Tea with T.

Thanks. A lot.

November pops up on the calendar and in America, whether we want to or not, we find ourselves taking a look at our gratitude barometers.  What with the looming holiday of THANKSgiving in every advertisement from the internet’s bits and bytes to billboards on highways and byways, the idea of gratitude seeps into your subconscious and even the grinchiest of hearts will spend nanoseconds thinking about it.

 

Those of us with a compulsion to put pencil to paper and fingers to keyboard with access to social media find we like to share our thoughts on being thankful.  For me, it’s always interesting to read the thoughts of others who wax rhapsodic about the people, opportunities and things that they consider to be the true gifts in life who shout, “Thank you very much!” for their blessings (unless they crow about the acquisition of vacations, cars and jewelry, then they just annoy the stuffing out of me).

 

In quiet moments, I enjoy reading the appreciative stories of those who have walked down primrose paths filled with thorns they did not touch, that which did not happen and events that did not come to pass.  It makes me think of my own dodged bullets and I am grateful.

 

If my stomach is full and my head is clear I’m known to look around at my own people and problems (or problematic people) and simply utter, “Psssh.  Well, thanks a lot.”

 

No matter how you slice it, there’s gratitude to be had if you go looking for it.

 

Here are the main items on my short-list this year --

 

• I am thankful that reality television provides me an opportunity to tell my children, “See that?  Don’t do that.  No, seriously… Don’t be those people.”

 

• I am thankful that the heavily pierced and inked boy with the dreadlocks and dreadfully droopy drawers opened the door for me at the donut shop when my hands were full.  Once again proving to me that the most gentle of books can come with wickedly outrageous covers.

 

• I am thankful that my friends, family and my darling Viking beau not only like or love me… they tolerate me.  Because some days?  I don’t even do that for myself.

 

• I am sort of thankful that gourmet coffee shops provide me the opportunity to occasionally spend four bucks a pop on coffee or foofy, high falutin’ tea.  Because, while I appreciate a day at the spa or sumptuous meal at a five star restaurant, I can’t afford it.  But having my name personalized in permanent marker on a paper cup filled with something warm and decadent that someone else prepared for me, makes me feel special and pampered for a few minutes.  Longer, if I forget to order it at 140 degrees.

 

• I am thankful for the many Thanksgiving feasts I’ve been honored to be invited to, labored over for my own clan or have eaten in restaurants.  Especially the year my best friend and I ate at Alan Hale’s Lobster Barrel on Turkey Day (because it was the only establishment open on La Cienega Boulevard) and I insisted on paying, but had to do so entirely in coins because I was living on my own and broke.  At that moment, I vowed I would never be too broke to entertain my friends and family, even if I do so with pennies and oyster crackers.

 

• I am grateful for every breath I draw, because I know that it was the most incredible gift I received the moment I arrived and that it will be the final gift I take when I depart.  I vow to never take a single one for granted.

 

Wishing you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, even if it is just another Thursday where you are… may there be moments to be thankful for.

 

Word Grenades.

There are words getting lobbed around out there that I have labeled Word Grenades.  Just something a person tosses out there to try and cover everything they don’t really want to explain.  One of these Word Grenades is “hate” -- a word I asked my children not to use growing up.  Besides being inflammatory and rude, I think most people should have to give a 125 to 300 word speech about why they hate something – it might diffuse some of the hostility they toss around for things that don’t deserve that kind of incendiary, nuclear negativity (poor lil’ brussel sprouts, I’m so looking at you).

 

The problem with a Word Grenade is not just the inability to pin down specifics about something, someone or some place, it’s also that people seem to utter a one-word description of something and hope it is enough, maybe even secretly praying that nobody will press them for further assessment. 

 

Q: How are you?

A: Fine.

 

Q: You have a new teacher!  How would you describe her?

A: Nice.

 

Q: What did you think of the movie?

A: S’okay. [Compound Word Grenade, that one is.]

 

Which got me to thinking, which, depending on tea consumption [cup, mug, pot(s)], can be dangerous.  Word Grenades can and do backfire, completely re-coloring a thing so that it’s not so flattering as you might have originally intended, if you sit down (with your own tumbler of tea) and think about it.

 

“Sweet” is often one of those blanketing words I hear people use to describe something they can’t quite pin down and not always with positive results: lengthy recitals, poorly written RomComs, the annual box of Assorted Soft Centers (when you’ve repeatedly asked for Nuts & Chews), etc.  There is an awfully long list of items that fall under this category and, admit it… you probably have a “sweet” tucked away in your own language arsenal that you’ve employed from time to time (for both good and not-so-good).

