On Fame, Morning Breath and My Love

Friday, July 28, 2006

On Fame, Morning Breath and My Love "I would hate to be famous" Michael remarked, as I skimmed through a gossip rag. This online columnist was butchering the hair, wardrobe and reputations of Hollywoods most beautiful and successful, a practice I detest. "Why do people get off on putting down others?", I shrugged. Indeed, the press would likely have a field day with me, if they caught a glimpse of the real me first thing in the morning, in my loose-fitting pj's, without makeup, my uncombed hair wrapped atop my head in a sloppy bun and well, morning breath capable of taking down a large animal. Oh yeah, I'm sexy as hell. Pity my husband. He's condemned to a life time of mornings with me. In all honesty, the media has been nothing but kind to me over the years. Any press I've gotten has been positive. But then, it could be a matter of volume and I'm not exactly in the same league with the Janet Jacksons and Paris Hiltons of the world. I've enjoyed my little bit of notoriety. (Plus, I've told all of my own secrets, which doesn't leave anyone with much of a scoop.) I think that if anyone suffers for my ambitious, forthright, no gutts no glory nature it's my husband. I had in my twenties dated a handful of industry people-actors, models, musicians, people who are not only comfortable in the limelight, they thrive there. But the man I married is a complete unknown. He isn't in the industry and he last thing he ever wants to be is watched. He's the most private, shy, grounded and unspoiled human being I've ever met. Personalitywise we are polar opposites. I'm out there, the ham in any sandwich. I'll talk to anyone and trip over my own feet to make them laugh. He, however, hyperventilates when I start acting up. He starts lookig for somewhere to hide. Now, you sort of have to expect some attention when you're with me, and in the case of a man as striking as Michael, quite a bit of it. He is completely clueless as to how good looking his is. I think if he knew, he'd be dangerous. He's 6 foot tall and slender with jet black hair and burgundy brown eyes. He has full "Angelina Jolie" lips, a German accent and more artistic talent than you can shake a stick at. He's a painter and airbrush artist. He has a small tatoo on his left sholder and when we first met, his had punky blonde streaks in his hair and two tiny gold rings in his ears. And he's five years younger than me, which is not a bad thing. He's too good for me, and I know it. "Come on", I plead, holding a camera. "Let me take one. People think I made you up." He ducks behind a piece of furniture. He is as elusive as the Sasquatch of legend, only far less hairy. Yes, it's entirely superficial but his being so attractive really gives him an unfair advantage. Like when we are fighting, for example. It's very hard to stay mad at someone you want to constantly molest. We met online of all places, long before it was the in thing to do. Waaaaay back in 99 in fact. And it was an unintentional match. I had recently separated from my sons father and was still so bitter I'd all but swore off men altogether and he was living in Germany. The desire to be together was something that grew as our friend ship developed, something we never imagined would happen, a dream we never thought we would realize. But this is my life and stranger things have happened. three hour a night chats became phone calls and then one day, he called and told me he had bought a ticket to come and meet me over the turn of the millenium. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering whether you're the one." he said. I was never so excited and so scared in my life. He'd seen dozens of photos of me from my music and modeling days, but I was older now and living a more domesticated life as a midwest mother. What if he meets the real me and runs screaming back onto the plane, demaning a ticket refund? I worried. What if the chemistry doesn't work in person? It was the mother of blind dates, a tremendous leap of faith I was terrified of disappointing him. as for him, i was already in love and as I told my dear friend Tony Graham, "I don't care if he has a third arm growing out of his back!" (To which, he laughed "You're crazy!" ) Everyone thought we were crazy but we were swept up in the most romantic adventure of our lives. From the moment he stepped off the plane and smiled in my direction all doubt was gone. There was a rare and beautiful comfort in this love, as though we'd klnown eachother all our lives. He was more wonderful than than words, the sweetest man I'd ever known. At the end of three weeks he proposed to me. [Should inquiring minds want to know, as they did then, He wasn't asking out of a need for citizenship, as his mother was American and living in France when he was born, having a Belgian father.] I was nervous... It was too soon, I thought.... but the day he left all I did was cry, burying myself in a sweater he left behind..... I called him the next day and told him "YES!" and he screamed so loud he surely woke half of Europe. He spent the next 5 months closing out his apartment, giving his job notice, and traveling all over Germany getting documents neccessary for the move to America. He arrived July 4th, 2000. We were married in Feb of 2001. It's not been the smoothest ride, but we grow stronger the longer we're married. No one means as much to me, save my son, who since his natural father died has really come to love and look up to Michael. This afternoon he will be traveling out of town for a few days, which he's done before, but I am as usual, anxious. I miss him already and hope everything goes smoothly and he returns to me quickly and in one piece. "Give me something to remember you by while you're gone", I tease, snuggling up. "You're bad", he laughs, beet red. And then he does. I do so love him.

