Lawrence is a South African Jew who has been in Southern California since he was 10. I met him through his sister, Francine, who briefly dated my eldest brother after they met abroad on a high-school trip. I hadn’t seen Francine in years, so she tagged along for the interview.
If I wrote Natania’s column gender-neutral, there would be very few tip-offs that I was writing about a woman. To be fair, if someone wrote about me the same way, there’d probably be very few tip-offs that I’m a man.
Alexa initially wrote to me because she was interested in one of my single peeps. She attached a picture of herself — a headshot, where she looked like she was 14 years old. My friend never responded, probably fearful of getting arrested on a date with a ninth-grader.
The first time I saw EG I was just starting to train at the Howard Fine Acting Studio. She looked familiar, but I didn’t put it together immediately. Then it clicked — Dottie! From “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”! After we became friends and had worked together on various scenes for class, it was always hard for me to resist saying, “I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel.” It still is.
Rachelle is originally from New York. “I went to San Francisco in my 20s, so I feel as if I grew up [there].” Her husband at the time wanted to get out of New York, “and I’m actually glad he wanted to move. I love San Francisco.”
Shanee was born and raised in Beverly Hills by Israeli parents. After college, she moved to New York for four years, where she worked in marketing.
Ruthie, who is 81 now, was raised in Chicago. An abused child, she was sent away to live on a farm called Glen Eyrie in Delavan, Wis. “You know what it was like in the ’30s if you had a mean mother — no one talked about it. I know how to milk cows, kill chickens.”
Dina grew up in Michigan, one of only a few Jews in her area. Her parents, who themselves had met at a Camp Ramah, sent her to Camp Ramah in Canada so she could meet other Jews. “I really loved it,” she told me. She spent 10 summers there as a camper and counselor — even after her family moved to California when her father, a professor, got a teaching position here.
Candace was raised in the Valley, a typical middle-class Jewish upbringing, where her family raised her with the hope that she’d do better financially than their generation. But she was never typical.
If I had to pick out the adventurous girl in a crowd, Jill would be one of the last I’d point to. Whether that has to do with my horrible perception or her initial caginess, I don’t know. But she surprised me at almost every turn as she crawled out of her proverbial cage. She loves watching sports. Her favorites are basketball, football … and boxing. Seriously?
