What a Beauty...and the Dog's Cute, too!

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

A Catcall I Didn't Utter During My 'blade-Ride

It was an adorable dog -- maybe a not-yet-grown, ginger, Portuguese water dog, if they come in ginger, and I was rollerblading past him or her, across the street. The dog, I noticed first, and then the dog's comely parent -- a woman perhaps not younger than I with longish brown hair and a gleaming smile.

As I sailed past, I nearly did yell out, "What a beauty...and the dog's cute, too!" But didn't, and smiled to myself, and wondered, What would have been so bad if I *had* yelled it? It's such a gorgeous day today and both of us were in an apparently good mood, and why not flirt as I rushed past? If she had heard me and registered what I'd said, wouldn't she have been not unpleasantly surprised? But then, it's not like I was rollerblading in some faraway land, where I'd never, ever see the woman again, except perhaps at the airport, if she were a tourist, too. 

What if I ran into her at King's supermarket up the street? I'm sure I'd not be able to look her in the eye. That's the thing about being aggressively shy. And that's also the thing about reality vs. fantasy. It's easy to be socially bold when I feel safe. You can't catch me. I'm on Rollerblades. Hah! But she could let go of the leash on that gorgeous dog and have it chase and bite me if she weren't amused by my declaration and were sick of being objectified and this was the final offense and she wasn't going to remain passive anymore.

And besides, Pat's the most beautiful woman in the world to whom I've been exclusively devoted for all of our nearly 24 years together. Why am I even noticing anyone else? Because I'm also noticing the buds on the trees and every marvel of nature. There's actually a prayer we're supposed to say as Jews (to ourselves) whenever we see a beautiful person. There are also a couple for when we see extra-unusual people, and this site goes into them. This site tells us the prayer for spotting beautiful creatures, including human ones (see below).

How lucky I am to have a sunny Spring day and the able-bodiedness to 'blade around my town with confidence, and with the awareness of beauty around me. And how lucky to have this free platform to reflect on it, and good music -- the latest of which I heard was Louie Vega's faster, remixed version of "Dance"several minutes ago -- and two sweet cats, and a wife who loves me and who is the most beautiful, funniest and most menschlich person I know!

And how lucky that I showed some judgment and did not catcall at the woman and dog, even as it might have been playfully all right. It turns out that it has been more fun, perhaps, to write about it than it would have been to have done it. 

On seeing the small-scale wonders of nature, such as beautiful trees, animals, and people:

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam, shekacha lo beolamo. 

We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, that such as these are in Your world.

Amen!

My Skating Autobiography

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Last weekend, while inline-skating along the Beverly Hill Trail in Brookfield, Wisconsin, it struck me to post a companion to My Swimming Autobiography. Here it is:

Cocoa

The outdoor rink affiliated with my nursery school, the New Canaan Country School on Frogtown Road: where I learned to ice skate at four. Skating forward, 'round and 'round till my cheeks were wind-burned was simple. Skating backwards like classmates Jane, Alicia and Laura, never was. Disliked having to stop for the Zamboni. It seemed to take forever. I think instrumental music was pumped out of PA speakers around the rink, but the hit then was "Leaving on a Jet Plane".

Ice-lumps

Why go to the rink when I could skate on the pond of our neighbors, DiDi and Helene? It was tiny and full of lumps that made me trip -- not smooth like the rink. Still, how fun to be in our own neighborhood with skates on! I recall trying it only once and it was still so special, like a secret garden. This song, I think, was playing in the Charlie Brown Christmas special when the Peanuts characters were skating on the pond.

Excuse

After transferring to the Modern Orthodox Jewish Bi-Cultural Day School from New Canaan Country School at six, ice skating was something I did a couple of times with former classmates -- an excuse to see them. Could there have been a rink under where the State Theater is now in Springdale, in Stamford? I didn't aspire to be Peggy Fleming like the other girls, and didn't dress like an ice ballerina. One of that year's hits, The Carpenters' "For All We Know" could easily have been among the songs pumped in, if the rink featured music...can't recall. Gave up ice skating.

Rattle

At seven and 12, my parents dropped off my older, middle sister Kathy and me at the Jewish Community Center in Stamford, when it was still on Strawberry Hill Avenue for a Sunday morning of rollerskating around the giant wood-floored auditorium. I don't remember music, just the sound of the loaned, clip-on, rattle-ridden metal roller skates. The JCC had skates for everyone, but the skates hobbled me, rather than inspired me. Still, it was a foretaste of better times on skates.

