Oprah went global two months after my fabulous daughter was born. I’m not sure when I started watching, but I’m pretty sure it was close to the beginning. At that time there was no such thing [...]]]> Today is Oprah’s last show, and I hope you will all watch it, because Oprah is my friend.

Oprah went global two months after my fabulous daughter was born. I’m not sure when I started watching, but I’m pretty sure it was close to the beginning. At that time there was no such thing as TIVO, so I didn’t tape it. Let’s say I watched five times a month. I don’t remember any of those shows, but I do remember she was a part of my life as far back as the birth of my fabulous daughter. I also remember that I never discussed watching her with anyone. It wasn’t until the last few years that I came out of the Oprah-Watcher Closet and demanded that those I care about take a look at some of her shows. Many of them looked at me like I was nuts, but I didn’t care.

I’m not alone. Some of Oprah’s stats boggle the mind. Oprah’s audience is predominantly female, white, and over the age of 55. Nationally, 7.4 million people watch Oprah daily—about 2.6 percent of American households. Four percent of American women (about 5.7 million) watch her daily, compared with 1.2 percent of men (1.7 million people). Overall, 2 percent of Americans age 18 to 49 watch Oprah—more than 5 billion people over the last twenty-five years.

She has sold millions of books, propelling unknown first-time authors to the New York Times Best Seller List and bringing some of literature’s classics to those of us who would never have read them. As a kid, I was a voracious reader, but somewhere along the path to adulthood I’d forgotten to pack books, and she reminded me that they needed to be a part of my everyday life. I remember the summer she said, “Let’s all read War and Peace together.” Here is what she said about it. “War and Peace is not so much difficult as it is long. Dig in, though, and you’ll quickly see why Tolstoy’s exuberant opus—set in the years just before, during, and after Napoleon’s invasion of Russia—is arguably the greatest novel of all time. Within these pages, you’ll find family drama, trenchant social observation, military history, brilliant discourse on the question of free will, and a love story for the ages.” I loved that summer, and War and Peace was one of the reasons why.

She has dealt with politically hot issues, including race, incest, bullying, and pretty much anything that has more than one passionate point of view. If topics like these hurt the heart too much, I sometimes have to look away, but she always does it with compassion, humor, and intelligence; and I can honestly say, I have never looked away or turned off an Oprah show. That’s a testament to her greatness right there.

I have watched some Oprah shows with Ms. Sarah, daughter extraordinaire. And, while Sarah sometimes rolled her eyes when I asked her to watch with me, generally she was transfixed after the first few minutes. She and I sent contributions after some shows. We laughed at Oprah and Gayle’s cross country drive, and at least I was imagining Sarah and me making the same trip as they lovingly bickered their way cross-country. I am closer to Sarah because of Oprah. Thanks, Oprah.

Oprah was born poor and black, deep in the south. Her mother left her with her grandmother when she was a baby. When she was around five, she was sent back to her mother. She was darker skinned than her sister, and when she arrived at the house her mother lived in, the owner of the house made her sleep alone on the porch outside because she didn’t want her in the house. Oprah was terrified out there. Alone and frightened, she invited an imaginary angel to sleep with her to keep her company and to keep her safe.

Her mother was on welfare, and one Christmas she said there would be no Christmas presents because there was no money. Oprah was saddened by this, mostly because she didn’t want to have to go to school and say they didn’t get gifts because there was no money. Nuns arrived on Christmas Eve and brought gifts, and Oprah received a doll. She was relieved because she could now go to school with a present to share. But, she also says that what was truly extraordinary was that she mattered to someone. She said she felt as if she was really somebody who was worth something to someone, or why would the nuns have brought her a gift?

Ok, last story, I promise. Her grandmother was hanging clothes to dry in the backyard of their house and she told Oprah that she wanted her to learn how to do it well so she could get a good job with a nice family when she grew up. Oprah was four. She remembers thinking, even then, that she was destined for something better and that she was not going to be hanging anyone else’s clothes on any clothesline.

I think Oprah’s pain and her experiences are what her shows relevant to her viewers. Been there, done that, and lived to share it with you, audience, if you just hang in there with me. And, isn’t that true for all of us and our friendships? Our shared experiences of our different lives are important to our friends, and sharing those experiences bring us closer.

There are Oprah-isms that have stayed with me through the years. Let me share a few of them.

Aha Moments. I have a lot of them, but not until she taught me to stop for a moment and notice them did I realize their value. I write them down now, and pass them on to my child and my friends. I like aha moments. They enrich my life.

