Wendy Wasserstein

I got an email from MomVee telling me that Wendy Wasserstein died at the age of 55. I am shocked and so sad. In college I had the opportunity to see "The Heidi Chronicles" but chose instead to see "Black and Blue" which was a pretty decent tap and blues revue but shows me to be a big moron.

Because a year later I got to see "Uncommon Women and Others" staged at school and learned to regret that I did not jump at the chance to see another Wendy Wasserstein play performed live. Her writing was smart and funny and wise and true. And her characters were women. They were not female impersonations written out of cliche or defined in relation to men. They were women I knew, or women I was, or women I might become, or women I was afraid I might become. It is so rare for the world to turn its attention to women as they are.

In later years I would have to settle for reading her plays and her articles. I waiting and waited for her plays to be published so I could read them and think and laugh and cry.

I thought she would always be there to tell me what was up ahead. She would help me and all the other Bachelor Girls figure out how each of us might try and reinvent the wheel and become our best selves. Not by having the answers but rather by asking the questions and sharing stories.

I guess we are left to take up the task ourselves. Blessings to you, Wendy Wasserstein. Thank you for everything that you have done. I don't feel as alone or as strange or crazy and I owe that in part to you. I still haven't tasted my own menstrual blood but I also haven't shake-n-baked myself to death and I keep faith that I'll be amazing in my 40's.

And deepest sympathy to your family especially to Lucy Jane.