On the anniversary of her second year here Pia becomes a real South Carolinian

§ March 6th, 2010 § Filed under Uncategorized § Tagged , § 10 Comments

First my niece who doesn’t read my blog mentioned to her mother that I should be famous for certain things rather than most celebrities so maybe there’s hope for my legacy.

On March 5. 2008 I took a Spirit airplane down here and began my unofficial residency.  On March 31st last year I moved into this house!

My taxes were driving me crazy.  Certain items wouldn’t fit into any part of any program I tried.  I refused to send my taxes to my New York CPA on the grounds that I’m pretty sure his mistake got me audited.  The audit sat on his desk for two months because “you sent it to me during tax season,” and he made some mistakes in my tax return.

I couldn’t deal with looking at my taxes anymore and didn’t want to go to a CPA.  So I took them to Wal Mart. Yes Wal Mart.  Where I had to explain what “cost basis” was, among other things, but five hours later between the very nice woman, the district manager who used a remote computer and me we got them done.  It turned out I couldn’t find the places because there weren’t any places in regular programs for them, and the district manager did somethings she explained to me.  I just had some weird stuff.  Not much money but a lot of very weird items.

I can’t explain how happy this made me.  Not only were my taxes done but I was finished with New York, except for the dentist, family and friends.  My dentist(s) and I have gone through so much together I can’t give them up.

I was so excited after finishing at Wal Mart I called my sister who got out of her sick bed to be very excited also.  Maybe when she comes to North Myrtle this summer, she’ll actually go into Wal Mart.  Last year all she did was say “that’s so pretty.  Where’s it from?”  “Wal Mart.”  “What a gorgeous street.  Where does it go?”  “Wal Mart.”

Pia attempts to think things out

§ March 3rd, 2010 § Filed under adjusting to the south, non verbal learning disorders, writers § Tagged , , , , § 9 Comments

I didn’t mean this to sound so sad.  I’m attempting to do my taxes for the first time totally by myself.  They’re complicated.  My damn accountant was angry at me last year for sending him my audit during tax season.  Well duh that’s when I got it and it was due 30 days later.  He let it sit for months.  The tax thing is complicating everything in my life right now.  My Dad was a CPA who would have never been angry at a client for….My dad died suddenly at the end of this month 19 years ago.  These couple of weeks always make me sad and trying to do taxes, uh!!!!!

I fear that someday, not soon I hope, I will die and not leave a legacy; no permanent marker, except for a headstone in Mount Hebron Cemetery that reminds the world I was here once.

People will argue that is selfish to want to be remembered.  That if I wanted to be remembered I should have had children for parents did something important.  But not all children are worthy of being remembered by their parents and parents, sometimes, very sadly, outlive children.

Then of course there’s the career legacy.  As somebody who has had three and a half careers, a bunch of newspaper articles published and a five and a half year old blog, I can be remembered for knowing that one career wasn’t enough for a lifetime long before that was fashionable to think.  But many other people can lay claim to that thought also.

They can’t all lay claim to saying some of the things I have said in this blog at the time I did, and I made sure to put in original thoughts. In the 70’s and 80’s before the era of instant communication and social networking,  my sister claimed a New York Times reporter was following me around recording my every thought.  For I would say something and a month or three later an article would be in The Times with the very same thought and/or lines.

I had no faith in myself then.  No belief that I could write for such a newspaper or write an entire book.

Now I’m not sure I can market myself properly.  Just writing this seems so egotistical.  Yet what are most bloggers, Facebookers, and Twitterers doing but trying to make a mark on the world so that they will leave a legacy?  A lot of money is good too.

I have friends who will be remembered for their careers.  Their writing. Their wit.  Their skill and talents in other areas.  And their spouses, kids, grandkids and I’m beginning to feel very small in statute.  I want what they have.  I can’t have the kids and grandkids, that’s impossible and probably not the adoring spouse, but the career….Of course I’m convinced I’m becoming demented so I probably have about two good writing months left…..

For awhile I think I thought I could leave a legacy as a blogger.  It was different three, four years ago.  When you were known, many bloggers knew you.  There weren’t thousands of different groups all competing for bloggers and fame.  There was competitiveness, of course, everything is.  But we knew we were in the earlier days of something bigger then ourselves something that could change communication.  Then came Twitter.   It’s all too much for me.

