Sometimes we had a cleaning human come over and help us and then things were more under control but my mom pushed hard against the force field of the suburbs, with her stilettos and bedazzlements and frequent trips to Vegas.

I was embarrassed by our house. I was actually embarrassed all the time when I was growing up, of my house, my family, me. When my folks would leave us for days while they went to Vegas, I’d embark on a cleaning jag — trying to undo the filth that covered everything. But filth can run deeper than surface level.

Dirty girl

According to the internet, Gandhi said the following: “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” But mine are always dirty. Sometimes I feel like Pigpen — regardless of how much I clean, my very presence causes dust clouds and debris. Others seem to be able to clean up and it looks like a hotel. When I do, it looks like someone clumsily just moved the dirt around.

And I know it runs deeper. I have a well of unprocessed grief and trauma that therapy and drugs have failed to excavate. I know that these things are connected, but how do you get past it? How do you come off as clean?

My friends try to be kind. My best friend will sweep into my house and happily and sweetly tidy up; another friend — who knows how messy my house was growing up — walks gingerly around the subject, but our sibling-type relationship will often devolve into an argument, with me viewing his comments as proof of my moral failing and me being as defensive as can be.

Recently, another friend told me that they’d rather not stay at my house. It hurt. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. But I knew that my outside situation was just mirroring my inside — that my life is in some array, something unsettled, something that I’m unable to stuff neatly into a Lucite container; something that remains.

As discussed ad nauseum, I’m coming off one of the worst years of my life. So I guess it makes sense to be discombobulated a bit. But I also have a record of doing things halfway — my MFA, my goal of watching all 1001 movies to see before you die, my romantic relationships, my career. Maybe my home is a true reflection of what happens when you don’t — or can’t — complete something.

Tipping point

For me, the recent tipping point was when my spice rack fell down a few weeks ago. Ten years of collected and colorful spices stained my floor. My feet — and then slippers — were covered with turmeric and paprika, cinnamon and garlic, for days. And yes, I cleaned it up right away but, well, traces remained. I failed. And so I laid literal tracks across my house, punctuating a life spent in the dirt.

Crazily enough, I spend entire weekends cleaning my house. Yet, as discussed, it never really gets clean. Ironically, I cannot sleep in my bed if even a tiny crumb is present. Like the proverbial princess and her pea, I will literally get out of bed and remake it in the middle of the night if I even think I perceive a molecule of dust. I don’t eat in bed but I do live with a tiny monster who eats everything and then jumps deep into my blankets to roost. So debris makes its way.

I’ve had to come to terms with my situation. At the very least, I need a smaller place to live in; an easier one to manage. But I also have to figure out a way to not let my outside appearance reflect so accurately my disorganized insides. One cleaning product at a time.

My brother and I are put to bed early, at around 6 pm, while it’s still light out. It’s a phenomenon I only understand when I am a parent myself, but at the time I consider it a grave injustice. Bedtime during daytime!? Not cool, Mom.

But once we are in our adjoining rooms, my parents don’t really care what we do. Fresh from our baths and looking like freshly scrubbed little angels, we try to make trouble. We knock on our shared wall. We do puppet shows through the doorways. We fight.

Later, I sit on my bed and gaze out the window. I see my cute older neighbor hitting a tennis ball against his garage; later this summer I will send him a note that says I love him. I breathe in the sweet aroma of a lush canopy of trees and marvel at the remarkable shades of green. And then comes the truck. A giant tank clunking down our tiny quiet block, spraying mounds of poison while kids ran happily behind, excited by the presence of, well, anything new, in our suburban oasis of not-all-that-much. I remember my nightgown, all stars and hearts, not exactly crisp but clean enough. I remember my sister, nearly 10 years older, the resident of the other bed in my room, but not tethered to the ridiculous bedtimes because of her age.

Sunday evening, Summer 2026

I still take a bath every Sunday night. Since my offspring has fledged and flown the coop, I’m alone, knocking around in a rented house that’s too big to live in but too cheap to move out of. I think about the past constantly. People I know are wasting away, getting sick, dying. Buildings I’ve loved for decades are being razed for skyscrapers. Lakes are choking with algae. These bones, they don’t work like they used to. I have lots to complain about.

But now, so many years later, instead of making trouble with my brother, I brush my wet hair out of my eyes and gaze out at the bike path. I wonder where everyone is headed in such a hurry on a Sunday night. I revel in the soft chorus of crickets and the frenetic rustle of bunnies. My dog sighs. For a brief moment I consider jumping into the brain of a particular fat-tire bike rider, who’s singing loudly as they happily pedal their bike down the lane. Where is he going? What will he do? I’m thinking that those questions also apply to me.

