The First Time I Was Mistaken For A Hooker

The first time implies there were other times. There were, which is one of 10 reasons I probably should revisit therapy. My looks, makeup, and clothes don't scream hooker. At least not to me. Apparently others disagree.

I dated The Doctor for three years and was madly in love with him because he was kind of a genius, having invented a baby heart monitor among his many achievements. He raced Formula Atlantic cars in Lime Rock, Connecticut and Watkins Glen, NY and we were both enamored of the more powerful F-1 cars. So one year we flew from NY to California to catch the Long Beach Grand Prix.  The high-pitched whine those engines make when they streak in front of you raises your blood pressure and probably your cholesterol. It's very sexual. Not the cholesterol part.

The Doctor in his Formula Atlantic. The worst race I ever witnessed was when his car spun around 4 times on the track and came to a dead stop and he didn't move his head. Eventually he took off his helmet and raised a thumb's up. Later, other drivers told me he was a horrible driver and would probably die in his car. Fun guys.

Me being instructed in the pace car by The Doctor's race team:

The Grand Prix was spectacular and afterward we went to an auto show to see the new Lamborghini's, Ferrari's, and other cars I couldn't afford but he could. Everything was fine until The Doctor decided we should spend our second night in California at a friend's house. This friend of his turned out to be a very pretty girl named Dakota. She lived with her boyfriend so naturally this made The Doctor assume we should swap partners. SURE, WHO DOESN'T DO THAT WITH OUT-OF-TOWN GUESTS? He hadn't seen Dakota in many years and now that he was balding, and still short, I thought for sure she wouldn't be interested. I was wrong. He was rich and rich trumps bald and short. And her boyfriend was all in. I thought it was horrible that both he and my boyfriend would even think of lending their girlfriends like we were in a bookmobile and could be returned the next day. But as I aged, which I'm not by the way, I realized men are the real whores and are always looking for strange.

The Doctor and I got into a fight over the swapping. A big fight. A fight so huge that I called information to get the number of a local cab company and then sneaked out of the house with my purse and small overnight. I had the cab driver drop me at the Beverly Hills Hotel because it was the only hotel I'd heard of. I checked in after midnight. As the hotel clerk gave me my room key, a man came up behind me and also checked in.

I unpacked, turned on the TV, and raided the mini-bar. Mercifully I've blocked out how much I took from the mini-bar because, hello, the Beverly Hills Hotel. 

Sidebar: The next morning I called my sister Lindy, who lived in Santa Monica, and asked her to come stay with me. We ordered room service and the only thing I remember from our breakfast was that a glass of orange juice was $5.00. In 1981. I was young then and had credit cards that weren't maxed out. That's not going to last, Suzy. Stop drinking orange juice in California.

The room phone rang. No one knew where I was so I assumed it was the front desk. 

"Hello."

"Hi."

"Who's this?"

"I checked into the hotel after you."

"Oh yeah, I saw you."

"I thought you might want some company."

"What? How did you get this number?"

"I looked over your shoulder and saw your room number."

If you know anything about hotel check-ins, and having spent over 20 years on the road as a standup comic I do,  I can assure you that even the cheesiest hotel does not routinely let guests see other guests' room numbers. This is how serial killers get started and your grief stricken family ends up on Dateline NBC. I hung up on him and called the front desk.

"Did you give my room number to that asshole who checked in behind me?"

"Miss, please...I can assure you there are no people like that in this hotel."
"Well, some asshole just called me and said he checked in after me so who the hell was that?"
"I don't know miss, maybe a friend of yours?"
"I don't know any ASSHOLES." Of course this was a total lie because I was currently dating one. "I just got here and can assure you I did not give out this room number to anyone. So he probably followed me because you gave him my room number and OH MY GOD, do you think I'm a prostitute?"

"You only had a small bag...and checked in very late."

I hung up on him, too. I looked down at my clothes. Jeans and a t-shirt. You know, your basic prostitute-y outfit.

Breaking (Up) Bad 8 - Part 2

This is the second and final part from the chapter How I Got Over Freddy, from my memoir His Dead Wife. Part one here. This is heavily redacted from the actual chapter.


By the time Freddy came home that night, I was hysterical.
"When were you going to tell me you didn't work at your father's chicken plant?"
"My father doesn't have a chicken plant."
"You fucking asshole! So where have you been and what did you do with all the money you took from me?”
“Well I had to eat and keep myself busy for the eight hours I walked around San Francisco every day.”

