RIP Nuala

2008 is shaping up to be the year of losing amazing people. First my friend Jon and now Nuala O'Faolain. I stumbled across Nuala's work by accident and fell in love with her frank, enchanting prose. She was known as a feminist and rabble rouser in Ireland - a country where one just doesn't talk about certain things. (My ancestors must be rolling over in their graves at this blog.)

Her book "Are You Somebody?" was sparked when a stranger ran into her on a Dublin street and thought she might have been a celebrity. He asked her the titular question and it set her off on an exploration of that for herself. Who are we anyway? Her novel "My Dream of You" is a rich and lyrical journey towards self-acceptance.

Check out all her works. And if you're feeling you need to do something nice today, donate to a cancer research fund. Nuala did not have a happy life but she gave her heart in her writing. Nuala, here's hoping the rains fall softly on your fields in the next world. Thank you for everything.

Prime Time

I was walking with some neighbors when the subject of another neighbor’s girlfriend came up. It was agreed that she was a pain in the ass and none of us really understood why. She was pretty and smart yet somehow her runaway insecurity drove her to posture, snub and be an all-around bitch. I didn’t get it.

Turns out one of the neighbors I was walking with had dated said bitch many years before.

“Like twenty years ago. You know, when she was smokin’ hot.”

I made a sound of protest. Was she somehow less than smokin’ now? The girl looked like a model to me, save her ugly personality. He must have interpreted my squawk as a note of jealousy because he then continued:

“Like you were, I’m sure. You used to be smokin’ hot too, right?”

Thankfully, we arrived at their house at that moment and said our goodbyes. Otherwise I might have strangled him.

I work hard to keep fit and improve myself. To me the bone structure of my face has become more elegant that when I was say thirteen and still padded with baby fat despite being lanky as a reed. I consider myself to be continually improving. “Used to be” isn’t part of my equation.

As I waved goodbye, I was torn between outraged and embarrassed. Here I am thinking I am in my prime. Am I actually past it? Have I become like the cougar bar owner in our neighborhood who is pushing fifty but still shops at Forever 21? I’m an advocate of graceful ageing. I just didn’t think I had to do it yet.

When I was thirteen, I was scouted by Elite modeling agency. Since then I’ve taken for granted that I got lucky in the genetics lottery when it comes to looks. I walk into venues and events with confidence. Sure, there are little starlet types here that are younger than me (and usually generically blonde), but they’ve got nothing on me. And besides, I’m far more interesting than they could possibly be at their tender ages. I have lived some. I have wisdom, wit, finesse…seasoning.

At thirteen I was more interested in school than pursuing a modeling career but I always assumed it would be something I could come back to. Besides, dad wasn’t up for driving me to modeling jobs so the rule was when I turned sixteen and could drive myself, I could go sign up with Elite. By the time I got my license, I was on a college track and thought I’d pick it back up later. No one told me most models’ careers peak between thirteen and eighteen.

Then life happened and I only got around to knocking on Modeling’s door again in my early thirties. I had just moved to LA from my mountain town and was still passing for mid-twenties. I had a friend take some shots of me and made the rounds of the LA agencies. In every case I was told I was too old. And too fat. At six feet and a size eight, the fat comment underscored just how warped the modeling world is. But too old?! One agency suggested I try their classics department. They were sure I’d be a great fit there. In case this is a new term for you “Classics” means old people. Like the attractive seniors advertising your Depends. Seriously? I feel a bit young to be hawking arthritis cream.

Needless to say, my lookist LA wake-up call was loud and clear. My chances at being the next Cindy Crawford were gone with the wind. But still, I didn’t think that instantly made me old hag material.

Cut to present day. I no longer pass for mid-twenties, thanks to the stress of clawing out a Hollywood existence…except to my teen students who aren’t sure how old I am but recently asked if I was in fact over twenty-five. Bless them!

