It's only a hyphen

It wasn’t until I got married and decided to hyphenate my last name that I realized what fear a simple piece of punctuation instills in people.

Changing your name, whether it's due to marriage, divorce, adoption, or parents who wanted you to get beat up, is hard enough as it is. And yet I decided to make it even harder.

Little did I know that somehow I was the very first person on earth to ever choose to hyphenate. I mean clearly, if anyone else had done it before, maybe people would know how to deal with it, right?

Apparently not. So to Jada Pinkett-Smith, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and Carol Moseley-Braun: I know your pain.

My bank started things off by telling me to pick just one last name. Then, a certain credit card company made life particularly difficult for me. “We don’t have hyphens,” the representative told me over the phone. “Okay, but um, that’s my name,” I responded. “Sorry. Nothing we can do,” he said.

Somehow people with other pieces of punctuation in their name don't face the same challenges. No one gets a puzzled look when they hear a last name like O'Malley. It hardly seems fair.

Every time I go to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy I have to ready myself for the inevitable confusion. I start out by saying “My last name is B-S. The first name is Alisa.” Then I get a befuddled look from the pharmacy technician. “It’s hyphenated,” I explain. Then they ask “Okay, so what’s it under.” I didn’t realize I’m supposed to be familiar with the store’s filing system. This has been going on for over two and a half years.

Now I’m fine with getting cards addressed to me as just Alisa B. or Alisa S., even though neither is technically correct. Heck, sometimes I use one or the other if the situation suites me. It’s the variations that get to me. Please don't mash both last names together. That just looks silly.

I read in the Sun a few months ago that Stephanie Rawlings Blake, president of the Baltimore City Council, got fed up with people calling her Stephanie Rawlings or Stephanie Blake and decided to hyphenate. I hope it works for her.

When it comes to me, I'm not changing anything. Both last names are all mine, like it or not. And hey, as long as the people who handle my paycheck get it right, I'll be just fine.

Tony vs. Tony

On the evening of Sunday, June 10, there are two very important television events – The last episode of The Sopranos and the 2007 Tony Awards presentation. Both shows air simultaneously and I can’t decide which one deserves my live attention. It all comes down to Tony vs. Tony.

The Sopranos finale is a long time coming and I desperately need resolution to all of the issues that have been building up over the years. This is the first season we actually have HBO and I can watch the show in real-time, as opposed to catching up on Netflix. This episode is certainly something everyone is talking about the next morning.

But as much as I love the Sopranos, when you’re a huge Broadway fan like I am, you can’t just skip the Tonys. This year is especially interesting for me because I’ve seen more of the eligible shows than I have in any other year.

So let's discuss, starting with The Sopranos:

The writers have done a wonderful job so far in wrapping up this, the last season. I lost interest a bit last season but all of the imagery and symbolism is back. In the pilot we saw Tony out in the backyard at the grill. This season, we see Christopher out in his backyard doing the grilling for the family. Of course Tony still had plenty of advice for Christopher. And looking back on last night's episode, maybe Christopher would have been better off listening to Tony a bit more often.

Rich and I have been fans of the show since the first season. We even took a Sopranos tour a few years ago when we were up in the New York/Northern Jersey area. The tour took us around to the Soprano hotspots like Satriales and the Bada Bing. (The Bing is actually a strip club called Satin Dolls. Fun fact: The ATM inside dispenses $1 bills.)

But it's just a short drive up 95 from Sopranoland where we find Broadway -- such a magical place.

While the Tony nominations don’t come out until tomorrow morning, there’s a very good chance that Spring Awakening, a new coming-of-age musical based on the controversial 1891 Frank Wedekind play, could do very well. We saw this a few weeks ago and were completely enthralled.

Our seats for Spring Awakening could not have been better -- we were on the stage itself. The actors actually sat among us. We could see every bead of sweat and glob of saliva. When the cast took its final bow, we were right there on stage looking out over the standing ovation. There is no more amazing feeling for a theater fan than that.

In addition to Spring Awakening, we were also lucky enough to have great seats for the new musical, Legally Blonde, while it was still in previews. This show is so fun and I predict will make it big on Broadway. I’m counting down the days until the original cast recording is released in July.

