“You’re no longer my patient,” Doctor L, my trusted gynecologist of 15 years, told me. “Where do you want me to have your records sent?”

What had I done to deserve this? Argue relentlessly about a bill? Get caught stealing K-Y jelly?

None of the above. What I did was try to take care of myself the best way I knew how.

I am a breast cancer survivor, I took tamoxifen for five years. Six months after stopping, a sonogram showed I had an ovarian cyst, and three months later it had grown bigger. An abnormal thickening of my endometrial lining was also detected.

“Honey, I’m sorry. I think we must remove your ovaries,” Doctor L said. “Come in for an endometrial biopsy first so we can see what’s going on with your lining.”

Doctor L always apologized when delivering bad news. She was the one my breast surgeon had called with the cancer diagnosis when I was on vacation seven years ago and couldn’t be reached. When I returned her call, she said, “I’m so sorry. You need to see Dr. P. immediately. He’s waiting for your call.”

By then, I ‘d been seeing Doctor L for several years. My very first visit was for a vaginal discharge. That day, she waltzed into the exam room, humming an aria, picked up my underpants, sniffed them and said, “No odor, so we can eliminate a few things off the bat.” I knew this doctor was for me.

Doctor L proved time and again to be a real find. She was gentle, welcoming and accessible. She always had plenty of time to talk during appointments and returned calls promptly. When she phoned, she’d say her first and last name without “doctor” in front of it, and I felt comfortable calling her by her first name.

With my feet in the sock-covered stirrups, she would talk in a way that made me forget about the uncomfortable probing. I learned that she loved New York, the flower show at Macy’s, and her husband and was proud of her daughter. When she co-authored a book, I attended the party.

So why did she fire me? It started when I told her I was going for a second opinion about the surgery. I recall a coldness creeping into her voice when she asked if I needed copies of my records for the other doctor.

Since I already had had cancer, I went for a second opinion at a cancer center. The surgeon there agreed my ovaries should be removed but said he’d check the lining during the surgery instead of a separate procedure beforehand. If the results were good, my surgery was finished; if not, he would perform a hysterectomy.

He also planned to do the procedure laparoscopically, without disturbing the abdominal mesh inserted during breast reconstruction, a technique he had pioneered. Doctor L was planning to go through the mesh and then repair it. Finally, he was covered by my health insurance; Doctor L was not.

When I called Doctor L to let her know of my decision, she said, “I’m a very good surgeon. Do you think I’m only good to do PAP tests?” Before I could respond, she gave me an ultimatum – either she did the surgery or I’d need a new gynecologist.

The surgery went off as planned, and my treatment with the cancer hospital doctor ended with a follow-up appointment six weeks later. “Just see your gynecologist in a year,” he said. “I can’t. She fired me as her patient,” I told him what had happened. “I’ve never heard of a doctor treating a patient like that!” he said incredulously.

“What an ego, good riddance to her,” all of my friends said, after hearing how I’d been dumped.

When I look back, I realize that, along with my ovaries, I lost a maternal figure in Dr. L. Ever since my mom died of breast cancer, I’ve been drawn to friendships with older women. I realize this was a way for me to get some mothering over the years — a bit from this one, a little from that one. I grew to depend on Doctor L to watch my back regarding health issues, and she didn’t disappoint — until now.

In a way, Dr. L did me a favor. Being forced to take charge of my own health was a first step in self-mothering. That was two years ago. At age 55, I found it’s never too late to be a mother.

Download the Coping with Cancer magazine version of this essay.

For the first time ever, women from around the world living with a rare form of ovarian cancer — granulosa cell tumor (GCT) — gathered for a conference in Peabody, MA, April 15-17, devoted to their disease.

The conference was sponsored by the Granulosa Cell Tumour Foundation New Zealand (http://www.gctf.org.nz/), which was founded in 2004 by Sladjana M. Crosley, who died from the disease in 2009. Her husband, Powel Crosley, is continuing the foundation’s work, which is to advance research and treatment specific to granulosa cell tumor of the ovary.

