The words highlighted above are the perfect summation of how I feel about my father. However, we are bound like a book, and I believe our words, like a novel, are already written. Read this post which is so dear to my heart and let me know your thoughts. I think anyone with a father can relate somehow to this piece. Maybe Ethers, you can give me SOME hope? If we keep using the book analogy...and the picture above....the page is not fully printed. Maybe there's time to add more text to it.

Dear Ether, 

The first man I ever fell in love with was my father.  I suppose you could technically call it love at first sight. 

He was born in Longmeadow, MA (a small, peaceful town where homes are from the 18^th century and have plaques proudly boasting their build dates on their spotless facades).  He was the eldest of three boys and since this is an anonymous blog, I will attest to the fact that he was by far the smartest.  He excelled at everything he did and when it came time to go to University he was courted by every Ivy League school (Harvard even offered him a yearly stipend for his pocket money).  He became one of Eli’s men and went to Yale on full scholarship, became a Skull and Bone and sailing through college with perfect grades and varsity sports under his belt, went to Yale Law School.  If you look at notebooks from his time at college (this was before laptops) his handwriting is in perfect script and there is not a cat-scratch in them.  Of course after graduating from Yale Law, he went to one of the finest firms in the country in Manhattan, got a stunning apartment in a brownstone on the Upper East Side and worked for five years, toiling away being told he’d probably be made the youngest partner if he kept up his fervor.  However, he was unhappy.  He was a writer through and through.  And, lucky, brilliant Dad, and his writing partner, wrote a script and sent it to Hollywood with their fingers crossed.  And guess what?  They landed a job on a TV show immediately.  

Oh, of course there are many more things about him.  That he was perpetually youthful looking which would serve him well as he aged (people often ask him where he hides his portrait).  That he has never had a health problem in his life (knock wood).  That he has always had a love of cars, so much so that when my grandparents, in the 1950’s bought a pink Cadillac (yes indeed) with white leather seats and, amazingly, a record player (the latest and greatest in technology—if they only knew what the future would hold) he sat for 7 hours in it mesmerized.  He says when he closes his eyes he can still see his feet not being able to touch the ground and can smell the interior. 

And so, the tale continues.  My father comes to L.A., works on very famous comedy shows, meets my mother, 2 years later they get married, a year later they have my older brother and then 2 years later I’m born—and my love affair begins.  It’s unfair, really.  It was my mother who gave up a hugely powerful job as a producer, rare for a woman in those days, to become a stay at home mom, and become the bad guy.  My dad worked 12-hour days trying to squeeze out jokes sometimes at 2am (not an easy task).  Often I wouldn’t see him at all.  But when I would hear that car pull into the carport, I would run downstairs and throw my arms around his legs.  

This is what I remember.  He always had a brown briefcase with gold numeric lock keys and never wore a suit.  He always had a stern look on his face and disappeared upstairs.  It was only later did I find out that he was so stressed out and filled with anxiety that he needed to be left alone and decompress.  As an adult and a writer I understand this now.  But then, it wounded me.  And that made me want him more.  And this could be why I have so many attachment issues with men.  But that’s a whole other round we can discuss another time Ethers.  Through the years and his many styles of eyeglasses (whoa, there were some beauts’) I sought his approval.  My mother was so hard on us and was the school marm while my father was the hero who swept through and was quiet and calm.  On weekends we would go to the beach or he would read “The Arabian Nights” or Dickens to us.  I had a canopy bed and he would sit in the dark improvising the most masterful tales until he lulled me to sleep.  The only requisite was that I give him a topic.  

As I became a teenager and he became a very successful drama writer and producer (and eventually and Emmy Award winner) we became wealthier, he calmed down, but no matter what I could do, the man I was in love with never indulged me with pride.  He always was a critic.  I would show him my writing and it would be scarred with red marks.  I’d be talking to him and he’d correct my grammar.  I’d be playing soccer and  could see him peripherally on the sideline with a puckered look on his face and screaming “Come on One of 365, get in there!”  He did always tell me how beautiful I was—even when I had braces, bad eyebrows, spots and frizzy hair.  But I never felt like I was ever going to be good enough.  I was never going to be a savant like him.  I’d already failed and I wasn’t even 18.  I certainly wasn’t going to get courted by Ivy League schools or become a lawyer.  I tried everything to make up for that.   I killed myself in school to the point of exhaustion.  I forced myself to become a straight-A student when it wasn’t natural for me.  I went to summer school and did extra work to make up for, god forbid, a B or B+.  I joined every team possible and became a varsity tennis and soccer player.  But my math failed me and I failed my SAT’s in math.  2 hours of my life, after 13 years of school,  and I didn’t get into any of the colleges I wanted.  I ended up going to a top 25 small liberal arts college in CT (a pathetic attempt to try and re-live what my father had in New Haven) and fell apart there.  I became angry and depressed and slept all day and never attended classes.  I had bad relationships with men who I didn’t like let alone even love and was pained and lonely.  That’s when I bolted for England.  You’ll know the rest of that story eventually.  This is about my dad.  

