The Real Work of Love

Do you know what I discovered?  Everybody’s talking about the dissolution of the marriage of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise.  Who didn’t see that coming?  If you really want to know the real predictors of the longevity of a celebrity marriage you just need to visit your neighborhood beauty parlor, barber shop, or nail salon—you’ll never be taken by surprise again.  At my weekly spa the technicians have names like Mary, Jane, Carol, and Judy but in real life their names are Jungyoon, Yunjoo, Joohee, and Wonjin.  They all pour over People magazine as if their lives depended on it.  They know more about Hollywood celebrities than the celebrities’ own mothers do, and they predicted the demise of the Cruise/Holmes marriage almost to the day.

For years I too had the “gift of prophesy” of predicting how long a couple would stay married because for a good stretch of time in my life I was a wedding singer.  By the time the rehearsal for a wedding was over, I could tell if the bride and groom had the fiber to go the distance or if they were just bullshitting each other and themselves.  During those days (60s, 70s, early 80s), my overall conclusion about the brides and grooms I met were that they were in “lust,” but rarely in love.  Oh, they thought they were in love, and I’m sure it would have come as quite a surprise to them to hear otherwise.  But if their union lasted more than a hot minute and I got to meet them again on their 20^th or 30^th anniversary, I usually found that by that time they were “growing up” in love because they had journeyed through Hell and back and had truly discovered the hard work of choosing to love each other rather than exiting stage right when the thrill was gone.

Image from funnanimalsite.com

As a wedding singer during that time, I had three songs that I rotated by popular demand:  Paul Stookey’s “Wedding Song: There is Love,” Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly,” and Fiddler on the Roof’s “Sunrise Sunset.”   If I had $100 for every time I sang one of those songs at a wedding, I’d be rollin’ with The Donald (no, not that slimball—never that slimeball—but I’d definitely be a baller).  I was thinking about my wedding singer season the other day, and those songs kept ringing though my head as if on a loop (possibly precipitated by the great Holmes/Cruise marital take-down) when I went to get my nails done recently.

WONJIN:  “Well, how yu doin’ my friend?

ME:  “Hey Judy, how’s life—what’s the buzz?”

WONJIN:  “Hangin’ in der, my friend—not too shabby—can’t complain.   Hey, you hear how Katie Holmes kick Tom Cruise ass?  People say she run divorce escape-plan like ‘Mission Impossible.’   Baby-girl one smart cookie, that’s what I say.”

JOOHEE:   “Oh yeah.  People say that that Puss in the Boots guy’s marriage to 9 to 5 actress is toast too, but I don’t want to say too much until I confirm it with the People.  I not surprised, though.  That Antonio has got the look of a real player, but I wouldn’t kick him out of my bed even though he not Asian.  Hee, hee!”

ME:  “Auntie, you so nasty.  What would Antonio Banderas want with an old woman?”

JOOHEE:  “How he know if he never try?  What that thing you tell me last month:  Once you go Auntie-Asian you never go back!”

ME:  “You’re a hoot, Auntie.  The expression is ‘once you go black, you never go back’ and I was talking about myself.  Only Black people can use that expression.  Somehow it gets lost in translation when you use it.”

JOOHEE:  “I can see you never taste ripe Asian fruit, my friend or you’d be singin’ a different tune—forever!”

Image pinned by Lisa Marie DeMedeiros on Pinterest

JOOHEE:  “Anyhow, I gave that Puss-n-boots and his Melanie five years when I first read about them in the People—they been married ten years more than I said they’d be.  And divorces come in threes, you know.  Once People tell me Demi and Ashton on their way down the toilet, and then Katie ditched Tom ass, I knew another divorce comin’ our way faster than you can say kimchi.”

JUNGYOON:  “What all they problem, anyway?  I understand why poor people break up—no money!  It’s hard to be all lovey-dovey when you ain’t got pot to piss in or window to throw it out of.  But how come rich people can’t just get along?”

WONJIN:  “They got money, but they get bored and like to get milk from a different cow.  Sometime they like Asian flavor and sometime they like other flavors.  They think maybe next cow give them chocolate milk, ain’t that right my friend.  Tee-hee-hee-hee . . .”

