by Jill Kargman
Copyright © 2016 by Jill Kargman
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Rabbi Jack Riemer and Rabbi Sylvan Kamens for permission to reprint the poem “We Remember Them” (poem based on a nineteenth-century English poem). Reprinted by permission of the authors.
ISBN 9780399594571
ebook ISBN 9780399594588
randomhousebooks.com
Book design by Elizabeth A. D. Eno, adapted for ebook
Cover photograph: © Deborah Feingold
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Sprinkle Glitter on My Grave
Dying to Get In
Things I Lie Awake Thinking About at 3:14 A.M.
Arie’s Words to Live By
The Life-Changing Magic of Dokka Miff
Five Things I’d Tell the Teen Me
Orlandon’t
Jews in the Woods
Why I Will Always Love the Upper East Side
Why I Want to Dress Forever Young
Questions for the Cosmos
Forever Sisters
Things That Totally M. Night Shyamalan Me Out
All Hail Turkey Day!
Glossary of New Terms
What a Difference a Year Makes
Fun with Euphemisms!
The Valor of Pallor: My Personal Rejection of Suntans
Did You Know...
Crocket, Tubbs, and Kopelman
Not to Be Trusted
Pregnant with a T.V. Show
You’re the One That I Want
Special Guest Chapter! The Von Blog
Fashion Weak
Things That Befuddle New Yorkers
Twerkin’ for a Birkin
Coco’s Words of Wisdom
Somewhere Under the Rainbow
Worst Wedding Date, Best Marriage
The Kindergauntlet
Things I Hate That Everyone Else Loves
I Am the Lord of The Lord of the Rings
Social Media Tips: What Not to Post!
There Once Was a Gal from Nantucket
Even the Supermodels Sing the Blues
Bees in My Bonnet: End-of-Summer Edition!
Welcome to the Jungle
Finding Salinger
Shark Week
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Also by Jill Kargman
About the Author
We might appear to be normal human beings, but in truth, my family is the Munsters. We used to be the Addams Family, but when my brother married a sunny Southern California bride, I now think of us as the knockoff comedic goth family, because they had that one normal blonde, too. I’m not quite sure if she was the WASPy cousin or some wholesome niece, but she didn’t seem to notice the Munsters’ creepiness at all; that is, until her suitors ran screaming from her doorstep when her frankenservant cracked the lead-studded haunted house portal.
Okay, we don’t have a doorbell that plays death knells, or a severed limb as a butler; we don’t have a butler. But we are pretty morbid and Reaper obsessed. As children, when my brother, Willie, and I argued—typical sibling disagreements—my dad would stop our nonsense short with morbidness: “Hey! When Mom and I kick the bucket, you’re gonna be all each other’s got, so knock it off!”
We were in preschool, BTdubs.
The result? Sobs. Hysterical snot-bubble bawling in our feetie pajamas. And yet he always said that every time we’d bicker.
When he went on European business trips, he usually took the Concorde—his company sprang for it when he had to go to meetings that required him to arrive looking alive. But he never liked that supersonic plane. “One of these days,” he’d say every time, “that pig’s gonna blow and I just hope I’m not on it when it does.” Tragically and memorably, he was right, that pig did blow (though without him on it).
We skied every Christmas and would be warned to be careful, because every year “Someone takes a header and rams into a tree and that’s it.”
He talked disease. Drunk driving. Choking mid-steak. We had conversations about The End all the time. He liked to discuss who was dying or who just looked like they had one foot in the grave. (“I ran into Bob today. He looks like he’s on his way out.”)
Sunday nights were our family eat-out night, usually Chinese. He’d often have just one more dumpling, because “Hey, we’re all gonna be pushin’ daisies someday.” His attitude wasn’t a cheesy you only live once–type bullshit that some people use to justify hedonistic behavior; it’s not like he encouraged me to go get high on Venice Beach or told my brother to roll a condom on that dick before it’s dust. His attitude was actually joyful. He was and is a firm believer in making the most of our time here, being productive, having strong human connections, and enjoying every day—not as our last per se, but because our days will one day run out.
His zest for life rubbed off. Rather than make us neurotics who were scared of life, all this talk and acknowledgment of death made my brother and me embrace every morsel of life. Morbidity doesn’t have to be fear inducing—au contraire, it made us drink life to the lees (after we turned twenty-one, of course) and relish every bite of food. We cherished music. We flipped on the lights and immediately flipped on the radio. We sucked the marrow out of anything that appealed to the desperate-for-fuel senses and always tried to savor memories of all that is fleeting and ephemeral.
—
As adults, we still have this zest for life and the same dark humor. Willie has a tattoo up both his arms in a beautiful black script: Mors certa, non vita, Latin for “Death is certain, life is not.” Now we both have kids of our own—nuggetini, we like to say—and we’re both still trying to filch as much joy as we can out of our lives, and now, our children’s fleeting childhoods. And maybe we’re passing on the tradition.