Friends are having grandchildren.  I’m glad for them, so excited sometimes you have no idea, but a bit sad for me as I will never know that feeling.

My book is that most egotistical of genres, a memoir, but I do think I have a more interesting than most story to tell. One I won’t go into here as everybody who reads this blog knows it.  If you know me through Facebook you don’t really know it.

You don’t know that I’m much more than a collection of symptoms.  Hey, I met John Gotti and lived to talk about it.  That will always be one of my favorite stories sick as it is and it’s very sick.  It’s me, girl who couldn’t keep her Marilyn dress from doing a Marilyn.  In my memories I have short blond hair, and big red lips.  In reality I had long red hair done 40’s style or maybe I had cut it recently to just shoulder length with volume but not big–it was the last year of the 80’s.  My lips might have been red but they were never big.

That’s not one of my best stories just one of my favorites.  I don’t know what my best stories are.  I have no way of judging my own work.  I no longer have any semblance of a site meter so I have no way of gauging what pages are peoples favorites.

I did that on purpose.  The whole get-to-love-me-through-social-media frenzy sickened me.  I had come early to the party.  Too early as I didn’t realize I was supposed to have a plan, enough energy to spend the hours I wasn’t exercising or writing on social media activities.  I had done that with blogging solely because I’m obsessive and I was burnt out as I burn out of everything.

I’m vain.  Oh so vain I think the story of not knowing I had non verbal learning disorder and living anyway is a good story.  I spent my late teen, 20’s and 30’s being adorable, looking like a generic soap star, and I worked hard.  I confused my bosses who couldn’t understand that the spacey klutzy but adorable girl did such complex excellent work.

Then I broke down.  Though I did brilliantly in social work school I don’t think my work ever equaled the work I did in my 20’s to 37.  Maybe it was the medication.  More likely it was still not knowing what was wrong with me and being more aware since I broke down, had the testing, and found out I was supposed to be incapable of just about everything.  I had always believed in myself before underneath it all.  Always believed that tomorrow I would understand more.  Tomorrow there would be magical answers.

The answers weren’t magical.  There was some relief in knowing at first but then there was anger.  I’m still working it out.  And that’s the problem.  A book needs a happy or tragic ending and I don’t plan on giving it a tragic ending.  I want the happy one.

My life is good.  Very good.  But is buying, all on my own without help from one person, a house, and almost gut renovating it a good enough ending?  Even if girl has problems that should preclude her from being proud of this?

Is girl coming to a city where she knew almost anybody at a stage in life when almot nobody moves except unhappily for a job or for grandchildren, and forging a life for herself, a happy ending?

Actually now that I read the above two paragraphs I realize that it’s just as happy an ending as girl meets boy.  This hasn’t been Ozzie & Harriet’s world for sometime.

Or maybe I’m being defensive.  And what I think are accomplishments are nothing important really.

Something about me

§ February 24th, 2010 § Filed under New York Stories § 10 Comments

During the Ford/Carter energy crisis my father would keep the thermostat set to 68 and tell us it was patriotic to freeze.  Our house was a corner one and all the wind in the neighborhood seemed to settle into it.

So began my long history of living in wind chambers.  When I moved off Fifth on 63rd Street, at 25 in 76,  I didn’t need AC as my building had a lot of marble, and I lived on the first floor.  I had the first ceiling fans anybody heard of in Manhattan.  Bought on the Bowery when the Bowery was the Bowery.

Oh yes I’m one of those New Yorkers.  I will never be ashamed of loving the city the most in the 70’s to around 85.  It was affordable.  It was fun.  I heard it was dangerous but never felt the danger no matter where I went.  I lived in that apartment until 91 and only had AC the last year as my super gave me a unit somebody was throwing out.  It just wasn’t important to me.  Neither was TV.  A good stereo with analog speakers was of primary importance.  I began collecting CD’s years before I could afford to buy an actual player.

Though my apartment was warmer than the average apartment nobody refused an invite basically because I threw great parties, always or often had food, always had liquor as I only drank with company and found out early in life that people would bring liquor we would drink then so the good stuff, mine, would be saved for special occasions.

Oh any night on East 63rd was special.  I remember when my ex best friend Shelby came back from a cruise to the former Soviet Union.  A professor famed for his film lectures invited her.  She only had to design a brochure and didn’t have to sleep with him or in the same room.

