The Fine Art of Failure

“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles overcome while trying to succeed.”      - Booker T. Washington

I was doing some research on a completely unrelated topic when I stumbled across a Psychology Today article called “Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges” by Dr. Peter Gray.   It spoke to the fact many students are starting college without basic life skills to help them handle adversity or even (gasp!) failure.  It’s a result of controlling parents who either push their kids too hard to be successful or refuse to see their own child’s foibles and blame everyone in sight for their own parenting misdeeds.  

These well meaning parents have been orbiting their children for years to prevent any adversity including dealing with disappointments or even simple life challenges to darken their child’s door. One university reported that emergency calls for counseling had doubled over even the simplest disagreements such as a student being called at bitch by her roommate or dealing with finances for the first time.  Two other students needed counseling after they called the police when they spotted a mouse in their off-campus apartment.  The officer was kind enough to set a mouse trap for the errant rodent.  

My question is not so much what has happened to kids these days but what the

hell happened to us as parents that made us  think that by wrapping our children in emotional bubble wrap we could keep anything bad from happening to them?  I’m not talking about abduction or sexual assault.  No, I’m talking about dealing with the consequences of being a total dumb ass - forgetting to do your homework, not studying for tests, forgetting to do things that they promised to do and just not knowing how to be a good friend because being self-centered takes precedence.  Where has the disconnect come between the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation X and the Millennials?  Why can’t we let our children fail or stand to lose when clearly they were bettered by an opponent with a higher skill level?  Why does everyone have to be a winner and get participant ribbons?  The very notion is pulling down the whole idea of success.   If our children don’t have obstacles - how will they grow?

Take learning to walk.  Now, your parents could have coaxed you, could have held your hands while you took those first tentative steps but through trail and error - you finally figured it out.  They didn’t get on the ground and lift one leg up and down for hours and days on end until the synapses figured out how to accomplish this basic life skill.  Babies get up, they fall down, they get up again, they fall down.  Sometimes they think it’s funny - sometimes they get frustrated but eventually they figure it out in their own time.  It comes from failing hundreds if not thousands of times until the light comes on and then one foot goes in front of the other.  I don’t know if you’ve ever been around a baby or toddler at the moment that they finally figure it out but the look on their face is nothing short of pure joy - the moment they develop that first sense of autonomy.  It’s a bitter sweet moment for parents - it’s the first of many steps that they take away from us.  Maybe that reality is why some of us work like hell to make sure they are never too far.  

We're reaping the effects of making sure our children have every advantage and

over schedule them to the point the have little down time to examine who they are because each block of time is devoted to baseball, football, soccer, ballet, piano, etc.  They are expected to exceed and when they don’t - it’s not because they might lack the drive or talent but it’s because the coach, the teacher or the director is not giving them a fair shake.  Worse, some parents are doing their children’s homework to keep their grades up while they are rushing from one activity to another.  The reality is that is that facade will crack - the test grades will prove that the brilliant insights these kids have at home for some reason do not transfer to the classroom.   Further, because of those schedules, they are not expected to do housework, clean their rooms, learn how to do laundry or cook because it’s done for them.  

Then when it’s time to go off to college and Mom and Dad are not scheduling every hour - they are at a loss.  The parents struggle with that separation because while they’ve been running them everywhere - they have not developed outside interests so when that empty nest presents itself both parties are at a loss as to what to do.   They both mourn the loss of this phase of their life but rather than move onto the next phase they are stuck.  Parents are literally calling college professors about poor grades the same way they did in grade school and totally unaware of how frankly messed up this is.  The kids feel unworthy at the dawn of any adversity and the rate of depression among young adults is at an all time high.  A  2012 Healthline article written by Michael Kerr found that:

• 1 out of every 4 college students suffers from some form of mental illness, including depression
• 44 percent of American college students report having symptoms of depression
• 75 percent of college students do not seek help for mental health problems

These statistics keep some college professors from giving bad grades for fear of causing emotional distress that can lead to serious psychosis.  As a result, colleges lower their standards because they are afraid of lawsuits resulting from nervous breakdowns or suicides.  Of course, this is not news to teachers who have been seeing this trend for years and now those overly protected children are off to college no more able to handle things then when they were in the sixth grade.   

Which is why we need to sit our kids down and tell them it’s okay to fail.  It’s okay to try something new and not hit it out of the park the first time at bat - hell it might take many times at bat to even make contact with the ball.  That’s okay - it’s life and not everything you try to do is going to go perfectly the first time or the sixth time or the 100th time.   It might even be good to abandon the whole concept of perfect - it just doesn’t exist.   Sorry you A-type personalities, you can try for excellence, you can try to go beyond the parameters of the project but it will never, ever be perfect - so let yourself and your kids off the hook.  Studies have shown that many successful CEOs and American Presidents were actually C students who could see the big picture rather fixating on small details that just slowed them down.   Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates were C students as were John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and George Bush both Jr. and Sr.  

One of my colleagues told me recently that her son was asked to do a paper on a historical figure and one of the paragraphs had to be a time that person faced adversity or failure.   That is an important lesson for kids to absorb - that greatness is not achieved overnight and it can be a lifelong process.  Here’s a short list of great people who failed many times before they finally got it right:

• Thomas Edison tried 1,000 lights prototypes before he finally was successful creating the light bulb. 
• Albert Einstein was expelled from school and refused admittance to Zurich Polytechnic School. 
• Oprah Winfrey was fired from her job as a TV reported because she was “unfit for TV.”
• Dr. Seuss’ first book To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was rejected 27 different times. 
• Steven Spielberg was rejected by the University of Southern California film school three times.  
• Elvis Presley was fired after one show at the Grand Old Opry and told to go back to driving a truck. 
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team but it didn’t stop him
  
  from pursuing what he loved doing. "I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Success takes risk and risk comes with failure.  I’ve bombed on stage more times then I’ve felt like I’ve done a good sketch and I’ve been doing comedy improv for almost 30 years.  But I learn so much more from the stuff that tanks than I do from the scenes that are a hit.  Failure helps me figure out what audiences want and by eliminating the parts of scenes that have failed in the past - it helps me figure out what will work in the future.  

