it.

And then I decided to write a memoir. And I didn’t give up. Even as everyone around me clucked their tongues and said, “Well, at least you’ll get it out of your system.” (After all, I create promos for television series for a living – I couldn’t possibly write something entertaining that was longer than 60 seconds. Could I?) And even as my partner, who was trying to protect me, said, “Don’t be hurt if it doesn’t happen. About 1% of authors actually get published.”

But I kept pushing forward.

And then an agent at William Morris decided to represent me.

And the editor of The Help bought the book.

And Sony and Adam Sandler’s company optioned it as a TV series.

And wow…as I look at those things, I realize that I finally achieved a teeny, tiny bit of greatness.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m hardly retiring on the profits. I’m not lunching with Oprah (sadly) or The Kardashians (praise Jesus). But I published a book. And I’m writing two more.

So maybe I’m just a late bloomer. And if you’ve taken a similar route, maybe you are, too. Because, look, if I can finally achieve some miniscule measure of fame and success, maybe the only thing stopping you is a razor blade and a box of Ding Dongs.

Me:  “Oh my God, look – 60% off a coffee enema!”

Virtually Everyone Within Earshot:  “You really need to see someone about this.”

I am, as almost anyone will attest (if properly threatened) a man of extraordinary taste. Regrettably, I am a man of ordinary means.  And short of a career in shoplifting – which, although chock full of excitement, danger, and hard-to-remove security tags, also comes brimming with untimely incarceration and the bothersome issue of morality – I realized years ago that if I wanted to live in the kind of style to which I’d like to become accustomed, I had no choice but to embrace coupons.

And that notion always seemed like a giant, inconvenient, badly dressed bummer.

Until Groupon came along.

Did you know that these daily deals – offered on everything from fast food to facelifts – can fill you with enormous satisfaction and pride in your own fiscal cunning? You are, after all, getting liposuction for 60% off.

Of course, the fact that I don’t really need liposuction – or that giving it as a gift can set a friendship back ten years – is really beside the point. And since these coupon clubs like Groupon, Living Social and Travelzoo have apps that you can check from your phone – first thing in the morning, on the toilet – there’s really no limit to the amount of money you can save.

Which appears to be the problem.

As someone who has now amassed an impressive collection of pilates classes, psychic readings, bouncy house rentals and beekeeping suits, I’m saving so much money that I’m going broke.

Me:  “Look, a customized bobblehead for just $69 – regular $149!”

Anyone With Sense:  “I’m taking away your phone.”

Of course, it’s not like I have a problem. I mean, sure, I have taken to keeping a log of my purchases and their expiration dates so that things don’t slip through the cracks.

And I’ve begun to forgo group outings, because all my dinner coupons are for two.

And I do occasionally drive all over town to three different branches of a store because they’ll only accept one coupon per visit.

And there’s that pesky issue of refusing to go to any establishment for which I do not currently possess a voucher.

But I am just someone who appreciates the value of a dollar. Someone with a keen eye for financial conservatism.  Someone who understands that a defibrillator at 72% off is the kind of bargain that just doesn’t come along every day.

Now if I can just find someone who’s having a heart attack.

Oh, wait, my partner’s opening the VISA bill. That should do the trick.

Lately, it has come to my attention that I have, over the course of my fairly long and completely stupid life, constantly envisioned myself to be grander, wiser, more successful, and less of a boob than I actually am.

And I’m starting to think I should be concerned about it.

Those of you who’ve read my first book know that the image problems started around age eight – the year when I first began pretending to be Endora from Bewitched.  Now, given my youth at the time, my stunning dearth of friends, a virtual cavalcade of bullies, and my mother (enough said), this particular detour through Crazytown could probably be written off as only slightly disturbing.

But it continued. As a teen and young adult, I was constantly imagining myself as various celebrities – from music superstars to fashion icons to authors. And while knowing where all the swells in applause were on the Liza Minnelli Live at Carnegie Hall album – so I could grandly sweep from the hallway (backstage) into the living room (onstage) to take my bows – might be considered a tad disquieting in a sixteen-year-old, they were downright alarming when I was old enough to knock back a whisky sour.

And now, as a middle-aged man, they have, apparently, worsened. What was once (according to a therapist) an unconscious device to help me cope with alienation and discover my place in the world has now ballooned into what appears to be Dial 911-level psychosis. To the consternation of those around me, I now imagine myself to be Oprah – albeit a tall, gawky, deeply un-tan facsimile.

Of course, I’m not completely insane. Although my best friend Kirk does call himself Gayle, I am relatively certain that I am neither female, nor black, nor beloved. Yet I do believe that I have a life path similar to Oprah’s. Maybe I’m not supposed to spring free houses on deserving people, or pay for the secondary educations of 68,000 kids, or haul my fat out in a Radio Flyer on TV. But I do sorta think I’m supposed to encourage mankind to be their best selves, by simply sharing the ludicrous things I do and the lessons I glean when it all comes crashing down around me.

So, is this crazy? Should I be concerned?

For now, I think I’m just gonna keep on doing it and hope for the best. I figure that as long as I don’t start signing letters with a Big “O” or yelling at the president of Hermes when they won’t let me in after closing, I’m golden.

As a general rule, I do not endorse the act of falling off things as a method of personal growth. But I have to admit – sometimes, it does kinda work.