His tone implied a big "Duh."

"Did you at least call your parole officer?"
"Yeah, yeah, get off my back."

It's said that without denial, the human spirit would perish. That denial allows our brain and our heart a respite before they catch up with reality and are able to deal. Denial was, and would be, my emotional home for many, many years.

I didn't ask Freddy to pay back the money he stole from me and we didn’t discuss him getting another job. He was now home all day, or all night, but never both. He took money out of my wallet when I was in the shower or sleeping. I never asked him what he did with it or where he went when he disappeared. I was safely at home, 1737 Repudiation Road, Denial, California. USA.

One day Glamaruss called and in a moment of guilt, admitted that Freddy had been using again and was seeing another woman. I was furious at Glam for not telling me sooner, but it’s kind of useless being mad at a drag queen. You can tell them you’re angry and they’ll respond with, “Look honey, I’m over 35, HIV positive and the only person who ever loved me was my foster mom who was killed in a drive-by in Inglewood when I was twelve.”

I hung up and lit a cigarette, pacing the nine by twelve foot cell of my studio apartment like a caged cheetah. I had cut back on bennies and downers and replaced them with a new palliative, Marlboro reds in the flip top box. I called my ex-roommate Celeste. She didn’t like Freddy but she was the only person I trusted to tell me the truth.

“I should leave him, right?”
“You went to the prison?”
“I missed him.”
“What did you miss? The hitting or the peeing on you in our bathtub?”
“Oh God, you knew about that?”
“He used to brag about it when you weren’t home. ”
“Okay, can we just stick to the current facts, please?”
“Sure,” she said, “let’s see; he was in prison, you let him come live with you, he stole money out of your wallet, lied about having a job and was cheating on you with the woman he cheated on you with before. Is that current enough for you?”

All right, maybe Celeste wasn’t the only person I trusted to tell me the truth. Maybe I had other friends who would tell me the kind of truth I wanted to hear. But I didn’t and I knew it.

One day I got a call from Henley. He and I had spent hours on Stinson Beach dropping acid and listening to the Rolling Stones. He was rich and didn't have to work for a living and would die of AIDS in the late 1980's.

“Girl, your boy just broke into my apartment and stole my stereo and all my jewelry.” I rushed over to his house and Henley showed me the broken window in the dining room.
“How do you know it was Freddy?”
“I was home when he did it.”
“Well why the fuck didn’t you stop him, or call the cops?”
“Cause he’s a drug addict and I figured if he got it all, then he wouldn’t come back.”

That actually made sense to me. I went home and waited for Freddy. One day, two days. On the third morning he came home. I was chain smoking and drinking Nyquil since it was the only thing in the apartment that had alcohol in it. Unless you counted the almost empty bottle of Jack Daniels I had drained through a straw.

“Seriously, you’ve got to give Henley his shit back.”
“That queer’s rich; fuck him.”
“Freddy, I’m not kidding, he's one of my best friends. You have to give him his stuff back.”
“Fuck you.” And Freddy was out the door.

Then he started stealing from me when I was out. My passport, a 35 millimeter camera, an ivory cigarette holder and the lowest of all, the diamond ring that I had suspected belonged to his mother. And even though he was disappearing more and more, he must have been stalking me to know when I wasn’t home. When I did see him I asked if he was using again and he lied and said he wasn’t. Even though we weren’t having sex I still hadn’t made the leap from No Sex with Me equals Sex with Someone Else. After all, when he stopped hitting me, did I automatically assume he was hitting someone else?

I got fired from Nickel’s because they told me Freddy had broken in and stolen from them. They didn’t need the extra burden of a salesgirl’s ex-con junkie plus their own heroin addiction to interfere with projected retail sales for the fall quarter.

I was sitting alone in my apartment one afternoon with the shades drawn and a cigarette dangling out of the corner of my mouth. Suddenly I heard a horn honk. And continue honking and honking and honking. It was the Handwriting on the Wall Wagon and it was parked in my head.

As if in a trance, I went upstairs to Glamaruss’s. The front door was unlocked and I walked in. It was drag queen early, about 11:00 a.m., and it was quiet.

“Glamaruss?” I tiptoed through the living room, “Glam, are you here?”

I went to her bedroom and slowly pushed open the door. And there they were, Glamaruss and Freddy, spooning, sound asleep. I inched forward to get a better look and a floor board creaked. Glam stretched out an arm. I froze but she saw me. I don’t know which one of us looked more horrified.

