Be My Friend

I like to think that with my blog I pretty much have free reign to speak my mind on people and events in my present and my past. I’ve felt particularly cavalier about condemning the cruel wenches of childhood. After all, that was a lifetime ago. They’re never going to read this.

Then a funny thing started happening: my past starting friending me.

Ah, the joys of online networking sites. One day I was startled to see a friend-add from a guy I went to high school with. I wouldn’t have said we were BFF but there was also no hostility there so, tickled by the novelty of connecting with someone from those dark years, I accepted him as an online friend.

Over the last months I’ve had several friend-adds from other high school people. It’s funny, at the time I know some of them would never have called themselves my friends and now here they are. Do they remember what it was like? Am I the only one not grown up enough to let go of the bitterness?

You have to understand I am the furthest thing from a rah-rah ‘wasn’t high school great?’ girl. In fact I always said you couldn’t pay me enough to have to go to a reunion. Those four years were a living nightmare with exclusionary cliques and shallow bitches, why would I ever want to relive them? “How shallow?” You ask? There was a girl in my AP English class that wrote an ode to how her favorite barrette completed her Gucci outfit.

One friend of mine did in fact go to our reunion and he confirmed that it was just as we thought it would be. Planned by the same clique who had fancied themselves queens of the school, it was all about them. He said of the 1000+ pictures the hired photographer took, he found himself in one.

Anyway, in my new fabulous life, I have considered myself fairly insulated from that time and those people. I thought I could freely write about the bitches and the injustices with abandon – without fear of the actual bitch reading it. Now it’s suddenly a real possibility.

I had been about to write a post about a girl I’ll call Holier-than-thou Harriet. Harriet and I rowed together and also staffed the peer counseling center together. Once at a crew team party, she’d offered me a party cup of keg beer. Terrified to actually let down my parents I told her I didn’t drink.

“Oh good for you,” she sneered, raised her chin and wobbled away.

A few days later in the peer counseling center, we’d been discussing breakfast, health and recycling. Even back then, Harriet was extremely proud of her earth-conscious life. She’d been singing the praises of her mother’s bulk-bought, home-made, stone-ground oatmeal when I said I ate the kind from the Quaker packets. She shook her head tragically like she was scolding an ignorant five-year old.

“Those paper packets are such a waste. You’re really doing a horrible thing to the earth by eating that way,” then came the familiar chin raise. I wish I’d called her a holier-than-thou hag then but instead I just got quiet – my favorite high school defense mechanism.

These memories of Harriet had sprung to mind the other day and I sat down to write about how ridiculous the whole experience of knowing her was. And suddenly there she was on another friend’s friend list, heavier (thank God) but still looking imperious and fake-friendly. Maybe I shouldn’t write about those memories. I thought about censoring myself, trying to play nice and be innocuous so they’d like me. Just like I used to.

But…ooops! I just went ahead and wrote them, didn’t I? Screw it. I’m saying what I want with the small effort of changing the names of the guilty. I only wish I’d been so willing to stand up for myself and speak my mind in High School.

The other weird thing about online networks and past friends and loves is the profile pic. Will someone please explain to me why people who’ve reproduced feel the need to include their offspring in their profile pic? It’s YOUR profile, I want to see a picture of YOU. Besides, I have that singleton grip of panic seeing former friends happily married with children. Will that ever be me? I am a firm believer that living well is the best revenge but if some of these old frenemies look like they’re living better than me, well, that’s a life failure on such a grand scale I’m not willing to consider it. Did I mention that I may be the only one here not mature enough to let go of old bitterness?

I did find my high school crush online. I’m happy to say he looks…meh.

And then there was my best friend. I’ll call him Sam. Sam was one of those guys everyone loved no matter what clique they were part of. My family loved him. Everyone thought we would end up together. It was very “When Harry Met Sally.” In fact our song – yes, we had a song – was “It Had To Be You.” Flavorless Phyllis had beat me to the punch and asked him to prom (I went stag) but she was conveniently absent when they played that song so we got to dance to it. I loved Sam with my whole heart but I was always afraid of ruining the friendship by taking it to that next level.

And there he was too on another friend’s list with – my lungs tightened – a baby. The baby looks just like him, mop of curly hair and all. I stared for a long time and wondered how I had ever lost my friend. It wasn’t like I could be sad about him having married someone else. I didn’t really think we’d end up together like Harry and Sally. But there was something that tugged at me to know that this person who had meant so much to me had gone on and had a whole life I knew nothing about. Some friend I am.

