Brooke Berman's Blog, page 2
October 8, 2010
October 7, 2010
My First Pregnancy Scare, SF, 1996
So here I am, in LA, 31 weeks pregnant and about to workshop a new play and promote my book in San Fran.
And so, here is a little piece of prose/journal writing (we didn't have blogs in 1996) from the summer I lived there, in San Francisco. It was the very first time I thought I might be pregnant. (Turned out, despite my Kabbalah teacher's premonition, I was not.)
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1997
It is the summer of 1996 and I am truly in love for the first time, living in San Fransisco after a cross country road trip which is the topic of another piece. I am working for a new media company during the day, spending my evenings wandering around the Mission District and trying to figure out why everyone except me seems to LOVE San Francisco. I just don't get it. I'm studying the Kabbalah on Wednesday nights in the San Geronimo Valley, taking the ferry up to Marin where I am met by a sister in white robes who takes me where I need to go - her name is Blessing, though I think it used to be something else when she was young and living in Queens -- and we drive through Marin County once a week to a room in the sunset in the mountains near Skywalker Ranch - and my sweet love honey boyfriend is living in his car and looking for God in the parking lot of a donut shop in Santa Cruz. Where he ends up living, high and on food stamps most of the time...
Pregnancy isn't expected.
I mean, okay, I do keep count of every time we have unprotected sex and I say "We really have to start using condoms," and it's becoming one of those really boring mantras -- and babies are not on my wish list at this time. I am thinking more about the possibility of scoring an agent in SF, a less saturated market than NY, than changing a diaper or watching my breasts swell. And our form of birth control has been mostly luck, fertility charts and prayer, and the idea that I might want a child blows my fucking mind apart. It totally cuts open the wounds of holding onto my past identity as a wounded child with dysfunction in her genetic makeup - Oh, you mean I have to stop being the daughter who wasn't mothered? Really?
And it's early July and I am in this phase where I cry at least three times a day and eating has become a nightmare. I am digestively challenged. I cannot seem to swallow and chew. The food doesn't go down, it stays somewhere rotting with the rest of my good intentions - and I'm nauseous all the time. And stop eating til he forces me to - and my nerves are shot until The Boyfriend holds me in his arms and promising me miso, takes me out to WeBe Sushi for lots of raw fish and seaweed. Which does stay down - and my psychic Kabbalah teacher turns to me one night after chanting in Hebrew and opening up the energy centers - three women seated around a yellow candle in the dark in the mountains - and Leslie, my beloved Kabbalah teacher says, "You might want to get a pregnancy test."
And I think, Oh Fuck.
But the next morning, alone on the Larkspur ferry, en route back to the City, I think, "there is life in my body" and it's like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and I'm fucking keeping it. I just am. It's a girl, and I'm naming her Annika Joy and I'm going to wear her in a papoose around my body like all the other hippy moms in the Missiona, and this is all going to work out. It is all going to work out fine.
I call my mom and ask"What did it feel like when you were pregnant?" and she says, "I was married" and I say that's not the point. And she asks if I was using birth control. And I say that is also not the point. And then she asks what I"ve been eating and I say semen and then I hang up on her and cry.
And so, here is a little piece of prose/journal writing (we didn't have blogs in 1996) from the summer I lived there, in San Francisco. It was the very first time I thought I might be pregnant. (Turned out, despite my Kabbalah teacher's premonition, I was not.)
-------------------------------------
1997
It is the summer of 1996 and I am truly in love for the first time, living in San Fransisco after a cross country road trip which is the topic of another piece. I am working for a new media company during the day, spending my evenings wandering around the Mission District and trying to figure out why everyone except me seems to LOVE San Francisco. I just don't get it. I'm studying the Kabbalah on Wednesday nights in the San Geronimo Valley, taking the ferry up to Marin where I am met by a sister in white robes who takes me where I need to go - her name is Blessing, though I think it used to be something else when she was young and living in Queens -- and we drive through Marin County once a week to a room in the sunset in the mountains near Skywalker Ranch - and my sweet love honey boyfriend is living in his car and looking for God in the parking lot of a donut shop in Santa Cruz. Where he ends up living, high and on food stamps most of the time...
Pregnancy isn't expected.