I know because she took me to his office to do the negotiating.  What do you say to a weird man who had noticed her when she walked into the auditorium for the first film, came up to her after class, and asked her if she would like to go for a drink?  He did this in full view of the hundreds of girls who were gaga over him for reasons I never understood except that he knew many film stars.

I said something brilliant like: “So Shelby’s going to design a brochure?”

“Yes.”

“And her payment’s going to be her own room on your cruise to Finland, Leningrad etc?”  Well I didn’t say “etc.,” and was dying to say “but why can’t I be Shelby’s roommate?”  I didn’t.

I remember how uncomfortable we all were in his office.  I remember thinking that I hated playing Rhoda to Shelby’s Mary.  With most other girls I was Mary.

I remember hating Shelby because she was so beautiful and bright yet was an incredible bitch without any empathy or feelings for anybody but herself.  I had met her during Viet Nam.  She never protested.

We shouldn’t have been friends.  Yet like lovers who weren’t good for each other we circled around one another for 20 years.

She hated the cruise.  Joel Gray, Colleen Dewhurst, and many incredible stars were on it.  Shelby hung out with Cindy Williams (Laverne on Laverne & Shirley)  I remember thinking well she was the only one anywhere near our age–though older of course

The night after she came back from the cruise she came to my apartment with a lot of presents, which was totally out of character for her, and a large bottle of Stoli.  We sat and drank shots.  Neither of us realized that real Russian Stoli basically tastes like water.  Well Shelby might have but she liked seeing me get drunk since I did because it was the 70’s but didn’t really enjoy.  Oh I did but hated the next day.

No she really didn’t realize as when we stood up we fell down.  We got up laughing.  I had what looked like a large stick by my front door.  It was called a police lock and weighed at least 25 pounds.  You could kill somebody with that stick.

Shelby decided to play with it.  It fell down.  The super who hated me on general principle and was always cutting off my electricity, cut off my electricity and came up to curse me out.  I had an ability to straighten myself out really quickly and threatened him with the police if he didn’t put my electricity on.  He threatened me with bodily harm but acquiesced.

Shelby couldn’t stop laughing.  We fell onto my sofa bed, passed out and went out around noon the next day for hangover food and Bloody Mary’s.  Some guys came over and we let them pay for our brunch.

I was always amazed when guys would say “you know, your friend is beautiful but there’s something about you that’s just so….”  And two thirds of the time they did

I have no idea what this has to do with living in wind chambers except that I was living in one then and my house now has the thermostat set to 68 basically because I’m cheap)

The Long Cold Chilly Windy Winter

§ February 18th, 2010 § Filed under adjusting to the south § Tagged , § 12 Comments

“If you don’t act now the account will be closed.”   “What do you mean?  You will close my account?”  “No I meant to say ‘the meeting will be adjourned.’ “   It’s a proxy meeting and I won’t bore you with specifics.

Explain please how a person would say the first sentence when she meant the “meeting will be adjourned.”  I have been continually harassed by a company hired by a fund company.  Continually as in three calls in the past two days all saying the sentences in the above paragraph.  There were more calls but I hung up.  Why am I the one person in America both to answer her phone and not hang up immediately?  Why?

It’s not that I thought they were going to abscond with my money.  It’s that they use the same verbiage in repeated calls.  And there is a second of fear.  I’m an idiot.  I admit it.

I’m beyond angry. I try to let anger fly away.  Unless used for a greater purpose it only serves to give people heart attacks and strokes–as my stock broker could attest to.  He had  massive heart failure a few months ago after having lost most of his money and much of his clients money.  I felt sorry for him.  I know.  I know.  But the world changed and it wasn’t his fault.

Most of us have had our lives changed in the past few years.  These calls were directly made to play on fear.  “Single woman, lives in South Carolina.  Call her until she breaks.”   Most women I have met here are very strong.  They do have that steel magnolia thing going.

I’m a  New Yorker and we yell.  And yell.  And yell.  I refuse to fall into that though maybe it would be healthy for me.

I’m going to file formal complaints with both the SEC and the FCC.  My brokerage house doesn’t want me to.  I have to ask: why?  Is there something beyond minor harassment in those calls?

Though I have made good friends and can’t complain about my life here, I’m feeling very alone.  I would probably feel that way in New York right now.  Having bag lady fears is normal, I know, though I have less to worry about in that area than many women, I do.  It isn’t a giant amount of money but it will pay my expenses for many months or a great trip.  I would like to keep it.

