The Meaning of Lila: The Inspiration for Boyd

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The Inspiration for Boyd

This is me (left) with one of my very best friends, Joe Bahhur, at a cool new restaurant in downtown Cleveland called Chinato. I met Joe at American Greetings almost ten years ago when I first moved to Cleveland and we've been the closest of friends ever since. He has an incredible heart and a great sense of humor and he often gives me great lines for Boyd. In fact, sometimes I think Joe is more Boyd than I am!

2 comments:

Antionette said...: Great pic JDub!; March 8, 2011 at 11:14 AM
John Forgetta said...: Thanks, Antionette. It helps that it's a little blurry and I was a little drunk ;-); March 11, 2011 at 1:41 PM

Cast of Characters

Lila Mayfield
Lila lives in Lakewood, Ohio in an apartment not far from her folks. She graduated Cleveland State University several years ago and as a customer service representative for MetroMart, a major corporation in Cleveland. Lila hates working and admits to having no ambition. Her goal in life is to be the wife of a wealthy man and never work again.

Boyd Thompson
Boyd is Lila’s GBFF (gay best friend forever) from childhood. Like Lila, Boyd also went to Cleveland State University, lives in the same apartment house as Lila, and works as a customer service representative for MetroMart. He, too, doesn’t want a career and wanted desperately to marry Matthew McConaughy, until he found out that Matthew decided to live in the closet and shack up with a woman ;-)

Drew Worthington
Drew is also a childhood friend of Lila’s. She scored very well on her SATs and while Lila and Boyd went to CSU, she went to Kenyon College, an upscale private school in Ohio. She lives near Lila and Boyd in Rocky River, Ohio, and also works for MetroMart, but as a customer service manager. Drew is recently divorced from Tad, a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic.

Annie Mayfield
Lila met Annie when she was volunteering at the Children's Hospital to get closer to her longtime crush, Dr. Fine. Annie has Leukemia and was an orphan until Lila adopted her. Annie is extremely precocious, is a computer hacker, and is addicted to poker.

Dr. Fine and Alan
Lila had a lifelong crush on Dr. Fine--her pediatrician--until she later found out he was gay and living with his longtime partner, Alan. Dr. Fine is now Annie's physician at the Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Fine and Alan live in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where they had planned to adopt Annie until she admitted to wanting Lila as her mother, instead.

Mr. Payne
Mr. Payne is the head of the Customer Service Department at MetroMart and is smitten with Lila. He lets her get away with a lot because he enjoys having her around the office.

Lila’s Mother
Lila’s mother is Jewish but married a Christian man and raised Lila as Roman Catholic, to the dismay of her family. She’s a stereotypical Jewish mother who wants Lila to find a man, especially since she knows Lila is not ambitious enough to be independent. She and her husband are natives of Cleveland and live near Lila in Cleveland Heights, where Lila was raised.

Frankie Mayfield
Frankie is Lila’s white Burmese cat, named after Frank Sinatra.

I moved to Lakewood, Ohio--just outside of Cleveland--ten years ago from Los Angeles where I worked at the Los Angeles Times as an editor. Even though I have a brother and a sister in LA, I wasn't a big fan and wanted to move. LA's much too crowded and expensive for me and the city revolves around show business...so I ended up in Cleveland working as the Editorial Director of the Humor Department at American Greetings. I work at Progressive Insurance now and restored a century-old Greek Revival home in an historic neighborhood called Clifton Park along Lake Erie and live there with my cat, Frankie. I met wonderful people in Cleveland and discovered that despite the long, cold winters, the city is a very WARM place to live. So much so, I convinced my parents to move here after my father contracted Parkinson's. They live a block away and we actually all go to Church together on Sundays. No kidding! Moral of the story? I guess you just never know where you'll end up...for me it was at Church in Cleveland. LOL.