Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Dance Our Way Into the New Year/Decade

It has been such an appalling decade for the USA and more trouble is brewing - further unemployment for us and bailout for financial bodies, the erosion of women's rights and health, war on the beautiful country of Yemen.

As I'm not in a position to offer you health or wealth, the most I can wish for you are epiphanies of the political organizing, sexual or artistic sorts. I personally achingly miss the incredible dance epiphanies I had while living in Europe in the 90s thanks to my partners - Brian, Mary, Mike, Wonnita, Nicola and others, and my teachers Ralf, Heather, Glenn and Wonnita.

I offer you a bit of eye candy to bring in the New Year. Here are two brothers dramatizing their tango in the very spot where this country most identifies the turning of the New Year: NYC's Times Square.

We Need some Demolition, Las Vegas Style

I found this video clip on DamnCoolPics and immediately felt that this is what I'd love to do to the whole retiring decade. Take it down, erase it, eliminate it, finish it off - but do it in such a way that we'll finally get some enjoyment out of it. A farewell with fireworks.

Film Review: Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodovar plus Penelope Cruz)

Despite the forgettable title – “Broken Embraces” – Pedro Almodovar’s latest film is anything but forgettable, and not only because of the intimate shots of Penelope Cruz in a passionate clutch. Take a dollop of romance, a forkful of abuse, some noir thriller, magnificent acting by all the principals and add Almodovar. Then give him a theme that examines film-making, sight, controlling the images and telling the visual truth – and you have a potent project.

As is only right and proper for a thriller, nothing is quite as it seems. The troubled leading man (played by Lluís Homar), a filmmaker, has two names: Mateo Blanco and Harry Caine. The evil dickhead is strangely merged with his geeky voyeuristic son. All of them want a piece of Lena (played by Penelope Cruz) and never has Cruz been more ardent. Almodovar pays homage to her beauty by dressing her up during her screen test for the movie-within-this-movie as past beauties – from Audrey Hepburn to Marilyn Monroe (as you can see in the trailer below). The long-suffering production manager Judit García (played expressively by Blanca Portillo) and her charming son Diego (Tomar Novas) themselves are embroiled in secrets and deceptions.

If you love Almodovar, as I do unashamedly, then you will be captivated by this film.

Will Your Sex Toys Pass Airport Security?

There are so many challenges to holiday air travel - not the least the weather, the stale cabin air and getting your dildo through security.

I remember the first time I entered Israel in the late 1970s. Their airport security had that sensibility of post-9/11 Homeland Security decades before 9/11, racial profiling and all. I had reluctantly stored all of my sex toys with a friend in the States (who sold them for a fix, I found out later) and had only packed a modest bullet vibrator - I didn't want to be alone on another continent, utterly bereft of stimulation.

They did go through every item in my bag and when the security wonk found the candy-stripe battery-operated vibrator, I explained that as a professional athlete (I was a martial arts instructor at the time), it was essential therapy for my muscular health. That story worked.

Things are so different now than those days in the 70s when you could assume a lot of people didn't know from sex toys. There weren't stores (or those that existed were considered too sleazy for "nice" folks.) There was no internet. Sex workshop were not ubiquitous. It was a different world. People were still perplexed by the question of what two women might do together sexually, for gawd's sake.

So how do things stand now, here? I've just read an article by David Steinberg telling the story of how airport security searched his sex toy bag. I was turned onto this piece by Joan Price, whose important blog "Better Than I Ever Expected: Sex and Aging" I've mentioned a number of times over the years.

Here's an excerpt from Steinberg:

"The stern, older woman watching the screen backs up the belt and stops my bag under the x-ray. She points at the screen, showing her young, blonde assistant what to look for. I'm in a good mood, not too close to flight time, and find myself smiling to a traveling companion who's taking the same flight, and looking forward to a little good theatrical fun.

"Is it all right if I look in this bag?" the attendant asks with measured politeness.

"Sure, if you really want to," I answer.