Accounting for less than five percent of ovarian cancer cases, GCT (adult and juvenile) is a type of sex cord stromal tumor, a category that also includes Sertoli-Leydig cell and gynandroblastoma. Granulosa cells perform several functions in a healthy woman. They produce sex steroids, convert androgens to estradiol by aromatase (when stimulated by FSH) and produce progesterone upon ovulation, among others.

Unlike women diagnosed with the more common epithelial ovarian cancer, those with GCT usually exhibit symptoms (excessive vaginal bleeding, unexplained bowel changes, pelvic/abdominal pain, etc.) earlier in the course of the disease. This often leads to an early stage diagnosis. However, because GCT is so rare, it is frequently misdiagnosed as a benign condition. CA-125 is not an effective marker for this type of ovarian cancer as woman can test normal and still have GCT.

GCT is extremely difficult to treat and does not respond in the same way to traditional chemotherapies typically used when treating epithelial ovarian cancer. The most effective treatment to date is early-stage surgery, with multiple, repeated surgeries performed if the disease progresses. However, since the tumors are highly vascular, surgery may be life-threatening in advanced cases. A wide range of approaches have been tried to treat GCT, including chemotherapy, hormonal therapies, monoclonal antibodies like Avastin and occasionally radiation.

GCT is usually slow growing the first time around but recurs in 25 to 45 percent of cases. A recurrence can happen decades after the first diagnosis, at which time the disease may progress more rapidly and spread typically throughout the abdomen and pelvis. Because it travels through the bloodstream, distant metastases may be found late in the disease’s progression in the lungs, liver and brain. Lymph node metastasis is extremely rare.

The 40 GCT “survivors” and 20 caregivers attending the April conference came from all over the United States, Ireland, France, England and New Zealand. Most had never met another woman with GCT in person and there was a lot of sharing of experiences and treatments.

“When I was first diagnosed, I looked up the disease on the Internet and all I could find were veterinary articles on GCT in horses, bovines and fish,” said one ten-year survivor. “Nobody was talking about the disease in women.”

Things have changed somewhat since then. At the conference, doctors from Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of British Columbia, University of Auckland, NZ, and MD Anderson Cancer Center spoke on such topics as: “What so different about my disease?,” “Medical Imaging: What’s the difference and which is the best choice for GCT,” “Clinical Trials: What are they and should I consider one?,” “Monitoring for recurrence and the current state of treatment options,” “Update on GCTF-sponsored research” and “State of the Science: Current status of research relevant to GCT.”

What attendees with recurrent disease agreed on is that neither conventional chemotherapy nor hormonal therapy keeps the disease at bay for very long. What works temporarily for one patient might be totally ineffective for another. If an agent seemingly halts or reverses disease progression for a few months or a few years, one day it just stops working.

Although treatment often seems like a shot in the dark, there is hope on the horizon. In 2009, a group of researchers from the British Columbia Cancer Agency, led by Dr. David Huntsman, made a groundbreaking discovery that may potentially lead to more effective treatment. They discovered a mutation in the FOXL2 gene that was consistently present across a significant sample of the Adult GCT tumors tested and is the apparent cause of GCT. The FOXL2 gene encodes a protein that is involved in ovarian development and function as well as sex determination.

Another agent that holds potential for new therapy for women with GCT is microRNAs (miRNAs), some of which have been found to have links with other types of cancer. There is also research being done on the role of estrogen beta receptors in the pathogenesis of GCT.

The GCT Foundation of New Zealand has taken a leadership position in furthering important research, with its extremely limited funding, in partnership with the University of Auckland and a team headed by Dr. Andrew Shelling.

In the U.S., the hospital that is currently treating the most GCT patients appears to be MD Anderson, with approximately 40 such patients. Dr. Jubilee Brown, director of gynecologic oncology at MD Anderson’s Woman’s Hospital, gave a heartfelt presentation and spoke about her experience in treating an adolescent with the juvenile form of GCT who later died from lung complications arising from a highly toxic chemotherapy treatment. The experience has motivated Dr. Brown to explore new protocols with fewer, damaging side effects and improved results.