So in the end I’ve decided that the sudden proximity of my blog and my past is not a reason for censorship. The days of going quiet are behind me. Maybe in the coming weeks I’ll be able to explore some High School folks pages through eyes looking at humans rather than enemies. Perhaps I’ll be able to see that they were hurting and confused back then too and that I never really knew them at all. Maybe I’ll be able to finally assuage some of the old bitterness and grow up. Maybe. But for now, I’m having fun gloating over who got fat and bald.

***

If you need a soundtrack for finding friends online, I highly recommend “Be My Friend” by the fab Scots, The Hedrons.

Silly Love Songs

I keep hearing that song. I’m supposed to feel something, remember someone when it plays. But I can’t. I just keep thinking, “dang, that’s a good song.”

There’s a funny thing about songs and memory and how we attach them to a person, a time, a relationship, a love. When you break up, the struggle for emotional possession of things can be as grueling as the physical division of stuff you’ve accumulated together.

And it’s not just the sense of sound. Once I was left by a guy I’d fallen hard for. We’d traveled together and I’d also fallen for a certain perfume on our trip. After he left, just smelling the stuff would break my heart all over again. But dammit, I loved that perfume and I wasn’t going to let him ruin it for me. For the next few months I’d wear it every so often always concentrating on how I’d felt when we’d found it: alive, beautiful, sophisticated, adored. Bit by bit, sniff by sniff, it worked. I still wear that perfume – it’s one of my favorites. Yes, sometimes I think of him when I put it on but only in remembering that beautiful beach and how good I am with myself.

It’s the same with music. Some songs are inexorably linked to past loves of even friends. The sad songs of Alice in Chains are my first love, my Italian. “It Had To Be You” is my best friend from high school, Tears for Fears is my good Seattle friend from my college years, Gary Jules happily reminds me of a broken artist I got away from back home, Johnny Cash is my sweet, Harley-riding ex. All these are positive associations. My heart has made the decision that bad exes or their memories don’t get to keep music I love.

So this song keeps coming up on my iPod shuffle and I have this twinge: isn’t this someone’s song? I finally remember having once danced to it with an ex, one of those didn’t-end-well ones, and I decide no, it’s my song.

Made In China

One of my favorite things about a trip to Italy is the shopping. OK, I can’t say favorite really. I’m not much of a shopper girl and my favorite things are more intangible:

Raindrops on Tuscan sunflowers and whiskers on…old men sitting in piazzas, bright copper coffee makers and warm welcome greetings. But that said I do like coming home with a few select items that are several years ahead of American fashion.

Back when I lived in Italy shopping was careless. I could pick up a dressy shirt for $6, a knit sweater for $15. The prices were decidedly Old Navy. In the years after when I would visit Italy, I’d always get my friend to take me to the Italian equivalent of Payless Shoes. I’d come home with five pairs of amazing, fashion forward, Italian leather shoes for $100.

Then one day a new plan for the future was revealed: the Euro. I heard the death knell of fabulous Italian shopping sprees. I was there for the 2001 change over and it wasn’t pretty. Prices went up overnight to compete with the rest of the continent.

And now, seven years later, I wistfully long for the days of separate currency and my beloved Lira the way my parents yearned for past realities like the roller-skate-waitress diner and afternoon stick-ball games. Golden times lost forever.

Still, the cache of bringing back those fashion-forward Italian goodies is strong. No one can dress like the impeccable Italians. No one can design like they can. So this trip I held fast to my boorish Euros and carefully bargain hunted.

Not finding anything within reach of my budget on my own, I asked my friend to take me to the Italian Payless again. Alas, even there, a mere pair of strappy sandals amounted to $140. There was no way. I was glad I’d shopped as much as I had before the Euro and the tanking of the dollar since it appears those sprees are lost to me forever. I am stuck with mere American clothes.

On our last day in Italy, I passed a purse kiosk in an American-style mall. There I found a fabulous turquoise bag. It was cute, a little audacious, pretty hip and best of all: very affordable. I brought it to the cashier as my one shopping conquest of the trip. Of course being a kiosk, the purse sure as heck wasn’t designer. I checked the label: Made in China. I hesitated. China is not exactly design cache capital of the world. Then I figured what the heck? I had no other wardrobe items to show for my trip and I decided the key was this: it may have been Made in China but my purse was Bought in Italy. Given the economy, that in itself is a fashion victory. Just like old times.