“Success requires passion, perseverance, emotional intelligence and the ability to understand the value of failure.” - John Haltiwanger, Elite Daily

If we don’t allow anything to happen to our children then nothing will ever happen for them.  The reality is that failing is part of life - it should not be feared - it should be embraced as part of our learning process.  As parents we must give our kids room to fail and give them a soft place to fall.  Just don’t rob them of the opportunity to take that leap of faith because falling before you reach the other side is half the journey. 

The Sonny Side of Life

The first time the kids and I saw Sonny is was at a shelter called CatNip Cottage.  We were looking for a companion to our tuxedo kitty Skittles who had just lost about 1/3 of his tongue in an accident and was now permanently regulated to being inside.   We felt bad and wanted to find him a companion to make up for the friends he was losing on the outside. 

I had researched places to adopt kitties and found this lovely shelter that had a website where you could look at videos of the cats before you went to adopt them. Sonny’s profile had the headline “Instant Purrer” and in the video you could actually hear him purring.  His on-line bio stated that he had been abandoned with his sister in a box at a stop sign in Alpharetta.  Some volunteers noticed the kittens and brought them to the shelter.  Sonny’s sister was adopted first and he was left there just waiting for a family to love him.

So on that Fourth of July weekend eight years ago, we went to the shelter after selecting him on-line hoping that our hunch would be correct- that this little kitty would be the right match for the cat we had at home.  The woman at the shelter opened the crate and this little black and white cat immediately walked up to Amber and licked her face.  We were smitten and knew immediately he was meant to be part of our family. 

We brought him home and our other cat Skittles was not so sure- he hissed and spat at him.  Sonny took it in stride and didn’t answer back – realizing this other feline was the alpha cat.  We reassured Skittles that he was still our baby and by the end of that Independence Day weekend – they were grooming each other and the best of friends.

Amber finally had a cat who she could put in a baby blanket and hold like an infant.  Sonny would gladly oblige because being loved by his girly bear beat being in a shelter any day.  Skittles realized there was someone who actually liked playing baby-time with Amber and it took the heat off of him. 

As Sonny grew – he got taller than Skittles, but he never forgot the pecking order.  One time I saw them both standing at a door that was closed.  Skittles looked a Sonny who got on his hind legs and tapped the door until it opened – he then waited for Skittles to walk through before he also went inside the room.   It was hilarious and almost a little cartoonish but that was there relationship and Sonny never pressed his size over Skittles.  

Then one day four years later, Skittles started to not feel well and was losing weight.  We tried doing everything we could to help but nothing – even feeding him with eye droppers and making kitten glop seemed to help.  I had just been laid off and we just didn’t have the money to take him to a vet to find out what was wrong.   Sonny stayed by his friend’s side even grooming him because Skittles didn’t have the strength to do it himself.  He was pretty weak and I gave him a bath to make him feel better.  We were posting updates on Facebook and people were sending prayers.  The next morning he was gone.   After we said good-bye to our little cat, our Son-bear would lay down in the spot on the rug in our bathroom where his friend had died.  He often stayed there for hours at a time. 

In the months that passed, Sonny became more serious and not as playful because he

missed his friend.  People like to dismiss animals as not having good memories or not capable of grief but he was grieving.  He visited all the places that his friend used to go in the house to hide from the chaos that two kids can bring about.  He did start to jump up on the chairs or even the table at dinner time and wanted to be part of the conversation.  He wouldn’t try to steal food (at least not most of the time) he just wanted to be included in the conversation.   He would still tolerate baby time with Amber but it was more out of duty then being playful. 

Four months later on New Year’s Eve, we decided that like Skittles, he needed a friend to play with and went to the same shelter were we had adopted Sonny.  This time it was a six month old white kitty named Vanilly who was ironically the last cat to be adopted out of that shelter since they were closing their doors.  We brought him home in a pink pet carrier.  He was afraid to come out of the little box since he had spent almost all of his short life in a shelter not used to the sights and sounds of an actual home.    Sonny was near-by wisely trying not to scare this new-comer who warmed up to him and after a few hours left the security of the carrier and began to investigate things.  He started to play with Sonny who played back but without the vigor he had before Skittles died.  He felt more like the elder statesman and Vanilly was the young brash cat who had a knack for knocking things over and running to Sonny for help.

Many times Sonny felt like more of a dog than a cat.  He’d beg for lettuce even though he was well over 20 pounds.  He would sit on the couch 

and watch TV with Amber or make a hammock under the lining in Danielle’s box spring and hang out there.  He would come when I called and asked him to "see mommy."  On Sunday nights, he’d come upstairs and watch Desperate Housewives with me.  I would actually turn to him and ask if a specific plot point seemed weird – he’d just look at me and meow in agreement.   When DH went off the air, he’d sit and watch The Walking Dead with me, Max and Amber or Breaking Bad with us on Netflix.   More than anything he wanted to be part of what we were doing.   Many a morning, I would wake up to find Sonny at my feet – touching my toes while purring in his sleep.

On Max’s 50^th birthday, Sonny started to choke on a piece of food.  Max was home luckily and gave him the Heimlich maneuver and the food was expelled but for a minute there it seemed too late and Sonny got limp as if he was dead.  Then he came back while Max was holding him.   After that day, he was seemed to be his old playful self, bopping Vanilly on the head, pinning him down and chasing up and down the stairs – all of which Vanilly loved and thanked him by grooming him on the head.  Our best guess was that he was dead in that minute but the angels and Skittles sent him back knowing how heartbroken we would be if he left us. 