Bell

At the height of the Disco craze, the toy company my dad worked for asked him to design a bag for kids' roller skates. For "research", he bought me a pair of sneaker-skates at Caldor, which I still have. Anita Ward & Co. inspired my boogieing up and down Hickory Road, across from the house where I grew up, practically daily -- weather permitting -- from 13-17. This, among so many others, was such a magical, moving tune.

Size 13EEE

Our Jewish Community Center took a field trip to a roller rink and my dad (z"l) agreed to go with me. He had always talked of how as a kid, he had rollerskated from his house on 10th and G SW to the Library of Congress and back routinely and I couldn't imagine it. The version of him I knew was like an ad for a Big & Tall shop. And I doubted the rink would have rental skates in his size, 13EEE. Still, I looked forward to his watching me skate at a minimum. Fifteen minutes after we arrived at the rink, the two of us, along with many other JCC families, were out on the floor -- Disco skating stars for the afternoon, if not exactly looking the part. I was scared to see my dad (z"l) on skates at first, expecting him to fall, but lap after lap, he was confidently upright and moving fast, with a big smile on his face. The only pop song the quality of which we agreed on during any of this era was "Sir Duke" by Stevie Wonder.

America'it

Brought my roller skates with me to Israel when I stayed with my cousins in Moshav Beit Herut for the summer at 15. George Benson's 1980 hit blasted from the speakers that my same-age cousin Nitza pointed at the street for me. I skate-danced on the village street between their house and my sabta's (grandmother's) across from them. Nitza humored me and watched. I don't think my sabta and Aunt Tovah were home.

Secret

At 16, I told my mom I was going to NYC to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and took a public bus to the train station, wearing my roller skates in my backpack. When I got to the Met, I kept walking behind it, into Central Park. I had heard on WBLS-FM that there was an outdoor area there where everyone roller skated. I saw a policeman on a motorcycle and waived to him. He stopped and I asked for directions to the rink. He said, "Get on," and took me there. It was the best music I could have wished for, including Evelyn Champagne King's "I'm in Love" and I felt like I was the youngest one there, skating along with adults who seemed as though they'd either gotten off the night shift or were unemployed. Everyone, especially me, was joyous. I didn't tell my mom (z"l) about my adventure till several years ago.

Profit

None of my high school friends roller skated and few of them liked Disco. As Class Treasurer, it was my choice where to go on our class trip, which was also a fund raiser. When I chose a disco roller rink, everyone I knew said, That's not going to make *any* money. They were wrong. We had to get more buses than we had planned and we made a healthy profit. Skip to My Lou...

Majesty

At 23, a handsome woman reminiscent of George Michael in the '90s -- without the five-o'clock shadow -- and I dated in Chicago for a short time and she did me a giant favor: We were at the Lakefront on the North Side when she suggested I borrow her Rollerblades to see how easy they were to use, and they were! Maybe it was because I had ice skated on single blades, maybe it was because the boots were rigid plastic, maybe it was because the wheels were so tall and I felt majestic. Bought my own immediately and from then on, skated along the Lakefront for seven years while living in Metro-Chicago to songs ranging from Soul II Soul's "Keep on Movin'" to Nirvana's "Come As You Are" to Tracy Chapman's "Give Me One Reason".

Southern Nights

Before joining IBM, I worked for a joint venture of IBM and Sears and while our CEO worked in the same building as I in Schaumburg, Illinois, my manager Rusty and the rest of the team were based in Tampa, Florida in a corporate park across from the Buccaneers' football stadium. When I visited Rusty & the team in Tampa in the early-mid-'90s, I'd take along my Rollerblades and after hours drive to University of South Florida and dodge cars in its vast parking lots. Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do" was always on the rental car radio and I wasn't bold enough to join Tuesday skate-nights in Ybor City, though I'd watch the hordes from a restaurant I loved, where people could bring their dogs.

Return

When my wife Pat & I moved to Montclair, New Jersey in mid-May of 1996, for her job as the VP of Business & Finance at Montclair State University, we lived in an on-campus, high-rise apartment for several weeks until we could get into our house. The parking lot at the base of the building became my private rollerblading rink, since I went out there in the early mornings. Favorite tunes then came from Maxwell, especially "Sumthin' Sumthin'". It was a mysterious, hopeful time; we were in a new place, yet back on the East coast near my family, then in Stamford, Queens and Brooklyn.