God has a bigger dream for you than you have for yourself. While I don’t believe in the traditional God, Oprah and I have found our own God-voice over our years together, and I often go to that place that says I can do more than I dreamed. And while the journey to that end is slow indeed, I’m still striving toward it because I believe it.

You are enough the way you are. This is the hardest one of all. It’s hard to remember to view yourself through your personal mirror rather than out the window that shows your reflection through the eyes of others. It still eludes me, but it was brought to my attention by my good friend Oprah, and I thank her.

I should point out that I am not actually Oprah’s friend. She doesn’t know I exist, and that’s ok with me. Oprah is my friend. Her secrets are mine. Her glass, which seems always to be half-full, is my glass. When I am going through a difficult time I often think of her and remind myself that each of our journeys are a part of someone else’s journey, and that I need to remember that. So, I don’t really care if Oprah goes off the air. I have a lifetime’s lessons from her already inside me, and my friendship with her has nothing to do with seeing her every day, but rather with our mutual experience and attitudes over the past quarter-century. So, I bid you a fond farewell, old friend. It’s been a pleasure.

And as for the housekeeper/assistant—you couldn’t resign when you got pregnant? You had to stay in the household for ten more years? You had to provide Maria and the children with memories of yourself as an integral part of their personal lives, and all the while you were the mother [...]]]> Arnold, Arnold, Arnold. Really?

And as for the housekeeper/assistant—you couldn’t resign when you got pregnant? You had to stay in the household for ten more years? You had to provide Maria and the children with memories of yourself as an integral part of their personal lives, and all the while you were the mother to their husband’s/father’s child? Really?

This story is not a new one. In other countries, it’s not a deal-breaker the way it is in the US of A. Since time immemorial men have been fathering children out of wedlock. France’s president was not brought down when he introduced his out-of-wedlock daughter. It made the news, but not the way it would have here. What is different about the European and American points of view on these things?

I was having lunch yesterday with two smart men with whom I consult. One of them is from Central America, and he joked that it’s clearly Maria’s fault for having hired someone who could catch her husband’s eye. If he weren’t joking, he would be the cad that Arnold is, and that would be unacceptable. And then he told an extraordinary story. He said his mother had always said she only wanted to know the children of her daughters, because those were the only grandchildren that she knew to be hers. I asked if she really said that, and he said yes. Extraordinary. He asked me why it was that women who cheat on their husbands never seem to get pregnant, but the women married men sleep with do. I asked him if he felt it to be the man’s responsibility to make sure he is protected, and he said yes, but I think he meant no.

Arnold has always been more of a man’s man than a woman’s man. And he’s been very smart. He’s made a fortune and hasn’t allowed his image to be affected by his womanizing, or worse, by his mistreatment of women. And he never lost anything because of it. Is this where we start talking about taking responsibility? He said yesterday that he takes responsibility for his actions; will someone please explain to me what that actually means? The phrase, “I take responsibility for my actions” is bandied about as if there are always consequences for taking responsibility. Not so much.

He signed a three-movie contract last week, just before this story broke. He could take responsibility by saying he realizes he has no business being an action “hero” to the youth of this country and is pulling out of the deal. Or the studio could help him take responsibility by canceling the contract. Will men go to his movies because they love his Terminator persona as well as to join a secret society, one that is never public, that says a guy really wants to spread his “wealth” around? Go Arnold? If I gave a lie detector test to 100 really decent guys and asked if they thought he was a terrible person, they would answer, “Yes, of course!” Would they be lying? I’m not sure. And please don’t condescend to me by attributing my opinion to my being jaded by my own divorce, because I’m not. And fellow peeps without dicks, please don’t go to his movies anymore. And please don’t let your sons go. And please encourage your guy friends and your family not to go. Let’s retire this ridiculous, ego-driven human being to obscurity—which, as we know from OJ’s history, is a fate worse than being a lying, cheating cad (at least to a lying, cheating cad).

Who is worse, Arnold or the love-child’s mother, Mildred Baena?  Turns out her son is almost 14. Arnold and Maria’s youngest is 13, which means that at one point, Mildred and Maria were both pregnant in the same house together. Cozy. This is the type of thing from which one does not easily recover. When Maria saw the baby, did she know? And Mildred, who are you? Ever heard of sisterhood? Maria is one of the strongest supporters of women in the country, and she spends a good portion of her time on helping women build their self-esteem. Nice payback, girlfriend.

