Doctor Me

I have seen so many episodes or Grey’s Anatomy, I’m basically a doctor. Truly – med school is how many years? Because I bet I’ve spent that many hours watching Dr. McDreamy operate on brains. I admit, I probably need a bit of time in the OR if I’m going to cut, but that’s just the practical side. I’ve got the book learning covered thanks to my girl, Shonda. In fact, I know too much. One time my grandmother’s leg was very swollen. I convinced myself and the whole family that she had a rare condition known as compartment syndrome, a painful and dangerous condition caused by pressure buildup from internal bleeding. When her doctor returned our frantic weekend calls, she informed us that given the fact that my grandma had not experienced any recent traumas, this was very unlikely. Luckily for us, my grandmother’s compartment syndrome cleared itself right up and I never had to relieve the pressure with a kitchen-knife surgery. Grey’s has also taught me to beware that a runny nose can in fact be spinal fluid leaking through your face. I worry about paralysis every time I blow my nose…

Google and WebMD are the best and worst things to happen to hypochondriacs. First my mother and then my last therapist forbid me from visiting WebMD anymore, so I can’t say with certainty that this is still the case, but they used to have a “symptom checker” which was basically free online entertainment for me. The trouble was, no matter what I did, the symptom checker always gave me the same result: CANCER…

After my eldest child was born, I entered into what can only be described as an abusive relationship with his pediatrician. I had done ample research and selected the practice I was sure was the best of the best. The fact that they didn’t accept our insurance didn’t seem to phase me or my husband – only the best for our precious baby, after all! How much could a few doctor’s visits cost, anyway? Well, $7k later and trips to every pediatric specialist in the city revealed that despite my insistence (and Dr. Google), our son was healthy and thriving, and my neuroses, if left unchecked with this doctor, were going to lead to us taking out a second mortgage. You see, this pediatrician encouraged my irrational worries. When some late-night googling led me to believe that my son’s sleep-twitches were actually rare and dangerous seizures, she sounded the alarm bells and sent us on our way. When I worried that his circumcision had become infected, she agreed it looked red and called the surgeon. He was always fine. It took me a long time, but I was finally able to extricate myself from this unhealthy relationship.

Musical Theater Anxieties

You know that scene in The Sound of Music when Maria and Baron Von Trapp finally figure out and profess their love for one another? This could be my least favorite 5 minutes in all of film – and that’s saying something since S.O.M. is my favorite movie of all time (I’ve been to several dress-up-sing-along showings). Maybe it is because their chemistry is so real, or maybe it truly is just too sappy – but I feel physically uncomfortable during this scene, especially when watching with someone else. No one should be this close to such intimacy. But also, no two humans should ever keep eye-contact (without it eventually leading to hot sex) for this kind of prolonged period. It is healthy for no one…

The first time my husband kissed me was after we watched the ENTIRE Phantom of the Opera movie – that’s like a 2.5 hour film. Despite my slightly see-through top and very obvious body language during “All I Ask of You,” he didn’t work up the nerve until the credits had run…

Right after college when I was living in Washington D.C. for the first time, my 2008 Honda Civic was broken into. The robber broke the driver’s window and made a mess of the glove compartment. I expected to find the car stripped of anything of value that could be sold. However, after careful inventory, it was apparent that this thief took almost nothing at all. Except my pride and dignity. My CD collection had clearly been apprized, and it had been deemed too uncool to even steal, even though it would have taken absolutely no extra effort. It felt like I was back in high school, being judged and seen as the nerd I am. But at least I still have my showtunes…

Sometimes I play this incredibly stressful mind game with myself – it’s a Sophie’s Choice of sorts. I ask myself which genius is the greatest: Lin Manuel or Stephen Sondheim. This leads to some very uncomfortable questions and comparisons. I tell myself I only get to keep the music of one. What is the right answer?

Meg, Jo, Beth or Amy?

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been attracted to the literary or film characters that I’m not supposed to like. I first realized this preference in myself when I was very young. Rugrats was the show du jour in our house, and Angelica was my girl. I remember figuring out that I was supposed to root for Tommy, or maybe even nerdy Chucky. I’ll never forget the look in my mom and brother’s eyes when I admitted this taboo affiliation of mine – part “shit, she’s a sociopath” and part “I’m not surprised.” This unusual propensity of mine to empathize with the antagonist continued: Helga from “Hey Arnold!,” Cera from Land Before Time and the Baroness from Sound of Music. Despite what the world was telling me, I’ve never been ashamed of this personality trait. I admire the strong kickass female characters who are unapologetic in their quests for power, love and happiness. Interesting that these characters we’re supposed to hate are so often girls, huh?…

My mom would always fast forward scenes in movies where parents die. This was probably the right thing to do since my father died when I was 2.5 and I was riddled with separation anxiety, and sure my mom, too, would be taken. But it did cause me to be quite surprised when I eventually saw the entirety of Land Before Time, Bambi, and Lion King. The stories finally made a lot more sense…

