Lifestyle
L.A. Affairs: We broke up as teens. It took us 35 years to get back together
The primary time Ronnie skated by me, I observed her smile. The second time she flew by, I observed her fairly eyes. On the third go-round, I’d prefer to say I noticed her dimple, however my eyes have been fastened on her tight denims.
It was the late ’70s. Trying again on it, although, it felt like the 2 of us have been youngsters within the Fifties. A sudden wave of nostalgia had swept over the nation in these years. “Joyful Days” was the No. 1 hit TV present, the 1978 film “Grease” (additionally set within the ’50s) was wildly in style, and even disco songs have been covers of previous Glenn Miller tunes, like “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”
Ronnie and I went to films, we roller-skated, went out dancing and went to live shows and events collectively. All of the stuff that two teenagers do when they’re courting. When selecting Ronnie up for a date, I keep in mind sitting in her mom’s front room in Montebello, pressured to hearken to the “Grease” soundtrack blaring from Ronnie’s bed room whereas I waited. How I hated that soundtrack.
Ronnie wished to grow to be knowledgeable ballerina.
I wished to grow to be a radio DJ — the Mexican Casey Kasem.
So, within the late ’70s, I got down to rule the world of radio and TV. I by no means formally left Ronnie. We didn’t technically break up. I don’t recall even discussing my plans along with her. As quickly as I obtained the primary job supply, taking part in 45 rpm information at an AM radio station in a tiny desert city, I packed up and left my residence in Monterey Park.
I suppose I used to be too silly to see that all the things I’d ever want in a accomplice, I had proper there in Ronnie.
Within the a few years that adopted, I moved and lived and labored from San Francisco to San Diego, and from Los Angeles to New York. Ronnie started climbing the company ladder within the banking trade, and married.
We might look one another up and get collectively for drinks or dialog, often each few years. We by no means misplaced full contact, primarily as a result of we had many associates in frequent.
Over time, I puzzled if we’d ever find yourself again in one another’s lives — romantically.
Our largest roadblock was all the time timing.
The instances that we’d drift out and in of one another’s lives, certainly one of us could be concerned in a relationship, or coping with private points that made romance really feel too far-off, one thing. However as a result of we have been all the time associates first, over all the things else, we’d assist one another get via these tough instances and assist no matter relationship the opposite was concerned in.
This final time round, we have now helped one another via what has been the worst interval of our lives. Personally, financially, tragically.
It started just a few years in the past once I was speaking to a mutual good friend. I requested how Ronnie was doing, as I hadn’t spoken to her for some time. The subsequent factor I knew, my cellphone rang. It was Ronnie — our mutual good friend informed her that I used to be residing again in Southern California and that I used to be asking about her.
Over the subsequent few weeks, we had a number of lengthy conversations, catching up. Ronnie was going via a divorce. I used to be not actively seeing or courting anybody.
That was a primary for us.
However I used to be really again in Southern California to take care of my mom, who had been recognized with dementia and Alzheimer’s, and was declining. Ronnie started becoming a member of me at my mom’s residence in Monterey Park. I used to be fighting a few of my very own well being points — I’ve hypertension and have had three coronary heart assaults. Ronnie started serving to me preserve monitor of my very own drugs so I may think about my mom’s care and drugs.
My mom handed away in 2016. Ronnie held my hand via all of it. I most likely wouldn’t have been bodily sound sufficient to attend my mother’s funeral had it not been for Ronnie’s assist.
Sadly, about this similar time, Ronnie’s mom was simply starting her personal decline from the exact same afflictions that claimed my mother. Dementia and Alzheimer’s.
The price of round the clock care was insurmountable. Ronnie moved again in along with her mom so she may take care of her after the day nurses went residence and earlier than they arrived within the morning. Ronnie did this whereas additionally working a full-time job as a banking government.
It was my flip to carry Ronnie’s hand.