Ok, Christine, what is your point? I have no idea. I have no bloody idea what the point of this is. But one thing I know for sure is that it’s none of my business. Their personal life is none of my business. But I do want to know what the makeup of his DNA is; what made him do it? Is it a total F-you to women? Was it the steroids he must have taken in his youth? Was it a mistake, and Mildred then blackmailed him?

I would also like to say that I never liked him. When I moved to California I often told people that it was hard to live in a state whose Governor was not able to properly pronounce its name. Enough said.

I work with a lovely, really smart young woman who handles our social media and my sanity. Here is the [...]]]> I’ve written about Victoria’s Secret before in a blog more than a year ago. I was insulting about it then, and am happy that I can present a different point of view this time.

I work with a lovely, really smart young woman who handles our social media and my sanity. Here is the text she sent me on Tuesday night:

“Hope you are watching the VS fashion show tonight. It’s a religious experience. The Super Bowl for women.”

She can’t be serious. It reminded me of the exchange in Something’s Gotta Give, when Nicholson mentions he can’t believe that Diane Sawyer got a job that didn’t show her fabulous legs, and Diane Keaton says something like, “You have got to be kidding me. The woman goes into the caves of Afghanistan with a schemata on her head for God’s sake. Who cares about her legs?”

I texted back to my friend: “Women in bathing suits? Why on earth would I want to do that? Are you high? I’m watching The Biggest Loser.”

The worst part about my text to her is that it was true. I was sitting on the couch eating an Eskimo Pie ice cream bar watching The Biggest Loser. Please don’t judge me, and don’t pretend you never watched it. I could have left out the part about the ice cream bar and held on to some shred of the self respect I lost by outing my TV habits, but I felt that an accurate description was important to the point I hope to make at some point in this entry. Besides, I’m trying to live an authentic life, so no more secrets.

She replied, “Bathing suits? It’s an art!! Most beautiful women in the world strutting their stuff and every one’s watching. At least TIVO it… so I can convince you to watch tom.” (“Tom” means “tomorrow,” for those of you who don’t speak twenty-something text vocabulary.)

“Sorry, it’s Biggest Loser for me.”

I thought about her text and reread it this morning.

Ok, is she so fabulous that she can rejoice in the perfection of another woman who will never reflect anything she is or hopes to be?

I always thought the VS fashion show was for men, and silly ones at that. You know who I mean, those ridiculous guys who slap each other on the back rather than hug hello, and who buy their significant other Victoria’s Secret stuff for their birthdays, which is really a gift for themselves.

My co-worker is a smart young woman. She may be smarter than me. She is cute and funny and has her shit together in many ways. I really felt the need to reflect on her ability to enjoy something that I find so abhorrent, and I had an a-ha moment—maybe this new generation of women will get it right. Maybe sexuality for them will not be wrapped up in male expectations of what they should be, but rather a celebration of what they are themselves and what other women are for themselves. Just as I take pride in Hillary Clinton as a really smart woman, even though I will never reach her intellectual heights, nor feel the worse for it. Just as I take pride in female athletes in the Olympics, even though I will never ski more than a mile an hour. OK, actually, I will never ski again, but you get the point. I’m not threatened by the successes of other women, but the women in Victoria’s Secret TV specials threaten the hell out of me. But maybe this upcoming group of women will just celebrate their bodies the way I celebrate other women’s intelligence and athleticism. Wouldn’t that be just the best?

I can hear you now. Sex is different than athleticism or intelligence. It’s how you catch the man. It’s the competition that is always there, even if you have supposedly won the race for the guy already. Well, maybe it doesn’t have to be that way, and maybe the generation now watching the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show will not find other women’s bodies threatening. Or at least maybe some of them won’t, and instead will celebrate them for their assets. I have to say it again: Wouldn’t that be just the best?

So, MBD, I will watch next year… maybe. And I would just like to add that the finale of The Biggest Loser is next week, and you may want to make sure to turn it on. A woman may actually win it, and since the guys she’s up against are exactly like the ones I described earlier, I’d really like her to beat them. NBC. Nine o’clock.

I cried all the way through Secretariat. What is it about horses? What is it about [...]]]> I have to review these two movies together because they are both about women in the seventies who stood out among women, bucked the conventional roles of women, and made us all better for it in the end.

