Near Death Experience

I almost died last night.

There is an urban legend that Mama Cass, the larger than life face of the Mamas and the Papas and arguably the voice that propelled them from relative obscurity to being one of the most iconic vocal bands of the 60's (without her would they ever have achieved their blend of four harmonies that somehow tricked your ear into hearing a fifth-now here is a place where the overused word synergy is a actually appropriate) died, poetically, choking on a ham sandwich. That she died both at the hands of and in the arms of her truest love. The boring truth is that she died, quite un-glamorously, of an apparent heart attack in her home (join the club).

I almost died in a manner after her urban legend last night.

After I blogged about LOST (a sort of pot calling the kettle black-ishly lazy effort if I do say so myself) I decided to stay up to watch Saturday Night Live with my husband. He is a huge fan and tries to watch as often as possible. I, as the mother of four, just can't afford to miss out on the sleep and usually shuffle off to Buffalo after our Saturday sampling from Netflix. I guess I was in rare form last night, movie watching, blogging etc...so I figured what the heck, break out the crackers, cheeses and salami and watch Tina Fey thank her fake entourage, including Chaka Khan as interpreted by the black guy on SNL who plays every black woman exactly the same-without attempting to look or act anything like her.

About ten buttery crackers topped with slices of cheddar (not just any old cheddar but some fancy award winning stuff) and dry, Italian Salami, I felt something scrape the back of my throat. I tried clearing it, but it seemed to just lodge itself behind my tonsil. A small flap of thin sliced salami had created a synthetic epiglottis, which was evidently permanently sealing off my trachea. I tried to cough it loose and felt like it was having the desired effect, but every time I tried to breathe in I simply sucked the flap back into place and could get no air. As I panicked in the realization that there was nothing I could do to prevent my death by asphyxiation that night, part of my mind was using humor in an attempt to deflect from the seriousness of the situation. It became clear that a wormhole had been created in the fabric of the universe connecting the fictional LOST character Desmond Hume (circa the Swan hatch era) and myself via the solo effort written and performed by Cass Elliot after the Mamas and the Papas had split due to creative and personal differences - "Make Your Own Kind of Music." As I heard the lyrics "Nobody can tell ya there's only one song worth singin'. They may try and sell ya,'cause it hangs them up to see someone like you" in my head, a warmth washed over me along with something that seemed like inner peace, at the time, but in retrospect was probably just some kind of hypoxic euphoria. I hoped that one day, long after I was gone, when they made the movie of the story of my life that this song would play as the soundtrack to my death. That was soon replaced, as if in concert with the climax of the refrain...

But you've gotta make your own kind of music
sing your own special song,
make your own kind of music even if nobody
else sings along.

...by a sudden violent gag. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. Luckily I had been drinking a lot of lime seltzer to wash down those crackers so it all came back up rather easily. And somewhere in the stream of liquid regurge the flap came loose and I lived to see a few more minutes of Liz Lemon's fictional alter ego Tina Fey make fun of Sarah Palin and Tiger Woods' lady loves.

Just thought I would share.

Open Memo for the creators of LOST

Dear, dear writers, thinkers, learned readers, great minds behind television's greatest series ever...on this day, less than 24 hours from your finale, I have some final thoughts for you.

First, I know you are weary of writing and that you have set an unachievable goal of finishing (properly) this series in six seasons. I admire you for sticking to a timeline, but at this point it seems like you either should have made a beeline for the finish, or given yourselves a season or two more to flesh out the theories suggested by past seasons rather than abandoning them and opting for an either lazy or cowardly line of story telling. Nonetheless I still have faith in your intelligence, your vast literary knowledge and somewhere mixed up in there an inkling of the truth.

Second, I know that LOST is all about the long con. My sincerest hope is that this is all part of the long, LONG con and the reveal will be as mind blowing for us, the viewers, as the same is for the object of a con once the confidence man has had his way with her. Otherwise, I shudder to think, but, in the words of Dr. Seuss (with some liberties taken) goodbye LOST you con too long.

Finally, I truly believe that there is a convergence of truth and genius at the heart of this series. I will probably have more to say on this topic after the finale...but for now, my imaginary friends (for indeed I do imagine we would get along most famously ever the twain our paths should cross) BRING IT!

Monday after Mother's Day

My oldest son turns seven this week. I am terrified. How do I let this boy spread his little wings and take a few flaps? How do I instruct and correct him in such a way as to encourage growth toward manhood rather than emasculating with reactionary, punitive cruelty perfected by generations of paying it forward? How do I love him enough to cover the multitude of mothering missteps that I feel doomed to commit along the way? It is time to revisit the parenting books to find some answers.

And what of the questions the books don't address? How can I help him find where his talents lie and if he has any at all? How do I expect and educe excellence without being demanding? How do I balance honoring who he is and preparing him for success in a world that may not be so kind?

I am so in love with my first born child, so proud of his kind heart and fiercely protective when others wound him. My greatest fear is that I am the one whose actions are blighting his life. I WANT him to grow up and simply be himself and along the way if I could nudge him here and there to help him be the best version of himself then I would be happy. But I don't even know what that means.

What I do know is that I am going to make this week the best, funnest, seven-est week ever...and then we'll see about figuring out what to do with the next 51.

Long Island Nostalgia

The other day I was driving around, running errands with the windows of my tres chic minivan rolled down, wind whipping my hair, itunes blaring - when I was caught off guard by Your Name Here (Sunrise Highway) by Straylight Run. As he sang the lyics "Go east on Sunrise Highway" I was unexpectedly clobbered by what can only be defined by the dictionary's second entry for the word nostalgia: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. A sensation I feel obliged to attribute to the fact that I am my older brother's sister.

After an early morning dream about being a member of a surprise roller skating fried chicken delivery team whose most recent assignment was a school for children with Down Syndrome where there was a little boy who looked like a mash-up of my third son and my youngest brother, I was considering blogging about this very topic and had all but decided against it. Then I was pushed right back over the edge by a Facebook status that a friend from Long Island had joined a group for those who grew up on Long Island in the 60's and 70's. As I browsed through their memories of places I could vaguely recall as if through a Monet painted veil of fog, I felt an old familiar wave wash over me and decided not to abandon this post.

I have only been back to Long Island twice in the past 18 years, most recently, ten years ago for my mother's funeral. For fourteen years I have been doing the west coast swing, first college in Colorado and then ten years split between California and Arizona. After so many years of arid air and caustic tap water, I have of late been haunted by the little East Coast seaside village in which I grew up. I would attempt to exorcise this line of thought through writing if there were words to give shape to this phantom, but it is so distant and obscured I can't quite make it out and when I look directly at it, it disappears completely. It is a proper haunting.

There is something there, some story that with a little (maybe a lot) of hard work, eager pursuit, careful study, sketching and returning to add detail again and again could begin to reveal its form...but for now I will enjoy this siren's song from a distance, ignore her directions because I have a shower to take, kids to take to the park and a stack of the weekend's unattended dishes to wash.

For all you Long Islanders out there, leave a comment. Aw, what the heck leave a comment if you are from anywhere on the East Coast, or if you have enough good sense to wish you were!