Annette Leal Mattern, a 24+-year GCT survivor and president of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance board of directors, gave a moving presentation, “Living On Purpose,” to close the conference.

Both Brown and Mattern received a standing ovation. Ditto for Powel Crosley, who tirelessly continues the GCT New Zealand Foundation’s work in memory of his wife.

Walking in late to the shipboard commitment ceremony on our women-only cruise of Alaska, my partner Barbara and I took in the scene. At least 100 of the 800 mostly lesbian passengers had gathered for the event. Everyone except us was dressed in fancy clothes; we wore shorts and tees. One by one a member of each couple said their names, where they lived, and how long they had been together. Those whose relationships spanned more than ten years received hearty applause from everyone—except me.

My hands stayed at my side because I never assume that the quantity of a relationship is indicative of its quality. Take, for instance, my parents’ highly dysfunctional marriage, which ended just short of their twenty-fourth anniversary with the premature death of my mom. So let’s hold the applause unless we know that a couple’s long-term relationship is also a good one.

When it was our turn to introduce ourselves, I grabbed the mike and said, “We’ve been together fourteen years. I was a child bride.” Titters from several of my fellow passengers and a few hearty guffaws greeted my comment.

Silence, though, deflated the good cheer when I added, “I think the quality of a relationship, not its length, should be the measure of its success.”

The person leading the ceremony quickly moved on to the next couple, not wanting the event to become memorable for the wrong reasons. Barbara, who insisted on attending the event over my weak objections, shook her head, none too pleased with my comments but not surprised.

A few years before the cruise, we registered in New York City as domestic partners, with no hoopla. No announcements went out to friends and family, and needless to say, we didn’t register at Pottery Barn, Saks Fifth Avenue or LL Bean. We certainly had cause to celebrate, having survived some very rough patches, the worst being when Barbara wanted a child and I didn’t.

Why didn’t we celebrate our domestic partnership? Speaking for myself, I know that the constant battle to educate heterosexual people who trivialize our relationship takes its toll. How many times have I heard myself referred to as Barbara’s “friend” by individuals who knew we were a couple? Or had to respond to strangers asking if we are “sisters”?

Internalized homophobia plays a part, too. Never mind that Barbara and I had worn matching silver rings and attended gay rights marches for many years. Never mind that it had been many years since we “came out” to straight friends, relatives, and colleagues. In the middle of the night, thoughts still popped into my mind that because we didn’t have the rights of a married couple, our relationship was inferior. If I died before Barbara, for instance, she wouldn’t get survivor Social Security benefits, and vice versa. So what was there to celebrate?

These feelings surfaced when Barbara said to me one day, a couple of years after the cruise, “I’d like to have a party to celebrate our twenty years together. How about having it at the Cornelia Street Café?” We both enjoyed having dinner there, and the downstairs room could be rented.

Not wanting to nix the idea outright, I countered with, “What if we took my cousin up on his offer to have a party at his house in Maine?” When we visited the previous summer, we mentioned our upcoming two-decade anniversary, and he and his wife enthusiastically invited us to celebrate with them. This option appealed to me because I figured only a few adventurous souls, if any, would schlep 400 miles north of New York to party in the middle of nowhere.

“Do you want to have the woman who married us to officiate at your ceremony?” my cousin asked, when we called to discuss details.

“No!” we both immediately answered.

Since we couldn’t legally marry in Maine, what was the point? We decided there would be very little conventional about our celebration. No vows, no bridal bouquet toss, no exchange of rings. While the idea of publicly marking our partnership made me nervous, I desperately wanted the invitees’ support and good wishes—so much so that I challenged myself to convince as many as possible to spend their July 4 weekend with us up north. I worked the phones and e-mail, coaxing even the most diehard New Yorkers.