ME: tuning into the iTune stream in my head)

“Well then what’s to be the reason for becoming man and wife?

Is it love that brings you here or love that brings you life?”

 (“Wedding Song: There is Love” by Paul Stookey)

Bored Couple” funnypictures.blogspot.com||image from
joannascheezeburger.com

JOOHEE:  “Well, finally Angelina and Brad finally got engaged.  People say her ring cost $500,000.  That no chump change, my friend.  I need me a man like that—Asian or no Asian.  I think somebody tell me engagements come in threes too. ”

ME:  “I think you me mean ‘deaths happen in threes,’ Mary.”

JOOHEE:  “No, this time, I right.  Although I a little worried because karma comes in threes and it is a bitch.  After what Angie and Brad did to Jennifer, I keep waiting for the other rock to drop.”

ME:  “Do you mean the ‘other shoe. . .’ oh, never mind.”

JOOHEE:  “All I know is Angie and Brad not safe from the karma gods until Jennifer finds happiness with her man.  Last month People rumored that Jennifer and Justin may be engaged.  They even show what they thought might be her ring from three different angles, but it was false alarm.  They were pictures of rings she give herself.  I think she fuckin’ with our minds, if you really want to know.  People think that too.  What wrong with these modern American couples?  Why he no put a ring on it?

(ME: zoning out to iTune stream in my head)

“Strumming my pain with his fingers

Singing my life with his words

Killing me softly with his song

Killing me softly with his song

Telling my whole life with his words

Killing me softly with his song.”

 “Killing Me Softly” (by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel)

Image pinned by Jennifer Bishop on Pinterest||original image joannascheezburger.com

HYUNJOO:  “Auntie, look at this—it’s the new People magazine for this month.  It says Vera Wang is leaving husband, Arthur Becker.  There’s your third celebrity divorce for the month because Demi and Ashton don’t count—they ancient history.  And this People story is about death of an Asian mixed marriage.  That makes me sad—I like mixed marriages.  I think if we all married each other there would be no more racism and war.”

JOOHEE:  “Silly girl—you talk crazy.  I think everybody stick to they own kind—everybody be much happier.  Look at Vera Wang . . . she marry that white man and 23 years later—Pow!—People say he leave her ass.  Nice Asian man would still be there.

WONJIN:  “Auntie, old woman, you don’t know what you talkin’ about.”

ME:  “Hyunjoo, that was a nice thought Baby-girl.  You’re young, and hope always springs eternal in our youth.  But your Auntie and I are old and we know that racism will always be something we’ll struggle with as people because it is an issue of the heart (and OLD PEOPLE really resist change—don’t we Auntie) . . . Besides we don’t all need to intermarry each other (nice to do if you want) to accept one another.  We’ll get better, but we’ll never get over the need to feel superior to one another.  The best we can do is to love each other as we are where we are for who we are and take a sledge hammer to our own prejudices when they pop up.  Speaking of international relationships, are we still going to see Avenue Q next week, Wonjin?”

WONJIN:  “Sure, but only if we get to sing my favorite song in the car.

ME:  “You only like that song because the Asian character sings it to her white husband and gets to scold him, the entire cast, and the audience about their racism.”

WONJIN:  (WONJIN/a.k.a. Judy breaks out in an atonal voice belting “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx like a scalded cat while all the customers in the shop scream in protest):

“Everyone’s a little bit racist it’s true.

But everyone is just about as racist as you!

  If we all could just admit that we are racist a little bit

And everyone stopped being so PC

 Maybe we could live in – Harmony!”

ME:  “And on that note, I’m turning on my massage chair, plugging in my iPod, and I’m taking a nap—this is supposed to be my therapy time, not my eardrum bursting time.  Wake me when you find an interracial couple in People who you think will go the distance.  I’d like to place a bet on that.  Preferably an Asian married to an African-American, because you all know. . .”

JUNGYOON, HYUNJOO, JOOHEE, and WONJIN:  “Once you go black, you never go back!”

(ME: sleeping while listening to iTune stream in my head)

“They look so natural together

Just like two newlyweds should be. . .