The thing that pissed me off the most about the end of me and Freddy was not that he had lied, stolen my money or cheated on me but in the entire three years, he had never once spooned with me. And that? Hurt.

A week later I packed a suitcase and moved to Paris. Maybe they wouldn't have denial there.

And that’s how I got over Freddy.

Breaking (Up) Bad 8

This is one of my breakup stories. There were so many I wrote an entire BOOK about them. I can hear you laughing from here. So this is part 1 of this story, from my book His Dead Wife. It's a chapter called How I Got Over Freddy. Second part on Wednesday.

Freddy was doing time at Tehachapi for burglary and possession of heroin, and when he was discharged he asked if he could live with me. He gave me his parole officer’s number and I called. He said Freddy had been in and out of prison his entire life and it was doubtful he would ever make it on the outside without some serious support. I also learned that Freddy had had a wife once, and that she had divorced him after the first time he went to prison. He also had two sons, but Freddy didn’t know where they all lived now. Freddy’s parents knew but had agreed with his ex-wife to keep him out of his children’s lives because they knew nothing good could come of it. They were fed up with him because he had robbed them so many times that they had decided not to let him back in their house. His parents wouldn’t let him visit, he couldn’t see his kids ever again, and his wife had left him. Somebody had to help this guy. And of course I was just co-dependent enough to sign up for this tour of duty.

I told Freddy he could live with me but only if he never hit me again. And he didn’t. I wondered if I had said that when he was hitting me if he would have stopped then, too.

Freddy didn’t talk, rarely ate and was gone a lot. I was angry when I realized that he had paid more attention to me when he was hitting me. The physical abuse was easier to handle than the mental abuse. At least I could see the damage.

Freddy needed a job but what he really needed was to clean up. He had used heroin the entire time he was in prison but now that he was on the outside, he didn’t want to continue because it was an expensive habit. Freddy said it was cheaper and easier to get dope in the joint than it was on the streets and he had the track marks to prove it.

“You have to help me kick,” he said calmly.
“Ok.” I replied, also calmly, only I was pretending.
“You have to hide the knives, lock the doors and no matter what I say, don’t let me leave the apartment or call my dealer.”

That would really not be a problem since his dealer had showed up at our door only two days before. He had handed me a bag with a dead rat in it and said, “Tell your fucking boyfriend this is the only dime bag I’ve got for him until he fucking pays me. Got it, bitch?” So, hide knives, lock doors, dead rat in bag. Done. So done.

Freddy took all the knives and the phone and put them in a trash bag and gave them to our upstairs neighbor, a drag queen named Russell Richardson who went by the name Glamaruss. Then he made Glamaruss rope tie him to the bed. Freddy said it would take at least three days to detox, which was perfect because that’s how long it would take me to figure out how to untie the knots. A Maxwell House coffee can was Freddy’s new toilet.

He begged, he sweet-talked, he threatened my life but I didn’t untie him. At one point I got bored and asked him how exactly did he think he was going to kill me since he was tied to the bed? He called me a 'fucking whore' but based on my previous sexual encounters that had zero effect, obviously.

I didn’t leave the apartment for two days, afraid that he would die without me there. On the third day he stopped nodding off and sweating through his clothes and asked for orange Hostess cupcakes. At that point I knew he’d turned the corner because who the fuck would eat the orange ones except a cleaned up junkie?

Freddy started a job at his father’s chicken plant and checked in with his parole officer once a week. He would write me notes each morning and leave them on the kitchen table. “Dear Baby, I am going to pluk chikens. I took twenty dolars out of your walette to by chiken pluking gloves.”

Yes, I know; Love Is Blind and Has No Spell Check.

About three weeks after our homemade detox, I went to a pay phone to call Freddy at the chicken plant. Our phone had been temporarily disconnected since I didn’t have enough money to pay the last month’s bill. Freddy was taking more and more of my boutique paycheck to buy things for his new job.

“Freddy? Freddy who?” the woman asked.
“Freddy, the guy who plucks chickens for his father.”
“Sorry honey, no Freddy here. This is a car dealership.”

(to be continued)

This Is One Of The Funniest Things I've Ever Written While Still Remaining Completely Obscure To Everyone But My Family

I'm a new contributor at humoroutcasts.com and even though they regularly reprint my tweets, this is the first long form piece they published because I made them.