You see, I’ve always taken my body a bit for granted. I’m a busy guy, forever running to and fro as if in some alternate universe I’m actually important. And it is my nature to just assume that my body is along for the ride, a total team player when it comes to being tortured in ways that defy the Geneva convention. Like Super Dave Osborne or the I-have-no-other-talent stars of a Jackass movie , I think I’m invincible.

To my dismay, however, I just discovered that, apparently, I am not.

The weekend before last, I was in Palm Springs celebrating the birthday of a friend. When my best friend Kirk and I returned to the condo complex where my partner and I have a unit (which we rent out, since it’s worth roughly 7% of what we paid for it), I realized that I had forgotten the gate opener and could not get in.

This was not, unfortunately, the first time this had happened. My friend Kirk sighed with the exasperation of a vegan at Jimmy Dean’s house and said something to the effect of, “You are dumb as a stump.”  We waited a couple of minutes for someone to drive through so I could jump out and whisk through the gate; but no one came. And in my embarrassment at having forgotten the opener yet again, I said, “Ahh, I’ll just jump over the gate.”

After all, I’d done it before.

I used to have an actor acquaintaince who fell off his roof and was paralyzed – and in the sloooow process of recovery, became a much better person. And since that incident I’ve always said, “God, please don’t make me fall off a house to ‘get it’.”

But apparently, that is more or less what I needed to do.

As I climbed onto the massive gate opener arm and hoisted myself to the top of the 8-foot gate, I reminded myself not to let my legs swing too wildly, since I still had a big, fat bruise from the last time I’d tried this. Then, I threw my legs over the top of the fence. And that’s when everything began to go horribly wrong.

It was raining this night, and the iron was slippery, and when I swung my legs over the top, I lost my grip. My foot got caught in the bars of the gate.  And suddenly, I felt myself falling backwards, eight feet, and slamming onto the asphalt. On my back.

The wind was knocked out of me so badly that, for about 30 seconds, I couldn’t inhale. Kirk stood on the other side of the fence, unsure what to do. Scream? Call 911? Check with my lawyer to see what his share was?

I laid there on the pavement, gasping, as the gate slowly swung open and a car sailed through, turning sharply to avoid the body on the pavement (which was clearly an inconvenience for the driver, who couldn’t be bothered to wave).

Kirk ran through the open gate.

“Are you okay?”

I laid there, wiggling my hands and feet, pleased to note that I had not performed a full Christopher Reeve.

“I can’t breathe.”

Several hours later, following a full-body MRI and x-rays at the emergency room of Desert Regional Medical Center, I was given some terribly unearned good news: I had not broken anything or hemorrhaged. I did not have a brain injury (Kirk would argue this). What I did have was a lot of blunt force trauma on the tendons and muscles of my side and back that would require 3-4 weeks and a few fistfuls of Vicodin to heal.

And this healing time has, curiously, been a good thing. Because I now find myself being more aware of my surroundings and more careful within them. I’ve realized that I am not indestructible. And I find myself totally, incredibly grateful for this body I have. It may be long and gawky and not exactly a 10 on the Calvin Klein Underwear Model scale, but it works.  And I’m happy to be inside it, like an astronaut with a sparkly new spacesuit.

Of the many blessings I’m counting this holiday season, one of them is that – although I did have to fall off a roof, so to speak – I didn’t have to suffer the worst outcome to “get it”.

But just in case – remind me not to climb any ladders.

I love kids. I love my nephew, my partner’s niece, our friends’ kids, unsuspecting four-year-olds that I try to lure into my van with candy, all of them. They bring me joy, they light up my heart, they give me hope for a better world, because as pre-crack Whitney Houston once said, the children are our future.

Yes, I love kids. I’ve always loved kids.

But after what just happened, I think I may no longer love kids.

Last week, my partner and I (and 15 other friends) went on a cruise to Mexico. We’ve been on a number of cruises, mostly international ones that left out of places like London, Barcelona, etc., where the children on board numbered maybe 50.

This was a cruise to Mexico. Over Thanksgiving week. Leaving out of LA, where most of the schools gave kids the whole week off. And among the 3,500 passengers were at least 1,000 kids – of all ages, from roughly 15 minutes post-epidural to teens.

And all, seemingly, unsupervised.

Apparently, there’s an underground network of parents who know that if you take your kids on a cruise, you can be off getting hammered somewhere while they’re busy depositing bowls of cereal in the elevators, tearing through the adults-only pool area screaming like burn victims, and throwing up in the swimming pools.

After all, you can’t really lose them. Little kids are too short to fall overboard, and the older ones are too busy popping their zits in the hot tubs and hitting on each other in the buffet lines to try. And what better place to unload your offspring than into the arms of 998 other kids who would love nothing more than to try to either, a): beat them senseless with a floating noodle in the water park  or, b:) make out with them.

It appears that what I really should say is, “I love well-behaved kids.” “I love properly dressed kids.” I love sanitary, non-pukey kids.” “I love chaperoned kids.”

So, really, it seems quite clear to me that I do, in fact, love kids.

Provided we’re sailing on the Queen Mary.

In 1937.

My mother has been going through a rather dramatic extended illness this year, and at one point, I announced to my partner, “If I ever get this bad, just hit me over the head with a brick and call it a day.”

Of course, I was kidding. A brick is unwieldy, and most people don’t have them just lying around. Sleeping pills are the way to go – you can make pithy last-word proclamations, and then drift off attractively as your family members gather around you in a circle of love and light and start slipping off your jewelry.

