Excerpt from IT WAS HER NEW YORK

Sinatra’s Dating Advice

Florence is refusing to do much but lie in bed. 

I say, "Fine. You don't want to get out of bed, then go lay down and die." 

She yells, "Lie down! Not lay down! Lie down!"

I say, "You can't get out of bed, but you can still correct my grammar?"

She yells, "Yes! It matters!"

I yell, "THEN GET OUT OF BED!"

She doesn't. 

I look at her butchered hair. It’s butchered because a week ago I took the household scissors and chopped off big chunks of it. I did that because it was a huge halo of wildness, so thick and silver sparkling. Now it is a huge halo of wildness that got caught in a buzz saw.

The Sunday afternoon All-You-Can-Eat-Jazz radio show begins.

We settle in to listen.

Sinatra comes on.  He’s wailing Blues in the Night.  Florence joins in.

" Ooooo … woman….. twooooo faces….Cryinnnnngggg in the ..."

Knowing something of her dating history, I ask her if that's true. 

She says, "I didn't make it up. That's what's written.”

I start laughing. She asks why.

"You're singing with heart.”

Shrugs, "I'm just trying to get the words."

And then she - who broke many hearts of many old girls and garnered many angry love letters and hurtful looks across crowded dances put on by the local Gay and Lesbian senior citizen’s center - she looks up and asks, "Is it true? A woman is two faced?"

In this engaging new collection of intimate memories and full-color photographs, C.O. Moed tells true stories of caring for her mother Florence, a pissed-off hurricane of an unwealthy lesbian and Julliard-trained pianist who stumbles into dementia on the Lower East Side. It Was Her New York is for anyone who has ever experienced the aging of a parent, the gentrification of a neighborhood, or the unexpected discovery of stifled love and hidden sexuality.