 The Sopranos set off a war among the Fortunato Family, as I suspect it did with Italian-Americans across the nation.
On the one side were those who saw it as a good show, well written, well acted, well photographed (we'll get to that later). They watched it every week. You got a problem with that?
Well, yes, yes, I do. And so did my father, and so did one of my brothers, although he ended up joining the enemy (more about that later, too, although the two "laters" are inextricably connected.)
Okay, you figured out that I'm sick of seeing Italians portrayed as goons, who practically eat with their feet (as one reviewer put it), and say things like "fugedaboutit" without the quotation marks. Yes, I am tired of that, although no longer confused as I was when I was younger.
The Italian men I grew up with, my father, dignified but with a love of puns, gentle Uncle Joey, jolly Uncle Ralph, my grandfathers: one handsome and dapper, the other known in the neighborhood for making and taking in large quantities of vino, were nothing like the guys I saw in movies. And the women, my shy mother, my fun Aunt Loretta, even my super extroverted Aunt Rosie (She was Senior Miss New York State in 1998!) would never have had anyone whacked. No matter how cranky they got.
I'd say that I've led a sheltered life, but that's not entirely true. For one thing, I've known actual Mafia types, one in particular who wanted me to help him write a book about his adventures . . .
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There's clutter, and then there's clutter.
The clutter in my bathroom — which involves lots of perfume bottles, a green and pink striped cosmetic case, a purple sachet, little bottles of shampoos from hotels of all nations, a porcelain clock, a leopard print soap dish with a matching candle stick, and a small collection of rubber duckies all in a row — is cute.
The clutter in my husband's bathroom — which involves a Giant Economy Size bottle of Scope — is not.
He just doesn't get it.
When we shared a bathroom, it was known as The Scope Wars. He'd leave the bottle out. I'd put it away. He'd leave the bottle out. I'd put it away. I could win the battle, but never the war.
Nowadays, we have two bathrooms and a happier relationship. (Until he reads this blog.) Let's face it, it's a plus if a couple can survive The Scope Wars at all. But we have a few other issues cluttering our lives.
Take the mess on top of and surrounding his nightstand. Please. It includes, but is not limited to, all the books he has ever read and all the coins he has ever taken out of his pocket (I am exaggerating). Plus: an orthopedic stretchy kind of thing for his knee, an opened box of cookies, wires for the cell phone charger, bookends for all those books, napkins, gently used, assorted newspaper clippings he will never read, and a small stuffed moose (I am not exaggerating). . .
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Group therapy was never like this.
Group therapy was exactly like this.
 Sessions — a new musical revue starring Robert Newman in which In Treatment meets A Chorus Line — will make you wonder if group therapy could possibly be that much fun.
It couldn't. Trust me. But the play is, and I'm really getting to really like The Algonquin, the small theater complex where we saw A Night At The Carlyle a few weeks ago.
In the group I went to, the therapist didn't look anything like this gorgeous actor, and hadn't been a star of Guiding Light for 28 years. In fact, I don't think he could even carry a tune. Certainly no one ever broke out into dance, unless you counted that guy who tapped his feet incessantly or the woman who pranced out of the room on a regular basis.
But the problems were basically the same: mother, father, heartbreak, jealousy, fear (not to mention loathing), loneliness, insecurities, failure, success, and, in this play if not my group, the couple who squabble about Scrabble and everything else, and one really poignant case of abuse.
Like therapy itself, the play isn't perfect, and some of it is not immediately clear. Personally, I didn't get the connection between group therapy and dancing, although it was a good excuse to see Rachel Raks in action once again, as a very sexy lady with a problem with men, who herself becomes an issue for the therapist who is on the verge of "crossing the line" with her. Yes, that plot line again.
Gabriel Byrne, who can delve into my psyche any time he wants, has the
same issue on his show, In Treatment. And who can blame either of these guys, what with all these gorgeous women and all that pesky transference. . .
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The Art of Procrastination
You gotta have a plan, or you'll never be able to procrastinate in peace.
Say you really don't want to see that exhibit at the museum, the one everyone says you absolutely must see. Here's what you do: write it down in your date book with as much sincerity as you can muster. When you get to that day — make it far enough in advance so that lots of things can crop up — you almost certainly will be busy with other, more urgent things. But you can say with a straight face that you were planning to go and had to miss it.
As Stuart Smiley would say, you "should" all over yourself about lots of things: movies you should see, hikes you should take, goodies you should bake.
If you don't have a plan, these "shoulds" can nag you incessantly, and your unconscious guilt could bubble up to the surface. You might even find yourself blurting out something like, Why don't we hit that show (or climb that mountain, or make those brownies) this weekend? But that's okay if you say it it early in the week, like Monday. Anything after Wednesday is dicey. However, if pushed, promising to go the following weekend usually works. Indefinitely.
Are you getting the idea? As long as you have a plan, you can procrastinate forever.
But getting out of going to an exhibit is easy. Let's look at something trickier: A Trip to Antarctica.
You might have read about this in that fancy travel magazine you get for "free" after paying some obscene amount for an American Express platinum card, which has now been eclipsed by a tonier black card, but who can keep track of these things.
Anyway, it seems that all the cool people, so to speak, are going to Antarctica . . .
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