A Little Snippet from a Work-in-Progress…

Working on a brand-new thing, and my brain is totally engulfed, so I can’t think of anything original or extraordinarily witty to write today. So suffer through this, my work-in-progress, tentatively titled, Andy Devine Takes a Wife…

           Andy Devine was the last thing I needed in my life next to a punch in the gut, yet that morning I got both.

            “Hey Jules!” Denny called from the newsroom. “Come here! Look at this!”

            I whipped out my compact and reapplied my lipstick, catching my brown red-rimmed eyes in the mirror. How could I look at anything when all I could see was scarlet? But I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t. As I slid Ruby Ruse across my lips, as the skyline of Philadelphia reflected back into my hand, all I could think of was how Evil had just walked out of this conference room on thousand dollar Barker Blacks, the sales slip from Barney’s still simmering in my wallet.

            “Sorry, Julie, but it’s just not the right time for me,” Richard had said just moments before, his glossy hair swooping dramatically, his baby blues bleeding Sincerity 5.1, his bespoke suit fragrant with the cologne I had given him. His fingers brushed my neck as he leaned in for the chastest of cheek pecks. “But that doesn’t mean I still don’t love you. Really it doesn’t.”

            “You’re telling me this now? With two weeks until our wedding?” I drew back, groping the table for balance.          

            Richard’s mouth crooked with such a perfect mix of pity and condescension I almost felt sorry for him. “Darling, sometimes it takes nearly tottering into the brink before you know what’s best for you.”

            “Now I’m a brink?”

            He palmed his check, horrified. “No—of course not. You’re wonderful. And beautiful and talented, the top reporter at the station. I’m just a struggling agent. You don’t need me dragging you down. And I will, if this deal doesn’t pan out.”

            “What do you mean? Your agency has some of the biggest talent out of Hollywood—didn’t you just sign the hottest gamers out there? Even the recession’s barely touched you. I don’t understand.”

            “Don’t you realize? Being at the top only means you hit the bottom harder.”

            “Why is being on the top a great thing for me, but terrible for you?”

            “Oh Julie, Julie…you just don’t get it, do you?” He shook his head, leaving for the window on a sigh.

            I stared at my hand, beyond numb, his diamond winking at me with absurd perkiness. Two years we’ve been together, sharing the same Rittenhouse Square penthouse, the same bank account, each other’s insurance beneficiaries, our lives so imperceptibly tangled it’d take a blowtorch to break them apart.

            “What is it I’m supposed to get, Richard? That you don’t want to make that final commitment? Or you don’t love me anymore? Or maybe you never did? Maybe we were just mutually handy, equally able to pick up each other’s dry cleaning.” I could feel the tears welling. “But you never thought of me that way, did you? You were never that shallow. You…” I looked up.  “Richard…?”

            His shoulders were twitching. I went to the window, spinning him around. “Jesus! Are you tweeting? At a time like this?”

            He stared at me, aghast. “I have over 5,000 followers you know!”

            “With number one standing right here!”

            He had the cheek to finish the tweet before he slipped his iPhone in his pocket. “See, Julie? This is why you’re still traipsing around town chasing midgets instead of murderers. You’re so blinded by minutiae you have no grasp of what’s fundamentally important.”

            “Wait a minute – didn’t you just say what a wonderful reporter I am?”

            He slipped his hand to my shoulder. “In your own silly little world, you are, but the truth is…” He inclined his head. “I’m just too intense for you.”

            “Let me get this straight,” I said, my blood boiling as I eased away from him. “You make your living off of man-children blowing imaginary body parts off of imaginary bodies, can’t start your day unless you purge, hang by your ankles, and rub some $150 an ounce buttermilk concoction into your skin, and you can’t walk five feet without feeding that electronic extension of your over-inflated ego. My goodness, I guess you’re right. Because if all that doesn’t scream Alpha dog I don’t know what.”

            He crossed his arms. “Now you’re just being petty.”

            “And you’re dumping me!”

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That’s all for now! Big smooch!

Trudy

© Copyright 2011 Trudy Doyle – All Rights Reserved

Labor Will Never Forget

The politicians who are currently waging an assault on Labor perhaps never attended an American history class or if they had, have very short memories. They seem to be forgetting why workers organized in the first place. Today, on the 100th anniversary of the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in Manhattan, it’s a history lesson that begs refreshing. If everything was and always had been equitable, safe and humane on the job, there never would have been a need Unions to begin with. And to think they are now is unrealistic.

