The Costume Makes the Clown

Seeing as Halloween’s all about disguising yourself as someone else, I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we try to be different things to different people. I’ve found myself at separate times trying to be a friend, daughter, sister, mother, confidant, girlfriend, employee, co-worker, supervisor, mentor, advisor, teacher, student, and benefactor.

How can we be so many different things to so many people without losing sight of who we really are? And when and with whom, exactly, do we just get to be ourselves?

We like to characterize the people in our lives. I think we just feel safer interacting with someone, if we know what to label them. It’s like we put people in little glass boxes we can break open whenever there’s a need for that type of person in our lives.

Have you ever known someone who was totally unpredictable to the point where you found them unreliable? Where you just couldn't find the right label for their glass box? For a while they’re your crazy friend or weird uncle, but eventually, you phase them out. It’s not wrong. It’s human nature. Who wants chaos in their life? They’re just no longer a person you choose to spend time with. Well, I never wanted to be the person that got phased out. So, I put on the masks, fill the roles, and wear the labels.

I think on some level I’ve always believed that as long as I had a role in someone’s life, I had a place in it. It’s like I have this fear that if someone doesn’t need me, they won’t want me either. Am I the only one who feels that way?

Everyday, I put on my makeup, so I look pretty. And I don’t take that slice of pie, so I can fit into my costume. I sometimes smile when I’m sad. I put on a brave face when I’m scared. I am who I think people want me to be.

As someone who always thought I knew who I was, I’m suddenly asking myself the question: “What if all I am is only the sum of all the parts I play for others?”

Lost Loves and Pearl Jam Cd's

Got an email from my high school sweetheart today. I’m totally jazzed. He is such an awesome guy. He was soooo cute. That was back when I was in my “pretty boy” stage. But for all his pretty boy looks, he’s really such a regular guy.

His parents owned a building company back in the 80's, and they lived a pretty nomadic life, traveling from city to city across the Southeast with the contracts. They were in the local area, because they got a contract to put up some condos at Disney World.

One of five kids, he was the oldest boy. His older sister was in Sadie's class in high school, and I never knew her too well. She's was away at college up north while we were dating. His father never said too much, so I didn't know what to make of him. But, his little brothers liked me, and his mother loved me. Well, she did until my parents got me an apartment after they’d moved to Vermont, and I’d stayed behind to finish high school. Then, her son was staying at my place on the weekends. She still loved me, but in a slightly less unconditional way.

He was a skater when we were in high school, and his first business was a pool resurfacing company. So funny considering the amount of time we spent driving around Central Florida listening to Guns ‘n Roses while we were looking for empty pools for him and his buddies to skate in when we were just kids running around.

We used to skip school together, and when it was just the two of us, we'd head to the Sponge Docks before going to this beach park in Tarpon Springs. There was a house across from the entrance to the park that we’d talk about living in when we grew up and got married.

He’s a professional game fisherman now and lives in Alabama. It was cool to hear from him. The last time we saw each other was fifteen years ago. I wonder if he still has that Pearl Jam cd he borrowed from me back in 1993...

It's a Small World After All

Did Habitat for Humanity with the guys today. Devotees will remember how much I enjoy volunteering. What you probably don’t know is how completely inept I am with power tools. I did my best to do my part by cleaning up the site and acting as gofer.

By about midday, I finally built up an enough confidence to attempt putting in supports for the windows. I was walking across the foundation of the house wearing a hardhat and carrying a power drill and a 2x4 when one of the guys says to me:

“Didn’t I see you in a power tools calendar last year?”

So much for my credibility.


I was talking with Sadie tonight. She told me about a friend of hers who is “seeing” a woman he met on this web site called Ashley Madison. Have you heard of this site? It’s a place for people to hook up when they just want to hook up. Sadie’s friend and this woman are both married to other people. They just meet up at different hotels about once a week.

Now, far be it from me to judge, but I’m going to anyway.

Maybe I’m naïve, but I thought that, as part of the deal with the whole getting married and sharing a life together thing, you agreed not to continue to meet strangers in hotels for sex. Isn’t that at least implied in the vows?

Worse, this woman originally went on the site with her husband. They were going to meet up with other couples. Sadie explains to me that when you post, you include photos of yourself, just like on any other site. Now this woman and her husband posted some rather revealing photos, and the woman told my sister’s friend that because of her husband’s diminutive (sound of clearing throat) stature, they had no takers.

At this point in the story, Sadie and I are laughing so hard, that I actually have tears running down my face.