Actually, I’ve always believed that even the most difficult of circumstances has lessons in it for everyone involved, annoying and inconvenient as they usually are. But when you watch someone you love lose almost everything that mattered to them, that idea gets tested more than a Jersey Shore castmate for brain damage.

My mother, who has always been an incredibly dynamic woman, now spends her days in one room of their house. She hasn’t seen the lower level of their home since Jesus rose from the dead last spring.

Although she has always preferred books and magazines to television, she now watches endless hours of the Food Network because, thanks to a wide variety of medications, she can barely read a watch without falling asleep.

She used to love sitting amidst the three acres of lawn and trees in their backyard, but the only trees she has seen since April are the ones whizzing by the car as Dad drives her to the doctor.

All her life she has worshipped a, shall we say, “orderly” house. (Growing up, our home was so disturbingly clean the CDC could have used it to store vaccines, and I used to have to rake myself into my bedroom at night so that our carpeting was a pristine, undisturbed meadow of shag.) Now, although a maid comes occasionally, Mother barely has enough energy to write her own name, much less a To Do list.

She loved to go to the Missouri wineries, some of which are quite beautiful (and which would provoke a Norm-from-Cheers response upon her arrival). Now wine interferes with her medications, and even one glass would likely turn her into a cast member of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Her hair is no longer perfectly coiffed. She wears no makeup. She sports no diamond rings or fashionable pantsuits. And this woman, who has always had a steel trap mind, will ask me three times, in the space of seven minutes, if she’s had her pills.

“You should have been here the other day,” she’ll say and begin to recount a story. One that occurred 20 minutes ago. While I was sitting there.

Yet, curiously, this formerly glamorous go-getter doesn’t seem to mind that everything that was once important to her has, at least for now, fallen away.

I, of course, initially ascribed this to the drugs. “She must be high as a hot air balloon, or she’d be really pissed.”

But as I’ve watched her very slowly improve, and she’s no longer stoned on drugs, I’ve realized that some of those things just aren’t so important to her any more. It seems that now, her happiness comes from her determination to enjoy each day, no matter how small the events, or how large the annoyances. (And when you go to the bathroom twenty times a day, the annoyances add up.) She’s enjoying the slow process of recovery, not the idea that, once she’s recovered, she’ll be happy.

Every Friday, Oprah’s Lifeclass show is about what Oprah calls “Joy Rising” – those moments of pure joy when something wonderful happens. And although I think we’d all agree that Oprah giving you a house could be considered “joy rising”, my mother seems to have discovered her own version. The diamond rings and trips to far-flung locales and a perfectly ordered house are no longer her joy. Her children coming to vist, my dad quietly holding her hand, or a really good episode of Paula Deen – that is some joy rising.

You know those sweet, toothless, double-wide dwelling hillbillies you see on newsmagazine reports who’ve gotten scammed out of their life savings?

As an extraordinarily compassionate human being, I used to cluck my tongue at these tragic situations and think, how sad that these idiots are foolish enough to hand their money over to some grifter. How ironic that they’re too clueless to see through the ludicrous promises of extravagant returns. How pathetic that they’re reckless enough to trust someone they barely know.

And as a benevolent and empathetic soul, my heart would break for these boobs.

And then I met Lloyd Belsmack (named changed to protect the guilty).

Lloyd is a commercial real estate developer who my sister – in her kind and trusting naiveté – got us involved with. Together with a couple other investors, we bought a piece of commercial property with the intent of building office condos.

Six years later, we’re nearing a trial date against Lloyd – and his posse of degenerate cohorts – for a scam that has cost us in the neighborhood of a half million dollars. And I’ve come to realize that: a) not everyone who gets swindled is a cousin-humping mouth-breather; b) they are, and I might as well buy a home with a steering wheel in the living room, knock out some molars and start humming the Deliverance theme, because I’m one of them; or c) even reasonably savvy folk can lose their shirt in a con.

Oprah’s Lifeclass topic the other night was on the power of forgiveness. Which was particularly ironic given that I’d written the latest $5,000 check to our attorney that day. Although I no longer spend countless hours envisioning Lloyd dying in a fiery – and highly entertaining – car crash, having to constantly deal with the court case, and having our (albeit wonderful) attorney attach an industrial vacuum to my savings causes the issue of forgiveness to continually to rear its ugly head.

Oprah says that forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could be any different. In other words, it’s the process of accepting that something happened exactly as it did.

But here’s the thing: when I first met Lloyd, my intuition – what I like to refer to as God whispering in my ear, although, since I’m deaf in one ear, I always hope he remembers to whisper into the right one – was screaming at me that there was something fishy about this guy. But, I didn’t listen.

So I guess I’ve had a little trouble accepting that things happened the way they did, because I’m mad that I didn’t listen to myself. If I could just get Doc to fire up the DeLorean and take me back to the future of 2005, I could save my sister and I a world of pain.

I’m really not angry at Lloyd anymore. I view him simply as the messenger of the lesson of forgiveness. (Don’t get me wrong, we still hope to have him living in a Kenmore box by the time we’re done, so that he doesn’t do this to anyone else.)

The thing that’s weird is that, apparently, it’s not really even Lloyd that I ever had to forgive…it’s myself. And that’s one bastard that REALLY doesn’t deserve it.

I’ve always wanted to be a better person.

Oh, don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I consider myself unkind, or selfish, or hateful. In fact, I pride myself on hardly ever wishing that selfish drivers or old ladies with coupons were dead.

