Author Archives: arlynnpresser

July 14, 2011

love, fame, money–the max tam dilemma and f2fb friend #172 kristen jasinski

By arlynnpresser

fame is a great motivator.  no less a philosopher than f2fb friend #45 max tam, when offered by me a choice of love, fame or money, opined that he desired fame first, because the money would follow and, well, the women would make a hasty entrance.

sometimes people are enormously famous in their lifetimes and then fall into obscurity.  i think of the duchess of newcastle, a greatly popular writer whose works nobody could now name (okay, okay, send me an email with three of her works and i’ll buy you a beer!).  there’s girolamo savonarola who singlehandedly changed western europe in 1500 and then poof!  it’s as if he never existed.  and then there are those people who aren’t widely known in their lifetimes but come to represent an age–emily dickinson would be surprised that she is now famous.

greta kempton was famous in her lifetime as a celebrated portraitist.  she was commissioned to do the official portrait of president harry truman, the first female artist to be so honored.

harry truman's portrait by greta kempton

but then greta passed on.  many of her works were bequethed to the harry truman library and that’s where my f2fb friend #172 kristen jasinski comes in.  she and her husband wesley bought the bulk of the collection.  their house is full of greta’s paintings:

kristen and wesley believe so much in the value of greta’s work that they have formed a foundation and a website — gretakempton.org — to preserve and enhance her stature as “america’s da vinci”.  kristen is a docent for the organization.  as she took me on a tour of the house, i noticed this greta kempton self-portrait on the artist’s palette:

with a champion such as f2fb friend kristen jasinski, greta will become once again a famous painter.   so kristen is a good friend to me and a good friend to greta kempton!

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July 13, 2011

fearless means flexible

By arlynnpresser

the call came just as i was settling down with a book and a late afternoon cookie.  i had resolved that there was no further reason for me to engage in the world–except in a fictional sense.  the relief, the sweet sigh, the gratitude that i didn’t have to go out anymore.

sure, i am falling a little behind on my facebook new year’s resolution.  it was day 193 of the year and i have only visited with 170 friends.  if i’m going to meet the goal of 335 friends who had been my friends as of january one, i had to be more disciplined.  but one day, one sweet day of being a shut in. . . . .

then i got the call from todd stephens.  at first i ignored it.  not because i was avoiding him.  or disliked him.  it’s just i knew what he wanted.  he wanted a f2fb encounter.

the conditions were right–sunny, hot, and a light breeze coming across lake michigan.

“we’re leaving in twenty minutes,”  he said in the voice message he left.  “hope you can make it.”

people like me, people who hide from the world, don’t like a change in plans.   especially when they’re wearing their pajamas and are planning a “safe” evening at home.  but flexibility is the thing i have been trying to learn this year.

i threw on some pants, found my keys, and arrived at f2fb friend #171 todd stephen’s home just in time.

todd is an adventurer.  exactly my age, he cycles, skis, climbs and runs.  but his greatest joy is boating.  he has three.  today we would sail on the sailacious.  losing just one i gives you a pretty good idea of todd’s sense of humor.  the boat has been todd’s for fourteen years.  oddly, the right to the slip at wilmette harbor is the more valuable item—there is a 78 year waiting list.  we brought with us a mutual friend and fellow rotarian chuck taylor who served as first mate.

as we pulled out onto the lake, i realized i had forgotten my ativan (for anxiety), my inhaler (for asthma), and a life vest.  the coast guard was nowhere to be seen.  todd and chuck unfurled the jib and main sail without the slightest concern for killer fish or spontaneous water spouting up from the depths.  in fact, they looked like they were having fun–trading jokes, imbibing in a brewskie.  i relaxed, i even allowed as how i could steer.

the weather turned cold, the clouds rolled in, the coast guard boat–sirens bleating–sped past us on some mission not directly related to rescuing me.  i didn’t mind.  i had a good time.  at the house, we shook hands and promised to do this again sometime.

i still got my book.  my cookie.  my pajamas.  i still closed the door on the world.  but i did it four hours later, after having a wonderful time on the lake.  my first time as a sailor.  thanks, todd, for teaching me something new!  although i still don’t know the difference between port and starboard and jib and main sail.

