Marrying George Clooney

Years ago, there was an article in New York magazine all about past life regression. This was right up my alley. With an entire past life roadmap I get to a) find out how I came to be who I am in this lifetime, and b) why I make the same mistakes over and over and over again. It seemed like an awfully good way to spend both a major amount of money and a good solid five hours. A few ‘past life readers’ were referenced, but I decide to call and make an appointment with the one who came highly, highly recommended by the author of the article. A French woman, who miraculously had an immediate opening because someone had “just cancelled,” and tells me, in a lovely accent, that she takes cash. I ask if I can write her a check, she says yes, but cash is preferable. I like cash, she says. So do I, I reply.

For those who don’t know anything about a past life regression, you are under hypnosis, hypnotized, but not really. It’s sort of like you’re awake but awake two hundred years ago. Does that make sense?

I’m going to call this woman Francine. This is not her real name, but it’s the only French name I can think of right now. Francine lived in a small apartment that would have made the Collyer Brothers proud. She had newspapers and cardboard boxes piled up so high that I actually wondered if she was getting all her ‘regression’ information from all the front page headlines lying around. It seemed to me she had newspapers from the early 1900’s.

She was a petite, older woman, both very thin, and very stylish. I recall a string of pearls and a lovely large cocktail ring. I also recall that she was in her late seventies, early eighties. She asks me if I’ve ever done this before, I tell her, no, and she is delighted. She leads me to a leather chaise, which is surrounded by more newspapers. She tells me to please lie down, and make myself comfy. She then explains that most issues and problems, including medical and sexual, can be traced to an event or an experience from the past, and can be completely transformed and even eradicated through understanding the initial cause to alter the effect. Even a person who committed a crime, she says, like a crime of passion, or even a serial type killing. Cause and effect she says, but long ago causes, and ‘brand new’ effects, that appear in this lifetime. Like, she says, when you throw a baseball a hundred years ago and it comes back now. Huh. That’s sort of interesting. I know about cause and effect, although and I hate to admit it, I am not at all a baseball fan, so the analogy goes right over my head, literally. She asks me if there is any area in particular I would like to work on, or is this a general regression? I say general because there’s too many areas I would like to work on. It’s usually just one, she says, people have a specific area they want to work on. I don’t know what to say. So, we begin the journey. I am told to close my eyes, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out…slowly … and now imagine that I am floating on a white pillow made of clouds, a cloud pillow. I need to really concentrate, I need to breathe, I need to really envision this white fluffy cloud, and that I am sitting happily, and joyfully with not a care in the world. And she starts counting backwards from like a thousand… nine hundred and ninety nine, nine hundred ninety eight, and weaves some kind of regression ritual into the
counting backwards, and I need to really focus and concentrate on the white cloud pillow, and I need to notice what it is I’m wearing, she says, starting with the feet up. What do the shoes look like that I am wearing? What century? What century, I think? Bergdorf’s, Twentieth. This is all very confusing to me. I’m not sure how this is supposed to work because I am not seeing myself on a cloud pillow, and I can’t see my feet, but as I breathe in and out, I can smell old newspapers. I open my eyes and call time out, and ask her to please, please help me get onto the pillow. I need your help, I tell her I can’t get up on the pillow by myself – I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a cloud pillow, or be a pillow in the clouds. She is now exhibiting frustration toward me. It’s a pillow, she says, a large white cloud pillow, just like a pillow I would buy at say Bloomingdales in their linen department, except it is up in the clouds. Okay. Okay. Okay. I can imagine shopping at Bloomingdales. I close my eyes and I imagine buying a pillow, a big white fluffy pillow with my credit card, and then I imagine the salesperson putting the pillow in a big Bloomingdales shopping bag, and then …then I imagine sitting on that pillow, and try to imagine being in the clouds on that pillow and to tell you the truth I got so exhausted from trying to envision this whole fucking scenario, I think I might have dozed off. Needless to say just like a Valium high. I was woozy, and giddy. I ‘recalled’ about ten past lives, all very strange and weird; one involved a murder, and another where I was a lyricist living in Ireland where my husband held me prisoner in what looked like an outhouse until I wrote lyrics for him because he told everyone in our small Irish village that he was the lyricist when in fact I was the lyricist. Which made me completely understand my issues with ‘giving away credit, as in my own credibility’ in this lifetime. And in another lifetime I was a man, and possibly gay (of course, perfect sense, look at who I was married to prior); and in another I was about to be guillotined, which explains all the arthritic pain I have in my neck in this lifetime, Weird, whacky and quite amazing stuff. And of course, one cannot, I repeat cannot, have a past life regression without having been someone utterly fabulously famous in the past, so it was I – me – who lived in Versailles, although there is no documented proof that it was I – me – who was in fact Marie Antoinette. This is the past life space I occupied on my white fluffy cloud pillow. And it was while I was “living” in Versailles, minding my own business, staring out one of the gazillion windows onto the perfectly manicured garden slash maze, that I began to hyperventilate – in French no less – because for one brief moment when I was both in the past and in the present – which by the way, is a very weird, strange place to be – I thought, “Holy shit, what if this woman – this regression woman – has a heart attack and dies, and I am stuck, literally, in the past?”