Thirty-two friends, some from as far away as Utah, New Mexico, and Hawaii, joined us for what turned into a four-day event. The first night we dined with the early arrivals at a nearby restaurant. The second night we barbecued and karaoked. On the third night, we decided to have some sort of ritual involving, of all things, wedding dresses.

Jeanie, my cousin’s wife, had four bridal gowns hanging in a closet that she’d bought for $10 a piece at a consignment shop. She intended to sell them on eBay but hadn’t gotten around to it. A formal pink taffeta gown and some Halloween costumes—including a man-size replica of the blue-and-white checkered jumper and puffy white blouse Dorothy wore in The Wizard of Oz—also took up space in that closet. I knew I would be wearing one of the wedding gowns because Jeanie said so. If you bring thirty-two friends to someone’s house for four days, you’d better agree to almost anything. Barbara, however, adamantly refused to don a gown and dressed up in white pants, a gold cummerbund she had had made for the occasion, and ruffled white shirt and cufflinks.

Thinking it would be a shame to leave the other gowns in the closet, I asked three female friends—including 75-year old Jackie, a manly-looking woman who hadn’t worn a skirt in decades—to play dress up with me. They were more than happy to oblige, quickly getting into costume. Jackie looked positively regal in bridal attire, as it brought out her feminine side, which she literally had kept under wraps since the sixties.

“Next,” cousin Jeanie said, as she directed the members of the procession down the stairs and into the sunroom, where whatever was going to happen would take place. Waiting below, the guests whistled and clapped as the three women in bridal gowns majestically descended, trailed by the “flower woman” in the pink gown. Next came me, with a veil doubling as a mosquito net, escorted by cousin Binky, a bald man in a peach-colored, floor-length cocktail dress, looking like Gandhi or maybe Ben Kingsley playing Gandhi.

Unlike the great pacifist, though, Binky chose this moment to bicker with me about why I had set him up on a date fifteen years ago with a friend who was now a lesbian.

“Because she was dating men back then,” I kept telling him, close to losing it as we entered the room.

Barbara followed on the arm of her boss, a leaner, taller Sigmund Freud-type, wearing the replica of Dorothy’s Wizard of Oz costume. Bringing up the rear was cousin Jeanie in a sexy black cocktail dress.

Completely inappropriately, yet oddly apropos, my sister played the syrupy theme from Love Story on her saxophone at full blast as we assembled in the sun room. While poking fun at conventions, the ceremony had touching moments that moved more than one guest to tears amidst all the laughter.

Barbara sang Violeta Parras “Gracias a la Vida,” a hymn in praise of life and love that expressed her gratitude for having me in her life. I recited “Love’s Passage,” by poet Robert Spector, which is full of sea imagery, perfect for a summer evening in Maine, even though we were inland. “Nothing compares with the joy / Of making a landing/In that special harbor / The heart has been heading for”—evoked for me the sense of security I feel with Barbara. I also shared the text of the recent birthday card from Barbara: “The two of us have been through it all—passion and heartbreak, laughter and tears, fighting and making up, ups and downs.” The punch line was on the inside: “And that was all since yesterday.”

The guests urged us to kiss, which we did, several times. Photos were taken, food from the local Thai restaurant appeared, a friend gave an impromptu mini guitar concert, and the two of us emceed a roast of ourselves equal in outlandish tales, humor, and heartwarming tribute to a Friars Club affair. Part street theatre, part schmaltz, the ceremony and post-ceremony were just the way Barbara and I liked it. Apparently others did, too.

“Central Maine has never seen anything like this before or since,” quipped one of my cousin’s friends, a local.

Would my partner and I have had such a wacky fun-filled celebration if we had been a straight couple? Most likely not, which is one of the things I like about being a lesbian. Yes, we would like the same legal rights that heterosexual married couples have. But rather than sitting around waiting for that day to come and feeling inferior for what we don’t have, we’ve decided to celebrate milestones as they occur, sprinkling our relationship with affirming occasions like our twentieth anniversary. That’s quantity with quality, folks.

– As published in the anthology A Cup of Comfort for Couples, Adams Media, 2010. See book cover, table of contents, sample pages, authors' bios.