I mean, can you imagine how demoralized this guy must be? The people who use this web site don't even care enough about who they sleep with to, I don't know, get to know the other person's real name before they close the deal. And this guy wasn't (throat clearing sound, again) appealing enough to get anyone to come out and play?

What Sadie tells me next sobers me right up.

“The reason I wanted to tell you about this, is that her husband works for Omnicorp.”

Uh-oh.

I absolutely hate knowing these kinds of secrets about people I may meet. It’s just icky. Now I have to hope I never run into the man and his wife at the company Christmas party. I’m sad for the man, and it’s made me wonder about his wife.

This woman met, dated, and married this man. They took vows. They signed a contract. They’ve spent years together. They have kids. I mean, at what point does size matter?

For my entire adult life, I’ve worked for a company made up primarily of male workers, many of whom have become close friends. I’ve seen first hand how hard these men take it when their relationships end. I mean, I’ve seen women fairly devastated, too, but men seem to take it harder. Women may be guilty of romanticizing sex, but men just idealize love more.

When a woman is done, she’s done. It’s a fact that men kill themselves over failed relationships more often than women do. Men just don’t know how to come to terms with the end. I think it has something to do with they way they’re raised within a competitive environment. If they lose, someone else won. And there are no do-over’s when it comes to the male ego. It can take them years to get over it. Some of them never do.

At least I don’t know this guy personally. It’s so hard to see one of your friends go through this kind of pain. I always end up pulling out the tools I do know how to use: a shoulder, an ear, a lot of alcohol, and my well-rehearsed speech that is usually a variation on “it’s not you, it’s her.”

And in this case, it really is.

Noses and Tales

Babysitting tonight for a friend. The little girl’s a doll. She calls me “Miss Paige” and is presently sweeping my house. She’s definitely a girly girl. I watch her and see myself at that age.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up to be like Samantha on Bewitched. The magical powers, the wiggling nose, the two kids, the meddling neighbor, relatives and mother, the dressing up in cute little outfits and helping my husband in and out of pickles, I wanted it all. Okay, so her husband was gay, but that’s beside the point.

I just wanted to get married, have a couple of kids, and be a housewife. It was truly all I aspired to. I can’t say I’m unhappy with the way my life has turned out. I’m not. It’s just a million times different than what I thought it would be. I mean, it sure isn’t Bewitched.


Went to lunch with the guys from the work-thing today. We went to Fish Tales down in St Pete, this neat little bar and restaurant where people can pull up their boats and have lunch and a beer. The guys and I are going in all kinds of different directions and have all these projects going at once. I hope it all comes together in the end. What I find really strange is how these guys I didn’t even know three weeks ago have become such a huge part of my everyday life so quickly.

Their numbers are all programmed into my phone, and I’m actually on an “it’s me” basis with half of them already. Whenever anyone needs anything, we all drop what we’re doing to get it done. I know their schedules, how they met their wives, how many kids they have, and their plans for the future in the organization. I have people I consider close friends that I spend less time with and don’t know half as well.

What’s even stranger is that I know once this project is completed, we’ll walk away and probably not cross paths professionally again. Their numbers will drop out of my contacts list. We’ll see each other rarely, if at all. And the camaraderie we have will be replaced with that of the people we work with on a regular basis. And that’s how it should be, I guess.

But maybe Josh is right about the rules changing when you get older with respect to relationships. Not so much with these guys, but with these kinds of relationships. In the past, I’ve always been able to get close and let go. I looked at that as a gift, that ability to let go of the person without letting go of what I’d gained from the relationship. But as I get older and meet fewer new people, I find myself wanting to keep in touch with those who do come to mean something to me in a way I never needed to before.

There are just some people that I want to be able to wiggle my nose at and hold on to forever.

Stella and the Crystal Pendulum

I found a dog the other day. She walked right in front of my car while I was on my way to the dry cleaner. Went to the houses in the area, but no one claimed her. I took her to my vet, and she’s not chipped. So, now, I have this little stinky ball of fur sleeping on a blanket in my kitchen.

She’s blind, deaf, and dumb. I thought about calling her “Love” but settled on “Stella.” She keeps bumping into my walls.


"You should have called her Helen Keller," Sadie tells me, when I tell her about the new addition to my household.

Sadie and I are on the phone this afternoon. I'm at Whole Foods – where else? - while she's trying to find the number for her manicurist on YellowPages.com. She tells me about this man who was murdered by his girlfriend's estranged husband. The husband followed them and knocked the guy over with his car, and then, got out and shot him.