Domain

It was the first house that Pat & I bought together, and we still live here 18 years later. The day we moved in, I shoved my feet into my Rollerblade boots and took a spin on the deck attached to the back of the house. Before we put deck furniture on it, it was big enough to rollerblade around! If I had been listening to music then, I'd have liked to hear Black Street's "No Diggity".

Grove

First, the town re-paved Grove Street and I'd sweep down it from the corner of Alexander all the way past Walnut and back on early Saturday mornings when the traffic was light. Wore my bike helmet and listened to CDs from stars, including Aaliyah of blessed memory. My fave: "Hot Like Fire".

Park

Then Montclair paved Park Street. That was more challenging, as I'd skate up and down Alexander to Park, and we live in the foothills of the Watchung Mountains; it was much steeper than any hill I'd encountered in the Midwest -- other than the times I'd been skiing and mountain biking in the Kettle Morain area of Wisconsin. Most likely, I was bobbing to Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It".

GenX

At IBM's world marketing headquarters in Somers, New York, my officemate at the time Jennifer and our ibm.com/software colleagues Todd and Bob decided to bring our rollerblades to work one day. We agreed we'd skate around the 730-acre I.M. Pei-architected campus. That early-summer evening, there was no music, just the sound of the wind in our ears as we sped down a part the steepness of which I'd never really noticed while in my car. Back then, we were the jean-clad youth of the Software Group in Building 1.

Giant

At seven, our niece Zoe opted to have her birthday party at the ice rink nearest her home in Jamaica Estates, New York. She and her friends were unlike the mini-Peggy Flemings with whom I had skated at their age. With falls galore and still an inexplicable attraction to the ice, Zoe and one of her especially flailing friends were making wall-hugging circuits till I laced up and joined them. I was the giant my dad (z"l) had been to so many at the '70s roller rink, and I held both their hands till they took turns individually, being spotted by me -- holding them up -- and propelled forward in parallel as I skated directly behind them. If music was playing, it wasn't The Carpenters, but rather something along the lines of Janet Jackson's "All For You".

Might

...in the sense of possibility and also in the sense of mightiness! Finding well-fitting Salomon inline skates in a skate store in a London suburb during a business trip made me feel like anything was possible, and then it was. I didn't put on my iPod till I navigated away from the cobblestone-surrounded shop to the Thames; it was treacherous, trying to get through the stone-paved streets and I did it without falling, and then it was a gorgeous ride. I passed a pond filled with sculptures of nymphs and it was a luscious, relatively sunny jaunt back to my colleague and friends' Liz & Kate's home. By then, I had all of my faves uploaded to my iPod, so I could listen to oldies like the British group Imagination's "Illusion".

Thrift

The best pre-after-hours part of my mid-2000's business trip to Las Vegas was not the rollerblading I did on the Sunset Strip that Sunday afternoon -- it was like trying to skate through Times Square and the cross-walks were super-awkward -- but rather my discovery of another, freer spot; when I learned that the gym at the MGM Grand, where we were staying, cost US$25/day to use, I opted to rollerblade up and down the vast halls on the floor where I was staying. The carpet was thin enough that it didn't really slow me down and fortunately, no one called Security to make me stop. More iPod oldies accompanied me, including Phyllis Hyman's "You Know How to Love Me".

Treat

When I was nearly 16, my dad (z"l) taught me to drive at High Ridge Office Park. Nearly a quarter of a century later, long after my dad's death from cancer in 1982, I parked the car in the corporate park and my mom (z"l) agreed to sit in it and watch as I sailed around the pavement of one of the properties on my 'blades. For part of it, I asked her to let me play the radio and I skated nearby, so that she could hear the tunes and see my interpretation of them. Because I didn't want to blast her ears for a solid 30 minutes, I also used my iPod. The treat was the skating, but of course, also my mom (z"l) -- by then in her eighties -- watching me do something I loved. Once I put on my iPod, I skated further away and she lowered the car-seat and took a nap. Songs might have included Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World".

Redemption

In "Excuse" above, I mentioned that as a seven-year-old, I did not feel at home amongst my female peers, did not feel that I fit in -- both skating-skill-wise and in terms of my on-ice appearance. How delicious then to go 'blading with my colleague and friend, Esther, once on the Lake in Toronto while visiting her and her girlfriend with Pat and once while she and Lynn were visiting us in Montclair. No music either time and instead, just compatible -- and by now cool-looking -- women, making their way with fun authority.

Relief

By 40-something, I was fully self-possesed as my friend Stacy and I skated around Felice's & her neighborhood in Maplewood. The two of us, I felt -- whether it was true or just a feeling -- looked powerful and even pretty. What a difference from my seven-year-old insecurities. If a song had been playing from that time, it could have been "Life Is a Highway".

