There are people who think Nora Ephron is funny. I am not among them, but taste is subjective --- my idea of a thigh slapper may be your idea of a bummer. Doesn't matter. What counts is only that we laugh.
Carol Leifer, I contend, is really funny. Funny in a way that Ms. Ephron isn't, for Ephron is an insider and an elitist, whereas Leifer has the common touch. That is, she comes from Long Island, her father was an optometrist, she grew up drinking frozen orange juice ("a quarter of the price and it's the same thing," her father insisted). She became the comic that her dad always wanted to be. Wrote for "Seinfeld", where she was known as "the real Elaine" (the character played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus). David Letterman adores her. (Odd fact: She bought, at auction, the handwritten notes that Michael Vick used in court when he apologized for his role in dogfighting.)
Carol Leifer, in a word, is funny like someone you know would be funny. Smart funny. Clever funny. But even more, funny in the heart --- funny like a really nice person is funny.
You see this right off, in a memorial piece about her father, who died, at age 86, watching "Sixty Minutes". On his birthday, she tells us in the first paragraph, she used to give him Godiva chocolate-covered nuts. "Big emphasis on the nuts," she explains. "Because, as he was not shy of saying as he unwrapped the cellophane to grab the first piece, `Creams? They're a waste of time.'" And with that, I felt: I know this man.
The nominal subject of her book is aging --- she was 50 when she wrote most of these pieces, and her father's death is no small event. She carries out her obligation to her nominal subject and, for example, does a good job of listing "40 Things I Know at 50". Like: "When a waiter asks you to taste the wine and you're clueless, sip it and then say, "Yeah, that should get me hammered.'" And: "Never buy Sweet `N Low, Equal or Splenda at the supermarket. That's what restaurants are for."
But the centerpiece of the book is something else --- a mid-life crisis with an unexpected twist. The piece is called "Surprise!" and it starts like this:
"If I don't sleep with a woman soon, I think I'll kill myself."
That's what I remember saying to my buddy Ed on the golf course right before this all happened.
I was eager. I was pumped. "I'm ready for my lesbian fling, Mr. DeMille!" Turning 40 does that to you. You feel like Father Time has gotten a second wind and is catching up. Suddenly everything you wanted to try or experiment with has to be done in this short period called "midlife" --- before you reach that next stage in life, the one where you don't care if you go to the supermarket in your pajamas.
"I want to learn how to operate a potter's wheel!"
"I want to enroll in salsa boot camp!"
"Me? I just want to get it on with a lady?"
Forget that I'd already been married and had only dated men my entire life. It didn't matter, because when you feel that Sapphic siren call, there is no backing down. And before I knew it, as if in a dream, this vision appeared right before my very eyes. It was a Saturday night and I was at a Project Angel Food charity dinner with some gay male friends. There she sat, right across from my $200 plate.
They talk. Carol likes Lori. But Lori is in a relationship. Later, she isn't. They have a golf date. And they talk:
"So what's your story, Carol? Why aren't you in a relationship?"
"I don't know. I'm going through some stuff right now."
"Oh, really? Well, we can turn that around in no time flat."
Gulp! "How's that?" I stuttered.
"Well, there are a million guys at my office I could set you up with, no problem!"
Ah, love. Or crush. Or whatever --- the road's not smooth. But it's funny. And, trust me on this, you want to travel that road with Carol Leifer. I'll go further: This one piece is worth the price of admission. Not just because it makes you laugh. Because of the good heart.
Later in the book, describing her sadness at selling the home of her dead parents, Leifer writes: "The other thing I've learned about life --- you get over it. You do. And not because you want to but because you have to. You just have to."
Wisdom like that, in a so-called humor book? Right there, I fell in love with her. I bet you will too.