 

In and of itself, “sweet” isn’t the worst Word Grenade out there, but why use it, over and over again, if there are so many synonyms to choose from?  Here is a short-form list of alternatives: sugary, honeyed, candied, delicious, luscious, candy-coated, sacchariferous (Cheese & Crackers, but that one is my personal fav), ambrosial, perfumed, wholesome, dulcet, mellow… I’d give you more, but I’m getting a bit ill from the stickiness of it all.

 

But, here comes the backfire for a word like “sweet” – toss “treacle” in the cauldron and suddenly it doesn’t seem so palatable, despite the fact that Treacle Tart is a pretty popular dessert across the pond (that is, if you’re skipping stones here in the U.S.).  Part of that reasoning is the very definition of the word: Treacle (n) 1. a heavily sweet and cloying speech or sentiment; 2. a chiefly British molasses; 3. a medicinal compound formerly used as an antidote for poison (including snakebites and various other ailments).  See, when you change the phrase, “He is so sweet!” with “The man is just treacle.” the image of the person you’re speaking of becomes like that paining in the Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, the one where the beautiful woman changes into a hideous creature with snakes coming outta her head.  For which we will probably administer treacle (according to Webster’s third definition) after she sinks her fangs into you.

 

Do me a favor, if you’re going to describe a person, place or thing -- please don’t just toss a Word Grenade at me and walk away.  I’m a lover, not a fighter and I promise not to press you for further details… but if you decimate the subject with a Word Grenade before I have a chance to hear what you really feel, there’s nothing but empty space between us.  Explosive devices will do that.  And, I don’t even want to get started on fragments.  Darn things.  Really.

“The fly that sips treacle, is lost in the sweets.” – John Gay, English Poet

Liar, Liar.

When I was a kid I told another kid that I was a twin.  It was a lie of epic proportion that fell out of my face before my brain had a chance to realize what I was doing, and my heart... didn’t have a clue.  Over the years, I felt badly about the lie, but at the time it was a powerful drug that propelled me forward.  It was a kind of confidence amphetamine, it was.

 

The lie came about because I felt badly about myself and the girl that I told that lie to?  She had everything in my eyes.  A student of a prestigious private school, she talked endlessly about her adventures in dressage and her many equestrian ribbons, all the while rocking the perfect hair, skin AND teeth (the angst-y teenage trifecta).  Even though she was only in junior high, she told me how her dad had promised her an Alpha Romeo convertible, once she turned 16, and went on and on about her twice-a-year vacations in Europe.  Honestly, even Barbie would’ve felt inadequate in her presence.  I felt like pond scum, me and my bus-ridin’-to-public-school, holes-in-my-sneakers self.  Forget Europe.  My big dream was traveling the 20 miles to the Santa Cruz Beach & Boardwalk, when I could, with enough tickets to ride the merry-go-round however many times it would take to get the darned brass ring in the clown’s mouth (because, history had shown that three times was NOT enough).  So, when little Miss “I have six pairs of Jordache Jeans” mentioned she wished she’d had a sister instead of her annoying older brother, I piped up and told her not only did I have a sister, she was my twin.

 

Please know, that typing that sentence brings up the same bitter taste in the back of my throat that the spoken lie did back then.

 

Knowing I’d never see this girl again (we’d been tossed into a swimming pool one afternoon so our relatives could talk business), I answered all of her questions about twindom – weaving a story so elaborate, even I was impressed with the house of cards I was building, going higher and wider than ever before.

 

Since my twin was a complete figment of my imagination, I made her everything I secretly wanted to be.  Of course, we were identical in every way, except she was a smidge taller, thinner and managed to get her hair to fall into the perfect Dorothy Hamill Wedge unlike mine, which insisted on following the path of Kristy McNichol’s during her “Buddy” years.  Twinstar had better teeth only because she didn’t have her front left tooth knocked out in an unfortunate car incident, like me, and she also had about a dozen pair of those fancy, expensive butt-stitched jeans -- but only because she cared about those things, unlike me.

 

By the time I was finished sketching out the perfect monozygotic, my poolmate had tired of me and was beyond anxious to meet the better version of me.  I had shot myself in the foot.  Both feet, actually.  It took a whole other set of elaborate fibs and falsehoods to explain why that was just not gonna happen.  When the girl insisted that our families stay in touch forever and ever, maybe even joining them on their next ski trip to Courchevel or St. Moritz, something akin to flop sweat commandeered my entire body.

