shopping.....and.........?????

I went to the grocery store today and got what I'd make lunch with: some pasta sauce, brie, bread, soy milk, butter substitute (new experiment).....in the Pratt store. The music at these places (me being a music person) is really cheesy, chatty and upbeat.....not what I normally listen to. It'll be a while before I start really cooking although I love to bake: pies, cookies, cake. Helathier stuff, though.
I have a friend who, many years ago, was married to the lead singer of a skinhead band. I was her best friend at the time. She really is a sweet, golden human being...and considering how she was raised she could have been a monster. I'll have to write about this more in depth somewhere else, but if you've ever had a time in your life where you're so raw, so thin skinned, and your life is peaking in intensity: well this was one of those moments for me. I went from high to low pretty fast, and back again, but it's these events that shape a person. My friend, Alex, was gorgeous, smart and funny, but for whatever reason she ended up with, well to be honest, he was a little like Stanley Kuwalski; however, he did have brains and talent, he wasn't just a thug, to his credit. So, they met and he fell in love with her, they allegedly had great sex, and he proposed......and on Sept. 11th (way before the 9/11/01.....this was a completely different era) they wed at city hall, actually in Lower Manhattan. I was there, too. But, her mother was on drugs and insane, he too was doing dust, he turned out to be psychotic and though he didn't beat her up or anything, he was very borderline. Well, uh, is that a surprise? He died a few years ago of alleged pneumonia, not to mention that he caused severe damage in Alex's life. She left after about a month and a half but they never divorced; they just stopped talking. The only way she knew of his death is because....OK this is what's weird: I was waiting to audition somewhere in the city when I picked up a local zine, and there was his picture. Then, it said he died. I was pretty freaked by that. Then, Alex called me a day or so later and said she was coming to town, and I thought that was the reason. But when she got into the city she asked if I'd heard what happened to him and that's when I told her, haven't you heard? He's dead. And she actually laughed and said, I'm free! She was joking about it....well, she actually was involved with someone else by then. But she never contacted his family. Then a few years later she remarried, and has a kid now. But she still talks about him, dreams about him. She said he's the best sex she ever had. Very strange.....I don't think I've ever had a connection like that with anyone. Just to have that intense a bond with someone: well, I have, but it didn't last. I never forgot those people but when it happened I was, what, 17? What could I or they have to contribute to a relationship? But I keep hoping it'll happen again, although I want it to last, of course. They were just precious few moments in my life where I was living really intensely, but in an emotional way that almost did me in. But, at least I learned from the experience. All the meditation I did and writing, that's what led me to the.....stuff I got involved in.

SO....the earlier teen years....in junior high, being...well, the constant pressure, even then when we were fourteen, to be pretty, well, always, really, a kind of sex object. Well, OK, looks count. Clothes and shoes matter. In high school you had to dress well, have the right shoes, the right jewelry and jacket, and even the poor kids who could barely afford to eat looked good. going to a high school and being in an environment where you were supposed to contemplate suicide if you didn't get accepted into an Ivy League school...living in Lower Manhattan with high maintenance people....discovering punk, anarchists, vegans, not bathing, hanging out with the hippies, not going home, refusing to be....well....then going to one school where I discovered acting, moving to Chicago.....I wasn't much of a scholar. It's just not what I was meant to do. Then....later I went back to school when I realized I didn't want to spend my life working in a grocery store, thank you very much. Plus, the school had a good drama department. So, my mother's husband and his friends may faint at the idea of my going to Hunter instead of Dartmouth but....I don't know....realistically, you do have to live. The way they're pushing my sister: I mean, maybe she is academic, but I don't see it, honestly. I am NOT saying she's not smart, but I just don't see her as particularly studious or scholarly. I think if she really wanted to go to an Ivy League school she'd have gotten in. And even then, I've been in the work force and they care far more about your experience and ability to do the job than about what school you went to: unless you're going to be a stock broker or lawyer or doctor. But I do think she's better off in California...but Mother and her husband were insulted and thought I was saying she's a bimbo. I'm not saying that. USC is not that bad a school from what I know, and realistically Sam (my sister) it seems is into partying on the beach.....well, of course that's not all she or anyone wants, I know, but that IS where she gravitates, it seems. I believe she is smart and has lots of potential.....but no one has asked her what SHE wants, I don't think. Maybe I'm wrong and she really does want to be a lawyer. Then great. I believe when I have kids I will support them in whatever they want to do...I mean, hopefully they won't want to be serial killers or or to drop boms, but I'll do my best to make sure they don't end up that way. There's nothing wrong with that, but she's not a "leftist" which is what I gather U or M is like....or a sorority type like this other college she may be going to. If it was my kid I'd spend the money on her travelling the world and then send her to a state school. My opinion, but I think Ivy League is a waste of money if you're not rich and not planning to become a doctor or lawyer. ANyhow, just my $.02.