Rain

Brought my skates with me on a business trip to Milan. Necessarily, was staying out near the airport and the consolation was that the hotel sat right next to a giant park with a well-paved path. The final night, I was changing into skating clothes and the clouds burst open. The rain stopped half an hour later, but it wasn't safe to skate on the wet surface of the pavement. Instead, I grabbed my cameraphone and took a cab into the city and ate dinner along the river at a restaurant I had read about in "The New York Times", then stopped at a Middle Eastern place for cherries as dessert.

Courage

On our way back from an Alaskan cruise for Pat's 60th birthday, we stopped in Vancouver for a few days. My biggest goal while there was to rollerblade by the ocean in Stanley Park. We stayed at the old Fairmont and the concierge gave me a pocket-sized street-map and good directions that involved an elevator down to the pedestrian path along the water. I had to use the bike-lane to get over to the water and it was a weekday. I went at 8 am and there was a decent amount of traffic, but I felt safe and brave at once. The best part, besides the gorgeous views and music, including Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind", was the bottle of water the concierge handed me upon my return.

Festival

This past spring, I brought my skates with me to Columbia University Teachers College's Academic Festival. Figured that during lunch I could find a place to go 'blading. Ended up at the war memorial off of 120th under a bright sun with just enough students and tourists to show off in front of. Esther, Toronto, Stacy, Maplewood and the Thames -- it was as lovely as that. Around and around, skating to T.S. Monk's "Bon Bon Vie" and more, and then back to the seminars at TC, feeling like my mind and body were at their peak.

Jubilee

It has been more than the time amassed by a jubilee that I've been roller skating and 'blading, and in the past several years, I've found a new skating place: Jubilee Park in Clifton, New Jersey, a couple of miles from our house. It's quiet, nearly private and offers two, huge, paved rings for my skating pleasure. Recently, I told my mom (z"l) that it's so safe, I don't even need to wear a helmet when I skate there and she was upset. "Don't tell me that. What if you fall?" Since her death on June 4th, I've gone once and worn a helmet, and always will, I guess. "Problem" is a 2014 song I never tire of; it makes me hopeful that not all of the good skating songs are in the past.

Consolation

The Lakefront with Irishfest music in the background was picturesque, but the real soothing time was a solitary ride I took on the Beverly Hill Trail in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Starting at the end of Nassau Lane and past Brookfield Academy to the area arts center, I listened to "Tears Fall Down", "Breakout", "Relax" and more. During none of the time did I wonder, Why did my mom (z"l) have to die? How can it be that I can never again call her? Never again take her for a birthday meal? Never again tell her about our cute cats or a trip Pat and I are taking? Never again tell her about a happy event at work? Never again read her something I've blogged?

Finding Some Peace After a Rollerblading Jaunt

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

"Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain" -- Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock

I'm not sure which photo moves me more. Last night, I photographed the nearly in-bloom peonies in the rain and this afternoon, they were sunbathing in full bloom. I witnessed their sun bath when I returned from rollerblading. I lay down on the lawn and photographed them.

Music Joint-filled Jaunt

I have a semi-secret place I go to rollerblade, where I don't need to wear a helmet and where I can sing along to my iPod with no fear of cars. I'm not a fancy figure-skating type, but I'm highly-proficient, with 45 years of skating experience. After swimming, ice-skating was the first sport I learned -- both at four years old. Today's jaunt featured 30 minutes worth of the "B"'s of my iPod:

• Baghdad Cafe (Callin' U), A:Xus - At 22, the lyrics, "...a desert road from Vegas to nowhere, someplace better than where you've been" helped me end the first full-fledged relationship I had with another woman, as I figured that a road to nowhere would still be better than where I had been.
• Be Near Me, ABC - In high school, my friend and her family were new immigrants and lived in a condo, rather than a house, but they had MTV and we didn't. Roxy Music and ABC were featured on it at the time.
• Beautiful, Bombay Rockers - I cannot relate to the girl to whom they're referring in this song, as they say she's in 7th Grade and everyone's mean to her because they are jealous of her. In 7th Grade, I was just willing myself to develop and be noticed by anyone for something other than being tall.
• Beautiful, Me'Shell Ndegeocello - Her music is among my favorite for rollerblading; it transports me beyond where the rollerblades can because her voice is lush and she's usually telling a story I relate to, or imagine I could. I can't recall when I first heard Me'Shell Ndegeocello's music -- probably when I lived in Chicago -- but I've loved it ever since.
• Beautiful Girl, Bombay Rockers - When Pat & I lived in Bangalore for six months in 2007, a helpful Planet M employee recommended the Bombay Rockers when I asked him to suggest an Indian pop group whose music was cheerful with a beat.
• Beautiful Stranger, Madonna - This album reminds me of being with a couple of IBM colleagues in Madrid, Kris and Miguel. They took me dancing at a lesbian club and Madonna's latest music played then. This song was older, but it still conjured that time for me as I was rollerblading today. "Hung Up", I think, was one of the current hits then, in 2006.
• Before I Let Go, Maze, featuring Frankie Beverly - The melody was so cheerful, but it belied the singer's reluctance to let go of his beloved, and so when it first came out in '81 and now, I ignored the lyrics and focused on the good mood its melody inspired in me.

