Thank you all for supporting me through my nineteenth nervous breakdown. Well more like nineteenth hundred, but I haven’t known most of you that long. Sure you’re thankful for that. I will return all comments over the weekend and/or during the week, I hope. Really want to get the pages of truly great things–and some a bit sarcastic–but hey I’ll take a cab ride with Tom Waits anytime–people have said about me and/or Courting. Though we are one and the same. Sometimes even I think I’m the Courting Pin-up

It’s 62 degrees out so I’m going out. And I will change the late great Warren Zevon’s saying from “enjoy every sandwich,” to “enjoy every salad,” because truthfully I can’t remember the last time I had a sandwich. Have a great weekend. Spring has finally sprung here.

When my father died, fifteen years ago tonight, I didn’t cry. My mom and sister did. I didn’t cry at the funeral or for so many years when other tragedies came and went, and I had somehow lost that ability.

Then Katrina happened. And I cried for everybody who lived in New Orleans, for 9/11, for my mom, for my dad, and for this wonderful but flawed country that I have truly begun to only know well since I began blogging.

I bought into all the blue and red states myths before I began to blog. I was so provincial and so sure about false myths. In my heart I think I believed that I was a bit better than thou because I’m a New Yorker.

Don’t think that way anymore. And you all helped me relearn to cry. The empathy and support that I have found in people from across America and across the world amazes me.

When I went to see Light in the Piazza based on a book my mom and I had read when I was thirteen, on the Tuesday of the levees, I cried for every person stuck in New Orleans, I cried for my country for it become mine by then, and for a government none of us deserve to have.

Even my dad, neocon that he was would have hated our government for its gross failure to act. I’m not psychic though some people think that I am. If I knew, what was Condi Rice doing at Spamalot the next night–Wednesday–can’t stress that enough?

I know my dad would have hated Karl Rove for that horrible statement uttered last June about “liberals wanting therapy for terrorists…” He wasn’t talking about “liberals.” He made that statement in New York, home to the only civilian terrorist attack in history really, for a reason, a reason that wasn’t lost to me or to any person in this amazing though Disneyfied city.

What was it, a week later, that he was outed for Plamegate? Still during Katrina our President gave him more responsibilities not less.

I never cried for my father for many reasons. One was because I knew him so well that he lived on in my heart. Though the memories are beginning to be sepia tinged, they are still there. My father’s compassion was well known. When times were tough for his clients, he let them owe him, or he was paid in kind. I own an original oil painting that served as a cover for a romance novel; have the cover also.

When his poker game consisted of mostly artists and writers, and one was struggling, my father would insist that the pot be turned over to that person

My father was the chief American CPA for a very large Asian company. He began to realize that they weren’t always ethical, and wanted him to do things that skirted the law. Actually he showed me the documents as I was a paralegal manager then, and I translated from legalese to English.

They wanted him to shoulder all responsibility for much that happened in the American branches. They paid him very well, and he only was just beginning to suspect them of doing shady things. He walked. Wow did he walk. I was never so proud of him. He wouldn’t have gotten into trouble. The things weren’t clearly illegal or unethical, they just smelled wrong.

Can’t stand the smell, get out of the kitchen. In my father’s case that was all he could do.

But I know that as neo-con as he became about foreign issues, this government would have been too much for him. I know that my father would be proud that I have stood up and have been counted as somebody who in no way shape or form can ever be silent about this government.

Last night when I lit the candle, I cried as I have so often since Katrina. It gave me a headache but I felt better and stronger. My niece, my father’s granddaughter will grow up in a stronger better America. She will grow up in the America we all deserve, because in this past year some remarkable things have happened.

Blogging has brought things to the forefront, political bloggers have uncovered much wrong doing and bless them for that. Personal bloggers have found commonalities that we never knew could have existed before the advent of blogging.

Blogging has truly changed me and I thank each person who has helped me learn that it’s okay to express feelings and emotions.

Today is also the first anniversary of Terri Schiavo’s death, and I don’t know of a sadder one. I would still like to know how much the special Palm Sunday Joint Session of Congress cost, in total–with all or most members returning just for the day or weekend.

I do know my father’s views on living without a functioning brain, and I know that he would have been proud that I stood up when it counted. The governments very sick response to Terri’s death would have made him hate it if nothing else had.

Then there non-action on Katrina, the worst natural disaster ever to befall this great but so flawed country.

I am proud to have stood up. I am proud to be one of the founding members of BIO, the first liberal blog to give a voice to everybody. Steve, not our Steve O, can tell you how much we fought last year, and how much we have found in common. Though we will never be on the same side in some issues, we are both Americans who love our country, and want to see it be truly great again.