Those phone calls were designed to play on my fears. I had asked them not to call me.  I specifically said, “I don’t want anybody from First Widget Trust calling me anymore.”  Once you say that legally they can’t call. They ignored that.  I feel violated.  I feel as if somebody peered into my soul and decided that I’m somebody who can be screwed with.  (According to my brokerage company, nobody else who has this fund–my one fund, I hate them–has been getting more than one call from First Widget Trust, and none have had that script read to them.  It’s a script you’ll remember.)  When a man called at 8:55 last night I said “I told you not to call me anymore.”  He said “you didn’t tell me.”  “You’re right.  I said “….from First Widget…” He hung up.  The law is that specific and I respect that.

I need winter to end.  I didn’t move to the beach for endless freezing weather.  My heating broke last week.  Fortunately I can keep it on “emergency.”  Unfortunately that’s very expensive.  Unfortunately Trane is back ordered at least a month.  Fortunately it’s under warranty.

My health insurance premium went up 37.6% a month.  Nobody has ordered a moratorium on my increase, as President Obama did in California for 1.4% more.  Is California superior to South Carolina?  Are we going to be punished because South Carolina didn’t go Democrat?  (I have given up on caring about any political party in this country.  I have always liked Obama, and thought at first his conciliatory politics marked a new era.  Now I think he needs to develop some cajones.

These are all minor things but they add up.

Sometimes I need to blog things to get over the feeling.  I hate this need.

Snow from my living room, in coastal South Carolina, and my living room

§ February 13th, 2010 § Filed under A northerner moves to the south, adjusting to the south § 6 Comments

When Bone posts about Paul Krugman I will do a real post again.

I meant for this to be a vacation week.  I learned more about heating coils and emergency heat than I ever wanted to know.  One of the amphibians, (the other amphibian or TOA,) died.  I named the other Clinton, in honor of _ _Clinton.  Clinton, never Clint, seems to like being master of his domain.  I’m living in fear that the biosphere was damaged and…..This is why I can’t have a dog.  I can’t even take the death of TOA.

I have streaming netflick.  When it actually streams it’s incredible.  Pandora, where you make your own radio stations, is OK, just OK.  However YouTube on TV–you might never hear from me again.

I hope I can still write.  I fear that wisdom might come with aging (not mine) but words don’t.  Then again…I’m starting to use a tape recorder and will buy one that can be plugged into the computer, maybe.  I so hate the sound of my voice.  It sounds like preppy whispering winds.  Yuck.

This week is tax week.  It’s the first time I’m going to attempt to do it on my own.  The screaming you will hear…..I’m trying to be positive.  As I’m trying to be positive, and say I can write this book because I have other books in me but this is the one I know I can sell and the one that needs to be written.  Well I’m not sure I can sell it but….

I know ya’all tired of my complaining so….

My sister called the other night to tell me to watch this.  We grew up to music from the civil rights era; it was the only music sung at our camp.  Our parents didn’t like most music (don’t ask) but made sure we knew about Paul Robeson and Marion Robinson.  I realize now our parents gave us an incredible gift.  I can’t imagine not having grown up in a family where equal rights for everyone wasn’t a given.

Running to New Orleans

§ February 7th, 2010 § Filed under Uncategorized § 16 Comments

watch?v=OwDhFsrpJH0

My sister’s amazed I know so much about football but I’ve watched every episode, before Season 4 which hasn’t been on cable yet, of Friday Night Lights. I thought I was learning about life but I was learning about football also.

And I have spent more than five years hearing about football from Bone. We first became friendly during Katrina so The Saints win is very appropriate.

Only two words will do:  WOW!  WOOT!!!

Never know if it’s me or not

§ February 6th, 2010 § Filed under adjusting to the south, non verbal learning disorders § 2 Comments

I recognize and accept that somethings in my life will always be impossible for me to do.  I understand I will have to spend the rest of my life explaining why I don’t drive; that hardware and learning things such as HTML might as well be advanced physics and calculus.

But damn when I pay for things I want them to work.  I don’t want to spend a year staring at an incredibly beautiful shower that cost thousands of dollars plus I bought a new water heater for more pressure when the pressure is abysmal.  I use the upstairs shower I spent nothing on.  Then the plumber caused floods after he told me I had pin hole floods.  The floods were a few days later and he didn’t return my calls for days.  Said he didn’t have my numbers.  I know I left them but maybe he didn’t get them.

