I crashed my computer and can't find the damn page it's on.

Wanting Recognition After All These Years

The worst part of this year was packing up my sister's posessions. Some things I couldn't bear to part with like the toaster oven that we gave her when she got married in 1969. Under my sister Sharon's care, the 30 year old toaster still looks the same as it did when it came out of the box. I kept her rubber mallet and the metal tape measure.

The packing up a lifetime of someone else's possessions is never easy, but this move was especially difficult. My sister's unrelenting disease has rendered her unable to care for either the possessions or herself anymore. I've cried every day since but the absolute worst was finding the photographs in an old bakery tin.

In it there's a photograph of the three of us sitting poolside at the northern Virginia apartment complex in which I used to live when I first moved to D.C. Frankly, I have only vague memories of the day. We look so happy and carefree. I suppose we were. Our wretched childhood as unwanted orphans was finally over. We made it through intact.

The photograph shows us as we looked in in our 20s, all three of us sitting on the same lounge chair. That wouldn't be possible today, not the least of all because a single lounge chair couldn't bear the weight of one of us, let alone three of us. The Vietnam war was raging, the country was in turmoil but we weren't affected. We were all potential then. I trusted in my future. I knew I was going to succeed. We are smiling in the photograph; we look so happy. My hair was long then, still shiny with health, my skin was clear and bright. I don't recognize that girl anymore. I think she died when I hardly noticed. I do know that she's gone forever.

I was so ambitious then. I wanted a career but I was the only one who thought I should have one. In college I was told I was working class and wasting my time; working on the Hill I was told I'd never get past clerical because I had neither family connections, the right alma mater, or the appropriate gender; my friends at the time counseled that I should get married as quickly as possible. I was determined to be recognized for my ability. I'd make my own chance. I tried. I did try. I wrote a bill that became a law. In it I wrote a job for me. Only I didn't get that job. I was told I wasn't qualified; I wasn't worthy; I was too young, too "New York," the euphemism for "too Jewish."

I spent the next decade during my 30s, either unemployed or underemployed. When I wasn't humiliated by having to collect unemployment insurance or work in a series of awful temporary jobs, I was humiliated by jobs in which I was not doing what I wanted that paid lousy money and had strange working hours.

By age 40, marked by so much failure, and too much fear and anger, I finally moved on. I gave up the apartment that I loved to be with the only people on earth who loved me. At first, it seemed I had made the right bargain. Everything came together quite quickly. In a matter of weeks, I found a job that promised to be everything I wanted. What's that old saying, be careful what you wish for, you may surely get it?

I worked harder than I had in many years. I made a difference. I was at the top of my game and eagerly pumping it out, probably to make up for all those productive years I had lost, but instead of recognition, I garnered jealousy. I was extra nice to people. I took on as much work as I could. Seize the day, I thought. I went back to school to get my master's. Instead of admiration, I garnered even more resentment. Illness and a lousy economy prevented my departure during the next decade dominated by office politics. I needed the health insurance and prescription coverage.

Now that I am in my 50s, my work life is so marginalized that it is not unusual for me to hear, "I didn't know you still worked here." I Tried to ignore everything but I couldn't.

Obsession Thy Name is Robert Peter Williams

Robbie Williams Is My Obsession: Why?

I just checked my tarot online again. It's silly I know, but I had to know. You see I have this fantasy. Even though we've never met; probably never will meet; or ever could meet, I'd like to ghost Robbie Williams's autobiography. I've read that he's dyslexic. He needs someone like me. I am sure he does.

As fantasies go, this is really out there I know. I feel ridiculous but I can't help it. He's about to turn 30. I just turned 57. Unless he is amenable to geezer sex and I don't believe he is, I can't explain why I haven't felt this way about anyone since I lost my virginity [also to an Englishman] lo those many decades ago. It certainly doesn't hurt that he's a multi-millionaire, displays an irresistibly genuine quick witted intelligence, is very good-looking, and is famously good to his mother.

You know how English performers often adopt a fake southern American accent when they sing? Not Robbie Williams. He has this unique-sounding, if unrecognizable accent when he sings. I was desperate to find out who he was ever since I heard it on the closing credits for Bridget Jones's Diary. The smooth, soulful rendition of Have You Met Miss Jones sung in that strange-sounding accent was mesmerizing.

It took a while but eventually I put face and name to the voice from Bridget Jones's on a BBC-America rerun of an English chat show called Parkinson. From that and various CDs, DVDs, unauthorized biographies, Internet news articles, TIVO'd television sightings in the U.S., a Robbie Williams personna emerged. Along with that personna developed an unshaken conviction that Robbie Williams is the finest performer that has ever walked this planet, ever. He is amazing. Millions share my sentiments. Small comfort.

I signed up to his website and found myself spending hours in his chatroom talking to like-minded obsessed woman of all ages, descriptions and nationalities on three continents.

Of course, I am convinced that I know him, but I don't really. Actually, the Robbie Williams' public personna that I have formulated isn't terribly appealing. Supposedly he's a notorious womanizer who's had a serious drug and alcohol problem possibly influenced by a mostly absent father. He dropped out of school and was sort of aimless for a while until he hooked up with a creepy boy band. The managers of the boy band were mean to him. After a while, he quit, became a cocaine addict, sobered up, found a new manager, and began writing songs about the boy band being mean to him.