Well into the second stage of sepsis caused by a badly infected gall bladder, I saw what I can only describe as God, and then passed out on my face on the bathroom floor. A quick ambulance ride later in merely a t-shirt and underwear (no shoes), and I was in the hands of doctors who stabilized my sorry ass and then went about trying to cure me. Several months of wearing a tube that drained bile from my liver, I am now sans gall bladder and feeling pretty good. But last year? It was a very bad year. It was, as the queen said, an annus horribilis. And not only for me, for everyone. But also, for me. So bad, that I’m only coming around to talking about it three months into the next year.

In the beginning

I’ve been sick much of my life with rare and nondiagnosable diseases. When I had scarlet fever at age 6 in 1969, it was even then considered to be an old-timey disease, replete with the kind of Victorian-Age fear that comes with the vapors and consumption. When I returned to school, I remember the teachers being very concerned and frankly, surprised that I survived.

In addition to chronic stomach issues since puberty, I’ve had a slew of ridiculous diseases and disorders throughout my life. Meningitis, multiple bouts of strep, adult-onset hoof-and-mouth disease … you name it, I had it. Variously, I flew over handlebars, fell through a porch and sprained both ankles stalking an ex-boyfriend on a roof.

In 1988 or so, I lost all feeling in my legs. I was diagnosed with one of the rarest of the rarest diseases, Guillain Barre Syndrome — an auto-immune disorder that can be fatal. I had an easy case … as swiftly as the paralysis came, it went, leaving me only with the outcome that I can’t get flu vaccines. Sigh.

Why was I gifted with so many maladies? I can imagine that being abused as a young person messed with my system, making me more sensitive to auto-immune disorders and the like. Also, we Eastern European Jews aren’t known for our strong constitutions. But I do not want my illnesses to define me anymore.

Now that my gall bladder is gone, my body is trying to figure out how to process foods without it. But more than that, I am looking forward to a new year, one that has most of my health problems in the rearview and only opportunity ahead.

Three: It’s the magic number

The number three has been considered a special number forever. It is considered to be a perfect number, a prime number, a number of perfect balance. Communication, harmony and peace are all connected to the number three.

In about one month, I will turn 63. Watching my old school chums hit this milestone on Facebook, I see that they are reveling in the fact that we are turning the year of our birth this year — born in 1963, turning 63. Apparently there is a term for this and it is not a Golden Birthday, it’s a Beddian Birthday! Very interesting story that you can learn by just clicking on that link.

But for me, this Beddian Birthday is even more exciting. My birthday is 3-30-63 … all the threes!! I’m looking forward to a very good year and frankly, I deserve it. There’s something intoxicating about a new lease on life, and I intend to make the most of it. Well, at least I intend to blog more.

The truth about eccentricity

But for those who aren’t as famous as Ms. Keaton, the reality of being an eccentric is a little different. My mom was one. Strutting into my grade school in the mid-70s with a cowboy hat and stilettos, my mom stuck out in suburban Milwaukee. When I got older, I saw that she resembled a long-forgotten B-movie star, not a particular one, but just somebody who used to be someone. She hated Milwaukee, and was much more at home in her second home, Las Vegas. But even worse, Milwaukee hated her — she was an unheard of kind of gal, a Jewish divorcee with child in the 1950s, odd, different and just plain weird.

My brother and I got the weird gene as well. We fit no predetermined mold. We were the weird offspring of weirdos living in a place that didn’t understand us and ultimately only appreciated us in retrospect. We both grew into our weirdness, rising fast in creative careers that buoyed our spirits and our self-esteem. Of course, my brother died way too young, but I was left here — to carry on the torch for what it means to be independent — and strange.

Getting serious

But being an eccentric does mean that people will judge you, just like the kids calling my mom “Cowboy Kurzer” in the school hallways did. During a recent hospital stay, the nurses started calling me the “crazy lady in 5959.” I suppose they were semi-relieved that I had a sense of humor despite the horrible situation I was in. Or maybe they thought that someone who got a kick out of guessing her blood pressure each time they took it, was just nuts. (I guessed it nearly on the dot several times and it was all over the place.) Or maybe they thought I wouldn’t have any feelings about it at all, being the whack-a-doo they took me for.

I don’t really mind. I’d rather have a life that is fiercely independent, despite the multitude of mistakes I’ve made along the way. I’d rather be weirdo, then just a normal person.

Thanks for reading. If you are so inclined, please donate to my GoFundMe.

