A friend recently e-mailed me a YouTube link for the Cat Stevens song "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out" from the movie Harold and Maude. This is my favorite movie of all time...right up there with To Kill A Mockingbird. Anyway, the song is also one of my favorites of all time.
So, I was out walking my two dogs yesterday morning when that song came on my iPod. It was a beautiful, clear and sunny day here in New York and I was walking past a wall of honeysuckle, my favorite vine. So many favorite things all in a row was making for a great time. As the dogs and I were bounding up the block, a little boy came up alongside me and began walking next to me. He was skipping and throwing his arms up in the air and, for a moment, I thought he was hearing the same song and reacting to it. I remembered then that I had headphones in my ears and that he couldn't hear the song at all. I realized that kids walk around with all that unbridled joy in them all the time and they wear it like a badge of honor. Skipping, singing, arms flailing. So, if you want to be free, be free.

I moved out of my mother's house when I was seventeen years old. Which is not to say I left. I found this out twenty years later when she put the house up for sale.

Life began, for me, on 52nd street between 7th and 8th avenues in Brooklyn. I have memories of our apartment there in spite of the fact that we left when I was only four years old. It was a six-ish unit apartment building and we lived on, probably, the second or third floor. My friend Bobby lived on the first floor in the back and I loved going to play at his place because he had one of those big plastic horses propped up on springs that you could bounce up and down on and pretend to be the Lone Ranger, or Tonto, or just some girl riding a horse which, in Brooklyn, is equivalent to being an astronaut or a surfer. I was afraid of Bobby's father so I rarely played there anytime near 5pm when he would come home from work. I'm not sure why he scared me but I vaguely remember him being big, and dark and quiet. Too quiet.

My best friend at the time, John Ratazzi, lived in the building next door. His mother would take us on excursions to the bakery across the street for sugar cookies every now and again. John and I walked to our first day of school together, with our mothers, and he cried really hard when they separated us from our moms and took us in to the auditorium. I was on the girls line holding back the tears and John was on the boys line sobbing and heaving and snotting. I wanted to hug him, give him a sugar cookie and comfort him with the story being told to all of us frightened children that our mothers were waiting for us right outside the doors of the school - even though I knew it was the first of many big, fat lies.

I also vividly remember flushing my goldfish down the toilet in a moment's panic when my father came banging on the bathroom door because it was locked (I was not supposed to lock myself in there - ever). I thought I'd surprise everyone and clean the goldfish bowl so I put them in the toilet to swim while I scrubbed away at the scum hugging the walls of the bowl using my parent's toothbrushes. For months afterwards I couldn't sit on the toilet because I was sure the fish would come back and take revenge on my tiny behind. I used a wooden potty chair for weeks because I knew there'd be no unpleasant surprises swimming up from the scary unknown world deep in the recesses of the bathroom toilet. I'd probably still be using it today if my father hadn't forced the issue and thrown the potty chair out one late night while I slept.

My sister was born while we were living there and I remember missing my mother a lot. Every day that she was in the hospital felt like a Sunday. Eerily quiet and just not right. She'd delivered all three of us by c-section so she was in the hospital for, what felt like, a very long time. My grandmothers took turns watching my brother and I while my Dad worked and went to the hospital. It was right around Christmas time and our scrawny tree (fake) was up. My Scottish grandmother, Mary Adam, would sit with us and sing Lutheran hymns (she would sing - my brother and I would listen) and all I wanted to do, the entire time, was plug in the lights on the tree. I was told over and over and over again not to touch the plug and not to turn on the lights.
"Gram, can I put the lights on?"
(scottish accent) "No ya will nawt touch the tree. Gawd won't like that!"
"Why?"
"Don't touch the lights my wee bairn."
"But..."
"Ya heard me know - "
My Dad wanted us to wait for Christmas Eve when my mother came home. I held out until just a few days before my mother's arrival with the new baby but I couldn't stand it any longer. I crept behind the tree and layed on the floor commando-style and shoved the plug in to the socket and, literally, got the shock of my life! Electricity coursed through my body and, although it obviously didn't kill me, it scared the shit out of me and hurt like hell. My grandmother came running in to find the tree lit and me wailing and screeching on the sofa. Unfortunately, for me, my father came home right at that moment and I had to confess my wrongdoing. I don't remember exactly what happened (I've handily blocked it out) but I'm sure he spanked me and put me to bed.