And then there’s Les Miserables – the show Rich and I both adore. Between us, we’ve seen it at least 30 times. The revival opened in November and we’ve been to see it twice already.
Assuming these shows are nominated, the Tonys will feature performances from each of them.

I can't watch both shows live. I'm going to have to pick one and TiVo the other. It's just a matter of which one wins out.

To quote Avenue Q, which won the 2004 Tony Award for best musical: "Why does life have to be so hard?"

May Day at the Artful Gourmet Bistro

The following piece appeared on the Jewish Times website last week. I'm posting it here as a reminder for the fundraiser we're hosting for the American Cancer Society at the Artful Gourmet Bistro on Tuesday, May 1. For reservations, call (410) 356-2606.


Surviving Cancer At 25

AlisaBS
Special to the Jewish Times

APRIL 20, 2007

It was as if I had lived an entire lifetime in the course of a year. I graduated from the University of Baltimore School of Law, passed the bar exam and got engaged.

And then I was diagnosed with cancer.

Nothing stops you in your tracks quite like that.

First it was colon cancer. It was just days after I turned 25 and only one day after we found out the offer that my fiancé and I made on a house had been accepted.

The doctors wanted to operate as soon as possible. So on the day I was scheduled to be sworn in as an attorney, I instead found myself being prepped for surgery. I spent my Chanukah that year in the hospital, with bridal magazines and reruns of The Simpsons to get me through. Not allowed to eat for two weeks, latkes were but a dream that December.

While the cancer was thankfully removed, the doctors soon found another cause for concern. An MRI showed a mass on my left kidney, which later was found to be kidney cancer -- the same disease that took my grandmother's life when she was just 35.

Thanks to an incredibly supportive husband-to-be who spent many long nights next to me, attempting to sleep in the world's most uncomfortable hospital chair, as well as my caring family and amazing doctors, I made it through both surgeries successfully.

The road to recovery was a long one. It took several months before I could return to a normal diet and many more after that until I regained my strength. By the time the wedding rolled around in October of 2004, I was feeling much better and couldn't wait to partake in the midnight chocolate buffet on our honeymoon cruise.

But today, nearly three years later, there's nothing more invigorating than knowing I've beaten cancer. And except for an annual colonoscopy and a CT scan here and there, life is pretty much back to normal.

Somehow I became living proof that colon cancer doesn't just happen to people 50 and over. It's not always as easy as I had I but it is treatable and beatable when found early.

And while I pride myself on being unique, the truth is that every single day people are diagnosed with cancer and launch into the same paralyzing fear. Last year alone, nearly 1.4 million Americans heard the dreaded words "You have cancer."

Thankfully the number of cancer deaths is dropping. When caught early, cancer is treatable.

To that end, I've made it a priority to help build awareness of the importance early detection. For the second year in a row I am leading a team, aptly named the Semicolons, in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life of Owings Mills, taking place at Owings Mills High School on June 9-10. The event is an all-night fundraising walk, in which a member of each team must remain on the track at all times.

It makes for a long night but compared to what cancer patients have to go through everyday, it's not so bad.

To help us in our fundraising efforts, the owners of the Artful Gourmet Bistro in Owings Mills have graciously agreed to donate a percentage of the proceeds from all meals sold on Tuesday, May 1 to the American Cancer Society. We are hoping the community will turn out in full force that day to show their support for finding a cure, and get a really wonderful meal at the same time. You can stop by anytime between 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m., but we suggest making reservations for dinner at 410-356-2606.

I also personally recommend trying the Renaissance, a chicken breast sautéed in a Madeira wine sauce, covered in wilted spinach, mushrooms, and mozzarella, or the Matisse, a tri-colored cheese tortellini in creamy tomato sauce, but I leave off the ham.

If you'd like more information on the Owings Mills Relay for Life, want to sign up, or would like to make a donation, please visit www.acsevents.org/relay/owingsmills.

Aunt Alisa and Uncle Rich

Well, I've finally become an aunt... no thanks to my brothers.

