BALLOONS READY TO POP

SARAH P.
COVER OF "TIME"

... oh dear ...

CHENEY/BUSH
TORTURE
SPYING
LYING
...more stuff to do what with ...


SOTOMAYOR
CONFIRMING
NEGATING

...& ...

MICHAEL J ...
HOMICIDE ...
SUICIDE...
BURIAL
CUSTODY
...on and on ....

&
GAY
DON'T ASK

DON'T TELL

&

MARRIAGE

... & health care ... AIG ... if I had a pin, which balloon would I bust first?

THE LURK

This person, a female in a skirt, stood outside, across the street, at the corner.

At first I thought she was someone who worked in the neighborhood. I wondered what kind of job she had, who was her employer, and why she was always there.

I saw her on a couple of rainy days. The season was changing. Her outfit changed. Then, one day when JC and I went into the A & P, I noticed her across the street.

After we'd returned home, unloaded the groceries and had a snack, I saw her on the street in the usual spot.

JC said, "She's a fan. I guess she's at the theater every night." He'd observed that she always stood across the street from the stage door.

We both noticed her across the post office, when we picked up a package there.

One day, when JC and I flagged down a taxi to take us to a meeting on 43rd Street, I saw her. I saw her outside the building after the meeting. I was shocked. Scared. How did she get there. In a taxi ? Did she get a cab to follow ours when we were heading to the meeting?

We discussed her whereabouts and made notes on a yellow pad. Was she across from the stage door last night? Was she waiting after the matinee? Was she lurking when he picked up his prescription?

It makes your heart beat faster when someone is lurking, following you, always there even when you take a subway. She was apparently following him where ever he went.

Then I saw her when he had stayed home. She was also following me ...

I called the police. They referred me to another person, who referred me to another precinct. I was told there was no law that could be applied, no way to stop the Lurk. (That's what I called her.)

We discussed it with our lawyer. He'd heard about a similar situation. He suggested we approach her. Ask her for her name.

JC tried to, but she rushed away as he approached.

His show closed. She was outside our home every day. Then suddenly, we didn't see her anymore.

More than a year later, when he was in another show, JC saw her outside the stage door. The pattern resumed. She was back outside our home.

At some point JC found out her name. He isn't sure when -- he remembers approaching her, and asking what's your name, and her saying it was JJ.

Off and on, for more than fifteen years -- JJ is outside the theater wherever JC performs. He nods and greets her sometimes -- ever since his opening night for "August: Osage County," she's been outside the Music Box Theatre.

And this winter when JC was performing in "Heroes" and "August: Osage County," JJ was outside both theaters -- for matinees as well as all the evening performances.

JC casually mentioned there were three of them nowadays -- JJ, Vera and Letty. He's given Vera and Letty the autographed pictures they've asked for when they came and saw him in "110 in the Shade" three or four times last summer. He didn't want me to worry but all three fans were at the Music Box after every show.

They're needy, not well people, and these days the not well people have become more dangerous. The fact is, the show at the Music Box closed last Sunday. But I think I saw JJ on our street on Tuesday, same spot, at new store on the corner -- and I worry.

TEA AT EM'S

You are a bit out of breath because you've climbed four flights of stairs while looking around, seeing our shocking pink and bright orange walls, and paintings and posters.

"Come in," I say.

"Wow," or "Gee," you'll probably say. Here in the middle of Manhattan, you don't expect to see a bright green enamel floor, a bright green enamel metal ceiling, and curved white walls.

"We can sit in here, " I say with a gesture, leading you to a curved wall, with a keyhole shaped doorway. (Click and you'll see JC's theater awards in those slots in the curved all)

We walk through the keyhole and there we are. It's a special room, a favorite place for me.

"JC and I have often breakfast here. Even in the middle of the winter, we feel like we're sitting on our front porch on a balmy summer day."

You look up and see sun pouring in from the skylight overhead. In the corner there's a huge bird cage. We had a dog named "Teechie," a cat named Helpie," and three fish tanks, and a white pigeon, "Little Soup" who stunned us when he turned out to be a she, by laying a beautiful white egg.

I pick up large silver ashtray that's sitting on an large beige marble coffee table. "This is JC's trophy from playing a celebrity tennis match as Billie Jean King's partner." (JC, before he became an actor, played high-level tennis -- when I met his family I was open-mouthed when I saw all the trophies he'd won.)