I would just like to be REALLY good, since emanating pure and utter virtuousness would not only feel incredibly fulfilling, it would allow me to rub my moral superiority in other people’s faces.

Perhaps this is what led me to last night’s premiere of Oprah’s Lifeclass, which was – coincidentally, I’m sure – on the subject of ego.

This nightly one-hour show on the OWN network, featuring the return of America’s Spiritual Leader (and I say that with no irony – she really is, people, get with the program) is an intimate, docu-style show where Reverend Oprah offers one life lesson each episode.

“How does your ego get in your way?” was the question posed last night. Naturally, my immediate answer was, “Oh, it doesn’t, thanks for asking. My goal is to be nothing more than a deeply spiritual, highly evolved human being whose only purpose is to love and be loved…all while driving a nice car, becoming a famous author, and (courtesy of friends who buy the tickets) attending celebrity-filled benefits for good causes, the names of which I sometimes even know before I see it on the gift bags.”

As the hour progressed, and Oprah began to illustrate how insidious the ego is (by using her famous “fat wagon” episode as an example – where she lost a ton of weight and lived to regret it after she trucked it out on a Radio Flyer for the world to gag over), it began to dawn on me that perhaps my goal could use just the tiniest bit of tweaking. Perhaps my desire to be a spiritual master comes with caveats – albeit minor, insignificant-in-the-scheme-of-things caveats.

Sure, I suppose I have a small attachment to driving around in a Lexus. But come on, I spend at least 90 minutes a day in my car, and I drive the cheapest Lexus they make (essentially a Prius with a little lipstick slapped on it). If I were attached to the image a luxury car provided, I’d be driving the $80,000 convertible. Right? (Sure, I can’t even remotely afford it, but still.)

And maybe I find some sort of personal aggrandizement from having my first book in development as a TV series. But come on – we all know how difficult it is to get a series on the air, and then have it be a hit. In Los Angeles, having a TV series in development is like saying you’re “taking meetings about your screenplay”. Right?

And I guess some would say that the idea that giving to others involves drinking signature cocktails at charity events – instead of just donating money or doing any actual work – is not necessarily the most evolved form of philanthropy. But hey, I work 60 hours a week and write books on the weekends. How am I supposed to dish up food at the LA Mission – right?

Oh, and I suppose I have a minor, insignificant obsession with appearing to be a spiritual master in the first place. Apparently, real spiritual masters don’t announce this as their goal – as if anyone would know that’s what they were aiming for, otherwise. (I mean, come on, in LA, sandals and a Tibetan gong just means you’re headed to your Yoga class in the Palisades.) But isn’t wanting to appear spiritually evolved better than wanting to appear to be ball-busting, or slutty, or Republican?

Apparently, Oprah doesn’t think so. Apparently, Oprah thinks my ego is getting in my way. And I have just one thing to say about that:

See you in Lifeclass at 8:00.

I sure hope tonight’s lesson isn’t on giving up potato chips. I mean, even Gandhi had limits.

But I did some NPR interviews that you can listen to on the Media page, if you’re hard up for new material on your iPod.

www.ericpoole.net/media

The other day, my friend Tracy told me a story about her elderly dad, Ira, who, when Tracy was a toddler in the late 60’s, took up with a neighbor named Lolita (I’m not kidding) and divorced Tracy’s mother in order to marry this woman. Naturally, I was all ears at this point, since you know any story about husband stealing involving a woman named Lolita is gonna be juicy.

Shockingly, Tracy and her sisters did not especially appreciate their new stepmother. Whether it was the fact that Lolita had so effortlessly broken up their parents’ marriage (as Tracy said about Lolita’s m.o., “If you don’t have a home, wreck one”) or the fact that Lolita wanted nothing to do with her new husband’s daughters, who she sent to live with their natural mother, there wasn’t a lot of Cumbaya going on.

Lolita and Ira remained married, and they’re now elderly and infirmed. A few years ago, Lolita talked Ira into turning over complete control of his money to her, apparently realizing that if anything happened to Ira, and the girls got involved, she’d be wintering in a Kenmore box.

Last year, Tracy and her sisters decided that their dad and “that woman” (as Tracy lovingly refers to her) could no longer live on their own. Because Ira and Lolita live in another country and will not move to the U.S. where the girls live, Tracy found a lovely nursing home there, and Ira dutifully prepared for this change of life.

Lolita, however, was having none of it. She declared that the home they had selected was a “s***hole” and that if she was going into assisted living, it would be at the facility of  her choosing. She found another, much more expensive home and announced to Ira that THIS would be where they were going.

Ira is a non-confrontational man. Which might explain how he ended up with a woman like Lolita in the first place. But for the first time in his life, he stood up to her, and simply said, “Go wherever you want. I’m going to the home Tracy picked.”

And go, he did. Alone.

Lolita was incensed. They have never spoken since. And curiously, Ira has been blissfully happy in the retirement home.

Then, recently, their longtime maid (who adored Ira) came to visit him, hat in hand. “I owe you an apology,” she said. “I’ve been harboring a secret, and it’s killing me.” she then told Ira a story.

Once Lolita got control of the money, she secretly put it into an account in the maid’s name. It wasn’t a loving gesture intended to reward the maid for her many years of service; it was to insure that, if anything happened to Lolita, Ira would never get a penny of it back.

