Outside In

Hello, my name is...

My former relationship to fame, demonstrated by Miss Miller and my bedroom window, around 2010.

My daughter used to be such a window licker. Paint eater. Hummus smearer. Sewer screamer.

Seriously. I chronicled it in one of my earliest blog posts, from, let’s see, 2009! Worlds gone by, sigh. Here it is:

Stella* is not her real name.

Further evidence, Your Honor:

Bonus! Eraser eater.

Maybe with all this newly surfaced information, it’s no wonder my darling daughter accepted the erroneous math of trans identities. Or maybe everyone’s child goes through an eraser eating phase. I’m no parenting expert.

That first picture. See the caption?

My former relationship to fame…

In an historic Jungian dreamscape that snap of my little girl licking a window symbolizes fame and me, forever licking the cutting glass boundary between an innocent lamb and her hope of hopes. I used to want to be famous so so badly, maybe the same way she wants/wanted to be trans. I was sure starting at the age of six, maybe seven—back when I used to smooch my Shaun Cassidy album—that fame would make me real. Attention would carve the word “WORTHY”upon my chest. Adoration would tattoo “LOVABLE” across my forehead. “APPROVED” would be branded on every remaining epidermal surface. I’d swell with the stuff. Stink of it. Bleed for it.

Where my identity felt as solid as a cloud, fame, I was sure, would nail me down. Like a religious totem, people would travel far and wide just for a glimpse. A touch. A fingernail clipping.

I read somewhere that Rasputin’s adoring gaggle of females did just that—sewed his fingernail clippings into the hems of their skirts.

That’s what I wanted.

And then I grew the fuck up.

Not so fast. Let’s not leap across the lake of lava. It took me a long ass time to love myself solid without fame. In the middle of the boiling soup, or maybe toward the end, I almost made it. I wrote a novel. Nabbed an agent. A bidding war ensued. A movie option! And then—pfft. It didn’t pan. The gold never rolled. I remained hideously, shamefully unknown.

This is the blog post where I tell you who I am.

This is my book:

Click the link for more info.

Hi, my name is Elise. I am a twice published novelist, blogger, personal trainer, former leftist, wife, mother and confessor of sins.

My first novel is about a young woman who worships celebrity only to find out Hollywood is not what it seems. In real life, it would take twenty years from its original publication in 2004 to fully integrate this knowledge.

My second novel explores the same theme as the first—searching outside oneself to fill an emotional hole only a mommy and daddy could dig. Here it is:

Click click.

Fame never came but jealousy of others’ fame still stings. Even now. It smarts like a slap and I have to turn inward to talk myself down from the ledge.

Memes help too. Like this one:

I just read a book that demystifies fame, and I’m a little obsessed. The book is called FAME. It’s by Justine Bateman.

Justine Bateman, a few minutes ago, became a conservative media darling for her clever and hilarious #socialmediavideocritiques of unhinged leftards™ and I am here for it.

When I saw Justine’s face for the first time in decades I was taken aback at first by how UN-Hollywood she is. How unaltered she has steadfastly remained. Her face is an obvious Fuck You to the Hollywood establishment, an unignorable political gesture and a bold, beautiful statement of reality. That piqued my curiosity even more.

Badass Bateman

Justine wrote FAME way back in ‘18. Score! I binge-listened to her narrate it on Audible yesterday. Then I learned she wrote a book about her face—about aging women’s faces—called FACE. I’m on chapter 12, eating it like a delicious pencil eraser.

CHEW CHEW. YUM YUM.

I appreciate Justine’s slam-poetry writing style, her take-no-prisoners approach. Admittedly I do have a few constructive criticisms, but overall I dig it. I dig her.

And at the same time I find myself a little jealous. Her book is a bestseller. Her life included a stint on one of the most popular television shows ever with the inimitable MJ Fox.

Woe is me.

But hey, I worked with Michael J. too you know. I was an extra in Light of Day. I almost got to be Joan Jett’s stand in, but was too young to take off from school. Maybe I can even find the scene I’m in… Oh yeah, 59:35—there I am! Can you smell the superstardom?

Here’s a still:

See me there behind blurry Michael J? He stood on that landing with me waiting for the call to action—literally—chatting amiably. Gave me a ciggie—a Dunhill I think. Told me it was a “great choice” to smoke in the scene since it would draw eyes. I thought maybe he’d fall in love with me between takes and I’d be on my way. Instead I decided to go for his stand-in. Phone stalked him for weeks as if hooking up with some famous or fame-adjacent guy was the same thing as becoming famous.

I admit it! I was pretty cringe. I can see that now. But being me, well, I know the backstory, and can sympathize. I just had the math wrong:

Damage + Fame/Famous Boy/Fame-Adjacent Boy ≠ Whole.

I told you a little while ago that I had my first orgasm with a British pop star. Now that you know who I am, I guess it’s only fair that you know who he is too. Click click.

IRL the math goes:

Damage + DECADES of Self-Investigation/Radical Acceptance/False Starts/Dead Ends/Therapy/Journaling/Marriage/Children/Mortifying Revelations/Barbells/Writing/Kettlebells/Tattoos/Tears/Rage/Red Meat/Dancing/Dogs/Re-Parenting/Lexapro/Hugs = Whole.

That’s pretty much the recipe. Easily repeatable. Marketable. Digestible. One size fits all. Notice the conspicuous absence of meditation retreats, ayahuasca and especially yoga and gurus. Not my voyage. Though believe me I tried. I did Hatha, Anusara, Jivamukti, Ashtanga, Bikram and even Kundalini, whose cultish abuses are now delectably documented in Max’s Breath of Fire. Baby, back in the day, I had the BOOK.

To be a Kundalini adherent you must: wake up at 4AM, take a cold shower while slapping yourself with almond oil and shouting, “WAHE GURU! WAHE GURU!” Drink weird turmeric tea you boil yourself, inspect your poopies to see if they float (Enlightened!) or sink (Loser!) and then chant for twenty minutes or so about a fictitious Sikhi space-force path to oneness with the universe.

Something like that.

My poopies sank. Rick Ross and by weird serendipity David Duchovny validated my suspicions that Kundalini was indeed a cult, and so I latered the hell outta there well before wrapping my head in a white turban, but just in time to witness an ALL-IN lady practitioner, I kid you not, LICK THE AIR when she found out that Yogi Bhajan himself had graced the interior molecules of the Park Slope brownstone where we contorted ourselves weekly.

Fuuuuuck that.

I was desperate, made terrible humiliating wrong turns, but by whatever grace of God, knew bullshit when I smelled it.

Which brings me back to Fame—and its red-headed cousin Trans—both of which have about as much spiritual utility as frog pose, cause costly and irreparable physical harm, and do absolutely nothing for your self-esteem.

You cannot math your self-worth from the outside in.

And—

Pleased to meet you.

☯️