"What's worse is that she pulled into the parking lot in time to see the whole thing," she tells me.

"Love and money make people crazy," I say. "Love seems to make people really crazy, though. I think I'm just going to settle down by myself, get some cats, and be happy."

"Okay, Old Maid," she says.

"Fine, then, if there's someone for everyone, where is he?"

"Let me ask my crystal pendulum," Sadie says. Sadie's crystal pendulum can predict the future. There's some rustling, and then I hear her intone, "Will Paige meet the right guy in 2009?"

"Well?" I ask.

"It says, no," she tells me.

"That's okay," I say. "2009 is a transition year for me."

"Will Paige meet the right guy in 2010?" she asks the pendulum. Waits a few seconds and says, "It says no, again."

"What about the Magic 8 Ball? I hear they're pretty accurate. You got one of those?" I ask, and then, "Allright. Go ahead, and ask it if I met the right one in 2008. Maybe there's someone I overlooked."

She asks. There's a pause, a long one, and then, "It says, yes."

That seems about right.

"You know, of all the genres my life could mimic, I've always sort of suspected it was sitcom."

"It's just this crystal on a string," Sadie says.

I'm nodding on my end of the line.

"Okay, well, I'm going to head out then," she says.

I'm still nodding as we hang up.



Josh and I were talking tonight about relationships and all that, and I told him I didn't think it was a good idea to go about dating with an end result in mind.

"I just think it sets you up for failure," I said. "When you go into something with the objective of getting married to or settling down with this person, you set limits on the relationship. You are basically operating under the assumption that this is a person you'd like to end up with. If that doesn't happen, the relationship is viewed as a failure, when, in fact, it may very well have been a successful relationship that's just run its course. Why can't you just date to have fun?"

He told me, "Because the rules change when you get older."

I'm not sure I agree with that. Mostly because I don't believe in rules when it comes to love. How can something so illogical be governed? I mean, I know that there are people who say love is a choice, but I think being with someone is a choice. I don't believe you can dictate to your heart who to love.


So, okay, I’ve been talking with this guy for a couple of weeks now. He went to a good college. He’s the right age. He’s got the right relationship status. And he likes me. All pluses. And, I met him in 2008, which apparently makes him a sure bet, according to Sadie's crystal pendulum. He’s a little too pretty, but he's got a good personality.

While I can overlook a shortcoming like aesthetic perfection, he's just too perfect in more ways than his appearance. I do like my men with a few flaws. When they're perfect, you end up scrambling around for the first six months trying to be perfect, too. I just don't have the time for that mess. I guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens. Maybe there'll be a crack in the façade.

I know I said I wasn't going to date right now, but, like Stella with my walls, I just keep bumping into it. Besides, I’m really not a cat person.

Butterflies Are Free, but Calls Are $4.99 a Minute

What is it with those gift boxes of salt water taffy, you know, the mixed variety kind they sell as souvenirs, that the yellow ones are never banana flavored? They’re invariably lemon, which is a good flavor I guess. Lemon’s just not banana. Still, I keep buying those boxes, hoping I’ll be surprised.

So, the wedding was beautiful and creative, and it reflected the happy couple’s personalities perfectly. It was on the beach. The sun was shining, and the bride walked down the aisle to “All You Need is Love” by The Beatles. Then, the bar was open, so everyone had a great time. I was suffering from a bout with the flu, so I didn't make it past the toasts...


The following morning was chilly. I had coffee out on the deck with the mother of the groom, a sweet, funny lady from South Philly. We had spent the morning before doing the same thing having bumped into each other in the lobby at six o’clock when so few people are up wandering around. We even ended up at the same table for dinner at the reception, too. She is a darling older Italian woman and has the neatest personality. She’s got moxie. I think that’s a good way to describe her.

Anyway, we’re talking about this and that when a Monarch butterfly flits past.

“Oh, look at that butterfly,” Moxie says. “I hear that if you see a white butterfly someone wants to see you.”

“That one was orange,” I point out.

“I know that. I’m just saying,” she says.

“So, what does it mean when you see an orange one?” I ask.

She just laughs and says, "I know that when your nose itches, it means you're going to get into a fight."

When I get up to leave, I tell her I’m heading out for the airport.

“It was a real pleasure to meet you,” she says, and grabs one of my hands, kissing it. “Oh, like ice! I hope we see each other again.”

I smile at her and say, “Send me a white butterfly. I’ll come find you.”


