The coming attractions roll, for Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Puccini’s Il Trittico. Not your typical Hollywood trailer—nothing explodes, and there are no special effects. At the intermissions, everybody in the audience talks to each other, chattering away in a surprising array of languages. The opera I saw, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, attracted a Russian-speaking crowd. They cried like babies at the end of the show, proving that you don’t have to be Italian to lack emotional control.
And they were extraordinarily polite, unlike the couple to my left, who shook their Milk Duds throughout the entire first act, so I had to get all Ricardo Muti on their heinies. Eugene Onegin is about unrequited love. The heroine is named Tatiana, sung by Renée Fleming, and she falls for the hunky Onegin, sung by studly Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Tatiana writes Onegin a letter professing her love, sealing wax and all. Onegin spurns her initially, only to come around after she’s married.
How do you say “intimacy issues” in Russian?
Onegin borrows also from Tchaikovsky’s own life, in which he received passionate letters from a woman who fell in love with him. But Tchaikovsky was gay.
D’oh!
No matter, he married her anyway and later died an unfortunate death. So neither Onegin nor Tchaikovsky end happily.
But the three-hour production took all of us out of our stupid Saturday errands. We burst into spontaneous applause after the arias, even though Renée Fleming couldn’t hear us. We didn’t care. We felt like clapping, and we did. I suspect that those endorphins added a year to our collective life span.
And while we watched the opera with the real audience at the Met, something magical happened. A crowd gathered, nationwide, and we all began to feel a part of something larger. Or at least I felt that way and projected it wildly onto everyone else. Like all great art, opera has the power to transport the imagination and to move heart and soul.
So go.
Have fun.
Even next to the Best Buy.
Amoeba
Daughter Francesca says I’m an amoeba.
“A what?” I ask. I remember vaguely what an amoeba is, but biology was a long time ago. “Remind me.”
“A single-celled organism, immediately affected by a stimulus.”
She actually said that sentence.
I don’t know exactly what she’s talking about, as she went to Harvard, though I get the drift. I’m a happy drunk, and it doesn’t take much to get me happy. A half glass of wine, and I’m off and running. A margarita, and I might remarry.
Or get another dog.
I learned this about myself at an early age, when The Flying Scottolines went out to a restaurant, to celebrate something. I forget the occasion but I remember the place, The Frog in Philadelphia, because it was on the classy side for us. Mother Mary wanted everyone on their best behavior and stopped just short of insisting that I wear white gloves.
She actually believed that if you went “in town,” you had to wear white gloves.
This was in 1970.
I know.
Anyway, I remember that I was fifteen and I had a sip of my father’s martini.
And then I tried to kiss the waiter.
The poor guy couldn’t lean over the table without me chasing him with my lips. My father smiled, Mother Mary yelled, and years later, Brother Frank told me that he thought the waiter was cute, too.
So I know that alcohol affects me instantly, even in small amounts. You may think it’s my imagination, but I swear it isn’t. I’m not the kind of girl who needs liquor to kiss waiters.
Wait. That came out wrong.
So I know not to drink too much wine, but what I didn’t realize is that I’m affected by coffee, too. I knew it kept me awake at night, but I’ve been on deadline for a new book lately, and by coincidence, Francesca’s been home visiting. She’s the one who pointed it out, one morning after I’d had two cups of coffee and snapped at Ruby The Crazy Corgi.
“She’s just barking,” Francesca said gently, but I frowned.
“I know but I’m trying to work.”
“She doesn’t know that.”
“Well, she should!” I shot back, and we both looked at each other.
Then it hit me.
I’m a happy drunk, but I’m mean on caffeine.
It’s true.
I experimented on myself the next few days, drinking coffee as I worked, and I’m not just more alert on coffee, I’m downright nasty. Cranky. Dare I say it?
Bitchy.
Everything frustrated me. The dogs took too long to go to the bathroom. The microwave took too long to cook a Boca Burger. The computer took too long to wake up. It needed coffee. They all did.
I was the one who should have gone without.
You may be thinking that it isn’t news that caffeine can turn you into a witch, but it was to me, and anyway, that’s not the point. Because what bothers me is, what does that say about me, if I’m mean on caffeine?
I always enjoyed knowing that I’m a happy drunk, because I believed that it said something about me, inside. The theory is that liquor lets down your inhibitions, showing the real you, and if that was so, it was proof positive that I was a nice person inside.
Generous, sweet, and kind, if lecherous to men in aprons.
But is that still true if I’m mean on caffeine?
Does this new fact show that I’m really evil inside, or at best, have a high-octane dark side?
I don’t know.
I’m afraid to ask me.
I might bite.
The Sixth Sense
I’ve been reading a lot in the news about Ponzi schemes and swindlers like Bernie Madoff, and I feel sorry for the people who were duped. There, but for the money, go I.
I have a friend who says she wouldn’t fall for a swindler because she has an excellent you-know-what detector.
I don’t. I would have given Bernie Madoff everything I had. My you-know-what detector doesn’t detect you-know-what.