Subscribe now

Share

Many of you know that I was out of work for a long time, a victim of AI and a pandemic that flooded the market with so-called writers. But now I work for the city as an info clerk. And I like it a lot.

George Eliot’s short story, Scenes of clerical life, focuses on the clergy, just one definition of clerical. But tip-tap-typing all day has its own kind of spiritual reward, one that writing doesn’t afford.

As a writer, your ego is always on the line. Even if you have tough skin, with every project, you’re either going to be praised or criticized. The praise is intoxicating; the criticism sometimes devastating. Also, as a writer, you’re never really ever done with work. You always take it home. I can’t even check my email at home from my job as a clerk. I mean, I probably can but I don’t want to. And that option works!

I prefer not to

I know that most of my peers are looking at their retirement, buying second houses and becoming grandparents. The simple truth is that I’m not. I’m quite literally at the beginning of an entry-level job. Capitalism spins its web and I must comply. I’ve come to terms with this.

For the time being, I am really liking the routine of my job but sometimes it feels like I’m a cosplaying a lanyard-wearing lady on the bus. Still, I also know that this character, this working lady proudly serving her city, is a big part of who I am.

When I get weary, I do think of yet another literary figure, my pal Bartleby the scrivener. Fed up with the rigamarole of clerical work, or his co-workers, or, probably, the trap of capitalism, Bartleby continues to show up at his job but refuses to do his tasks. Why? Because he’d rather not. Bartleby shocks everyone around him by refusing to work, simply because he doesn’t want to. Hero.


Thank you for reading my blog! For all you paying subscribers, you will soon get a renewal notice. Please consider reupping your subscription, as I promise many more blogs in the coming year. I do. Really. Or at least keep a free subscription. Thanks!

And so …

I never thought I’d go into my sixties penniless and unable to get a job. It’s hard to believe I’m in this situation and though I know I’m not alone, I intend to write about it so I can move on and become again, as I once was, a useful fool on the capitalism treadmill, providing goods and/or services so I can afford goods and/or services.

Growing up in a neighborhood that was far too affluent for my gambling, Vegas-loving folks, I didn’t know we were the poor ones. I did know we were the unpopular ones. I also knew we were the eccentric ones. But I didn’t know that we were, er, unprepared for the financial necessities of living in the oh-so posh, posh environs that we occupied.

Fortunately for my glitzy mom, she had a husband that strove to give her everything she wanted. And that was mostly going to Vegas to gamble and pal it up with the likes of Frank Sinatra. Well, Frank Sinatra, Jr., but you get what I mean.

The unending tyranny of spinsterhood

I think my mom thought I’d be just fine if she could just get me to adulthood. There I’d be sure to meet someone who would be my lifetime partner, sharing in the good, the bad, and ultimately, the finances. Thing is, I never could see myself in that kind of relationship. I liked boys just fine, but I tried living with one with an eye to marriage. He really would have been perfect, but it was me, you see. I just couldn’t do it. I’m not the marrying kind.

So a single life it was, and everywhere I went, everything I did, I paid for. Myself. No one ever helped me financially, not even a little bit.

Trouble paying my modest student loan meant that my credit was shot (and has risen from its intial $12,000 to close to $200,000). I’d never be able to buy a house, and everything I had to have, like auto insurance, was far more expensive because actuarily, I was an insurance risk. Credit cards had laughingly high interest rates, but I still needed them. Sigh.

Then I had a child, so everything was doubled. And I wanted her to have everything. I had learned from my folks to rob Peter to pay Paul, so I did just that. It worked for quite a while.

I wasn’t always broke

As a journalist at a daily newspaper in bucolic coastal Connecticut, I made a whopping $12 or $13,000 a year. Though I increasingly became more talented and proficient, my propensity to work for what was new meant I made less and less. Young for my age — or more aptly chronically immature — I rode the wave of what was up and coming. First, I worked in recycled paper products, until that went belly up.

Then I moved to Chicago and entered the wonderful world of advertisng. It was 1995 and at the very tail end of an enduring MadMen-esque life heralding broadcast advertising as the be-all end -all of the world and fraught with lingering champagne/lobster brunches at the toniest places in Santa Monica. I was on the forefront of digital advertising, producing some of the first work for some of the biggest brands in the world. But by the end of my stint in the agencies, production became king and those that succeeeded were those that cut the creatives off at the knees the most efficiently.

When I moved to Madison, I was able to maintain a great freelance income and had to turn away clients. This worked for almost 15 years.

Then came AI.