It was an easy flight home. I did the normal coming home things, unpacked and started laundry, picked up the dog from the kennel, and checked my house phone for messages. And that’s when things went slightly loopy. I had an obscene message on my voice mail. Not just any kind of obscene message. I got full-on porn. Free.

Now, in the past, when I’ve gotten these kinds of phone calls, I’m actually answering the phone, and the caller is a stranger and wants the call to be participatory. I always oblige by throwing out a statement like, “Shouldn’t you start with a better opening than just heavy breathing? You could work up to it at least.” Because, really, they should at least say something, give me a heads up, before getting down to business. Just my opinion.

And, the calls that are repeated hang-ups and go on for weeks usually end up being from a guy I went out with once or twice or a guy I went out with ages ago, and they’re just trying to find an opening. It’s harmless. Or it has been for me, at least. Luckily, since the advent of caller id and cell phones, it’s almost impossible to stalk anyone anonymously anymore.

So, whoever wanted to share their experience with me, called me at 4:13 am on a Saturday morning and still had the wherewithal at that hour to mark their call “private.” Honestly, I don’t think I have the wherewithal at four o’clock in the morning to even be having sex, let alone mark my call private and dial while I’m doing it. I feel like maybe I should applaud. Of course, the message was only nine seconds long, so I guess my condolences would be more appropriate.

Still, it’s very strange. It wasn’t kids playing a prank. The voices belonged to adults. There was no funky 70’s porno backbeat to indicate that it was a recording played for my benefit. But it so clearly was done for my benefit. Who knows? It was definitely a surprise.

I’d still prefer that my surprise had been finding a banana-flavored piece of salt water taffy in that souvenir box, though.

White House Subs

I’d just like to put in a bid for whoever is in charge of picking the music they play at airports to screen the song selections for songs about plane crashes. I mean, honestly, do I really need to hear “Fire and Rain” while I’m waiting to board? It’s just creepy.

Times like this, I really miss being young and stupid. I was never afraid of anything when I had no comprehension of my own mortality. But as my grandfather used to say, “Everyone’s gotta die of something. No one gets out of here alive.”

So, I’m heading to Atlantic City for a wedding. It’s extended family, so that’s nice. You get to catch up with everyone you haven’t seen for a while and meet new people at the same time. And everyone’s Christmas card list gets that much longer for the next few years.

I lived just outside Atlantic City for about four years prior to moving home to Florida. New Jersey gets such a bad rap. It’s one of the nicest places I’ve ever lived. It’s surprisingly rural. Well, South Jersey is very rural. (Blueberry Capital of the World!) Forget what you saw on The Sopranos, because there’s definitely a difference between North Jersey and South Jersey. Ask anyone from South Jersey, and they’ll give you at least ten reasons that it should be considered it’s own state. To get a better understanding of their thinking on this, check out this site: You know you’re from South Jersey...

New Jersey’s one of the most environmentally conscious states in the nation. Drive the White Horse Pike into AC and you’ll see the country’s first coastal wind farm in the bay. I saw more solar panels out there than I ever saw in California. Recycling is mandatory. Period. And people from the Jersey shore buy local produce down the road from their house, if they don’t grow their own. Just try the tomatoes grown in New Jersey, and you'll understand why.

And South Jersey’s never dull. There’s too much to do. But if you find yourself with some time on your hands, Philly’s an hour away. New York is two hours away. New England is six hours away. You’ve got the mountains a short drive away. You’ve got the beach in your backyard. The surfing’s good. The food is awesome.

The homegrown Jersey people are pretty unique, too. They're a little like Floridians on speed. They’re way more open-minded than Midwesterners, but it just gets too cold for them to be all that laid back. They’re far too pragmatic to roll with it like Californians. And they're way more "in your face" than people from New England. In your face is definitely the trend in the upper mid-Atlantic, which I can relate to, since my Brooklyn-born mother was raised on Long Island.

That an Irish-Catholic would ever be confrontational is ironic. It usually takes representatives from two generations, a go-between, and a measure of voluntary amnesia on both sides to resolve a conflict in an Irish-Catholic family.

I’m Swedish, too. That’s the genetic equivalent of combining two bases, which doesn’t account for the sharp tongue I remember on my mother from my childhood. What was really funny was how that New York accent that she’d worked so hard to lose would come out whenever she got angry. I figure it’s got to be something in the water that makes people from New York and Jersey this way.

Another thing about the water. This is the reason people from Jersey claim their bread’s so good. Don’t argue with them. You’ll be all day. And you'll be wasting your breath. Once you’ve eaten a hoagie from White House Subs on Arctic, you’ll never go to a Subway again.