Heroin, Miscarriage And Other Touchy Subjects

Anyone familiar with me or my work will tell you I am not one to shy away from personal, often painfful subjects. In a world full of sugar coated shit I am brutally honest. Open, not to be confused with trash-talking and rude, I am easy to talk to and wear my emotions like a badge of honor. I am human. I will never present myself as anything but.

One thing I have been open about over the years is my being born drug-addicted to a teenage prostitute and adopted. This ugly truth profoundly affected me in life and I did not want to bury it under the rug only to have it surface in the media, contorted and confused. And yet, somehow when I did first go public with this in the early 1990's, while attemptnig to plan a benefit for Hale House in Manhattan, I was still met by some fearfully. It was misunderstood by some that I was presently a drug user, which was not at all the case. Being born addicted I was marked early, and still suffer from the effects. However, I of my own accord have never injected, ingested or smoked any substance-with the exception of alcohol, which I gave up 13 years ago. Still people wonder, people suppose, people assume and worst of all, people judge. I didn't want pity. I wanted people to see the plight of these innocent children and help porovide for research and rehab funding to help the infants and their families. They needed a voice and my own mouth was plenty big, speaking from experience and centerstage. Some say I'm courageous. Some consider me a fool, bearing all, sometimes to the wolves. I am not afraid of the truth. I can not live with lies.

Now I am working on a song tentatively titled "Little Girl Lost", about my miscarriage earlier this year.
"You can't write about that!", a friend told me.
"Why not?" I responded. "Why should miscarriage be a dirty word?"
"It's.... too personal", she said. "It's a private matter. " Women guard it like a secret they're ashamed of, as though they feel they failed as women, as mothers. No one ever knows what to say in such situations and so they say nothing at all, pretending it never happened, which is the worst thing anyone can do. A baby died inside me. Treat it like a death becuase that is what it was. She never recieved a name. She never recieved a funeral. She was discarded like a heap of human trash, by a medical community that saw her tiny being as no more than a sample to analize but my child was not trash. It was a life, a person I will never get to hold, know or love the way I wanted to. I won't ever forget her. The experience has changed me forever.

Now, this loss is still very fresh and the mere mention of it can reduce me to tears, but don't think all of my material is so bleak and sad. Right now this just happens to be where my inspiration is coming from. If I can help, comfort or bring understanding through my work, then I will continue to tackle the tough subjects.

My Very Humble Beginnings And Kudos To Jason Mewes

With the press about the release of the highly anticipated and long overdue "Clerks" movie sequel "Clerks 2", there has been a lot of talk about actor Jason Mewes and his essential come back. As a former heroin addict-as was his unfortunate mother before him, now deceased, he struggled for many years to overcome an affliction that likely found it's root in a painful childhood. He, through determination and the unbelievable support of Kevin Smith - who sounds to me like the best friend a guy could ever hope to have in life- conquored an enemy that has taken far too many good people not only out of their professions but out of this world completely. I think his story of survival and hard-won victory touches and inspires me so much on so many levels because I have personally been deeply affected by my own birth mothers heroin use. I was myself a drug baby, born to a heroin addicted teenage prostitute and abandoned on Manhattans lower east side. I was the result of a year long affair she had with the 3 decade older seminole indian country music star Jimmy Cook-something he himself publically admitted to before his death. In "Pretty Woman" style, he unexpectedly fell in love with the tall slender blonde while in New York. He moved her into his Manhattan apartment, offered to buy her a car and got her into rehab. He claimed he would have married her if she would only stay clean but her attempts in Methadone treatment failed and he finally gave up on her. [She was in and out of both rehab and jail, resorting to crime to support her habit. She later died in her 30's of a heroin and cocaine overdose, her body discovered outside the Hudson street entrance to the New York Subway system.] I was born in '71, tiny, under-developed and undergoing the ravages of opiate withdrawal. I spent months in Bellevue Hospitals neonatal icu-only 9 pounds at four months of age. From there I went to a "shelter boarding home"-essentially an orphanage for homeless infants, to a foster home in Manhattan and then finally to live with my adoptive parents. My birth father had fought for custody of me, unsuccessfully. He was still legally married to the mother of his first 15 children (He would go on to have 18 including me, including sets of triplets and twins) and in those pre DNA testing days he could not prove his paternity. Whille I was thereafter raised in a stable, drug free home and have successfully avoided all drug use-including cigarettes-all of my adult life, the damage was aleady done. I have long suffered with dibilitating anxiety, agoraphobia and ocd-all of which doctors attribute to my neonatal addiction and lack of emotional bonding in my early years of life. I know too well the pain of living with stigma, illness and misunderstanding. In this way I live as any other former heroin addict, only no longer with shame. For I am as Jason and so many others are, a survivor. I am just as ready to defy the odds. I have chosen to be forthright about sharing my own story and struggles because I believe there needs to be light brought into the darkness. We lost children have lived long enough in darkness and fear.

