ROBBER VISITOR

It was around midnight, a cold winter Saturday night. The building was empty except for me. I heard footsteps.

Someone had already broken into our 4th floor loft a few weeks earlier. There were chisel marks around the lock. It had been pried open. A tape recorder and TV were stolen, also a bicycle, in the lobby bike rack. The police lieutenant had said "There's robberies all the time around in this area -- probably an addict, not much we can do about it"

Our street was a business neighborhood, no one lived in lofts, most offices and factories were closed on weekends. (This "adventure" happened a few years before we bought the building.)

My doors were locked but whoever it was, could be heard coming up the first floor stairs ... second ... third ... our stairs. I wanted to call out "Who's there?" Was afraid to. Someone knocked on the studio doors. Hard. Then again, harder.

JC was in Boston in Richard Burton's "Hamlet," playing Laertes -- suffering because director John Gielgud had said "play Laertes as if you're wearing a pink shirt," and partying nightly with Burton, Gielgud and the celebrity cast.

The knocking stopped. Whoever it was retreated. I heard them going down the stairs.

Breathing a sigh of relief I picked up the phone to call JC ... heard the footsteps again. The person banged on the other door. It sounded like the door was being hit with a brick.

I was scared (trembling scared). There was more noise in the hall. Then a hammering sound. No doubt about it -- someone was pounding with a hammer. The door resonated -- there was a two- foot square thin iron plate in the center -- a wood door frame around it. The frame was splintering.

Phone in hand, I opened the fire escape door, got out on the fire escape. I was in rehearsal clothes (leotard and tights). It was freezing. My bare feet felt as if they were sticking to the steel platform. The banister was icy.

Could I get down the fire escape steps in bare feet, in the dark? The first floor steps were folded up and required weight on them in order for them to drop down to street level.

Would my hundred-and-three pounds do the trick? If I got to the street, where would I go? There was a gas station on the corner, but I wasn't sure it would be open.

I phoned the police.

Shivering, on the icy fire escape platform, I had a hard time saying my name, my address, and explaining "Someone is breaking down my door."

After about ten minutes (long minutes), watching the street from four stories above, I saw a police car turn the corner. I saw a man in a blue wool cap go down our front steps, turn left and walk to the avenue as the police pulled into our curb.

Re-opening the fire escape door, I peered into my home and saw our door with the iron plate jutting out of the bent, splintered, wood frame. The man in the blue cap couldn't have come in without more work or another tool.

A voice in the hallway called, "It's the police. Lady, you in there?"

Still holding the phone, not sure I was safe, I grabbed the bread knife and I unlocked, and opened the studio door.

Two young-looking cops in uniform, holding their guns came in. Talking about the weather, they went through the studio, dressing rooms, kitchen, bathroom, closet, and bedroom.

When they were finished checking, one said, "What's a nice-looking girl like you doing alone here on a Saturday night?"

His buddy took the bread-knife out of my hand, put it in the sink and asked me if I had a husband, was the loft my residence? When I told them about the previous robbery, and the man with the blue cap who'd gone down the front steps as they were arriving, they shrugged.

They said, "He jimmied the lock on the front door. It's wide open. Better get it fixed first thing tomorrow. The guy in the hat saw the us. He probably won't be back. If you hear anything give us call. After another "... nice looking girl like you shouldn't be staying here alone," they left.

JC in Boston couldn't return till after the Sunday night show. He got me to phone two of my men dancers, and told me what to tell them to do. Diane and her boyfriend Vic arrived.

Vic (a tall, strong, farmer type who couldn't dance very well, but looked great on stage), went to work, nailing a sheet of plywood onto the battered door.

Diane pressed me to come home with her. But I couldn't leave everything I owned, not with the front door to the building wide open.

So, Diane, Vic, and I moved things into the hall -- put the piano at the top of my steps, a large mirror, pile of books, dishes, set of drums, guitar, costume trunks. On their way out, they repositioned everything -- nobody could climb up the stairs without making a lot of noise.

I didn't sleep that night. Or the next night-- I could only cat-nap.

Monday, JC, a carpenter, a janitor from next door, the electrician who rented the basement, fixed the front door, installing double-locks and a buzzer system.

In the yellow pages I found two brothers who made steel gates.

They installed a floor- to-ceiling mesh wall and door with a special lock.

Ugly, scary, but safe.

Why am I telling this story? The robber in the blue cap got busy dancer, choreographer, Em into a renovations mode, that got me into my nesting phase -- painting pictures, having a baby, making a the home sweet home that you can visit (see posts -- "Painting Cities," May 20; and "Gallery." June 29.).

Click and you'll see how great it looks nowadays.

RE-FIXING WHAT'S FIXED

The roof leaked. Water poured into the hall as if it were being poured from a tea pot.

<------Here's the ceiling, the corner that leaked. The black area is the unlighted steps to the roof. The hanging stuff -- plastic flowers, a wooden butterfly mobile, door chimes from our cabin in Malibu -- it's what I'd put up to divert the eye from the bumpy looking plaster in the corner, where there was a leak two years ago. --------->

Look and chuckle -- Em's decorating is usually "hide the flaws" with art work. (Two pictures show you why you wouldn't hire me to fix the trouble spots in your home.)

I get an idea and just DO IT! All the years of running a dance company, never having enough money for sets, props, and costumes have turned me into a good scrounger. I know how to make something bought for another purpose function in new, interesting way.

