Marsha Jacobson's Blog, page 4

Bunnysaur

Spotted this Easter Bunny dinosaur on a walk. What should we call it? An Eastersaur? A rabbisaur?

Overthinking

A colleague’s mother died unexpectedly. When he returned from the funeral and the arduous, lonely task of clearing out her home, he had dark circles under his eyes, had lost weight, and was clearly grieving. In a private moment, he told me, “It’s the mysterious things I’m having the hardest time with.” In his mother’s dresser, he’d found a small box. Inside was bubble wrap. Under the bubble wrap was something wrapped in a tissue, and it turned out to be 5 Q-tips. “What could make Q-tips so important?” he asked. “Did she have dementia and I missed it?”

I hope that when the time comes, my daughters won’t be distressed if they find odd discoveries among my things. Case in point: Probably thirty years ago, my friend Worth gave me a tiny measuring cup with ounces marked on the side. The measurements have long since washed off, and now it’s just a shot glass. When she gave it to me, I made an exaggerated fuss about using it to measure the milk for my coffee. Surprise! It turned out that a shot glass of milk is precisely the amount I like. I’ve used that shot glass for my coffee milk ever since, and it’s always out on my counter. Will my kids think I was heavily into alcohol and somehow they missed it? Probably they know me better than that, but I’m taking no steps to pre-correct what might be their conclusion.

This!

Readers of The Wrong Calamity, my memoir, know that when I worked at a large corporation in the early 90’s, I was able to get a lactation room built for employees on maternity leave coming in to show off their babies or those back at work and pumping. Here’s a short excerpt from the book: “I decided to try pulling rank. Pretending not to notice the winces of the maintenance manager when I said “breast pump” or “nursing,” I ultimately got him to agree to install drapes and put a lock on that office door. There was no official announcement to employees, but word spread. [That] nursing room became a frequently-used, quiet sensation long before “lactation room” was ever uttered in corporate circles.

It was a struggle back then, but apparently it wouldn’t be now. Check out this photo I took in an airport just 3 days ago!

Say What?

True story. The dry-cleaning place had a sign that promised “same-day service.” Good thing, because I’d just spilled something on a dress I wanted to wear that evening. “We’ll have this for you on Tuesday,” the guy said, handing me the slip. “Don’t you have same-day service,” I asked. “We do,” he said, “but you have to wait your turn for that.”

Honored!

Such a thrill to see The Wrong Calamity together with these inspiring books by such talented authors.

Priceless

In northern Georgia, spent three glorious hours writing in front of this magnificent fire with my best friend, Worth, sitting next to me and reading.

On the Cutting Room Floor – Lost Opportunities

Readers of The Wrong Calamity know that in my young years I had difficulties in my family and in high school. What was not in the book is that with no one to guide me, I was creating myself—but not well. I was a lazy student, but I wouldn’t have been if I’d known the differences. My senior year I told the principal, believing it, “When I’m in college I won’t have time to read for pleasure,” and I wanted to drop a course and do free reading instead. “Sure,” he said, and didn’t require me to report back on what I read. I listened to Barbara Streisand a lot, read a little, and graduated with no awareness of opportunities lost.

The Totes

The tote boxes are the kind that might hold blankets. I moved them from a closet in Boston to a closet here in New York, where they’ve sat for 12 years. Every time I open that closet, I see the corners of those totes. Sometimes I think of them when I walk past the closed closet door. Obviously, it’s getting time to pull them out and open them. I think that would be easy if they held blankets, but they hold photos that go back three generations, and family members I’ve offered them to have demurred. I tell myself I’ll be systematic, take out a few at a time and deal with them. I know, though, that in real life I’ll find myself sitting in the middle of the living room floor, with every inch of the carpet covered with photos. I also know that I have no idea what “deal with them” means.

On the Cutting Room Floor – What’s in a Name?

Readers of The Wrong Calamity know that I was born at Lafayette, Indiana’s, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, where the wards were named with Bible references and the maternity ward was labeled Immaculate Conception. I weighed less than five pounds, and when a nurse introduced me to my father, he declared, “Last night I ate a chicken bigger than that!” What isn’t in the book is what happened next. In Jewish tradition, babies are named in memory of relatives, but my mother wanted to skip all that and name me Mitzi, which she thought was perky. My father wouldn’t hear of it. He wanted to name me Marsha, after his late great aunt. They fought. Neither would yield. Finally he said ok, Mitzi was fine, and went off to sign my birth certificate. But with skullduggery aforethought, he named me Marsha instead. My mother stayed furious for her whole life. As for me, by my teen years I’d be so grateful to have escaped Mitzi, I wouldn’t care how I’d gotten my name. Mitzi was a name for petite cuties, not for someone who turned out like me.

Then and Now

My usually reliable hairdresser cut my hair way too short. The melon I bought is moldy inside. I had my coffee all made before I realized I’m out of milk. I do NOT like black coffee. My two favorite plants have fungus gnats, and they’ve spread to all my other plants. I screwed up on some plane reservations, and now it’ll be a whole to-do to fix it. I think of all the energy I used to waste being aggravated by things like this. So nice to be older and wiser.