GOODBYE LYON!

Goodbye sweet Lyon. I will miss you. I have about twenty posts waiting to be published with little facts and pictures about Lyon. It's an amazing city and I will surely be back!

HAPPY JULY 4TH! I'M GOING TO EAT SAUSAGES IN ITALY!

FRENCH FOOD AND MY MOTHER

In four days, I leave Los Angeles for Lyon, France. I can't believe it.

I promised that I would blog everyday until the trip is over. Let's see if I can do it. So, with that promise, comes "the writing" before I leave. Even if it's shit, dribble, lists of stuff I have to do, crushes, porn fantasies, ramblings, food curiosities, tears, joy, fuck, shit....you know what I mean, I'll blog it.

(Sigh) My mom asked me if I wanted to move back to Boston, or if I'd consider it. A part of me would love to live with my mom again for a temporary period - like 6 months. My mom and I fight a lot. Not about anything serious, but we speak several times a day, and we're bound to disagree. Truth is, I have an awesome time with her. She's kinda' a scared-y cat, so I push her to do things daily - like go to museums, paint in her studio, pick blueberries, etc. 

I lived with my Mom in 2003 for almost 2 years after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. While she received chemotherapy, I traveled to and from my home in NYC, but eventually I moved to Framingham, Massachusetts to live with her.

To make a long story short, and I don't know how I got on the topic of breast cancer  - I was going to talk about how I've been researching French restaurants in Paris, and figuring out what I should order given that I don't speak French. I like a lot of fish, so I was looking up different dishes. 

My mom had Stage 2 breast cancer. Not life-threatening because her tumor did not metastasize; It was just big. The doctors, my mother and myself decided, given her general good health, to do "dose-dense" chemotherapy. Rather than every 3 weeks, they gave her chemo every 2 weeks. This unfortunately led my mother to develop "pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP)." Pneumocystis is rare for breast cancer patients. It is a life-threatening fungal pneumonia that kills many AIDS patients due to their low immune systems. To this day my mother is pissed that they tested her for AIDS in the hospital, but we did have a good laugh about her experience with "lamb-skin" condoms.

My mother was admitted to Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston after weeks of fevers, chills and complete loss of hunger. My biggest regret was listening to the doctors who thought she had a flu.

She had an extremely high-fever and blood loss and needed a transfusion. My mother was calm. She told me to go back home and feed the cats. She felt safe, she said, in the hospital. Reluctantly, I drove home. I didn't sleep that night. I was petrified someone would break in and kill me, or I'd get a call from the hospital saying something happened to her. 

I left her home at 6 am to drive back to the hospital. She was very sick and they still couldn't figure out why she had a fever. It took another 3 days to realize she had pneumocystis.

I need to stop and mention that when my mother was diagnosed, I came home with a video camera. I shot everything that my mother, and I as her caregiver experienced. I kept a small distance from the disease and from my mother's suffering while filming her. I played a very "business" role: I researched, dealt with doctors, figured out prescriptions, etc. Very practical. I think it was good for her to constantly reflect and narrate her experience to the camera. 

That night in the emergency room, I shut the camera off. The reality that my mother was gravely ill overtook any need to document. Without a doubt that was the worst night of my life. Worse than my husband walking out on our marriage. I thought I was going to lose my mother. I can't even talk about that night without crying.

Days passed in the hospital, and my mother still had a high-fever, trouble breathing and a horrible cough. She was dying. She had no color in her skin and no appetite. I became extremely confrontational with the doctors, "I want you to figure out what is wrong with my mother. She still has fever. You need to get more doctors to see her." I was a pest, and looking back, I pity those that don't have an advocate.

Finally, a lovely pulmonary doctor, whom my mother developed a crush on, found the pneumocystis during a bronchoscopy. She told him, tearing, "I used to be a very beautiful woman. I didn't always look like this." At that point, she had a few strands of hair and looked like a ghost.

He gave her antibiotics and steroids and my mother came back to life. I started filming again, and I filmed for another two years. When my mother got better and started thriving, I couldn't go back to my life in New York City. I just wanted to be with her. We fought to get her through it, and I wanted to enjoy my mother. I rented a car, packed everything I owned and moved into her 1 bedroom condo. (Think "Grey Gardens" meets "Curb Your Enthusiasm" meets "Monk".)

For the next year, I filmed my mother "living again." I filmed her renting an art studio and painting again after a 20-year hiatus. I filmed my mother throwing her wig in the dumpster, and her eventual first haircut and color. I filmed myself "getting ready" for my first date with my ex-husband whom I met in Framingham. I filmed our courtship. I filmed the day I left home and moved back to New York City with him.

How exactly I went from Bouillabaisse to my mother, I'm not sure. I miss her very much. I'm so ashamed to say that I haven't seen her since I moved to LA, and speaking to her daily doesn't measure up. I need to see her. I need to spend time with her again.

WHAT I NEED TO DO BEFORE EUROPE

Besides working out to feel somewhat comfortable in a bikini in Capri (fuck, did I just write that? I'm going to Capri!!!!). I need to get my shit together. Ahhhh I cannot wait to eat my first macaron, pictured above, in Paris.

I leave for Europe in 19 days. Oh my lord.

There are so many things to do:

1. Make business cards. I need to have a little calling card for my blog and calendar. I can't explain it every time to people, and it's nice to have a little card to give to people I meet. (Hopefully I'll meet people). My favorite business cards are made by Moo. They are beautiful.

2. I want to reformat this blog and move it to Wordpress. Maybe. I like the layout, but I want it more user-friendly.

3. Books on France: specifically Lyon and Paris. Maybe a book on Positano and its history.

4. Backpack. I need one. I used to always wear a backpack and then I moved on to "the purse," but I prefer the backpack.

5. French translation book. I know 3 words in French: "Merci," "Bonjour" and "Au Revoir" (is that two words?). That's what I get for studying Latin and taking two years of Spanish.