Aidan is the son of Rich's brother, Matt. (Not to be confused with my brother Matt. Rich's Matt is 6 foot something and ginormous. My Matt is scrawny.)

Aidan was born Tuesday, April 17 at 6:32 p.m., weighing in at 8 lbs. 3 1/2 oz. and measuring 21 inches long.

Here are some pictures from our first visit with Aidan at the hospital. Yep, he's a baby.

A sense of terror too familiar

Yesterday, as the details of the shooting death of 32 people at Virginia Tech began to unravel, I felt the same sense of shock and fear as any human being would.

But I also felt a strange feeling of déjà vu which instantly brought me back to the week almost 10 years ago when tragedy struck my tiny bucolic college community.

It was January 1998 at St. Mary's College of Maryland when we returned from winter break to learn that a group of students were attacked and raped during a study-abroad tour of Guatemala. This was my very first day as news editor of the college paper.

Obviously this isn't entirely analogous to the murders which took place yesterday --the St. Mary's campus, thankfully, wasn't a brutal crime scene -- but there are some real similarities.

I know what it's like to wake up one morning and see your dorm on CNN. I know what it's like to see a college campus overrun by media from around the world, all while you're still worried about the girl who lives down the hall.

I can tell you in no uncertain terms that it's insanely surreal to hear a helicopter circling over your dorm as you see and hear the same helicopter on a live national television broadcast.

I also know that the days, weeks, and months that lie ahead for Virgina Tech are going to be confusing. While united now, students will turn against one another when the discussions continues over who is to blame. Some students will embrace the comfort of media coverage that allows them to talk of the dead and injured while others with loathe the media circus created and get angry at anyone who dares to allow the tragedy to be commandeered for financial gain.

Eventually the media will leave. (At St. Mary's, we had Monica Lewinsky to thank for that.) But life at Virginia Tech will continue.

I am no longer in touch with any of the St. Mary's students from the Guatemala trip but I do think about them often. I hope they have been able to put the horrible memories behind them enough to live the amazing lives they deserve. That's something the Virginia Tech survivors will struggle with for the rest of their lives.

High school, a wedding, and menopause

It's been a full week now since the Hippodrome Theater announced its 2007-2008 season of shows so I've had enough time to mull it over and make some judgments.

Coming off an amazing lineup like this year which included crowd-pleasers like Wicked, I knew organizers would be hard-pressed to repeat such a success.

On my end, I'm happy enough. Here is the subscription lineup:

The Wedding Singer - Sept. 11-23, 2007
My Fair Lady - Nov. 6-18, 2007
Avenue Q - Dec. 11-18, 2007
Cirque Dreams - Jan. 22- Feb.3, 2008
High School Musical - Feb. 19- Mar. 2, 2008
Camelot - Mar. 25- Apr. 6, 2008
The Color Purple - Apr. 29- May 25, 2008

Personally, I'm absolutely thrilled about The Wedding Singer and Avenue Q. The former is the musical version of one of my favorite movies. We even had the first dance at our wedding to one of the songs. I didn't get a chance to see it during its short run on Broadway and I'm in love with the cast recording. Avenue Q is one of my all-time favorite shows. I'm so glad my family and friends will have an opportunity to see the show locally.

Now the rest of the shows? Well that's a different story. I'm okay with My Fair Lady which is a classic that I haven't yet seen, as well as The Color Purple, which I've heard good things about.

I'm far less enthused about Camelot. I can't quite explain why but I just lack any desire to see this show. It's probably fine but I can't get myself excited. Maybe I just got my fill of the Knights of the Roundtable with Spamalot.

Then there's Cirque Dreams. Rich and I actually saw this show in Atlantic City last year. They comp a lot of tickets for it. A take-off on Cirque De Soleil, the show is actually pretty entertaining but it belongs in a Vegas-like setting, not at the Hippodrome. If you do go, be careful about sitting on the left side near the front. There's a really creepy guy that stands there, covered in glitter, playing the violin. I don't think he blinks.

