friendship

October 28, 1964

To say my sisters and I adored my father would be a huge understatement. In our all-female household, he was the sun we all orbited around. The reason I started writing stories in the first place was to please him. Before I trotted off to school in second grade, I placed the latest pages of my first novel – printed in pencil on lined paper –on his pillow. It was titled “LOST” (yeah, the TV series stole it from me.) It told the thrilling tale of twelve children of a “steamstress” (ibid), all kidnapped by two evil guys. Instead of escaping however, these children opted to convert their kidnappers to Christianity. Yes, I was definitely the daughter of a Lutheran minister.

I'm not sure which Bible story this is, but Jani and our dog are getting a ride. — I’m not sure which Bible story this is, but Jani and our dog are getting a ride.

We used to act out Bible stories for entertainment. The Good Samaritan was a favorite. Daddy played the victim on the side of the road. I must have been a Pharisee since Janet was definitely the Good Samaritan. Daddy was hugely amused when – after retrieving a glass of water from the kitchen to save his life – she invariably stopped and drank half of it herself before offering it to him.

The more worldly side of my life at school was all about me and Sandy. We combined our names and gave our friendship a name – Kandy. We loved to create things, in this case our own dictionary, although I’m pretty sure we never used a single word from it in real life. In addition to our dictionary, we made drafted plans for an elaborate campaign to make ourselves popular – needless to say, a total failure – but I’ll get to that in another diary entry.

October 22, 1971

Less than a month after I bought that splicer from Larry Kemp, he served as cinematographer for my award-winning Project One film. He also functioned as my AD, my confidante, driver, grip, sound technician and comic relief. He stepped up and played every role that I asked him to because he was the only guy who was there. That’s not a bad description of Larry and what he meant to me. He was the guy who was there.

He was the youngest of three boys and I was the oldest of three girls. He was from New Jersey, I’d been in California (by way of Iowa) most of my life. We both loved the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel (okay, not exactly crazy choices in those days, but I doubt we’d have gotten along so well if he’d been into country.)

Laughter was easy with Larry. On the day of my shoot, we were both in hysterics when Larry leaned on Josie’s couch, causing her to almost poke her customer’s eye out with a tweezers. (Maybe you had to be there.)

Of course, it couldn’t be a real friendship without an occasional conflict or two. Larry met my Inner Brat and witnessed my pettiness up close and personal but he didn’t lecture, judge or reject me. It was the kind of friendship I expected to last a lifetime but we took different paths and lost touch after college.

We haven’t seen or spoken to each other since the 70s. We are Facebook “friends” but almost never email or message. In other words, our friendship today is nothing like what it was – but we’re not who we were forty years ago either. The knowledge those days are gone doesn’t diminish the friendship that once existed. I’m happy just to know he’s alive and living happily ever after in LA – one of relatively few people I went to film school with who actually wound up working in the film business.

If a time machine dropped me back in 1971, I’d buy Larry’s splicer all over again. It was worth every penny. I got the deal of lifetime.

October 10, 2014

My absolute all-time favorite game growing up was dress-up (today, it’s called role-play but it’s the same thing.) I was up for a part in any fantasy – princess, boarding school, teen-ager, Rapunzel and Bonanza were perennial favorites. The only role I couldn’t relate to was horsy. Then as now, the appeal of prancing around pretending to be a palomino eluded me. For starters, playing horsy pretty much precludes costumes unless you count tucking a fake tail in the rear of your pedal-pushers (I don’t).

I have only two requirements for a good game of dress-up.

I play a human (no horsys!)
I wear a costume – and hopefully a wig.

Beyond that, anything goes.

It’s a shame that dress-up tends to be cast aside before adolescence. It’s all but forgotten by the time we’re adults. IMHO, this is a real shame. Luckily, like riding a bike, the requisite skills reside inside you, ready to resume active duty if called. If you can get past your self-consciousness for a trip into fun and silliness, dress up is even more fun to play as a grown-up.

Technically, each of us gets only one life to live. Dress up role play lets you dabble in as many lives as you can make up. If – like me – sometimes you get sick of being yourself, take a break. Cut loose and be somebody else – someone without a mortgage, congested kids, or pets pooping on the rug. All you’ve got to lose is your dignity. Isn’t it about time?

ANY GIRL CAN BE GLAMOUROUS. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS STAND STILL AND LOOK STUPID.