Okay -- the roof was fixed, re-roofed by Ishmail. We couldn't check the finished job till the paint was dry. Checking, we found three places that need to be re-done. JC is plumber, electrician, surveyor of things like windows, door locks, and radiators. I'm the guy who negotiates with the workmen as well as tenants.

So I had to tell Ishmail to repaint and fix (and not charge us). Also, I needed to tell our janitor Phil, a trained, skilled superintendent, that he was scratching the walls when he was taking the trash downstairs, and suggest he slide the trash down the stairs.

Back, back in time, when I took my company to London, took myself out of all leading roles except dancing Juliet, in "Romeo and Juliet," I realized that I needed to be a stronger director. Easier said than done -- I found it tricky to tell dancers (who were my age), what they are doing wrong, technically as well as dramatically.

In my makeup for Juliet (and a robe), I sat in the back of the theater each night, and whispered notes into a tape recorder. At night, after the show, I transcribed the notes into a notebook. The next day gave the notes. NO tactful re-wording -- I just gave the notes, forced myself to say everything that I'd whispered to myself.

I practiced doing it. And that's what I do now.

Yes, I still dread giving orders. But I gave orders to Ishmail and Phil.

What's the big deal this lady is making, over being a boss? Why is it difficult for me? Inbred female something-or-other? Something Grandma handed down to Mom and Mom handed down to me? (Probably.)

Whatever the reason, the flaw is serious. In writing a novel, in landlady-ing, and blogging. The same Em who fixes a leak with the "hide the flaw" artistry, commands herself to say what's on her mind -- no fudging, no hiding. Sometimes I stall a little, with an oops, eek, yikes, oh dear... but I re-fix what I write till it rings true in my own ears.

ORANGE MOSAIC TABLE

JC and I were fighting. It was serious. We couldn't get rid of the problem. After we'd talked about it for a week, nothing was solved.

He'd been doing "Hamlet" while I was finishing a tour of England with my dance company. The girl who played Ophelia kept phoning him. I wanted him to tell her "'Don't call me anymore." He knew she was seriously depressive, suicidal, and didn't want to hurt her.

We sat at a coffee table we'd inherited from B. (My friend B had just gotten married, and was building a new life with an architect who designed rectangular furniture, modules that contained your bed, desk, closet, shelves -- you name it, it was in the module.) So, we were sitting across from one another on B's Danish chairs, foam rubber covered with a pleasant brownish-orange tweed.

Before JC had gone out of town for "Hamlet," before I'd gone to England, we'd bought orange mosaics, sheets of one-inch squares -- a ten pound box, enough to re-do the bathroom floor.

"JC, you said --- "
"No, Em, that's what you said, and I said ---".

Back and forth, we argued and fitted mosaics in a circle in the center of the coffee table. What do you discuss, if there's a needy neurotic girl interfering with the balance of husband and wife? Husband's audition for a new project, as you lay an orange square next to the previous one in the ever-enlarging circle? Wife's new choreography idea, as you position another orange square, passing a box-cutter back and forth, chopping off corners that have to be excised, so the mosaics can lay in a circular shape?

With interruptions for normal things, in between circles of mosaics, we exhausted his Hamlet, Ophelia, auditions, and Em's choreography ideas --iff'ed, maybe'ed, and planned a trip to L.A. where there might be new opportunities for us both, and created a beautiful coffee table with an orange mosaic top.

It sat in the center of our living room while other trips, choreographies, plays came and went, and successes earned us money for renovations, and everything orange and brown and worn in that living room, became spring green and fresh white wicker.

RENOVATIONS

The paint smell from the floor below me is much less today. Ivan the contractor and his son are hammering this morning -- the banging on the ceiling is probably them putting up that eight foot fixture for four fluorescent bulbs. (A monster of a fixture -- my two John's, JC and JD, lugged it up the stairs yesterday. JD said it's Ivan's final job. Shareen wants bright lights on the racks when the store opens Saturday.

Amazing Shareen ... How gracefully, securely, confidently she leaps, tour-jetés into new, major undertakings; she's opening her third vintage store, "Shareen New York." I have to say it again, how lucky we are that our son JD found Shareen, who's like a daughter, sister, dear best friend.

The two of them encouraged me to do Em's Talkery along with my website. "Mom," JD said, "You need a blog so people can get to know you," "Yes," said Shareen, "And be able talk to you, ask you for advice."

"Huh? Advice ...?" I was taken aback.

"Yes!" the two of them said. "Like your heroine Hally's mother. You wrote about it, why not do it yourself?"
(In "Heart City," chapt. 23, page 164, installment H -- Hally's know-it-all Mom creates her own website, to answer questions about love, finance, household, possessions, health.)

"Well ... " I murmured. I murmur well noncommittally when I'm mulling something over. "Well, if someone wrote and told me what's on their mind ... my advice could be helpful ... why not?"

"Why not?" said Sue, my PR pal. "Why not, said Fran my website designer. "They can click TALK TO EM, ASK EM on The Readery, and Em's Talkery!"

So, on the left, below my picture, there's a TALK TO EM place to click.

Go ahead! Ask about anything, mention any kind of worry you have and you'll get my opinion. I'll post it on Wednesdays, matinee day in the theater ... it'll be my day for answering questions.