As I pulled off my wrist-guards and 'blades, "The Best Is Yet to Come" was playing and I couldn't wait to get home to work on this blog-post. As it has turned out, I could detail only memories triggered by my iPod playlist and then needed to leave the rest of it overnight. It was too challenging to write this next part. But today, a day later, I'm moved to do so:

It's Facebook's Fault

The other night, in my Facebook stream, I saw a picture of my first and former best friend's mom from when she was probably in her early-20s. My former best friend's older brother and only sibling had posted it on Mother's Day as a memorial tribute. She was a beautiful woman whose features were so different from any of the women's in my family; she was blond with a bit of an upturned nose and seemed exotic to me. She died several years ago, but I found out only recently. Even after my friend and I were no longer friends, our mothers remained friends for 35 years, until my former friend's mom moved away. My mother wondered aloud with me recently, "I wonder if she is still alive. I'm afraid she isn't."

"I'll go on Facebook and see if I can find out." And I searched for the brother's name and found him. Yes, their beloved mother had died several years ago. And she was sort of another, early mother to me, too. What was an appropriate amount of grief for someone I had known for only four years, 40 years ago?

A Hot Dog with Every Visit

My former best friend and I met when we were four, in nursery school. I'd get off the bus with her from school nearly daily and then I was there on weekends, too. I took it for granted. It was automatic. My sisters were more than half a decade and nearly a decade older than I, and at my friend's house, the kids -- my former friend and her brother -- were my age or just a few years older. My former friend's brother became as close as I'd ever get to having a brother and their curly, sweet Airedale became a quasi-pet for me. Relatively, their dad wasn't around as often as their mom, and their mom became another mother to me. She fed us, asking what we'd like for lunch and I always asked for a hot dog. At home, my mother made salami and eggs sometimes, but hot dogs were only for dinner and not very commonly.

At school, we learned to ice-skate and my former friend was a better skater than I, learning to skate backwards sooner and she took figure-skating lessons. By contrast, I was steady and confident minus any tricks; that steadiness served me for rollerskating and rollerblading, starting in my early teens. During my jaunt yesterday, I thought of the little rink by our school, where we'd go throughout the winters from ages four to eight. Probably, she kept going there, but I don't know, as our friendship was over by the time her father died, when we were eight.

My former friend's dad was many years older than her mother and still, his death was premature, from a disease. He took us kite-flying once, at the Stamford branch of UCONN. I was impatient and then it was fun when he helped me, so that my kite finally became airborne. Our dads liked each other, too, and at one point, I think they were working on a pie-slicing invention together, but it didn't happen. They hatched a number of ideas that they didn't commercialize. I think they just liked using their imaginations together -- like my former friend and I did, for four years.

My former friend was better at everything than I and I loved going over to her house and doing whatever she initiated. Make Spin Art? Sure. Help put a pair of her flowered, cotton underpants on the dog? Yes. Play with her Barbie camper, and always agree to be Skipper while she was Barbie? Indeed. Sit in their guest cottage at a small table, where she held a glass paperweight and told my fortune? Definitely. Look for arrowheads under an overhanging boulder on their property that my former friend said was an Indian shelter? Yes! Help collect eggs from the chicken-coop? Of course. Hang upside-down off the back of the couch, singing along to the lyrics of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree"? Why not?

Were Differing Degrees of Literacy a Harbinger for the Inevitable End of the Friendship?

My former friend was reading The Wind in the Willows when we were five and I would not learn to read for another year. That same winter, she sent me a postcard from her family's vacation in Barbados. It was in her block-print handwriting and not only couldn't I write yet myself, I had to ask my mother to read it to me.