I want the netflick DVD player to work–after two tech calls that did cost me money.  I don’t want the cable company to constantly tell me “it’s your TV” when I had the Geek Squad come and check it out.

Getting things done properly costs money and I’m willing to spend the money but only if everything works when finished or after the service call.

I guess it’s time to face facts.  Do the techs really work or decide that I’m a ditz and therefore…?  Does the plumber feel no responsibility for causing floods, that cost me almost a thousand to fix?  I’m not even talking about the pressure because I’m a single woman who has non verbal learning disabilities (NLD)?   It might be an invisible disability but sometimes I feel that I wear a sign around my head “ditz,” “idiot,” “don’t take her seriously.”

Not having the social problems that so many people with NLD have might make it worse because I don’t expect to be treated poorly.  And, honestly, lately I can’t tell if I’m experiencing a series of stupid problems that anybody would experience–and be bitchier than I am being, threaten to sue–maybe even go through with the law suit. Or are these problems specific to me?

I can watch the movies on my computer but why did I buy a TV and DVD player then?  Am I wrong for caring?  And damn I want that shower working properly.  It’s Eldon’s responsibility and I told him I don’t want to involve him in a law suit but he didn’t spend the money nor does he spend a half hour a day staring at a thing of beauty that just can’t get itself it together.

Blogging for love or money

§ January 18th, 2010 § Filed under bloggers, blogging § Tagged , , , § 13 Comments

I have met the most wonderful bloggers over the past five years five months.  Though I complain about the comments that tired me of this, I have been the recipient of more incredible comments than any person has a right to receive.  I thank you all.

I  can’t do this anymore.  I write because I love to write but writing is the least of blogging.  I can’t focus on writing for publication when as a blogger I’m supposed to find “followers,” a word I hate as it sounds as if the follower should be holding my dress up.  I couldn’t care less about my Alexa ranking.  I lost my Google page rank “5″ then got it back then lost it.  Too confusing.   I could never understand Google Analytics and leave that to the people who want to monetize their blogs.

According to Technorati, I have an authority of “1.”  That would be  an audience of one–me I think and is impossible but…I only looked because a friend looked at his.  He still has a Technorati ranking.

I enjoy commenting on Facebook and a few blogs.  I can’t spend hours a day reading and commenting on blogs.  3WW a word exercise I love took me over twelve hours, to both read other blogs and comment on them,  and I wrote my post in 20 minutes.  There’s no enjoyment or payback in that. (I love some of the blogs but the time spent….)  If I were to do three or four word exercises it would take 36-48 hours out of my week.  That’s a lot of writing I can be doing.

Something else–there are so many blogging groups and associations my head spins just thinking about them.  Blogging has become too big for me.  Should I spend money going to blogging conferences?

I can’t blog for Blog Critics, Technorati, to name a few and as I keep mentioning also write for real publication.  And real publication, to me, has to mean something that pays actual money and not pennies.

People in other professions don’t give everything away.  I know! I know!  Anybody can write.  And that’s true now.  Anybody who has access to a computer can put words to screen.  But do you want to read them all?

I will be keeping Courting going and weeding out “bad” posts.  So people who care about things like Technorati don’t have to worry about losing my pitiful–I don’t even know what to call it.

I realize that I’m going against the grain and that I’m probably committing blogging hari kari.  But anybody who knows me knows I’ve done that before.

I wish I could say it has been fun.  I rue the day I found blog explosion and an audience though I wouldn’t trade the friends I have made….Even more I rue doing political blogging.  That’s something best left to people who really don’t care about creative writing and I care very much.

Political blogging is best left to thick skinned people who enjoy getting comments telling them they’re mentally ill etc.

So I guess I’m starting from the beginning.

With a blog yet blogless, I leave it to all the people who love having pictures of people they might never ever have actually exchanged an email with on their blog theme. (The followers)

I will be writing more than ever.  Just not here.  If I change my mind and anybody who knows me knows I’m prone to that, please remind me that six years ago I was being published regularly.  Major publications were asking me to re-submit.

Then I began a blog…..Nobody had heard of them.  All my friends made fun of me but at first for a few months I loved it.   I did.  Then the nasty comments began and the fun ended.