I watch her face as she digs through the cuffs, the latex straps, the blindfold, the ziplock bag with condoms, rubber gloves and lube, the ziplock bag with miscellaneous nipple clamps, butt plug, and so forth, Mark Chester's wonderful spandex full-body bondage bag (if you don't have one, you should, but that's another story), the wonderful soft leather scratch gloves with the sharp metal points scattered across the palm and fingers. Her face stays 100% deadpan throughout, an impressive show of professionalism...

...Finally she finds what she's looking for -- what I knew she would get to sooner or later -- my springy little whip with the 6" metal handle..."

Steinberg goes on to describe his amusement, especially when he was ordered to drop the whip into a plastic bag and check it as a separate piece of luggage.

What about you? Have you packed your sex toys for your holiday travel or do the holidays turn off every shred of potential desire? If you're taking something that needs power, have you been sure to take out the batteries to avoid a suspicious buzzing under your seat? Have you tried for sex toys that look more like toys than sex, like the rubber duckie vibrator in the photo? Why not just pack your toys - especially if there's any metal involved - into the bag you're checking, instead of dragging them through security? If you must carry something onboard, are you prepared to stand up for your predilictions or have you already devised a brilliant cover story?

"Those clamps? I'm a writer and they're for holding my manuscripts together."

"Those cuffs? I work on a computer and they protect me against RWI - repetitive wrist inflammation."

"That red ball on a strap? My neice is teething so my sister asked me to buy her one of these."

I'd love to hear your plans, what gear you're packing and your approach to security. Will it be as confident and in-your-face as this David Steinberg? He wrote:

"I look at all the people around me and feel like the whole airport -- passengers, ticket agents, security guards -- are giving me the benefit of the doubt on this one, at least in part because I'm refusing to have it any other way. My lack of embarrassment, my lack of apology, is defining the moment and telling everyone how to respond. I feel exceptionally powerful. It is the liberation of one more level of coming out, of refusing to be made wrong for being different, for being sexually different."

Hey soldier: Don't get pregnant, but don't have your period either.

ABC News is just one outlet talking about the outrage over Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo III's decision to make pregnancy a court-martial offense in his sweet little corner of the Iraq war. From what I can figure 7.6% of the soldiers under his command are women. That's 1,682 soldiers for whom he also does not provide abortions or emergency birth control. Nope.

"Anyone who leaves this fight early because they made a personal choice that changed their medical status -- or contributes to doing that to another -- is not in keeping with a key element of our ethos, 'I will always place the mission first,' or three of our seven core values: loyalty, duty and selfless service," he continued. "And I believe there should be negative consequences for making that personal choice."

There are plenty more prohibitions beyond pregnancy: no sex with Iraqis (make war, not love) and no carnal knowledge of non-Americans who aren't "members of coalition forces."

And just to make women feel fully included, this article reports that "the Army already encourages its female soldiers to take medication to stop their menstrual cycle."

So what if a soldier is pregnant against her will - perhaps she was assaulted, perhaps a condom broke - whatever. Can she gain a perfectly legal abortion in order to stay at her post? Seems not. Military hospitals refuse to provide abortions, "forcing women to potentially dangerous providers of such services"

Here's something else that is annoying. Of the four Democratic senators who wrote this General asking him to recind this order, none of them are men.

Travelogue: Two Weeks in L.A. (Dec 8-21, 2009)

Tuesday Dec 8
Half-way into the transcontinental Virgin America flight I put on my sweet voice to ask the dickhead sitting in front of me if he could possibly raise his seat up just one inch which would allow me to actually open my laptop and take advantage of the free (just during the holiday period) WiFi. In a surprisingly squeaky and petulant voice, he answers, “It’s my right.” I say, “Yes, but I thought I might impose on your generosity.” He turns his back and settles in even deeper. Despite the humane leg-room and the hi-tech environment of the plane, it’s just not all that comfy having a bozo lying on my lap. And, I am to discover, one across the aisle who farts. Enthusiastically.

