So I have begun the day, the year, really, by breakfasting, something I rarely do in company, with the wonderful Katie. She is the little (tall, actually,) angel who was given me as a neighbor on whatever street it was I was sentenced onto in Beverly Hills when I moved here time before last, where I was so out of place and low on creativity except for a musical and a play or two. She is unloading what weights she doesn't need and certainly doesn't deserve and wants to help me get my musical on, or my comedy now that she knows about it (I read it last night, having taken a medication for my allergies that completely eliminated memory, so I can approach myself as a new talent, a relief considering how old I am.) It's really funny, I must say in all lack of humility, which it's easy to have considering I didn't remember myself.
I would have stayed anonymous except since it's only a comedy, and not a musical-- that would have cost a true fortune, since they must have learned a lot of ways to pad since I was a girl, cute in the bargain-- I have decided to come forward as myself while I am still here. Maybe this is all only because I have gotten out of bed-- tilted, the bed is, and so must I be-- for the first time in more than an age, to meet somebody for breakfast. If the comedy works, I will then introduce my mother, or my aunt, whoever I have decided to be, who has written the musical, if I can still remember it.
What is so strange about all of this is how much I am remembering of my very young life which I am surprised to note now was so long ago. It was a very different time, when the reason for a girl's not being able to break into the ranks was because she was a girl, period, not because she wasn't a gay guy. After my show, the musical I had written with Phil Springer, about (and could have been by, she says in all lack of humility) Mark Twain, had its purse pilfered by our own producer Kermit Bloomgarden, the Broadway producer when there was only one, or a couple at most for one production, to put its whole budget in a Mel Brooks' (a close and good friend but not yet a guaranteed winner) fiasco, which closed right after opening night. And having had an original musical writ as a girl child pilfered by Frank Loesser, I had no choice but to try and find a career other than songwriter, my true original goal. After all, I did have Irving Berlin's birthday.
So it was that I became a novelist. My God, who knew I had so many words in me?
Now, a lifetime later, here I am coming back (for the first time) as a newcomer, which I could actually be, if it weren't for the years and the genes. Well, we'll see what the universe has in mind or in pocket if there is, indeed, any plan besides the planet's going mad and actually empowering Donald Trump.
I do not mean to add by focusing on him to his blindingly over-emphasized over-statedness, though I am, as everybody seems to be doing, including poor Hillary, even as she pointedly tries to ignore him. I have not before felt too much compassion for her, as I now do. If the routes were not potentially too hazardous to try and be casual about going back and forth, I would make my way to Amsterdam, where I have everything I like except a dentist.
But okay, terrorist, I believe you. I understand we do not get to choose the manner of our exiting the planet, but there is no point walking into the muzzle(is it a muzzle?) of a rifle. How much crazier it has become in this world since I said the Gettysburg Address at two. I now can remember nothing of it other than its
opening lines, and the address where I said it, Melwood Street in Pittsburgh. Is it still there? Melwood Street, I mean. Not Pittsburgh. Certainly that will always be there, and a great place to come from and even better to have left.