My father was all about politics, and a zillion other thing, but every night at the dinner table we did discuss the issues of the day. Our holiday dinners, and I think about Passover soon coming up, were filled with over 40 people all screaming at once. Some even made picket signs. I have always been convinced that my father thought Woody Allen’s Hannah and her sisters was about our family’s Thanksgivings.

My father was a contradictory person. When I was little I thought that there was one film star in the world, Charlie Chaplin, because my father took me to see all his blacklisted films at The Museum of Modern Art. It did leave me with a life long aversion to silent films–hey I was three–and weekly Charlie Chaplin films were just too much for me.

I quickly learned to understand that he was doing a great thing by taking me to see a man who was banished from America for having sex with Ona O’Neil who he did marry, and I do believe that they were happily married.

During the Impeachment hearings my mom and I thought of her husband, my father often, for he would have hated it. It would have embarrassed him out of his neocon mode. The cold war was over; now the war for America began.

We can’t let people with antiquated notions of good and evil win this one. I want my niece, my Goddaughter, Little Luce and all the kids I know and love, to know that I stood up when it counted.

Before I was born my parents went to every session of Alger Hiss’s trial–look him up, I’m too lazy. In later years their accounts differed, but I do remember the stories they both told me before I was old enough to understand, as they understood the importance of teaching children to love but to never blindly obey the government.

And yes with all my heart and more, I do support the troops. May they come home soon from this fiasco of a war.

May the memory of my parents make sure that I always do the right thing.

This is a personal blog. The First Amendment doesn’t apply here. I do delete comments. Want to fight me? Bring it on! to BIO, where we do have operators standing around waiting to take your call. No we don’t, but it’s a good line.

At BIO we began buying body armor for the troops months ago. We won’t let them wear defective government grudgingly issued armor. We want them home today, but as long as they’re in Iraq, let them be as safe as possible

Unfortunately I accidentally deleted last night’s Boston Legal I never do that. But I don’t usually watch them after three in the morning. Had to reclaim my blog. What’s a blogger without a blog? In my case, hysterical.

Omigod, I couldn’t believe Alan Shore (the ever beloved James Spader) when his speech became “word salad” because of anxiety. Who is Alan Shore without words? Oh man, did I relate. Only in my case I fear dementia which I don’t have, but I am a geriatric social worker. Have only heard the term “word salad” applied to people with dementia. Read more…

I am totally swamped, and couldn’t get to sleep until the sun was breaking this morning and was up several hours late. Will write tomorrow about my newest identity—Alana Shore. Thought last night’s Boston Legal was especially brilliant. Still in love with James Spader after all these years. And thought William Shatner was brilliant Loved his pink shirt
After I installed AIM my computer began acting funky. My Gmail account was suspended because of all the new spam, my spyware program seemed to become ineffectual and some anti virus, anti spyware company that I had never heard of began popping up.

Didn’t have any of these problems on Savannah Falls Third, the laptop, but SFToo was acting very very funky. Uninstalled AIM and a few other programs that had appeared out of nowhere. Today I began getting huge sex pop-ups that took over the 20 inch monitor. This isn’t a best of post at all–but what comes out, at 2 AM after I have a panic attack

Shortly before going to the dentist, my password to Courting stopped working. I stopped thinking and went into denial mode. The dental visit was the highpoint of my day. I was so on edge I didn’t even need Novocain. Then I visited a friend who lives down two blocks from my house near Broadway because I thought I should be social occasionally, and was really delaying going home. Read more…

Shayna made an amazing Courting video. She made it awhile ago but Courting and both Savannah’s have been rather temperamental lately.

I think that Stuffed Tiger paid me a compliment. “in a style that is more Pia than The New York Times.” I am flattered. Once again I will hedge that with “I think.”

Wow, there’s a Pia blogging style. Unfortunately or not, The Times has been veering from straight news for some years now, even in the first section. For a hot minute or five it felt like the first page was a small town daily capped by the infamous;
“Ms. Flo Schwartz can no longer dance around her living room naked…..” I made the exact wording up, but I couldn’t stop laughing when I read it. This was front page news in The New York Times

I remember wondering what my dad would have thought about. Like most educated New Yorkers my dad had a life long love/hate relationship with The Times. He was just louder uh more vocal about it. My father yelled a lot. He meant no harm but he liked things to be perfect. Everything had to be his way, and somehow he expected the news to fit his point of view. If I sound vague it’s because I’m still trying to understand that one.

I have always wanted to write the following paragraph:
“My father was a simple man. He would go to work at seven thirty, with the other men on the LIRR, work and come home. When he arrived home, he would smile and say; “hello darling, sweetheart, kitten. Did you have a wonderful day? Tell me about it?’