As for High School Musical, I have a secret confession to make. I really like it. Rich even took me to see High School Musical in Concert in D.C. a few months ago. HSM is this generation's Grease. Boy meets girl while on vacation and gosh, they wind up at the same school. Boy is seen as a tough guy while girl is the innocent/brainy type. Love blossoms. Spontaneous singing and dancing ensue. Groups that otherwise didn't get along are now "all in this together." The story is innocuous enough but the music is damn catchy. So if you can set aside the cheesiness and tween madness that accompanies the production, you might actually enjoy it.

In addition to the subscription series, there will also be two non-subscription shows: Hairspray (Oct. 16-21) and a six-month run of Menopause The Musical. I've already seen Hairspray three times so I doubt I'll go this time around. And as for Menopause, well I'll just avoid that like the plague that it is.

(Speaking of Menopause The Musical, is there anyone else that finds it highly annoying that the title doesn't contain a colon or em dash? I understand that menopause means no more periods but do you really have to abandon all punctuation? Sorry. It just really irritates me.)

So is this season perfect? Not quite. But there's enough there to keep me interested. Besides, I'm not about to give up our amazing seats. You can't get much better that Orchestra, row 3, on the aisle. We're perfectly positioned for quick runs to the bathroom.

Winner wanted: No skill required

Through absolutely no skill or effort of my own, I've somehow won my March Madness bracket, making me the lucky recipient of a whopping $67.50.

Scoring 94 out of a possible 120 points, I managed to finish a whole nine points ahead of my closest competitor, my husband's boss. Not bad for someone who plainly admits that I know nothing about college basketball or even basketball in general.

I've just never had much of an appreciation for the game itself. There's nothing about a bunch of 7-foot-tall men getting a ball through a hoop that impresses me. I think the game would be far more enjoyable if played by short people like me, midgets, or players who have to be on their knees at all times. That, or raise the hoop to 20 feet. That could be interesting.

I also believe that the entire game doesn't need to be more than two minutes long. In most basketball games, there are really only two minutes that make the difference. It might be early on in the game when one team goes ahead by 10 points. Or maybe it's the last two minutes of the game when one of the two teams who had been neck-and-neck throughout finally emerges victorious. Either way, think of all the time we could save.

And please, don't get me started on a game where breaking the rules (i.e. committing a foul) is a strategy that can actually benefit your team in the long run.

The only reason I participate in the whole March Madness bracket phenomenon is so that I'm not entirely bored for several weeks of the year. Oh, and I guess this year I get to add the benefit of financial gain and bragging rights.

I know a lot of people (especially my husband) will disagree with my take on the game, but guess what: I won and I have a blog. I get to gloat a bit. So there.

Wow, so much for embracing with my touchy-feely side last week.

I'm self-aware now, or so I'm told

I apologize for not posting lately but it's been a busy couple of weeks. I just completed an intensive (read: exhausting) week-long mediation training course with an assortment of my fellow state employees.

The training was amazing. Obviously I've been through mediation training before (it's somewhat of a prerequisite to training other mediators, I'd think) but this one was completely different.

As a part of the training, the instructor introduced a self-identifying personality test called the Enneagram. Basically you read a series of paragraphs describing each of the nine personality types and then once you've decided which one best fits you, you move on to read all about what things in life cause you comfort or stress, and how you approach problems.

I quickly realized I was a classic type six or the "Loyal Skeptic." Psycho babble aside, this means that I view the world as a dangerous and fearful place. I look for the worst-case scenario and plan accordingly. I am preoccupied with what can go wrong and feel the need to develop contingency plans. I hate surprises. (And believe it or not, I have a Jewish grandmother.)

This outlook is eerily familiar. During one of our exercises, we answered questions from someone of a different personality type so that they might better understand where we were coming from and we might better articulate our own tendencies. I explained how from the moment I wake up in the morning, I'm already thinking about the obstacles I will face that day and playing out several scenarios in my mind for how I will address them.

In fact, I suppose it starts even sooner than when I wake up on the morning because these worst-case scenarios permeate my dreams. A few nights ago I was overly preoccupied with the 2007-2008 season lineup for the Hippodrome Theater. That night, I dreamt that they announced the shows, starting from "An Evening with David Hasselhoff" and things only got worse from there. (The actual Hippodrome schedule came out on Thursday and is a topic for a separate post.)