It's about the first time I had a 3 way.

http://humoroutcasts.com/2012/were-goin-ridin-on-the-3-way-of-love/

The Girl With No Forehead Hair

Mom was going through her files and found a large one filled with letters from me. She kept the letters but mailed me the things she found inside them. I'm fairly certain I enclosed a hundred dollar bill in each of the 240,000 letters I sent her over a lifetime but she begs to differ.

I have no idea when I sent her this but she was in Paris at the time and I was living in Washington D.C. I was in the experimental stages of figuring out how to spell my name as you can see from the SUSY. I wonder if I sent her any 4 leaf clovers that said, "FROM THE NEIGHBOR'S YARD ACROSS THE STREET, THE ONES WE DON'T LIKE. Picked by Susie!"



This photo landed me in the office of a big commercial agent in New York. I walked in and the first thing he said was "Oh dear."

I can still feel my heart sink to my stomach from that day.

"Your picture led me to believe that you'd be a perfect character actress and I was so excited because I knew you'd get lots of work. However, in person, you're not funny looking at all. You're actually too pretty to be a character actress but YOU'RE NOT PRETTY ENOUGH TO BE THE STAR."

You know how some critiques stick in your head forever?

I have no idea where this picture was taken. I'm wearing a long black leather coat that my sister bought me in Istanbul, Turkey. I also have no other pictures that would give me a clue so...welcome to Long Coat Black Leather Suzy.


This is one of the only pictures of me where I don't have bangs. Again, NO IDEA where it was taken or where I was at the time. I want to say it was taken in Paris because after I left San Francisco I showed up in Paris with a very short hairdo. So this might have been the growing out phase?

That pin on my right lapel, a little diamonique star, left as you're looking at the photo, was given to me by the heroin addict that was my boyfriend in San Francisco. I didn't know that he'd stolen it from his mother until I wore it to her house one day and she informed me it was hers. I immediately removed it and offered it back to her but she wouldn't accept it. I told her that her son had given me other pieces and described them and they were all hers. Her son was such a troubled person that I believe she was just happy he had someone in his life who loved him. I still have the pin, and the other pieces, all from the 1940's.

Many years later he went to prison.

Looking back at pictures, the first thing I do is assess my hair. Long Coat Black Leather Suzy hadn't started bleaching her hair yet so the ash blond looks dark and goes with my coat. The Oh Dear Suzy had curled her stick straight uncurlable hair and the result was that both sides looked so different that the photographer suggested I put one side up so that it wouldn't be so obvious. Meanwhile, back at Obvious Ranch, it's SO OBVIOUS.

Forehead Free Suzy doesn't even look like me. When it first tumbled out of the envelope I wondered who it was. I see my Russian grandfather in that photo and later pictures of my mother, but to me it looks like someone else. Someone who could be the star of the show IF SHE DAMN WELL PLEASED.

Another Ridiculous Thing I Did For A Guy

Going through the two million things I own and have to pack has rocketed me back to some memories that make me groan. For example, the disappearance of Book Four in the Basic Reader series of children's books that belonged to my father's family.

It happened while I was living in NY and dating The Doctor. When we met I had just moved to NY from Paris and was on Food Stamps. He thought that was hilarious. The girl from Paris was on Food Stamps.

I kept the books on a table in my living room and one night he saw them and said he had them in his family too. They brought back so many memories for him. He was elated to see them again.

That cliche about what do you get someone who has everything really applied to The Doctor.

I mean, the guy had his own plane.

Sidebar: He once flew me back from New Orleans during a storm while I drank Jack Daniels straight from the bottle in the back of the plane. I was drinking the Jack not because I was afraid of the storm, I was eventually too shitfaced to be scared, but because I overheard him tell the copilot that not only was I a girlfriend BUT YOU SHOULD SEE THE PICTURE OF HIS OTHER GIRLFRIEND.

He also had a chauffeured stretch Mercedes and a 10 room apartment on Park Avenue. His shirts were all bespoke, his shoes and belts were always Gucci and he favored Armani.

So for his birthday I gave him Book Four.  I thought I'd come up with the perfect gift for him. And I was right. He loved it. Gushed over my thoughtfulness, my generosity, my creativity.

The Doctor and I went out for three years. After we broke up BECAUSE SOMEONE COULDN'T STOP CHEATING ON ME, we remained friends and a year or so later I asked him whether he still had Book Four.