If you’re over 18 or past the age of consent: Dress-up role-play is unlikely to be hazardous to your sex life, if you get my drift. Enough said.

October 8, 1964

Even now, decades later, it’s easy to visualize this. In eighth grade, I played second oboe in band – and yes, there were two of us. Mike Moxley played first. There I sat at 7 AM, bored out of my mind, probably daydreaming about the Youth Center Dance and idly twisting my music stand without realizing what I was doing.

It was neither my first nor my last mortification in band. I had no innate talent and no hope of developing any since I hated to practice. I’m not sure why I didn’t quit in 7^th grade; perhaps Mr. Royer persuaded me to stick it out because Mike Moxley and I were the only two oboe players at Jefferson. I knew my tenure at second chair would terminate should another oboe player appear. This was hardly an imminent threat. Oboe wasn’t my first choice either but I was even more hopeless at flute.

The only song I recall from our limited repertoire was my favorite, The Green Leaves of Summer. I can still picture the sheet music and hear the melancholy chords.

“It was good to be young then – to be close to the earth”

It wasn't so good if you were wearing Peter Pan collars and ankle socks. No wonder I'm not thrilled to preserve this look for posterity. — It wasn’t so good to wear Peter Pan collars and ankle socks. No wonder I’m not thrilled to preserve this look for posterity.

At thirteen, mourning my lost youth brought tears to my eyes. Then again, it didn’t take much. I’m surprised I didn’t break down when I toppled the top of my music stand.

Another “Fashion Don’t” modeled by Kathy.

October 4, 1972

I don’t know where, when or even if Jack Nicholson made that comment but plenty of people relate. Consider all of the rock and pop songs about the anguish of running into your ex – Walk on By, I Go to Pieces, I Go Crazy and When We Were Young to name a few. The gut-crunching misery of realizing the heel who broke your heart is living la vida loca without you is timeless and universal.

When I find out an ex is getting married, my higher self wishes them well. My lower narcissistic self prefers they pine for me forever[1]. If that sounds heartless, consider this. How happy does the dude who shattered you deserve to be?

IMHO, the vengeful narcissist inside all of us roots for the bastard who dumped us to crash and burn in an epic fail. Anybody who acts overjoyed when their ex’s success far eclipses their own is a liar.

I wish you nothing but the best - as long as you don't do better than me. — I wish you nothing but the best – as long as you don’t do better than me.

My own encounters with exes occurred in or around Melnitz Hall at UCLA where our film major brought us together. Since leaving college, I rarely run into anyone I know, not even casual acquaintances. That’s life in the big city.

However, a motivated ex can beat those odds with an assist from Google and FB. The downside is the risk of being labeled a stalker and served with a restraining order.

I'm not stalking you! I just happen to be here. — I’m not stalking you! I just happen to be here.

I’m a crying fool for movies (Splendor in the Grass, The Way We Were, Wild Horses) in which ex-lovers encounter each other long after their breakup. It kills me how they make awkward chit chat to hide the depth of their true feelings. Does it work this way in real life? Sometimes, probably.

What gets to me is the message that even though it’s over – their great passion is gone and it’s never coming back – the remnants of love remain in a new shape. It might manifest as love from a distance or devotion to a memory. It could come in the form of compassion, affection, concern or the deep camaraderie of people who know each other to the core. It might not be the love we’re looking for or the love we want but a little love is better than nothing.

I'll always love the way we were. — I’ll always love the way we were.

Something about that always makes me cry.

[1] In the interest of full disclosure, even when I was the heartbreaker, I wanted them to pine for me forever.

October 2, 1967

Growing up in Santa Clara, I took the Rosicrucian Museum for granted because it was close to home and easily accessible. Every other year from fifth grade on, my class toured the museum on a field trip. My favorite exhibit was the Egyptian tomb replica, a dark mysterious cave. I think this ’67 visit was my last. I’m sure the structure and collection improved significantly in the ensuing decades.

A digital painting of the San Jose Municipal Rose Garden

I hope I’m not the same girl who levelled such appalling questions at my unsuspecting boyfriend. “Do you feel superior or inferior to me?” I can almost hear him saying “Neither one,” and thinking, do I really have to answer this? Indeed he did. Apparently I suffered from a neurotic compulsion to bully people into giving me answers I didn’t want to hear.