Maybe my former friend was tired of our differing aptitudes. Maybe she was sick of initiating what we'd do when we played together. Maybe she related to what she read in *The Wind in the Willows*, "Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing!" I never did read the book. I simply cheated just now and found a quote and imagined her latching onto that sentiment. I didn't need new horizons. I never needed to be anywhere but shuttled back and forth between my family's house and hers. I could have done that for years longer. I wondered why it ended. She stopped calling and I never asked.

Nine Years Later, a Shivah Call

When my father died of cancer at 56, my friendship with my former best friend had been finished for nearly a decade. I was a senior in high school, 17. My former friend's mother paid a shivah call, since she was friends with my mother, but when I saw her, I felt as though she had come to see me even though she had probably come to comfort my mother as much or more than she had come to be kind to me. Her visit was a relief. She offered to take a walk with me and I don't recall our conversation during the walk. I had written her a note, in case she came, and gave it to her at the end of our walk. In the note, I told my former friend's mom that I was less grief-stricken than I might have been, since I felt like I still had two parents, since she had been so motherly to me in my early years.

No One is Perfect

Nearly 20 years ago, I saw my former friend's mother one more time. My eventual wife Pat & I were visiting my mom -- from St. Charles, Illinois, where we lived at the time. I don't recall the context, but my mom suggested we drop by my former friend's mother's home. My memory is that Pat was with me, but she doesn't recall the visit, so perhaps not. My former friend's mother was as beautiful as she had ever been, and seemed the same, just visibly older, and so did I...except that I had also publicly chosen a woman as my future spouse (whenever it would be legal to marry her), whereas when I was a kid and an adolescent, my former friend's mother did not need to acknowledge a romantic relationship I would have with anyone of my own gender.

Some years later, my mother told me that my former friend's mother told my mom that she couldn't accept my lesbianism. My hot-dog-providing-loving-beautiful-kind-other mother was telling my actual mother that she could not reconcile it. Fortunately, she never told me her feelings. She must have loved me too much to want to hurt me by telling me.

Finding Some Peace, and Again, It Was Facebook's Fault

While I had seen my former friend's mom once as an adult, I never saw my former friend again, after her brother's bar mitzvah, when we were nine or 10. And we were practically strangers by then, or at least that's how it felt. Over the years, I've thought, what would my former friend say if I asked her why she ended our friendship? She got bored? Or worse, what if she didn't even recall why? And why did this rejection still hurt me 40 years later? And what would we have had in common if we had remained friends anyhow? Once we no longer went to the same school, what was left? Is that what occurred to her then -- that we had too little in common to stay friends?

Historically, whenever I've thought of this former friend, I've time-traveled back to being eight and sitting across the aisle and behind her at her father's funeral and feeling sad not only about her dad's death, but also at the death of our friendship. The other night, though, something sort of soothing happened: After seeing the memorial photo on my former friend's brother's Facebook wall, I commented on it, describing how lovely their mother had been to me. Later the same night, my former friend's college-aged daughter clicked, "Like" on my comment.

What the heck, I thought: I'm curious if I'll be able to see any photos of the daughter and maybe of my former friend. Why not click on the daughter's profile? I did so. And I got to see both of my former friend's kids -- a teenage boy and college-aged young woman. And then my former friend! I clicked on photo after photo, finding the facial features I recalled from our childhood and was amazed to see them on this grown woman. Being able to at least see what she looked like as an adult was a bit of comfort.

Americans in Paris

Just as I was beginning to feel stalker-ish, a beautiful photo emerged: My former friend and her daughter were standing on a sidewalk in France apparently and my former friend was holding a poster that urged, in French, equality for her daughter, and the daughter was holding a rainbow flag and French poster that declared, I love my mother who accepts me. I don't know the sexual orientation of my former friend's daughter, except that currently, she does not identify as heterosexual.

Maybe my former friend and I had more in common after all, or maybe she had more in common with my mother, and I with her daughter. It reminded me that all of us are more connected than we realize, even as there are vast differences among people. And I thought of the 1995 Pride Parade in Paris; I was in France on business and Pat had to work, so my mom came with me and during the weekend, we marched with the Beth Haverim Juif Homo (Beth Haverim Jewish congregation's gay) delegation.