We moved to 63rd street between 4th and 5th avenues the Spring after my sister was born. My Dad's parents lived four doors down from us. His brother lived in an apartment on my grandparent's top floor and his sister, Jean, lived in the house directly across the street. This was an area of Brooklyn that Scottish immigrants heavily populated. Afternoon tea, Robert Burns poetry and brogues were all I knew - until that first day of school I mentioned earlier. So, I thought, wait just a minute, we're not in Scotland!!??

The more "socialized" I became, the more I pondered the possibility that my family was a bunch of freaks. Maybe even witches! No one else's family sat down for tea evey afternoon - and used a silver teapot and loose tea (as opposed to tea bags). No one else's grandmother read them poetry about toothaches and farting and all other manner of things.

My parents divorced when I was 12 and at this point we had moved, the year before, to a big house on 68th street. This house was next door to my father's sister Anna and her husband Albert and, in the same house but on the top floor, my mother's sister Dorothy and her husband Mike. When my Dad left, that house became even bigger. My brother and sister and I would huddle, at the end of the day, in the living room together watching TV - something we weren't allowed to do when my Dad lived home. It was never spoken but I know that we just wanted, and needed, to be close to each other. So, there we were, sprawled out on the sofa, the floor - wherever. In those days, TV used to go off the air at a certain hour. The national anthem would play to an image of the flag waving in the American breeze and then the station would sign off for the night. Even if all three of us were sound asleep, the minute the anthem started playing, someone would wake up and walk over to the TV and change the channel. To anything. What was on didn't matter - having our electronic fireplace did.

My mother had over a hundred thousand dollars worth of remodeling done on the house and then decided that she needed to sell. It was, according to her, an "albatross" around her neck. She was in debt and stressed and ready to move on, finally. When she told me she had a buyer I had the first twinge of - well, for lack of a better word, fear. I was the one who'd left home at 17. How could I be having these feelings over a home I couldn't wait to leave?

Once I acknowledged the fact that this was, in fact, really emotional for me I began to see even more clearly and realized that I had never really left. As independent as I'd been my whole life, somewhere in the back of my head, and heart, I always knew that if anything went wrong, I could always come "home". I felt the need to ritualize my emotional exit from this time and place in my life, once and for all. I planted the garden in front of the house that year before my Dad took off and I tended it and replanted it every year so it seemed the most logical place to "pull up roots", so to speak.

I went early one morning and chose a plant to dig up. My plan was to go to the ocean and let the plant, roots and all, go in to the vast expanse of water that would nourish it and possibly give it a chance to reroot itself. I took the bus to Coney Island. When I got to the beach, I sat for awhile and held on to the memories, both good and terrible, and I knew that they were in me and safe and so was I. When I felt like the time was right I walked in to the waves a bit and then hurled the plant over the crest of the biggest wave I could find. I stood there for a moment, filling up with emotion - when this really big, Brooklyn kind-of-guy walked up to me and said "'scuse me - would you like to go out with me?" I looked him right in the eye and said - "listen, I don't want to sound rude but I'd like to be alone right now." His reply was, "so, is that a yes?"

When he walked away I felt something at my feet that made me jump up out of the water - thinking it was a fish or a killer whale or something - I looked down to see - the plant. The plant that I had unleashed in to the great and mighty Atlantic Ocean had found it's way back to me. I was freaked out. So, I took a deep breath - renewed my heartfelt vow to honor the memory blah blah blah and threw the thing as far and as hard as I could. Less than a minute later, it came back again.

I was stunned. So, is this what my mother meant about the albatross?? Would I never, ever be able to leave this house, after all?

I decided to give it one last effort. I walked a bit further in to the water and said, out loud, right before I let it go again, "if you need to come back, come back but I'm going to stay here if it takes all night..." and then, I realized that in order to truly leave, I needed to say goodbye. Goodbye to the fight my parents had right before my dad left for good - goodbye to Babe and Dog the two beautiful animals that loved us - goodbye to the nights without heat and the days without my mom who was lost to her own sadness.

