che bella figura

ariana grande

I shot this photo on my dining room table with an overhead light fixture. Thus the hologram effect on the singer’s face.

Reading Elle is my secret joy. I quote from the magazine to encourage women blog readers to go out and buy the magazine. You can get it in Rite Aid.

The August 2018 issue of Elle features Ariana Grande on the cover with this manifesto below her coveted mane: God is a Woman. I beg to differ: God is Ariana Grande.

In the interview with this pop singer superstar it was revealed that Grande is Italian: part Abruzzo; part Sicilian. Though I’m Sicilian too I’m as white-faced as Casper the 1970s TV show ghost.

“You’re a real white girl,” the guy who shot the first photo for my original website told me. “Are you sure you’re Sicilian?”

It makes me proud that Grande is Italian too. Italians are not all dum-dums, racists, and mafioso. With no other group of people is it okay to slander them like is commonly done with Italians. It seems like it’s open season on people with a lot of vowels in their last name.

Ariana Grande has a tattoo that reads in fine print bellissima, or most beautiful. She’s copped to having anxiety. At her concert in Manchester a bomb exploded and her fans were sent running away. Ever the trooper, she returned to Manchester for a benefit concert.

Why I ultimately like Grande is that she doesn’t care about her reputation. I’ll quote this snippet from the Elle interview: “She is loud and proud in her anti-Trumpism and has aligned herself with gun reform and Black Lives Matter.”

You don’t say? She does: “There’s a lot of noise when you say anything about anything. But if I’m not going to say it, what’s the fucking point of being here? Not everyone is going to agree with you, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to shut up and sing my songs. I’m also going to be a human being who cares about other human beings; to be an ally and use my privilege to help educate people.”

As per the interview too: Ariana Grande has been in therapy for more than 10 years.

Did I say Ariana Grande is Italian?

The Italian ethic of che bella figura is literally what beautiful figure a person makes in society.

It’s the often stylized theatrics of acting as if you’re successful long before you’ve arrived at the place you want to be. I alluded to this in a scene in Left of the Dial.

In one way I had certain expectations I was supposed to live up to: to go to college to better myself and go farther than my parents had. Though having owned their own business isn’t shabby.

I do think culture impacts a person in recovery. This has not been widely researched or reported on or at least I could not find a lot of information about it on the Internet.

I contributed a 10-page chapter “Recovery is Within Reach” to Benessere Psicologico: contemporary thought on Italian American mental health. That’s of course psychological well-being in Italian. You can buy this book on Amazon. It features three peer stories in the first-person recovery section of the book as well as interesting glimpses into research studies about ethnicity and counseling.

Yes: I’m proud to be Italian. I credit the love and support of my close-knit Italian American family as a prime factor in how far I was able to go in my recovery.

I remember dancing the tarantella at American Legion halls. I remember the parties hosted downstairs in my Nonna’s basement. Nonna’s food was sprinkled with garlic cloves as big as teeth. You could scare the devil with how hot the sauce was.

No: I don’t approve of the family-bashing that goes on in the consumer recovery movement. I don’t approve either of when family members call their loved ones “a schizophrenic.”

Above all my mother was quick to boot my ass to go out and get a job. She didn’t think I was a schizophrenic: she thought I could hold a job just like other people could.

In October I will talk about finding the career you love. October is Disability Employment Awareness Month.

Stay tuned.