Through the day, I’d run errands for Ronnie, comparable to selecting up her mother’s drugs. Within the evenings, whereas Ronnie taken care of her mom, I’d come by with dinner for the each of them, or put together a meal in her mother’s kitchen. On notably dangerous nights, I’d keep in a single day and watch her mother so Ronnie may get some relaxation. When she’d go away for work within the morning, I’d have her espresso prepared and her lunch packed. Something to ease the stress on Ronnie as she cared for her mom within the closing months of her life.
Someplace throughout all of this, absolutely the worst interval in each of our lives, Ronnie and I fell again in love.
After which, it was lastly our time.
After 40 years of affection and friendship — and most of that point spent miles aside — we found that we nonetheless complemented one another. We love the identical music, respect the identical varieties of artwork and have the identical foolish, naughty, silly humorousness. We like to bounce for no particular purpose. We will forgive one another’s bodily malfunctions.
Ronnie’s mom left her Montebello residence to Ronnie and her sister. I not too long ago purchased the sister’s curiosity in the home, and moved in. Ronnie and I are actually making it our residence, as newlyweds.
We did put one untraditional new twist on a wedding that has been many years within the making. Ronnie’s final identify is Keating. My final identify has all the time been Soto. After we married final spring, I made a decision to point out my gratitude to Ronnie for all she’s dropped at my life by taking her final identify as mine.
The opposite night, after dinner, we settled down in the lounge — the exact same front room the place I’d choose her up for our dates again in highschool. As a result of I do know Ronnie loves it, I had that corny previous “Grease” soundtrack taking part in within the background.
I threw my arm round Ronnie and kissed her. After which we, now-60-somethings, danced away the remainder of the night.
, when Ronnie is singing Olivia Newton-John’s “Hopelessly Dedicated to You” in my ear, it’s not such a foul music in any case.
The creator is a former radio persona and voice-over artist.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the seek for romantic love in all its superb expressions within the L.A. space, and we need to hear your true story. We pay $300 for a printed essay. E-mail LAAffairs@latimes.com. Yow will discover submission pointers right here. Yow will discover previous columns right here.
Kristin Cavallari is heading for ‘The Hills’ … looking to get out of Nashville ASAP — and, she’s willing to take a whole lot less for her home to do it.
The reality television star’s Tennessee home is now listed for just under $9 million … a $950K cut from the asking price she established in August 2024.
This was already a reduction from her original asking price … ’cause she wanted $11 million when she put the house up in June 2024 — so, clearly she’s trying to get the property off her books.
Even with the reduced price, Kristin’s still likely to make a tidy profit on the house … ’cause she originally bought it for just $3 million back in 2020 after her divorce from Jay Cutler.
It’s a 4-bedroom, 5-bathroom home in Franklin, Tennessee … a suburb just outside the metro Nashville area.
The house boasts 6,799 square feet of living space and 28 acres of total land … more than enough room to comfortably stretch out. The kitchen features state-of-the-art appliances, and the basement is basically a wellness retreat — all thanks to a remodel overseen by Kristin.
Add to that a pool, a greenhouse and beehives — again, all Kristin’s design ideas. It’s unclear if Kristin wants to stay in the area, but one thing is for sure — she wants out of this old place!
Tim Thompson of Tim Thompson Premier Realtors holds the listing.
Barrie Miskin was newly pregnant when she noticed her appearance was changing. Dark patches bloomed on her skin like watercolor ink. A “thicket” of hairs sprouted on her upper lip and chin.
The outside world was changing, too: In her neighborhood of Astoria, Queens, bright lights enveloped objects in a halo, blurring her vision. Co-workers and even her doctors started to seem like “alien proxies” of themselves, Ms. Miskin, 46, said.
“I felt like I was viewing the world through a pane of dirty glass,” she added. Yet Ms. Miskin knew it was all an illusion, so she sought help.
It took more than a year of consulting with mental health specialists before Ms. Miskin finally found an explanation for her symptoms: She was diagnosed with a dissociative condition called depersonalization/derealization disorder, or D.D.D. Before her pregnancy, Ms. Miskin had stopped taking antidepressants. Her new psychiatrist said the symptoms could have been triggered by months of untreated depression that followed.