My parents would have drinks at six. At exactly six thirty my mom would ring the cute dinner bell and my sister and I would come to the dining room for dinner where we would talk about trivial things. After dinner, he and my mother would retire into the den for after dinner drinks and light conversation.” I assume that we would have had a full time maid who cooked, served and did the dishes so as to relieve my mom, sister and I of our nightly chores.”

But we were a real family, not a TV sit com or some book that I had read. Often I thought that life would be much simpler if my dad did drink. The man had no bad habits. He did drink occasionally, but never smoked, exercised regularly and was an obsessive worker and an obsessive player. By that I mean he scheduled in time for weekly poker games, classes, civic duties, nights out with my mom, and much family time. I become exhausted just thinking about his schedule. No wonder why he yelled so much, he was chronically sleep deprived as he didn’t go to sleep until at least two AM.

As he was self-employed and never scheduled any appointments until eleven AM he would sleep until at least nine when he would have breakfast consisting of orange juice, farmer cheese, bread and Postum. Gawd, he could have been a Mormon except for the occasional drink and the bi-week coca cola. Not sure if Mormons gamble or not, should really find that out.

My father was saved from being a boring pompous a-hole by being himself; a man who could never stop lecturing unless he was telling a story or a joke. It’s difficult for me to describe my father’s sense of humor, and I really have to begin remembering some stories.

Forever and longer, he tried to teach me the proper way to fold The Times for subway reading, in eighths. Forever and longer I couldn’t learn. This wasn’t the cause of great merriment or joy as he was always trying to teach me things that he believed were important to living a proper life. As I couldn’t learn many of these things we would scream so loudly we could probably be heard three towns over.

Never did learn to live a proper life. I don’t blame my dad, I think I understand what’s it’s like to have a child you think could rule the world if she wanted if only….

I do have a cold and another huge dentist appointment tomorrow. Please bear with me if I don’t answer your comments or emails until later this week. And thanks so much, all of you. My RLF’s believe that I have lost my mind, or the little that was left and have gone deeply into the dark and sinister world or blogging. Think that they have it confused with online porn or Texas hold-em–my own version of Spam and Internet hell. They just don’t get us and smile vague smiles or shake their heads when I bring anything blogging up. But I don’t care because we are the future today. Sometimes I think that I have turned into my dad, and that the only thing that saves me from being pompous and boring is something not really definable. At least by me.

Toto, Savannah Falls Too, and I are home and will answer all comments and emails tomorrow. The abrupt change from hot tropiclal humidity to cold air has left us all coughing and in dire need of hot & sour soup. We’re just to happy to see our six hundred square feet of would be minimalist beauty had we less stuff and more room. We’re just happy to be home though we aren’t cold air creatures. New York would be perfect were it in the tropics, but then it wouldn’t be New York.
From our slightly humble abode we saw the lights of the Beacon flash in honor of the Allman Brothers last show, I think, and we thought of our friend Josh

Voting for the Koufax’s ends at 11:59 tonight March 26, I don’t stand a chance of winning. This is a personal blog with a political slant, not a political blog. But think about this: maybe more people like me are needed. Many people who read my blog aren’t political. Some have become encouraged to write about politics because of Courting. I have changed a few peoples opinions; I haven’t changed other peoples opinions and don’t intend to try as I just like them anyway. Liberal politics is meaningless without compassion and an an attempt to understand other peoples POV’s

Fifteen years ago today, on my parents wedding anniversary, my dad had a massive stroke. Fortunately he died five days later, because I can’t imagine my dad severely brain damaged.

Lately I have been seeing too much anti Jewish rhetoric on the Internet. It scares me as it should because when things go wrong, people have a great tendency to blame things on Jews.

My dad was born in a tenement on Madison Street in the Lower East Side where they were so poor they literally didn’t have a pot to pee in. They moved on up, all the way to East Harlem where I do believe that they had a bathroom, and boarders.

My grandfather was an intellectual, or so I have been told, and a Socialist. My grandmother ran their small candy store, and cooked dinner every night for 25 or so of my grandfather’s best friends and relatives who sat around discussing the Socialist ideal.

My dad had his first two jobs at the age of eight. One was counting numbers for the neighborhood bookie; the other was delivering clothes for a dry cleaner where the Loews 84th Street is now.

My parents met as teenagers and my dad was enchanted by my maternal grandmother who was a feminist and Communist. For a long time he considered himself to be a Communist, and his greatest regret in life was never telling his father that he had been right all along, Communism wasn’t the answer Socialism was.

My dad had two scholarships to NYU, one for basketball and one for math. But it was the depression, and he had to work during the day to help support his family. He went to work for the one rich kind of relative, SL Hoffman who was described by his best friend Armand Hammer as “the man who could sell bras to the Russians.” I’m too lazy and too tired to look up the links. If you’re interested look them up yourself. I, personally, could never forget a line like that as the Soviet Union then wasn’t exactly known for its taste in clothes or the women for wearing American bra’s.

