MELANIA and ME by STEPHANIE WINSTON WOLKOFF : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW

I was handed the hard-back copy that a friend had just bought and read and will be passing this book to another reader shortly. I know what certain critiques and articles expect me to think about this book but I'm not dictated to.

This book is one long immensely detailed bitch about being overworked, underpaid, disrespected, and under-appreciated in the work place, and ultimately in a friendship. Most of us have had that experience.  I know I have.  That might be my life story - or yours - but I wasn't a child of privileged, able to put a toe into prestigious Vogue to work there first.  Events I planned and saw through were not benefits for the Met's fashion ball. I've met a few celebrities and a few millionaires but my social life is not among them.  Stephanie Winston Wolkoff was immensely qualified for the assignment she was vetted for by First Lady Melania Trump. That she kept at it to the point of suffering financially and health-wise, is her fault. She was not one of us who has to work for a living.  Not that I think it's wrong to be well off and ambitious. But why do us commoners stay at jobs we hate?

The story of the chaotic Trump White House is as expected, sorry to say, and not a surprise.

The book reads as though S.W.W. was keeping a diary on top of everything else she was working extreme hours on. If not a diary, then a journal or at least a calendar, of her work struggles, including having lawyers work on a contract that might describe her title, responsibility, and pay. 

Very little is said about the FRIENDSHIP that the title of this book depends upon. There are mentions of brief smiley interactions, and many references to emails that are brief and full of emojis.  First Lady Melania actually seems appreciative, if not one to go on and on in her communications.  There are lots of air kisses on both cheeks, so to speak.

THE WORST THINGS YOU CAN SAY ABOUT MELANIA TRUMP after reading this book are the things noone would dare say about JACQUELINE BOUVIER KENNEDY.

That she prefers supporting her husband and his career and taking care of her child, then having a career of her own while also the First Lady.

That she's not in the loop about political issues, though once in a while she has influence on her husband.  She has a mind of her own as he does and is not always cooperative about what others want her to do as First Lady.

That she has very little personal power and then it's hiring staff to advise on fashion, hair, diplomatic expectations, protocol, and entertaining dignitaries.

That she goes off on relaxing vacations alone while others toil.  They are paid after all, while she is not.

That she shows up on the campaign trail not so much.

That she embodies tranquility and it seems that is what President Donald Trump looks forward to and depends on.

I think First Lady Melania Trump has mastered what few women seem to these days - That she is enough.

The real story here is how Trump's grown children, in particular Ivanka Kusher, are present, and domineering and can be sneaky or savvy about sabotaging Melania. It's the story of how a good soldier (Stephanie) on Melania's side goes to battle with Ivanka's side.

For that, Melania must, in my opinion, resort to supreme patience, philosophy, and prayer.

As for the preternaturally tall for his youth, Barron Trump, or his father, the author takes aim to diagnose.  Fair when it's about our President.  Unfair when it is a child.

C 2020  Christine Trzyna

Book Review - All Rights Reserved

HE DIED BUT VISITED ME LAST NIGHT - A MEMBER OF MY OLD WRITING GROUP

The strange dreams continue.  Is it the season?  Or the ongoing threat of Covid-19?

I woke up around 4 am.  My dog had walked through my sewing kit and I could hear buttons and spools - but I woke thinking "needles." She needed to go out.  So did I.

But I managed to fall back asleep.  I remembered three strange dreams. This one was a visit with a member of my short fiction writing group.

This man was a bit of a mystery.  I first met him at a writing class focused on short fiction at a community college night class. He wrote the shortest of short stories.  One pagers.  If you're wondering how a one pager can qualify as a short story, well, if there is the slightest change in a character's viewpoint, that would qualify.

If I knew him today, I would suggest that each short was actually a chapter.  He wrote scenarios that seemed to focus on people with mental illness.

He never stayed to chat or get personal after we had critiqued each other's stories.

He would stand up, bid us a hearty fare-well, and walk out in an almost military fashion, with his notebooks in one hand. 