Shortly thereafter, Tracy came to visit Ira. He’s 91 now, nearly blind and barely able to walk, but not too old, apparently, to learn a life lesson.

“It took me 45 years,” he said softly to Tracy as he squeezed her hand wistfully, “to finally see the truth.” He looked up at her with rheumy eyes. “I’ve gotta start picking better women.”

I’ve been flying back and forth to St. Louis one weekend a month because my mother is sick. As if this weren’t  enough cause for glamour envy on your part, I fly as a non-priority passenger, made abundantly clear by the nonstop parade of First Class, Platinum, Executive Platinum, and Mile High club members who board before me.

I can accept that because in a normal year I only fly every couple of months and not always on the same carrier, I am the kind of passenger airlines equate to rice cakes and expired pop tarts: lacking in any real taste or value and something for which you’re grateful only when the s*** hits the fan.

What I can’t accept is being treated like actual, hang-a-bell-around-my-neck cattle.

As I waited at the gate in St. Louis for my flight home, everything was proceeding in typical, reasonably orderly fashion. Then suddenly, as the cleaning crew exited the jetway and we were about to begin boarding, the gate agent decided to make an announcement.

Now, this in itself would not generally be a cause for stress among an entire group of travelers. But this wasn’t just any gate agent. Either hard of hearing or oblivious to the fact that there were other human beings milling about in the terminal who were not on flight 27, he picked up the intercom mic and began to talk – at the exact same time as two other agents at nearby gates were also making boarding announcements.

The din was unbelievable, and unintelligible. Surely he’ll stop, I thought, once he pauses to suck in air and realizes that he is talking over two other people who are currently addressing their motley hordes. It was, after all, virtually impossible not to notice.

But our agent remained blissfully oblivious. As he plowed ahead, unfazed, the passengers all began to glance around wildly at one another, searching for the one flier upon whose forehead a transcription of the gate agent’s directives might appear, like some sort of human Times Square jumbotron.

When that didn’t work, the entire group of 200 lurched forward, EN MASSE, trying to get close enough to read his lips or discern patterns from the wind escaping his mouth. The lurch was sudden, fast and threatening, like a post-Super Bowl riot or a flash mob of terrorists wearing flip-flops and “I’m Not a Gynecologist, But I’ll Take a Look” t-shirts. Our gate agent, who had clearly seen this sort of thing before when he made these announcements (but hadn’t quite put two and two together) held up his hand as if to halt an unruly group of kindergarteners.  

“What on earth are you saying?!” one woman screamed.

“I don’t speak gobbledygook!” an older man hollered.

As if a member of a secret Synchronized Gate Announcement consortium, he ignored the cries and calmly concluded his directives. He replaced the intercom mic on its clip and began accepting passengers of a variety that we could, only from previous experience, assume were First Class and Those Whose S*** Doesn’t Stink (to this airline).

Such was not the case, however, for, after several minutes, he called – now loudly and clear as a bell, free from the interference of other gate announcements – Group THREE. “Where on earth were Groups ONE and TWO?” several dozen of us demanded. He ignored the angry complaints of Group One passengers, many of whom (including me) had paid $29 for the privilege of boarding at a time when there was still guaranteed to be overhead bin space, and simply smiled serenely.

Groups One and Two immediately bum-rushed the gate and there was a lot of hair pulling and crying, and several threats of the “You better hope you’re not sitting in front of me” variety. Our gate agent ignored the goings-on and focused his attention on scanning boarding passes, albeit with a lackluster attention to details, since one person who ended up on the plane was supposed to be going to San Francisco and had to be removed.

Onboard, passengers attempted to pound their carry-on’s into already full overhead bins and demanded that the flight attendants do something about “that moron at the gate”…who I can only imagine was now sitting in the frequent flyer executive lounge, sipping a martini, enjoying several stolen bags of peanuts and chuckling at the stupid cows who can’t figure out how to get on a plane.

I suppose I can’t blame him. Working for an airline these days is probably just about as grim as flying them. You gotta get your jollies where you can.

A good friend of mine is Chilean. This is, of course, tres exotique, and by all measures should score me impressive brownie points for my magnanimous tolerance of ridiculous foreign cultures.

Oh, don’t get me wrong – Chile is, by all accounts, a beautiful and welcoming country with much to offer in terms of art, history and folklore. And they have some tasty cheap wine. But it is also a country where someone who gets a facelift – and is rendered brain dead by a careless anesthesiologist – doesn’t even get free parking out of the deal.

Yes, this actually happened to a relative of my Chilean friend. The woman in question lived for 20 years as a vegetable until she died – with nary a dollar of support (or an apology) from the doctor or hospital in question.

Aside from the irony of looking fabulous as she drooled, this is a perfect illustration of the kind of thing that can happen in countries where the laws that protect consumers and patients are written on the back of an empanada.

Trust me, I’m no fan of lawsuits – I remember seeing a Phil Donahue episode in the 80’s where a couple sued for $5 million in emotional distress after discovering what they thought was a condom in a loaf of Wonder Bread. (It was the tip of a rubber glove, something every member of the TV audience  wanted to jam up their butts at that point.)

And I do believe that awards should be capped.  There was a comedian who said, “I wish somebody would have told me that I could work really hard in school for 16 or 18 years and then make $30,000 for the rest of my life…or spill hot coffee on my cooch.”

But until countries like Chile institute a litany of laws that protect people from stupid, careless or unscrupulous individuals like that anesthesiologist, I will continue to consider them ridiculous.