My only compensation is a yellowed 1961 book of fourteen Pearl S. Buck stories that I picked up for fifty cents. Her stories are old-fashioned, romantic and linear – just makes me very happy that I have declared my two-week seclusion in LA with the intention of writing, writing, writing. Well, re-writing, actually. My priority is revising my novel so that my agent can try to flog it.

We touch down to the usual cacophony of cell phone calls. Me too. I call my friend Lisa – rabbi of the first-ever queer synagogue – who is awaiting me in the cell phone lot. We arrive home at the same time as her wife Tracy – my first fiction editor back in the early 70s when she helped found the pioneering lesbian literary magazine Common Lives, Lesbian Lives out of Iowa City. She’s supported my writing ever since, including home writing hide-aways every few years.

Their new house, built in 1929, is an amazing warren of rooms painted hot orange or yellow or red and filled with a perfection of antiques and pieces from their many visits to Mexico. My favorite among a plethora of wild ceramic items is a tableau featuring the painter Frida Kahlo in a wheelchair being pushed by her husband the socialist muralist Diego Rivera (photo on left). A night-time view of the backyard swimming pool, hot tub and cabana room precedes our attack on the animal cookies Lisa has bought.

I drop into bed at 3:00am my time – midnight in California – and with the aid of my trusty Melatonin, I sleep the night away. At 7:00am, I’m ready to go.

Wednesday, Dec 9
I revise my manuscript the whole day, editing on paper and then transferring the edits to the document. When she finishes work, Tracy and I go to a great Indian restaurant to meet her friend Silvia: we’ve gotten together the other times I’ve been in L.A. Besides the fact that she’s a writer with distinctive stories to tell, I admire her focus on applying for and getting a stream of writer’s grants, writing retreats and high-level workshops. When I talk to her, I’m always appalled at my own lack of ambition and resource regarding these matters.

How, though, do I forget to take Melatonin, despite it being right on my bedside table? My night is disturbed by several instances of awakening, startled, so that finally I give it up at 5:00am and continue reading the enchanting stories of Pearl S. Buck until my hosts stir and I can slip into Tracy’s office to work, after taking a shower in “my” bathroom. I mention the shower because it is a singular design – like a super-tall phone booth but tiled with extravagantly ornamental Mexican tiles. (The photo shows half of its height.) It could start a whole new trend as one simply can’t fall down in it; you can lean gently from side wall to opposite side wall to soap your feet without any danger. The sink is from Mexico, a gorgeous ornate oval (on left). And the toilet has the efficient double flush option (half/whole) that Europeans have used for many years.

Thursday, December 10
I finish the first six (of 37) chapters, stopping now and again to go to the front of the house to watch the team of tree-trimmers give Lisa and Tracy’s massive coral tree a crew cut. It is really an impressive process, not the least the balancing act performed by the agile guys up top.

When B emails me a reminder to exercise my rotator cuff injury – dragging on now for many months – I gladly work out to some YouTube clips of Marvin Gaye and Stefan Grappelli and Harry James.

Friday December 11
As I cut back on the pages and pages of dialogue in some of my novel’s chapters, I wonder if it would make a good screenplay. I’m trying to stay focused, until Lisa offers to drop me off at the famous old LA Farmers Market where I can find postcards. She’s got a couple of appointments that will take her two hours, so I bring along the hard copy of my manuscript to work on. I find some 15 cent vintage postcards and buy a bunch, including an aw-shucks-inducing shot of animals cuddling (Tracy says they’re prairie dogs); piles of citrus at the Farmers Market itself; and various tourist postcards touting the freeways of LA, which I find bizarre. Later, though, Lisa will later explain how the freeway was an important California invention.

As it is, Lisa gets stuck in traffic and runs behind by an hour or so, but I’m very snug at the Farmers Market under a ceiling heater eating my Brazilian fried plantains and drinking my coffee as I work on the book and write out my postcards. The table to the left of me is filled with retired Jewish men in their late 70s or early 80s who are obviously regulars. With their hip haircuts and nice jeans I suspect they used to be business jet salesmen or maybe ran the front of the house of a theme restaurant.