Who would I be? Would I be Marie Antoinette, but be in my present body? Would I start wearing long puffy dresses and wigs, and take the subway to work? Would I have a clue how to get back to the present? Would this become a movie with Michelle Pfeiffer playing me, playing Marie Antoinette? Or maybe, just maybe Robert Zemeckis would sue me for stealing Back to the Future and retelling it from a feminist point of view?

Needless to say, I manage with great difficulty to work through one more past life, this one taking place in the Wild West, where I was working and living in a travelling circus– not unlike the recent HBO show Deadwood – except my entire family, all twelve of them, were all midgets. But not me, I was the ‘normal’ size one.

And for this I paid two hundred and eighty dollars… yes, in cash.

I’m going to call her Mary.
Mary was not her real name, but she was, for a period of close to two years, my personal psychic slash adviser. A friend of a friend had seen her, had a reading with her, and said she was so spot-on perfect, so unbelievably accurate, that it was downright scary. And…and… she was a psychic to ‘the stars.’ That’s always a big major plus. Not only do you want her doing a reading for you, but you also want to get real buddy-like close, and have her spill all the juicy gossip about all her famous clients. I call her; we set up a ‘in person’ consultation and psychic reading. She comes to my apartment, an apartment I was sharing with a friend on the Upper West Side, and because it was a one bedroom, every month we switched off sleeping arrangements. It was my month to sleep on the pull out sofa in the living room. Mary walks in – she is very short (five-foot, five-foot one maybe), very tough (a tattoo with a dagger on her forearm), no mincing words (fuckin’ this, fuckin’ that), and has a noticeable limp. She looks around the living room, takes in everything, turns to me and says: “You are destined for greatness.” Wow. Oh. Wow. Destined for greatness. I ask her if she is sure she doesn’t mean my roommate? No, You (emphasis on you) are destined for greatness. I wanted to pick up the phone, call the guy who had just broken up with me and scream into his phone machine, “Guess what, you are so fucked, I, me, moi, am destined for greatness and you are such a fucking asshole fool.” But before I could even finish the fantasy, Mary tells me that a man with the first initial B, as in Bob, Brandon… Brian – BINGO was his name-o – was lethal to women, lethal, and was so lethal in fact, so incredibly fucked up, that she could see him, as in a premonition, in prison, serving time for tax evasion, and – and – not only would he cheat on his taxes, but she was pretty sure, had he not broken up with me, he would cheat on me.

Hey, I think, how does she know he broke up with me?

I spend an hour and a half with Mary and I am convinced that she is a genuine true blue intuit. This was before Google, so in fact there was no way she could have possibly known half the shit she knew about me. I ask her how often people consult with psychics; she tells me with an accompanied shrug and facial gesture some of her clients call her weekly, some every few weeks, but most every month. It’s very important to maintain your psychic relationship, and she offers me a special deal. For every visit, I can get a free phone consultation. I agree, and tell her that I will now have to get a full time job so that I can afford to see her and consult with her so she can tell me, because she is a psychic, when to quit the job because my big gigantic break is coming soon. She tells me I will make a lot of money being funny. Being funny, I ask? Yeah, like a comedian, like a funny comedy writer. I ask her how much money. She says a boatload. I ask her how big the boat is, she says big. I leave it at that. Some things you just want to be completely surprised about.

Mary and I see each other frequently, and talk often and when I feel unsure or want to know what’s going to happen, or could happen so I can be well prepared, I call her and she advises me. I now have a jump start on my future. Sometimes our conversations went like this: “Will he call me?” “No.” “No?” “No. Never.” “Why?” “Because he doesn’t like you.” “Why?” “You’re not his type.” “What’s his type?” “Blonde, blue-eyed, big tits.” For a rather small-cupped brunette that was not encouraging, but she saved me from myself enough times, and she liked me enough to keep me on the phone when she could sense I was unsure, or lonely, or feeling vulnerable.

She became a friend.