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July 12, 2011

the cinderella of winnetka

By arlynnpresser

this cinderella is NOT my facebook friend!

my f2fb friend #170 carol hansen is a real life cinderella!  she tells everyone that it is so and everyone believes her.  carol was a single mother living in a small apartment in winnetka, sewing and designing dresses for village matrons to support her daughters.  then she met her prince–a recently divorced winnetka father.  bluntly, she wanted to marry him.  equally blunt in his declarations, he was not interested in remarriage.

but without the help of a fairy godmother, carol set about her seduction in the most creative fashion.  once, she planned a birthday party a deux in which she donned the uniform she had worn as a flight attendant in her twenties.  she made him comfortable in first class seating.  brought out dinner on a tray and showed an inflight movie about their destination of aruba.

carol and i first met each other when we volunteered on behalf of the winnetka community house.  carol has moved to volunteering more on behalf of political causes including planned parenthood funding.  she is always conscious of the struggles of young women.

we share a special bond because when she was young, she was pregnant and gave up her child for adoption.  that daughter has recently come back into her life.  we share our perspectives on adoptive children reconnecting with parents.  it’s difficult to blend our past with our present and future selves.

lunch with cinderella wouldn’t be the same without the crown–so i brought two and let myself believe in the princess inside of me.

i admire carol so much and she was so supportive of my new years resolution.  she is a cinderella who is grateful for what she has and for what she can give to others.  i want to be more like carol!

i found this glass slipper on my front porch the next morning!

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July 11, 2011

facebook friends change me

By arlynnpresser

i could not have done this in january.  this project has changed me.  i am transformed by every friend i meet just a little bit at a time.  this was a change that has taken six months of this project to come about!  i am grateful every day for my facebook friends.

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July 10, 2011

when family is facebook

By arlynnpresser

i had one day in new york city and instead of meeting with a facebook friend i saw my half sister casey (f2fb #31) and my son joseph (f2fb #61).  putting them together,  i was surprised to figure out that they hadn’t actually seen each other in fifteen years.  part of the reason is that i haven’t been good about travel and so i’ve not cultivated a “let’s hop on a plane and visit the relatives” sort of relationship to my family.

but part of it also is that my father (justin, f2fb #30) and my mother aleta put me up for adoption when i was three.  the patricks raised me and the theory at the time was that an adoptive family should do all in its power to erase a child’s memory of any previous life.  my clothes were changed on the day of the final handover.  i didn’t get to take my favorite stuffed animal.  my name was changed.   and i’m not sure how i came to understand that i would never again see my parents.

f2fb friend #88 helped me go through all the yearbooks of the university of chicago for the five years before and five years after my birth looking for young married students.  why?  i overheard mrs. patrick tell a neighbor that one of the adoption agency caseworkers told her that i was the daughter of two graduate students there.  i went to the cook county recorder of deeds and tried to get a birth certificate and was told that when you’re adopted, even as late as three years old, your certificate is revised to reflect the adoptive family details.

i found my biological family using a private detective.  the meeting between my father’s family and me seemed promising.  the one between me and my mother less so.  in both cases, though, there is a strong presumption that i am not really part of the family and yet i am.  there is some sort of provisional aspect to it.

after dinner, joseph and i walked to central park and i apologized–as i sometimes have–about my not being able to give him a robust and affectionate group of family members.  then he reminded me that the eastman family–of which he now has aunt susan, aunt julie, aunt clare, and uncle mike–has been that part of his life.  and their parents–dick and vivian–hosted us for thanksgiving, christmas and other holidays.  eastman, my younger son, is named not so much for any one member of the eastman family but for all of them.

i really hope that this facebook project brings casey and joseph closer together.  when they parted, casey suggested they hang out together sometime.  i hope they do!

then it was time to get on a plane.  the boy scouts suggested a bit of a dare.

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July 10, 2011

but did i get the job on jerseylicious!?