"Book Four of what?"
"The books that were in your family, my family, you know, those children's books."
"Sorry, no idea what you're talking about."

That was a frequent theme in our relationship.

Adventures In Man Land 4

I've been engaged three times. The first time I had my heart set on a white strapless gown. By the second engagement, I decided on an off-white dress. By the third time I just bought something I could return.

My first fiance was young and in the Army.

The Salvation Army.

He was so immature that on April Fool's Day he put polygrip in my diaphragm. I walked around all day sounding like a plunger.

One day he shaved his head.

"Why did you do that?"
"I'm trying to make my head look bigger."
"I wish you'd shave another part of your anatomy."

My second fiance gave me a big diamond ring, only there was no diamond. I had to keep telling people it dropped out and he kept telling people I lost it. He should have just put polygrip in it.

My third attempt at matrimony was creepy. He was 20 years older than me. He took me to meet his parents and I said, "Wow, this is a lovely cemetery."

He got mad at me because I kept putting our mortgage on a credit card. Finally I said to him, "That's not so bad. Our mortgage is $900.00 but our monthly minimum payment is only $76.50.
"If you had been alive in the 18th century you would have had to go to Debtor's prison." He said.
"Really? If they had that today I'd be on death row."

I don't think people should get a license for marriage. I think they should get Viagra, a gym membership, hair plugs and a warranty for parts and labor.

They do it so much better in the animal kingdom. The bald eagle mates and remains faithful for life. But I'll bet if he had some hair he'd be out screwing around.

End of chat.

Adventures In Man Land 3

After reading the comments section yesterday, I see a lot of us have the same problem when a man is driving a car. In my case, when he's driving, it's always, "We'll take a right at the light, we'll go left at the exit and take a U turn off the interstate." When I’m driving he'll say, "Get in the southbound lane, go west at that intersection and go north and south off the interstate." Like I'm Davy Crockett and there's a sundial in the car.

I hate driving with him. He reads every road sign out loud. Food, Gas, Lodging, 65 mph, 280 miles to Cleveland, which would scare me because we'd be in California at the time.

And another thing,why do men watch so much sports on TV? Is it because they can't read? Doctors claim men don't need as much anesthesia as women before surgery. For women, they just give them intravenous Valium and for men, they just turn on a TV.

Why are men such babies when they're sick? The guy next door got a head cold and he said to me, "I think my arm is going to fall off. I blew my nose and it was all wobbly and stuff."

Breaking up with a man is such a pain in the ass. I broke up with one guy and he said, "You know what your problem is? You have penis envy." And I said, "You're right, but not for yours".

I dumped another guy and said, "I just want to be your friend; I don't want to sleep with you anymore."And he said, "What's the definition of 'a friend' to you?" And I replied, "A friend is someone who will do anything for you." And he said, "Then lend me $500 and help me move next week. " And I said, "I think I could still fuck you."

End of chat.

Adventures In Man Land 2

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Adventures In Man Land

The symbol for love is an arrow through the heart. You know a teenage girl in the 17th century came up with that design. And as she aged she probably thought about changing it and then realized, "No, that's about right."

I've had trouble with men from the moment I started dating. My first real boyfriend got hit by a truck. My second boyfriend had a heart attack at 32. My third boyfriend called me up one day and said, “You know, I think you’re a jinx”. And I said, “How do you figure?” But then the phone went dead because you’re only allowed those ten minute calls from prison.

The first thing I look for in a man is a man who cooks, because I don’t cook. I’ll eat out, I’ll take out, I’ll put out but I ain't cooking. When I get my dream house, I’m not even going to build a kitchen. I’m going to have them put a KFC in on the ground floor.

Did you ever notice how when you ask a man a question, they're afraid to answer? That's because they're convinced there's a right and a wrong answer and they want to be right. They always want to be right. But what they don't understand is no matter what they say, it's always going to be wrong because they're the guy.

Did you ever go out with a really horrible guy, a real asshole, and pray he would never call you? And then when he never calls you’re like, I cannot believe that jerk never called me again. Then when he finally does call we say we have to wash our hair. Recently I ran into my ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. He shared with me that they had just returned from rehab and I was so upset. This guy had never taken me anywhere.

I once dated identical twins. Well, not EXACTLY identical. Twins is such a weird concept. One is born and then the other one shoots out right behind him. Basically one comes faster, which is how I could always tell them apart.

End of chat.