There we were, nearly two decades apart: two American mothers and two American daughters from three generations, demonstrating ultimate loyalty to each other on the streets of Paris. And if that's the peace I can take from our having been friends, it's enough. I think I feel closer to my former friend now that I've seen that photo than I did when we were friends. Here are some snapshots of my mom's and my experience at the 1995 Paris Pride Parade:

My Disco Autobiography

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Inspired by Alice Echols' Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture

I was born in July, 1965 and can't recall when I began watching "American Bandstand" and "Soul Train", rather than going to shul on Saturdays -- probably not till I was 14 (which I am in the photo above), after my Bat Mitzvah and toward the end of the peak of disco -- but I had practically always listened to WBLS - 107.5 FM, the closest R&B station, out of NYC. My two sisters, five and a half and nine years older than I, could not relate; they adored Judy Collins, Kenny Rankin and that whole folk-guitar genre.

Before reading Alice Echols' amazing disco analysis, I just thought I was irresistibly drawn to disco, since my criteria for top music are: cheerful with a beat, and maybe that's still most of it, but I like knowing that unwittingly, in parallel, I was participating in "the Remaking of American Culture". Alice Echols talks about the Middle-Americanization of disco, that is, how it started among African-American and gay communities and made its way to the suburbs, but I represented a class she didn't mention -- the then-isolated lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) teens, who roller skated to the tunes on suburban lanes, by ourselves, dreaming of belonging -- feeling cool and even a bit glamorous while skating, then returning to real-life and feelings of vast difference when we took off the headphones and skates.

Sister-Influence - 1975

My middle sister writes a prose-poem on the bottom of a cylindrical, cardboard Morton salt container, including the words, "Fly, Robin, Fly" and in our living room, imitates some girls she's seen singing and dancing to it in the halls at Stamford High.

Waking Up - 1976

Brick's "Dazz" comes out, and (starting at 2:37 into this video) I'm entranced by the flute and I dance to the song whenever it plays on the radio. It is the same year I realize I'm attracted to my best friend and pick a fight with her to ensure the end of our friendship.

"If I Can't Have You..." - 1977

My mother and Mrs. Kraut take Claudia and me to see "Saturday Night Fever", covering our eyes during all of the racy parts. Soon afterward, Claudia tells her mother she doesn't want to be friends with me because I am too much of a tomboy; my mother doesn't share this with me till I am an adult.

Dance Contest Victory - 1978

My friend Amy decides she will choreograph a line-dance to this Michael Jackson tune and we will enter a Long Ridge School contest. We win 1st place. Later the same year, I'm in dance lessons with a boy from my class, who is eye-level with the upper region of my torso and we're learning Bar Mitzvah party dance moves, including spelling "YMCA" with our arms.

Roller skating - I Can Be Cool (By) Myself! - 1979

Capitalizing on the roller-disco craze, the toy company my dad (z"l) worked for wants him to design a teen roller skate bag. We go to Caldor and he buys me this pair of sneaker-skates as part of his "research"; he might as well have bought me a car for the joy and freedom these skates bring me, and I love skate-dancing to tunes like this one:

They Disagree With My Taste, but Love Me Anyhow - 1965-Present

My love of disco remains mysterious to my two sisters, and I need to acknowledge their ultimate indulgence of me: To honor my first teenage birthday, they take me into New York City to a free concert in Central Park, The Pointer Sisters! It's a heat wave and the group sings as though the day is pumping cool breezes on-stage, though it isn't. Guess who opens for the group? Kenny Rankin!

(Skate) technology has changed, but I remain enchanted with skating to music that is cheerful with a beat; here's a 16-second sample of me from a couple years ago:

And after my adolescent struggles, I manage to find an indulgent wife, too: She lets me sing along loudly whenever we hear a disco tune on the radio -- which is as often as I can find one. And even at 47, I still feel coolest, most glamorous and most like I belong whenever I'm skating to disco.

Teena Marie: Magic

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Need to Photograph, Scan & Post My Roller Skates in Tribute

Teena Marie, who died at only 54 last night, was among the best musical reasons to go on when I was a teenager.

Her music was the soundtrack for so much of my rollerskating, and then rollerblading, solo-sessions from 13-27. Moving to her music on or off my skates, she made me feel romantic, joyful, soulful, even beautiful, and in good company....If she could sing this great music that played mostly on "urban contemporary," i.e., Black radio stations, then it also made sense that I, a Jewish girl in the suburbs, loved listening to it.

This feels like when Aaliyah died, since I love both of their voices, but Teena Marie's death reminds me that my adolescence definitely has passed.

Comfort-Kitty

The thing about cats is that they don't comfort their human parents reliably the way that dogs are famous for doing. I'm just lucky that it's warm behind the computer and Phoebe's little face is facing me while I grieve and write and listen to a YouTube Teena Marie playlist in parallel.

