I'm having a really difficult time writing my memoirs, not that anyone has expressed interest in publishing or even reading them. They will regret it. As Julia Roberts said to the snotty saleswoman who threw her out of that swanky Rodeo Drive store, then watched her swan back in, hands full of shopping bags from other stores: "Big mistake. Big. Huge."
But that was Pretty Woman, a movie, and this is real life, which so far is not a movie. And the problem with writing about my real life is how to tell the truth and still make myself look good. Frankly, I don't believe it can be done.
Some people ace their memoirs. Barack Obama can write not one, but two autobiographies, come clean about what he later called his "bad decisions" to use "pot" and "maybe a little blow"and still seem so presidential he winds up being elected President. I've always worried that if I came clean about my youthful party antics, my kids would be embarrassed, my mother-in-law would stop speaking to me and who knows what would befall my career.
But the tide may be turning for the leader of the free world. A new biography by David Maraniss quotes from the diary of Mr. Obama's ex-girlfriend (who was she again?), in which she reveals he was good in bed but rather remote out of it. Didn't see that coming.
On the topic of uncomfortable revelations, new details about his likely opponent in the November U.S. election, Mitt Romney, paint the Republican candidate as a bit of a jerk in his adolescence. According to several prep school "friends," he once held down and sadistically clipped the hair of a bleached-blond student who was presumed to be gay. Brutal. I'll bet Mitt was a towel snapper too. Mr. Romney says he can't remember this suspiciously homophobic incident, but he's sorry anyway.
Those guys are important enough to have biographers panting after their every indiscretion, which is not my problem. And we in the media are getting flak for even reporting unsavoury incidents from a public figure's high-school days, let alone excerpts from a former lover's diary.
There is an argument to be made that if you didn't do anything offensive in high school or in your 20s, that should rule you out from ever holding office on the grounds that you wouldn't be able to relate to anyone who voted for you. Apparently lots of self-righteous people don't buy that argument.
So now that I've mentionedthe Mittster's barber-ous moment, and highlighted the U.S. president's early substance abuse, I feel I should level the playing field with a few saucy revelations of my own. My children and mother-in-law can stop reading now.
Jerk moment: When I was 13, I stole the hand off a mannequin at Eaton's (remember Eaton's?), then rode the streetcar with a friend, scaring children and elderly ladies by placing the hand on the back of their seats. I couldn't stop laughing!
Substance abuse: At university, I dropped a tab of acid and spent four hours sitting cross-legged on the floor with a bearded guy named Tom, listening over and over again to George Harrison sing My Sweet Lord. It was probably the peak spiritual moment of my life. (By the way, I am not trying to make myself look good, but LSD is making a respectable comeback as an end-of-life therapy. )
Indecent exposure: On a dare at the height of the streaking craze, a girlfriend and I, trim and twentysomething, ran naked through what was then Toronto's upscale Park Plaza hotel (now the very upscale Park Hyatt. We pulled up in a silver Mercedes driven by a friend, then doffed our coats and sprinted past the middle-aged doorman, who nearly had a coronary as we belted down the main corridor, wearing nothing but our winter boots. We loved it so much that, after we got back to the car, my friend wanted to buy cigarettes naked, which she did, yelling "keep the change" as she streaked by the startled drugstore cashier. I chickened out and wore my coat.
Most Embarrassing Moment Before Converting to A Respected Religious Faith: When I met my husband-to-be, I realized I needed to quickly get up to speed on all things Jewish. Being a journalist, I figured that after fast-forwarding through a few tracts, I was an expert. So when I found myself at a Jewish funeral, I turned to the person next to me and said: "I think the Jewish custom of sitting shiksa is a good one, don't you?" I meant shiva, which means seven in Hebrew and refers to the ritual seven days of visitation and remembrance.
Shiksa, on the other hand, is a derogatory word for what I was at the time: a Gentile woman. When I later told this mortifyingly funny story to a Jewish filmmaker, she laughed for a full 10 minutes before saying, "Now that's a movie – The Sitting Shiksa."
Note to prospective filmmakers, agents, publishers and readers: You can reach me at the above e-mail address. Tentative title of my memoir: The Audacity of Me. And yes, with these disturbing revelations, I should probably never run for public office, even fully clothed. There are some upsides to having been badly behaved after all.