By arlynnpresser

the train from boston to new york was meant to be a four hour haul but it was five and it deposited me into the hell that is owned by satan.  oh, whoops, michael bloomberg.  new york at six o’clock rush hour, one hundred degrees, rain with a brisk wind of brimstone and sulfur.  the boy scouts benjamin and brandon trailing behind me with their cameras and cases and tripod.  i met up with my son joseph and the quintet found a quiet spot at a QUIET italian restaurant on 55th and 9th avenue to await the arrival of f2fb friend #169 steve ware.

by quiet, i mean the volume was set at eleven.  new yorkers are loud people, pushy people, excitable people.  they crowd up against each other and there’s little time for extended conversational openers like “excuse me” or “sorry i stepped on your foot”. . .  i spent three minutes being polite and figured it wasn’t getting me anywhere.  none of these people would last five minutes in kearney, missouri or cedar rapids, iowa or even morgantown, west virginia–places i’ve logged on this new years resolution.

i first met steve ware at a movie shoot that my younger son eastman was part of.  eastman was just ten and steve watched out for him on the set when i wasn’t available.  we have kept up over the years through emails and facebook but not so much in person.

steve and a young friend. he calls the picture "when former self meets future self" i think it's the coolest profile picture ever!

the waitress asked me if we were doing a movie because of all the equipment the boy scouts, brandon and ben, were hauling.  i allowed as how i was sort of gonna being doing a, well, a “reality thang” which isn’t a bad way to describe two guys following me around making a documentary about my new years resolution.  i mentioned that steve ware is working on the show jerseylicious, the scorching hot series about a beauty salon in new jersey.  (i should put in a plug here for the show if i expect to be invited to be part of the cast, shouldn’t i?)

i didn’t put up any objection when she asked if she might seat us in the v.i.p. area.  which was a good 3% quieter.

RECIPE FOR GETTING YOURSELF A VIP TREATMENT:

1.  RENT FRIENDS IN CASUAL DRESS WITH LOADS OF CAMERA GEAR.  THEY MUST WEAR CARGO SHORTS AND I WOULD SHOOT THEM UP WITH FRAPPUCINOS BEFOREHAND.  JUST FOR THAT VIBE.  (a clipboard isn’t a bad add-on)

2.  HAVE THEM PUT THAT CAMERA LENS ON YOU.  IGNORE THEM.  TRY TO ORDER.  PUSH THE CAMERA LENS AWAY.  WAVE YOUR HANDS IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE.  LOOK POUTY.

3.  ****GUARANTEED*** WAITRESS WILL ASK “UH, ARE YOU WITH . . . ?”  THIS IS AN IMPORTANT MOMENT:

4.  BE VAGUE.  VERY VAGUE.  DREDGE UP EVERY REALITY SHOW YOU KNOW (GLAM FAIRIES?  SISTER WIVES?  JERSEY SHORE IN ITALY????) AND PEOPLE (SPIELBERG, FOR EXAMPLE, YOUR COUSIN’S LAST NAME ENDS WITH BERG.  THAT’S PRETTY GOOD)

5.  AGREE (RELUCTANTLY–WATCH THAT CHAMPAGNE TABLE STUFF) TO GO TO THE VIP TABLE AND WORK ON YOUR POSTURE:  NOSE SLIGHTLY TILTED UPWARD.  THIS IS KEY BUT I DON’T THINK I’M AS GOOD AS ALL THAT.

steve ware has a particular gift of getting himself into car accidents–and i asked him about that:

steve has battled back from an incredible health crisis and yet he’s managed it with grace, patience and good humor.  and yes, he’s now working on jerseylicious.

i think steve and i agree that everybody should be the stars of their own reality series.  maybe it’s not filmed.  maybe it’s not on a cable channel.  but it’s you.  you are the central character of your own life!!!!!  you are not just watching baseball, you play it.  you are not wanting to be glam, you get it.  you take adventures, you are the star of your  own life,

however, i’m sorry because this is advice from someone who isn’t there yet.  we left the cafe and the rain had become a gentle sweet smelling cloak.  the commuters had scurried off, the tourists were in their hotel beds with visions of fifth avenue bargains dancing through their heads.  the moon was just one of the twinkling lights overhead.  i smiled in what i hoped was a most charming way and asked f2fb friend #169 if i had a shot at getting on jerseylicious.

he said i don’t have big enough hair.