In tribute, I'll re-post a Facebook note I responded to here:

My Life as Teena Marie Song-titles
by Sarah Siegel on Sunday, July 12, 2009 at 9:35am

"Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 15 people you like (or think will actually do this) and tag me. Try not to repeat a song title. It's harder than you think."

Your Artist: Teena Marie

Are you male or female: If I Were a Bell

Describe yourself: Ooh Wee

How do you feel about yourself: Still in Love

Describe where you currently live: Out on a Limb

The first thing you think of when you wake up: It Must Be Magic

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Behind the Groove

Your favorite form of transportation: Don't Look Back

Your best friend is: You're All the Boogie I Need

Your favorite color is: Midnight Magnet

What's the weather like: 14K

If your life were a TV show, what would it be called: Ooo La La La

What is life to you: Squarebiz

What is the best advice you have to give: Work It

If you could change your name, what would it be: A Rose by Any Other Name

Your favorite food is: I Need Your Lovin'

How I would like to die: Just Us Two

My soul's present condition: Jammin'

The faults I can bear: Young Love

How would you describe your love life: Since Day One

What are you going to post this as: My Life as Teena Marie Song-titles

Writing for Relaxation

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Football Offers a Bonus Opportunity

Since Pat's watching Boise State and another team battle it out, I have no excuse not to sit down and relax with my blog. Five friends and I meet on Monday nights -- except last semester, when I had class on Mondays -- and we jam about Creativity.

Tonight, I reminded myself aloud that no matter the quality of my creative voice, it is unique. And that I love blogging vs. tweeting because with blogging, I can lose myself, whereas with tweeting, I am ultra-self-conscious.

There's less discipline with blogging, the way I do it, but more satisfaction ultimately. Most often, I feel at least somewhat sated when I'm done.

What is it about friends, talking about creativity that helps me *be* more creative? I feel less alone in my fears and doubts. I feel more connected that others want to spend their free time, being self-expressive.

Tonight, I was also reminded that I consider swimming an art along with writing, as it lets me express myself, too. A friend teaches yoga in addition to painting and I swim in addition to writing.

My trunk felt strong and useful in the pool this morning. It was the engine for my arms especially. My backstroke felt almost elegant.

I'm not lost yet. In today's "New York Times," I read an article, which ended with the columnist, talking about how the potential Apple tablet would be the most exciting thing to come along, since the comic-book ads for miniature sea-horses that he saw as an eight-year-old boy.

At eight, the coolest things to me were Lego; a doll that looked like a Buckingham Palace guard; rocks and minerals; oranges picked fresh from my grandmother's grove in Israel; penny-candy; and the X-ray glasses you could buy from the back of comic books, too.

At my adult age now, I cannot think of anything purchasable, or potentially so, that has excited me more than those items, except maybe Rollerblades.

I find myself replaying my swim in my head now, and maybe I'll go to bed and do that, or imagine I'm rollerblading. When I used to downhill-ski, that's how I'd fall asleep at night on the days we did it; I'd see the trail in front of me and ski it.

Busta Move

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

To Busta Rhymes

Again, I was 13, skating up Hickory Road with my headphones on, till the lovely Mrs. Strauss stopped me to ask if rollerskating was hard to do with sneaker-skates; they were all the rage in 1978 and she probably was wondering if she should buy a pair.

And then I was 15, skating in front of our second cousins' house in Beit Herut, Israel, as my same-age cousin faced the speakers toward the windows while "Give Me the Night," one of the summer's American hits, blasted on the radio.

And I was 22, 'blading up and down the Chicago lakefront, grooving with my trusty Walgreen-purchased Walkman.

And 31, 'blading to Maxwell in an empty parking lot in Montclair.

And 36, 'blading jauntily along the Thames River in a London suburb during a business trip.

And today at 44, with pure pleasure, 'blading nearly the length of Grove Street and back in Montclair on a Saturday morning, since it had just been freshly paved.

Everywhere I've ever skated, I've always felt free, sexy, graceful, sassy, fluid, lithe, high, endorphin-pumped, powerful, proud, competent, rhythmic, coordinated, deliriously happy....

And then arriving home all sweaty this morning, I performed in front of our house on a street that hasn't been paved in 13 years, and Pat filmed it. And I was only silly and funny, skate-dancing to a Busta Rhymes hit -- always funniest when I least mean to be. And maybe that's how I always look, just silly, but I will always feel how I feel.