A crisis of confidence

Suddenly I had no work … no work at all. The market was and is saturated with a combination of artificial intelligence, and johnny-come-lately “writers,” who pivoted to a new career over the pandemic. I went from being one of the most experienced digital copywriters IN THE WORLD1 to being an aged-out old lady with bad hair. I’ve applied for everything from creative director to midnight change operator at the casino. A gal can only take so much.

My friends have been outrageously supportive both financially and socially. I’m so lucky. Launching my blog was a great step toward coming to terms with my situation, but after my last post — which I’m really proud of — my confidence took a dive. My identity as a smart worker, a great writer, a clever gal took a hit. I’m working out of it now. Slowly and surely.

Thanks for being around for the ride.

Subscribe now

Even if you think there aren’t any good candidates; even if your cynicism has dried up every ounce of faith; even if you are f-ing exhausted. The most sacred vestige of democracy remains. If you are 18 or over in this country, you can cast a ballot.

During the pandemic, we got to vote outside. I cast my ballot alongside my neighbors in the pocket park steps from my front door. This year, I took my absentee ballot to a ballot box. I will always be delighted to participate in what feels to me the essence of democracy — the ability to make one’s voice heard. We still have a long way to go to make sure everyone’s voice is heard, but the mechanism is there.

Here are some tips to get you through the next few days:

• Get out and away from media. It’s raining here in Wisconsin, but it’s very warm. Go for a walk.

• Eat something. Talk to a friend. Take a shower. Be good to yourself.

• Make sure all your people have voted!

• If you’re still ruminating, or obsessing, or need more help in anyway, please contact a health provider.

And now we wait.

Subscribe now

That is, or was, until she basically dropped dead at 72 right in front of my brother and me.

In the parking lot outside of the downtown Milwaukee office that my dad shared with other assorted relatives, my grandma told us to pipe down, that she wasn’t feeling well. We laughed at her. Our steady grandma — Nanny pronounced (n-ah-nny) — my personal savior and the most solid part of my life, surely didn’t ail. She didn’t falter. The fifth child of her family of 12, she was one of the first born on US soil after their escape from the tsar in Latvia. In addition to Nanny, she was known as Mary, Maryon, Marion and Phoebe.

She flourished in the immigrant-rich streets of Milwaukee, eventually meeting my grandfather, who as the fourth child in his 12-member1 family was also one of the first born here — his family on the run from what is now Ukraine. We called him Fafa; he was also known as Sidney, Sid and George.

Of course, I didn’t know any of this history at the time. I just knew that in a world that felt unsafe — coddled though it was within the faux sheen of the suburbs — Nanny was my safety net. Her ample bosom (omg did I just say that) provided a haven from the unpredictablity of my dad’s moods and my mom’s mental illness.

She was dead of that heart attack within 24 hours, though I knew sooner that she was gone. I remember looking out the window of the car as my dad drove us home … knowing she was gone forever.

Death at that time was merely a concept. At home, later, when my dad gathered us together to tell us the bad news, I closed my eyes, willing myself to cry, afraid I might laugh or be otherwise inappropriate, not knowing at all how to behave properly — now that the person I loved most in the world was gone. In an instant.

So it shouldn’t suprise you

That I hate sudden endings. I’ve got what the psychiatric community likes to call “abandonment issues.”

It’s part of why my brother’s death was so devastating, though it’s hard to top the inate devastation of losing a 37-year-old healthy sibling in the prime of their life but yeah, the suddenness of it all was what tore me apart. My mom’s death two years later, with only eight weeks from diagnosis to death, felt just as quick.

Since then I’ve lost friends to sudden death — or what feels like sudden death — and it always leaves a permanent mark.

What goes around

In spite of the suddenness of the deaths of my mom, grandma and brother, and the sadness and pain they left in their wake, their passings gave me gifts that I still receive till this day. After my grandma’s death, it was she who I prayed to when I was in a synagogue or in fear or late at night. I didn’t not equate her with a higher power but I did believe she was watching over me.

Later, after I was suddenly laid off from the biggest job in my life, I needed to heal. I went to my grandma’s grave and this is what I said: “I need a sign that things will be all right. And nothing ambiguous. I need a ring that appears out of nowhere.2 I need a painting to change in front of me.” And then I went on with my life.

The next day, I went to Holland to surprise my lifelong friend Gary who was visiting our mutual friend Dan. Our merry trio trooped around Amsterdam, sampling the various wares and almost overdid it. We decided to go back to Dan’s apartment.