While Ms. Miskin felt alone in her mystery illness, she wasn’t. Tens of thousands of posts on social media reference depersonalization or derealization, with some likening the condition to “living in a movie or a dream” or “observing the world through a fog.”
People who experience depersonalization can feel as though they are detached from their mind or body. Derealization, on the other hand, refers to feeling detached from the environment, as though the people and things in the world are unreal.
Those who are living with D.D.D. are “painfully aware” that something is amiss, said Elena Bezzubova, a psychoanalyst who specializes in treating the condition. It’s akin to seeing an apple and feeling that it is so strange it doesn’t seem real, even though you know that it is, she added.
The disorder is thought to occur in about 1 to 2 percent of the population, but it’s possible for anyone to experience fleeting symptoms.
Mental health providers have sometimes dismissed D.D.D. as its own diagnosis not only because of a lack of familiarity with the disorder, but also because its symptoms overlap with conditions like depression, anxiety or panic disorder.
As new research has emerged, it has become more widely acknowledged and discussed. The second edition of “Feeling Unreal,” a primer on D.D.D. originally published in 2006, was released in 2023. And Ms. Miskin published a memoir on the subject titled “Hell Gate Bridge” last June. The same month, the novel “Please Stop Trying to Leave Me” came out, featuring a protagonist with D.D.D. The author, Alana Saab, knows the disorder well: She was diagnosed several years ago.
“It’s kind of what I would imagine a drug trip would be,” she said of her experience with the disorder. “But it’s 2 in the afternoon and I’m completely sober.”
The Cambridge Depersonalization Scale is widely considered the most reliable measure of the disorder. Patients are asked to rate how often and how long 29 different experiences occur. Examples include feeling like “a robot,” losing bodily sensations like hunger or thirst and seeing a world that now looks “flat” or “lifeless,” like a picture.
People with D.D.D. may feel disconnected from themselves and their surroundings for months or even years at a time. Less commonly, they may also experience auditory distortions — like muffled or louder sounds.
D.D.D. is often associated with a history of emotional abuse or neglect. The symptoms can be brought on by anxiety, depression, the resurfacing of early trauma, major life stressors, cannabis and hallucinogens like LSD, said Dr. Daphne Simeon, an expert on the disorder and the co-author of “Feeling Unreal.”
In some people, there can be multiple triggers, particularly if there is an underlying propensity to dissociate.
“You can meet a person whose first episode was triggered by panic and then it happened again when they got depressed and then it happened a third time when they had a terrible divorce,” Dr. Simeon said.
Researchers have hypothesized that depersonalization/derealization might be part of the mind’s defense system.
“Your body and your mind are telling you something,” Dr. Simeon added. “You’re having an intolerable experience, essentially, from which you then have to detach.”
Jeffrey Abugel, Dr. Simeon’s co-author on “Feeling Unreal,” dealt with D.D.D. for more than a decade before finally getting a diagnosis. He knows exactly where it stemmed from: “Pot, plain and simple,” he said. The drug pushed him “over the edge,” he added, creating a “massive panic attack.”
Mr. Abugel, who is a health and wellness coach, eventually found help. He now offers private consultations and virtual support groups for people with the disorder.
Ms. Miskin’s symptoms improved with a combination of psychotherapy and medication. She restarted her antidepressant and also began taking lamotrigine, or Lamictal, a medicine best known for treating seizures and bipolar disorder.
Recovery was a painful process.
“You have to relearn how to be in the world,” she said, even though “you just want to lay in bed and pull the covers over your head and never come out.”
“I’m gay so I can’t do the guitar solo,” quips Sam Buck.
A grin plays across his face as the unmistakable jangle of Tim McGraw’s “I Like It, I Love It” wafts through the room. Members of the audience chuckle knowingly — the tall, bearded musician could absolutely shred it if he wanted to, but on this night, fun trumps virtuosity.
