As I Lay Frying Page 14

  In the end, ABC concluded that man is biologically programmed to speed up. Like we didn’t know this from watching teenagers in Isuzus peel away from a traffic light.

  Heck, if man is driven to speed up, this particular woman is driven to slow down. If they stopped the world, I wouldn’t get off, but I’d like to call delay of game.

  Which is why I’ve been practicing Sussification. It’s the ancient art of adapting to life in Sussex County, Delaware. The guiding principle of Sussification is to chill out in the face of deadlines, traffic and waiting for the electrician to show up. While there are many relaxation techniques and poses, my current favorite is on a barstool swilling a Cosmo. It puts me back in balance.

  When we went to get our driver’s licenses recently, there were Sussification disciples everywhere. One government worker (oxymoron alert!!) thought nothing of shrieking questions to me across a crowded room. I loved it when she screamed “Weight???,” listened for my quiet response and then hollered “Couldn’t hear you!”

  To my credit, when I got finished shouting that great big number back to her, I practiced my new Sussification steps and did not leap over the counter and choke her.

  Yes, thanks to my new regimen I’ve put my personal quest for speed on hold and I’m trying to chill out. Here’s a thought: If Yoga is practiced at an Ashram, is a Sussification temple a single-wide?

  To those of us balancing our lives locally, it may have been 100-degrees and frantic on Route One last weekend (I did love the liquor store sign reading “Drink Plenty of Fluids”) but at Poodle Beach there was a nice breeze and great company. My kind of mosh pit.

  Anyway, there I was at the beach, amid a bevy of lesbians of a certain age, when the conversation turned, as it often does, to…um, I forget where this was going…oh yes, to memory. Or lack of it.

  I reported USA Today’s disturbing news that stress causes your brain to shrink, resulting in memory loss. Honey I Shrunk My Brain. I’d refer you to the article, but I forget which day I read it.

  “What we need are Gingko Biloba Margaritas,” suggested a tribe member. Sounds good to me. I’ve already attributed the fact that I can no longer remember all the lyrics to Hot Town Summer in the City to the stress of driving into DC one night last month. The traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue almost killed me. I could feel my brain shrinking. By comparison, a Saturday afternoon trip around here is massage therapy.

  At the beach, calm and peace reign as I chant my Sussification mantra “oh well, whatever” whenever, say, my new puppy eats a sandal. Hey, who cares if the folks who promised to fix my kitchen floor skipped town. And it’s entirely possible that the plumber will get back with the estimate within the twentieth century.

  This new philosophy is working so well I’m beginning to think about politics calmly. In fact, I went to a wonderful Human Rights Campaign reception recently, and got to meet one of my personal heroes, Barbara Gittings—a pioneer of our gay equality movement. She was introduced to the group as a woman who really opened the doors for us. Not skipping a beat, she looked around the room teeming with energetic, interesting women and added “And look who’s coming through those doors now!” It was a wonderful moment.

  And one that surely feeds our brains instead of shrinking them.

  You know, I’m becoming such a high priestess of Sussification that I’m considering buying a gazing ball for my back yard. According to a catalogue description, these decorative lawn ornaments, all the rage in the Victorian era, were used to attract fairies. From the number of gazing balls on my street alone and the demographics of the neighborhood, they seem to work.

  Ah, Sussex County. One day on the sand, a friend scanned the crowd, leaned over to me and said, “If you’d told me in 1960 that I’d be sitting on a beach with thousands of other homosexuals, I would have been…well…very happy!”

  Well, I am very happy. I’ve traded lots of stress away, and I’m working on the rest. Now if I could only figure out this computer nonsense. I just got an error message saying, “You’ve made changes to Normal.doc.” Well I should hope so.

  November 1999

  FAY JACOBS, THIS IS YOUR LIFE

  First let me say Mea Culpa. I’m sorry. I realize now that I’ve failed miserably in my obligation to keep my loyal readers fully informed. What we had here was a failure to communicate.

  Three times during Rehoboth’s October Pet Parade, fairly irate readers, none of whom I’d ever actually met before, stood before us, hands on hips, indignantly saying, “You didn’t tell us you got a second dog!”