Then one day I was telling a friend about this man and his work when he said, "Wait a minute.  I think my dad knows this man!"  And not only did his dad know the man, but they had worked together, and his dad had introduced him to his wife.  Who, it turned out, became seriously mentally ill.

I felt that this man did not want our group to know this.

So one day I encountered him and I spit it out. "I know so and so.  I'm friends with his son.  I know."

To which he said nothing in response.

But I felt maybe I had relieved him some.

In my dream I was wearing my reading glasses.  My reading glasses are really ugly.  I made a mistake choosing them. The first thing I saw was that he came up to me wearing the same reading glasses.  He was smiling.  I said "I thought you were dead!"

In waking life I have been thinking this for some time - years.  One day I happened upon a newspaper I don't normally read and there was a one liner.  It said So and So was dead, as if it was the least someone could do.  There was absolutely no mention of a wife, family, friend, or children. Somehow I assumed it was him.

In the dream he was sitting with a woman I didn't recognize at all but knew to be his wife.  They were together, well, and happy.  They had two young people with them - perhaps grandchildren?  What was most important to me was that they were happy.  I looked over this woman, who I had never seen in waking life, thoroughly.  Now if I ever see a photo of her and I learn it is her, I'll probably get one of those shocks up my spine.

C 2020 Christine Trzyna

All Rights Reseved

HE DIED SEVEN YEARS AGO and WAS IN MY DREAM YESTERDAY MORNING

Yesterday morning I woke from a dream.

Someone I knew years ago was in that dream. So unexpectedly.

I knew he had died about seven years ago. I hadn't been thinking of him. I hadn't been thinking of him when I'd learned he died years ago either. I hadn't had any contact or knowledge of him in years before that. 

We had not been speaking for some time. It wasn't that we were angry. We just had lost words. He was a man of few words. Uncomplicated and simple you thought, until you heard his lyrics.

I'm not claiming to be a psychic. I think everyone is a bit psychic. For many years now it's happened that I've learned that someone who was once in my life and who I haven't thought about in years, has died. Usually something odd happens. Like I read a newspaper I don't usually and see an obit. Or I have a thought about them. So I check the Internet.  

A little more than seven years ago, one afternoon, I suddenly thought "I wonder if he ever put out a CD?" So I went on the Internet and instead found out he had died, about three months earlier. In his case there was no obit. But there were memorials. There were postings in on-line newsletters. There was a YouTube video of an event where he was given an award that made me tear up. Once athletic and strong, he was weak in a wheel chair, only able to stand for a moment to say "Thank You." Once a man who slept around and had too many women, he had found the one for him. He had married and had children since I knew him.

I contained sadness.

This man was in my dream yesterday morning.

We were in a restaurant. Maybe a salad bar. Not fast food. It was bright and airy. I looked at him and the sun seemed to be shining on spots of his pale skin. We were both standing there, looking into each other's eyes. He was youngish and healthy. His sleeveless tank showed off natural muscle. He was silent.  So was I. That continued. In my mind I was thinking I had recently met up with him in another dream but I couldn't remember it. I wanted to talk to him. Arrange a time. He knew that. I felt he could read my mind. I felt there was something I didn't know.

Then I saw a cameo of a woman. I think I know who this woman was, though I can't remember her name. She and I were friendly. I don't know if she's still alive.  In the dream, she spoke. She told me that he was going to a certain city in Texas and to a certain type of medical facility. She was very exact.

I woke up.

I immediately put in the name of this city and the words she had spoken in my search engine.  I was astounded by what I read about this place.

I realized I had been meaning to send his best friend a letter for the last seven years. I hand wrote it. Then I searched for an address one can send an old fashioned hand-written snail mail letter to.

And no, the man who was in my dream does not have a CD out. Not one.  No YouTube videos of him singing. No web site. Nothing. His wife and children also seem to have disappeared. 

I fear his music is lost. That he let it go to have a life different from the one he was living when I knew him.