I threw and this time I felt like I really let go. I stood there for close to an hour - waiting for it to come back, and it never did. Even if it had washed up on shore right next to me, I don't think I would have seen it. I was changed. Things were beginning to look different.

It has long (recently) been my contention that with all these new-fangled ways of being in "touch" (cell phones, internet, texting, skyping, etc. etc) we are more out of touch than ever. Technology has offered us little more than more ways to avoid each other. Since the dawn of the answering machine, and then forward to beepers and the sincere hope that the person we were trying to "reach" would not actually pick up, we have perfected the art of not actually having to, nor wanting to, talk. Ever.
I've noticed, too, that when I walk along the street many people who are not actually carrying bags in both hands will, more often than not, be talking on the phone. I know that I've been compelled on more than one occasion to call someone while I was walking from one place to another just to have something to do and, also, because, tragically, we don't seem to be able to find the time during our busy days to simply sit down and converse.
One of the things I believe to be happening, as well, is that we are becoming less and less comfortable with just - well - walking down the street. I would liken it to the same kind of discomfort that one might feel walking in to a room filled with strangers.
I read a story recently, as I was riding the subway to work, by Sylvia Boorstein. It was about her grandfather and a man named Mr. Cory. Mr. Cory was a farmer who lived down the road from Sylvia's family when she was growing up. Mr. Cory and his wife of seventy years did all the work on their several acre farm and then sold the produce out of their garage. Sylvia recalled a day when she was driving over to the Cory's to pick up some produce. As she neared the garage she thought she was looking at a statue of Mr. Cory when it was, in fact, Mr. Cory himself. She writes, "...he wasn't reading or writing or sorting produce or whittling or doing anything but waiting."
Then she tells a story about her grandfather who, when he was well in to his nineties, was living in Florida in a community for elderly folks. Sylvia went to visit him and was invited to join him, after breakfast and again after lunch, for a walk around the block. "He explained to me that this was his regular regimen, his daily exercise. I said to him, "What do you think about when you walk?" He looked at me with surprise. "What do you mean, what do I think about?" he asked. "When I walk, I walk!"

Tonight, when I looked out the window of my apartment at 8:03pm, I noticed that it was already getting dark. I'm always amazed how, during the height of Summer, it stays light out until almost 9pm.
That being said, I had a little adventure at the food co-op today. I got on the Express line, with the few things that I was buying in hand, a tiny bit aware of the nice looking guy in front of me. A couple filed in behind me and they were all love-y and in that "we're the best couple in the world and I am not all alone in this world" smug love place that we have all at some time or another felt when we're hooked up with someone. The woman put her head on her man's chest and I overheard her say "there's something you don't know about me" - to which he replied "uh oh" - and then she said, "this is my faaaaaaavorite snack", as she pointed to a barbecued seitan strip... at which point I thought to myself, 'dork'... However, I let go of my immature thoughts long enough to sneak a sideways glance at HM(handsome man) in front of me and I could have sworn that he had some "awareness" of me - and then - it happened...the line advanced to the shelf where I saw the organic maple syrup that I'd come in to buy in the first place so I bent over to grab a bottle and...farted. Yep. Not some little, tiny, silly fart like Carrie Bradshaw let rip in bed with Mr.Big but one of those honking ass-blasters that can make your own mother seem slightly repulsive. Stick your tongue out and blow really hard and that's what it sounded like... So, what did I do? I stayed bent over for a moment - I think I may have even said a few things out loud to myself - and then, in a moment's panic, I tried to replicate the sound using the sole of my sneaker. Ohhhhhh, you thought I faaaarrrrrrted???!!!! No, No, Nooooo!! It was my shoe! And then, when the only sound I could make was one that sounded like a sneaker scraping across a tile floor, I shot an accusatory glance at seitan girl!
The line was long and I had to stand there, steeping in my own humiliation, (thank god it didn't smell!) for an uncomfortably long period of time - reliving the moment every step of the way and feeling as embarrassed as the moment it happened.
As I rode my bike home I thought about it and I came up with a comforting thought - if I were dating someone and we were in that situation together, the way he handled it would tell me an awful lot about the odds of our relationship lasting. I'm not necessarily saying that I would want to be high-fived or anything (although that would be funny) but what I am saying is that humor is a necessary connection for me...and besides, what's a little fart amongst friends?

Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker AND tits - the seven words you can't say on television. George Carlin's death really bummed me out. I learned of it when I woke up this morning and walked in to my living room just as my mother (she's staying with me for a few days) opened the newspaper. Sometimes news of someone's passing makes me say "ohhhh, wow" and sometimes my reaction is "ohhhhh, no." This one was an "ohhhhh, no."

I saw him perform in the late 70's at the Civic Center. I went with my boyfriend at the time. We were both around 18 years old and had smoked some pot and hash right before the show...and during the show...people passed joints around like cheese puffs in those days...anyway, I was pretty high. Some of what I remember is him riffing on oxymoronic expressions like "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence". He talked at great length about a loaf of rye bread and how none of the slices were the same size, making the point that when we open a new loaf of rye bread we all reach into the middle of the loaf for two slices, we never just take the first two slices - but, eventually, we all end up eating the ones we avoided in the first place.

I've learned a lot, both as a person and as an artist, from the likes of George Carlin. From my perspective, art is truth. It's all about having the guts to express your truth, your experience. It's what makes things moving and funny, being willing to see ourselves, our truths, exposed.

RIP George. I am honored to have shared the planet with you.

Okay. Here's an example of Hormones Gone Wild. Today, I was sitting at my computer looking up recipes for pasta salad. I'd like to make something special and fresh and delicious to bring to a reunion I'll be attending in July (which I'll write about another time) of all my friends from my summers at the lake.
Anyway, I clicked on to Lidia Bastianich's website. She's that wonderful woman who cooks the most delicious Italian peasant food on Channel 21. I read a few recipes and then switched to another site that had recipes for the food she served the Pope when he was in New York recently. Now, I was raised Catholic but have not practiced nor subscribed to Catholicism for most, if not all, of my adult life. That being said, I read that when Lidia served the Pope beef goulash for one of his meals he said "these are my mother's flavors" and I started crying. Just a little. Not a full out cry. One of those ones that happens sometimes during a commercial. Or when I smell freshly cut grass. Mamma Mia...

Richie Smirnoff. Or, just plain Smirnoff. That's what they called him at Brownstone Car Service on Union Street where he was employed as a driver. He's one of those people I wish I'd kept in touch with somehow. He's had a profound effect on me.

It started back when I was waitressing at McFeely's on Union Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I may have even started bartending there by the time I'd met Richie. In any case, it was the late 80's/early 90's and I was working at McFeely's and raising my two children. I'd call Brownstone every night at the end of my shift to get a car home. I used to drive my own car but three break-ins in less than two months and stressing about being ticketed for being on the wrong side of the street (alternate side parking rules in NYC) as I crawled out of bed in the morning after a late night working left me completely disgusted and frustrated so...I sold it...for $50 to a junk dealer (it was an 82 Corolla).."uh, sorry miss, I can't give you any more than that."
"really? I have two kids to feed. Are you sure?"
Anyway...

The conversation between me and Vinnie, the dispatcher at Brownstone, went pretty much the same way every night -
"Hello, Brownstone."
"Hey Vinnie, it's Dawn."
"Hello doll. Ready to go home?"
"Yep."
"I'll have a car right outside in three minutes. How're the kids?"
"They're great, Vinnie. You?"
"Very good thank you, sweetie. You take care, alright?"
"Yep. Thanks, Vinnie."

He'd give me a "special" price and the car would be right outside the door, just like he said, in three minutes. And then, every night, as I got into the car I'd hear Vinnie on the radio dispatching the same message to the driver as the night before -
"$6, Smirnoff. $6 for Dawn. Take good care of her and make sure she gets in safe."
"10-4 Vinnie," Richie would say into the mouthpiece.

The first night I rode home in Richie's car I noticed something. It was quiet. Many of the other drivers kept their radios on, pumping out of the back speakers, tuned to the party music station. I think they thought people liked it. I didn't. I'd just come from a loud, smokey bar where every thought, word or interaction was punctuated with music. Loud music.