On my right, a guy in his early 40s turns up wearing the most exquisite inlaid leather jacket commemorating Jackie Robinson. I compliment him, we exchange a few words, and I get back to work. Soon another guy, kinda sleazy, turns up and they have a verbal altercation – in Hebrew. I try not to be distracted, but in the end I intervene with something in Hebrew, so they’ll know to keep their discussion of illegal activities to a minimum.

As soon as he hears the Hebrew, my jacketed friend changes his approach altogether and starts asking where I married my husband (a trick question not unlike, When did you stop beating your wife?), how many kids I have, my address in LA, how long until I return –getting all up in my business. I’m tempted to tell him the truth: that at that very moment I’m working on a book about the Israeli anti-war movement during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, but I don’t need the aggro.

Like a good girl, I turn down a dinner with Tracy’s friends as well as the Chanukah first-night party at Lisa’s temple. I stay home and work, but they bring me back suvganiot (jelly donuts) at 11:00 and we light the candles.

I forget from visit to visit that LA is a very Jewish city. I get the impression that there are synagogues and Chasids and stores with Jewish names everywhere. But the facts of the matter are that out of a greater L.A. population of about 10 million, the approximate census breakdown is 48% Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites 29%, Asians 13%, Blacks 9%, mixed race 2%. There are 621,000 Jews – a massive number compared to most other non-Israeli, non-NYC cities – giving them about 6% of LA’s population – probably subsumed in the Census numbers for whites.

Saturday December 12
But wait, it has been raining for some days, not the least today. Hard. Tracy discovers that the drainpipe into the side yard is causing a lake to form that is threatening to flood into the house. The next couple of hours are dramatic. Tracy and Lisa find a gardening shovel in the garage and in the pouring rain Tracy proceeds to dig a trench all the way along the side of the house nearly to the rear. Among the three of us, she’s the only one with a reliable back. She’s also handy. The woman can do anything, even conquer the elements.

The pool and hot tub are filling up from the rain, but not quite to a danger point. It is enough, though, to prevent us from using the hot tub during my visit, as the water level is above the level of the dividing wall with the pool.

We light the second night of Chanukah candles and Tracy cooks us up a meal. I am establishing a pattern of one fun diversionary activity per day. Tonight Tracy and I catch the movie “Precious.” Because Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry are involved, my expectations are not particularly high. But in fact it is a very powerful movie, full of abuse and growth. The entertainer Mo’Nique is devastating as the violent mother of Precious; Lenny Kravitz is charming as Nurse; but regardless of all the hype about Mariah Carey “willing” to have the no-make-up look, I did not feel she nailed the role of social worker. The nice lesbian couple who befriend Precious don’t touch each other. Warning: there is a rape scene and there are terrifying descriptions of toddler rape.

Despite criticisms I’ve read that the film reinforces stereotypes, I found it a very commanding piece of cinema, dramatizing situations that, despite being so common in our society, we rarely see depicted: like hustling a social worker to get on welfare or having your sorry butt saved by an educator who cares. It is courageous to highlight the unspeakable isolation of people being abused inside the sacrosanct nuclear family, to show bullying and its ramifications, and to reveal what unconnected, under-resourced people need to do to get by.

Small world factoid: “Precious” is based on the novel Push by Sapphire who was, like myself, first published in Common Lives, Lesbian Lives, established in the early 1970s out of Iowa City. Tracy was a founding editor.

We discover that a Trader Joes has opened in the same complex as the movie house, so we go shopping. Tracy requires a fueling at Pinkberry, a wildly popular frozen yogurt shop started by a young Korean woman and now spreading all over the place. I decline the frozen yogurt because I’ve bought myself some irresistible Trader Joe's cracker jacks.

