Growing Up with the Trojan Woman
She was never a normal mother. Normal mothers in the sixties wore aprons and used Tupperware and stayed home unless they were teachers or nurses. No one’s mother was an architect or graduated from Harvard or washed her hair in the kitchen sink. She was beautiful and walked and swam as if time was running out. A repeating memory of her disappearing, her long legs moving her too fast for me to catch up, her stroke was a crawl that would leave you gasping for breath. My repeated dream was she was dead, in a coffin and I was being told to tell her goodbye.
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Identity
Right after my agent sold my first novel to Harper & Row, I was invited to a very upscale Manhattan literary party populated by up and comers in publishing and writing. I brought a friend for protection and when asked what I did I said, “I’m a teacher.” I was an adjunct at Brooklyn College where I was obtaining an MFA in fiction writing. “You’re a writer,” my friend hissed. “You just got a book deal with a huge publisher.” “I’m not saying I’m a writer.” “But you are!” “It sounds like boasting.”
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Loser
I know how Hilary Clinton felt. Well, no, I don’t. But I know a teeny bit how she must have reacted to the election of that ignorant, lying, cheating, adulterous creep instead of qualified, articulate, heroic, intelligent her. It wasn’t fair. So, there’s the Fatty factor. We had a porky Russian Blue named Fatty to distinguish him from his semi-identical twin, Skinny. I entered Fatty in a contest sponsored by a kitty litter company inventing his persona as a thug-like, jaded, feline who was very proud of his ‘crib’.
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