Come to think of it, after two divorces, my you-know-what detector might be on the fritz. I’m starting to wonder if it ever worked at all. Honestly, I don’t think I even got one in the first place.
Maybe I was behind the door when they gave out the you-know-what detectors. Or my you-know-what detector was doing God-knows-what at the time.
I guess the only protection against people like Bernie Madoff is to rely on your senses, but for me, that’s like bringing a knife to a nuclear war. If my senses were my guide, I’d be up the creek without a bank account.
Let’s review. There are five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch, plus a sixth sense only I have, namely, the knack for arriving at the store just after the sale is over.
We begin with sight.
I couldn’t tell just by looking that Bernie Madoff was dishonest. On the contrary, the first time I saw his picture on the news, with his silvery hair and shy smile, his cute baseball cap and black quilted jacket, I thought to myself:
That guy is hot.
Then I checked his left hand, and of course, he was married. Even the cheaters are married. By all accounts, his wife is his college sweetheart and they were very happy together. So he stole from the poor, but he’s a great husband.
You have to compromise in marriage.
So I hear.
I couldn’t smell Bernie Madoff coming, even though I have the biggest nose in the universe, because my sense of smell is wacky. I love the scent of fresh basil, and I buy only orange-scented detergent because it’s green, if you follow. I own fifteen different perfumes for my multiple personalities, and I’m in a bad mood if I’m wearing Creed when I should be wearing Shalimar.
That said, my house smells like wet dogs, and I don’t mind it at all. It’s not that I don’t smell it, it’s that I like the smell. If you could put that smell in a fancy bottle, I’d probably wear it instead of Obsession.
Mine is not a nose that could detect a Bernie Madoff. For that, you might need a crime-stopping
bloodhound like McGruff.
My sense of hearing is equally unreliable. For example, some evil person gave my computer a virus, so I got a new one, which I hate. The new computer is so loud I can’t even think. It has a fan in the back that whirrs like a wind tunnel, and whenever I try to write, all I hear is the stupid fan. I won’t even work in my office anymore because I hate the fan so much.
But, at the same time, I work with the TV or the satellite radio on, and sometimes with both. I also live with five dogs, four of whom are barking at any given time, and the fifth is always growling at a cell phone, which is ringing.
None of these sounds bothers me. The computer, I want to throw out the window. So I would’ve been a sucker for Bernie Madoff ’s sweet, sweet words, especially the part where he was going to make me rich.
My sense of taste would be useless, because that’s good only for detecting chocolate cake, and my sense of touch is notoriously out of touch.
What sense is left?
Common sense.
And nobody has that, where money is concerned.
Risqué Business
I was driving along the highway the other day and saw one of those signs naming the group or business that “adopted” the highway, which I guess means they pay to maintain it, but that doesn’t matter for this story. What matters is I was driving on a highway adopted by Club Risqué.
I suspected immediately that Club Risqué was not a book club.
When I got home, I plugged Club Risqué into Google and learned that Club Risqué is a “gentleman’s club,” which is a euphemism for a strip club.
Gentlemen is a euphemism for horndog.
On the Club Risqué webpage, there are pictures of women in black thongs, platform shoes, and of course, their birthday suits. In one of the pictures, the women are hugging and kissing.
Maybe they’re just good friends.
In any event, it does pose the question—How do we feel about strip clubs adopting our highways?
Surely we can find better parents.
I think even Octomom would be a better parent, though she might have her hands full with the side streets.
Generally, I see the names of insurance companies, car dealerships, and Boy Scout troops on those highway adoption signs. In other words, a normal business. Do we feel better when a normal business maintains our highways? Or do we prefer a risqué business?
Maybe it’s not strange to have all that asphalt paid for by naked dancing. We sure do need to maintain our highways. So I guess we should hope that more and more gentlemen go to strip clubs, and more and more women strip for money. That way, we could have highways all over the place. It would be like the New Deal, only with pornography.
Fun!
FYI, the Club Risqué website says that it used to be known as Dangerous Curves. Good move, changing the name. Dangerous Curves is not a good name for a highway.
Now that I think about it, I might be in favor of a strip club adopting a highway. Their money is as good as anybody else’s, and we don’t make value judgments about where cash comes from these days, when our biggest growth industry is casino gambling. Every time I open the newspaper, somebody’s arguing in favor of building a new casino somewhere. We have casinos at the beach and in the suburbs, and when we run out of land to gamble on, we move to boats and barges. I bet if we ever colonize the moon, right after we plant the American flag, we build the first lunar casino. And then we use the flag for pole dancing.
Flagpole dancing!
Gentlemen would love that!
Just for fun, I went to the Club Risqué webpage for employment opportunities, which advertises jobs for “couch and table dancing.” Good news, in these troubled economic times. I would apply right away if my couch or table danced. Instead, my furniture just sits there, slacking off.
My couch is a couch potato.
The website also advertises “champagne courts,” though I have no idea what that is. I’ve been in federal court and state court, but that’s not the same thing. I’m guessing there’s no law in champagne court, although I bet there’s a lawyer or two.