. . . Sunrise, sunset

Sunrise, sunset

Swiftly fly the years

One season following another

Laden with happiness and tears”

 (“Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick)

“Interracial” Marriage||image from funnyanimalsite.com

JOOHEE:  Wake up, my friend.  Did you hear what People have to say about Joraan van der Sloot?  He may
be getting engaged.  WTF!  Go figure!  How a convicted killer get a woman to marry him in prison, and his ass
in jail (in Peru) for twenty-eight years?  I tell you right now, if what People say be true, I give that marriage two days—maybe one week, tops!

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I am discovering that real love takes a lot of work.  Whether it is the love of a petulant toddler, a rebellious teenager, a thoughtless spouse, or an unkind friend—to love is to sacrifice.  I don’t believe in staying in a marriage where it is abusive (physically or verbally), or the partner is a substance abuser, or if the partner is so self-centered that the spouse has to play second fiddle to his or her ego more often than not.  I know nothing about Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise’s marriage, but I suspect, given the cult-like nature of Scientology that infused their lives she might have escaped a volatile situation by the hair of her chinny-chin-chin—or else why the subterfuge?  (Hey, get off my case:  I read People and I know these things—so there you have it!)

But as Americans (without an oppressive cult-like religion breathing down our throats), we’ve really been sold a bill of goods about love.   We’ve been told that it is something we “fall into” rather than “grow into over time.”   We’ve also been told that love is a “feeling,” but it is more than that.  Love is actually a choice—an action.  Feelings will ebb and flow like the tide, but the ability to choose to give and receive love is always with us—it is organic and it grows as we make the choice to choose love over self-centeredness over and over again.  I have been fortunate to find the man of my dreams and to be married to him for 33 years after dating him for six.  He is not the same race, his family did not openly embrace me, he is better educated, and our initial “hot” bodies that we had when we were young that caused us to drown “in lust” for each other now sag in all the wrong places and increasingly feel more like the Pillsbury Dough Boy when we cuddle together at days end against the slings and arrows of the outside world.  We have been to Hell and back together.  But I love him and he loves me in all our twilight failings and oddities—so much more today than we did the day we first said, “I do.”

Pinned by Jennifer Bishop on Pinterest||Image from joannascheezeburger.com

“Love is action. Love is tolerance. Love is learning your partner’s love language* and then expressing love in a way that he can receive. Love is giving. Love is receiving. Love is plodding through the slow eddies of a relationship without jumping ship into another’s churning rapids. Love is recognizing that it’s not your partner’s job to make you feel alive, fulfilled, or complete; that’s your job. And it’s only when you learn to become the source of your own aliveness and are living your life connected to the spark of genius that is everyone’s birthright can you fully love another.” By Sheryl Paul (“What is Love?”) Huffingtonpost.com

“No matter what way you dress it up, the best thing you can bring to a marriage is not the feeling of ‘being in love‘, but romance’s poor relation: tolerance. . . And while I am pontificating, one more tip for the ladies: Try to find a man who has that most underrated of qualities: character.” By Kate Kerrigan (“Blog post: Marriage Myths”) and author of Recipes for a Perfect Marriage.

Book cover for excellent study on speaking and listening to our partners regarding their needs

*“Something in our nature cries out to be loved by another. Isolation is devastating to the human psyche. That is why solitary confinement is considered the cruelest of punishments.” ―
Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts

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July 20, 2012 In Memoriam

Artist: Mark Rantal

Mark Rantal’s blue ribbon image interlaces elements of the Colorado state flag, a heart shape and an outline of Batman||Image from MarkRantal.Blogspot.com or “like” Mark at http://www.facebook.com/MarkRantal

MY HUSBAND AND I WISH TO EXTEND OUR HEARTFELT CONDOLENCES TO THE PEOPLE OF THE CITY OF AURORA, COLORADO AND ALL THE VICTIMS OF THE HORRIBLE TRAGEDY WHICH TOOK PLACE ON JULY 20, 2012.  OUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU.  MAY GOD GRANT YOU GRACE, HEALING, AND LOVE.  E & J Tomczyk

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Believing Our Own Press

Do you know what I’ve discovered?  Very few of us see ourselves as we really are.  What I mean is that we’ll get dressed on any given workday or club night, using up most of Earth’s resources (shaving, blow drying, primping, spritzing, and coiffing) to present what we think is our awesome selves to the world.

