Phoebe Kate

So, I was sitting in my home office and trying to think of something to blog about when I hear a voice outside loudly shouting over and over again, ”Hey!” 

I go to the window and look out.  Now, we live in a rural-ish area on 2 acres and have two different gated accesses to our property, one on a paved street, the other on a dirt road.  This man was walking down the dirt road, of which I have a rather sweeping view from my second floor windows.  There were no people or cars around that he might be hailing.  He was apparently shouting “Hey” at nothing with a remarkable intensity and conviction. 

And then it occurred to me — duh! –the man must have experienced an epiphany.  He wasn’t shouting, ”Hey” – he was shouting, “Hay!”  He clearly understood something which the rest of us don’t — namely, that HAY is the secret of life.  The rest of us who are yet unenlightened obviously underestimate its value, numinously speaking, shallowly viewing it as just an agricultural product for livestock, thatched roofs, farmers’ hats and Halloween wagon rides ideally suited for make-out sessions. 

I expect there’ll be a Church of the Mystic Manger coming to a field in my neighborhood very soon.       

–phoebe kate

Stop the presses, guys.  This is big. 

Sarah Jessica Parker has been named the World’s Unsexiest Woman by Maxim. The men’s rag described Parker as having “a Barbaro face” and rhetorically questioned how the likes of her could have been the star of a show with sex in the title.

Somehow, these ignorant bozos have managed to insult both a good-looking lady and a good-looking horse and — even worse – totally miss a fine irony in “Sex and the City.”

The four female protagonists in the TV series were not meant to be”sexy” themselves per se — otherwise they’d have hired a whole different cast.  They were variations of “Everywoman,” who’s either single and desperate (or married and unhappy), easy for viewers to identify with because, despite their bravado, they weren’t too pretty or too perfect or too self-confident, no matter how much sex they had. It’s a show about existential angst, not getting laid.

Pronouncements — be it the 10 best or worst dressed celebrities this year or the 20 most drop-dead-gorgeous famous people in the world – all annoy me because they are meaningless fluh.  Beauty has always been in the eye of the beholder.  Sex appeal is a mysterious thing, not easily (or wisely) reduced to merely the sum of our bodily parts.  And neither can be dictated or standardized or generalized because in human relations, one size never fits all.

Except in men’s mags.

–phoebe kate

Out in space, hovering over Earth, two space aliens who are seeking out intelligent life forms in our solar system have a conversation.

One says, “It appears that the dominant life forms on this planet have developed satellite-based weapons.”

“Are they an emerging intelligence?”

“No, they have them aimed at themselves.”

–phoebe kate

Unlike L.A., which has its 10 million or so inhabitants sprawled over 4000-plus square miles, Manhattan’s 8-plus million are dense-packed into a modest but fabulous 23 square miles.  In Hollywood, celeb sightings are not common unless you happen to hang out at Spago’s or shop on Rodeo Drive — and when they are spotted, they’re deluged with paparazzi and pawing fans.  But in the tiny Big Apple, they occur all the time and without a lot of hoopla. Nobody has the luxury of creating acres of seclusion for themselves and so the great and famous end up living like the rest of us.  

For a few months when I was a young teen growing up in Greenwich Village, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were our neighbors. He was starring in a Broadway play and rented a duplex in a brownstone on the next street.  My parents’ apartment was most fortuitously situated for Star gazing.  Our dining room overlooked Newman’s vest-pocket garden and the back wall of his apartment was floor-to-ceiling glass.  He lived in a fish bowl.  We had front-row seats.  Who could ask for anything more?  Live entertainment free of charge.

The Newmans didn’t seem to care to draw their huge drapes across their 14-foot tall windows, so we saw them wandering out for breakfast in their underwear, having small but eloquently arm-gestured spats, making dinner, getting midnight snacks, watching TV.  Paul squoze himself into a tiny men’s bikini and sunbathed in the garden.  My girlfriends would come over to ogle him as he toasted his nicely toned flesh.  Sometimes, aware (of course) that he was being observed, he would throw us a smile. 

“Omigod!  He’s adorable!” they’d shriek.  My mother would shoo us away from our dining room windows and snap, “Stop gawking and give the poor man his privacy.”

My parents and I and other residents saw Paul and Joanne on the street or in the corner grocery or at neighborhood restaurants and never asked for an autograph or acknowledged their presence except for maybe a polite nod over the meat counter or at the door of the local steakhouse.   

And that, I think, may be the difference between Manhattan and the rest of the world.  Dwelling on a tiny island with too many people on it, a percentage of whom are conspicuously well-known, we learn to respect that three feet of personal space around everyone that marks the boundaries beyond which we should not cross.

And to not to look into people’s windows, even if they do leave the curtains open.  (Thanks, Ma.)

–phoebe kate 

For more than a century, we’ve had the benefits of positive thinking touted to us.  Better mental and physical health, greater success and personal happiness, more friends, more opportunities, more influence over others and last but not least, more money.  

Okay, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Norman Vincent Peale, Dale Carnegie, Tony Robbins, Og Mandino, Mitch Albom, Jack Canfield, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Dr. Phil, Oprah, Zig Ziglar and all the countless others who’ve told generations of us to keep on the sunny side of life, put on a happy face and all will be fine.  Well, get this.  You’re all wet.

According to Barbara Held, professor of psychology and social studies at Bowdoin College, it’s okay to be Eeyore (or worse) if we want to.  In her book Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching, she says we shouldn’t be restricted psychologically in the way we react to and cope with life’s adversities and tragedies.  We each have to do what feels right to us.

So I was reading the National Public Radio “All Things Considered” interview yesterday with her on their website and was nodding my head at her remarks and thinking, yeah that makes sense — that is, until I noticed the photo of Dr. Held, a woman who thinks it’s just fine to piss and moan and whine and fuss and bitch if it suits us. 

Yikes!

It’s back to self-help aisle of Barnes & Noble for me, I’m afraid.  

–phoebe kate