I mean, okay, I do keep count of every time we have unprotected sex and I say "We really have to start using condoms," and it's becoming one of those really boring mantras -- and babies are not on my wish list at this time. I am thinking more about the possibility of scoring an agent in SF, a less saturated market than NY, than changing a diaper or watching my breasts swell. And our form of birth control has been mostly luck, fertility charts and prayer, and the idea that I might want a child blows my fucking mind apart. It totally cuts open the wounds of holding onto my past identity as a wounded child with dysfunction in her genetic makeup - Oh, you mean I have to stop being the daughter who wasn't mothered? Really?
And it's early July and I am in this phase where I cry at least three times a day and eating has become a nightmare. I am digestively challenged. I cannot seem to swallow and chew. The food doesn't go down, it stays somewhere rotting with the rest of my good intentions - and I'm nauseous all the time. And stop eating til he forces me to - and my nerves are shot until The Boyfriend holds me in his arms and promising me miso, takes me out to WeBe Sushi for lots of raw fish and seaweed. Which does stay down - and my psychic Kabbalah teacher turns to me one night after chanting in Hebrew and opening up the energy centers - three women seated around a yellow candle in the dark in the mountains - and Leslie, my beloved Kabbalah teacher says, "You might want to get a pregnancy test."
And I think, Oh Fuck.
But the next morning, alone on the Larkspur ferry, en route back to the City, I think, "there is life in my body" and it's like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and I'm fucking keeping it. I just am. It's a girl, and I'm naming her Annika Joy and I'm going to wear her in a papoose around my body like all the other hippy moms in the Missiona, and this is all going to work out. It is all going to work out fine.
I call my mom and ask"What did it feel like when you were pregnant?" and she says, "I was married" and I say that's not the point. And she asks if I was using birth control. And I say that is also not the point. And then she asks what I"ve been eating and I say semen and then I hang up on her and cry.
October 1, 2010
Our Stuff
I love this article in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/gar...
And also, I love the notion of returning home with new eyes. When Gordon and I sublet his place in Queens in order to be in our Brewery loft in LA for a few months, we experienced something similiar. I'd had terrible luck with my last subletter on Mott Street -- she was a nightmare who left stains on my sheets, cat fur all over my floors and the stench of the cigarettes that she supposedly didn't smoke, everywhere else. (I'm not even going to get into the mail, the unpaid phone bill or the cable TV which had yet to be taken out when I returned home.) So I was wary when we came home. But our Queens subletter was amazing. Responsible. Clean. Good-natured. And to my surprise and delight, she rearranged our furniture (ever so slightly), making the apartment look BETTER than it had when we left.
But also, I'd packed things away so that the space would be clear for her. And what a joy it was to unpack them! To see my candlesticks. Or books. Or favorite sweater.
While I don't advocate overidentifying with these objects, I do believe that the right ones help us create and feel grounded at "home."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/gar...
And also, I love the notion of returning home with new eyes. When Gordon and I sublet his place in Queens in order to be in our Brewery loft in LA for a few months, we experienced something similiar. I'd had terrible luck with my last subletter on Mott Street -- she was a nightmare who left stains on my sheets, cat fur all over my floors and the stench of the cigarettes that she supposedly didn't smoke, everywhere else. (I'm not even going to get into the mail, the unpaid phone bill or the cable TV which had yet to be taken out when I returned home.) So I was wary when we came home. But our Queens subletter was amazing. Responsible. Clean. Good-natured. And to my surprise and delight, she rearranged our furniture (ever so slightly), making the apartment look BETTER than it had when we left.
But also, I'd packed things away so that the space would be clear for her. And what a joy it was to unpack them! To see my candlesticks. Or books. Or favorite sweater.
While I don't advocate overidentifying with these objects, I do believe that the right ones help us create and feel grounded at "home."
September 27, 2010
Why do people keep giving me advice?
Note: If i haven't explicitly asked for your advice about my pregnancy or birth process, it is probably because I don't want it.
Recently at a good friend's birthday party, a well-meaning acquaintance started asking about my birth plans. I don't know this woman very well, so I was vague. For one thing, I'm not going to go into detail in the middle of a friend's 40th birthday party. For another, it was none of her business. But also, I was vague because the whole thing is still very muc...
Recently at a good friend's birthday party, a well-meaning acquaintance started asking about my birth plans. I don't know this woman very well, so I was vague. For one thing, I'm not going to go into detail in the middle of a friend's 40th birthday party. For another, it was none of her business. But also, I was vague because the whole thing is still very muc...