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July 10, 2011

i’m late! i’m late! for a very important date–my son’s college tour with f2fb friend #168

By arlynnpresser

 

 

 

 

 

 

from rhode island, i got on a commuter train to boston.  a short trip but an important one.  i was meeting a f2fb friend for the first time.  f2fb friend #168 mary mcmanus had worked with my son joseph on a film documenting her struggle with post polio syndrome.  mary had found the strength to run the boston marathon despite her health setbacks and she wanted to share the struggle with others so that someone somewhere, even just one person, could overcome their own struggles with courage they absorb from mary’s story.  the movie is “keeping the pace: the mary mcmanus story” and you can see it at http://marymcmanus.com/journey

just as joseph learned about mary in making the movie, mary learned something about joseph.  i had never visited him on campus.  it’s the sort of thing a mom is supposed to do–go to parent’s weekend or at least pick him up from campus in june or drop him off at the dorms in september.  i felt ashamed and so i was great at coming up with excuses but bluntly, i was too scared.  so mary gave me a gift two years after joseph’s graduation:  a college tour.

she showed me the dorm where he lived, the sandwich shop where he would get his late night snacks, the classrooms and the student union.  then i saw a church.  and i pulled out my camera.  we were such fast friends that we were making something we thought was funny!

of course, later that night, when i had taken the four/five hour train from boston to new york, joseph said “mom, i actually did go to church every week for at least the first two years of college”. . . . i felt like a jerk.

i share a lot with mary:  we’re both mothers, we’re both rotarians, we both have hit the glorious age of fifty (although it’s a little more fresh for me).  she has done amazing things with her life in the face of medical adversity.  i want to be the positive woman that she is!  maybe in my new years eve project, she’s f2fb friend #168, but she is truly a friend not just on facebook!

onward to new york, to see facebook friend steve ware.  i haven’t seen him in ten years and i am a little nervous because he works on the hit show jerseylicious.  i hope to persuade him that i would make a great addition to the cast.

before i left rhode island, i was reminded of my cousin meg showing me this picture in the train station.  she said it was the building over which superman flew in the christopher reeve movie.  she and her husband call it the doopyman building, not because they can’t pronounce the word superman but because my oldest son joseph couldn’t pronounce the world.  superman ice cream–a mix of  cherry, blue raspberry and orange, was his favorite–or doopyman ice cream was his favorite when he was four years old.

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July 9, 2011

pippa’s papers and the art of forgiveness

By arlynnpresser

i was extremely nervous about seeing f2fb friend #167 meg kafalas for two reasons.  i had flown into new york the day before and from there took the acela express amtrak train.  i hadn’t seen her in twenty years.  what if i didn’t recognize her?

but as the escalator wafted me up to the providence, rhode island station waiting room, i saw a diminutive woman.  sleek black hair.  bright red lipstick.  capri pants and a sweater worn with the sort of chic that only the french and my cousin meg kafalas could pull off. 

“you look exactly the same,”  i said.  well, except that she wore adorable needlepoint slippers instead of her once favorite black ribbon ferragamos.

 

we got in her car and she gave me a tour of providence which was a decidedly short tour because providence is a town decidedly short on real estate.  we decamped to her store pippa’s papers which sells chic stationery–it’s motto is “your own initials are enough” and you can shop there at pippaspapers.com

we had first met twenty five years ago when i found my biological father justin (f2fb friend #30) and my grandfather fritz leiber.  i was very interested in meeting every family member, so fritz gave me the address of a cousin betty who lived in chicago.  i wrote to her.  i got a call from her daughter meg. .  . . .

“hi, i’m your second cousin once removed,” she said.  “and i have some bad news.  you wrote to my mother, but she died before the letter was delivered.”

meg’s mother and father died within months of each other.  we became close but i little realized how their deaths devastated her.  to me and to others, she presented a “facebook profile picture” that was confident, cheerful and chic.  but when she was alone, she struggled.  at one point, she went away and we lost touch.  it was only because of facebook that we came together.

i apologized to her at lunch for not having been more help.  i always thought she didn’t need any.  i never saw beyond her profile picture.  and she forgave me with a generous heart.  she has become the very happy person she was meant to be.  nobody gets to jump very high if their feet haven’t hit the floor.

then we went to pick out stationery.  i have a lot of thank you notes to write–to people who have been so kind to see me, people who have encouraged me, people who have sympathized when i have faltered. 

every single day this year, i have had 1) a technical problem and 2) a geography lesson.  my technical problem is i can’t upload pictures i took of rhode island so just imagine a charming quaint little state and several pictures of meg and me.  my geography lesson?  that’s what i call it when i get lost. 

let’s see me make it from rhode island to boston and then to new york–

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July 7, 2011

what do you most want to do when you grow up?

