As you get older and more forgiving of time’s leisurely pace and life’s strange twists of fate, you realize there really are only two ways of looking at your life, positively or negatively. Sure, I could bemoan my single and (albeit willingly) childless status, my still living in a “quaint” studio apartment in Chicago, or that I, like many women, am always struggling to keep fit - but I’d rather look at my life positively. Dorothy Parker had a great poem about the way others perceive her.
Fighting Words
Say my love is easy had,
Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad--
Still behold me at your side.
Say I'm neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue--
Still you have my heart to wear.
But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man!
Dorothy often degraded her own work in part because of her bachelorette status in a time period where that lifestyle was simply unacceptable and unheard of. Unfairly blacklisted during the red scare in Hollywood, few people know that she left her entire fortune at death to the NAACP, who ironically were the only people to claim her ashes -17 years after her death, and honored her support as a Jewish supporter of Black human rights with a memorial.
Dorothy was the original inspiration for me and for writer, Candace Bushnell, and the entire Sex in the City phenomenon, which favorably depicts the particularly modern lifestyle of a single, female writer in New York City. When I look at my life from the viewpoint of one of my similarly educated, white, Russian sisters today, who try to live on the 40 dollars a month they earn, and are often lured by fake nanny and teaching positions, or dancing jobs and then kidnapped into forced prostitution, or maimed and killed, I see my life from an entirely different perspective. I see it as they must see it, as a type of dream. Truly a dream, where a young woman can live alone, in complete privacy, in a cozy white room, high in the sky with view of a beautiful lake. A magical place where a woman can make her living by making her words and opinions heard in print and on television. Despite my shortcomings, I guess I am the woman that I dreamed I’d be. I have many good friends, many loving pets, my mother is still alive and well, and although I’m presently without a romantic life partner, I have decided it is a happy birthday - a very happy birthday to me.
NBC5.com becomes BuzzNews.net and BuzzNews.TV's new Partner!
Hey, we here at Buzz are now partnering with NBC5.coms’ Chi Town after Dark!If you visit the NBC5.com website there will soon be a button to click in which you will be able to see our four minute video promo for my traveling celebrity talk show Kimberly Katz’ “Postcards from the Road”, which features some of the funniest moments and highlights from the last six months episodes with comedy and music stars Rick Springfield, Michael Ian Black, Deep Purple, Queesnryche, Carrot Top, Taylor Negron and many others!
If you haven’t already seen the show, please check out the promo and get a little taste! And don’t forget to check out my theatre reviews this month for the awesome double shot of productions of Rent and Jesus Christ Superstar at the Cadillac Theatre and super funny, super intelligent comedian Jamie Kilstein at the Lakeshore Theatre. Jamie was a terrific sport and such a pleasure to hang out with after his performance. Be sure to watch my video “Postcard from the Road” interview with Jamie at www.BuzzNews.net.
Happy Birthday to all my lovely, artistic Pisces Kitties out there. We are a sweet and sensitive bunch!
Love ya,
Kimberly Katz