And now my well-intentioned (but still possibly deserving of strangulation) neighbor informs me my days of regular person attractiveness are also behind me. Who died and made this fifty-something guy the beauty authority? As much as I would like to reject his judgment out of hand, it slowly dawns on me his perception is probably more in line with the rest of the world’s than mine is. How sad that the beauty that matures with women is so easily overlooked.

I guess now I can look forward to becoming invisible; a strange phenomenon my over-forty friends tell me about. Neat. Maybe when I’m sixty I’ll try again for those modeling agencies classics divisions. I’ll be the great invisible grand dame. At least no one will notice if I take all the cookies from craft services.

*UPDATE*

I was just showing high school photos to a thirty-something male friend.

“Wow, you were beautiful,” he declared, a little too surprised. Then he looked at me as though searching for traces of that leggy girl in the 80s pegged jeans.

There’s that “were” again. So there you are: to men the pinnacle of female beauty is sixteen years old. I guess it’s silly that I should be so surprised by this when our culture so wholeheartedly enforces unrealistic and youthful beauty standards. But I am surprised because I feel my girlfriends and I have only gotten better with age. My mom is more beautiful now in her sixties than she was in her forties. I thought everyone else could see it too.

The upside is that now our beauty becomes something for us to own. I don’t need to put on lipstick for anyone else. I can get dressed up for me and damn anyone else’s opinion. I’m kind of liking that freedom and centered selfness. Is this what they mean by ageing gracefully?

Hollywood Casual

In a strange turn of events last night I attended two very different parties. Both invited stated the dress was 'Hollywood Casual' and I was curious to see how this would be interpreted.

The first party, an AIDS research benefit, was full of art and salad. First kismet of the night: neighbors of mine showed up in a new Rolls Royce. People were self-consciously attractive in that LA "are you noticing me?" way. It was entertaining in the same way many things I go to here are. Pleasant and sparkly in a plastic way.

Then I ended up at the annual stunt awards after party. Second kismet of the night: the party was on the studio lot where I used to work and showing my friend around my old stomping ground, I found my old golf cart. It's been repurposed to a new department but still bears the Union Jack I put on its green plastic flank.

The thing about the stunt party was the meat. There were no salads here, but lots of carving stations and meat dishes available. There was a mechanical bull to ride and other games of strength. No art. But copious amounts of meat to eat.

And meat to look at. I say this from the bottom of my cougar heart. The stunt men and women of LA. And this is the thing that struck me most about the entire evening. I have been to many parties with "the beautiful people" here. The starlet parties. The model-laden events. But never have I been at a party with more good looking people. And unconsciously so. These people were just here to have a good time and they were all fit and adventurous. And hot. I danced my ass off as did everyone else. Not because it looked good but because it was fun. There was actually a dance circle at one point with people taking turns showing off their moves and challenging each other to more flips and fancy kicks. I heard Zoolander in my head say "they're dance fighting." When was the last time you were at a party like that?

So that's my special Hollywood insider tip of the day: for the really beautiful LA people go to the Stunt Awards.

The Game Of Life

Remember Life? That game with the little cars and the people pegs? “Be a winner at the game of Life,” the theme song trilled. “Get married, have a baby,” as though it were just that easy. “Get a job, have money – maybe,” at least they got that part right.

My sister and I would play Life all the time and were always thrilled to see which of us would land on more spaces granting us baby pegs. Now in real life, I’ve never been much of a baby girl. I’m not one of those girls who coos over babies in public, wants to hold your baby or thinks babies are all cute and cuddly. In general, they seem messy and smelly to me.

I used to be proud of the fact I never babysat. Now, in my thirties, it’s kind of embarrassing to admit I’ve never changed a diaper. I feel like less of a woman somehow. I can bake and cook and clean and sew and even fix stuff but I don’t know how to change a diaper. I mean I get the concept but I haven’t done it.

Needless to say, I always get a little nervous when a friend gets pregnant. I feel like it will separate her from me in some intangible way. She’ll be inducted into a mystical sorority of women who’ve earned their baby pegs. The glitter of my single girl life starts to wear a little thin.