Similarly, when my friends and I made our monthly or yearly predictions for ourselves and each other, I forecast heartbreak for myself. I didn’t dare write down my wildest dreams for fear I’d jinx myself. Instead I focused on my fears as if anticipation could inoculate me against pain and disappointment. Another exercise in futility, guaranteed to produce results I didn’t want.

While I don’t believe our thoughts create all of our reality (as in The Secret), I do believe our thoughts and expectations effect the trajectory of our lives. My friend Lewis is a prime example of the power of positive thought. Diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in 1996, he is alive today. Obviously, factors other than positive thinking played a part – happy thoughts alone haven’t cured cancer yet. That said, I doubt he’d be here now if not for his relentless optimism. I’m going to give it a try.

September 30, 1965

To my mind, the Wilcox High cafeteria operated like a caste system. The highest caste – cheerleaders, athletes, homecoming queens and student government honchos – held court on the kidney-shaped Senior Lawn, an area so sacrosanct even their fellow seniors dared not sidle onto the hallowed grass unless expressly invited.

Descending castes fanned out from the metal tables under the cafeteria’s fluorescent lights to the picnic tables and benches surrounding the snack bar in the quad.

Inside the cafeteria, you could spot the brains by the books piled beside their trays. The low-riders laughed louder and indulged in more food fights. The hippies preferred the lesser lawn outside where they could skip in circles and blow bubbles. The surfers sunned themselves at the picnic tables.

Sandra re-enacts buying a sandwich in the snack bar line.

The Untouchables were marooned between the Special Needs table and the line of trash cans between the boys and girls bathrooms. They were the lowest caste, miserable souls yoked together by nothing more than the fact no one else wanted them.

Sandra finds a sign suggesting life will improve after high school.

Anybody and everybody could gauge your caste in a glance based on where you ate lunch. Once assigned to a caste, it was almost impossible to move up. Moving down was not such a problem.

Kathy re-enacts the loneliness of the Untouchables

Sandy and I flirted with the fringes of various castes without adhering to any for long. Something about the group dynamic just didn’t work for us. This was surprising, since my Scandinavian forebears are famous for their community-minded club and choir culture. A chorus of perfectly blended voices, none of which stand out or call undue attention to themselves, is the Danish ideal. Their sense of group unity is one of the reasons Denmark is ranked the happiest country on earth.

The Scandinavian joiner gene lies dormant in me. I’m acutely uncomfortable in any group larger than three and I far prefer one-on-one. That said, it’s easier to be an outsider if you’re lucky enough to find a fellow solitary soul with a huge imagination and quirky sense of humor – someone like Sandy. The truth is, we had a blast being outsiders together.

Changing my schedule in my sophomore year was a brilliant decision I’ve never regretted.

Besides, I was a dunce in geometry.

September 20, 1970

I’d met Sharon less than a year earlier. I noticed her in my music history class and learned she’d been aware of me too. She said that if I hadn’t started talking to her soon she was going to walk up to me and say “I’d like to start a conversation with you.” As my diary entry indicates, we both felt a strong connection – so much so that even though we didn’t know each other very well, sharing an apartment seemed like a good idea.

It was not. It’s hard to live with somebody you want to impress. I was intimidated by Sharon. She knew more than I did about literature, poetry, and life. She was slim, beautiful, and ethereal – exactly how I wanted to look. Before long, I got on her last nerves. She told me I was the most unabashedly self-centered person she’d ever met. That this life must be an early incarnation for me because I was so un-evolved. We didn’t last a quarter before she asked me to move out.

After that, I felt so awkward when I saw her on campus that I avoided her. We lost touch before we graduated. For the next 35 years, I felt like a failure every time she crossed my mind. I wondered how her life turned out but her common first and last name made finding her impossible.

And then UCLA published their alumni directory. I looked her up and discovered she lived less than 5 miles away. Most likely we shopped at the same grocery store. I took a deep breath and picked up the phone. The worst that could happen was she’d say she didn’t want to talk to me.

She knew who I was immediately. We met for lunch and something amazing happened. We connected – we could talk to each other – on an intimate level that’s impossible to reach with more recent acquaintances. Maybe it’s because we knew each other during such formative years. Maybe our fearlessness about sharing intimate confidences 35 years ago made it easier to share today. Maybe we’ve always been connected, whether through a past life or something else.

