How I Got Here
My mother was not a drinker.
I don’t know a lot about my parents before I showed up; their generation was not as chatty as mine. After all, I have a blog where I write about every single stupid drunken thing I have ever done in my life—before, during, and after my marriage.
It’s a travelogue through my life that my kids will read long after I’m gone.
You’re welcome, kids.
But stories about my parents’ life pre-kids?
Those stories were dispensed like drops of water in the desert; you stayed thirsty for a long, long time. My Aunt Gloria was the only fountain into my mother’s life as a young adult—drips and drabs of information about things my mom did when she was a kid.
“Your mom loved to drive,” she told me one time when I drove her to a family event. “She would take the family car up and down the shared driveway. She wasn’t even old enough to drive.”
(In Brooklyn, the brownstones all had a shared private driveway where people parked their cars and where kids would play.)
On that same drive, my aunt told me how my mother graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.—I knew that) and that a designer wanted to take her to Paris to work with him (I did not know that).
She declined.
The reason?
My mom told him, “I want to have kids.”
I know—kids ruin everything.
So instead of going to Paris, my mother had my brother (Joe) and my sister (Diane), and that was it.
Wait, what?
Remember I told you my mother did not drink?
Well, there are exceptions to every rule, and in this case, I am that exception.
Christmas Eve, nineteen-fifty-seven: my mother and father were at a party. My mother (who does not drink, remember) had one too many Brandy Alexanders that night.
So, let’s do the math.
I was born ten months later, on October twenty-fourth, nineteen-fifty-eight. Exactly ten months later (to the day).
Christmas Eve + Brandy Alexanders = Me.
Realistically, no one—and I mean no one—wants to know about their parents’ sex life, but unfortunately, in this instance, I do.
But I’m here today because of that night, a Christmas miracle (of sorts), so thank you.
I guess I’m surprised they didn’t name me Alexander.
Oddly enough, even before I knew about the Christmas Eve party connection, Alexander has always been one of my favorite names. In fact, in the first book I ever wrote (not published), one of the main characters’ names was Alexander.
Ironically, I named my first son Alexander.
I may not be named Alexander, but it has been a name attached to my life since a long-ago Christmas Eve party in nineteen-fifty-seven...
...ten months before I was born.