Buck stands under the soft glow of Tiffany-style fixtures, his guitar slung casually over his shoulders and his brown cowboy hat casting a shadow over his black denim jacket. Behind him, silver tinsel sparkles, a Nashville-glam backdrop to the intimate stage at Permanent Records Roadhouse, a cozy bar-cum-record store in Glassell Park. He’s kicking off the KFM Karaoke Country Revue, a monthly celebration where honky-tonk culture meets the queer community to toast, twang and tumble through songs like old friends in a Garth Brooks ballad.
“What I love about this show is that it’s like Goldilocks — it’s never just right,” Buck says before announcing the night’s singers.
Rosie Ruell sings “El Toro Relajo” at Karaoke Country Revue.
This isn’t just a showcase; it’s a haven. A place where country music, with all its contradictions and complexities, embraces its messiest, queerest, most joyful self. Trans, nonbinary, queer, gay, cis and straight performers all take the stage with the same goal: to make space to celebrate country music for those who aren’t usually embraced by its stubbornly conservative circles.
Over its two-year run, KFM, named after Buck’s podcast KFM Country Radio, has drawn talent like Julianna Barwick, Dougie Poole and Jae Matthews of electronic duo Boy Harsher. One of the night’s guests, Amber Coffman, the former co-frontperson of the Brooklyn-based indie band Dirty Projectors, stirs the crowd with her rendition of “Hard Candy Christmas,” a Dolly Parton classic from 1978, which she officially covered in 2020.
Attendees cheer performers at Karaoke Country Revue at Permanent Records Roadhouse.
L.A.-based singer Sedona, wearing a vintage T-shirt that says “Rodeo Girls,” performs a rocking version of Bonnie Raitt’s “Angel From Montgomery.” And Loren Kramar, an up-and-coming orchestral singer-songwriter, smolders through Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush.”
The microphone isn’t only for seasoned performers; however, Buck ensures that the show runs smoothly by curating the lineup and requiring everyone to rehearse beforehand. The setup feels like karaoke, with Buck cueing backing tracks, but there is no lyrics screen to lean on. “Bad karaoke can be so rough if someone’s wasted or they don’t know the song,” Buck says. “[KFM performers] have to learn the song, and there is some care that needs to go into it.”
For example, comedian John Early belts out the Chicks’ “Wide Open Spaces,” prancing about dramatically to choreographed moves, while Nicholas Braun from HBO’s “Succession” watches from the audience.
Comedian John Early, who starred on the HBO Max show “Search Party,” belts out the Chicks’ “Wide Open Spaces.”
Other shows have featured comedians like Kate Berlant and Casey Jane Ellison. Longtime KFM regulars like Chloe Coover and Maddie Phinney, hosts of the popular perfume podcast “Nose Candy,” bring their own fabulous flair — Phinney leaves a trail of Céline’s sophisticated Black Tie perfume, and Coover is dressed in a full-length ball gown while she sings NewSong’s fascinatingly sentimental Christian country ballad “The Christmas Shoes.” Artist Erin Bagley takes on Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 country-rock “Silver Springs.” And Buck’s partner, JT Friedman, leads a raucous rendition of Alan Jackson’s “Honky Tonk Christmas” while passing out candy canes from a stocking.
Rosie Ruel, a hopeful pop star who sunlights as an energy worker and a real estate agent, belts out the bombastic bullfighting song “El Toro Relajo” (The Toublesome Bull), that both floors the audience and underscores a tenet of KFM: that the genre’s lines are meant to be toed. Mariachi is really just Mexican country music, Ruel later tells me.
Sam Buck gives Maddie Phinney a birthday present after Phinney sang Squeeze’s “Tempted” at the Karaoke Country Revue.
Mary Rachel Kostrova, owner of the vintage eye-wear boutique Eyefi, delivers a sultry performance of Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m the Only One,” her voice dripping with raw emotion. Growing up in Georgia, Kostrova witnessed country music’s polarizing presence — ubiquitous, yet embraced only by those unafraid to claim it openly. Among her peers, she recalls the familiar chestnut about listening to all genres but rap and country. A wry smile forms on her face. “And now a lot of people are like, ‘I only listen to rap and country,’” she says.