Whatever it is, if I’d allowed fear to stop me from calling her, we would’ve missed the unique and special friendship we now enjoy. If there’s a similar lost connection in your life, I urge you to pick up the phone. What’s the worst that can happen?

September 18, 1971

The universe as charted in Lloyd's mind. — The universe as charted in Lloyd’s mind.

Lloyd (not his real name) told me he had psychiatric problems when we met. Because of this, he claimed he could never have a romantic or sexual relationship with any girl. I didn’t want one with him so that came as a relief. Even though we didn’t live far apart, we started our friendship as pen pals.

His voluminous letters were the first warning sign. Ten hand-written pages a day were typical. A tiny warning light flicked on when he pointed out that the stamps on the envelopes his letters arrived in were never cancelled. In other words, he drove them to my mailbox himself late at night.

He loved photography and wanted me to model for him. He took the photos featured here on one of our two photo sessions. As a vain, shallow adolescent, I lapped this up – but not for long. His criticisms of me were scathing and increasingly frequent. In retrospect, I think one of the reasons I hung around was to win his admiration back. The desire to recapture something I thought lost kept me in a lot of relationships in those days. For that matter, it’s one of the reasons I kept a diary.

That’s why I can’t deny I saw Lloyd’s red flags long before our trip to Ensenada; I just didn’t heed them. There was that trip to San Francisco, when he threatened to swerve into oncoming traffic and kill us both. The fact that he didn’t follow through on that threat doesn’t negate it as a red flag.

I’d be crazed with fear if my daughter was dating a guy who displayed Lloyd’s character traits but for some reason I failed to fear for myself. Like other young, dumb adolescents, I believed I’d live forever. I didn’t end the relationship with Lloyd because I was afraid but because I was exasperated.

I didn't focus on fear for myself. — I didn’t focus on fear for myself.

September 14, 1965

This entry fails to convey the overwhelming confusion and excitement of my first day in high school. If my memory serves me well, Cabrillo Jr. High and the now defunct Jefferson Jr. High fed into Wilcox High, effectively doubling the student body and ensuring that at best any student might recognize half of the student body. Naturally, the structure itself needed to be twice as large to accommodate approximately 2000 pupils. To me, it seemed huge. I’d never gone to school in a two-story building before.

I harbored many illusions about high school, gleaned from movies, TV and the Scholastic Book Club. Classes didn’t loom large in any of these narratives. Instead they focused on sock hops, meet-cute flirtations, proms, football games, gang warfare (West Side Story) and popularity.

I longed to be popular and, in my own misguided way, I tried. I didn’t succeed. I’m not sure how the chosen kids in the In Crowd reached their exalted status. Was their success due to their self-confidence or was their confidence due to their success? There seemed to be no objective criteria although good looks, athletic ability and the means to buy bitchen’ clothes and hot wheels didn’t hurt.

There was no category for Most Popular, but these categories were owned by the popular kids so I've selected a sampling. — There was no category for Most Popular, but these categories were owned by the popular kids so I’ve selected a sampling.

I’m not saying Soc’s were stupid but being known as brainy was not a plus. Neither was being a P.K.(preacher’s kid), not to mention an introvert. Aside from Carrie, no introverts ever got elected King or Queen of the Prom. My parents, however, were elected King and Queen of their high school prom. Unfortunately, they failed to pass their popularity gene down to me.

According to Ralph Keyes (Is There Life After High School), popularity comes with its own set of problems. It’s hard to hold on to, for one thing – not only in high school but afterward. The adulation accorded a high school football star fades after graduation. It’s not that easy to duplicate – let alone surpass – high school glory days when the bar has been set unrealistically high. If you’re addicted to applause, withdrawal is painful and it’s hard to hook up with a new supply in the real world.

In 1965, I would’ve gladly shouldered these burdens for a seat at the In Crowd’s table, proving how easily I forget who I am. I don’t like groups, for one thing. I’d rather watch from the sidelines than be the center of attention. And I’d hate to lose the perks of membership in the Out Crowd – the freedom to be silly and screw up (when you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose). The fierce drive to prove myself to people who rejected me.

I’ve heard it said that for a writer, a lousy childhood is the gift that keeps on giving. So is being on the outside looking in during high school.

friendship

October 28, 1964

October 22, 1971

October 10, 2014

October 8, 1964

October 4, 1972

October 2, 1967

September 30, 1965

September 20, 1970

September 18, 1971

September 14, 1965

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