Friday, June 9, 2017

Friday Five

If you could, would you be a movie star or a rock star?
Good lord, no.  I can't even imagine living in a bubble like these guys do.  I look at how they lose their privacy and have seen how it destroys the lives of too many, especially younger people.  (Besides that, I have no talent!)

Have you ever been in the media (TV, Radio, Papers)?
Well, I've been a theater critic for the newspaper for 17 years, and have written various columns for the paper over the years.  I have been interviewed on the radio (and will be again later this month) about local theater, and was on TV during my La Leche League years--my chance to nurse a baby (David) on TV.

Do you know anyone who's been on a reality TV show?
No.  I think everyone in my life has better sense.  Though Ned loves Survivor so much, if he weren't an old man (about to turn 50), he might enjoy being on that.  But I doubt it.

Have you ever met anyone famous?
I met Judy Garland when she was touring her Carnegie Hall show in San Francisco. I sat with Carol Channing at a cocktail party before an awards ceremony.  I was tongue tied and very glad that so many people were paying court to her that I didn't have to fill the awkward silence.  I got a kiss from my favorite D'Oyly Carte patterman, John Reed, when we went with the Lamplighters to a Gilbert and Sullivan festival in England.  I once shook hands with Tipper Gore.  I met Piper Laurie when she directed my friend Jim's show Zero Hour (but we couldn't have a conversation because of her deafness and the noise in the lobby) And exactly how famous are my friends Steve Schalchlin and Jim Brochu anyway?  or for that matter, my friend David Gerrold (author of "The Trouble with Tribbles," who introduced me to his colleagues, D.C. Fontana and Harlan Ellison, much more famous Star Trek writers.

Who would play you in a movie?
Melissa McCarthy.

I confused my mother yesterday.  She had been looking at the pictures of her family on the wall and not so much reminiscing (since she doesn't have firm memories any more), but saying how lucky she had been to have such a good family, how much fun they had together, etc.

She looked at me and said, "didn't we?"  I said "Well, I wasn't there, so  don't know."

"You weren't there?  Why weren't you there?"

"I wasn't born yet!"

She was confused and she asked me how I got there.  I tried to talk around the subject but finally said "you had sex with my father."

She looked shocked.  "I had sex with your father???  How could I ever have sex with your father???"  

I finally realized she didn't know who I was.  I asked if she knew who I was and she said.  "Of course.  You're my sister."  

I told her that no, I was her daughter.  She thought about that for awhile and finally said "I'm going to have to think about that.  I don't understand a word of what you're saying."

Sigh.

Not sure which is more depressing, visiting my mother or not visiting my mother.  I stayed home today to watch the Comey hearings and this whole thing just makes me depressed over and over again.

The worst part of all of this is that there is a questionnaire circulating now about whether or not people would like to see Trump impeached.  But is it better that he stay in office, or that he be removed and leave Pence in place.  Or Ryan?  Or Orrin Hatch? Or Rex Tillerson? or Steve Mnuchin? Or James Mattis?  Or Jeff Sessions?  That's the line-up.  Which of them would be better for our country than Trump?

The one consolation is that if you read postings on Facebook, I was not the only one confused by John McCain's questions.  In fact, I didn't read a single post by anyone who didn't wonder if he'd had a stroke or just lost it mentally.  

I finally OD's on coverage of the hearings and turned off the TV to do my reading time (about an hour and a half today).  I'm enjoying Sally Henderson's "Silent Footsteps," about her years observing elephants in Tanzania.  The one thing this book is doing for me which other such books have not done is to make me change my mind about going on photo safari in Africa.  The attitude toward tourists is one thing, the other is the danger so many of them faced in this particular account.  Finally makes me comfortable that I never did fulfill that life-long bucket list item.

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