Sonny also had a knack for being the center of attention and when I would record my Princess or Ann Coulter videos, he would jump on the chair I would be using with the lights blaring – ready to perform with me.  I’d write parts for him such as The Royal Kitty; Ann Coulter’s Stupid Cat named Stupid and most recently – Sister Mary Cat in a web-series about a rogue Nun who says what she thinks and ends each segment with a chat with her beloved kitty.  It would amaze me how well he would put up with me and the cameras but he seemed to genuinely enjoy it.  And as far as acting partners go, he was one of the best I’ve ever worked with – on-time, hitting his mark and always knew his cues.  He also was not distracted by his cell phone which also helped speed up the production process.  He also looked great on camera.

A few weeks ago while getting ready for a visit from the Vice President and High Holidays at the synagogue where I work, Max called me to tell me that he thought that Sonny we not feeling well.  That morning I had seen that one of the cats had gotten sick on the carpet but didn’t think much of it since Vanilly does that from time to time.  I got home and tried to see what was wrong.  He seemed to be dry hacking and spitting up.  Later that night, he went into the bottom of our master bathroom shower and just wanted to stay there.  I tried to get him to drink but he was not having it.  He had been sick before – in fact when he choked and Max saved him – he was having hard time getting food down.  He spent the night in our bathroom and was purring but not really connecting too much with us.

I woke up that morning and tried once again to get him to eat but he was not interested which for a 20 plus pound cat is not normal.  I asked Amber to keep an eye on him and she said around noon that he still had not moved much.  This time around – we had the money to take him to the vet’s office so I made an appointment that afternoon.  Max picked him up and brought him in a laundry basket because being the big boy he was – we did not have a carrier big enough to bring him.  Max called me and let me know that the exam revealed that he had a blockage in his bladder and that they could unblock it and he should be fine.  I felt a huge sense of relief and moved some money so that we could pay for his care. 

When I got home – he seemed out of it from the procedure so I just figured it was the anesthesia.  I sat down and got him some water which he started to drink and really it felt like we had turned a corner.   That night – he wanted to stay in our bathroom and we brought in his litter box, food and water so everything was in one place.   The next morning he was still groggy but again I figured he was still wiped out from the vet's office.  I brought him into bed and told him how much I loved him.  I got ready for work and asked Amber to keep an eye on him and see if he managed to get something to eat.  We had a case of special food and antibiotics to give him that the doctor had prescribed.

I was in a meeting all morning and when I got out – I called home and Max answered.  I was surprised and wondered if he came home for lunch to see how Sonny was doing.  I asked if he was doing okay – Max paused and said “Sonny passed away about 30 minutes ago.”  I lost my breath and I uttered a very loud “NO!! NO!!” over the phone to the point that a co-worker came in to see what the matter was.  I told her that Sonny had died while trying to keep from completely losing it.   Max told me that Amber had called him after she checked on him and he was not breathing.   He cancelled the rest of his meetings and went home.  He was not sure how to tell me.  I told him I would be home early from work that I could not leave immediately but I would cancel the rest of my appointments as well.  I went into the bathroom and closed the door.  My body shaking because I had just lost a very dear member of the family.  I managed to pull myself together – do the rest of my work and get some checks signed to cover the Vice President’s visit.  I was amazed at how well I was able to function probably because I was still in shock and the reality had not really hit me yet – maybe it was just a colossal mistake and he would be just sleeping when I got home.  Once I was in my car, the tears started to flow and the song “See You Again” played.  I just let it play as the warm salt of my tears flowed down my face.  I got home and asked Max where Sonny was.  “He’s actually in the same place that Skittles died.” 

I went upstairs and saw my sweet little guy – looking like he was asleep but obviously was not.  His pink nose was now gray.   I touched his fur which was still soft but his purr box was silenced.  Max said that he would wait until the kids and I said good-bye and that there was a special place in the garden just for him – next to Skittles and Coogy – a stray baby cat we tried to nurse back to health but who died 10 days after we found her.   I told him how much I loved him and how much I valued his friendship.  I talked about the shows we watched, how wonderful he was to Skittles and Vanilly and how much we were going to miss him.  I had the kids come in to say good-bye.  They talked to him too and petted him – Danielle even got some of the fur and put it in a plastic bag.  I wanted them to see that death could be peaceful and not something to be afraid of. 

I told them how lucky we were to have known him and at least he didn’t suffer for long.  He knew we loved him and that maybe God found a family that needed someone like Sonny to help them and that’s why he was called away from us and back to heaven.  Souls like Sonny are very rare and there is only just so much to go around.   At the point that we had said all our good-byes – Max wrapped him in our best golden towel and buried him under the rose bush in our garden. 

That night I hugged my family a lot tighter.  We sat around saying how on Sunday, Sonny was jumping on the counter, drinking out of the faucet and chasing Vanilly and now on Wednesday night – he was gone.   This one really hit hard.  Skittles had been sick a long time so at the point that he died, it was sad but not unexpected.   We had Coogy just 10 days so while losing one so young was tough – we had only known her 10 days  We had a cat expert tell us that something was wrong – her mother sensed it and left her behind – so there was nothing more we could do for her but love her and make her comfortable.  But Sonny was a huge blow – we just thought we had more time with him.   We tried to do right by him - we had money to get him the medical treatment he needed. The vet assured us that he would be fine in a few days but it was not even 20 hours after the appointment and he was gone. 