Eventually, a song he wrote, not about the boy band, transformed him into a bona-fide superstar. Angels, is about being looked after here on earth by loved ones who have died. It was a smash and became the most requested song at British funerals, and weddings too, I think. A lot of his songs talk about angels or dead people. Regardless, his lyrics are distinctively expressive. In fact, my brother-in-law and several other men of my acquaintance are forever teasing me about Robbie's lyrics and how they express excessive levels of emotional pain and suffering. Lucky for Robbie Williams, it is emotional pain and suffering that most women recognize instantly.

When my sister got sick, the only place on earth where I was unencumbered by my sorrows was in one of the three Robbie Williams chatrooms. The one I frequented was fun and creative featuring an imaginary bar complete with cocopalm, hot tub, fireplace, couch, piano, and a blow-up Robbie doll. There was a menu of drinks that included stiff willies, and the the like. All we ever knew about each other were our nicknames. Through it all was the frisson of expectation that the man himself would walk into the bar. And he did, twice, while I was there. For days after, I and other chatters grilled the people to whom Robbie spoke, for every detail. The object of our obsession seemed like a regular person, a gutten nashooma in transliterated Yiddish.

For weeks I spent hours, late into night, talking to people in England, Wales, Ireland, Ottawa, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne, Mexico City, Amsterdam, Cologne, etc. It was mid-evening on the east coast, but the middle of the night in London. I found out what O-levels and A-levels are; at least I asked. I'm still confused. I found out why English people bring grapes to people in hospitals. Tradition, that's all. I spent a lot of time explaining to scores of people that New Jersey was not a glamorous place to live, even if Bon Jovi was born there.

Then Robbie Williams closed his chatrooms without warning. I lost the only relief for my bottomless sadness. Scores of people scrambled to reassemble and a new place was created, but it wasn't the same. Nothing ever is. That's why I have this fantasy about the autobiography. I can't wait for the rest of America to discover what I have. If I ghost for him, it won't matter.

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Sister Love and a Set of House Keys

This morning I stared at my house keys and conjured my sister Sharon. Sharon doesn’t have house keys anymore. She doesn’t have a purse, or forks and knives or dishes or pots and pans anymore either.

Twenty years ago, she called me up at work to tell me not to panic but she had just gone blind. It was optic neuritis. She was in the first stages of multiple sclerosis.

Seven years ago I bought an apartment in Sharon’s building, just in case. She could barely walk but she was still driving then. Ashamed of being seen with a cane and then a walker, my sister Sharon rarely left the house except to drive to the grocery store once a week, until this too became impossible. Four years ago, we sold her car and I became her primary transportation, though she never went anywhere anymore except to our sister Bonnie’s house with me.

Sharon’s days consisted of gossiping with the doorman while getting her mail and doing laundry. She ordered groceries by telephone, talked to her friends and ordered things on the Internet. Her world had shrunk, sure, but life felt normal for us. We spoke on the telephone three or four times a day, we had holidays dinners at Bonnie’s and “sister days” ordering takeout and laughing.

More than a year ago, after suffering through an escalating roster of indignities that this awful disease brings, Sharon finally lost the use of her legs. I hoped it was only temporary, the unfortunate side effect of a spate of serious urinary tract infections, but I was wrong. The very last steps she ever took on her own were on Christmas Day 2002.

I suppose I saw her deteriorate but then again I didn’t.

After frantic months of doctor visits, ambulances, emergency rooms and hospitals, I couldn’t pretend anymore.

We tried a home health worker but Sharon hated having someone there and we couldn’t afford more than a few hours a day. That meant leaving Sharon in bed completely helpless until I returned home from work, or waiting for Bonnie to get there. What if there was a fire? Each moment Sharon was left alone was terrifying.

I could not sleep. I could not eat. I was crying all the time, even in my sleep, when I slept at all which was hardly. I began to bleed for no reason.

I wondered if I could retire from my job to care for my sister but I had to face the fact that I was not physically capable of lifting her and would still need to hire someone to help Sharon bathe and go to the bathroom.

Living with Bonnie also meant Sharon would have to be taken care of by a health worker. If I quit my job, where would the money come from to pay the health worker? Without a job I’d lose my health insurance and if my bleeding problem were serious, how could I pay for treatment? I couldn’t afford to pay for any of it unless I kept working.

Sharon was getting worse. My sister Bonnie and I had to find a place where she could be safe and receive proper care for her worsening medical condition.

Bonnie found a nursing home three miles from her house. Sharon has a sunny, huge private room with a private bath and roll-in shower. She gets physical therapy, learned to maneuver with an electric wheelchair and is making friends. She has a private telephone and her computer. Bonnie visits every day. I visit every weekend.

It is hard to make this adjustment, but we are all trying hard. I have begun sleeping again and my appetite has returned. I no longer bleed for no reason.