Fortunately, we live in the United States, the greatest nation on earth, where that kind of thing could never happen.

Well, of course, there was that banking crisis thingy.

And the BP oil spill.

Oh, and the tobacco industry advertising to kids.

True, there was Worldcom.

And Enron.

And Halliburton overcharging in Iraq.

Sure, there was Roche Pharmaceutical withholding an AIDS drug to countries that couldn’t pay enough.

And Goldman Sachs betting against the mortgage backed securities it was selling.

And Bernie Madoff.

But God bless America!

I hear Chile is lovely this time of year. I wonder if I could sell ceviche from a cart?

 My mother has been in the hospital. For five months now. What started out as a simple (!) open heart surgery has turned into Bedpanpalooza 2011, a festival for which I did not purchase a ticket.

And quite frankly, this does not bode well for our planet.

Those of you who’ve read my first memoir Where’s My Wand know that Mother – who I referred to as General Patton in pedal pushers, and a woman who Lemon Pledged the paneling weekly – is a dynamo of epic proportions. She’s like the Energizer Bunny with a crystal meth issue.  Her work ethic is more impressive than a hooker’s during fleet week. Her zest for life would make a host of Disney characters want to put a bullet in their heads. Bossy, opinionated and brilliant, she has never been the type to be sidelined by anything.

But she has been sidelined by this. Which means that the Earth has clearly tilted on its axis.

And that makes me wonder: what other horrifying, unforeseen events could occur?

Guess I’d better refresh my dodge ball skills before that asteroid headed for Earth hits me in the crotch. Guess I should learn to appreciate the title “President Kardashian”. Guess it’s time to start hoarding hotel shampoo bottles so I have something to sell when the dollar is devalued and martial law takes effect.

Sure, there are those naysayers who would contend that the earth hasn’t tilted on its axis, that nothing terrible is going to happen. They would claim that my mother is simply getting older. And that human bodies don’t last forever.

But that is patently ridiculous. Some people never slow down. Some people outlive us all. Some people are there for us, through thick and thin, in perfect health and mind, to bask in the glow of our accomplishments and comfort us in times of sorrow.  Some people are such good friends, parents and life teachers that they’re far too important and valuable, and needed to be sidelined.

Aren’t they?

I mean, I’m sure I can learn to live with a dumb slut in the White House. After all, with that asteroid headed this way, how long can it last?

I have a piece on CNN.com - for the magical thinker in all of us.

http://bit.ly/pa7Bbp

This piece is on the Huffington Post today.

If you’re in the market for a little ego boost, I highly recommend a Palm Springs happy hour.

Last weekend, my partner and I, along with my in-laws and our friends Nicole and Joe, went to a bar that features live jazz music in Palm Springs. This in itself should have been entertainment enough. The music was great, and the venue was very retro Rat Pack. But there was a little something extra.

Now, if you know anything about Palm Springs, it is populated primarily by two groups: gays and greys. A trendy retirement spot, Palm Springs is the Miami Beach of California, so chock full of 70-year-olds that the average driving speed is about 11 miles an hour. And since the area has tons of classic architecture with many 50’s modern homes, and a lot of Hollywood history since almost every movie star of the golden age owned a home here, gay folk have flocked to it like flies to a bug zapper.

This makes for a sedate yet fashionable atmosphere that – whether you like to dine at 4:30 or 10:00 p.m. – can be highly appealing. Especially, it seems, if you go to a jazz happy hour.

Our visit began innocently enough. We selected a table in the back, ordered a drink and began to enjoy the jazzy yet mellow sounds of the Mack Killian Trio. The waitress was a very friendly woman who was a dead ringer for Cate Blanchett. What a nice, dignified crowd, I thought, as the six of us clinked glasses and congratulated ourselves on our sophisticated musical taste.

But within minutes, the atmosphere began to change. The mellow sounds of the Mack Killian Trio started to morph into something far creepier: the wedding band sounds of the drunk and lascivious. The trio kicked into a high-energy Huey Lewis and the News number (what Huey Lewis has to do with jazz is still unclear)…and within moments, the postage stamp-sized dance floor was filled with more sexy cougars than a Real Housewives of Sun City episode.

A sixtysomething blond in all white who looked like Suzanne Somers in a cancer wig began dancing alone, performing a number that blended Romanian gypsy moves, interpretive dance and an invisible stripper pole. Nicole decided her name was “Snow”.

An 80-year-old Bob Barker lookalike stepped onto the floor with – I’m not kidding – the biggest wad of cash I’ve ever seen, strategically placed inside one pants pocket so that it was visible to virtually anyone who glanced up from their Chivas. Perhaps unsurprisingly, every time he stepped onto the dance floor, it was with a different, highly captivated woman.

A seventyish woman whose face had been pulled so tight that her eyes were now catlike slits lurched onto the dance floor – and then realized she had overshot her mark (the ladies room, which was about ten feet to the right and somewhat hard to miss, since it was framed by enough makeup mirror light bulbs to illuminate a Broadway stage). She was holding a sharp object of indeterminate origin, which I presumed she would use to release the pressure in her over-collagened clown lips.

But although all these patrons were highly entertaining – we had stumbled, it seemed, into a strip club for senior sluts – they were not the “little something extra” of which I speak. That came when it was time for a bathroom break.