I sat in the back, never behind the driver so as not to make him/her uncomfortable, and made small talk for a minute or so and then sank into the seat and my thoughts. After riding with Richie for about five minutes he asked me if I would mind if he put on some soft music. I said I didn't - with trepidation. He put on a jazz station. Not fusion. Jazz. Not Andreas Vollenweider. Thelonius Monk. I was a fan. I didn't know much but I knew what I liked. Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Sun Ra, Ed Blackwell, Coltrane, Monk...many of whom I got to see play live at places like The Village Vanguard, Continental Divide and Town Hall. Monk played on the radio and Richie mentioned the fact that Monk was pretty much self-taught on the piano. I think he even said that Monk could not read music.

Richie had a soft way about him. I looked at him from behind and guessed him to be about 55 or so. Checked his eyes out in the rear view mirror. They looked clear and blue although I'm not sure. He wore his jet black hair in a sort of DA - slicked back. He also wore a black leather biker jacket. And still, he seemed soft. The car smelled like coffee and occasionally I would see him take a sip from the cup he had tucked away between his legs. There was something about the way he spoke that made me think he had peanut butter or a cookie stuck to the roof of his mouth. In a good way. It made me want to eat...well...peanut butter...or a cookie.

Richie soon became "my" driver. Every night when I called Brownstone, he would be the one sent over to pick me up. I loved it and began to rely on it. It was my favorite way to end my night of work. He'd have the radio going and a story at hand. I soon found out that Richie was, in fact, a drummer. And that he'd played with many jazz greats including Chet Baker. Richie regaled me with stories about music and food. He'd talk about his apartment and the little Italian joint up the street that he went to often for a bowl of spaghetti marinara with fresh basil and warm, crusty garlic bread. He was one of the first people I'd met that seemed so, so present.

One of the great stories he told me was about a time he was touring with Chet Baker - probably in the late 50's, early 60's - They were in Italy in a hotel lobby awaiting the arrival of Romano Mussolini (yes, Benito's son), who was an acclaimed jazz pianist and slated to join Chet Baker and his band on this leg of the tour. Before Romano arrived, Chet's bandmates talked to him about Romano and pleaded with him (though he was high on heroin at that moment) not to make any mention, WHATSOEVER!, of Mussolini's infamous father.

When Romano arrived, Chet was in a full junkie nod in one of the hotel lobby's cushy chairs. Richie said he elbowed Chet just as they all stood up to greet Romano and introduce themselves. They all shook hands and said their names and when they got to Chet, Richie introduced them -
"Romano Mussolini - Chet Baker. Chet Baker - Romano Mussolini."
And, he said, without missing a beat, a weary and very high Baker extended his hand and said -
"Wow, nice to meet you. Drag about your old man, huh?"

My mother spends a fair amount of time with me these days. She lives with my sister and her husband in Staten Island but comes to Brooklyn for her "meetings" at the local Knights of Columbus every other Friday. Recently, her sister Katherine was in a local Brooklyn hospital so she stayed with me so she could vist my aunt daily. I encouraged her to stay with me this week, too, even though Aunt Kay was discharged, because my brother-in-law is home on vacation for the week and I thought it might be nice for them to have a little privacy.

One of the conversations I have wth my mom every morning is about the weather (she's obsessed with the weather) and it always - always - always - goes something like this -

"hey mom, what's it like outside?" (I ask her this because she goes out for her coffee and the paper every morning at about 7am)

"well, it's cool...but not too cold. They said it's going to be 70-72 degrees today but then get verrrrry cold at night. It's not too cold but it's cool. You should bring a jacket but maybe take it off later because it's supposed to be very nice later. It's supposed to be a little cool, but not rain...partly cloudy. Sun and then no sun - low 60's and then Friday a chance of rain and then Saturday a possibility...a little sunshine...they're not predicting much rain...and then Sunday is supposed to be not the best...rain...on and off...expect more rain on Sunday. It could change. That's what they said....it could change."

And then I say...

"Should I take an umbrella?"

It is what it is. People are saying that all the time these days.