I can hear some of his songs in my head.  Hear him singing like a choir boy.

C 2020 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved

HE DIED and I IMAGINED HIM ALIVE FOR YEARS NOT KNOWING

As a teenager, I attended art classes on Saturdays at a famous museum and then a famous university. At the museum each week an honor roll was called. I was on it frequently. I also remember many of the names called as if it were yesterday. I think they called them alphabetically.  Hypnotize me and take me back to that time and I could announce the whole list.

Some of these people were my friends or friends of friends. We all had a small sense that we were special because we had been invited selectively from all around the county.

In the end almost all the people who got full scholarships to the famous university classes were male. I sometimes wonder about that. Was it sexism? Was it sexuality? Was it that the people who were behind these classes just thought that men artists had more potential and would be more serious about pursuing art? There were many women on those honor roll lists. 

So one afternoon back in the day, when I was visiting my friend Sandy, my favorite classmate, who lived near her friend Robert, a name called, a person who got the full scholarship, she introduced me to Robert. He was a very tall teen from a German background in a mostly Jewish neighborhood. 

We went over to his house.  We sat in his living room. He and Sandy were chatty.

I remember that day because of the finery about the way he spoke. The thinness of his fingers. A seriousness about him. And also because he had a slobbering Saint Bernard with a small barrel under his chin.  (Why do people make Saint Bernard's carry barrels?  Maybe this dog carried Robert's cash or stash?) The dog got on my lap and slobbered. They all told me this was because he "liked" me. I hated his slobber. I wanted him off my lap. You would never guess at that point in my life how much I would come to love dogs. They all thought it was sort of funny that the more I resisted the Saint Bernard, the more he "liked" me.

Every once in a while I would think of Robert, such a promising artist. Had he gone on to afford the extreme tuition of the university? Did he still paint? Was his work represented in galleries?  Maybe a museum?

So, one day I had the urge to check. I put his name into the Internet and up came an obituary.  He had been dead for years. He had died young in another city and state. The obit suggested that he had long had family in this other state. I wondered when he moved. What he did for a living when he was alive.  And what killed him.  Was it a car accident? A strange disease? Cancer of some sort? AIDS?

Then it bothered me, the way I had carried him around as a live person when he had been dead most of my life.

Even as I write this I see his face.

C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved

NOT GETTING TO KNOW AMY CONEY BARRETT : OPINION by CHRISTINE TRZYNA

TWO DAYS INTO LISTENING TO THE HEARING in order to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court of the United States judge, I came away with the fatigue that sets in from repetition.  OK, we get the game.  One Democrat after another mentioned real people in their jurisdictions who would not have heath care if the Supreme Court got rid of our Obamacare and some  spoke about rights like abortion. (Which, by the way, is very region-specific. Having the right and having a local affordable clinic are not the same.)

I wished I had considered Amy Klobuchar more seriously as a candidate, as I think Saturday Night Live is right about Kamala Harris, and I thought Klobuchar's  pre questioning little speech/statement was the best I heard.  I was relieved when it seemed that Corey Booker finally got a direct response from a question.  The answer Barrett gave was "Yes." There was an instant of relief, then more inability on Barrett's part to answer in any way that might let us get to know her. She kept hiding behind her rights to not offer an opinion because presently she is a judge.  Peeyoooo!

Sure, we learned she knows her law and has a very good, if not perfect, memory.  She swore her personal beliefs would not sway her. We saw that she was dressed as a lady - with  hot pink and deep coral colored Dress for Success outfits, that her hair needed conditioner and a trim, and that she was not denying her Catholic religion or that she once signed an anti-abortion/ Pro-life statement.  That was authentic.

But when the last gasp of air flew out of the tire for me was when one of the Republicans honoring her mentioned that she not only had her illustrious education and law career and was mother to seven children, two adopted who are Black, a child - not present who is mentally slow - and obviously was upholding a sacred marriage.  No, that was not enough.  She also 'makes time" for community service.