 

In that moment, I discovered that lying wasn’t ever going to be worth it.  Not even a little bit.  Years later, when preparing my theatrical resume* I could not follow my peers into the Special Skills category of saying that I could ride a horse bareback while shooting firearms or scubadive, simultaneously whistling Dixie underwater.  I just knew someone would hire me only to discover that I’d simply lied in order to get a job (even tho’ top ramen didn’t pay for itself, it was just not worth it).

 

When my kids were little, I met a PTA maven who served as further example that, in general, overstatements and exaggerations were to be avoided at all costs.  Hester Prynne had her scarlet letter, Laverne had her cursive “L” and to this day I think this woman should have a hot pink “H” for hyperbole on her perfectly tailored cashmere sweaters.  Nuclear exaggerator that she is, if you told her you were taking a brand new supplement made from moon minerals she’d say she’d been taking it since 1968.  Every word she utters, every sentence she speaks has to be served with a high gloss, ultra sheen coating.  Bigger!  Brighter!  Shinier!  As a result, her reputation isn’t as stellar as it could be (despite the fact that she’s a hard worker and a fairly decent woman) and everyone in my valley knows that what she says must be taken with a grain of salt (lime and tequila, optional).

 

Unfortunately, for a time, I went in the opposite direction and became the militant anti-liar: boldly telling truths where none had been told before.  Let me tell you, that wasn’t pretty either.  I found out that people don’t really want to know your opinion of their hairless cat/wildly inappropriate love-match/mother-in-law’s painting of them.  They actually get downright testy, too if you offer honesty when they didn’t ask for it.  Turns out, they can’t handle the truth.

 

Yeah, somewhere between the truth and a lie is the higher, more socially acceptable road to travel and I’m still trying to find my way on that rocky path.  Storyteller that I am, what I have learned is that the truth really is best – but dispensed with caution.  Changing names and dates, if need be.  No lie.

 

“Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.”  – Nathaniel Hawtorne

 

*Yeah, I’m one of “those people” classically trained in all things artistic, never making any money nor garnering much respect.  Tell people you studied at the Strasberg Institute and graduated from the Hollywood Professional School and you can slowly watch the clouds of pity and “Aww, isn’t that special!?” float across their pupils. 

 

Contact High.

There is a piece written by Brian A. “Drew” Chalker that begins, “People always come into your life for a reason, a season and a lifetime.”  Awfully poetic stuff when referring to the people that end up on a catchall list in our phones and computers titled “Contacts.”

 

Contacts.  The synonym for contact is touch.  It is sort of sweet, when you think about it, that each and every one of us has a list of people who have touched us.

 

On occasion, during a long wait in a doctor’s office or caught in a boring meeting (oh, you know who you are and what you’ve made me sit through), I’ve gotten sucked into looking through my Contacts, just scrolling through screen after screen of names.  Names of people I speak to constantly, others I haven’t had any connection to for years and some I met briefly and now find myself wondering who in the heck they were/are and why I haven’t removed them from my list of People-I’ve-Come-Into-Contact-With.  There are couples still listed who are no longer together and probably don’t even have contact with each other anymore, but I find I can’t bring myself to digitally tear them asunder.  Even more heartbreaking are the names I can’t bear to delete, even though they’ve long since passed away years (some of them, decades) ago.

 

Honestly, as one who has a thing about employing every single one of her senses as often as possible, I don’t much care for the way technology is slowly desensitizing each of the overactive five that I have (yeah, still working on that Seeing Dead People one).  Some days, I miss flipping through the pages of an actual address book.  Yeah, I’m one of those who prefer the old school, analog Little Black Book of yore.  For that reason (and power outages) I’ve kept all of my old address books: the squishy, padded one from my teenage years that has a drawing of a kitten on the front with area codes that no longer exist; the business ones (Dayplanner and Rolodex!) from my twenties and thirties filled with television production crews and companies that have since folded; and the Mothers Unlimited, Inc. lists from my maternal years of playdates, carpools and PTA parents.

 

Scrapbooking people have their photos to comfort them, which I have great awe and respect for, thinking of all the time and love they put into those.  But, me?  I have my memories all wrapped up in the list of names of People-I’ve-Come-Into-Contact-With for whatever the reasons or seasons.  They are mine for a lifetime, my Contacts.

“Nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kind of people.” – Mark Twain