A few years ago, my partner Barbara convinced me that buying a weekend condo in Ulster County would mellow me out. No longer would I spend weekends in the city, trawling the Internet for discount Broadway theater tickets, committing myself to seeing shows that I’d doze off at as soon as the lights went down. With no subways, no crowds, no tall buildings, I’d be away from it all.

But clues that this was just a fantasy were there from the start, before we bought the place. Our future next-door neighbors both hailed from Brooklyn. One even lived for many years in a housing project in Coney Island near the one I grew up in, and we both graduated from Lincoln High School. What a coincidence!

Shortly after we made this connection, Barbara and I hired a man named Dominick to do the home inspection. The first words out of his mouth prompted me to ask, “Are you from Brooklyn?” “Bensonhurst,” he said. “That’s where I spent the first six years of my life, on West Seventh between O and P,” I enthusiastically told him, happy to meet another Brooklynite 100 miles north of the borough.

After the inspection, Barbara and I went into town to celebrate completing another step towards becoming country squires. We walked into a clothing store selling attractive natural fiber garments. “Can I help you?” the sales clerk asked in those familiar dulcet tones.

“Are you from Brooklyn?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Yes, Crown Heights. But I’ve lived up here for more than 40 years.” “My grandparents had a kosher butcher shop on Schenectady off Utica from 1919 until 1962,” I replied, starting to feel like I was on the set of “This is Your Life.” “Are there a lot of people living up here from Brooklyn?” I then asked. “Oh, yes, a bunch,” she answered. “Many came up here in the late sixties, early seventies. Another wave came in the last decade.”

I found it interesting that 40 years of country living hadn’t completely wiped out her accent. At 19 and a junior at City College New York, I worked hard to get rid of mine. While I never spoke in Brooklynese like my father did (flush the “terlet,” “berl” some water), there were telltale inflections in my speech. The woman who rented me a room in her large Upper West Side apartment was a “Henrietta Higgins” and kept pointing these out to me until they were gone.

It’s been four years since buying the upstate condo, and I’m still meeting many Brooklyn “expats.” Just the other day, Barbara and I went to a tag sale run by a couple in their sixties. “Where’d you get that?” asked the husband, pointing to my “Brooklyn” sweatshirt. Instead of answering, I asked him what neighborhood he was from.

“Kings Highway and Bedford Avenue,” he answered. “Did you go to James Madison High School?” I said, taking a guess. “Why, yes I did.” “That’s where my uncle taught Phys Ed.” “What was his name?” the man asked. “Herb Fine.” “Sure, I had him for gym. I remember he had perfect posture!” he excitedly said. “Hey honey,” he shouted to his wife, “this woman’s uncle was my gym teacher!”

Spending weekends in the mountains was never anything I thought I’d do. I never went away to sleep-away camp and my time in nature as an adult had been limited to a few day trips. Several years ago, Barbara and I hiked into a remote cabin in the Haleakala Crater on Maui to stay overnight. I started screaming when it got dark because it was too quiet.

So these days, I’m grateful for the encounters I have with former Brooklynites upstate; they make it easier to leave the city. When Barbara and I first became second homeowners, I was a reluctant participant. Now I can say without hesitation — I love country life!

Michele Forsten is director of communications for New York City College of Technology/CUNY.

Download the Brooklyn Daily Eagle clip of this essay.

** CLICK HERE to download Michele’s entire article on the CAM conference in PDF format.**

About 300 people — those living with cancer, survivors showing no evidence of disease, exhibitors and other interested individuals — gathered in West Palm Beach, Florida, March 3-5, for the 4th Annual Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Cancer Therapies Conference sponsored by The Annie Appleseed Project.

Patient Advocate and Stage 4 breast cancer survivor Ann Fonfa, founder of the Annie Appleseed Project, opened the meeting by telling participants a bit about her history. She was diagnosed with stage one, slow-growing invasive lobular carcinoma in her left breast in 1993, had a recurrence in the same breast in 1995, and was told she had stage 4 cancer in 1997. In total, she had 25 tumors, nine in the breast and 16 on the chest wall. Because she had chemical sensitivities, she decided not to have chemo or radiation.