In the days that followed, all of us would veer from sad to sobbing to feeling better and then feeling bad that we did not feel worse.  That’s the nature of grief – it’s not consistent and you never know when you’ll go from laughing to crying.  I wondered if Sonny had been living on borrowed time after he nearly choked to death and if God had extended his time with us because we needed to learn more from him.

Some of my greatest teachers have been my pets.  They give you love and understanding and see you as someone worthy even when the world can make you feel lower than pond scum.   They teach you how to love, how to care for something greater than yourself. They teach you that miracles can happen – that animals like my cat in college Gizmo can survive being hit by a car and falling off a third story balcony, that Skittles can survive losing 1/3 of his tongue and that Sonny can get the Heimlich and come back to life.  They teach you that life goes on and while you may swear that you’ll never get another pet and open yourself up to that kind of heartache – the universe sends you another creature to love just as much but without forgetting those blessed pets that came before whose lessons will help you become a better person.

Their greatest gift is to teach us how to deal with their loss so when we lose someone that we truly love and feel that searing pain that brands our hearts which seems impossible to overcome - we've learned there will come a day where you can talk about that person not in sadness but about all the wonderful things they used to do that made you happy, that made you love them and as long as you have that – they are never really gone.  They are as close as that blessed memory.

Yesterday, we were pulling into the parking lot at Target and we saw a little stuffed bear in front of us that looked like it had been left behind by a child.  We put it up on the cart area so that if the person who had lost it came back they would find it.  When we came back 90 minutes later and the bear was still there.  We decided to take it home rather than have someone throw it out.  As I put the little stuffie on the dashboard I realized he was waving to us.  I then started to cry because we used to call Sonny our little bear and as much as some people think the universe is random – this sign was not.  It was Son-Bear saying “Hi- it’s me and I’m fine – tell everyone I said hello and I love them too.”   That seemed a fitting message and wherever possible – I’ll always try to see those little miracles whenever they pop-up.  That was my friend’s greatest lesson - to always look at the Sonny side of life. 

Age Appropriate

I have to say I recently felt a little sorry for Madonna.  Here she is – the epitome of sex from the 1990’s and still trying to rock it at 56 – wearing hot pants, black thigh high boots, a tank and serenading Drake.  At the end of the song, she leans over and lays a passionate kiss on him.  At first it seemed appreciated and then it became a something out of a Pepe Le Pew cartoon – Drake trying to get away and Madonna oblivious to his resistance.  Then, the look on his face and immediate need to wipe it off his mouth made it seem all that more unseemly – a woman hitting on a man half her age and him definitely not digging it.

I like everyone else, wanted to poke fun at it.  Madonna’s ego – had been taken down a few notches because she stepped over the line of sexy into ridiculous.  But then I began to wonder at the tender age of 52 if trying to be sexy in your fifties was crossing a line.   Of course – it’s important to know when to flaunt it – and hitting on a guy who’s young enough to be your son was probably not the way to go about it even if you were the ultimate sex goddess in 1993. 

It’s a tough road from your 30’s into your 40’s into the 50’s and beyond –

particularly if you’re a woman.  I really feel for female celebrities hitting those milestones and having to compete against their younger selves thanks to YouTube and Netflix.   Now the movies you made 20 or even 30 years ago are a reminder of how things used to be – when you were forever young– free from the worries of Botox and the necessity of a nip and tuck.  The worship of youth has always been there – but the availability of plastic surgery and the practitioners who claim to be able to fix all your problems is way too alluring to those that make their living with their appearance and sadly those physicians don’t always deliver the desired results.  It’s not like a haircut – a botched face lift will not grow back.  It will require more surgeries to fix and with each one – new news stories on someone leaving the back end of a cosmetic surgery center trying to be unrecognizable – and sadly they are.  Those parts of their face that made them interesting and unique have now been replaced by a face that is shiny and immovable.

Of course, men rarely have to do those things to mask their age.  George Clooney can look as rough-hewn as he wants.  But if Jamie Lee Curtis decides not to color her hair – she gets flack for giving up and looking old rather than being celebrated for her authentic self and forgoing hair dye and plastic surgery.  It’s a very confusing message.

So why do we have such a hard time allowing a woman to grow old naturally and at the same time we condemn a woman who wants to celebrate the fact that she’s still a sexual being well into her 50’s?  “The Most Interesting Man in the World” is in his late 60’s and has young women around him – in awe and laughing at his jokes.   He has charm, wit and money – that apparently transcends the fact that he’s old enough to be their father.   He is even a little over weight but his worldliness overcomes that as well.  Now, put a woman in her 60’s surrounded by young men and either it’s creepy or more like Mae West where the tongue was firmly in the cheek.  The message is clearly an older woman could never really attract this much attention from young men in real life.

In the films of the 1950’s and 60’s – a fifty year old woman was regulated to being a grandmother and probably was one – since she more than likely started having children in her early 20’s and then her daughter would follow suit.  At 40 back then – the best you could hope for was being handsome – sort of like Lucille Ball and definitely not sexual.  A woman in her sixties would probably be like Barbara Stanwick but at that point – her face would became softly fused with a filter so her features would be slightly out focus – a silly way to mask her age because it only made it that much more glaring.

But even a woman’s weight at any age is not off limits.  Look at someone like Pink or Kelly Clarkson – who are not anywhere near their 40’s or 50’s but God forbid they gain a little weight doing something as prized as being a mother.  The expectation is that if they don’t immediately get rid of their postpartum Lbs. – they are excoriated on social media as being too fat.   Luckily they both have the wisdom and strength of character to take their attackers to task and being proud of their bodies. 

