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!!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is for 3WW.
As she walked to the kitchen cabinet with two lazy Susan’s, enough antioxidants, supplements and vitamins so that she could go on different regimes every week for two months, she thought that in thirteen days she could clean out her Keogh if she desired. She didn’t desire to and was somewhat impressed with how not-depressed the thought made her.
Six months from 60 is young. She could reinvent herself up to three times more if she so desired….”Desired” she was hung up with being desired. She didn’t want to be younger. She wanted to be the girl who had inspired boys and men to irrational, oft times erratic behavior. Right it was the irrational, erratic she didn’t miss. OK she was guilty of the same.
She had been a drama queen who starred in an epic the Weinstein brothers would be proud to produce.
Was it worth living a temptuous love life when she saw so many couples so at ease with each other? She wouldn’t have known how to begin. Men had always been a drain on her. So why was there a nibble in her ear telling her actually try?
No she wouldn’t. She liked the ease of the boy toy. The nibble on the ear that led to a night of debauchery. Shit she was so immature. Wasn’t there much more to a life of committed sex?
Rick texted. She agreed to meet him at ten in the town’s hotel bar. He was 33. 33 and less than seventeen percent body fat. Young boys, they loved to give body fat stats and really how much else did they have to talk about? Casey Johnson’s death?
She had a nibble of yogurt as her mother would have said, walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the master bath and began getting ready.
In 91 my father went to the big poker game in the sky. In 01 my mother went somewhere not here.
You hope they reunited but your mother wasn’t betting on it. You think they had some kind of Houdini signal he was supposed to send her if there was something up there and some way of communicating. Houdini and his wife made up a signal. If there was an afterlife she would know because she would receive his signal. It never happened. You don’t know the signal but you know the story because your father was into levitating tables and Ouija boards and more. Your mother made him stop. Still you think she wanted the signal more than anything in later life.
You don’t want to say you have a fear of years ending in “1″ because that sounds so wimpy. And people will assume you’re scared of another 9/11. You’re more scared of the idiots who blamed Obama for the last miss. Big difference between 8/06/01 memo sitting on Bush’s desk and officials who did screw up but weren’t in the Oval Office. Not that you think Obama’s perfect but Bush didn’t inherit two wars, “the worst recession since….,” and all the fallout. He helped cause all that.
You don’t want to say you’re confused about the past decade; it had certain incredible highs and lows like you have never experienced and hope never to experience again.
You hate the way people waffle around 9/11 or make it Todd Beamer Appreciation Day. Most of it happened in New York and that should be always acknowledged. Not that you’re not appreciative of Todd Beamer. But that day really did change your life because your mother became so addled, yet not addled enough to require emergency measures. The day she fell and died not just added to your guilt meter but made it run so fast the guilt company couldn’t keep with it and therefore demanded their overdue payment much later in the decade.
How can you complain when there are so many people with less than nothing? You don’t want to say that your addiction to HGTV has made you cynical. Sometimes people put down substantial down payments but other times they put down five percent or work out arrangements so that the mortgage and/or second mortgage covers 100%. How can they call themselves homeowners? They’re renting from the bank. You couldn’t understand this in the 90’s; you find it unbelievable today.
You’re far from perfect. You have an unnatural fear that the above belief will cause you to lose everything you have. Bad Karma. And Karma is everything to you.
You did big things last year–well beginning in 07. You sold an apartment and bought and renovated a house. It is a big deal and yet you say “piece of cake.” “If I could do this anybody could.”
But not everybody has a disability that causes many people to give up completely, live off other people, work in sheltered workshops despite having multiple degrees. Of course you’re on the highest end of this spectrum. Sort of like having a “bit of Asperger’s.”
Still you never knew. You worked and worked your tush off in your 20’s and 30’s while living in an apartment that was totally unrenovated and required constant care. Your neighborhood was store unfriendly. One of the happiest days of your life was the day a Duane Reade opened five blocks from your apartment. You would get there at eight on Saturday mornings–the only time it wasn’t packed and buy cleaning supplies and much more.
You’re obsessively clean now because you couldn’t be then. You thought it was a combination of laziness and living in an old old apartment that was party central.
Your father thought you could be the neatest person in the world if you only tried. Your father was always yelling. Always telling you how great you could be if only….He didn’t know and by the time he realized (after the damn testing) he only had a few years left. Your father was your greatest admirer and your greatest foe. You should probably be in therapy for life just to understand that relationship.
A friend was just saying he found Elizabeth Gilbert’s story banal because he knows you and you went to Europe by yourself many times and have overcome much greater odds than Gilbert will ever know. He actually called you a “hero.” That was so sweet. Actually he said “you’re much more of a hero than she is.” But…
And so a new year begins. You never make resolutions. You have accomplishments you want to make happen. You’ll work your tush off to make them happen. But if they don’t…..You do have one resolution. Stop using the word “actually” constantly.
We lived in a small four room garden apartment when the 60’s began. But my parents believed in partying. Every month was cause for a celebration so New Years was a big one. Usually they had large parties. But I guess they decided to usher in a new decade with some of their closest friends.