It’s on my mind these days as my best friend is pregnant. She and her husband are going to add a blue or pink peg to their family car in the autumn. She and I were on the same track for a while: amazingly wonderful single girls, trying not to be bitter about LA men. We both met guys at the same time. Mine turned out to be not that great – for the long haul anyway. Hers was a great blue peg. They got engaged at Christmas and married last summer. I panicked that she’d leave me to my singletonness but it turns out married girls still need their girlfriends too.

My friend has always wanted to be a mother and in truth I can’t think of anyone who would be a better one. When she told me she was pregnant, of course I was happy for her but I couldn’t help feeling a flutter of panic.

The last time a friend had gotten pregnant it did not go well for our friendship. Years ago in my mountain town Amy and I had always hung out on weekends and several nights a week. Suddenly she stopped calling me. Her husband, with whom I worked, wouldn’t look me in the eye. I wondered what horrible infraction I’d committed to ruin the friendship.

Finally, three months later, she pulled me aside one day and told me the whole story: she was pregnant and since her family had a history of first trimester miscarriages, they elected not to tell anyone until they knew they’d crossed that three month threshold. When she told me, I was delighted for her and relieved for us: I had my friend back. I’d understood her actions but was still a little hurt she hadn’t told me so that I could at least support her no matter what.

For the next six months, it was more or less back to normal. Amy and I hung out, I helped she and her husband move into a new apartment, I took pregnancy portraits for her. As the delivery date got nearer she asked me if I’d be her phone tree captain. I was honored. When Amy went into labor, I’d be the one they’d call. I’d bring a bag of necessities to the hospital and call all our friends with the news. I couldn’t wait.

Suddenly Amy and her husband dropped off the earth. Again. I heard nothing for several weeks. My calls went unreturned. Another friend, Joanne, called me to tell me the birth had happened. They’d inexplicably called her and not me. I called and left more messages asking if they needed help, cleaning, perhaps a casserole. Radio silence.

I guess that wouldn’t be that odd. I know things can be topsy-turvy after a birth. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. But after two months and ten unreturned messages went by, I felt I officially had to write off the friendship. After a third month went by, Joanne informed me that Amy and her husband had actually left town. They had moved back to Florida without so much as a goodbye, thanks for being a friend.

I was hurt and also kind of disgusted by their behavior. Pregnancy, it seemed to me, can make a close friend completely nuts.

So now, when my friend told me she was pregnant I had a brief flicker of “I hope she doesn’t move back to the South without telling me.” Then it dawned on me. This friend told me six weeks into her pregnancy. First trimester rule be damned. This friend and I still catch up on life, good and bad, all the time. Just like after her wedding, turns out pregnant girls still need their girlfriends too.

So I decided it’s time. I will learn how to change a diaper. I will be so thrilled to see the new pink or blue peg in my friend’s Life car. Meanwhile I will enjoy my single-girl sports car with just my own single pink peg in it. The next spin could just bring me over one of those green, plastic mountains.

I'm a Big Fat Nerd...

Because I just realized that "Dradis" would fit on a license plate.
And you are an even bigger nerd if you understand that.

The Drugs Don't Work

“Who would want to take this on?” Jon shrugged as if it were a foregone conclusion that the idea of a girl wanting to date him was absurd.

“You are being completely selfish.”

Our friends from the bar gasped at me. How dare I talk to the guy with cancer that way?

“No, you are. Just ‘cause you think you know your expiration date. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.”

Jon had been given a six-month diagnosis. Five years before.

The Verve’s “The Drugs Don’t Work” was on the stereo. A song about watching a beloved friend die. I gracelessly forwarded to the next song.

“I mean I’d rather be with a great guy like you for six weeks than with some schmuck for sixty years.” I’d meant it as a hypothetical in the moment. And it was true. All of it. He was being selfish not sharing himself with someone. He was one of the most extraordinary men I knew. And I did want to be with someone great. Like him. But him?