Fuggedaboutit.

Gays and Granolas

“Are you sure you want to do this? You’re really going to limit yourself . Right away you knocking out white trash and any guys who watch sporting events, not to mention a whole world of chicken wing eaters. Really your options pretty much nil after this.”

So says Sadie when I tell her I’ve gotten my Vegetarian Starter Kit, really just a thin publication decrying cruelty to animals at the hands of the agriculture industry. It also goes into the damage this industry is doing to the environment as a result.

Sadie’s at the hardware store checking out fountains and buying mulch. I bite my tongue to stop myself from telling her she should just use fallen leaves to mulch her flowerbeds. When did I become this person?

“So what does that leave?” I ask. “The gays and granolas, right?”

“Yep. Oh, there’s a tranny here at Lowe’s,” she says. “I could ask him-her for her-his number. You could date shim.”

“That’s allright. I’m good.”

So, I read this book called Skinny Bitch in August and have since been meat free. You try eating meat after reading the chapter on what goes on in slaughterhouses. I still eat fish, and I’ve got a little addiction to the dill Havarti cheese they sell at Whole Foods that I’m not entirely comfortable with. (That stuff is like crack!) So I’m not a full on vegan, which, let's face it, is just weird.

What Sadie’s telling me is something I hadn’t really worried about. Over the years, my family’s gotten used to my little quirks over organic foods and environmentalism, but they already love me. And I do like the guys who watch sporting events.

As much of a weirdo environmentalist/feminist/liberal as I must seem, I’m really pretty conservative in my views about the roles of men and women. Maybe this is why I never married any of the sensitive, like-minded men I always seem to date.

I grew up with pretty regular guys as father figures. One of my first memories is of sitting in the garage with the guys while they were working on a car. That day, I had my very first sip of beer from one of those cans that you pushed the two metal circles in to drink from. When I was about seven, I remember running around the pit area of the racetrack where my uncle raced his cars. My mother’s brothers were always hanging out, playing guitar and surfing.

So, anyway, I guess I just think men should be men. Beer drinking, rough talking, sports obsessed, taking out the trash, in the garage working on the car, fishing on the boat, grilling at the barbeque, golfing on Sundays, not talking about their feelings, hanging with the guys, looking at pretty girls when your head is turned, bug killing, person who gets up to see what that noise was.

And girls should be girls.

Okay, so maybe I am thinning out the dating herd a bit by giving up meat, but, honestly, anyone who falls in love with me will have to love all of me anyway. Why try to be something you’re not?

Boys and Golf

I was just kicking around tonight and decided to check my messages. Imagine my surprise when there is a message from Scott.

Okay, now imagine my surprise when I find a message from Scott on my home phone when I’ve never given him that number.

Scott’s just checking in, so I think about it for a few minutes, measuring in my mind how much damage a call will do. I decide I have to call back, because we have mutual friends, and I don’t want there to be any weirdness if we run into each other. And we have a nice conversation. We talk about life and stuff we’ve been doing since we last spoke earlier in the month. He’s busy. I’m busier.

He tells me he's been watching a lot of sports, so I take this opportunity to ask him about how they announce golfers at tournaments. Part of my duties in this outreach thing is to announce the people I’m caddying for at a golf tournament my group is hosting. In case you, like me, have never taken the time to immerse yourself in the world that is the Golf Channel, this is how they do it:

“Now on the tee: From (city they’re from) is (person teeing off).”

Don’t ask me why it’s important that I know this, or why it’s important to these guys that they are announced as they tee off. Men are strange. At least, the men I work with are strange. Maybe being announced like they're golf's rock stars is akin to the way men like to preen in front of the mirror when they get out of the shower. It just makes them feel like studs.

So, Scott and I come to the end of the conversation, and he gets around to asking me out again.

Before the words “I’m just not dating right now” are even out of my mouth, he’s saying, “I know. I’m sorry.”

Why did you ask, if you already know the answer?

Before we end the call, he does tell me, and this is so sweet, that he’s taken to wearing flip-flops instead of dressing so formally all the time.

“I’ve gone out with my buddies a couple of times wearing flip-flops already.” Is how he ends his monologue on his transformation from straight-laced millionaire to beach bum.

He says this because I gave him a hard time about dressing up the last time we went out. And I smile on my end of the line, and tell him that I think that’s a good thing. I mean, we do live in Florida, right?

He asks if he can check in with me time-to-time, and I tell him, “Sure.”

He’s not hurting me at all by calling, and, you know, I think you can never have too many friends.