I rejoice with Jason; I applaud him. All things considered, he has accomplished a miracle. No blame. No shame. He is his own hero. He is finally coming into his own, poised to show the world just how talented he is. He is a living example that no matter how tough your start in life may be, no matter how badly beaten down you can feel, we can achieve anything if we fight for it. We all deserve health and happiness.

Wherever you are Jason, you are an inspiration. I wish you every joy and success in life!

Tuesday, March 7, 2006 Things Are Looking Up

So much has happened in the lapse of time since I last posted here that it would take a week to record is all in proper detail.

My son survived a scary three weeks of flu and bronchitis, on eight different medications at one point.
I became pregnant with a second child.
I miscarried a month and a half later, and was crushed.
Michael and I are still going strong. Can't explain the difference but it's as though the man actually loves me and wants to be wth me this time around. We're closer than we've ever been. I love my family more than words.

And due to improvements in our finances I will begin recording my first properly produced cd, starting with an upgrade of "Is This Love?" No more settling for four track demos or karaoke masterpieces. No drum machines and synthesized guitar. I plan to record at Oklahoma's premier studio, Bell labs-at which the Flaming Lips record, among others. Real live hired musicians. More bang for my buck. (It will cost me a pretty penny but I for the first time have it to work with. I am excited, thrilled, scared poopless. Time to show the world what I can really do!

I Am Happy!

In the time it takes to say, "Please God, Thank You and Amen", your life can change in miraculous ways.

The last time I made an entry into this online journal I lamented about how miserable I was about Michael's prolonged absense, for example. Not only has he returned-unexpectedly and with little warning, a month ago yesterday. I had gone as far as to file for divorce, which when he showed up he talked me out of. His attitude towards me has so vastly improved I I jokingly asked for identification to verify it was in fact, my long lost estranged husband and not a well fashioned, alien planted hot-bot, put in place to ease my hurting (& horney? lol) heart. "Who are you?" I teased. He's that different. Or perhaps I finally did lose my marbles and I've fantasized him into existence. I'm delieriously happy. If I'm crazy, let me be. Right now I don't mind. I hope the happiness lasts. I hope he stays. I know as quickly as he returned he could pull out the rug from under me again and disappear once again, leaving Christian and I to anguish his loss all over again. For those who think I'm a fool for taking him back, try spendng a year without the man you love and tell me you wouldn't rather forgive him and have him with you?

And my son, now ten, is equally full of surprises. He's already in advanced math class, and breezing through it, strong in all of his other subjects. Well today I learned that my son has not only aced the crt tests but has been determined to be "highly gifted" according to the Otis Lennon IQ test. "Your son is a very special person", the gifted program coordinator informed me. "He's very, very intelligent. In fact, he tested in the top one percent in the nation!"
"You're kiddng!", I gasped. Now I knew he was bright but I thought myself biased, as most mothers are. "I noticed it a couple of years ago", she went on. "That he was different. I've been carefully monitoring his progress. And the incredible thing is his IQ is only going to get even higher until it levels out around 7th grade." The school is going to pay for special programs and opportunities to help him reach his potential. He'll be able to attend college early, among other things. I was shaking with excitment, crying in disbelief. My little genius. Who knew?! He's ten and already Mensa-eligible. Where on earth does he get it from? (I actually have been tested by a clinical psychiatrist a few years back and was found to have an IQ well into the superior range. "You excel in every area-EXCEPT Math.... I believe you suffer from a math disability", the man informed me. I could have told him that. I failed math regents two years in a row. I think they finally passed me for fear that I'd eventually end up in class with my little sister. "A disabilty brought about by the same brain abnomality that causes your OCD. You're by no means stupid. In fact, it's often the unusually intelligent people who suffer from mental illness." So what makes me bright, makes me crazy. Super.)

Christian's biological father, for all of his drug and psychiatric problems (He was bi-polar and went many years without treatment until only three years or so before his death) , was brilliant in equally scary ways. He was one of those people who could compute anything instantly in his head, travel all over the country without needing a map, write a song as he performed it, survive on a shoestrong and remarkable resourcefullness and unfortunatly for many in his life, manipulate masterfully. I used to tell him "If only you used your talents for good...." He was a sick, sick man, but genius. So, wherever my son gets the high IQ from, I Thank God he's got it. I hope he is able to do more with it than either of his parents could.

Life never ceases to amaze me. It's always full of wonderful surprises.