Her personal search for what would effectively deal with the cancer led her in 1999 to found The Annie Appleseed Project (http://www.annieappleseedproject.org), a non-profit providing information, education, advocacy and awareness for people with cancer about natural therapies/substances, lifestyle issues, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and other issues from the patient perspective.

“There’s no magic bullet; what worked for me might not work for you,” emphasized Fonfa, who describes herself on the website as a woman with breast cancer and an attitude. Surgery (two mastectomies), hi-dose vitamin A, an experimental drug in Canada, the Gerson Clinic in Mexico, Chinese herbs and mushrooms, and acupuncture were some of the treatments she underwent. The end result is that she has had no discernible disease since 2001.

What the participants heard Fonfa and other speakers say is that it’s usually not one single thing that makes and keeps a person cancer-free, but an approach that often combines more conventional treatments (including surgery, chemo and radiation) with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), exercise, diet and stress-reduction. There is no cookie-cutter solution; each individual is different and treatment must take that into consideration.

Discussions of promising new treatments and others that have been used successfully in Europe for years, plus talks about nutrition and supplement research and tips, were highlights of the information-packed sessions.

Editor’s note: Evidence-based” as applied to the treatments and products presented at the conference could mean scientific proof and/or data from animal and/or human experiments. In absence of formal testing on humans, anecdotal evidence was presented that was mostly patient-centered — the actual people who experienced the particular treatment or product spoke about their success with them. For more information on the claims made by the presenters, visit the websites listed throughout this article. Also, many attendees informally expressed concern about the high costs of CAM products and treatments, as most health insurance companies will not cover them. Some who had undergone or were undergoing the treatments had the means to afford the costs; for others, it was a hardship, either necessitating the borrowing of money or asking friends and family to donate towards the expense. The unavailability of treatments in the U.S. that are readily available to citizens of other countries is one of the most urgent health policy issues facing patients living with cancer in this country.

Read Michele’s write-up of these presentations:

Epigenetics, Immune System and Inflammation
New Diagnostics, Therapeutics in Cancer Treatment
Expanding Evidence-based Treatment Options
Oncothermia: New Paradigm in Oncology
CAM Cancer Clinics Around the World
Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT)
Intravenous Vitamin C and Cancer
Benefits of Medical Thermography
Oncometabolic Syndrome: Reducing Tumor Growth
More on Diet and Nutrition
Stage Four Cancer Survivors Panel
Talking About Medicinal Mushrooms
Fermented Soy Therapy
Ionized Alkalized Water: Fact or Fiction
Reconstruction Advocate Turns to Natural Approach

It is safe to say that attendees left the 4th Annual Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Cancer Therapies Conference having learned something new about cancer treatments, diagnostics and prevention.

Ann Fonfa, the guiding light behind the conference, chose the name Annie Appleseed Project for her non-profit because, like Johnny Appleseed, she is on a mission to plant seeds — seeds of information that might offer hope to people with cancer. With this conference, she royally succeeded.

Next year’s conference will take place March 1-3, location in West Palm Beach, FL, to be announced. As details become available, they will appear on the Annie Appleseed Project website homepage (http://www.annieappleseedproject.org) and under the “Announcements: Meetings and Conferences” tab towards the bottom of the menu in the left-hand column of that page.

** CLICK HERE to download Michele’s entire article on the CAM conference in PDF format.**

Five years into their relationship, Clair and Susie have a problem: Clair wants a baby, Susie is against it. Susie’s sister, technologically-obsessed Renee, is looking for marriage and motherhood. The three women encounter unexpected alliances among themselves as well as long-standing tensions. Clair’s best friend Adam stirs things up further. And Susie’s dead Jewish mother and grandmother appear, still nagging her but also giving her a chance to come to terms with her own homophobia.