By arlynnpresser

benjamin gonzalez had his birthday yesteryday.

and instead of spending it in chicago with his beloved wife marissa and their eighteen month old desmond, he spent it charging out to new york as part of the first leg of my f2fb trip to see facebook cousin megan, first time ever in person facebook friend mary, and steve ware, who is a camera operator for jersey shore.

my new years resolution is the same:  i sat in my house in front of the computer and decided i will go out and meet every one of my 324 facebook friends.  by the next morning, i had eleven new friend requests and i’ve honored those.  i have to meet those 335 friends in their home turf, or wherever they suggest (thank you brian brethauer for directing me to san diego two weeks from now for the science fiction convention!).  i have become a lot better at getting on planes, getting out of the house, getting where i need to go.

upside:  i have learned so much about people–mostly, that everybody thinks they’re odd and some are even ashamed of that oddness, but that–really–there is so much room for normal.  and i’m sort of within range.

downside:  i have gained six pounds.  i feel quite like a snuffaluffagus!

ben has a job that he has set for himself, which is to create a film–almost like making a painting of what i’m doing.  like i said, yesterday was his birthday.  i felt kind of bad that he’d be with me instead of with his family.  but he said this project–which is to say, his project–is exactly what he has always wanted to do.  i asked ben’s assistant director brandon what he wanted to do if he could do any job.  and brandon said “i’m doing it”. . .

the weird thing is even though i’m scared sometimes and sometimes i think my new years resolution is stupid, i’m doing the thing i most want to do–i think i might like to do this when i grow up?

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July 5, 2011

this is the scariest video i’ve posted so far!

By arlynnpresser

the scariest clip ever!  and not just because we talk about ted bundy type episodes.  this is something i’ve been sitting on for two weeks and am only just now realizing i can’t weasel out of. 

benjamin gonzalez is f2fb friend #140 and his wife marissa durbin is f2fb friend #141.  marissa has been following the progress of my new years resoution and when i suggested a get together she was hardly surprised.  i knew ben initially through his uncle laurence who is a photographer and did some (ahem!) portraits of me, one of which hangs in his house.  i happen to have forgotten to wear clothes that day.  that forgetfulness doesn’t happen very often but it does make an impression.  marissa and ben have an adorable eighteen month and ben is so in love with marissa that when he talks about her it’s a little like listening to a twelve year old talking about the aphrodite of the eighth grade class.

i went to dinner at their home.  marissa and i chatted.   ben might have been somewhat baffled that our talk kept circling back to facebook.  when marissa excused herself to put on the lipstick for a video, ben allowed as how he hadn’t expected that an old friend would haul off and play wedding party videographer.  that’s when i explained my new years resolution.

now, ben has been in the film business for quite some time. most of that time he has worked for strata entertainment (you can see their stuff at http://strataproductions.net) their focus is real life events recreated in a manner to challenge the filmgoer. 

i believe that letting ben document what i’m doing will help me finish my new years resolution.  i am grateful every single day for the help my facebook friends give me, whether it’s meeting with me, driving me to another friend’s house, playing chaperone, making me dinner, helping me get an advance on a line of credit on my house to pay travel expenses, introducing me to their family, tellling me i had a good impact on their life at some point, or sending me a gps system (which is in the mail) or a lucky charm such as william clark or the hedgehog.   i’ve twice had f2fb friends lay hands and pray over me.  i’ve been stunned by friends opening their homes and hearts to me. 

ben, on the other hand, made me feel so anxious that i bought a bottle of as good as i could afford and i sat down on the couch and drank it to the last drop.  when i woke up, i figured if i get to pursue my determined, eccentric dream–i gotta let ben work on his.  he and his crew are like a bunch of boy scouts working on that eagle badge. 

tomorrow, i get on the plane for new york.  then a train to rhode island.  then to boston.  back to new york.  home again.  and right back out to california (again!).  i sure hope the boy scouts stay on their side of the plane to new york.  i need my space to have my little freak out.

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