Now I realize “DeeDee Magee” – not her actual name – was soooo right.
Quite inadvertently, the former TV producer and I had dated the same fellow, albeit five years apart. “Buzzy” and I had ended our romance for far too many reasons. He was charming, he was hilarious, he was erudite, but he was always late. At 37, he still lived with his mother.
Although brilliant, he wasn’t economically self-supporting. Despite telling me he’d be honored and flattered if I’d consent to have his child someday, he hadn’t figured out that would mean maybe, just maybe, he’d have to move out of his mom’s house first.
His Olympic-level sports were body-building, drinking, other women, moustache-cultivation and egomania. We finally parted during a subway strike – since neither of us had cars and lived at opposite ends of the city, that allowed us to wind down without losing face – a handy Deus ex Machina.
Dating, like politics, makes strange bedfellows, doesn’t it?
While I had a persistent litany of trivial complaints about “Buzzy” – and could recite them, chapter and verse – the ebullient “DeeDee” had a better idea. Shortly after she took over his controls, she wrote a glossy major magazine piece for, yes, Helen Gurley Brown’s Cosmo on the myriad joys of dating an unpredictable man: Such spontaneity was sooo exciting to her since she never knew when he’d show up! I think they paid her something like $5,000.
Terrific.
Stunned, I saw how, unlike me, DeeDee had proactively transformed her tacky lemon into some very top-shelf lemonade. This was her conscious choice. My trash became her treasure – at least on paper. While she might not have been able to remake him in real life, her canny narrative sleight-of-hand at reconfiguring this callow clod into a superb catch was a revelation to me. Same guy, different story. Did “DeeDee” invent Spin? Maybe. And she profited from her ingenuity – big-time.
That was a huge turning point in my life.
Eventually “DeeDee” moved to England where she married very well – for the fourth or fifth time, I forget. Actually I had always considered her our local Liz Taylor. Anyway, last summer I bumped into her on Philadelphia’s picturesque Antique Row when she was back here for a visit and she said she’s teaching literature at a London university now. No Ph. D., but the whole world’s her oyster.
DeeDee’s approach to repackaging Buzzy for Cosmo came to mind recently – how useful a technique it could be to rescue this unbelievably lugubrious Presidential Cramp-Pain. You know, millions of these undecided, uncommitted “swing voters.” Neither of the candidates appeal to such folks because, well, either by accident or design, these guys are stuck 30 years in the past, playing /not playing soldier. Hmmm.
Here’s what I realized: Pick your candidate. Ignore his faults. Hey, he went to Yale! How bad could he be? What’s perfect in this world? Set your mind free and make your choice the best thing since grilled cheese! Think of DeeDee and her fat $5,000 check! Fall in love with him until Election Day!
Is that so wrong?
Well, I tried it. And so can you. Who knows, it could really work. Live with the idea for a few hours. Devote yourself to his victory. Imagine a cardboard cutout of your candidate in the White House Situation Room. Visualize him as your dinner guest. Bond! If Jewish people can set a vacant place at their dinner table for the prophet Elijah, so can you. Serve a special dessert in his honor. Make it Chocolate, because that’s practically a vitamin these days.
Don’t expect miracles from him. Just know he’ll be loyal to his supporters in his very own way. Remember, expectation is the enemy of ecstasy. Then carry that after-glow along with you into the voting booth when you pull that lever for … John Kerry.
Thanks, DeeDee!
