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April 19, 2002

I wish I could just hire someone to update this page for me.

<looking around>

Yep.

I feel like saying something really mean. Or something really personal. I feel like shocking people. I don't know why I'm so crabby. It may be the bowl of Fruity Pebbles I just enjoyed. I can't be sure.

This is a good entry, isn't it?

I have a treat on my desk! I'm going to try to scan it. Be right back.

I have this history with Rosie O'Donnell, a history I'm sure I've mentioned in this space before. When I was 18, my brother Dennis began calling me "Rosie." This was in 1988. She was hosting Stand Up Spotlight on VH-1, and when I finally got around to watching it, I got that weird feeling you get when you realize that someone looks pretty much like you do. I got the same feeling when I saw Rosie in "Another Stakeout" because she not only looked like me, she wore her hair like I did and dressed like I did. It was EERIE. Eerie.

Then she became a little more famous, and people started telling me, "You know who you look like?" Telling me that EVERYWHERE. At one point, it was something I could count on to happen at least once a week. Then her talk show began, and I began teaching, and it was just a constant part of my life. I mean, it's kind of a dumb thing to say to someone if you think about it.

"You know who you look like / remind me of / resemble?"

"Rosie O'Donnell?"

"Yeah!"

Then you both sit there. What else is there to say? That's right. There's nothing else to say. Because I've heard it 10,000 times before. I don't know. It doesn't annoy me so much anymore, and maybe I'm getting some of that crabbiness out that I mentioned earlier.

Anyway, so I've always been acutely aware of Rosie's career, given that my whole family (pretty much) jumped on the Rosie-lovin' bandwagon. My Aunt Marilyn used to tell me over and over again how much Rosie reminded her of me, and I think it was her I was thinking of when I realized that it would be really cool to take my mom to New York to see Rosie before she retires from daytime television. Because my mom is a freak for that show.

I'd like to invite any of my readers to please call Glo in the middle of Rosie and try to talk with her. You will be dismissed, and you will be dismissed roundly.

"LLO. HELLO." (Her greeting sounds like this because she immediately begins talking after she picks up the phone, not allowing any time for the connection to be made. You'd think that, since she clearly realizes that she talks too soon [because she says "hello" twice], she'd correct it--but no. She's been double-hello'ing since she got a cordless phone in the early '90s.)

"Hi Mom. Hey, listen, I think my house is in flames..."

"WELL I CAN'T TALK ABOUT IT NOW! ROSIE'S ON!"

<click!>

Really. It's kind of rude.

After doing a little research, I entered the lottery to get tickets to her show back in June. I entered twice: once for me and once for my mom. I used postcards that I bought during my first week at NIU that I never sent out. And...never heard anything. Phooey.

Fast forward to March of this year; the show is winding down and I am beginning to get really frantic about the fact that I hadn't even really tried to contact Rosie before, and what if I did and she would feel for me and she'd maybe give a sister a hand?

So I wrote her a letter. It was lengthy and sappy and no one but me will ever, ever read it. (Well, me and whatever office personnel had to open it.) The letter was all about how we're both Irish Catholic and have brothers named Danny and fathers named Edward and blah blah blah doppelgangercakes. I also sent her a few trinkets, like a picture of Quinn and a copy of a book Dennis and I put together for my parents' 50th anniversary. I have no idea what I was thinking--as if Rosie was going to read my letter and give a hoot about the needy girl from Illinois.

That was a few months ago. No word from Rosie, and I began to get just a little tiny bit bitter when I saw her. But just as I began to forgive Rosie for dissing my salty NIU postcards, looky here at what appeared in my mailbox:

Yes, it's true! Someone read my missive and felt sorry for me and so it is that GLO AND I ARE GOING TO TRIP THE LIGHT FANTASTIC FOR 19 HOURS AND 45 MINUTES IN NYC! "Who let the dogs out?" Sara Astruc will wonder! "Where else can they do a half-a-million things all at a quarter to three?" Mighty Kymm will ponder! And all the while, my mom and I will be holding hands, skipping through Central Park looking for Matthew Broderick and mob dons!

Please, keep the children indoors.

Tonight, my entire family descended upon my parents' house to put together my dad's new bed and to eat pizza and to insult each other.

We've all been a little nervous about my dad's health. He was hospitalized a week and a half ago because he couldn't breathe, and he was having chest pains. After many days of being poked and prodded, his doctors determined that he has an 81-year-old heart and asbestosis and emphasyma--nothing we didn't already know. Nothing they can do for him. So he's home now, with an oxygen tank, and we're all hoping he gets stronger and can keep golfing and running to the grocery store every day, his two favorite pasttimes. But it was a very scary week.

Fourteen of us crowded into my parents' 2-bedroom condo, milling in and out of my dad's bedroom (where he has a fancy little setup with his oxygen tank and television--what more could a recovering man want?) and circulating in the kitchen looking for snacks and sitting in the living room fighting over Quinn. Beds were disassembled and re-assembled. New shower equipment was installed to make it easier for him to get in and out. Kevin's new girlfriend and I bonded over the bars we used to hang out in when we went to the same college (but didn't know each other). Peggy smelled good but mysteriously refused to tell me the name of her perfume. At one point I poked my head into my dad's bedroom and said, "Are you sick of all of us yet?"

"Never," he replied.

And that made me really happy. Because, like I said, it was a scary week. And it's still scary, but he's home and not lying alone in a hospital bed and that's the way it should be.