To this day we bang heads at every occasion.  He’s retired now and is always around to judge.  He’ll comment on everything from weight to writing.  He’s yet to ever look at a piece of my work and ever say it was good; he always has a qualm with it.  He’s even sent back an E-mail I wrote him with corrections for me to fix.  When we fight we are both so similar.  We’re cutting and mean.  But it’s so funny…….I try to be intelligent when I fire at him because even in an argument I want to earn his respect.  So Ethers, you must be asking, “This is the first man she ever loved?”  Oh yes.  And I compare everyone I ever meet to him.   Even myself.  Because to me, he is what I would have liked to have been.  He is a constant reminder of, what I see, as perfection.  Yes, of course I’m no fool and see that he has so many character flaws.  But his achievements and his health and his wit and ease with himself–I would have dreamt for that to have been passed down to me.  Whenever I meet an old colleague of his or a college mate, they always say he was the greatest guy they ever met.  My friends all swooned over him.  I once asked him why he was so easy going to those he didn’t know as well or care as much for and he said, “Because I don’t love them.”  I guess that’s why I have such a fucked up view of love too.  He feels he has to be the bad guy to get the point across and get the irons in the fire.  I just wish instead of irons being in the fire, that there would have been just a tremendous glow and warmth exuding from it.

I don’t know what I will do when the time comes when my father is out of my life.  He’s so intertwined with it.  My brother resembles my dad AND my mom.  But I’m a spitting image of him.  It’s funny, everyday I have to look in the mirror and see the man who I love more than anything.  The first man I ever loved.  But also the man who will probably always haunt me.  When I close my eyes and I picture my father I see him sitting in the backyard on a sunny day.  He’s tan with dark hair, trim and in one of our lovely wooden chairs with the dog at his feet.  As always, he’s immersed himself in a novel.  I stare at him through the French windows of our sunroom and I see him look up from time to time putting his finger in the page where he’s left his last paragraph, and he closes his eyes.  Is he soaking up the sun?  Is he worried?  Is he thinking about life?  Thinking, possibly of ME?  And then I see him give his head a small shake and open the book again looking down once more to read.  This is the first man I ever loved.  And to my dying day, even when I am old and he is dust, I will always wonder what he really thought of me.  

If he could read this, which he never will, I would beg for his forgiveness for failing him and I would tell him that the only reason I ever stood up to him was to try and earn his respect.  But inside I was crumbling.  And if he had said the word or just put his arms around me, he would have silenced my vicious tongue.  Every year that passes I know that we are too far-gone to ever be what I had hoped for.  He really has always been the old dog that can’t learn a new trick.  And part of this is my embracing being an adult and learning acceptance.  But I still look at him through the same eyes I had as a little girl, for he hasn’t really changed much, and I walk around haunted by my first love. 

Dedicatedly yours, 

—One of 365

I just don't know how many more beat downs I can take. I sometimes don't even go into hysterics anymore but go into a quiet place and stare and just leak---sort of like this picture. Life, people---they are so cruel. But why? If we all are hurt by others and hate it, why do we perpetuate it?

Dear Ether,

Let me preface this entry with the fact that this post is more of a rant and a spew than my normal writing.  It’s a bit stream of consciousness and slightly all-over-the-place.  I needed a forum to explode so with that in mind, forgive some of the speed bumps ahead.  But as usual, your support and comments always make a difference and I look forward to hearing your opinions. X

Hollywood is a whole different beast to London—especially journalistically.  The red carpet here is filled with angry and competitive reporters who have formed a clique and don’t appreciate the new girl on the block.  I happen to represent a really good title and these other girls don’t—they are working for tabloids—and that is exactly the way they behave: cheap and tacky. 

On Thursday I had a journalists nightmare.  My Editor and I spoke on the phone and she told me rumors had spread that I was piggybacking off of other journalists interviews on the carpet, asking for celebs details on the carpet and pushing PR’s for goodie bags—all NOT TRUE.  It was humiliating, hurtful, mean and so spiteful.  I thought I was doing a really good job and was actually calling my Ed to ask for more responsibility and then she dropped this on me.  She was really supportive and said that these people have done this to many of her reporters in the past.  That they want your job and that this is a small, incestuous town.  But the worst thing is, I DIDN’T DO ANY OF IT.  And what was particularly embarrassing was that it wasn’t only my Editor that new about it but other important people on the magazine as well. 