La Dolce Far' Niente

I am a blessed woman. I come from a family that values travel as the best education. One of my favorite bragging points about myself is that I’ve been to every country in Western Europe and about half of Eastern. But anyone who knows me, knows I have one true love: Italy. I knew there was something special between us when I came home from my first multi-country hop, walked into my high school English classroom and burst into sentimental tears at the sight of a Florentine Duomo poster.

Once again I am even more blessed. I got to spend July with my beloved. And my boyfriend too (an Italian, of course). We celebrated our year anniversary with a UCLA writing intensive. As always I never want to come home from that magical country and upon yet another tearful return, my BF asked me: what is it about Italy exactly that has such a hold on me? Not that he’d argue with my opinion but he’s pretty content here.

I could say the food, the people, the language, the history and all of the above are true love motivations for me. My BF argues it’s possible to get all that here: there are some (a teeny handful) of good Italian restaurants here. I have lots of Italian friends here. I can speak Italian with them or with the BF whenever I want. I have my kitchen geared for Espresso, not drip. But there is still a missing intangible that I love. The sum of Italian life is greater than the parts. The best I can come up with is: I love Italy for how I feel when I’m there.

To put it in context, it helps to understand that I was stressed out of my mind before our trip. Broken out worse than ever, trying to get distribution for one film, find financing for another, attach my favorite BSG star to a third, prep pitch materials for CAA for a fourth, AND struggle to turn a floundering company into a non-profit, AND work enough hours at that and several other freelance gigs to make a month’s income in ten days so as to pay my rent before leaving. I was pretty much stretched to the breaking point. But then, that’s nothing unusual for life in LA.

And then there’s Italy. Even there for a writing intensive and working from 8am to 8pm there was such joy. I stopped worrying about just when something got done and noticed it always got done just fine. I took pride in arranging breakfast and cleaning the kitchen after our troop of nine writers. Even the simple act of stringing up laundry to dry in the sun was enjoyable. It’s not just the air in Italy that makes me enjoy life there, it’s the breathing room. Nothing is done in fretta.

And then the weekend came and no matter how much work loomed before us, we hung up our weary laptops and went out and enjoyed. And didn’t feel guilty about it. This is a particularly American concept. Guilt about pleasure. Feeling that we have to earn happiness instead of just being entitled to it and blessed with it by nature. The Italians think we’re crazy for this, and they’re right. I took time to enjoy my life in Italy and I still came home with a great new script. (Hey CAA, dysfunctional family road movie?)

And that’s my missing intangible. I no longer believe in killing myself to get ahead. I renounce my devotion to the church of “the one who gets the most done wins.” I have discovered something truly remarkable in Italy: The weekend. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. I hadn’t seen one in real life in years, not all at once. And now I get them once a week. It’s amazing. You should try it.

I absolutely, categorically refuse to work on the weekends. I even hung up on a Red Cross Blood Drive guy: “Buddy, I’m happy to talk to you about giving my blood on Monday but today is Sunday.”

Since I’ve always been the uber-productive efficiency queen, my new ‘I get time for me’ policy is unsettling for those who always counted on me to get the job done no matter what. But that’s OK. No one ever died from waiting till Monday for a return email. OK, maybe in a medical emergency but I’m not a doctor and you can’t email me your pancreas. Nope, I am strictly enforcing my lowered productivity.

The funny thing is, my face has cleared up for the first time in years, I’m still getting stuff done on time, and I have more energy. I am actually enjoying life in LA again. Not pining for Italy quite as much as usual. In real world terms, I still get the work of two or three normal humans done in a week but for me that’s a big lazy shift from four or five.

There really is something sweet in the doing of nothing. And in allowing myself to see that as necessary rather than indulgent. Really, it’s acceptance that I’m in fact not a machine and an honoring of my humanity. Italy was trying to give that to me all along with the Baci and gelato and Illy Caffe and sunshine on medieval cobblestones and fireflies in the deepest Umbrian night and the good friends who bring half the town to welcome your visit and the slow mail and ridiculous bureaucracy and la bella figura and the roadside chapels and the little Italian cook who thinks you’re crazy for loving her homemade truffle lasagna like it was filet mignon and caviar at a five star restaurant because that’s what it is…Italy was gifting me this and I finally accepted. While I’ve always had Italy in my heart, I finally really got some of it in my life. Grazie, amore mio. It only took me twenty years to get it.