My kids aren’t afraid of spooky things because they’ve been exposed to them their whole little lives. I have art with skulls and hourglasses all around our house, and my kids don’t blink.
But one time, a little pal of my daughter Sadie’s was sleeping over and woke up in the middle of the night after a nightmare. With tears streaming down her face, she pitter-pattered into our room and burrowed into bed with me and my sleeping husband. “Mrs. Kargman, I’m scared of your house, there are so many skeledins,” she said. I cuddled her and told her they don’t have to be scary if you think of them as just part of us. I took her on a tour of the house and we greeted every skeleton, giving them each a silly name. Then I tucked her in with us, so she wouldn’t be lonely beside my comatose daughters, and she fell asleep feeling better. Harry, my husband, was a little shocked when he woke up with a kid in our bed who was not our own. Actually that’s putting it mildly. I think he said, Um, what the fuck is this kid doing in our bed? But when I explained it to him, he understood; he was once new to my family, too, and he found my Morticia side odd then, but now he totally gets it. My awesome little collection of hourglasses used to freak him out—they reminded him that time was constantly ebbing away—but now he understands the way I see that fragile shelf grouping: Time passing is constant, so don’t sweat the small shit, don’t wish away periods of time, enjoy it all. And we pretty much do.
Just as my parents have done for as long as I can remember, I reach first for the obituary section in The New York Times. And I’m not only interested in the cadavers who got headlines, I’m into the micro
scopic listy bodies, too. No matter the length or size of the font, I love stories of a life well lived and get inspired by what people made of their time on earth. Building on Billy Crystal’s idea in When Harry Met Sally…to combine the obits with the real estate section: “He leaves two sons, seven grandchildren, and a sprawling prewar penthouse with wraparound terrace.” Now that real estate has gone online, I think that’s a very good editorial suggestion, too.
—
A few years ago, my parents bought cemetery plots for the family and announced with pride that we’d have a plum ocean view. Since then, they’ve logged many hours looking at tombstones on Pinterest. They scrutinized fonts and interviewed a few carvers before settling on the artisan who would create what will essentially be their business card for eternity. It was around that time that Harry and I realized it was time to begin in earnest a discussion about burial with our kids, Sadie, Ivy, and Fletch. After explaining to her what a burial plot is and what a headstone commemorates, Ivy, who was four at the time, said, “Mommy, when you die, I’m going to sprinkle glitter on your grave.” I was shocked by this pronouncement. Had this kid been thinking of this for some time or had it just occurred to her? I asked her why this would be her plan. “Because,” she replied, “you are sparkly and fabulous like glitter. Plus, glitter is very hard to clean up, so it will always be there.”
Do I need to itemize the many reasons why I love this response? I don’t think so. If you’re a parent you get it—what an amazing sentiment and from such a happily morbid little person. Please consider this page part of my last will and testament. I can’t think of a more badass or groovy plan for commemorating my crossing the river Styx than Ivy’s amazing plan.
Incidentally, said plots are on Nantucket island, off the coast of Massachusetts. Neighboring island Martha’s Vineyard happens to be the resting place for the genius comedian John Belushi. His tombstone is marked with hundreds of candy wrappers his fans continue to leave for him. I remember visiting as a child and thought it was cool and hilarious because I worshipped him, but actually, now that I think of it, it’s cool but…kind of litter. And I prefer glitter.
Originally, we didn’t get accepted into that perfectly manicured cemetery on Nantucket. When I heard we had been turned down, I imagined a board of trustees made entirely of skeletons sitting at a large dais with gavels in their bony paws, enthusiastically stamping REJECTED on our Kopelman family file, like the parole board in Shawshank who denied Morgan Freeman. Except they were all dead white peeps.
Turns out that the head of the cemetery (the head skeleton on the board) was named Mr. Morash. I swear on a stack of Zagat guides that this is true! If that’s not the most hilarious euonym I don’t know what is.
(Note: I am not a vocab snob. I didn’t even know what the fuck euonym meant until it was the national spelling bee winning word in 1997. I had to look it up. It means a person whose name is what they do, like how my best friend Vanessa’s ear doctor was named Dr. Listener. So, Mr. Morash? As in “more ash.” More ashes. More dead people.)
I used this ego-bruising kerfuffle with Mr. Morash and his posse as the rough plot line for the third episode of Odd Mom Out, wherein I go berserk trying to score a coveted plot, lamenting the fact that I not only need to beat the odds to get my kid into a New York City kindergarten but also have to compete to be in the right worm buffet!
Back to real life: It is an understatement to say that it was insulting that our not-yet-but-one-day-to-be rigor mortised selves were somehow deemed unworthy of that Nantucket real estate. I was just a little tiny bit fucking outraged and my dad was clear that he and my mom, Coco, were not going to rot for eternity near JFK Airport. They decided to go on what was basically a college tour, but for cemeteries. But instead of four years, it was forever. Sadly, though, none held a candle to the one they wanted on Nantucket.