I met Jon a year earlier when my dot com went bust and I started waiting tables with all the other over-educated who got hit in the post 9-11 upheaval. I thought working at the local Irish pub would give me – newly single – a safe place to hang out and meet people. Jon was a regular. He wasn’t hot, or tall, or even age-appropriate. He was just always there with his caustic wit at the end of the bar. I thought it was odd that someone so young could spend all his days at a bar but I didn’t wonder why.

Jon organized the music for the pub and he and his brothers had a band that would play on our small stage from time to time. My favorite though was Sunday afternoons. Jon would bring a song book and his acoustic and we’d all loll around on the back patio of the bar picking songs for him to play and us to sing.

At some point, I realized he was brilliant. One of the most intelligent people I’d ever met. It must have been around then that he made a song mine. “There She Goes” by the La's. I’d ask him to sing it and he always did, his bright tenor unfailingly hitting the chorus high notes.

It must have been not long after that that I’d found out. Wendy, the bartender, was on a break with me in the back alley.

“I’m so relieved to hear his new treatment’s going well. Think they’re onto something.”

“Whose treatment?”

“Jon’s cancer.” She must have seen the stricken look on my face. “You didn’t know? Everyone knows. It’s not like it’s a secret.” His long days at the bar made sense.

She finished her cigarette and went back in. I bent double and hugged my knees. How could this amazing man have cancer? How could this friend of mine be dying? Why did this news hurt so much? I realized then that I loved him. I just didn’t know how. I mean, he was fifteen years my senior. Shorter than me. A bit pudgy. Nothing I said I was looking for in a mate. So maybe it wasn’t romantic love. But it wasn’t like an older brother either. I stared at the pavement and ached.

Over the next year we were part of the same circle. I wanted to be close to him but I thought he’d laugh at me – just a silly girl. When I had an art gallery opening, he charged in, swept over my pieces with one glance, pointed at one and handed me his credit card. “You can bring it and the card to me later at the pub.” And he was gone again. At the time, I think that was as much love as he could allow himself.

I made my decision to move to LA and a few nights before my departure, Jon and a few friends from the bar were sitting around my packed-up living room. And there he sat, denying wanting any more love in his life than he already had. It was clear that the opposite was true but he would never admit it. I packed my u-Haul and left.

In LA I wrote my first screenplay about him. It was trite and melodramatic. About an artist who finally opens himself to love although he’s dying. Home on my first visit, I found Jon in the bar and told him about it. I felt silly offering him this tribute. He seemed unsure of how to take it. I promised to let him read it but I never sent it. I couldn’t bear to disappoint him with my first thin effort. I didn’t know what to say about the fact that in my script, his character died.

The years went by and Jon had ups and downs but more or less kept up his fight. He started an annual benefit concert at the bar for cancer research. I couldn’t afford a plane ticket but I promised to come next year.

He and his brothers recorded and album called “The Big C” about his experience living with cancer. Not satisfied with that, he created an in-home editing suite and made a documentary about people dealing with cancer called “The Cancer Journey.” Proceeds from both went to cancer research.

I stopped going home so much as more of my family moved away. My email contact with Jon was spotty at best. I always wanted to matter to him more than I did. I was always scared somewhere he’d say “Why does this girl keep writing me? Why does she think we’re such good friends?” I didn’t want to bother him.

Last month I went home to help my mom pack her house up for sale. I got a few hours’ break from the boxes to go see Jon. He wasn’t well enough to meet me at the bar. Something about a treatment he’d had that morning. So I went to his house.

He was on permanent oxygen assist now. But the sores he’d had on my last visit had healed and his eyes were bright and his hair thick and brown. I told him he looked good. He did.

“Hair. It’s like some sick consolation prize with cancer,” he quipped. He told me that it was in his lungs and his brain now.

He went to his room for pills and I looked around. Pictures of him when he was young, holding a baby nephew, smiling with his brothers – never with a woman, nothing romantic. It dawned on me I never knew if he’d had a great love. A marriage. Kids. Had be been left? Anything. I knew so little. He shuffled back into the room.

“Snooping around on me, eh?”

