Glasberg - Sex, lies & cookies: an unrated memoir

To my family, with love

J ust so you know, names, identities, job descriptions, and any number of physical details of my numerous ex-boyfriends have been changed to protect the innocent. Or the not-so-innocent. If you are one of my ex-boyfriends and you think you recognize yourself in this bookdont be so sure thats you. Also, you should be flattered. Finally, I have smushed together some chronologies and changed the order of certain events just to keep things interesting. Believe me, its better this way.

I ve had my heart crushed a few times. Theres nothing like a man to reduce a strong woman to tears. But when I found true lovethe kind of love that really breaks your heartit wasnt in a relationship. It was in a job. That love was for real, and I cried when it was over the way I had never cried over a man.

Ive wanted to be on the radio ever since I was old enough to turn the dial. I would lie in bed at night listening to the crackling voices floating out of the AM radio, dreaming of adding my voice to theirsto have someone listen to me with the same kind of interest.

Maybe its because Im a middle child. Were attention seekers by nature. None of us believes we received as much notice as our older and younger siblings. Scratch a middle child and youll find a well of insecurity. And I am pretty much a textbook example. I recently read theres even a psychiatric disorder called Middle Child syndrome that can actually result in psychotic behavior.

Just to answer two obvious questions you may now have:

1. No, Im not psychotic.

2. Yes, Ive checked with a professional.

Now you may wonder, why the radio? Why not move to Hollywood, like so many other wannabe starlets? First of all, I never had the kind of confidence in my own skin that I think most performers have. Not to mention, this was my idea of fashion:

Thats right, my favorite outfit for many of my formative years was a very large pair of denim overalls. I wore them to death.

If Id really wanted to be an actress, I suppose a good stylist could have addressed my fashion ineptitude. But showing myself off on-screen wasnt my interest. My three shining seasons performing with the Hewlett, Long Island, high school musicals were spent playing violin in the orchestra pit. I didnt want to be seenthat was my perfect older sisters job (she was always the Marsha Brady to my Jan). No, I wanted to be heard. My voiceas Long Island Jewish as you could getwould be my fortune.

The nice thing about having people love you for your voice is that you dont have to be anywhere near them while theyre listening to you. You can be far, far away. And thats how I liked it. Unfortunately, I carried that fear of intimacy into my personal life. I loved men, and I loved sex with men, but that whole relationship give-and-take thing? I wasnt such a fan of that. My idea of a giving relationship with a man was to bake him cookies and take them over to his apartment while wearing a fur coat and nothing underneath. And thats not givingthats giving it away.

I made a lot of cookies during my days of romantic flailing around. And I had a lot of boyfriends, but none of them stuck. It took me a long time to figure out why: Id spent my childhood compromising my wishes and feeling like I always came last. So as an adult Id gone to the opposite extreme. To be happy, I thought that I had to come first, and I had to be heard all the time. Over time, I became so focused on being heard that I really didnt know how to listen.

My relationships suffered as a result, but hey, work was great! And thats nothing to sniff at. Men get rewarded for going after their careers single-mindedly. And if they get married at age forty-eight, and their wife happens to be fifteen years younger (so shes conveniently still well within her baby-making years), no one even raises an eyebrow. But if a woman spends decades on her career, doesnt get married, doesnt have kids... well, I dont need to tell you the kind of reaction that gets.

But I never felt like Id missed out by following a less traditional route. I had a different dream, and I put my heart into achieving it. Then one day I realized that my dream had come true, but I needed something elsesomething more. And that something wasnt going to come from a guy or a job or anything else that I could chase or scratch off a list. That something had to come from inside of mea place that I had been ignoring while I was so busy grasping for the brass ring in front of me.

Some people are born knowing the secret to happiness. The rest of us take a little longer, and we do a lot of living on our way to figuring things out. Call us the late bloomers. And this book is for us. We dont necessarily operate on the usual schedule or follow anyone elses tried-and-true formula. But whats the big hurry, anyway? Why is everyone in such a rush? If you have life all figured out by age twenty... or thirty... or even forty, what are you going to spend the rest of your life doingknitting? Watching TV? Personally, I think trial and error is a lot more interesting than knowing how your life is going to look before youve even lived it yet. Some of the best cookie recipes Ive ever invented were the result of a few massive failures on the way to figuring out the right formula. We late bloomers are like that. And were worth the waitand the trial and error. Because once we hit on that magic combination of ingredients, were delicious.

M y parents have three daughtersmy older sister, Bonnie; middle child, me; and my younger sister, Andreaand they love all of us. But my parents, who didnt divorce until I was already out of the house, definitely did not love each other. As a result, my whole childhood and young adulthood were colored by their bickering. Our home was not a happy one. So its no wonder I never wanted to get married. When my friends would fantasize about their eventual wedding day, I would look at them like they were crazy. I couldnt even compute the desire to get marriedbased on what I knew of marriage, why would anyone want that?

Because my home wasnt a place of comfort for me, I sought distraction elsewhere. I spent most of my time outside, burning off my endless amounts of nervous energy. I spent a lot of time at my friend Jeanies house, becoming like a fourth daughter in her family. And I threw myself into a multitude of activities at school, from clubs to sports to Girl Scouts. Most of all, I loved the violin.

My music teachers gave me the positive feedback I craved. They seemed to really get me. They didnt judge me by how I looked or fit in with their preconceived expectations. They judged me for my work, period. And with hard work, they told me, I could accomplish something amazing. To this day, this is one of the biggest things I love about music, and why I think its so important for kids to have music in their lives. Positive results in music are all about practice and persistenceit doesnt matter what anyone thinks of you in any other context. If you work hard at your instrument, you get betterits as easy and honest as that. So I worked hard. I treasured my violin, and I practiced, and I performed in concerts. By high school I was in our orchestras first section, and I made second violin in the All-State Orchestra.