  Well, with my humble apologies, I now announce (belatedly to be sure) the arrival of Paddy, the second Miniature Schnauzer to move into Schnauzerhaven. He joins his older half-brother Moxie, rounding out our brand new family. Which all goes to prove what a difference a year makes for pets and people.

  Whew. Halloween night marked the first anniversary of the passing of our beloved Max. In the Jewish tradition, family and friends gather a year after the death of a loved one for a ceremony called an unveiling. It’s a great comfort to be together again a year later, grief in perspective, to unveil the cemetery monument. Then you go pig out on lox and bagels. I’m not sure if I’m the first to have hosted a canine unveiling, but I figured a loved one is a loved one and why not.

  And, as always accompanies these kinds of things, came reflection. Here we are, on the cusp of Y2K, with champagne and survival supplies at the ready. I can’t believe we’re here. Not in Rehoboth, not in 1999.

  As I got dressed for Halloween costume parties around town, I remembered the first time I ever thought about the turn of the century. It was 1961, when my best friend and I, decked out in Roy Rogers holsters and cowboy hats (and we had no idea of our future orientation?) sat counting the decades ‘til 2000 on our fingers (which, by the way, is still how I do my checkbook). Holy Dale Evans, we’d be an ancient 51!!!!

  I don’t have a clear picture of the drooling old biddy I imagined at the time, but you can bet I didn’t conjure a 51-year-old lesbian, dressed for Halloween as Tinky Winky. Reality rocks.

  No crystal ball ever foretold this Big Apple native, happily partnered, overwhelmingly Schnauzered and living in the small town equivalent of Gayberry RFD.

  But I can tell you exactly how I got here, based on my own personal Cliff Notes—my life on a single page. It arrived in the mail, compliments of an anal-retentive pal who’s had the same address book since the Kent State shootings. She photocopied the “Fay page” for me. The antique address book entries are in bold. I’ve added an accompanying travelogue.

  Fay @ American U. Dorm - Theatre major; insane crushes on leading ladies, but no idea an alternative future is possible. Dating male law student. Why am I miserable?

  Fay & Bobby in Bethesda - Oy. Still lusting after Dolly Levi & Hedda Gabler but married, just to pacify the folks, to that accordion player. Start visiting fabulous disco 70s gay bars with the community theatre crowd, me as the token straight. Yeah, right.

  Fay @ Mary Jane’s - Bless the friend who takes me in after the divorce. Too scared to explore alternatives, but watching a lot of tennis and Jody Foster movies.

  Fay in Annapolis - Final heterosexual adventures fail. Tell the folks I broke up with the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.

  Fay @ Mary Jane’s Again - One toe out of the closet, the 1980s era of lesbian potlucks and furtive bookstore visits begins. Folks are clueless.

  Fay @ ________ - Okay, edited for propriety. Suffice it to say that when I told the folks I broke up with the Jewish banker, I kept it gender neutral.

  Fay @ Bonnie’s in Baltimore - About time. Folks still clueless. Learn to love hard shell crabs and the Orioles, hon. Fay very, very happy.

  Fay & Bonnie’s Townhouse - Got a Schnauzer, got a Subaru. Come clean with the folks. “Well…this is 1982,“ they say, bravely. The rest of the family doesn’t miss a beat, asking “So, is she Jewish?”

  F & B, new house in Md. - March on Washington ‘87 & ‘93. Life is good.
Gay 90s. Vacations to Rehoboth begin. After 14 years, folks start sending us anniversary cards, just like they send to the other kids.

  F-Hosp. Rm, 625-B - Do you believe the address book commemorates the farewell to my uterus?

  F & B on boat - Summer weekends on Rehoboth Bay, writing for Letters, and experiencing a totally gay friendly environment. What can be better?

  F & B in Reho - Better is buying our Maryland Ave. condo so we can be here winter weekends, too!

  F & B @ mini-condo - Better yet is selling that hole in the water into which we throw money and buying the world’s smallest condo to weekend on land year round.

  F & B @ Mort’s - At Dad’s in Sarasota, February ‘99. Float the idea of quitting my job, uprooting Bonnie’s business, downsizing and moving full-time to the beach. By now, nothing surprises the folks.

  F & B Reho house - We did it! Moved to Rehoboth!