“Country is in such an interesting place,” muses Buck, who is playing a show with Mercedes Kilmer (the singer-songwriter daughter of Val) at Zebulon on Feb. 9. Pop stars like Beyoncé and Post Malone are experimenting with the genre, while country’s own Kacey Musgraves and Taylor Swift drift closer to pop. Meanwhile, the industry is cautiously diversifying, but the support is uneven. “There’s not any mainstream gay musician,” says Buck. “I am not sure there ever will be.”
Buck’s journey into the genre is its own kind of outlaw story. Born and raised in coastal Massachusetts — a place far removed from the South’s storied hollers — he grew up feeling like an outsider for being a Miranda Lambert fan. “I’m a Yankee through and through,” he says. “But anyone from a rural place knows that country doesn’t have to come from the Deep South. In terms of stolen country valor, I’ve probably stolen more than most.”
JT Friedman, right, talks with Chloe Coover after Coover’s performance.
KFM began as a pandemic-era podcast. Buck spins country records, tells meandering stories and indulges in sharp gossip about county elite. “I have to be careful,” he jokes. “If I talk about [so-and-so’s] ex-cop husband and his disgusting bow-tie pasta, I don’t want that getting back to her, just in case I end up playing a show with her.” He doesn’t shy away from skewering controversial figures like right-wing influencer Brittany Aldean (“She only believes in evil things,” he says), but the podcast’s charm lies in its mix of irreverence and authentic reverence for country music.
For Buck, who also works as an artist (and recently showcased paintings of architecturally significant L.A. homes at the historic Echo Park restaurant Taix), the appeal of the KFM Karaoke Country Revue — the next one takes place Jan. 23 — lies in its intimacy and chaos. “It’s messy, it’s beautiful, it’s small,” he says. “People feel like they connect with each other here. And in a time when everything’s about getting bigger and louder, I think small things are good.”
And as the night rolls on — voices rising, drinks flowing and silver tinsel shimmering under the lights — Buck reflects on the strange universality of country music. “The more time goes on, the more I realize that everywhere is country. Especially Los Angeles.”
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25330839/STK262_GROK_B.png "X launches Grok’s iPhone app in the US")
X launches Grok’s iPhone app in the US
Thousands of Venezuelan opposition supporters take to the streets ahead of Maduro's third inauguration
Did moderate Democrats get religion with embrace of Laken Riley Act?
Texas officials say dead birds found in early January tested positive for bird flu
Notre Dame football team members dealing with flu ahead of semifinal vs Penn State: report
Colorado Rockies game no. 116 thread: Zac Gallen vs José Ureña
Why Marjorie Taylor Greene was ‘kicked out’ of the Freedom Caucus according to Rep. Buck
See it: Tesla crashes into Columbus convention center at 70 mph
Fox News Politics: Georgia the whole day through
Death of missing Oregon girl found in stream ruled homicide
Did moderate Democrats get religion with embrace of Laken Riley Act?
Ramstein: Germany pledges tanks, missiles, and air defence for Ukraine
Photos: See the California wildfires' destructive force, in satellite images
The 39th president will be buried later at his Georgia home. Here’s the latest.
FBI informant who made up Biden bribe story gets 6 years in prison
-
Business1 week agoThese are the top 7 issues facing the struggling restaurant industry in 2025
-
Culture1 week agoThe 25 worst losses in college football history, including Baylor’s 2024 entry at Colorado
-
Sports1 week agoThe top out-of-contract players available as free transfers: Kimmich, De Bruyne, Van Dijk…
-
Politics7 days agoNew Orleans attacker had 'remote detonator' for explosives in French Quarter, Biden says
-
Politics6 days agoCarter's judicial picks reshaped the federal bench across the country
-
Politics5 days agoWho Are the Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
-
Health4 days agoOzempic ‘microdosing’ is the new weight-loss trend: Should you try it?
-
World1 week agoIvory Coast says French troops to leave country after decades