I’m sorry if I sound like a spoiled bitch but I’m so tired of the blogging world.

This ad ended it for me.  Just did.  It was so crassly commercial.  Most people who take that course won’t make two cents on a dollar expended for the course.

3WW: jolt; ribbon; zeal: fiction

§ January 13th, 2010 § Filed under 3WW, Fiction § Tagged , , , § 41 Comments

This is for 3WW

New York 1987

She was tired.  Her whole body hurt.  Really she should leave the mosh pit to younger girls but she had been caught up in the moment at the Iggy Pop concert.  It had almost felt like flying, being thrown from guy to guy.

OK it had felt great.  As if she were weightless and highly desirable though she had no idea what being thrown from person to person had to do with being desirable.

But this morning she felt as if her whole body had been trampled on.  She had stayed too late at the VIP room and the after hours club downtown where everybody but the bartender and her were sniffing coke.  She stuck to plain soda and pot.  At least she didn’t have a hangover.  Though it sure felt like one.

After the half hour shower she drank Bustello that she had filled to the brim. It gave her a jolt but not the jolt she needed.  She decided she needed a brain and body transfusion as she tried to remember what she had to do at work today.  Some meetings she could talk her way through in her sleep.  Nothing important.

Shit.  She had been staring at the red ribbon without remembering its significance.  Tonight there was another memorial service–the fourth she had gone to in the past seven weeks.  After the memorial service there was going to be a rally, and tomorrow she was committed to bringing meals all day to boys apartments.  Young boys, beautiful boys, successful boys.  Boys cut down in their prime.  Boys who maybe wouldn’t have had to die if the government hadn’t considered this a “Gay/Haitian” disease until too late.

She called in sick to work. Something that was really anathema to her but….She needed to prepare her eulogy.  She really should have stayed home last night writing it but Will would have wanted her to be carried over a mosh pit.

The coffee kicked in as she thought she really did have the zeal of a convert when it came to AIDS though she had never needed to be converted.

••••••••••

There was a time when AIDS was thought to only hit Gays and Haitians.  I wasn’t consciously thinking about Haiti when I wrote this but…

The Red Cross makes it real easy to donate to Haiti.  They accept Amazon one click.  For most of the day today I thought about running away from my life and going to Haiti.  For some reason of all the fast moving tragedies of the last decade, this–well it’s one too many.

I heard it’s really hard to get through to the Red Cross and the other orgs collecting money.  You can donate directly through Amazon.

Wives & mothers

§ January 9th, 2010 § Filed under ramblings § 18 Comments

3WW is below this. I took this post down as I thought it whiny and self centered.  Then I got an exceptional email and this comment from Cooper that was originally on the post below.  I moved it.  I replied as I now have a blog that belongs in the what do we call this decade? 20/10’s?  This blog is a pleasure and I thank Cooper the magnificent for all her work.  She’s also one of the few people I enjoy having generational difference discussions with.

I belong to one org that uses the word “wives” to refer to all women as they think the word “girlfriend” has been over used.  Girlfriend is one word, or two, that I can’t use enough.

I just saw a blog promoting “mom” as meaning all people who are child friendly.  I love kids but I’m not a mom.

I think both these words are regressive and demeaning when used in those contexts.  I’m a single childless woman with many girlfriends.

However if companies decided to send me products to test because they think I’m a mom I would gladly accept and break my five year rule of no product endorsement.  Only because being a mom is seen as being much more worthy than not being a mom in the blogosphere and I guess being a wife is also much more worthy.

I thought these battles were fought and won many years ago.  I thought it was alright to be who I am.

I’m learning from the blogosphere and the world of social networks that really people only said those things.  In their hearts they believe a woman, unless a lesbian, should be married with kids.  Or be married. Or have kids.

I don’t usually feel lonely nor do I rethink every decision in my life.  I’m writing a book that delves into my past and sometimes it hurts to thinks of decisions I did or didn’t make.

But it’s my trip through the virtual world that made me feel lonely this cold cold day.  I don’t think people understand the power of words to hurt when they declare all women “wives” or all woman who like kids “moms.”

What I’m really trying to say and failing at, is that by calling all women “wives” and “mom,” my single childless status is diminished.  And when I reread that I think “you’re single and childless.  You haven’t invented anything that helped humankind.  You haven’t done anything noteworthy.  You’re a failure.”

Such is the power of words.

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