I don’t know who would take the time to make up stories about me, call the magazine and try and get me in trouble.  And my Editor told me it was several people!  I thought it was so mean and petty and cruel.  I know there’s no crying in show business—but I began to because I was gutted that I had worked so hard and that no matter how hard I defended myself, this was still going to reign in the back of my co-workers minds.  And—because I didn’t know who ratted on me, I can’t protect myself next time I go out there so I feel very paranoid.  I’m normally quite boisterous on the carpet—I’m afraid I’m going to be in a shell.

This happening,  and the drink being drugged,  MR. X, and my lovely shoe gal (but her awful name dropping friends)—I just can’t stand it anymore.  I need out.  But where am I going to go?  I have no more connections in the magazine biz in London which is a shame because I love writing that style (and frankly, I think it might be the wrong field for me—the women can be so harsh and I tend to have a thin skin).  I’m going to be 30, on no ladder, with no friends, no flat, and a broken net because of the damage done by staying with my family in Los Angeles.  And my relationship with English gent is a mess too.  

Is there something wrong with me? Why don’t I fit in anywhere?  Why are people making up lies about me?  Why are people so callous?  And frankly, my idea of a good night is not standing on a red carpet with a bunch of other cut-throat journalists who are fame hungry.  I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if a person is a celeb or not, I just want to do my job.  Please don’t think I’m not grateful to be working.  I AM.  I am damned lucky in this recession to be given this opportunity to work with a top magazine.  It’s not the magazine I’m angry with, it’s the people who are my secret enemies—people who don’t even have the balls to show me their face and approach me if they have a problem.  In short: pussies.

I want to write.  Thank god I have One of 365.  But I’m not a little kid anymore.  I’m a grown-up (can’t believe it) and I need a career.  I want to come home tired, but at least proud of my day.  I don’t want phone calls from Editors telling me some bitches called about me with lies.  I felt like I was 17 again and it was High School and I was being reprimanded by the principal.  I feel past that. 

If I move back to London, I suppose it’s back to flat-hunting on The Gumtree, temping or freelancing, and trying to remember who I cut ties with and who I can call for help. It’ll still be rainy, and people will still slam into me at the Tube station and I’ll stick out because I’m American.  And If I move to NYC, all my savings will be eaten up because of the recession.  And when I lived there, people were just as bitchy as they were in Los Angeles. 

Anyway, this is what I wrote in my defense to the accusations (and please remember, my Ed was really supportive).  There have been edit’s of course to protect identities. 

Dear XXXX,

1. I have NEVER piggybacked on ANYONE’S interview.  This is a cruel, made-up lie that someone is either extremely paranoid about or just wanted to sock it to me.  I always write XXXX  if I “group interview” and have never stolen a quote from another reporter.  I have been a victim of being piggybacked and have never been petty enough to report this.  Shame on whomever spat out this B.S. 

2. When I worked in London I received gifts bags daily.  They ranged from Burberry handbags and opulent hampers from Fortnum and Mason to gift vouchers to Harvey Nichols for 500 pounds.  I received beauty products that were worth more than some people’s car payment’s and was flown out to lush spas. I most certainly would NEVER have been chomping at the bit for (excuse me) the “rubbish” gift bags they give in Los Angeles which consist of take-away menus, bottled water and maybe a hand-lotion.  Again, that is a ridiculous and cruel rumor someone made up to humiliate me and make me seem petty. 

3. Finally, as for the e-mail exchange.  There are 2 incidents where this happened.  I forgot to tell XXXX about the 2nd.  The first was with XXXXX who I had met the night before and then met again coincidentally the next night in a row at the XXXX gala.  She and I got chatting and it turns out she and I have a mutual friend (my college roommate from XXXX in XXX).  We exchanged e-mails.  The second XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. 

So that folks, is my defense.  I hope this never happens again—but of course, I don’t know who my hunter is so I’m out there as fresh and easy prey.  That’s L.A. for you.  I’ve known it since I was a conscious human being—this city isn’t me.  I mean, as grown-up women, we still lie and tattle on each-other? C ‘mon! Shaking Julie Robert’s hand isn’t that important to me if the price is humiliation and degradation.  At the end of the day I’m a writer, not a star-fucker. 

Dedicatedly Yours,

—One of 365