My mother first read Little Women to me – an abridged version – when we were in Italy and I was very young. I fell in love with the March women and I’ve probably read the book 5 more times since. But I have a confession to make: I HATE Beth. Her goodness and selflessness (which, by the way, end up proving themselves completely uncaring of the people in her life who are most important to her since her actions ultimately lead to her death and their loss) irk me. The scene where she visits the sick Hummels is like nails on a chalkboard to me…

Greta Gerwig’s version of Amy finally capturs the Amy I’ve always related to – smart, calculating, able to work within the limitations of her time. She does not steal Laurie (or Europe) from Jo. She simply grows up, makes the most of the hand she’s been dealt, follows her heart and her passion, and gets the life she deserves. Much like her big sisters who are never derided for the ways in which they acquire life and love. Amy is not simply spoiled and beautiful. She’s so much more complicated than she gets credit for…

Physical Education

In high school we were required to participate in a sport. I chose tennis because it had the least amount of running – or movement of any kind the way I played. After running out of excuses to tell the head of the P.E. department as to why I couldn’t run the 4 laps around the court, I ended up relying on one tried-but-true one: “my ovaries hurt”…

P.E. is the only subject in school that I ever got less-than-excellent grades in. In elementary school the check marks ran in a straight line down the “excellent” column until abruptly jumping halfway across the page to “satisfactory” under gym class. In high school I nearly couldn’t graduate because of my incomplete in P.E. – but it wasn’t MY fault that theater rehearsals were scheduled for the same period. And I knew myself well enough to know in which subject I had the best chance at excelling…

Futhermore, I had been traumatized years earlier at my private K-8 school. Every year we were required to participate in some sort of state-wide physical health test, the most horrifying of which was the “fat test.” It’s one of my most painful memories. The entire class sat on the gymnasium floor watching as one after one we were called to the front where the P.E. teacher would measure our fat make-up with what can only be described as giant fat tweezers. My best friends were the thin, beautiful WASPs I always wanted to be, and I’m sure it surprised no one that these tweezers were able to gather much larger amounts of arm and thigh fat on me. And everyone saw. And the numbers were then quietly recorded by the teacher and send home in our report cards…

Runner-up in traumatic P.E. experiences was the mile run we had to participate in every year. I spent the entire year dreading this day. The walk with my class down to the park along Lake Shore Drive felt like a death march. Most kids easily ran around the track, finishing in under 10 min. Then there were those kids cool and confident enough not to care – they walked. And then there was me, trying my best to keep up, circling the totem pole ever so slowly, dreading each step.

Quotidien Antisemitisms

When people say CHallah bread…

At my WASPY elementary school, I accidentally bumped into my academic nemesis as we lined up at the door. He turned around, looked me in the eyes and said ‘Jews have the knack of getting on my nerves.’ We were in 3rd grade. I wonder how he learned a phrase like that…

This Chanukah House decorating kit which my friend saw at the grocery store, 3 weeks before Thanksgiving, amongst the undiscerning ‘holiday’ kitsch…

The giant White House menorah pretending it can compete with the glorious National Christmas Tree…

When I was little we lived next door to a lovely elderly Filipino couple. One day while we were out for a walk, the old lady said to my mother “Oh you Jew because you have big nose.”

In college, people would ask my roommate and me if we were sisters. All the time. We look nothing alike. But we do look Jewish. Our noses, by the way, are big in entirely different ways…

“The Seck”

“The Seck”

Parents and families have all sorts of weird names for their genitalia. Sometimes these monikers come about organically based on the funny way a child pronounced “vagina” or “testicle.” Sometimes parents are too uncomfortable with the scientific names for body parts and succumb to “pee pee.” A friend of a friend’s family called vaginas “va-jizzles,” which honestly does not seem different or cute enough to warrant its own word. When my cousin was little he noticed his testicles looked like a flying squirrel. But my favorite epithet was invented by the daughter of my best friend. After staring at her mother for a while she asked “Mommy, why do you have a hairy front-butt?”…

I had trouble with the word for underarm when I was young – I tended to conflate armpit and underarm. I sometimes still call it my “under pit”…

When my family visited Italy I had just learned that boys and girls had different parts. I was fascinated by the mechanics of what my 3-year-old brother could do. We were staying in a beautiful old villa. On the top floor I discovered several small, round, and very low windows. What else could they be for, I wondered? I made my brother pee out these tiny windows on several occasions until my mother discovered it. To this day I have no idea what these small windows could be…

Recently while discussing the role of the sperm and the egg with my 6-year-old — science he has been aware of since I was pregnant with his younger brother – my son asked me “but HOW does the sperm get to the egg? How does the daddy get it in the mommy?” Now, I don’t believe we need to tiptoe around issues of biology with our children and I was prepared for this question. I answered as simply and honestly as I could. There was a long silence. I thought maybe I had been wrong, maybe this traumatized my poor, innocent boy. Finally he said “Can astronauts have ‘the seck’ in outer space?”