The fire at Triangle Shirtwaist Factory burned through the 8th floor, then to the 9th and 10th floors of the Asch building, what was then considered a modern skyscraper. It was near closing time on a Saturday, the sixth day of a normal six-day workweek when the fire started. With cloth strewn over an oil-soaked wooden floor, it didn’t take long for flames to sweep through the factory, rumored to have been started by a tossed cigarette or a match inadvertently dropped into an oil bucket, from which the many sewing machines were oiled.

Panic reigned as the conflagration consumed the factory, plumes of smoke rising upward. A crush of workers attempted to cram down a narrow stairwell, others ran for the elevator. Survivors would later testify doors to a second stairwell were locked. The elevator eventually became jammed by the bodies hoping to ride it down. Scores were trapped near the windows. Triangle’s workers got to make an impossible decision — burn to death or jump. Some didn’t even get that choice; they were already on fire when they crashed through the windows. At the end of the day 146 workers died, mainly women, mostly young and immigrant. Investigations later revealed there was no sprinkler system or third staircase as mandated by city ordinance, and the outside fire escape, which was difficult to manuever to begin with, collapsed under the weight of those escaping.

If you think something like this couldn’t happen in the modern age, think again. Just last December 27 workers jumped to their deaths and more than 100 were injured when a fire swept through a Bangladesh factory that makes clothes for the Gap. Witnesses said the blaze engulfed the multi-story building, forcing some of those trapped inside to jump from the windows. The fire came after repeated warnings about fire safety at factories making clothes for western retailers. Just because there doesn’t seem to be sweatshops in the US (even though there are), it doesn’t mean all factories outside the United States are as safe and humane as we believe ours to be. As the Bangladeshi factory shows, saving capital at the employees’ expense is still going on.

It can be argued that conditions such as these don’t exist anymore in the United States or in most Western countries, and because of that, Unions here and in Europe have outlived their usefulness. But why must brutality and a below-living wage be the standard for their existence? I believe in business, but I also believe workers should be compensated at a rate that corresponds to the company’s success, just as they sometimes need to take a cut when  profits are at their lowest. Honestly now, isn’t that only fair?

Trudy

The Idlings of March

If you’re reading this a little late, I apologize. You see, my blog site was having a bit of difficulty this evening, or, as they put it: We’re experiencing some problems on WordPress.com and we are in read-only mode at the moment. We’re working hard on restoring full service as soon as possible, but you won’t be able to create or make changes to your site currently. Okay, I suppose I could give them a break. They’re a game little blog site and so nice and user-friendly, I can allow them the occasional off-line mode. And more than likely, someone who wasn’t supposed to be doing something, went ahead and did it anyway. Or didn’t do what they were supposed to. In any event, whatever did happen (or didn’t), still managed to upset my little apple cart, which no doubt has you all thinking I’ve been asleep at the switch. But I wasn’t, not that you have anyway of knowing that. You just think I’m a slacker. Well, thank you for caring enough to notice! But I digress…

 And isn’t that just typical. Because things going awry seem so apropos this most weird of months. March is kind of like being a teenager: no longer a child, but not quite an adult either, made even worse because it can’t make up its mind what it wants to be. For instance: even though Spring arrived Monday, March is still messing around with Winter. Two weeks ago it was 70 degrees; tomorrow the weather prediction is snow. (Okay—around this part of Jersey, they’re only calling for a brief, spate of slushiness early in the morning, but it still counts.) And even though the squirrels and sparrows are chasing each other up and down and around the maples and daffodils, I’m still turning on the furnace at night. Plus there’s my own self, still pudgy with winter poundage, but my feet and arms and legs are yearning to breath free, and isn’t that just cruel, as I found out today my body is suffering for it. After a routine blood screen, my doctor informed me I’m low in Vitamin D, which comes from not spending enough time outside. Big surprise there! Who wants to, when the outside’s not exactly been inviting lately—except for those two days when it sadistically flirted with the upper echelon of the thermometer. But isn’t that just typically spiteful of bipolar

March. I’m just sayin’… Think about it: it’s windy, and it’s associated with a lion. And although lions are majestic and strong, realistically—they will eat you. Julius Caesar was told by a seer on his way to the Senate to “beware the Ides of March.” To which he answered, “Well, the Ides of March have come,” and the seer replied “Aye, they have come, but they are not gone.” But he’d be, before the afternoon was out And then there’s that whole “March Madness” attributed to college basketball playoffs. Is it coincidence this term of insanity is applied? If it isn’t, then why isn’t the football season called “November Nutso” or baseball, “May Mania?” Because the other months just don’t seem as off-kilter as March, so expectedly unreasonable. But then again, maybe not as interesting.