When my dog got lost, and he was gone for over a week, she knew exactly where he was. When I was let go – okay, fired — from my waitressing job, she knew the restaurant was going to call and re-hire me, when I met another god-awful wrong man who I absolutely believed was Mr. Right, she would tell me with ‘great patience’ that he was so fucking Mr. Wrong even a blind person could see it. When my mom had a minor heart attack, she saw it, she felt it and she called me, telling me she saw my mom’s ‘heart was blocked,’ but I shouldn’t worry because she will be fine. And sometimes she was just utterly and completely wrong, and boy oh boy did she hate being wrong. She hated being told she was wrong, and I was thoroughly convinced that she would put some kind of reverse psychic spell on it so that she could make it right.

I am in Los Angeles for five days. I am here on ‘screenwriting’ business, seeing friends, and it is Valentine’s Day. I am on a date with a guy I met through work, he being a television Producer. He takes me to some fancy-schmancy restaurant up in Malibu Canyon, and I’m on my second glass of wine, having just finished my frisee and pear salad with bleu cheese, when the headache starts up again. Pounding, pounding, pounding – it feels as if my head is going to split open and explode. I have been having horrible blinding headaches for about a month, and they keep getting worse, and here I am experiencing a god awful blinding headache, and this time, at this restaurant, on this first date, it comes back in a fury. I am trying to act normal, until I can’t any longer, and I tell this guy, this guy that I hardly know at all, that I’m awfully sorry, but I think I need to be rushed immediately to a hospital NOW, as in this fucking minute. I stand up, and ask him if he would like to take me to Cedars Sinai, or… or, and I would completely understand if in fact he didn’t want to, I could have the restaurant call me a cab. He offers to take me, but asks if we could just wait a few minutes, so we could get the food we ordered to go. We don’t have the time, I tell him. At this point, I am convinced that I am dying, and I don’t want to dilly-dally. Although, I don’t tell him that, it feels like too much information to share on a first date. He throws down a wad of cash to pay for a meal that is costing an arm and a leg not to mention a piece of my brain, and we make a mad rush out of there. He drives directly to Cedars Sinai in Beverly Hills, and we proceed to push our way up the queue in the Emergency Room line. This being Hollywood, I notice a couple of B slash C movie actors in the waiting room. Now it’s my turn with the emergency room nurse and she asks me what’s wrong. I tell her that I believe I have a brain tumor. My new friend turns absolutely white, “A brain tumor.” he says/asks. Yes I say, a brain tumor. I don’t think he wants to see me anymore. I think he wants to leave, and go back to the restaurant and try to pick up the cute waitress who was flirting with him, who, by the way, appears to have a very long life in front of her. The nurse gets me a semi-private room within the emergency room area, and my friend tags along. We wait for what feels like hours until the attending Emergency Room physician makes his way to see me. Long story short – they take an X-Ray, there’s a small tiny cluster that appears on the X-Ray, and I am now officially unofficially told that I have what appears to be a brain mass, or what is commonly known as a brain tumor. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.

They put me in a private room, where handwritten on a board directly above my head, it reads, “Brain Tumor.” My friend stays with me, and we get to know each other, because, well, clearly I don’t have much time left. We chat. He’s a Pisces, and loves Opera; I’m a Sagittarius, and I love the Rolling Stones. He loves algebra and calculus, anything and everything mathematical, I like none of that. He loves watercolors and ink drawings, I love sculpture and modern art. He loves Betty White. I don’t even know how or why that came up. I like romantic comedies, thrillers, and 40’s film noir; he likes sci-fi and musicals and loves, with a capital L, game shows. Clearly, this is not a match, not even close. But he stays, and I think he stays because he has no-where else to go, and for that I am grateful, but not grateful enough to engage in any sexual activity as a thank-you. Another attending doctor comes in, a small wisp of a guy, and asks me if there is anyone, a family member or otherwise, I would like to call. The specialist brain tumor doctor will be in first thing in the morning, to take a look at the X-Rays, but in the meantime, they’ll give me some pain medication to ease my pain: Percocet, percodan, and/or codeine. And again, asks me if there is anyone I would like to call. Yes, I say, I want to call Mary. “Your sister?” “No. My psychic.” If I wasn’t convinced enough that my new friend’s eyes glazed over with the brain tumor line, this certainly clinched it. I dial Mary’s number, I’m pretty sure she’s asleep – it is three hours later in New York – but, she answers the phone. I tell her I am in a hospital, I’ve just been diagnosed with a brain tumor, and… and…I knew it… I knew it, I just knew these headaches were life-threatening, and she stops me mid-sentence, interrupting me, telling me point blank, “It is not a brain tumor, whatdya fuckin’ kiddin’ me, who the fuck told you it was a brain tumor, they should have their fuckin’ medical license taken away, you wanna know what you have? You wanna know what’s wrong, you have sinusitis.”