Similarly, several weeks ago I attended a Bagdaddy purse party where we could design our own bags. I've been waiting anxiously for the bag to arrive and two nights ago, I dreamt that the bag came but it was completely wrong. In my dream I went so far as to seek out my original paperwork, scan it, make copies, and start drafting a letter to the company. (As a side note, my bag arrived yesterday and it's perfect.)

Surprisingly, the realization of my type six personality has been a liberating experience. I've learned how thoroughly exhausting it is to always plan for the worst and spend all my time thinking about what could go wrong.

Also, I've gotten to know my directive tendencies and several of the experiences we did this week helped me practice how to resist my problem-solving mindset and allow others to deal with their own problems. One might think that the fact that my brothers have called me Captain A (short for Captain Asshole) for so many years would have given me some kind of indication that I can be, uh, ahem, bossy, but I guess it was something I needed to figure out for myself.

So rather than bore you all with more talk of myself (although you have to admit that I'm pretty fascinating), I'm curious as to whether anyone else is as enlightened by their Enneagram type as I am. I can't be the only one.

The impending baby boom

Starting in the next few weeks, everyone I know will be having a baby. Okay, that's an exaggeration. Not everyone will be having a baby. Men can't give birth.

But sometimes it sure feels like just about everyone I know is pregnant. I guess it makes sense to some extent. I did go to an awful lot of weddings over the past three years so a baby boom isn't entirely unexpected.

Still, I'm a bit overwhelmed by all of the pictures of nurseries and ultrasounds. To me, the ultrasound (or is it sonogram?) pictures are no different that those Magic Eye pictures from the 1990s. I couldn't make out anything in those either. Oh, yeah, I see it... that's the uh, uh, leg maybe?

I do feel the need to clarify the fact that I'm thrilled for all of my friends who are pregnant. While I don't pretend to relate to their excitement over weight gain, financial burdens, and lack of sleep, I really am happy for all of them. I can't believe how much these girls are beaming, even as they're puking on a regular basis. Clearly they're meant to be mothers and I'm not.

Often it feels harder to defend my choice not to have children than it would be to just get pregnant. It seems like nobody questions the decision of a married couple to reproduce, but somehow I'm defective as a human being by deciding that I don't wish to breed.

I can honestly say that I've never felt the urge to have a baby. People say I'll change my mind, and I can't discount that because I don't know what the future will bring, but I've never felt as though I'm that talented or important to create a life in my own image. (Perhaps if I had the ability to birth a litter of puppies, I might feel differently.)

Some of my reasons for not wanting children are more noble than others. First, I would never want to pass along my cancer genes to anyone. I would feel like the most irresponsible person in the world if I brought a child into this world knowing that there was a chance they'd have to deal with the health issues I have.

But aside from that, I'm really just a selfish person. I don't want to give up the time I have to sleep, relax, travel, etc. I also don't want to give up the money.

I'm grateful that my husband is so supportive of my view. While he'd make a good father (after he gives up his two-door car, eating out, weekend getaways, gambling jaunts, and coughs up private school tuition), he understands that this is one of those decisions requiring two-party consent.

Anyway, I wish everyone who is pregnant or trying to get pregnant the best of luck. If you ever need someone to remind you how pleasant a child-free life can be, I'm here for you. Oh, and I can babysit too.

Little brothers, big news

We finally have good news to report for both brothers. Matt is finally a CPA and Danny has a good job offer!

Last week Danny got an offer with an insurance company. He'll start as a claims adjuster and hopefully be able to transition into doing insurance fraud investigations, which is his real interest. They're starting him at a salary more than 30 percent higher than his current salary so that's a nice added bonus. Plus, the match on his 401K is pretty nice.

Then on Friday we got the news that Matt had passed his fourth and final exam to become a CPA (or CPASS as Danny prefers to call it) just in time for tax season. The family breathed a collective sigh of relief and we hope this will translate into more money for Matt as well.

So congrats to both of the brothers. And don't screw it up.