But without discussing it with one another, we simultaenously veered into a different coffee shop and waited for the guy at the bar to be done looking at the menu. When that guy put the menu down it was my first cousin Steve, looking back at me. The youngest grandchild of our mutual grandmother was standing in front of me in a random coffee shop that we weren’t even going to go into. And I happened to be with two people who had known him nearly as long as I did. It was clear to me that this was the sign I had asked for.

And the signs abound. When Ross was in a coma prior to his death, we did not know that he would die. The outcome of death wasn’t even discussed. But sleeping in the nursery with my 3-month old baby, I shifted fitfully between awake and the alpha state you’re in right before you fall asleep.

I saw my brother rising up above me. “Where are you going?” I said, willing my eyes to open and being unable to do so. He smiled. A huge shit-eating grin. He kept rising, higher and higher. I said, “No, don’t go. I need you,” and then he was gone and I was awake. Two days later we got the call that he had passed away, though I think his soul likely departed at the moment I saw him.

The Death Card

I love the Death Card in Tarot. It encapusulates everyting I love about Tarot — that behind every ending there is a beginning; that change is the only way to move forward; that you NEED death to appreciate life; that if you are open-minded you can find the guidance you need and that it’s rarely about what is good or bad, it’s about seeing what is. I try to follow this philosophy.

But embracing the circle of life, or a positive philosophy, or even a belief in ghosts, doesn’t mean that I don’t feel abandoned, that I am not in deep grief and that I don’t think about the ones I’ve lost all the time. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s an attempt at peace. And it’s a way to keep on going on.

Share

I’ve updated my substack with a new name: Wrong Side of the Tracks and created a better welcome page that you did not receive when you signed up. Look out for a new bona fide post coming shortly.

Here is the welcome email:

Thanks for your subscription to my newsletter.

I am delighted that you’re here.

I’ll be sharing snippets of my life as a person who grew up on the outside looking in and am hoping that with your support — and some diligence from me — I’ll be creating something lasting and poignant.

At this point, I am not offering anything just for paid subscribers, but that may change in the future.

Thanks again, and please tell a few friends if you feel like it.

Ever since I was a child, the sight of big old house on a trailer intrigued and delighted me. But to be fair, I also get giddy at horse trailers on the highway and don’t get me started on the sight of a semi that just. couldn’t. make. it. under a bridge.

Why it’s so delightful.

Locals already know what inspired this post. For those outside of the flawed bubble that is Madison, here’s a little background. A week or so ago, a developer moved a building from one block to another one. This was no small feat, as the structure was a huge apartment building, weighing in at an impossible 450 TONS. The entire operation of taking the behemoth off its foundation and depositing it a couple of blocks away took two days and captivated young and old, if Facebook posting is to be believed. I know I shared a post about it. So that covers the old.

But while chatting with a friend, I wondered why the sight of such a thing inspires such universal, innocent, childlike awe in those that encounter it. We landed on dissonance — encountering the unexpected, one of these things just doesn’t belong. It’s a lovely concept and one that can propel us to do amazing things.

Let me explain.

They say we’re creatures of habit. I know I am. I have my daily list of things to do and revel in accomplishing them. But what happens when something unexpected occurs that sets you off your path? You stub your toe, the dog poops where she isn’t supposed to, your toilet decides not to flush. You get annoyed. It’s natural. You see these as impediments to accomplishing your goals, and unfair ones at that.

But the unexpectedness of a house on wheels, or for me, the idea of horses blithely munching on hay while going 80 miles an hour on the highway, provide the type of dissonance that great art is made from. And we need those moments now more than ever.

Musicians already know this.

Dissonant sound is a technique used in music to produce unexpected, emotive results in the listener. Momentary discomfort caused by what is perceived as clashing tones, can evolve into a moment of pure bliss. In order to receive the beauty, one must trust the process despite their impulses. But the reward can be sublime.

Cognitive dissonance, however, is a whole other animal. In his extensive studies of the concept, the psychologist Leon Festinger reported that humans have an inate desire to avoid cognitive dissonance at all costs. It makes sense. The discomfort of coming together with those whose thoughts are the opposite of yours, of living in that well of discomfort causes us pain, so we try to shield ourselves from them, seeking those who agree with us in order to apply balms to our wounded souls. But that’s just it, right? For us it’s all about our stinkin’ souls. Our ridiculously outsized egos.

In order for dissonance to work its magic, to become something better than the sum of its parts, we need to trust the process. The kids get it. They seem to be naturally unafraid to challenge their preconceptions and … again … trust the process. Unfortunately, I still flee from conflict of any kind, refusing to believe in any process, no matter what rewards are promised.

But think of all the beauty we could have if only we could.