Sunday, December 13
I wake up and start to cross the room to the bathroom when I realize that something odd is going on. Ants. Battalions of them on the floor and on the walls and over my clothes and swarms in the corners of the ceiling. Creepy. But fearless Lisa, once she finishes studying the situation and pulling out of her brain all sorts of ant-facts – like that most prefer meat (dead spiders, toe-nail clippings) to sugar – gets out a spray, a ladder, paper towels and gets to work banishing them.

I’m now hiding in Tracy’s office, following a lengthy shower and having given a good shake to my clean clothes, remembering why I like living high up in an elevator building where “they” cannot get me.

Tonight we have an amazing treat: we’re going to the Pasadena Playhouse to see “Baby it’s You.” It’s a play about the NJ housewife Florence Greenberg who, against all odds, became a music mogul in the early 1960s. After hearing three talented African-American high school friends of her daughter, Greenberg decides to package them as the Shirelles with the help of Luther Dixon – her producer, songwriter and lover. The interplay of racism and sexism doesn’t stop this team from forming Scepter Records and going on to develop the Isley Brothers, the Kingsmen and Dionne Warwick. The musical highlights that special solidarity between Jews and Blacks that was so formative in my life and entertains me with dozens of my generation’s favorite hits: Mama Said, Tonight’s the Night, Get a Job, Dedicated to the One I Love, Since I Don’t Have You, It’s my Party, Walk on By and so many more.

The talent on the stage is phenomenal, with everyone playing several parts. The band (including two women) lives up to the challenge and the singers rip out our hearts. The energy is relentless, not the least the many roles of the slick Geno Henderson (Jocko/Ron Isley/etc), the fine acting of Meeghan Holoway (Florence Greenberg) and the tortured emotion of Allan Louis (Luther Dixon). I don’t want it to end and I desperately want to see it again. And again.

Monday December 14
To make up for such a fabulous evening, I work all day.

Tuesday December 15
I drive Tracy through morning rush hour traffic to her office downtown so that I can use her car to meet my brother Neil and his girlfriend Helen at the famous Canter’s deli, originally founded in New Jersey in 1924 and in L.A. since 1931. Except for the two High Holidays, it’s open 24/7. We all three order hot pastrami and talk about Orange County, where they each live, and the challenges of establishing friendships. We end with some great pastry.

I slip over to a new Goodwill where I find a handsome sky blue corduroy shirt and when I find out there’s a sale on all long-sleeved items, I am sorry I can’t find more.

This evening Lisa, Tracy and I are off to Beverly Hills for a Chanukah party at the home of Ziva, originally from Tel Aviv, but living in L.A. for decades. A member of Lisa’s shul, she has invited a crowd over for latkes and homemade apple sauce. Talk about hosting with the mosting – Ziva makes eggless latkes for someone allergic to eggs and wheatless latkes to cater to someone else’s needs.

The crowd is a mixture of mostly women, including a couple who are adopting two siblings (they don’t know their genders) from Ethiopia because now that China will no longer give little girls to single parents and are also requiring adopting parents to sign a document attesting to their own heterosexuality, lesbians are looking to other countries.

It is a pleasure to chat with Ziva in Hebrew and to watch her college-aged son’s comfort with this roomful of women. I’ve never seen anything like Ziva’s collection of dreidels from around the world – from filigreed to china to wood. Between the foods, the songs and the company, it’s a grand evening.

Wednesday December 16
I work through the morning and then my high-school chum Addison comes round to pick me up. Tracy gives him a tour of the house and pool area and he is blown away by how beautiful it is. As per my request, he takes me for a long ride around L.A.: we stop on Hollywood Blvd where the dominance of faux-punk junk souvenirs make it seem like all L.A. tourists must be under 25 and we end up at the beach in Venice just exactly in time for an exquisite sunset. It makes me nostalgic for my apartment back home.

Addison and I haven’t spent real time together since 1965. We review our experiences of high school in Pittsburgh – and it’s amazing exchange our different impressions of the same events. We were also both founding members of the first civil rights youth group in our very segregated town.