The furniture in the green room is white wicker. I point out the white rocking chair. "That's from my play 'Zinnia,' and the books over there -- that's the baker's rack. I wrote about in my blog -- that's where I keep the Robert Parker, Elmore Leonard, Nelson DeMille books that I've been re-reading."

If you ask me why I re-read them, I'll say what I've said before in a post -- "These writer guys were my teachers when I was working on 'Somebody.'"

I lead you through our dining room. You take a good look -- there's a ten foot white Formica dining table that is shaped like a huge mushroom, with five black and five white folding chairs around it . On the other side of the "push through" for dishes, is a smaller mushroom, the kitchen table, and our kitchen.

Everything is white, brown or orange. The refrigerator is huge. There are cabinets galore. Dancing left and right I can whip up a meal for two, four, or ten people in about thirty minutes. (No kidding, it's my Hawaiian Chinese recipes, and I love to cook, I'm a natural, got a knack for it !)

I ask "Do you want coffee, espresso? Hot tea or ice tea? Where would you like to sit -- in the green room or in our brown living room?"

It's a hangout room -- walls are patches of patterned red squares, rhomboids, and, triangles. Cozy, comfortable -- logs for end-tables, a large black marble coffee table, b0ok shelves and great lamps everywhere.

And a piano -- it used to be black, but with paint remover and a lot of elbow grease, JC and I turned it to a golden sort of brown.

Click if you want a real good look. Yes, my home is unusual, bright colors, wild looking, but practical. Easy to keep clean, and there are plenty of closets. Also a room with a separate entrance for JD (that's now our pantry, where JC makes me rye bread in our bread machine).

There's a real laundry room. I've got my own lime green bathroom, and JC has a white and forest green one. The bedroom is an attic room in the middle of New York City. Real brick, pointed -- no ceiling -- just the beams, and above the beams is the roof of the building. It's cold, brrr cold in there in the winter, but great for sleeping.

P.S. Behind the brown chair with yellow X on it's cushion there's an Em wall . Once upon a time it was just no color burlap. Now it's my eight-foot by four-foot "Heart" doodle -- worth a click. I sat on ladder one evening, and did it with chalks.

It's like a portrait of me. Lots of colors. Lots of styles mixed into an interesting mish-mash that's ... well ... it's like a stage set. I belong here, it's my home-made "home sweet home."

SEX STUFF

I keep expecting to get an e-mail from someone who's read "Somebody" on my Website -- a complaint.

About Cordelia's immorality.

(Actually, I'm hoping a reader will write me about this. I know from the stats on The Readery, that people are reading my books and downloading "Somebody," but I'm not getting queries from my readers.)

Why would someone complain? Because my heroine has two lovers at the same time. And not when she was young, (or wild and restless -- Cordelia never goes through that phase). But in her sixties, she begins a love affair, and in her seventies, while continuing this love affair, she begins a sexual relationship with the man whom she wanted to marry when she was seventeen. In her eighties and nineties, she is sleeping with two men.

Why did I create love affairs for my heroine at the end of her life? And write the sleeping together scenes, full-out describing the sex?

I wanted to make Cordelia a woman who's active in her old age; not just a grandmother, but vitally involved with what's going on the world. That's a personal dream of mine -- to keep going, to keep learning, building, doing, trying new things till the end of my life.

And my writing, as I've explained, isn't about me. But aspects of me are there, in the character. That's why I'm touting my work-harder-as-you-grow-older ethic. (I haven't studied Calvinism, but I've been told many times, it's a Calvinistic idea)

Cordelia's two lovers are men she's known for many years as dear friends. Toward the end of her life each of them, in a different way, provides her with sexual pleasures, and supports her continuing her work as a congresswoman and editor of a newspaper syndicate.

Her two lovers know about each other and become good friends. All three characters are enriched by their relationship with one another.

Even as I'm explaining this, I enjoy the idea -- lovers, fun, excitement -- I'm saying to myself and to you, the reader -- do what you have to do in order to look forward to each day, to enjoy your time on the earth.

Here's where you'll find the two lovers, and the beginning of the "sex" writing. Take a look."Somebody" Book II, Installment bb. p.661-663; p. 665-667.