Publications:
Smith & Kraus’ Best Women’s Stage Monologues of 2000.

Awards:

• Semi-finalist, The London Borough of Newham’s 2002 LESBIAN AND GAY Stage Play Competition (one of 12 semi-finalists out of 140 submissions worldwide.)
• Semi-finalist and staged reading, Playwrights’ Circle’s National Playwriting Festival, 2001
• Finalist, Pittsburgh New Play Festival, 2000
• Semi-Finalist, Moondance New Play Competition, 2000

Spare set evoking a kitchen, bedroom/living room. Subtle changes to these to signify a shift to another character’s kitchen, bedroom/living room.

Contact me for a copy of the script.

Sample of Be My Baby!

Photo of rehearsal for Love Creek Production's performance of Michele Forsten's Winning? at The John Houseman Studio Theatre Too, New York City.

A One Act. Comedy/Drama. 3 women. Length: 15 minutes.

Susie’s dead grandmother and mother visit her one day to check up on her. Still to this day, they want to run her life. The game continues.

Spare set including a card table, cards and three chairs.

Productions

• 2008-StageQ’s Queer Shorts Playfest, Madison, WI (eight performances)
• 2006-Brewster Theater Company, Brewster, NY (3 performances)
• 2002-Playwrights Theatre of NJ in Madison, NJ (staged reading)
• 2000-Love Creek Productions, New York City (three workshop performances)
• 1999-Luna Sea Women’s Performance Project, San Francisco (four performances)

Publications:

• Harrington Lesbian Fiction Quarterly – Summer 2000
• Smith & Kraus’ Best Stage Scenes of 2000
  
  

Contact me for a copy of the script »

by Michele Forsten

Productions:

A chance meeting between a Jewish lesbian and a woman she suspects of
being a Nazi is not what it appears to be.

Two women (one in her thirties/forties; one in her seventies):
Eva – 30s/40s. An intense New York City playwright, she is about to
attend a staged reading of one of her plays and is nervous about it. Casually
but smartly dressed.

Helga – late 60s/early 70s. Immigrated to the U.S. some years ago but still speaks with an accent. Kindly, matronly looking.

Spare set evoking the lobby of a theatre, with two small circular café tables with one chair at each.

Place: Medium-sized U.S. city

Time: Now

Productions & Awards:
2003 – finalist, Sonoma County Rep’s New Drama Works Scripts Festival
2002 – HER-rah! A Celebration of International Women’s Day by the International Centre for Women Playwrights, Epiphany Theatre, New York City (staged reading)

Contact me for a copy of the script »

Sample of Ersatz Egg Salad

Dr. Bronte and her Receptionist run a typically unenlightened doctor’s office that does not make homosexual patients feel welcome. When they accidentally start attracting more queer patients, particularly lesbians, they get a remedy for their homophobia.

Five women (3 in their late 20s/30s, and two middle-aged). However, one actress can play the part of the three patients.

Spare set evoking the receptionist’s area of a doctor’s office. Cllipboard on counter.

Productions:
2005-Benefit performance for the Lesbian Cancer Initiative, NYC
2005 2004-Boston Slam and Provincetown Slam, Another Country Productions
2001-Love Creek Productions, New York City (three workshop performances)

Rehearsal of the Provincetown production, summer 2004. And, the cast with director Patrick Falco (center).

NYC benefit performance, 2005.

Contact me for a copy of the script »
Sample of Dinosaur Doc

Family lore has it that when I was 4 years old, I used to be my grandfather Misha’s little nurse — I knew exactly which pills to give him and when. We lived in the same building, and I’ve been told I spent a lot of time with him. My only personal memory of that time is of standing across the street from a hospital and seeing the faint image of someone at a window high up in the building waving to me. “That’s grandpa!” my mother said to me. And I waved and waved until the person disappeared.

A fat, jovial man who loved eating smoked fish and herring and anything my grandma cooked, my grandpa had grown gaunt with advanced heart disease. He died when I was in kindergarten. I was kept out of school the day of his funeral but not taken to it — one of many of my family’s decisions that I now see as misguided.