I am happy! :-)

Divorce Bites

I spoke to Michael tonight and we have calmly decided to divorce. I have the first part of the paperwork needed to fill out-a sad task I do not look forward to completing. Once signed by the both of us, I will go before the judge (he is signing a waiver to contest) and it will be final in 30 days.

Michael's thoughts and feelings about me seem to change with the wind - from time to time he will tell me he missed me and wants very much to be with me again and just two nights ago he told me I looked great in my new photos and suggestd that once he's situated in his new apartment in LA we can go live with him there - but more often than not, he seems to be happy to be living a bachelors life, (sex, drugs and rock and roll) I am pretty sure once it's over he will feel a sense of relief more than anything. I however, am crushed. He's meant more to me than any man alive. But he's been gone almost a year and offers no promise of return. And right now, the thought of being with Jay or anyone else on planet earth, no matter how wonderful they may be, does my heart little consolation.

"You're 100% entitled to a divorce", the attorney informed me. "On the grounds of abandonment and incompatibilty. If he tries to contest it, we'll take him for everything he's got."

"He hasn't got anything", I sighed. "And the only thing I every wanted he won't give me." His love. "This doesn't need to be ugly. I don't want to hurt him. I just want us to be able to move on in good conscience."

Good comfort is another thing. Right now I feel like I could die.

Stranger Things Have Happened

And you thought Ian Crawford first asking me out those many years ago defied the laws of nature. My managing to get my unknown ass on tv not once but twice. My impressing the likes of Richard Dixon-the man who discovered Rosie O Donell, Eddie Murphy and Jerry Seinfeld-and signing of all things a modeling contract with him. Meeting and falling with love with Michael online in Germany, and marrying him a year and a half later. Having a beautiful child when we were told we couldn't. Surviving a terrifying car wreck. Once being at the gate of Buckingham Palace to see Prince Charles and The Queen Mother. Being miraculously cured of breast tumors following a healing mass. Being adopted after being a drug baby, and by a wonderful family. Having a famous birth father. Escaping a rape attempt, a kidnapping effort and a murder attempt on the streets of lower Manhattan. Graduating High School. Cleaning my apartment right for once. I have had luck overflowing.

Hey, stranger things have happened to me, so why should these new opportunities surprise me? But they do. Do they ever.

I have been asked by a entertainment entrepenuer/investor to do a calendar, the cover artwork to be done by renowned pin up artist Jay Trembly - who has expressed more than professional interest in me.... (We've been chatting and talking on the phone for a couple of weeks now and find myself more than intrigued by the attractive, dark-haired painter.)

It's a scary thought to think you may soon be able to go to your local mall and pick up twelve months of me in my skivies. One may question whether the public has not suffered enough?

I'm not tall, busty and blonde. I'm not 18 but very near double that. At 34 I am not only starting over in my career but in the dating world-soon to be single after six years with Michael. I am so confused. Depressed over my inevidable divorce. Excighted by new career opportunities. Flattered by unexpected possibilties of love. Scared shitless of it all.

GREEN THUMB ACRES

I love to watch things grow--children, flowers, vegetables, friendships, dreams-and of course, the greatest of all things, love.

I don't know what my future holds but I have seen the seeds of hope planted. With the right nourishment, I may find them blossoming in the summer sun.

I have invited Oklahoma musical legend Joe Settlemier and his wife Donna to have dinner with us in the next few weeks and I will probably serve a baked chicken and some of our fresh, garden grown vegetables and herbs. I may not have much to offer in my modest home, but I will offer the best of my bounty and hospitaility. I really want them to have a nice day with us. They are such wonderful people.

I can not wait until I have a house with a proper yard in which to plant a true garden. Right now I am confined to a potted patio garden, which provides a nice bundle for us but not enough to give very much away to family and friends, which is part of the fun. My mother and father both taught me well the value and pleasure of putting my hands in the earth-giving to it and recieving back from it. My parents used to have a grand garden when my sister and I were growing up in New York, all varieties of natural goods from fruit trees and berries to many vegetables and a jungle of flowering plants and vines to compliment the greenery on our half acre plot of paradise. The air smelled of forcynthia and lavender, strawberries and mint. To a small child with a mouth full of sun-ripened tomato (I was often scolded for picking and stealing away with them, laughing) and hands sticky with honeysuckle nector and red current juice, it was heaven. There was fresh corn, red potatoes and countless others for dinner-including the jalepenos (or perhaps something hotter) my father unknowingly grew from seed he obtained from a friend that we mistook for sweet peppers until for the first time my mothers chicken cacciatore burned the roofs off our mouths and sent us all screaming for the sink. With the exception of the now laughable pepper incedent, I want this same joy for my son.

Above are a few photos of my peppers and Basil.