But for those of us that grew up during the Twiggy years – the unrealistic

expectation of weight and beauty has become ingrained.  The curves of the 1950’s gave way to the boyish waif look which was impossible for 99% of young women to pull off naturally.  It touched me so much that when I was in middle school – I developed an eating disorder and tried to keep my calories to fewer than 400 a day.  I was 5’3” and about 90 pounds.  I kept fixating on my thighs and how big they looked to me compared to the rest of my body.   My chest looked bony and my shoulder bones were poking out of my shoulders but still in my mind I was too fat.  It finally took my sister to point out that I was too thin before I snapped out of this self- induced haze of body hating to see the truth – I was radically too thin.  I put on a few pounds to look healthier – but my weight for most of my life has been a slippery slope.

I guess pregnancy can put that all into perspective because having a big belly that was full of my future progeny was a wonderful and blessed thing.  I even got a pretty nice set of boobs!  For the first time in my life I had crossed over the A-cup line and was spilling out of a B-cup.  My husband Max got the fringe benefits.  I knew that he loved me for better or worse but having an awesome set of knockers was definitely the better.   Once the babies were here and I was breast feeding they got even bigger – I was easily a 38C cup and curvy like Marilyn Monroe to the point that even the gay stage manager at the theatre where I was working at was checking me out. 

It took me 20 years to finally get it but it turns out men aren’t necessarily turned on by waif like bodies – they want something they can hold onto.  So I’m okay with not weighing 105 pounds– but I’ve always gotten a certain amount of attention because of my looks.  At the point that I was at the end of my pregnancies, I rather enjoyed it because I got attention for being the pregnant lady and not necessarily being the pretty lady (although people were quick to assure me that I was still beautiful even as I waddled up to thank them). 

But now that I am hitting my 50's, I know that the days of being able to rock

a pair of white shorts and a short sleeve button down shirt tied to my waist with a pair of sneakers are well behind me.  Unlike Madonna, I have not made my bread and butter on the fact that I used to wear a corset and belt buckle that said “Boy Toy.”  I never had my father preach that I needed to be “Like a Virgin.”  For the bulk of my career, I’ve had to look professional and not provocative. 

But I still feel for Madonna who is not ready to lose her sexy but has to tread a fine line between edgy and creepy.   Being confident is sexy but being arrogant can add years – so maybe a little humility can go a long way to make you seem younger.   There’s definitely a glow about women who feel good about themselves at any age.  Even entertainers who have had the media focus on mostly their good looks vs. their talent have had to make that transition into their 50’s and self-confidence can go a long way to achieve that. 

I also think having a sense of humor about yourself is important in keeping your sexy up and your angst of aging down. My husband Max recently showed me a sketch Amy Shumer recently did on her show about aging in Hollywood with Julia Louise Dreyfus, Tina Fey and Patricia Arquette. It’s a hilarious reflection on the double standard of a woman’s sexuality in tinsel town as the group celebrates Julia’s last f**kable day – the last day that a female movie star is can screw realistically on screen.  Click here to view the sketch.  I was laughing pretty hard and Max mentioned that in his eyes they were all still very f**ckable.  It’s nice to have a husband who appreciates beauty at any age.  

Most people would tell you that Sandra Bullock is downright hot and she does it effortlessly which is the key to her allure.   My guess is if she, Mary Louise Parker and Laura Dern could give some advice it’s that you don’t need to work so hard to be hot – just let it happen and people will still notice you.  For God’s sake – don’t buy into having to get so much work done that people can’t take you seriously anymore.  Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep and she has the street cred to do just about anything –but  she doesn’t need to look younger to get roles.  Granted there are less and less roles for 60 year old women, but people will watch her perform because they believe who she is – her face is still as amazing as it was when she started back the 1980’s – it’s just older as it should be.  Max recently commented that he would nail Helen Mirren in a New York minute which was reassuring but made me think I need to be in the room when he’s around other women over 50.  

Betty White is a beautiful woman in her 90’s who can tell you that being relevant is key but not so over the top that you look like you merely want attention.  The night she hosted Saturday Night Live was the highest ratings that show had gotten in 18 months – she was great because she has the show business savvy to know how to play to her audiences – both old and new.  When she was on the SNL 40^th Anniversary – she locked lips with Bradley Cooper and he didn’t try to wipe it off – probably because it was rehearsed and he was in on it.  Just about every woman watching would have loved to have switched places with her – and she pulled it off with just the right amount of tongue in cheek – acknowledging that she still had it.   

Which brings me back to Madonna – and my own struggle to reconcile the fact that I’m getting older and not the fresh young thing I once was.  Interestingly enough, I actually I agree with one statement she recently made: "I don't understand. I'm trying to get my head around it. Because women, generally, when they reach a certain age, have accepted that they're not allowed to behave a certain way. But I don't follow the rules. I never did, and I'm not going to start."  So maybe we need to ease up on her and see where her blazing trail takes her. 

I’m way past the shelf life of most improv performers – and yet I still go out there and perform because I love it and I’m okay with making fun of my age.  Hell, I even poked fun at Madonna in a recent show in her get up in which I felt sexy and just a bit ridiculous at the same time.  Maybe the road most of us need to go down is confident in our own skins and not worry about what the world thinks.  I need to not hold myself to unrealistic standards as I have in the past and accept the fact that you can get older and still be sexy and interesting.  And if you happen to be out in public and a younger guy checks you out – smile back.  You never know - maybe you just made HIS day!

Cos Cé·lè·bre

cause célèbre - noun  - a controversial issue that attracts a great deal of public attention

"Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a couple notches," Hanibal Buress shouted in an on-line video. "I've done this bit on stage and people think I'm making it up.... when you leave here, Google 'Bill Cosby rape.' That sh** has more results than 'Hannibal Buress.”

