Marie Osmond.

As I write this, Marie Osmond is pitching porcelain dolls on QVC. I’m wondering if she realizes that the dolls she’s pitching are like her. They have two faces. One face is happy and- remove the bonnet and spin the head around- the other face is sad, just like Marie.

I love sad women. Always have. More specifically, I love the women who are pretending to be happy but- if you look and listen closely- you can tell that deep inside they are hurt. In the beginning I was just instinctively drawn to them. Me being a cocky, confident, good looking tall, dark and skinny all American bi-polar boy who actually believed he could bring happiness to a "Marie" through the sheer force of a powerful- albeit semi-delusional- personality. The man on the white horse. It took years and a long but failed marriage before I learned that happiness can’t be forced upon or driven into somebody- they have to be left to find it themselves. Nonetheless, while I realize that the kind of woman I am naturally attracted to is best left alone, I still admire them from afar. The "Marie’s" that I grew up with.

The original Marie is an amazingly beautiful soul. I first heard it when, as we both turned 13 years old, she sang "Paper Roses." The lyrics went:

I realized the way your eyes deceived me
with tender looks that I mistook for love
So take away the flowers that you gave me
And send the kind that you remind me of
Paaaaaa-per Rooooo-ses!



You could call her screwed up, as now I see she is holding back tears as she describes the charity that proceeds from the dolls sale will help. But that’s IT. She’s always holding back that despair- it’s always there just waiting to be shown. It’s what makes the flip side even more beautiful. When Marie laughs it’s striking- the contrast. Her mouth opens up completely and shows such unabashed joy that it makes you want to make her laugh as much as you can. This was my method, make sad women laugh- because that’s when they are the most beautiful.

Susan Dey had it too. If you don’t remember, she was Laurie, the 17 year old keyboardist on The Partridge Family. During that show from 1970-74 she developed an eating disorder and faded away, only to recover and resurface ten years later as Grace Van Owen on LA Law. She received four Emmy nominations for that role as well as a Golden Globe award. I was so proud of her. Guess that might sound creepy but you tend to feel a connectedness with the stars you grow up and old with. It’s that long passage of time through thick and thin. Susan Dey had one of those smiles too- big and wide- teeth. A dramatic contrast to her "everyday" face.

There were/are others. Carly Simon, Gail Kehoss (my 7th grade crush), and of course my wife. I married a perfectly troubled girl. I say girl because we were 16 years old when we met. Her father, who she was very close to, had died two years earlier. He was a community staple. Active in the Catholic Church and Kiwanis Club. His death was unexpected and sudden. It left her mom unable to cope. It changed everything. Kay was my first. It took three kids and nearly twenty years for it to fall off. As relationships do- it evolved into my frustration with my own inability to make her happy and later resentment that she wouldn’t do more to help herself. Seems silly now.

Marie is signing off now and I can see that she, like me, is showing the toll that the ups and downs take on our bodies. Food is the last and best drug- and she/we are eating quite a bit of it. I wonder if Susan is "puffy" too. The two dolls have been left on the QVC screen by themselves- one face happy, the other sad. They’re beautiful, just like Marie and Susan. And they’re going fast.