As I excused myself and headed for the men’s room at the front of the bar, I realized that – thanks to the burgeoning crowd – there was now little more than an eighteen-inch wide passage through the crowd. What should have been a simple, fifty foot trek to pass through the long, narrow main room now became a gauntlet.

Hordes of sexed up septuagenarian females threw their chests out (and in a couple of cases, their backs), rubbed their thighs and coyly fingered the curls of their Eva Gabor Autumn Sonatas as they drooled over the fresh meat passing through their midst. About 20 years younger than the youngest of them, I was obviously the May to their December, and romance was in the air, or at least in their suppositories.

I was alternately amused, horrified, and titillated. Amused that they thought I was straight. Horrified that they thought they could get me. Titillated that this many women in one room actually wanted to try.

After fortifying myself with a few splashes of cold water, I closed my eyes and plunged back through the crowd as this pack of prowling cougars strained at the bars of their cages. I arrived back at our table just in time to see a sixtysomething woman – wearing supertight green jeans and sporting a shade of red hair rarely found outside a Twizzlers factory – join the fun on the dance floor.

Twizzlers appeared to have just inhaled a small mountain of meth. She began dancing frantically right in front of me, rotating her artificial hips furiously as – I am not exaggerating – she slapped her ass like she was riding Seabiscuit. She whirled around, giving me a better perspective on her equestrian abilities as she teetered perilously on her Candies.

For a finale, she did the splits, one slingback sliding into the leg of our table and knocking over our drinks.

“Annnnd, we’re out!” I said to those assembled as I stood up and marched to the front door to give the valet my keys.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t upset. I’ll definitely be back. The music was good. The martinis were tasty. And the crowd, although disturbingly horny, was definitely memorable.

I just need to bring a big wad of twenties. Then I can drive those women right over the edge.

This essay was just featured on The Advocate. You can read it here.

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/06/30/Little_Pink_Lies/

This is a piece I just did for the It Gets Better Project.

If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a website designed to reassure gay kids that – although they may feel ostracized now - their lives WILL get better.

Yeah, it gets better.

But what about when some armored tank with ears is escorting you, face first, into your locker or a ditch? Or some charm-challenged cheerleader who can barely spell D-E-F-E-N-S-E goes on the offense on Facebook? Is it really a crapload of comfort to have people tell you that, as ADULTS, their lives got better?

Oh, it’s absolutely true –once you get out of high school, or in some cases college, things just about always turn around. In fact, most bullies, once they grow up, end up realizing what jagholes they were (or they score a mug shot for selling meth from an ice cream truck, but at that point it’s pretty clear which of you is the winner, here).

But a few years from now is like a freaking lifetime, right?

Before it gets better, you’ve gotta live through this year. This month. This. Rotten. Day. And I’m guessing you’re more concerned about how you can handle your life RIGHT NOW.

I certainly was when I was your age. And unfortunately, I didn’t have any tips on how to handle it. You wanna know how I coped? Have you ever seen the old TV series (or the movie) Bewitched, about the woman who was a witch married to a mortal? Well, at home, alone in the basement of our house, I would pretend to be her mother, Endora.

Yeah, I pretended to be a 60-year-old female witch. Shut up. I didn’t say it made sense. But you can only pretend to be sick and stay home from school so many times; eventually, you run out of diseases. And this helped me deal with the pantsing, the threats, the humiliation that made my childhood so relentlessly miserable. Swathed in a bedspread (which was my approximation of the caftans Endora wore – hey, when you’re eight, you gotta improvise), I would close my eyes, envision a better life, and try to cast magical spells.

Believe it or not, that helped when I was a little kid. But when I was 14, or 16, I couldn’t exactly run home and wrap a bedspread around me. So I had to find new ways to deal.

Some worked; some didn’t. And I want to share the ones that did, so you can have an easier time of it than I had. Because your life can get better now.

#1)  Accept the haters.

You could be Oprah Winfrey, saving the world and tossing free Pontiacs from your private jet, and still some people will hate you. That’s life.

But accepting that is harder than you might think. Being unliked can make you feel like a big, fat failure. But the moment you understand that some people are just insecure, that some thrive on debasing others in order to elevate themselves, that you can’t win the hearts of people whose hearts are closed, you will have less judgment on yourself.  And you should, because it’s NOT ABOUT YOU. They have their own drama going on.

This was a tough one for me, because I’m a people pleaser. But the moment I accepted that I was never gonna win over about 30% of the people in my world, I immediately became 30% happier. Screw the people who don’t see how awesome you are.

#2)  Have a big mouth.

If you’re being harassed, be it physically or verbally or via Facebook/text/etc., tell someone. Tell your parents. Tell your principal or counselor or your favorite teacher. Tell anyone in a position of power. Don’t be ashamed.

And if the first person you tell doesn’t do anything, tell someone else.

When I was a kid, nobody sued the school. Nobody got the principal fired. We had no choice but to take it, and then apologize to the bully for making him hit us.

But now, you have resources. You can file a complaint. You can get the police involved. You can threaten legal action. This may not make you any more popular, but it probably won’t make you any less, because at the very least, people will be afraid to tangle with you.

#3)  Carry a Big Stick.

Turning the other cheek is an inspirational notion. If you’re Jesus. As spiritually evolved as it may be to silently bless someone’s fist as it heads for your face, it’s not exactly the most effective deterrent.

Bullies are only brave because you’re not. The minute you stand up to them, 99% of them back down. And the 1% that don’t should be reported – see #2 – before they end up selling meth from an ice cream truck.