I was scrolling through my Facebook page when this video hit me square in the face.  It was an accusation that I had heard before - 10 years ago during a lawsuit that had been settled out of court but the vehemence that this young man had towards Bill Cosby struck me.  Bill Cosby – Heathcliff Huxtable – America’s Dad in the 1980’s being accused of a horrible crime.  It caught my attention and it sickened me.  I prayed it wasn’t true and then in short order new women started to come forward one after another:  same and different details – a wide range of locations – hotel rooms, green rooms of The Tonight Show, her apartment, his bungalow – pills that immobilized the victims and made them unable to fight back or Cosby intimidated them by telling them he would ruin them if they ever told anyone.   

Still, I tried to keep it out of my mind because it was just too awful to grasp and I didn’t want to believe it.  Then in 2014 a gunman opened fire at the Strozier Library at FSU – my alma mater and images of my old college came flooding back.  In the same news thread – more troubling news about Cosby.  I tried to make sense of it and then in the hour commute to work it all hit me – Florida State – 1986 – a night when I got drunk and a male friend tried to help me by taking me home.  But instead he raped me.

The DJs on the car radio talked about Cosby on their celebrity buzz segments – additional accusations – again similar circumstances – he overpowered them and they were not able to defend themselves.  They felt guilty and powerless after it happened - wondering if it was their fault because they said something that gave the wrong impression, drank too much or were drugged.  They did not report it because they felt like no one would believe them or they didn’t want people delving into the past to make them out to be a slut so they went on pretending that nothing happened for years that eventually turned into decades.

I knew what it felt like - like a part of you was yanked away violently.  Your sense of personal security gone because you trusted the wrong person.  That’s how I felt when my “friend” Greg offered to help me.  

My terrible night started as a way to celebrate graduation for the people at the seafood restaurant  who had completed their degrees.   My favorite drink at the time was a madras – which was vodka with cranberry and orange juice.  Bill the bartender suggested doing Rumple Minze shots which I had never tried - but it was a celebration so why not?   Some of the shots were Rumple Minze and some were tequila - he just never said which.  After about three or four shots and a couple of madras’ I was very drunk and in no condition to drive home so when one of the cooks named Greg offered to drive me home – I accepted.   But we stopped at his place first.  I felt sick and threw up in his bathroom.  He offered to help me freshen up in his shower and then proceeded to assault me in the shower then in his living room where I proceeded to throw up again on his carpet (obviously a vomiting woman was not going to stop him).   Finally, I managed to get my clothes back on and he dropped me back at my apartment.  At that point, he asked if I was alright.  I told him I could go in by myself and he left.  I took another shower and cried.  I went to bed and cried.  I tried to eat breakfast and cried.  

I pulled it together later in the day and asked my sister to help drop me off at work so I could get my car.  The people who worked at the restaurant  thought nothing of it because I was pretty drunk the last time they saw me and of course my car was still there because I had gotten a ride home.   A few days later, Greg and I were working on the same shift and he asked me if I was okay because I seemed a little freaked out that night.  I mumbled I was fine.   I never reported it to police because who would believe me?  It was a classic he said/she said situation and I was drunk and so many of the details were hazy. 

Greg was also black so the whole date rape thing took on a whole new level that I was not ready to deal with.  If this went public, I did not want to be the cause célèbre for a bunch of North Florida bigots who were looking for any reason to stir up racial tension.  I could not bare the thought of innocent people getting hurt because of a racist vendetta.

I told my boyfriend at the time who initially didn’t believe me - then did and of course wanted to kill the guy.  When we broke up a year later, it took time for me to trust being with someone again.  Oddly enough I was grateful that it happened when I was drunk because I never got that drunk again and knowing that as long as I was sober I could defend myself.   I realize now that false sense of security was very native. 

So the Cosby scandal hit home.  It made me mad – it made me feel disillusioned because of course those women would trust him.   He’s Bill freaking Cosby!  How could the guy who created Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids do that?  Many people in their mid to late 30’s claim that Cliff Huxtable was like their second father.  I remember waiting tables on Thursday nights and when the crowd died around 7:30 p.m.  you knew it was because families wanted to get home in time to watch The Cosby Show. 

Still, that lawsuit from 2006 got some traction but it did not seem to do him in then?  Why?  That lawsuit was settled out of court  by Andrea Constand, 32, a former Temple University employee who claimed Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in his Philadelphia-area mansion in 2004.  Constand even had 10 other women who claimed similar experiences with Cosby.  Constand has been silent based on her settlement, but the other women who were named as Jane Doe's in her lawsuit are finally feeling that there is strength in numbers and are telling their stories and are finally being believed.

“I think our society really has changed," says Tamra Wade, a data analyst who now mentors young assault victims who herself was attacked by a college professor in a class room a decade ago. "Ten years ago, it was much harder for a victim to get an audience listening to her. Now there's less of a stigma, and that gives people more confidence to come forward."

Let’s hope so because here’s a sad reality - one in four women in this country will be a victim of sexual abuse in their lifetime.   According to the  U.S. Department of Justice, just 40% of the women that have experienced a sexual assault will report it.  From there, approximately 5% of the time, a man who rapes ends up in prison - so 95% of the time he does not.   Why go through all the pain of reliving what happened and having the other side try to make it out as something you wanted if the chances of your attacker going to jail are very slim?  It's a truth that victims of this sort of crime understand all too well.   

Of course the denials from the Cosby camp keep coming because it’s defense lawyers and that’s what they do - protect the rich and discredit those that might be a threat.  According to Cosby’s attorney Martin Singer: "The new, never-before-heard claims from women who have come forward in the past two weeks with unsubstantiated, fantastical stories about things they say occurred 30, 40, or even 50 years ago have escalated far past the point of absurdity," he said. “These brand new claims about alleged decades-old events are becoming increasingly ridiculous, and it is completely illogical that so many people would have said nothing, done nothing, and made no reports to law enforcement or asserted civil claims if they thought they had been assaulted over a span of so many years."