We pick up his wife Susan and their daughter for hamburgers – again it’s my idea. They live in a complex that is inexplicably – to me – gated, but very sweet. These are former military barracks, gutted and redone by the city and sold as condos. There are whole streets in L.A. that are gated and many complexes. I can’t figure out if it is a security or status measure. Most amazing L.A. fact? My old buddy is now a grandfather!

Thursday December 17
My friend Sarah is a writer I met through our enduring activism in the National Writers Union. She has an old-fashioned beauty about her, a tinge of hippy floral that led me, from the first time I saw her, to call her Princess. She tempts me with such arousing possibilities: an exhibition of Rembrandt drawings, a beautiful museum garden and a famous Korean women’s spa – but I manage to keep a grip and insist we limit it to lunch. At Lisa’s recommendation, we set out to Larchmont Street, very gentrified indeed, and settle for bowls of soup and just enough time to run down life’s checklist. Sarah impresses me with her ability to put aside time to write by arranging writing dates with others where they both bring their laptops and just, well, write.

I am loving L.A. – as I do every infrequent visit. I love the immigrant energy, the small enterprises, the infinite exhibitions, productions and entertainments. It really does feel like the entertainment capital of the world. I dig the low-rise stuccos, the unusually horizontal architecture, the colorful enterprises stuffed into shacks.

Friday December 18
I finish the full revision of my novel with a sense that I still want to have one more pass over it. My mentor, the late and lovely Sarah Wernick, taught me that revision is like peeling an onion: you’ve got to take it layer by layer. I continue to suspect that – sex and all – this novel would suit a young adult market, but my agent has her doubts. It is a relief to have actually accomplished the main task I set for myself in coming here.

Back in Boston, my dear friends Clint and Judy’s first grandchild Huxley has been born after heroic efforts by his parents Aldis and Jason. Already photos of Huxley’s handsome self are posted online so I am forced to go to the (self)forbidden (for the duration of this trip) Facebook to check him out. Judy’s my age – how could she possibly be a grandma when she’s such a cute little thing herself?

The highlight of the season at Rabbi Lisa’s shul is the eighth day of Chanukah party which, falling on a Friday night, is even more of a big deal. I am, of course, an anarchist, atheist socialist without a shred of religious belief or feeling, but I am persuaded by the enthusiasm of all around me that I shouldn’t miss this event.

Over 100 people arrive to BCC (Beit Chaim Hadashim: The House of New Life) and once again I am taken aback by how much this queer shul is a very real shul, full of a profound sense of community, a congregation with a shared way of praying, committees that function effectively (they just bought a bigger building), a choir that is well-rehearsed and joyous, refreshments that are ready when needed and even a functioning Saturday religious school for the increasing numbers of children at BCC. Families with two daddies and two mommies abound – a phenomenon I’m well aware of, but do not much encounter in my own life. One particularly bright moment – quite literally – is when dozens of menorahs brought by congregants are lit simultaneously to burn throughout the service.

Saturday December 19
It’s getting close to the end of my stay. Today I don’t get much done. It is going to hit 80 degrees, so Tracy takes me for a luxurious lunch at her favorite beach-side restaurant in Venice – where she and Lisa had their intimate Thanksgiving dinner. I’m panting for protein and starch – which explains the three eggs, potatoes, apple sausage and apricot scone.

We stroll the very wide beach – I assume the tide is out – to near the water before doubling back along the boardwalk filled with clocks made of miniature surfboards, beaded jewelry going for between $1.00 and $2.00, and portraits of Bob Marley. Along the way we run into the massive Kush Clubhouse, subtitled CannaMerchant Inc. It’s a medicinal pothouse. Tracy takes my picture in front and I climb the stairs only to be told by a security guard, unnecessarily gruffly, that I can’t come in without a Dr’s recommendation. But wait. No problem, just around the back of the building is a doctor who will apparently, for a small fee, give just such a recommendation. Our parking meter is too close to running out for me to take up the kind doctor’s services.