Image pinned by Ingssparkf.com on Pinterest 

The problem is that it’s a rare soul who will give his or herself a 360 review to make sure we look as good “going,” as we do “coming.”   A couple of weeks ago as my husband, WW (“White and Wonderful”), was checking out his new Brooks Brothers suit (navy blue and pinstriped, Swarovski crystal cuff-links, perfectly coiffed, combed-over hair, and blue-swirled Jerry Garcia tie), he glanced back at the mirror with his finger tips interlocked to catch a quick proud glimpse of his ass. Low and behold—he had ripped his pants.  What you must understand to process this story at its proper level is what my husband sees when he looks in the mirror at his ass.  WW does not see a sixty-year-old balding, in-need-of-a-tan and could lose twenty pounds white dude with a bit of a tummy—my man sees himself as David Beckham!

David Beckham||image courtesy of H&M Pants mirrorco.uk

Which is why when I announced that the pants would never be the same because the rip was against the grain of the fabric, and the repair job would leave a noticeable line across his derrière, he summarily announced:  “That’s okay—I’ll just leave my suit jacket on because there are only certain people I would ever allow to look at my ass and gaze at its splendor, anyway!”  (ALL RIGHTY NOW!)  Apparently, my approbation about how handsome he still is (he is; his ass just doesn’t look like Beckham’s, that’s all) after all the years we’ve been married has gone just a tad bit to his head.  I think my husband now believes his own press!

But at least WW checks out his ass to make sure it is as together as his front.  I simply “assume” my ass is keeping up with the rest of me.  So when I wore my problematic scarf skirt to work recently (WARNING: this wardrobe item is demon-possessed), I should have followed my husband’s lead and checked out my behind before I left the office bathroom on the executive floor of my company.

 CLOSE ENOUGH PICTURE OF DEMONIC SKIRT||Image courtesy of eBay

Yeah, if you’re a woman you guessed it:  a full range of demonic scarf ends were tucked into my panty hose leaving my ass fully exposed to the air for every Tom, Dick, Harry, EVP and Board member to see as they trundled to and from their respective meetings.  No one said anything because I have no idea if anyone saw.  I felt the breeze of the air conditioner against my ass and that made me reach behind my back to discover that my tuckus was on full display and keeping company with the air.   As I moonwalked my way into the bathroom at a speed that would have impressed Michael Jackson, I could only thank God that I was wearing my “granny panties” that day.   (HEY—ABSOLUTELY NO JUDGMENT FROM YOU BITCHES—IT’S ALL RELATIVE!  BETTER THE VIEW OF GRANNY PANTIES THAN “THE VIEW” OF MY GRANNY ASS IN A THONG—YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYIN’?)

Image courtesy of jonnascheezeburger.com

When I told WW about the incident, he had little sympathy for me and said: “You’ve got to always check your ass—don’t you know that?”  At which point my response was . . . (well, it’s not printable here).

Because I was so raw from the experience of falling for “believing my own press” that I looked as good in the back as I did from the front without getting back-end mirror confirmation, I began researching online to see if others had suffered my fate.  Besides having my computer bombarded with images I’ll never be able to erase from my brain, it didn’t take me long to find other sisters in my rump sorority (famous and not so famous), whom I’m thinking of sending knee-length T-shirt cover-ups to keep in their purses for emergency use with the slogan:  “Leggings are never, ever, pants and never have been.  Obviously, you didn’t look in the mirror at your ass before you left home this mornin’ or you’d know that!”

Kim Kardashian||Image from leggingsjustforsneaks.wordpress.com||Kim looked only at her face this day and assumed her ass was good to go—Not!

Wearing flesh colored tights as pants: “Don’t do it—don’t ever do it!” Image from betterstyled.com

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I discovered half-way through my search on Google for stories of offending asses (I’m going to need an Exorcist to purge my computer after this), that this ass quest, like all journeys, was meant to be a spiritual experience (work with me here).  So I had a “SELAH” moment (what Oprah calls an “A-ha” moment).  This is the word I use to proclaim my “Eureka” awakenings.   (SELAH—a Hebrew word that is found at the ending of verses in Psalms that basically means:  pause, meditate on this, and learn.)