6. I need a nice laptop sleeve, a black and white memo book, EmergenC packets and multi-vitamins. I NEED BOOKS TO READ!

I dream of shipping stuff back to Los Angeles and traveling a bit. I really want to go to Barcelona. I'm visiting a good friend from NYU in London, and maybe I can quickly see Barcelona on the way or after...

This is so exiting. I feel very alive. 

I MAKE LISTS. LOTS OF THEM.

I make a lot of lists. I even made a list to write this post about lists. I write down everything. If you hang out with me, I always have a notepad or my iPhone, and I'm ready to write down ANY good idea, quote, inspiration, thought, image, website or some sort of bullshit.

When I'm writing the list, it feels innocent, but really my lists are commands - my "inner Gestapo" as I like to call it.

About 15 minutes ago, my latest "list" was: QUIT COFFEE TOMORROW AND GET UP EARLY AND GO RUNNING BEFORE AEROBICS CLASS. NO LAZINESS. Doesn't that sound like fun?! (It didn't actually say "no laziness," but that was the subtext.)

The older I get, the less I listen to my lists and the more I act defiantly against them. I had a lot of willpower to command myself to do all sorts of shit as a teenager and young adult - now, I'm good at telling myself to fuck off. I just ignore the list.

I don't know what I would do without lists. Sometimes they are good punch lists of stuff to get done, but many times, I simply ignore them - possibly because I don't really care about them and they are not realistic. There are a few items ALWAYS on my list: 1. Return emails (which I never can finish and I have 928 unanswered Facebook emails), 2. Workout (daunting, but I do it), 3. Return phone calls (ugh).

Let's see if I quit coffee tomorrow. 

AFTERTHOUGHT

Maybe I should never write another list again? It's hard not to, but I feel like mine are jail-sentences. I have to think about this more.

INAPPROPRIATE FACEBOOK UPDATES

Jamie feels like complete shit. She's going to run to 7-Eleven to get a pint of Ben and Jerry's to make herself feel worse. Then cry. Then listen to Coldplay. Then text her Ex. Then think of plans to make her life better only to feel hopeless at the end. Then go to sleep. Then have nightmares. 

Jamie just got her period. Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat!!!

Jamie masturbated midday. Got a problem with that?

Jamie just had a MEGA panic attack. 

Jamie didn't get accepted by eHarmony...interesting.

Jamie just got out of therapy. SHE IS SOOOO RIGHT ABOUT MY CHILDHOOD!!! Jamie's about to call her Dad and tell him it's "ALL HIS FAULT!!!!!"

Jamie wants to get a porn ass. Well then, she better work out like a porn star!

Jamie just threw out a package of bread she was binging on.

Jamie wants her friends to stop being friends with her Ex. Hint. Hint.  

Jamie just remembered something bad that happened to her as a child.

Jamie has no idea if Judaism matters in her future marriage. 

Jamie needs a good spanking. 

Jamie just pooped a turtle in aerobics class, or is it "a turtle's head"? WHATEVER!

SEXUAL MATURITY

"I just want to make love to him," I said out loud tonight while driving home from Whole Foods. "What is wrong with me?" I thought immediately after. This isn't the same Jamie who wanted to marry every date after her divorce, or the clingy, prudish girl who has to really care about the men she sleeps with. This is a new, sexually curious, friggen' horny, full-of-vigor woman who just wants to make love to him.

Who is the "him"? The him is a man at my gym, or rather, a "man-boy." He seems too sweet and youthful to be a "man," but his sinewy muscles and rough Irish/Italian looks give him a masculine steer-looking quality. (Wait, "steer" - like fucking a bull?) I think he's younger than me. He's not obviously gorgeous, but there's something extraordinary about him. He's trim, muscular and he looks like a boxer from the 50's. And I want him to fuck me. Oh my god - what is wrong with me? I don't care. I want to rent a hotel room, or take him back to my newly painted, newly fixed-up apartment, and I want him to ravish me. I want to fuck hard, smoke a cigarette, drink some wine and do it again. I'll even learn how to make Chicken Parmesan. Whatever. 

Granted, I did just come back from taking a sweaty exercise class, which always makes my "horn-factor" elevate. I saw him tonight, and I dreamt that he'd notice me amongst the sea of obviously beautiful women at our gym. I want him to think there's something special or interesting about me. Maybe I have to make the first move, or maybe I have to stop wearing bulky tracksuits. (That's stupid. I'm not going to find a cool guy cause I dressed skimpy at the gym. I like skimpy though, and I love staring at the hot, scantily dressed women, but I don't have the chutzpah to wear a bra and underwear-looking thing to the gym.) We, the "him," once had a conversation in the parking garage about Williamsburg, Brooklyn and the best Italian restaurants in LA. (God I hope he doesn't read this blog.) I don't even want to date him necessarily. I want to have fun - safe fun (here's the prude, "careful" Jamie talking).

The prude/safe Jamie spent her college years studying for 12 hours a day. She had about 3 drinks in 4 years and graduated cum laude from NYU. She dated five men seriously before getting married. Add that up, and guess how many people she slept with? Not very many. (I'm actually OK with that statistic.) There's a whole world out there, and she, me, is only getting started. 

I have a few crushes, and I am finally realizing how fun being single will be. (Well I do now, but who knows how I'll feel when I'm binging on ice-cream and crying at the next movie I rent? I won't think about that now.) I have a crush in France, a crush in LA and a crush in NY. I dream of love and I'm going to enjoy it.