  Move again and this address book is trash! warns the antique collector. No problem. After one long schlep for mankind, the eagle has finally landed. I’m here to stay. Write it in ink.

  Since this is my last column of the century (now that’s intense) I get to wish you all a happy new Millennium. And I promise that there are no more closeted Schnauzer puppies I haven’t outed.

  Like Dorian Gray’s aging painting in the attic, somewhere out there, there must be a wrinkly 51-year-old hetero woman, gagging through her accordion player’s zillionth rendition of the Beer Barrel Polka.

  As for me, give me Tinky Winky and downtown Rehoboth. See you for Valentine’s Day, and don’t let the Y2K bugs bite.

  February 2000

  AULD LANG INSANE

  Well, we’re still here. Our computers didn’t turn into two-slot toasters and nobody blew anything up. Well, no terrorists, anyway. Of course, with the world-wide pyrotechnics displays, maybe we missed it. Do you think there’s a coven of hapless terrorists holed up in some 4th world country, pissed that nobody noticed their explosion at the Eiffel Tower? I hope so.

  Always up for a party, I set the alarm for 4:45 a.m. on December 31 so we could start toasting with the folks down under on Millennium Island. Groggy from sleep, Bonnie stared at the TV as native people danced the hula to welcome the next century.

  “Hmm...fat people with short arms. Fay, I think we’ve found your clan.”

  And you thought she was so nice. Only my own dawn-induced coma and her claiming the Snickers defense, saved her.

  By late afternoon, we’d already celebrated New Years Eve in nine countries and time zones, making Peter Jennings my first male New Years Eve date since 1978. Back in our own time zone, my clever friends rented a bus for the big night, arranging a multi-house progressive pig out. The gang consisted of about two dozen women and our playwright son Eric.

  He’ll either write a hilarious show about Keanu Reeves trapped on a runaway bus with a gang of menopausal lesbians alternately opening and shutting the windows, or wind up on a psychiatrist’s couch talking about it.

  So the hooting, hollering, hot flashing All-Girl (almost) Magical Mystery Tour careened through Rehoboth, tooting horns, spinning noisemakers and resting assured that if the world came to an end at midnight Eastern Standard Time, we’d all be together.

  Heck, since the roly-poly natives made it to the 21st Century without incident some fifteen hours before, all that was left for us to do was eat, drink and be gay. Piece of cake. And a piece of everything else ever cooked, baked, shaken or stirred.

  From their strategic position on the beach, the bus brigade rang in the New Year, made sure the ocean was Y2K compliant, and headed to Chez Bonnie & Fay for an I-Survived-the-20thCentury Breakfast. Dom Perignon and bagels ain’t bad.

  But once we crossed over to the next millennium, life did not slow down.

  Okay, I’m going to answer the big question, the one all our friends back in Maryland ask; the one folks who just weekend here ask; the one thing people mulling a move to Rehoboth really want to know: “What do you do at the beach all winter?”

  Do???? Why do I have a feeling they picture us camped on the sand, swaddled in goose down, waiting for boardwalk junk food to re-open?

  “Aren’t you bored?” they ask.

  Bored? People cautioned us that things would slow down here in the winter. Really?? When? I’m busier than a lesbian at a barn raising.

  Okay, it’s true. There are many fewer activities here than say, Washington, D.C., but in Rehoboth, we do them all. Back there, I always meant to go to the film festivals, fundraisers, museums, and concerts, and work for the food bank, but somehow I never made it. Here, you can see 12 independent films, do a Breast Cancer benefit, read names on World AIDS Day, buy holiday crafts at the Art League, sing karaoke, have 50 cent tacos, and still have time for the laundry.

  Of course, this year we had to get ready for our era’s War of the Worlds humiliation: Y2K. Our parents may have mistaken Orson Well’s radio script for a Martian attack, but we’re the ones up to our butts in flashlight batteries and water jugs. Future generations will guffaw. But wasn’t it great having an excuse to lay in a stash of Snickers?

  With temperatures spiking near 70, the boardwalk was as crowded in January as September. Even when the thermometer did take a dive, life didn’t stop spinning. Bonnie and I took the opportunity to stay indoors, paint, and arrange the closets. It was heavenly.