Traditions

At Passover every year someone in the family quietly places a spoon on their nose. A cousin, or an aunt sees this and quickly follows suit. Soon, we are involved in an unspoken, but-never-the-less extremely cutthroat competition until my grandfather has had enough of the sacrilege and cries “Dayenu!”…

My grandmother has cooked every meal – every Thanksgiving turkey, Passover brisket, birthday apple pie – in this tiny wall oven that they’ve had since building the house in the 1950s. She only recently allowed a microwave into her house. But the shame is so great one must venture to the back of the hall closet where the microwave is hidden behind the hanging laundry in order to pop some popcorn – or God forbid, reheat the chicken Marbella…

Every year someone brings chocolate turkeys to Thanksgiving. I’m not sure how this started or why the tradition is kept up since I’ve never actually seen anyone eat said turkeys…

When I was little there were several cousins and somewhat-removed family members who would periodically escape to the front porch of my grandparents’ house during holiday celebrations to smoke together. It smelled bad and I knew from school that smoking was bad for you. One Thanksgiving I accidentally stumbled upon my cousin, Fran Lebowitz, who was about to light up. She looked me in my adolescent eyes and offered me a smoke. I’ve been scared of her ever since…

My grandmother, who by all accounts is a gourmet cook, loves to please her grandchildren’s less-refined palates. Every year she brings us great joy when she brings out the little hot dogs we so adore. These tiny wieners, smothered in grape jelly and mustard, stay warm for hours because of this wonderful chaffing dish, which I still think is so cool.

Fancy Footware

When I was little my mother would not let me get a pair of sparkly Mary Janes. Even though I knew they were the most elegant shoes on earth, she thought they were tacky. I think most of my neuroses stem from this egregious affront…

Certainly my attraction to anything glittery is due to these beautiful Mary Janes that I never got to wear…

When I was a little girl my mom made me a rule – before leaving the house I had to remove one piece of jewelry. My daughter will never be subject to such fascist policy…

For Maddy’s 2nd birthday, she got everything I never had but always wanted as a child. It was the very best birthday of my life. I finally have a playhouse, a baby doll stroller (a realistic one, NOT the silly plastic one of my youth), several sets of dangly clip-on earrings, and finally, sparkly Mary Janes…

Pretty Pretty Princess is an underrated and forgotten board game. In college my roommates and I had a PPP party. It was a success…

Eloise could be the single most influential literary character in my life. My fashion sense, my attitude – not to mention my body type – are thanks to this spunky 6-year-old…Also – Eloise worse a pair of black patent leather Mary Janes. These my mom approved of, and I had several pairs in different sizes.

Christmas Angst

I am in a bad mood from the day after Halloween (3 weeks before Thanksgiving!) when I walk into Starbucks to hear Feliz Navidad and Eggnog lattes on the menu. Christmas season, which has grown in length over my 30 years, is rife with anxiety for me…

As the only Jew in my class at my WASPy private school growing up, I thought it was totally normal that all kids sang extremely religious songs at Christmas time. I never thought anything of it until my mom made a big stink about her Jewish children singing about “Jesus Christ our savior” in the “holiday” choral concert. She went straight to the principal to demand religious music be avoided since we attended a secular school. Instead, the Norwegian music teacher who I’m pretty sure had never met any Semitic person in his life, added “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel” to the repertoire, but kept the songs about “our Lord, J.C.,” thinking that this evened the playing field. Instead, during rehearsals, my classmates would glare at me when we practiced that stupid, simple Hanukkah song, thrown in among the beautiful, complicated Christmas tunes. And I spent every rehearsal lip-syncing words about Jesus Christ being my savior, so that my God would not strike me dead…

In 3rd grade, after years of being forced to sit on Santa’s lap at school, I finally stood my ground. When it was my turn, I walked to the front of the class, and when Santa patted his lap and asked what I wanted for X-mas, I yelled in his face “I’m Jewish!” and slowly walked bacl to my seat. None of the goyim in the room knew what to do with that…

My absolute favorite think about Christmas is the Magi and creche scene that Loyola University sets up along Sheridan Rd in Chicago every year. The Magi start off very far from the manger scene, and every day move just a little bit closer. I love to think about the person whose job it is to move these Wise Men…

My sophomore year of high school, we were given the assignment to write a horror story. It was around Christmastime. I’ve never understood why parents would want their kids to sit on the lap of a strange old man. In my story a Santa at a mall would become aroused by the little girls on his lap. After becoming obsessed with one in particular, he broke into her home and murdered her with the sharpened tip of a candy cane.

I’m worried my therapist hates me

Usually I dress up to go to therapy. It’s important that my therapist doesn’t think I’m as big of a mess as I am. Plus, her shoes are always so cute – she’d clearly judge my Uggs-and-pajama-pants look, no matter how chic it may be…

I hate the box of tissues at my therapist’s office. They sit there taunting me trying to get me to cry-which I’m desperately trying not to do. I don’t want my therapist to think I’m too neurotic, after all. Also, I’m not a pretty cryer. I bet she is.

I wonder if she knows that I’ve spent hours googling her, that I know her husband’s political leanings, her maiden name, and her synagogue…

Have you ever been in a therapist’s office that does not have an orchid? A white one of course. Those fuchsia ones are just too upsetting.