Hi!

Whoever you are, you wrote to me tonight at laurie@lauriegraff.com. You expected I'd get your email. But you couldn't have imagined that AOL would eat it. If you have any doubts about this just read my my post called Uh-Oh-L HELL from Wednesday, April 05, 2006.

Anyway, as always, my website mail ended up in my AOL spam folder with another. I highlighted the email above it to delete as it was something unmistakenly spamlike: ychtldsfft@givemeyourmoney.com. But the mouse must have slid over yours too. I remember reading "ditterman" had sent email from lauriegraff.com website. I felt excited to open it, but before I could blink it got deleted. On AOL, deleted spam is forever lost.

The senior tech people who host my website are looking for your email now, but do not think they still have it. Will you please write back?

I hope you are reading this instead of assuming I have ignored your mail.

Thank you for reading and writing!

Laurie

So this is how fast things happen. I go swing dancing last night on the Pier. Remember that? The entry about the motel down there the last time I swung? Well, believe it or not that was a year ago. The year has flown. It's sped by.

I dance with a guy. A good dancer. Great. He spins me. Fast, really really fast. I hold on tight, because if I let go I can fall. We spin. Too fast, too fun.

He monopolizes my dance card. It's okay! Suddenly the band is done. The Moondance is over. He offers to drive me home. We grab a bite, he walks me home. A few hours ago I didn't even know him. Now he asks me out. It happens fast.

Tonight he asks if I want to cycle. He's got a bicycle built for two. A Tandem. It goes fast, he says. Am I afraid of speed?

Yes, I tell him. I am. Downhill skiing, sleds, bicycles, cars, and maybe kissses. For speedy kisses lead to speedy relationships that have the faster fastest beginnings, middles, and ends.

Except I don't tell him that part. I plan to enjoy this ride. I plan to travel at my designated speed limit. Naturally gaining momentum and coming up to speed.

Okay, so I've been kind of interested in the View stuff. And way more than mildly, that's for sure. I looked everything up online and then watched the video that said, WATCH THE FULL FIGHT.

WOA! I had not seen the whole thing. I see why Rosie left. The producers exploited the moment. As if it was the moment they'd been waiting for. The cat fight. And sadly the one who was fighting was Elisabeth. From the get-go. All throughout Joy's talk. She wouldn't shut up.

Now I can't imagine what it would be like to sit at a table and be the only BLUE Democrat. But it's still unbelievable to me that she feels there is right and worthiness to Bush and his administration and that her yak yak yak will prove her point. I wonder if in private she doesn't. Maybe it's just her image. Who knows, to be bright RED could even be in her contract! Ludicrous as it is to defend him, it must be hard for her. But I'm not sympathetic.

She was looking to create a personal fight with Rosie. And this week to see her at the table and Rosie gone is as unfair as to see Clinton up for impeachment instead of Bush; Bush in the White House instead of Gore. In some ways that table's a metaphor for America. The stupid girl got to stay while the person everyone seemed to identify with left because she could not play in the dirty, deceptive sandbox.

Rosie will be fine. She'll do her own show her own way. People like Elisabeth go on their merry clueless way. Joy, hats off, manages to say everything she wants while keeping her nose clean. But since Joy and Rosie are politcally aligned, it became apparent just how personal it was for Elisabeth. She wanted to give it to Rosie.

If you asked her today I think she'd say she really gave it. But between you and me, I think she got it!

Good!

So Rosie never came back! I wrote about it all ending with her departure in three weeks. Try three hours! She quit. Or whatever happened. But I doubt they quit her. She brought the ratings sky-high. She wore shoes to the table that will not be easy to fill. If I thought the show would plummet after Meredith's exit I really wonder just what will happen now.

But the lessons learned for me are:

• If you bring in money you have power
• Contract/Shontract! Things happened and it ended early
• Things happen and things change

I had contracts last year that ended. Iron-clad contracts on both ends, with a publisher and with a lawyer, that locked me in. Except now... I'm out. Don't ask! (Yes, I know. The reason my blog is not juicey is because I will not explain why.) :)

But today is Memorial Day. And while many people are out having fun, partying and barbequing, I'm home. Working. Writing my next book. Shiksa Syndrome. Because I want to sell so many copies that when it comes to contracts I, too, will have the power to make 'em and break 'em.

A guy I was dating this year said if there were no religions there would be no wars. Except that's not true. People like to fight. They fight about differences, and the context is surely not always religion based.

Watching the news today I learned of Rosie O'Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck's cat-fight on the air. What a VIEW. Even got to see a clip. I think it's a tough spot for Elisabeth. The underdog. Because she can't hold her own at that table. And it's between a cringe and a good time to watch.

I don't think like Elisabeth. In fact, I find it hard to believe that Elisabeth still thinks like Elisabeth. In the privacy of her own home is she really, truly defending everything Republican? Is she still behind Bush? The war? Abortion? It's hard to believe. But I'm not going to go there. I pray everyday, come next year, the Democrats will be taking us away from there. To a place much better, far away from the one we're at now. However, it's interesting.

Interesting she defends it all and so passionately. That the White House has invited her to dinner. She is a SURVIVOR, for sure. But it brings a question to mind about limits. And how to survive in a world, a country that now appears to be without them.