Thirty-five years later I sat in the National Archives in Manhattan, searching for evidence of his life. Bleary-eyed from scrolling through microfiche of the 1920 federal census, I perked up when my grandpa Misha’s name jumped out at me. The excitement turned into perplexity when I noticed that an “S” clearly appeared in the box for his marital status; I had his marriage certificate to prove that he had been married to my grandma for about eight years by then. It is true that in 1920, my grandma and her infant daughter Rose were not in the United States. They had traveled back to my grandma’s shtetl in what is now Belarus in 1914 and got stuck there during the First World War. They didn’t return home until 1920 or 1921.

The census data showed that my grandpa Misha lived with his sister Sonya and her family. Their marital status boxes were all accurate. My aunt thinks the census taker just made a mistake on my grandpa’s entry. I, being more paranoid, think that the lie was told to cover up that my grandmother was in the newly formed Soviet Union. My partner speculates that anger or despair over his abandonment by my grandmother fueled his response. Maybe there was a prolonged silence from overseas and it was thought that my grandmother and aunt had perished. Maybe the census taker just made a mistake … or maybe not.

Questions remain with nobody left to answer them, but that “S” still lingers on as a historical record; its significance all too apparent for documents I have filled out throughout my own life. I’ve checked off “single” on health insurance claim forms, job applications, new patient forms at doctors’ offices, and other official documents. Legally, I am single. But for the most of the past 23 years I’ve been in committed relationships. Perpetuating the half-lie/half-truth affects me in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

Some years ago, for instance, when a gynecologist asked me if I was sexually active, I blurted out, “No, I’m a Lesbian,” and turned red with the realization of my own homophobia when she didn’t miss a beat and said, “Ohhh-kay, but are you sexually active?” I was so ashamed by what I had said, I wished I could make myself invisible. And, in a way, I had.

Slowly, over the past two decades, I have made the effort to become more visible as a Lesbian, participating in marches on Washington, the Gay Games, and New York City’s annual Heritage of Pride march. My partner and I signed up to be domestic partners and a few years ago participated in a commitment ceremony on board a Lesbian cruise to Alaska. Rainbow chatzkes tastefully decorate my office and my partner’s photo sits on my desk.

At times, though, the ancient, reflexive protectiveness kicks in. When a work colleague I don’t know well asks me to identify the woman in the photo, I say, “She’s my sister, in a manner of speaking,” and change the subject. Participating in the shipboard commitment ceremony and signing the domestic partnership certificate were not real meaningful to me.

I know it must seem hypocritical–on the one hand I’m complaining that my intimate relationships are not taken seriously and, on the other, I’m a chief perpetrator of that perception. I suspect that years of not receiving the official recognition that heterosexual married couples take for granted have taken their toll.

On the “gay marriage” issue, I am clear that I personally don’t want to get “married” but think it’s fine if other queers do. What I want is the same rights that married people have and a universally used designation of “life partner” (LP) under “marital status.” Being in a partnership, as opposed to a marriage, seems to be less about possessing someone and more about being on equal footing. Besides, those of us who came of age before the CD era and bought records know that LP also stands for “long-playing,” which is an apt way to describe my pattern of intimate relationships. It is certainly more descriptive and accurate than the Census’s designation of “unmarried partner.”

I began doing genealogical research some years ago, partly hoping that fleshing out more of my grandparents’ lives would strengthen my sense of self and give me a firmer foundation from which to venture forth into the world. Instead, it’s the omissions and innuendo I have bonded with.

My branch of the family tree is ending with my sister and me. But if a distant descendent were to someday ferret out information about me — from the day I was born in 1954 to the foreseeable future — one “fact” would show up over and over on my official papers. It’s the same “fact” that appeared in my grandpa’s 1920 census listing: the “S” for “Single.” I cheer the encouraging development in Vermont and I hope in my lifetime I will see a few “LPs” next to my name for posterity.

© Michele Forsten 2009

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