I DOUBT THIS SUPER WOMAN CAN RELATE TO THE AVERAGE, ORDINARY, COMMON woman - or man.  The woman who comes home from work from her job exhausted and has one or two children who need dinner and their homework supervised, still has a load of laundry to do, wonders if over the weekend they'll be about to get out as a family to do something, like ride bikes or go by a restaurant and pick up dinner, or if she'll still be able to have her job if Covid-19 becomes Covid-20.  This woman may or may not go to church. The message of Christianity may be lost on her. She may have had an abortion or two in her life because she was raped, abandoned by a sperminator, or was not in financial or relationship position to bring a child into this world.  She didn't like it, but she had to do what she had to do. She may have had her two children and gotten her tubes tied. The children's father may not be in their lives. Her pay may be so bad that even working full time she sweats the rent and is relying on government benefits for food, or in line at a food bank or distribution.

Yes, AMY CONEY BARRET is EXCEPTIONAL, in an unrelateable way.

I don't have a poster to haul out for camera close ups as many Democratic senators were able to do, a poster that would show my AVERAGE, ORDINARY,COMMON woman.  I can think of an old friend who would be a good poster mom though.

She was highly intelligent and good in math.  She went to college.  She graduated with one of those degrees in which women, at the time, were unusual.  It was "still a man's world."  People like her, because they were not traditional housewives and mothers, created paths for younger women to go ahead and go to law school.  Women like her heard this on interviews: "You'll just get married anyway."

She got the Fortune-500 job.  She never actually worked in science, but it was related to her position and her degree was a brag point. She was reasonably cute and featured in the ads her corporation put into magazines to prove that they had hired a woman. They did not hire another woman for the next 20 years.  She bought a house in a neighborhood that offered excellent public schools.  

Her constant travel for the job made her a mother dependent on a cash nanny, who was paid more than most people earn a year, to be there early and to stay late and overnight at times so she could travel for the job.  Her husband eventually left the marriage in the worst way possible, leaving her a cheated on fool in the estimation of her upstanding community, and with a devastating financial drain.  It had been a long time since they actually had a relationship. She worked so much that she was chronically underweight though a big eater.  And then one day the Japanese bought her division and the younger men leap-frogged over her to the higher paying potions. She got the silk parachute and a no compete clause.  She never got work in her expertise field again and tried to sell real estate and be a stay at home mom.  

If it were not for affirmative action she would never have gotten the job. In her time there she did not mentor or patronize other women so they could succeed at the company or outside of it.  She had not one moment for "community service."  She switched to the Republican Party.  The last time I talked to her she had become a snob.  She said she only "dealt" with people who had Master's Degrees. So why had I called?

I wonder how AMY CONEY BARRET compares with the other SUPERWOMAN in pop culture, actress and divorce battle bitch, ANGELINA JOLIE.  I can't prove it but I've heard that each of her children has or had their own NANNY as well as their own THERAPIST.

I want to know HOW AMY CONEY BARRET COPES.

I want to know HOW MUCH MONEY SHE and HER HUSBAND EARN so they can afford seven children.  Are the children in private schools?  What do they pay for health insurance?  How much time is she away from home as a judge?  Do they employ a nanny?

I remember my parents, Catholics, feeling so left out of the political process because Catholics were unwanted in politics past the local level and how proud they were that John Fitzgerald Kennedy had become president.  It was an affirmation that Catholics were getting ahead even though they were not Protestants in America.  With all the antics since revealed, we know he was not a good Catholic.  We know that some Catholics are Pro-Choice.

Being Pro-Choice does not mean that you, yourself would choose an abortion.  It means that the day may come when you find you have to choose.  It means that you do not expect other people to have your religious beliefs and live by them.

I could go on, but I'm hungry and tired.  I'm not watching any more of these Supreme Court nominees hearings. I hope Kamala, Amy, and Corey read this post and start asking some personal questions that have nothing to do with the law.

C  2020 Christine Trzyna