Everyone can be found every second of the day. Anyone can blog. There is way too much information, a definite lack of privacy, and no boundaries. Now we can see how this culture has blurred the boundaries on television. From the clear boundaries created by a scripted show, moving into a talk show, morphing into a somewhat improvised talk show, it has the potential to evolve into a schoolyard. Of fighting girls. The big fat bully picking on the innocent little blonde. Tho I never think of it like that, that's how Rosie stated it on TV, and I know she is right.

But what's most curious, is why do we care? Do we tune in to watch this, or do we watch this because there is nothing else to tune into? Will we ever again be able to turn on the television, for just unreality? Entertainment? Even this "entertainment" is reality. Who needs it? Do we have to know what everyone thinks about everything? Where is the line between personal and professional?

I don't agree with Elisabeth about much, but I feel for the position she's in. And though my opinions tend to jive with everyone else at that table I don't know how I would fare if invited to discuss a few hot topics. Though I tell you, I had my doubts when Rosie started last fall, but she gave everyone a year to remember. She is a force. She is herself. And when it all ends in the next three weeks, I bet everyone, even Elisabeth, will miss her... feud, fights and all.

I just had my worst break-up yet. Because it wasn't with a guy. It was with a girl.

No! I am not bi-sexual. I haven't met a prince but it hasn't sent me swimming the other way. This was a friend.

It's funny how we use that word. We use it about men we date and sleep with but aren't our "real boyfriends." We use it about kids we grew up with. We use it about colleagues when relationships extend past the office. The word is often casually thrown around. But when you have a real friendship you know it. And it's to be valued.

Mine apprarently was not what I thought. I don't feel she was really my friend. In her last e-mail she told me she loved me and hoped we would stay friends. I have a tip for anyone reading. If you have a relationship you feel worth keeping, should a problem with that person arise try something archaic like talking about it with them on the phone. Or, godforibid, meet for coffee to discuss it in person. At worst take a pen and a piece of paper and write a letter. Stamps now cost 39 cents, a bargain to get your words read these days.

But...

Under no circumstances EVER choose to let it all pour it, no holds barred, in an email. And if you do something like that either print it out to read to yourself or press delete. You have to have your head examined if you press send.

Because if you press send I can only think:
A) You did not have your head examined, or
B) You wanted to end the friendship

Hence:
C) She was not my friend. (see above)

I am glib here, but believe me I am sad. I liked this person. I believed in her. This was not the first time she acted out but I thought we had moved forward from that. I thought her trustworthy, I thought her ability to see and preserve the big picture was bigger than hurt feelings that could have been met with compassion and processed if they were presented in the first place. But I thought wrong.

I'd never been on the receiving end of such a vitriolic rampage. When I watched Alec Baldwin defend himself on the View this week for doing that on voicemail to his daughter I had a better idea of what had gone down. Of course the point is it's not our business what he says to his daughter. I can't imagine going on national television to discuss this mishigos about my friend.

People come into our lives for a season, a reason, or a lifetime. I'll understand better in time. The good parts were good. The apology that arrived five days later could sadly not compensate. Besides, it apologized for the behavior but basically opted to condone it. Different folks for different strokes. That stroke is toxic for me. I hope she will learn to adjust the lever that goes off the Richter scale when her buttons are pushed so the real feelings and problems can be dealt with. Instead they get bypassed because of the newer problem created by the anger. I am sorry for the confusion that pushed her buttons. I would have sorted it out in heartbeat. But then most conflicts are rarely about what happened. They are about a dynamic. Ours apparently was not a healthy one.

When a door closes another one opens. I closed two this April. One with a guy, a door that just closed easily behind us. And this one that slammed into my face before nailing itself shut. Now I am in the hallway looking at more closed doors. And all I have to do is keep living and a brand new one will invite me in.

And my umbrella just broke.

More than a year ago I was downtown caught in a downpour and went into Bed, Bath, and Beyond to buy the biggest and best umbrella I could find. It was my most favorite ever - so big, a protective halo above me, and it came with a great carrying case. But it didn't last long, though I don't remember the problem. Only that I was disappointed it didn't hold up.

However, a year ago a guy from London I met on JDate flew over to meet me. One of the days it was raining, we were near a BBB, I had the bad umbrella with me (sometimes you just keep these things around if they are still somewhat fucntional), and so went into the store to show it to them and ask what was up.

Without a receipt or even a request, they gave me a new one. Later that evening having dinner with his friends, I recall him telling them "Laurie scammed the store out of a new umbrella." I know he didn't mean to, but the comment kind of stung. As if I had told some fib about it. I had done quite the opposite.

Anyway, today it's pouring and I took it out. I have new rainboots and a raincoat and though my poor little dog was drenched on the street, I was protected by the fabulous umbrella. I left it outside my apartment door opened to dry. Well, I just went to close it and it won't. The top will, but the metal bottom is stuck. Maybe a piece came off? Beginning to think there is something wrong with Nautica umbrellas. A shame. Time to switch. Despite the great packaging, it's time for a new brand.

The guy from London wrote to me a week ago. After a year. Just wanted to say hi and wondered if the frogs were still kissing. They aren't. For it's raining and they don't have a great umbrella and without the right gear they will get nothing but wet.