They're also clipping their fingernails on the train and, as of late, applying make-up. Seriously, I saw a woman curling her eyelashes on the subway the other day right before she applied a generous coat of mascara. She was totally unabashedly doing her thing as if she was at home in her own bathroom. And that's far from the first time I've seen that. I'd actually have to say that I see some form of full make-up application on the trains at least once a week.
When I was a young girl I used to love to sit in the bathroom at our lake house while my mother, my Aunt Dot and my cousin Maureen stood at the long dressing table with the big round mirror in front of it and applied their make-up for the big Saturday night beach party down the road. The three of them smoked cigarettes and whenever they were excited about something, applying make-up and, especially, in the smoke-y company of each other, they would smoke like maniacs. The thing is - there they were - all three leaning forward towards the mirror - all at various stages of their make-up application - all drawing and painting and coating themselves while the cigarettes dangled in a yet-to-be lipsticked lip or burning away in the ashtray just beneath their faces - all three squinting in an effort to see their reflections through the smoke. They loved to take big, long drags right before they were about to speak because I think they liked the smoke that accompanied each word as they spoke them. And, just so they'd have alot to say, they'd preface those smokey sentences with catch phrases like "So, as I say..." or " So, whozzeewhatsis..."
I sat behind them and a little to their right on the toilet. They'd cap off all the making-up with the the final teasing of the hair followed by a generous spray of Aqua Net. Smoke, Aqua Net and eyeliner. It is what it is.

In one of my earlier entries I mention the fact that I am part of an ensemble of the most amazing women artists. Every Wednesday we rehearse/have class and, more often than not, we bring props from home. Today, I am bringing props...a big canvas bag packed with the following items - a bathrobe, slipper socks, a CD case, a pillow from my bed, a notebook and a pen. The pillow made it pretty cumbersome. The temperature today was around 17 degrees and it was a blustery, snowy day. I left the house wearing my long black wool coat, a hat with ear flaps, a scarf and mittens, while carrying my bag of props in one hand, my shoulder bag draped across my chest and a small white shopping bag, emblazoned with the logo "Center for Health and Healing", inside which was a two liter container filled almost halfway with my urine. A 24-hour urine sample.

It brought to mind a story involving one of my best friends and a ride he took on the 2 train during which he dropped his vagina. Let me backtrack...

My friend Stuffy and I worked together at a pub in the South Street Seaport. We had a very colorful group of regular customers, one of whom was a nurse. Nurse Judy. Nurse Judy came into the pub every day. One day Stuffy asked her if she had access to those plastic models of body parts that doctors often displayed in their offices. She said she did. He then asked her if she could score him a plastic model of a vagina. She said she could. No problem. The following bantor went on for three years, "Hey Judy, do you have my vagina with you today?" And Nurse Judy would reply, "Not today. Don't worry, though. I'm working on it."

One day, well into the third year, Judy walked into the pub as she had every day except, this time, when Stuffy asked for his vagina, she had it! Now, Stuffy had been known to cozy up to a bottle of Jameson pretty much every day and this day was no exception. When he left the pub he had his shoulder bag slung over one shoulder, his walkman plugged into his ears and his vagina in a brown paper bag. He got onto the 2 train and leaned up against the doors. In less than a minute, the paper bag ripped open and the whole thing fell out in pieces. The fallopian tubes rolled one way, the ovaries another. Because the pieces were not presented as a whole, the people picking them up and handing them back to Stuffy had no idea what it was they were handling.

He just stood at the door of the train thanking people for returning his vagina to him, intact.

I used my daughter's car to go to work this morning. I had a restless night's sleep the night before and I had a 2++ hour shift to work at the food co-op this morning before I went to work at the bar I manage. I felt tired and a little funky. As I left the parking spot I thought I heard something dragging under the left front wheel of the car. I decided to turn the corner in the hopes that it would fall off on it's own. When that didn't happen by the time I got to the next corner, I pulled over and got out of the car to remove it myself. It was a piece of poster board trapped under the right front wheel. I yanked it loose and threw it into the car with the intention of throwing it out when I got to a trash can at work. It had writing on it. I opened it to look at it. Under the black tread marks were the words "THE PARTY IS HERE" written in fluorescent greens and pinks.

Today I went to see my Aunt Dot at an Assisted Living facility in New Jersey. I went with my daughter, my sister and my mother. My aunt is/was the matriarch of the family. She's a highly intelligent woman who's never been on time a day in her life and there's no one on the planet with nerve enough to call her out on it.