I wanted to know everything.

“Jon, is there anyone, you know, here with you?”

He talked about his brother across town and otherwise evaded the question. It ate at me that no one was there with him full-time taking care of him. We kept chatting about our lives.

After half an hour he sighed.

“Time for me to go?”

He nodded wearily. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll be back in September for my cousin’s wedding. I’ll see you then… if not before.”

He nodded and opened his arms to hug me.

I squeezed him as hard as I dared. “I love you, Jon.” I still didn’t know what it meant but I’d said it.

“I love you too.”

I cried all the way back to my mom’s house.

It gnawed at me that he was alone. I felt a pang in my heart that I couldn’t just let this be. I got home and started working it out: Would he be OK with my dog in the house too? What about my cat? My school year was almost over and I could finish teaching and go spend the summer with him and after that we’d see. My professional life wasn’t working anyway so what was I really giving up? I thought all these things but was afraid to tell him. What if he rejected me? What if he didn’t want help and I was just being over-dramatic? What if I was just running away from my own failure? Was that still altruistic? Did I just have a Florence Nightingale fixation? What if taking care of someone dying of cancer was really hard?

For two weeks I tried to work all this out on my own and I finally gave up. I emailed Jon. I said I knew it was a crazy idea but I hated the thought of him alone and I didn’t know if me helping him was a terrible idea nor did I know how to work out all the logistics but there were my thoughts and he was welcome to them.

A day passed. Then: an email that he was trying to digest everything I said. I said I knew it was a crazy idea and not to worry. I comforted myself by talking to my friend Kim. She had just lost a friend to cancer and she said to help someone you care about is never crazy.

He emailed me back that he’d kept the art piece of mine in his room. It was a black and white photo of a rock jetty in Ireland reaching out to an empty, bright sea. He told me it gave him peace to look at it.

The next day another email came. He said he was scared half to death by the whole thing. The idea of opening himself up to another person. Being vulnerable. And he was ready. Maybe, he suggested, I could come and just hang out with him for a week or two and we’d see how things went. That let us both off the hook.

I wrote back that I was leaving town for the weekend but I couldn’t wait to talk more about it with him on Monday.

The next morning Bridget, the pub manager, called. My heart thudded heavy. My ears rang and I missed most of the details. Just that he’d passed away in the night.

It was Coachella Music Festival weekend and there were plans. I hung up, cried for a while and we went to the concert. That evening, the Verve came on for their set. When they hit the opening chords of “The Drugs Don’t Work” I sobbed and thanked goodness it was dark already. A few verses in I suddenly remembered “There She Goes” and I could only hear Jon’s voice singing it to me. What would I do the next time I heard it? I clamped my hand over my mouth and sank to the grass in the swaying crowd.

I wept for the loss of a friend and the loss of what that time would have been like. It was like I was finally going to get to know someone I’d made up in my writing and my mind forever - this amazing, beautiful man. I cried for the five years we’d known each other that could have been so much more than the six weeks I’d scolded him with before I moved to LA. I still don’t understand if it was romantic or platonic love. It was just love. Is.

As I sat crouched on the dark grass listening to the Verve, something else hit me. His unwillingness to let love in was what I’d harassed him for that night before I left. His last message to me was that he was finally willing to be open, as much as it scared him, he was ready. Maybe that was the last thing his soul needed to do here.

It seems Jon had gone to the pub after he’d finished emailing. It was the first time in a while he’d been up for it and no doubt everyone was glad to see him. He’d had a few beers with the crew there. Early in the evening, he walked out to his car in the alley and had a seizure. Someone found him and called the paramedics but they were never able to revive him. He died in the hospital that night.

The thought of spending a few weeks with him next month never quite had seemed real to me. Now it fades to another scene in a script. I am grateful that he went quickly and painlessly after being surrounded by friends who love him. I am so thankful I said ‘I love you’ while I had the chance. I am so honored that his life touched mine for a while. I am so sorry that I didn’t give more.

Miss you, Jon.

love, h