My parents are in the third row. It’s hard to recognize my Dad without the moustache he would grow in 69 and have for the rest of his life. Oh if my parents only knew what the 60’s would wrought, they would have doubly celebrated! The good, bad and the never talked about again. I can’t imagine what it would be like to go from their culture to mine–sex, drugs and rock & roll
In lifetimes filled with great decades my mother said the 60’s was her favorite. Because she finally felt grown-up! Two daughters who were too be teens in the 60’s.
They began traveling the world in the 60’s and never stopped. If a country was open to Americans, they were there.
My parents began a small chain of stores in the 60’s. One that specialized in clothes for the junior high set but was bought by all age groups. My father being father to two daughters who were never satisfied with the clothes our mother bought us saw a need for this group to be catered to. My mother just loved selling clothes. Later we would go to Loehmann’s and the saleswomen would embrace her for when my mother was there they didn’t need to do their job.
My sister and I disliked the clothes in our family stores, and can still imitate our mother trying to give us more and more and more….
Though my father would deny it later we all loved the Kennedy family, and our world shook with the assassination.
But I have a friend who has been arguing for years that the decade really began with the Beatles arrival on American soil. More and more I see his point.
My parents loved the changes, the 60’s brought, in art, theater, movies. Music–well 30 years later my father was still trying to understand the part it played in my life. Though they loved the Simon Sisters (yes Carly), Simon & Garfunkle, and most of all the real Thanksgiving song, “Alice’s Restaurant” by Arlo.
We were a close family. Though my father would have loved to go to school with me and be actively involved in all my life, he let me go to the 67 Moratorium in DC. It was, I believe, the largest anti-war demonstration to date. I was a senior in high school then and had to take the bus with people from Great Neck. We arrived back at 4 AM and my parents were there. I believe they had been waiting since Midnight.
In retrospect it was the day my father ceded control of my life. I thank him for that. Giving your child the gift to make her own mistakes can’t be easy. I always knew that. And he was forever trying to take back his authority!
It wasn’t until 1976, another wonderful decade, that we were to have the grown up great relationship we both truly craved.
My mother? She always knew that if you wanted your daughters to be your friends you had to let them fly.
I thank my parents for introducing me to all the arts, culture, great food and the world. Today I choose to remember how wonderful they were.
When did everything become an issue?
I came home from the eight days of Thanksgiving and wanted to chill with TV. I tried turning it on. Nothing. After 20 minutes of playing, the TV went on. I noticed the Time Warner commands and fonts were different. The TV kept going off. I called Time Warner: It’s your TV
“But my TV is only six months old. I’ve had cable since 1980. I know a cable problem.”
“IT’S YOUR TV.” (Some complicated explanation that I knew was meaningless.)
Every day I had problems turning the TV on though it would stay on. The DVR would constantly freeze. The picture would freeze. But every time I called Time Warner I would be told it’s my TV and they wouldn’t send somebody.
Finally it wouldn’t go on at all. I insisted they send somebody. Fine but it was going to cost me $60 because it was the TV. I waited for the appointment. Nobody came. The appointment had never been put in the system. It was my TV after all.
The technician came. “I understand that your TV has issues.” Well yeah in life I have many issues, but I never knew that an inanimate object has issues.
It took the technician two days to fix all the problems. None of the signals that only the cable person looks at were on the right settings. There was something wrong with the outside wiring that had been put in six months ago. The technician said that many people had TV/cable issues after the upgrade.
My TV has never looked so good. The picture’s sharper and doesn’t freeze. Nor does the DVR. Most importantly I can turn the TV on without going through 20 minutes of playing with every button, rebooting, and fervently hoping.
Time Warner sent me an email asking how the customer support on the phone was. I said they were horrible as they refused to listen to me. Somehow this became translated to “the customer service people are excellent but the technician was horrible.” And I had given him the highest grades on the survey they sent me. Moral: never answer emails asking for feedback. Never fill out surveys.
Here’s a link to an article I wrote for The Long Island Press’s award winning series: Our Children’s Brains. Of everything I did this past decade this article was personally the most meaningful. If I increased awareness of non verbal learning disorder (NLD) just a bit then I did a lot.
I meant to end the year decade with a salute to bloggers because I think we’re at the forefront of a major revolution in communication. Without blogging there really couldn’t have been Facebook. Without Facebook there couldn’t have been Twitter. I don’t know whether I fear or look forward to what comes next.
I began this decade, and I believe decades truly begin when something significant happens, in deep agony. True the Trade Center had imploded and my mother died suddenly the next month but it was more than that. I felt as if I were losing my grip on sanity. I didn’t know about NLD then. Had I known when I was a decade younger, ha, the worlds I might have conquered.
But I have to remember that I put this blog together and if I have been harping on its former glory lately it’s because it opened doors I never knew existed.
I became friendly with Bone over four years ago. His writing amazed me and still does. He keeps getting better. But it was Bone the person who helped change me. When we became friendly I realized that I didn’t have to fear the South.
My first three days visiting here I was more than a bit scared. Actually it rained the first two days and I was glad I could bring my incredible rain making skills to a then drought stricken area. (Not glad I have that talent now as this is shaping up to be the rainiest December on record.)
The third day I ventured out and nobody bit me. North Myrtle, so familiar now, seemed like another country. I knew the New York metro area, South Florida, parts of New England and California.
This is a new world. My world now and I go into a new decade knowing I can face whatever comes. I might be a decade older and one of the oldest known bloggers but that never stopped me….
I thank you all who have taken this journey or parts of it with me.