Aunt Dot was married for 62 years to my Uncle Mike. My favorite uncle in the world. Uncle Mike passed away recently and fortunately for Aunt Dot the early stage dementia she's been diagnosed with serves to basically make it impossible for her to have to deal with this loss on a daily basis. Her short term memory is pretty much gone. She realizes he's passed but she thinks it was a long time ago. Today she told me she talks to him every night. She said it's more like a whisper because she doesn't want anyone to walk by her room and think she's senile like the other residents.

When we arrived today we found Aunt Dot in the Rec Room with some of the other residents. They were sitting in a circle holding songbooks and singing "High Hopes". Aunt Dot was singing with gusto and playing a plastic tambourine. My mom burst into the room, filled with Alzheimer's and Dementia patients, yelling "Guess Who ??!"

We took seats all around Aunt Dot. The group leader decided that it was time to play a "Current Events" game. She told everyone that she would ask a question and if anyone knew the answer, they should just shout it out. "What woman just announced her candidacy for the Presidency?" One of the men in the back yelled "Oh yeah, there goes the country!" Aunt Dot yelled out "Hillary Clinton!!" We were so happy and proud. "Can anyone tell me the name of the African American man who just announced his candidacy for the presidency?" The voice in the back yelled, "Better him than a woman!" My Aunt yelled out, "Babama Babama!" "Close", the leader said. My mom yelled out, "Barack Obama!" "Yes, very, very good!" the group leader said. I could see my sister elbowing my mother and telling her to keep quiet because the game was for the patients, not her. Next question - "Can anyone tell me the name of the current president?" "George Bush", my mother yelled. It was as if she had something to prove. To herself.

I asked Aunt Dot if she was symptomatic during menopause and she said "Christ, yeah...it freakin' sucked."

I usually get symptomatic after a day like this. Aside from the hot flashes, I get a little claustrophobic and hypochondriacal. A little morbid and anxious. We hit alot of traffic on the ride home. My daughter played DJ with her ipod and my sister and I sang and danced in our seats. We even started tickling each other and laughing like two hyenas. My sister does this really annoying thing where she tickles me under my chin. It makes me laugh so hard I could pee. And I have. I looked at my mother in the front seat and I could tell, even from the back, that she was smiling.

I am a nearly middle-aged woman (provided I live to 100 - ). I manage a bar in Brooklyn, teach yoga, play the bass, write and perform with the best group of women in New York, love my animals (a cat, two dogs and a fish) and Buddhist philosophy and I'm the mother of two incredible, beautiful, grown children who, in the past year, have moved into their own places and left me to ponder my self and my life.

Let me begin here - four years ago...

I had my last real period on March 18th, 2003. Yep. My mom said she went through "The Change" at 42. Her period "just stopped". No symptoms. Not a one, according to her. I guess all those years when she would come home from work and retreat immediately into her bedroom with a pack of Benson & Hedges 100's and a cup of coffee and sit, in a cloud of smoke, watching reruns of "Little House On The Prairie" don't count. My two kids and my nephews used to refer to her, at the time, as Grambo. No symptoms.

I remember distinctly the last time I bled. I actually knew that it was the last time. I don't know how, but I did. I remember looking down at the piddly little offering my body forced onto the pad thinking, "this is it". Oddly enough, I still have the diary I kept in the 8th grade and one of the 5 or 6 entries is titled "This Girl Is A Woman Now." I got my period on March 18th, 1971. Exactly, exactly, exactly 32 years later, to the day, it stopped. I wonder how many women that happens to but they just don't have the information recorded to remind them.

I was, if they were all telling the truth, the last of all my girlfriends to get my period. I was an athlete so, in retrospect, it seems to make sense. However, I was incredibly envious of my friends and their "cramps" and "pads" and "sore boobs". I faked having my period for about a year or so. If my friends had payed closer attention, they might have realized that I bled 19 days a month and had cramps all the time. I just wanted to belong.

So, four years ago I started having hot flashes. Nice ones. Ones that gave me a healthy looking flush every half hour or so. My skin looked all glow-y and Doris Day-ish. Over the past few years they've morphed back and forth from Doris Day flashes to the Satchmo kind...hanky and all. My sister gets them so bad that she carries around sheets of Bounty in her bag. She works with small children in a local school and recently, mid-flash, one of her kids said, "Miss Lori, what's wrong with your face?" My sister said she humored the kid with a piece of candy but what she wanted to say was, "Nothing asshole, what's wrong with yours?"