  One night, as we sat watching the tube, even I wondered if the dreaded slowdown had finally befallen us. “Are we old fogies, staying home in front of the fireplace and HBO? Would we be at the Kennedy Center or Nordstrom or Dupont Circle?”

  “Fay, it’s eleven degrees out.”

  So it was. And in typical Sussex County fashion, the weathercaster was saying “Snow is on the way. Stay tuned for winter storm information. Some areas of the peninsula may get up to…an inch!”

  That’s the beach for you. But truth be told, I figured on more down time myself. By now I was sure I’d have four spare columns in the computer. No such luck. In fact, things have been so busy, I looked out the window this morning and cheered. Snow was falling and there must have been, well, nigh on to three-quarters of an inch of the stuff on the driveway behind my four-wheel drive Subaru Outback.

  Whoopee! Snowed in. And there’s still a stash of Y2K Snickers. I just love the beach.

  (Author’s note: Serves me right for trying to get this done before deadline...now it’s the following Tuesday and we’re up to our butts in ice and snow. We really are snowed in. I had to use the Y2K battery stash for my flashlight when our electric cut off...and those Snickers are goners. But even an ice storm at the beach is better than a good day anywhere...hey, I may love it here, but I’m not that nuts. Pass the ice scraper.)

  April 2000

  JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE

  TO GO BACK IN THE KITCHEN…

  Good news! Scientists have discovered that sharks don’t like lunching on humans as much as had been believed. The bad news is when they do get a craving, it’s for plump people. Not only was this bulletin disturbing, but I heard it immediately following a tragic afternoon of trying on bathing suits. That’s it, I’m shark bait.

  Is there a name for the kind of denial where, after a winter of parties and half-price pizza, you ignore all mirrors and suffer abject shock come April when your clothes don’t fit? What would that be? Reflection Deficit Disorder? Clinical Dimension?

  Whatever it is, I’ve got it.

  And here I am, a woman with the motto “Life’s uncertain, eat dessert first” living where you can’t walk two paces in any direction without running into a Funnel Cake. After exactly one year in a town with legendary pizza, beach fries, and schnitzel sandwiches, I’m at the top of Orca’s food pyramid.

  Okay, it’s not fair to blame the shape I’m in (round) on Rehoboth’s goody glut. My long-term relationship with the bathroom scale has been rocky at best. I’ve tried every diet ever invented and they all work fine. Really. Scarsdale, Weight Watchers, the cantaloupe diet, that 80s rage The C
ambridge Diet, you name it. I can lose lots of weight on all of them. Unfortunately, I don’t, because I invariably fall off the wagon and onto the buffet table.

  The only real success I ever enjoyed was during the Phen-Fen diet pill craze. Those things were great. Two pills a day and bingo! Better living through brain chemistry. In three months I shed thirty-five pounds, and a lifetime of excess guilt. It was terrific.

  But next thing I knew, doctors started shrieking that our heart valves were becoming applesauce and wham, the government confiscated my Phen-Fen. Luckily, the only permanent medical damage I suffered was blowing back up into a Women’s World shopper.

  Then I tried a new drug I shall not name. You’ve seen the ads. Gaggles of substantial people troll the beach, tryst with spouses and eat what the announcer euphemistically calls a sensible meal. I think a sensible meal is an entire meatloaf, which is probably skewed thinking.

  But have you heard the disgusting disclaimer? I won’t repeat it verbatim on the chance you’re reading this with lunch, but let’s just say that the warning has to do with a teeny little medical side effect which causes your digestive system to drain like a Humvee with an oil leak.

  Frankly, it’s sadistic. There’s nothing in the drug to help you say no to a side of fries, but you’re expected to go cold turkey on fat grams to avoid this pesky little side effect. Duh. If I could go cold turkey on fat grams, who’d need their expensive wonder drug? I think it’s a cruel hoax invented by the Kaopectate people.

  When you think about it, this drug works by figuratively scaring the poop out of you and then, if you stray, getting literal. Next!

  Which brings me back to my original subject. Even if being shark bait is a far-fetched possibility, I do have to get back into last season’s clothes. So, I’m turning to the e-word. Exercise.