How’d we pull it off, then? No one likes a name-dropper, but drop a name I must: Former presidential candidate, U.S. senator, and secretary of state John Kerry—who is married to my godmother, Teresa Heinz—wrote a letter to the cemetery on our behalf. I don’t know if they shuffled some bones or what, but his recommendation magically landed us some land to disintegrate in. According to Ginia Bellafante’s New York Times article on the subject of hot, sold-out graveyards, people want to mingle with famous bodies buried nearby. It’s like being a social climber in death. I guess some people just have networking in their bones.
The deeds were sent over, and while I was relieved everyone was relieved, I was still annoyed that connections matter, even in the Hereafter.
“That’s life,” my dad said, shrugging. And death, apparently.
My dad was euphoric when he saw our actual resting places.
“Guess what!” he marveled post-tour. “We got the best possible plots—right on the ocean! It has the best view in the entire place.”
“But, Dad…we’ll be dead.”
“Still! Great location.”
We laugh about this now, but what do you think John Kerry actually said in that letter of reference? Given his pedigree and his political representation of the state in which my carcass is now (thanks to him) destined to spend eternity, he could have just sent a text that said “Please take these people,” and it might’ve worked.
But I think he might have had some fun with it. I know I would have. Here, for your reading pleasure, is my impersonation of the letter that John Kerry could have/should have mailed to gain us admission to that very special, members-only, WASP-island resting place:
Dear Mr. Morash,
I’m writing on behalf of my friends the Kopelman family, to recommend they rest in peace in your esteemed boneyard. I know they’re New Yorkers, but I can assure you they will not be as loud after they pass on. Their children, William and Jill, will only leave the nicest of flower arrangements for their parents, and such will be the instructions to all Kopelman visitors to come—a tacky carnation shall never pass your gates. The Kopelmans understand they would be interred with descendants of the Mayflower and would respectfully curb their Jewish gabbing to lend tranquillity to your beautiful stone garden. They will also curb their lifetime enthusiasms and shall therefore make no invisible choir of show tunes or slowly push up their coffin tops and perform Fosse choreography. I know Coco is a huge fan of the “Thriller” video and used to do the entire dance interlude in their kitchen, but she has promised she will refrain from any and all Jackson homages once dead and buried.
There will no playing ultimate Frisbee with their halos, pulling down dandelions by their roots, or haunting calls from their horizontal phone booths to the teens who visit the cemetery to swap spit (and more). The Kopelmans are also not the type to play femur field hockey, with or without baby skulls as the balls and your mausoleums as goals. You have my word as a public official that when they kick the habit of oxygen, their dirt naps will be the apex of serenity for your community, which, while now six feet under, was high society in their days of breathing.
Many thanks for your consideration, Mr. Morash.
Secretary of State John Forbes Kerry
How is Sansa Stark doing?
That “November Rain” video was so epic.
Is Aunt Jemima married to Uncle Ben?
Where is Joe Pesci these days?
Why do I enjoy getting drunk and taunting Siri so much?
Why is it called Ruth’s Chris Steak House?
It’s so funny to call an asshole a chocolate starfish.
Valextra sounds less like a luxury handbag company and more like a prescription dick pill.
I hate “video art.”
Is the plural of doofus doofuses or doofii?
I wonder how much a three-bed in Dorne would cost me?
Thumb wrestling kind of just went away.
How is dead editor Diana Vreeland coming out with a perfume?
After all these Canada Goose jackets, are there any geese left up there?
You know it’s a movie when the girl has her ha
ir covering the rubber band part of her ponytail holder.
The composer of the 1-877-KARS-4-KIDS jingle should be mangled by wild boars.
Hozier is so hot even before you hear the Irish accent. Dzamn.
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is actually so rapey.
Why is the face in the Kumon logo so displeased?
Has anyone ever seen Ke$ha and Iggy Azalea at the same time?
Why does stuff taste better on long thin spoons?
Candy corn: I don’t get it.
Why don’t these people get that their spray tans make them look like Tony the Tiger?
There is a special place in hell for people who tickle your stomach while you’re stretching.
I wonder if there’s a new dying-teenager movie opening this weekend.
Does every community have a furniture seller with really lousy homemade commercials starring family members?
Why are there still ventriloquists?
Watermelon gazpacho is not gazpacho.
Someone should open a fromagerie called Cheeses Christ.
Someone should open a sake bar called For Christ’s Sake.
Someone should open a Japanese fusion restaurant called Miso Hungry.
Someone should open up a salon called Curl Up and Dye.
Someone should open up a bread shop called House of Carbs.
Why do office buildings have keys to the bathrooms? Do they think we’re gonna steal cheap TP?
Rene Russo—Where she at? She was so iconic and breathtaking in The Thomas Crown Affair and became my aging role model. I need her to resurface so I can have a glimmer of hope that you can still be sexy at sixty.