ET’s SELAH MOMENT:  All of us (kings, queens, rich, poor, celebrities, and everyday peeps) are one exposed-ass event from disaster, because we humans tend to believe our own press.  We write the “fake” copy, we post it on our own mental online resumes, and then we swallow the lie about who we say we are—hook, line, and sinker, so that on any given day, we keep lying about ourselves when the truth would sound better.   In our hubris, we don’t bother to look in the mirror to see if “these things be true,” or if our asses are flapping in the breeze.

Just this week Rielle Hunter (John Edwards’ mistress—talk about a guy who believed his own press to a fault) released a book about her affair with Mr. Edwards.  She wants us to believe her memoir that states she’s simply a mom whose life in the media spotlight has taken a toll.   “I’m not a mistress — I’m a mom,” Reille protested over and over again on the parade of talk shows she visited to hawk her memoir.

Rielle Hunter||theatlanticwire.com

Ms. Hunter, I don’t want to judge you or nothin’, but you might want to check your ass in the mirror and see what is written on it:  “Stole another woman’s husband who had kids, had his baby, lied about it, and continued to sneak around with him while his wife was dying of cancer.”  Psst:  I think the definition of that is “Ho,” not Mom.

And then on the same day, I read about a sweet little intern at the Wall Street Journal, Liane Membis, who got fired for lying about faking her sources.  Apparently she’s a reigning beauty queen, graduated from Yale with a double major, wrote copious articles for the Yale Daily News, as well as posts for CNN and Huffingtonpost.com.  At this point, everything she has ever written since kindergarten is being called into question and scrutinized for lies.

Liane Membis||Image from stockmarketwatch.com

Oh, Liane Baby—you in trouble girl.  I feel badly for you, and I’m cutting you a little slack because you’re young, and you worked for a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch (being near that spurious spirit of a human being probably poisoned the water you drank).  But in the end, you’re a free agent, and you’re responsible for your own actions.  I’m glad you’re learning the lesson from this debacle early in your life.  You can recover from this (you won’t ever work in journalism again, so get over it; in fact, I suspect even your grocery lists will remain under scrutiny for the rest of your life).  But the first step you have to take is to look in the mirror and read the two words on your ass:  Jayson Blair.  Look him up.  You might even want to pay him a visit and get some counseling from his certified life coaching firm.  He has definitely walked a mile in your shoes.

BREAKING NEWS:  On June 29^th, Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise announced they were getting a divorce after barely six years of marriage.  Yet, just back in May, Tom had told Playboy Magazine that he loved his wife as much now as he did when they first married.  I guess the interviewer should have delved further and said:  “But can she stand being married to you?”

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes||Image courtesy of makems.com

Tom Cruise, I have been watching you, lo these many years.  There is just something that doesn’t ring true about you.  Ever since you inappropriately jumped up and down on Oprah’s interview couch declaring your “undying love” for Katie and did the swooning kiss pose on the red carpet (I don’t trust people who suck face in public), I’ve been wondering about you.  I know this is none of my business, and I should probably get a life, but I’m going to give you some advice anyhow, because . . .well, this is my blog and I can.  Put on your costume from “Risky Business,” check out your tidy-whities in the mirror and repeat the saying written on them with me:  “Me thinks thou doeth protest too much.”  Then go get yourself some counseling that doesn’t involve that weird Scientology (Baby, it doesn’t take a guru to see that religion ain’t workin’ for you), and find out why you can’t keep a wife.

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“Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.  Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.”—Luke 12:2 – 3/The Message

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”— Abraham Lincoln

“The truly scary thing about undiscovered lies is that they have a greater capacity to diminish us than exposed ones. They erode our strength, our self-esteem, our very foundation.” ― Cheryl Hughes

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“Every person in America has done or said something that would keep him or her from being president. Maybe a nation that consumes as much booze and dope as we do and has our kind of divorce statistics should pipe down about ‘character issues.’”

“… in our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.”—P.J. O’ROURKE — American political commentator/novelist

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.