The mundane artifacts of my sister’s life, so carefully accumulated over the years, are being sold, given away or discarded. My sister Sharon must spend down a lifetime’s worth of possessions and savings to pay the $12,000 a month for the nursing home. That's why Sharon doesn't have house keys anymore.

Slick Young Psychic and Grieving Parents

I tuned to a morning news and information program and caught an interview with a grieving mother whose severely handicapped child had just died. It was just too early in the day to hear tearful insights on the meaning of loss, so being the sensitive soul I am, I reached for the remote to change the channel for something more cheerful. Wait. Who’s that? I recognized him immediately. It was the slick young psychic who speaks with the dead. He was there to surprise the woman.

The only things, and I mean the only things, the dead people ever communicate to this psychic are minor variations of: “I’m all right.” “I’m here with Aunt Sadie.” “I love you.” “I see you.” Once these four items of information are expressed, there is one more: “His/Her energy is pulling back now.” My sisters and I often mimic his “readings.” Is there an “S” name. Is it my father? Yes, that must be it. It’s your father. He says, he’s all right. Or our mother would report “I’m here with Grandma,” or our much loved pugs would tell us “We’re being taken care of by your mom and dad,” generating paroxysms of laughter that leaves us gasping for breathe.

I know something about dead people. They don't come back to have conversations. I was orphaned at 8 years old. My sisters and I, now in our 50s, still speculate on how different our lives would have been if our parents had lived, or if they’re still around somewhere, anywhere. As a former flower child trying to hang onto an open mind, I had often watched this psychic’s late night program. He is boyishly handsome, very entertaining and clearly worth every dime his audience shells out, except he is clearly not communicating with scores of dead departed souls. He’s all show biz.

The grieving mother on the news and information program wasn’t laughing, though. She believed. And why not? This was not an entertainment program; this was morning news and she was being interviewed by a television newscaster. The slick young psychic explained with great seriousness that he was inviting her to his exclusive seminar in Las Vegas later this month in hope that her son’s energy would appear. Las Vegas? Why couldn’t the son’s energy arrive right then and there?

The grieving woman was overcome with gratitude. “I believe,” she sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks, “I love you so much.” She was interrupted by the newscaster holding up a book. The psychic had just written a guide available for purchase on Amazon.com to teach everyone how to speak with the dead themselves if they couldn’t afford his very pricey seminars. How thoughtful.

Did the television journalist newscaster question this claim of speaking to dead people? No. Was this news? Information? Exploitation? Clever marketing? Self-aggrandizement? Show business? All of the above? I still don’t know. I’m still reeling.

What I learned from this spectacle is that it is so easy to follow those among us who aren’t what they seem but are smart enough to convince us otherwise. It’s why we admire actors and actresses, but they’ve got an excuse. That’s what they’re supposed to do. Unfortunately, it also explains Jayson Blair, the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, why Monica Lewinsky has her own television program and Bill Bennett shoving $8 million down a slot machine without bothering to tell his wife. I’m going to have to stop writing now because my dead mother’s energy is coming through.

Message from the Cosmos: What Does it Mean?

I took my Palm Pilot with me into the bathroom at work the other day so that I could play solitaire while I waited for nature to take its course but I overheard a conversation that I think the cosmos meant for me to hear. It was between two women. They sounded young, I’d say in their 20’s or early 30’s. Hard for me to pinpoint exactly since I never saw their faces. I just heard their voices and could make out their figures through the cracks in the cubicle in which I was.

“Are you visiting?”
“I’m here to fill out my disability forms.”
“Oh.”
“I’m going to be out for at least four to six months.”
“Do you take family leave for that?”
“Yeah. Well, what do you expect? I’ve got breast cancer.”
“You look great,” her companion said too cheerfully.

Someone else each of them knew walked into the bathroom.

“Glad to see you back. Are you saying hello or something?”

For the next five or ten minutes, the three of them chatted on about her upcoming chemotherapy and the sort of wigs she was buying. It was as if they were talking about buying new party frocks.

If it were me, I’d be screaming with fear; plotting my demise and expecting to die. I’d be tossing word grenades at those other women hoping to make them feel guilty. This girl with cancer sounded so brave and unaffected. I am sure she was not. How could she be? Where did she find the strength not to fall apart?

Each of them was uncomfortable. I heard it in their voices. They didn’t know what to say. They tried to sound as brave as the woman with cancer. They didn’t come close. Immediately I thought there’s a message from the universe here for me. What am I supposed to learn from this?

Something else happened as I am writing this. I returned to my office and a group of women collects outside my room. There is a voice I don’t recognize amidst those I do. It is distracting. Above it all I hear a coworker's familiar sickly horse laugh; It is loud and it is annoying. I turn around to see if I can make out what is going on behind me. I can’t.

Then I hear my coworker, the one with the laugh. “I’ll be praying for you.” Coming from someone else it would be a gesture of comfort. From her it's merely fake compassion. It's her signal that she’s got a special connection to G-d Almighty that she’s going to invoke in your behalf.

I turn and recognize one of the women from the office next door. I often see her in the bathroom. Then I realize. It’s the girl with cancer. THAT’s the girl with cancer whom I have just overheard.