Self-defense courses like Karate, Aikido, etc., are a powerful deterrent to violence, because as soon as a bully sees that you can protect your ass, he’s highly unlikely to tangle with you. Bullies prey on the weak, the defenseless, the fabulous – not the kid who can be standing with his or her foot on their face in 2.5 seconds.

Of course, bodily contact isn’t for everyone. My idea of hand-to-hand combat as a kid involved two G.I. Joes and some highly inappropriate battle moves. If you’re not comfortable taking self-defense training (or you don’t have a school near you), there’s another option.

There was a guy in my middle school who routinely tried to pick fights with me, and I didn’t know what to do. Doing his homework had worked – but only for a while – and I was running out of options. So I tried something my sister’s boyfriend, who was a cop, had told us to do if we were ever abducted.

The next time he tried to get me to fight him, during gym class, I went apes***. Right there, on the soccer field, I started screaming. And carrying on. Acting like I’d lost my freaking mind.

This can be surprisingly effective. It not only makes them think that you’re insane and therefore potentially dangerous, but it draws a lot of attention to them. Bullies don’t like public attention when they’re not in control of it.

I had to do this a couple more times to assure him that I was indeed mad, bad and dangerous to know, but it worked. He never tangled with me again. And there was something liberating about expressing all that pent-up rage.

#4)  Carry a big computer.

Cyberbullying is not only super passive-aggressive, it’s super stupid. People leave a digital footprint everywhere they go on the internet, and every snotty/threatening thing some bully posts or sends you can be copied and filed away forever.

If somebody is emailing or texting you mean notes, or posting reputation-smearing comments on Facebook, or setting up a website designed to demean you, YOU HAVE PROOF. Don’t give them the satisfaction of responding to it – that only fans the flames and can be used against you. Just save everything – the texts, emails, screenshots of web pages, etc. Print them out. Then block their phone number and email address, and report the offender to the school – and, if necessary, the police.

The punishment can be severe – expulsion from school, jail time, lawsuits against the family of the bully, etc. You have the power to do far more damage to them than they could ever do to you.

#5)  Find Your Posse.

Feeling comfortable in your skin is all about finding the people who recognize how amazing you are. And they’re out there.

I was a total band nerd. And while playing the trumpet didn’t do that much for my popularity in school as a whole, it gave me a place to be myself. It was a safe space, where I could let my inner superstar run free and bond with other kids who shared my passion. You’d be surprised how much acceptance you can get from guys who play the clarinet and girls who play the tuba.

There are arts and academics and sports organizations within your school. And, often, gay/straight alliances that bring together allies from both worlds. Find the one that makes your heart sing. And you’ll find your posse. It may not make you prom queen, but it will make you happy.

Finally, if you try all these tips and still feel alone, or hopeless, know that there is always someone to turn to. The Trevor Project’s hotline is open 24 hours a day. 1-866-4-U-TREVOR.  Call it. Or go online to find out how they can help.

www.thetrevorproject.org

I hope these tips make your life a little easier – today. Because even though it will get better as you get older, why wait? Make it get better now.

I’ve been writing articles for CNN, The Advocate and the Huffington Post. I’ll link to them here once they’re up on those respective sites!

I have an Atheist friend.

I know, I’m amazing. There should be a bust of me at the Museum of Tolerance.

As a spiritual seeker, I personally believe in God. And I’ve always had an easier time with Agnostics, who are really just hedging their bets as if the hereafter was a roulette wheel. But as an enormously forbearing and open-minded person (see above), I respect everyone’s beliefs. Even the stupid ones. And I’ve really come to appreciate the Atheistic moral code – which, although it sounds like an oxymoron, is surprisingly not.

My friend Max and I argue frequently, not only about the existence of God, but about the practical realities of the Bible, like whether Jesus would have worn open-toed shoes in the middle of the desert. (I mean, come on, it’s filthy out there.)

But I cannot argue with his desire to invalidate the existence of a higher power in a world where there is SO much suffering and inequity. After all, God hasn’t exactly appeared on top of the Hollywood Bowl, hollering, “Hey, y’all, I know war and starvation and tsunamis are a bummer, but this is just Act One of your infinite existence!” (If he does choose to make an appearance, I hope he follows it up with a big tap dance number and maybe some fireworks.)

I can understand Max’s hesitance to believe. And this is exactly what I admire about him.

You see, given his conviction that when we die, we’re done, he conducts his life in a way that would have Christ/Krishna/Buddah/Allah pretty much high-fiving and chest-bumping him all over the place.

Most people in this world conduct themselves with some measure of decency because:  a) They’re scared to death of having to paddle around the everlasting lake of fire in a rowboat with a flotation problem; or B) They’re awaiting a reward of virgins or VIP seating in the bleachers by God’s right hand.

But someone who doesn’t believe in Hell – or Heaven – has little reason to behave in anything but the most heinous of ways. Why not steal milk from a starving baby? Why not screw old people out of their life savings? Why not subjugate the masses so you can buy slingbacks?

My friend Max lives a life based on kindness and respect for others. He behaves ethically simply because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. He has morals because not having them would feel weird.

And I admire the hell out of him, pardon the pun, for this.

I highly encourage you to get to know an Atheist, if you can get to know one like Max. 

But until you’re sure, I probably wouldn’t mention the fact that, technically, they could rob you at gunpoint and not feel bad about it.