Huh, I say. Really?
Yeah. Sinus headaches. It’s that time of year.
But I never had this before.
I never had a weight problem, but I have one now. You don’t have a fuckin’ tumor.

Well, she’s not always right.

My new friend asks, “So, uh, what did your psychic say?” with enough cynicism that I knew – it was all in his tone – I knew that he wasn’t a believer.
“It’s not good,” I tell him.

I spend the night. The nurses and attending physicians tiptoe around my room, treating me like the terminally ill patient I am, with kindness and the occasional handholding and the big toe grabbing. And then morning comes. My friend has also spent the night, having fallen asleep in the chair. The specialist comes in, a very lovely older gentlemen with a shock of gray hair and a lovely smile, and he introduces himself and says, I hope you didn’t call your parents because that little cluster that the attending emergency room physician read on the X-Ray was in fact the sinus cavity, and it appears that you have what is commonly known as sinusitis.

He then gives me a Claritin, which I can now buy over the counter at any pharmacy or drug store.

My friend asks me if I would mind terribly taking a cab back to my hotel room. Shortly after our date, he left the television and film business, moved back to Vermont, where he owns and operates a “Welcome to Vermont” tchotchkes store.

And according to another psychic, someday I will run into him, and he will avoid me like the plague.

And yes, I have sinusitis every year, right around Valentines Day.
And I still on occasion believe it’s a brain tumor, or brain cancer.

You will never find love.

Excuse me?

You will never find love.

But you said if I give you fifty-dollars you would tell me something amazing. You said that, you said and I’m quoting give me fifty-dollars I have something unbelievable to tell you.

Yeah.  That’s right. You will never find love.

I grabbed the fifty-dollars – three ten’s and a twenty – out of her hand, looked her right in the eye and said, “Hey, for fifty bucks you shoulda lied.”

I can’t leave fast enough.

She screams after me: “You’re gonna die.”

I scream back: “Yeah. Right. Eventually. We all will.”

Needless to say, I did not get out of bed for three days. Yes, I feared I would die, if not by natural causes, most definitely because this woman, this overweight, unkempt storefront psychic would put a hit out on me. She lured me into her psychic den by standing outside and as I was passing by, she said in a hush weird whisper, I have something amazing to tell you, I can see it, I can feel it, it’s your aura, I swear to Christ, I can see it. I of course being naïve believed that she was in fact reading my aura. Give me fifty-dollars I have something unbelievable to tell you. I want to state for the record that was all the money I had to my name, fifty and change. I had just cashed my unemployment check. I was looking at one hundred and twenty nine dollars. A good seventy or so was already spent on bills. But I was a sucker, and she was a suck-ette, and I walked into her psychic den where I should have known instantly – instantly – when out of the corner of my eye I could see OTB on the television in the adjoining room – which by the way, was only separated by a piece of day-glo velvet fabric – and in that other room, the “adjoining” room, was her husband, or perhaps her gigolo slash live-in lover slash hit-man, on the phone with his bookie.

I give her the cash – she counts: ten, twenty, thirty … fifty, and then she starts doing some weird shit with her eyes, and then she closes them or maybe they rolled back into her head and then she opens them. She looks at me, right at me. Then she takes my palm, looks at it, nods, ‘reads’ it, and then starts shaking her head, squeezing my palm. Then again with the rolling of the eyes and then announces: I need some more money, cash; this requires lighting candles and saying prayers, and ripping out the very bad aura that surrounds you.

Excuse me?

You will never find love.

Excuse me?

You will never find love.

Boy was she fucking wrong.

But just like when I lost my virginity, when I swore to myself, a personal private vow, that I would never, ever have sex again, at least not until I was married, I swore I would never, ever seek out a psychic ever again. And just like the vow I made after losing my virginity – which I did not at all keep – I continued seeing, calling, seeking out psychics, readers, clairvoyants, you name it, I sought it until I realized that I could have purchased a home in the South of France with approximately a hundred pristine acres, including a vineyard, for the amount of money I spent having many more crazy unkempt women and men telling me unbelievable shit that just was not true. And yes, yes, some that were spot on perfect, amazing, telling me stuff that no one – not a single soul – could have known unless they were in my skin, or tapping my phone line.

Yes, I was a psychic junkie. I was an addict. Readings. Horoscopes. Astrological charts. Birth charts. Clairvoyants. And I brought many friends – and yeah, a husband – along for the ride.

It’s been ten years, forty days, and thirty-seven hours since I spoke to anyone who claimed they could read my aura.