In the evening we go to Pedro Almodovar’s latest film, "Broken Embraces," with a colleague of Tracy’s. I’m reviewing the wonderful film elsewhere, so suffice it to say that scenes of Penelope Cruz topless is only one of many of the movie’s fine attributes.

Afterwards we stop at Fro-Play – yet another frozen yogurt shop. But with a difference. As you enter, you face a wall that resembles a bank of ATM machines. These however deliver varied flavors of frozen yogurt and sherbet out of dispensers I remember from soft ice cream shops. Further along are trays of toppings – from sprinkles to granola – and tubs of fruits – from raspberries to pineapple chunks – for all of which you pay 32 cents per ounce. One very personable young woman runs the whole shop, making the overhead rather low. On the tables is a rather boring vertical game (I won on my first try) that’s a mix of checkers and tic-tac-toe that everyone plays while eating.

Sunday December 20
It is my last day before flying home. I decline a theatre opportunity with Lisa and Tracy to work on this travelogue. Not only have I finished a run on this giant novel of mine, I have also managed to stay off Facebook for nearly two weeks as I said I would do.

While I pack up, I listen to the news on NPR for perhaps the first time since I left. Even in my L.A. writing cocoon without Facebook and television, I have not neglected my political interests, though, including following online the disgusting failure of Obama’s administration to achieve any kind of positive health care reform. Or rather, failure to even try. And allowing this bill to erode women’s rights and health. In a phone call, my partner calls health care reform “the Afghanistan of domestic policy.”

As I begin to wrap up, Tracy calls to say they’re on their way home and that we can take a hot tub if I’ll go out back and turn everything on. She instructs me via the phone and soon the three of us are ensconced in bubbly hot luxury. I’ve only been in a hot tub a couple of times – in Vermont at Uncle Dickie and Todd’s place – but this one is rectangular, tiled, a bit different (see photo).

Monday December 21
I’ve been trying to get an aisle seat for the return trip since the day I made the reservation and couldn’t get one online. I’ve spoken on the phone to a series of nice people who could only makes notes on my reservation suggesting someone give me an aisle seat. Yesterday I made my last call and as soon as I heard the chap’s voice, I knew he was a Friend of Dorothy, as we say in Britain. As he repeated my confirmation number, I got my chance to cozy up. “B as in Bird,” he says, “L as in Lincoln. The number 7. And Q as in Queen.”

“Oh I loved the rock band Queen,” I say.

“So did I!” he screeches, “My favorite ever.”

“I was in London when Freddy died,” I confide.

“Tragedy,” he mourns. "I'll see to your seat."

As it turns out, the plane is completely full, every passenger turned up and successive pleadings at check-in, customer service and the gate yield zilch. As I wheel away from my last rejection, despondent, I hear my name on the loud speaker. I run back and it turns out that, completely serendipitously, a father and son would appreciate if I would trade my center seat for their aisle so they can sit together. Huge massive relief.

Too soon. In case I need reminding what a shitty year it’s been, I find myself smack in the middle of an emotional family who are crawling over me and passing children and pretzels past me. The mother and the 18 month old are on my right; the father is across the aisle with the three-year-old. The children are screaming, the mother is sobbing. All four family members are sick and snotty and sneezing and disgusting and the baby is smells like a big poop. The guy in front of me is also lying in my lap so I won't be using the computer that much.

My situation is not unique. Those not sitting next to one of the gaggle of infants or pack of toddlers, may be neighbored by a cat or dog, of which there are a surprising number. The dog behind me, though, is heavily drugged and silent. There are waves of sound-effects. If one child starts hollering, it seems contagious throughout the cabin. If one adult starts coughing, it seems to induce a militant spread-the-germs movement up and down the rows.

We arrive on time. My bag is among the first to hit the carousel. B is there to pick me up. It’s not as cold and snowy as I anticipated. My apartment is exactly as I left it. And I hope I have picked up some new habits of focus and concentration that are going to support me in writing all the books backed up in my fingertips.