September 25, 2010
Tonight! Borders Bookstore in Westwood.
Hey, West Side LA: I'm taking part in this neat event at Borders:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid...
7PM, Saturday 9/25
Hosted by Romie Angelich.
Come on by!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid...
7PM, Saturday 9/25
Hosted by Romie Angelich.
Come on by!
September 20, 2010
Easy Riders, or: this got rejected by Modern Love
This got rejected by Modern Love . It's kind of a (newly discovered but definitely intense) dream to get published by them. See what you think.
(NOTE: I'm about to write a bunch of pregnancy-themed posts, so this will be (I think) the last one on love and marriage for awhile. I promise.)
On The Road Of Love
Or, easy riders, not so easy rides
By Brooke Berman
I have driven across the United States three times. First, when I was 23, with The Third Wave Foundation as part of Freedom Summer 92,...
(NOTE: I'm about to write a bunch of pregnancy-themed posts, so this will be (I think) the last one on love and marriage for awhile. I promise.)
On The Road Of Love
Or, easy riders, not so easy rides
By Brooke Berman
I have driven across the United States three times. First, when I was 23, with The Third Wave Foundation as part of Freedom Summer 92,...
September 15, 2010
9-14-10
I am seven months pregnant traipsing around my city, the one I used to live in, wearing the Isobel Toledo for Payless platform gillies that I saw in Vogue. It's Fashion Week, so occasionally I find myself bumping into (literally, my belly is big) pairs of fourteen year old Russian models with crazy cheekbones and smoking habits as they kill time in between shows. Yesterday, at about 6:45PM, faced with a subway ride to Bushwick, I bought 20 dollar flats on Fourteenth Street. This is one o...
August 26, 2010
JUST KIDS redux
The other day, on my honeymoon, I made a total fool of myself by interuppting Patti Smith over breakfast to tell her how amazing JUST KIDS was.
What I am most ashamed of: the incoherent way I gushed, the fact that I used the word "amazing" about a dozen times in three minutes, and then, the fact that I interuppted her a SECOND time, half an hour later, as she got up to leave, to let her know that "My book is here, in the hotel, in the display case next to yours."
Okay, so who sucks?
What I ...
What I am most ashamed of: the incoherent way I gushed, the fact that I used the word "amazing" about a dozen times in three minutes, and then, the fact that I interuppted her a SECOND time, half an hour later, as she got up to leave, to let her know that "My book is here, in the hotel, in the display case next to yours."
Okay, so who sucks?
What I ...
August 20, 2010
Eloped
Saturday, Aug 21:
It is so easy to get married! We decided to do it - found a rabbi who could handle our requests (which were basically like, no frills, no big deal, no premartial counseling, nothing fancy, just like, um ... marry us? please?) -- got a license and rings, and we were on our way! In fact, we planned it in just about a week. I found a pretty white party dress. Gordon bought a new shirt. We ordered a cake from the gorgeous Sharlena Fong of LA's Semi Sweet Bakery (OMG if you ...
It is so easy to get married! We decided to do it - found a rabbi who could handle our requests (which were basically like, no frills, no big deal, no premartial counseling, nothing fancy, just like, um ... marry us? please?) -- got a license and rings, and we were on our way! In fact, we planned it in just about a week. I found a pretty white party dress. Gordon bought a new shirt. We ordered a cake from the gorgeous Sharlena Fong of LA's Semi Sweet Bakery (OMG if you ...
August 18, 2010
LOS ANGELES PLAYWRITING WORKSHOP
FALL PLAYWRITING WORKSHOP and CREATIVE PROCESS INTENSIVE
If you know anyone who's looking.... please pass it along!
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Dear Friends,
I'm going to be teaching a Playwriting Workshop this Fall and a weekend Intensive on Creative Process -- including journaling, collage-books (see: http://www.etsy.com/storque/handmade-...), automatic writing, list-making and project-mapping. The Intensive is open to writers and ar...
If you know anyone who's looking.... please pass it along!
----------------------------------------
Dear Friends,
I'm going to be teaching a Playwriting Workshop this Fall and a weekend Intensive on Creative Process -- including journaling, collage-books (see: http://www.etsy.com/storque/handmade-...), automatic writing, list-making and project-mapping. The Intensive is open to writers and ar...