I cried all the way through Secretariat. What is it about horses? What is it about the way they stride forth that makes me want to do the same thing? To be extraordinary. Isn’t that the point for each of us? To find what is extraordinary about our individual selves and then just find a way to do it? Diane Lane is lovely, but she’s not strong enough for the role. I have now watched a lot of interviews with the real Penny Chenery, and she was tougher than Lane. It should have been Glenn Close or someone with a little hardness. Diane Lane always looks a little like a deer in headlights, and Secretariat’s owner had no deer-in-headlights quality about her. That notwithstanding, the role is so rich, it makes no difference.

Could a woman in the seventies far surpass her husband’s greatness? Not so much. Could she raise children and run a horse farm from half a country away? I’m sure these responsibilities took a toll, but the end result had to be worth it: her daughters saw her rise above the housewife norm. Would that I could have a moment when my daughter watches something I’m doing with the pride of Kate Chenery.

Then there is the fabulous woman in Made in Dagenham. She is, of course, a more admirable heroine; she brought the Ford Motor Company to its knees demanding equal pay for women. The portrayal of the men in this film makes you want to bury them all at Wounded Knee—and wound their knees on the way to the burial. It was a long time ago, and much has changed since then, but those women who stood up to men when it was so very costly to do so need to have monuments erected for them, like the Greeks used to do for their gods.

Forty years ago women had no business voice and didn’t do blue-collar work, and the two women in the movie stepped forward in their different ways and paved the way for my generation to move toward equality in business. I thank them. Take your daughters to these movies. Buy them for the family library, along with Pretty Women and You’ve Got Mail. There is room for both of them.

The fantasy of a woman finding a man, coupled with the reality of knowing you needn’t have one to be something special, has a place in all our favorite films.

Thanks to you Penney Chenery and Rose Boland, for paving the way. And, thanks to Secretariat, the greatest horse that ever lived, even if he was a boy.

Zenyatta. Tall. Graceful. Dignified.

Today at 6:45 p.m. EST, the Breeder’s Cup will be run at Churchill Downs in Kentucky. Zenyatta will run in this race; the only mare in a sea of testosterone-filled male racehorses, and she is bigger physically than all of [...]]]>

Zenyatta. Tall. Graceful. Dignified.

Today at 6:45 p.m. EST, the Breeder’s Cup will be run at Churchill Downs in Kentucky. Zenyatta will run in this race; the only mare in a sea of testosterone-filled male racehorses, and she is bigger physically than all of them. This will be her twentieth race , and she has won all nineteen of the races she ran prior to this one. This is also her last race. Normally I would write about her tomorrow after her history is permanently penned, but I want to make sure that all the women in the country watch her today and thank her for the gifts she gives us.

She was purchased for a mere $60,000 when she was one year old, four and a half years ago. She had a skin condition which made her not so pretty, hence her low purchase price. She didn’t run in the Kentucky Derby, her trainer says, because “she matured late and wasn’t ready yet.” I get that. I am just getting ready to run my races now, and I’m fifty-seven.

She is very quiet and gentle off the track. She plays with kids, never moves unless necessary (I so get that), and she doesn’t have the thoroughbred angst most racehorses have, both on and off the track. She drinks a Guinness every day, and no other beer interests her.

Then she hits the track. She does a prancing dance that is really beautiful to watch, and I’m confident Alvin Ailey would do something like it if he were still alive. I love watching it. She comes out of the gate slowly—really slowly—and is always last for the first part of the race. Then she turns it on. She lowers her whole body and takes off, seemingly loving the passing of her competition, rather than just getting to the finish line first. She is ruthless, and has nineteen times run each race the same way, and won. Nineteen in a row. From behind.

I love Zenyatta. I love her grace. My favorite word is grace, and she has it. I love that she isn’t afraid to compete against the boys but doesn’t always need to show her toughness. She can bring it when she needs to and be the ‘lady’ when she wants to.

I have always struggled with the feminine question of when to be the girl and when to let out the competitive spirit that takes no prisoners. Not to kill the competition, but simply to beat it. She has mastered it, and I think of her often in business and in my personal life. She is my personal heroine. Oprah put her in Oprah magazine’s list of the most powerful women in the world. Good choice, Ms. O.

Today is her last race. I’m sure they will breed her. Her jockey, Mike Smith, who has ridden her in all her races, says she still has never put it all out there—she hasn’t needed to. He says she will do it today. He also said there is no male worthy of her. I like that too. I hope you will all watch her. I hope you will all thank her for the gifts she has given me, and I’m sure many other women.

Good luck today, Zenyatta. Win girlfriend. And thank you so very much.