Or seventy-five.
You’ll be happy to know that Club Risqué also needs Shot Girls. I hadn’t realized that pouring liquor into a shot glass required special skills, but maybe it does. Those glasses are really really small, and the clubs are really really dark. You could spill if you’re not careful. So it’s good to know that there are plenty of jobs available for skilled women these days. We may not be able to become President of the United States, but we can still pour drinks. For men. Nude.
Whew!
Finally, the website posted jobs for “entertainers” and specified that there was “no funny money.”
Maybe that’s what Club Risqué used for the highway. Funny money.
Same as Congress.
A Good Girl Is Hard To Find
By Francesca Scottoline Serritella
I know most single girls my age are looking for Mr. Right, and though I’d love to have a boyfriend, you know what I’m really looking for?
Miss Right.
I’d even settle for Miss Right Now.
I haven’t switched sides, and I’m not arguing a man’s case, I’m talking about platonic relations, a girlfriend, a gal pal, a friend.
All my life, I have been a girl’s girl. I grew up as an only child on the hunt for sisters.
Easier said than done.
My mom loves to tell the story of when I started kindergarten, she’d spy on me during recess, and for the first week she saw me walking the perimeter of the school yard singing to myself.
No wonder I had no friends.
I remember the day I summoned the courage to ask a little girl in my class, “Wanna be my best friend?” It was the scariest moment of my young life, if you don’t count the part in The Wizard of Oz when the monkeys fly out of the witch’s castle.
Those monkeys were messed up.
But it worked! I made my first friend. When you’re five, a line like that is all you need.
School made it easy. All through high school, I was blessed with a group of five close girlfriends. It got a little tougher in college, but I was still surrounded by girls my age. Now that we’ve all graduated, my old friends are scattered, and I’m on my own in the great, wide world.
So much of a girl’s attention is given to how to meet a man, no one tells us how to meet a friend.
Where do you go to meet girls? I should know the answer, seeing that I am one. But prowling for potential friends requires new territory. You can’t go to the places where you’d try and meet a guy. I can’t meet a girl at a bar, for example. Well, I could, but she might think I was hitting on her. Or worse, she might view me as competition for guys.
There’s no getting close to a girl when her claws are out.
If one thing unites all womankind, it’s got to be body insecurity. So I joined a gym, hoping to make some girlfriends.
Total bust.
Turns out, most of the members at my gym are men. With the few women that are there, it’s hard to strike up a conversation. We’re all plugged into our headphones or absorbed in heavy reading, like Us Weekly.
When it comes to Team Aniston vs. Team Jolie, friendships are broken, not made.
Women talk in the locker room, but only to people who are already their friends. Nudity is not the ideal icebreaker.
“Yowza, did that tattoo hurt?”
Awkward.
Anyway, I spend most of my time in the locker room with my eyes to the ground, trying not to look. For everyone’s comfort, clothed interactions are best.
But what to wear? You have to dress well for a girl. We want fashionable friends, preferably our same size so we can borrow clothes.
But you can’t be too dressed up, either. Nothing turns a woman off more than a girl who “thinks she’s all that.” You want to attract a man? Show some cleavage. You want to attract a female friend? Wear adorable ballet flats. When she comments on your shoes, start
griping about how much heels hurt.
Complaining is the glue of female friendships.
My mother is always trying to set me up on playdates with her friends’ daughters. I appreciate the effort, but it’s not so easy to cold-call a girl.
Men, I don’t know how you do it.
Although I think the stakes are even higher when courting someone for friendship. If I flirt with a guy and he blows me off—whatever, maybe I wasn’t his physical type. But if I’m trying to forge a friendship with a girl and she rejects me, it’s much more personal. I can’t blame it on pheromones or something superficial.
She didn’t like me for me.
Feeling discouraged, I did what I always do to clear my head: I took my dog, Pip, for a walk. Outside, the laughter of a group of girls caught my attention, and I hardly felt Pip pulling at the leash to meet a black dog coming toward us. Soon, Pip’s tail was wagging so hard that his entire body wiggled, so I let him engage in some butt-sniffing.
“I think our dogs are friends,” said the woman holding the other leash. “Is this Pip?”
“Yeah, it is.” I looked up, surprised, and noticed that the girl looked familiar.
“We’ve seen you in the neighborhood before. This is—”
“Pepper!” I remembered.
“Right. I’m Carolyn. I always learn the dogs’ names but not the people’s.”
“I’m the same way. I’m Francesca.”
And I might be your new friend.
Story Time
Once upon a time is one of my favorite phrases in the world. Also, a man walks into a bar. Why? Because they begin a story.
I love to hear a good story. Everybody does. Maybe it started with a story told around a campfire, or a bedtime story told in your childhood room, with the outside world at bay.
I love to tell stories, too. I tell a story every year in a novel and plenty more at the dinner table. Lots of people like to tell stories, and it’s the same instinct whether it’s me talking or your best friend. Authors are just storytellers with a royalty rate.