Okay Mr. Singer, do you want to know why we stay quiet for one year, two years, five years, 10 years and decades at a time?  Because it’s people like you that try to make us feel like we are the lesser - that we consented - that we wanted this.  You’ll never know what it’s like to keep quiet because you were afraid of being judged - labeled a slut or a whore because of what happened.  Men can be sexually active and they are studs- women are considered whores if they have sex with more than one person - it’s just that simple.   I reiterate that one in four women in this country will experience some type of sexual assault in their life time.  I sure as hell hope you don’t have four daughters because the law of averages is not on their side.  What would you say if your daughter told you she was raped in college a few years ago.  Would you tell her she was illogical for doing nothing - would you ask her if there was any chance that she consented?  Would you hope to God that the attacker was lawyered up so his ass is protected?  No, you would probably want to punch the shit of out of the asshole that did that to your daughter.  Worse you would look at her differently.  That’s a big reason why I could not say anything while my father was still alive because I didn’t want him to see me as a victim and I knew it would hurt him down to his core - so you protect the people you love by not saying anything.  I pray you and your family never feel that pain.

Now however, there is a public conversation about believing the women in the

Cosby case in a way they wouldn’t have 10 years ago.  While the legal team has accused the media towards bias in the publishing the accusers allegations, a comprehensive article in the Washington Post claimed that “the allegations are strung together by perceptible patterns that appear and reappear with remarkable consistency: mostly young, white women without family nearby; drugs offered as palliatives; resistance and pursuit; accusers worrying that no one would believe them; lifelong trauma.  There is also a pattern of intense response by Cosby’s team of attorneys and publicists, who have used the media and the courts to attack the credibility of his accusers." 

One of the things that helped me heal is the words of another celebrity - Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story.  When Katherine Hepburn’s character gets drunk - Jimmy Stewart takes her up to her room and does nothing.  When she asks why he didn’t take advantage of her, he replies - “You were extremely attractive, and as for distant and forbidding, on the contrary. But you also were a little the worse - or the better - for wine, and there are rules about that.”  With that one line from a 1940 movie, Jimmy Stewart explained that men should know the rules and that he chose to follow them.  It’s called giving consent and if a woman is not in any condition to give consent, it’s rape - plain and simple.  It made me feel better and in time I was able to forgive my attacker and move on. 

When Robin Williams died, there was an intense interest in his work and one scene they were playing constantly was the one from Good Will Hunting in which William’s psychiatrist tries to break through to the Matt Damon character who was abused by repeatedly telling him “It’s not your fault.”  Damon’s character tries to shake it off and agrees but after repeatedly being told by Williams, “It’s not your fault,” he breaks down and finally accepts it.  That’s a mantra I think all people who have been abused need to hear - “It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!!” Intellectually you know it, but until you can say “It was not my fault.  I did nothing to deserve this! IT WAS NOT MY FAULT!!” and really mean it you will have a very hard time forgiving yourself for not saying anything.  

Ironically, this new interest in Bill Cosby’s sexual misconduct seems to be to have been sparked more by Hannibal Buress’ remarks and not the accusations of the 10 women ten years ago.  It took one man calling out the other to shake all of us out of that Cosby complacency to start to see the real issue.  The reality is that we live in a male dominated society and we need men to use their male privilege to call out sexual predators.   We need to define rape in sex education classes for pre-teen boys and make it very clear where the line of demarcation is between consent and assault.  Girls need to be told how to protect themselves and that there is safety in numbers.  Boys need to see girls as equals and to respect them enough to put the bro-code on the line if they think a girl is being abused at the hands of another guy.   One example of this an ex-NBC male staffer Frank Scotti who told the New York Daily News that he sent money orders for thousands of dollars to numerous women on Cosby's behalf and was there when Cosby invited models to his dressing room. "He would tell me to keep the women in there, don't let anybody in, and it was very obvious what was going on," said Scotti who is now 90.  He eventually quit working for Cosby because of the situation.  

Only time will tell if Mr. Cosby will see any legal ramifications for these accusations.  But the court of public opinion seems to be turning.  On the November 22nd episode of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, anchor Michael Che commented, “I don't know Bill Cosby, but Cliff Huxtable practically raised me. I love that dude. And the only thing he ever tried to sneak when people were asleep was a hoagie. So while I’ll never forgive Bill Cosby, hopefully someday I can forgive Dr. Huxtable.”  

If you are a victim of a sexual assault, I can tell you that time will help heal and you will find someone who will love you and who you will trust.  It will take time to feel comfortable having sex again.  But I can tell you 28 years out from my attack that I don’t think about it very much because I’m lucky that I have a husband who makes me feel safe and I know I’m loved.  But for better or worse, it's a part of me now and I have to see that it's helped make me who I am today.  I have two daughters and I will do everything I can to protect them but if the unthinkable does happen - I will believe them, love them and make sure they don't feel ashamed.  For victims of sexual assault, sometimes forgiving yourself and your attacker is the greatest gift of all.  I hope we can all find the strength to do it.  I know I have. 

The Little House in Miami

“The house is closed.  Your keys are now mementos,” was the text that I received from my brother Steve after the family home had sold last week.   I stood there in my office and let out a small gasp.   I knew the closing was supposed to be that Friday or Monday in Miami depending the last minute details from the buyers.   Still, the idea of never going into the house which we had owned since 1958 seemed at bit surreal.   My arrival at the house on 90^th court did not happen until 1963, so my sister Kathy and brothers Bill and Steve had some extra time to make it their own before they had to deal with a new baby.  Sharon was born in 1964 which then made the family complete. 