So maybe it’s appropriate that Mercury, the astrological planet that rules communication, will be going retrograde on March 30^th, meaning it will look like it’s going backward. Before it goes direct on April 23^rd, this planetary anomaly often causes networks to go offline, printers to jam, calls to be dropped, conversations to be misinterpreted, jokes to be taken as literal. And, as typical in this most-misaligned month, websites to go down, leaving you scowling at a post I wrote three weeks ago. But never fear; I have been plodding away behind the scenes, hard at work on a missive that more than likely, will be misinterpreted anyway.

 Ah, well, onto April!

Smooch!

Trudy.

Spring Break!

Why should I only leave it to my students? In the spirit of righting a great inequity, I’m allowing myself a breather, a time to rejuvenate, a stretch-of-the-limbs, a powder, until I have this winter behind me and I can once again indulge in this exercise after the Vernal Equinox. For the time being, I’m going to engage in all things literary–reading, writing, schmoozing–until the buds start bursting from the branches and the green comes creeping back ahhh…spring fever…I’ve got it bad. Must…go…indulge….

‘Til 22 March…

Trudy

Why do I keep watching The Academy Awards?

Why do I do subject myself to this exercise in megalomania every year? I mean, really, it’s four hours of marginal variety show already whiskered when Ed Sullivan was doing it, mediocre overarching hosts (though Anne Hathaway did give it the old school try, James Franco almost made me cut off my own arm), and after being spoiled by pay cable and Hulu, way, way too many commercials (though the Audi “Release the hounds” ad is bloody genius). Yet every year my heart goes pit-a-pat in anticipation of it and there I go, implanting my derriere firmly on the divan, eyes peeled to a now gloriously high-def screen, even while a chorus of Hollywood publicists chant a backbeat of sucka! Sucka! SUCKA!

Yeah, they’re right. But for someone whose favorite channel is Turner Classic Movies and who spends a not insignificant portion of her disposable income on first-run films, should this come as a surprise? I love the movies, every part of them, from their glamour and history, to their artiness and innovation, I’m hopelessly hooked, scanning Fandango for the latest ‘what’s playing,’  to keeping TV Guide‘s movie database bookmarked (it’s excellent, by the way). I’ve been to California, but I’ve yet to go to Hollywood, but when I do, I just know I’ll have a studio visit on my agenda. But what does that have to do with watching what is essentially bad television?

Even through in all my years of watching, I’ve yet to suffer the Red Carpet arrivals, though I do enjoy seeing what the stars will be wearing as they step on stage. Anne Hathaway must have still been orbiting in the afterglow of The Devil Wears Prada with all those gown and hairstyle switches, but who didn’t think Halle Berry looked fabulous, Hailee Steinfield was prettily age-appropriate, Nicole Kidman and Melissa Leo looked like they bought their gowns at Bed, Bath and Beyond, Helena Bonham Carter knows how to have fun, Kathryn Bigelow must have taken a page from Scarlett O’Hara’s pattern book when she made that gown on the ride over, and Russell Brand just looked downright scary?

And who didn’t get a tear in their eye when the In Memorium clip was playing? (That part always gets me.) Or get angry when Charles Ferguson, producer of Best Original Screenplay Winner, Inside Job, a story of the Wall Street meltdown of 2008, said, “not a single financial executive has gone to jail and that’s wrong.” I did, as well as when someone referred to the union-busting going on in Wisconsin, and Hollywood, a town composed of many union members, didn’t play that up for all it’s worth. A lost opportunity, and shameful.

But in the end, it’s the anticipation of the big winners that always gets me, and I end of rooting for my own favorite picture, which translates into what’s essentially my home team. I truly loved The King’s Speech, but I never thought it would win, being somewhat cerebral and quietly affecting. But it did win Best Picture, Tom Hooper, Best Director (“Triangle of man love”? – one of the more interesting quotes) and Colin Firth, Best Actor. So nice to get it right once in a while.

But the part that got to me the most, and why I really think I end up watching year after year, can be summed up by David Seidler said as he accepted the award for Best Original Screenplay for The King’s Speech. Pointing out that at 73, he’s the oldest person to ever win that particular award, “My father always said to me I would be a late bloomer. I hope that record is broken quickly and often.”

That’s it, precisely. It’s hope that gets to me. It’s its springing eternal, it’s if you work at something hard enough, that someday, maybe someday… sigh. And then, there’s always next year.

Smooch,

Trudy