I had not been home since my father died in 2002 when I went down for the funeral.  Being in the house and not seeing him sit in his recliner also seemed to be surreal although ironically that’s where he passed away.   Max and I had moved to Georgia in 1998 and had been down periodically, but Mom and Dad came up so often it didn’t seem necessary to go down there to see them.   A few years ago when Mom could not live alone anymore she moved up to Tallahassee so the house had been vacant since then.  My mother still had to pay the taxes and run the AC so that her South Florida home would not be overrun with mold which the moist tropical weather can do in just a few weeks.  

The words of the text were still stinging.  Fighting back tears was a losing battle so I quickly ducked into the bathroom so none of my co-workers could see me.  The house I grew up in was no longer ours - I could never go home again.  I had to work late that night so I didn’t get home until after 10:00 p.m.  I told Max the house was sold and he could see it affected me.   He hugged me and said it was a very good house.  I told him I wanted the new family to laugh and love as much as we did. 

The next morning I cuddled with my husband, put my head on his chest and started to cry.  A large chapter of my life was now most definitely closed and could never be reopened-and now it belonged to someone else.  So much had happened in the Cody house.  I knew how rare it was that one family could own a house that was not a farm or an estate in England for over 56 years - in the South Florida suburbs that is just unheard of.  

Gazing out of the second floor window of my own house, I thought about when I was a little girl.  I would look out my bedroom window during the Christmas season and I felt especially safe seeing the holiday lights.  I guess as a kid, I reasoned that nothing bad could happen as long as my window was framed in multiple colors of red, green, blue and orange.  When I put the Christmas lights up at our house, I make a special effort to have lights frame our bedroom window so I can look outside and feel that all is right with the world.  Our ranch house did not have a fire place (we lived in Miami, which is not a place known for cold weather hence the lack of a hearth) - so my parents would tell us that they would stay up and let Santa in.  

On Christmas morning, the Cody kids would descend on the presents that were in five different piles that all had the same number of presents.   We got to open two before church and then the rest after services and going out to breakfast.   Since Miami never really got cold in the winter, we’d run around in Miami Dolphin Jerseys with shorts and go to our friend’s houses to see what sort of  holiday haul they got.   Yeah, back then, you could just walk down the street and hang with your friends - there was no cell phones, Facebooking or Tweeting.   You could also smell the different holiday feasts being cooked as you walked on the sidewalk from house to house.  

Our backyard had a swing set that my sister Sharon and I would play on since we were close in age - just 16 months apart.   Unlike Georgia, the terrain in Miami is pretty flat so our backyard was fenced in but connected to four other houses in the back and to the side.  You could cut between the yards to go directly across to Southwest Sr. High which was literally a stone’s throw from my house.  If the jalousie windows were open, you could hear the marching band practicing for football season.   The backyard also kept a little plastic kiddie pool which Sharon and I splashed in as little three and four year old girlie bears.  It was an idyllic little house on a little lot in a simple middle class neighborhood - it was home.  

It was the place I learned to walk, talk and  have my hair done by my big sister Kathy.  It was the place where we did Easter egg hunts year after year even after we had grown up and gotten our own homes and apartments nearby.  It was a place where you could walk for hours on Halloween and come back with a pillow case full of candy.  It was the place where my family discussed around the dinner table what was going on the Vietnam War and my sister’s need to demonstrate against it, the assassinations of the Kennedys, why Nixon was a crook, the first gay rights demonstrations with Anita Bryant, the Dolphin’s perfect season, etc.  It was a place where you could eat politically incorrect food like a sausage noodle casserole, ham & corn pudding and bacon and swiss cheese quiche (which my dad and brothers devoured easily because they didn’t care whether people thought they were real men).  It was the place were I got my two front baby teeth knocked out riding a bike in the street and where I hit my head on the water heater and sliced my forehead open both of which resulted in panicked runs to South Miami Hospital (luckily, my being a genuinely clumsy kid did not warrant a visit from DFACS).  It was where Max and my dad bonded over cooking and our refrigerator made chirping sounds like a bird - that went on for years which Max found charming. 

As I look out my own living room window writing this, the leaves are beginning to change  because it’s autumn - something I never got to experience in Miami.  We’ve lived in this house for 10 years and it’s bigger than that petite house in Miami.  Each of my kids has their own rooms and the bathrooms are a pretty good size.  It’s two stories which is not something you saw a lot of in Miami in the late 1950’s to 1970’s.  We get snow here from time to time and are not any better prepared then the folks in South Florida were when it snowed in 1977 as Snowmaggeon this year so painfully pointed out.   I’m not sure we’ll live here for 56 years, but I hope that my kids have the sort of happy memories I had in that little house that managed to shelter two parents and five kids who could not have been more different.  Maybe the proximity in that house helped us learn the fine art of having to get along.  The beauty of having a big family in a little space is that it’s always noisy and sulking quietly in your room is impossible because once one sibling pisses you off something else happens and you form a temporary alliance for pay back.  

As I texted back to my brother Steve - he reminded me that I still have the

memories and I reminded him I still had the canisters of home movies in which I transfer every year for the family to look at for the holidays.  Maybe this year I can find footage that is strictly about the house - that little house that held a family together through for almost six decades of Easter Egg hunts, Halloweens, Christmas mornings, Thanksgivings, five weddings, 14 grandkids and a funeral.  Maybe my brothers and sisters will remember how close we were physically and emotionally - even though we live in different states.   And maybe my kids and I will watch TV together in the master bedroom because watching TV in your parents room while sitting on their bed is the best thing ever and we’ll have bacon and swiss cheese quiche for brunch.  Yeah, Max was right - it was a very good house.