So I guess in a sense my dad did have help as he had a job and they were scarce. His sister also worked for SL. It took them an hour and some minutes depending on the subways to get from the Bronx where they had moved to Long Island City. If they were five minutes late, they would be docked an hours pay.

It took my dad eight years to graduate from school as he had to give up his scholarships. But he preserved and finally graduated. My parents then got married as they had wanted to wait until my father passed the CPA exam. It’s an infamously difficult exam given, I believe, in five parts. He passed each part on the first try.

So yes, my dad with his big nose and briliiance in math fit the frigging stereotype. He was also the kindest most compassionate person I have been privileged to know, though he did have many faults.

My parents adopted me years after they were married, so I never knew him as a struggling young man, but as a successful CPA who insisted on being called an accountant. My mom insisted that he be called a CPA, and frankly my younger sister and I were just confused as we lived in a post-war built for returning Vets garden apartment complex where most of the men had blue collar jobs. 98% of them were Jewish.

Nobody really understood, then, what an accountant let alone a CPA did, and I had a difficult time explaining his job as I was just a child. I knew that he did more than just prepare tax returns, but I don’t think I knew enough to explain that he oversaw audits in companies and helped individuals manage their money.

Several months ago I wrote a post on “gratitude to Christians” that became totally twisted, because I said that I am grateful to Christians for allowing us to become full citizens. I stand by that statement and I do think the Holocaust prove my point. My grandparents and great grandparents had escaped the pogroms in Russia.

I was brought up to believe in and embrace the American dream, and yes it worked for my family, but as successful as my parents became and that was very, they never felt fully American. When we bought our house my mother cried because her mother hadn’t lived to see her become a home owner. Something never allowed to my family in Russia.

My own non-Jewish friends believed that my father had to have been given help to go to college and begin his practice. No, he wasn’t. As lacking as I believe my paternal grandparents were in parenting skills, they stressed the importance of education. There wasn’t a secret Jewish cabal that helped every Jewish boy go to college. I know that because most of the people in our garden apartment community weren’t college graduates nor were they stupid.

They either didn’t have my father’s talents and skills or had to drop out of high school or not go to college at all to help their families.

To be honest my parents didn’t like Israel, but, and this is a big but, they would explain over and over again that without an Israel, there couldn’t be free Jews; that Israel was necessary because it showed the world that besides being smart, Jews could be strong. I

‘m not saying that I particularly believe this but I do know that Roosevelt wouldn’t bomb the train tracks that led to the Concentration camps, that Roosevelt knew that there were concentration camps but refused to do anything about it, and that the United States turned back boats filled with refugees though the government knew that their chances of survival were nil.

We have always been an easy people to blame for problems when things go wrong because we have tend to big noses, are often smart, live in self-made ghettos, eat funny foods and for a thousand and one other reasons that could describe many other groups.

I can easily pass for Irish as I am half by birth, or Slavic as I am that too. I went to Boston University and majored in Urban Studies, in the 1970′s during Boston school desegregation years. I did my internship in White Dorchester, in the Neighborhood Housing Services which in nineteen other cities then helped low income residents retain their homes through ending red lining, which was a common practice where residents of some areas weren’t granted mortgages or home improvement loans. They also helped residents improve their homes through sweat equity where people would help each other fix homes, and I believe began reverse mortgages where senior citizens would:

A “reverse” mortgage is a loan against your home that you do not have to pay back for as long as you live there. With a reverse mortgage, you can turn the value of your home into cash without having to move or to repay the loan each month. The cash you get from a reverse mortgage can be paid to you in several ways:

Didn’t quite work this way in White Dorchester where the Neighborhood Housing Service was an anti-busing front. It was the first time I had ever heard people use the words “nigger,” or “kike.” I was young and shocked and wanted to quit but my adviser thought I could get an excellent education. Because I didn’t look Jewish and when asked would tell people I was “Irish and Polish,” because I was, they talked freely in front of me. I learned things that I never wanted to know, and when the school year was finished ran back to New York where people at least attempted to treat each other with some civility. Yes I ran from Boston the cradle of American civilization.

When my sister was a teacher in South Jersey in the 80′s they thought she was Italian until she asked to take off for the Jewish holidays. When she came back there were swastikas on her chair and the blackboard. She spent that year being tormented by students, teachers and the god damn principal who refused to intercede.

The ADL found out and wanted her to be a test case. My parents talked her out of that as they were afraid that she would somehow be blackballed from teaching. Yes, this was in the 1980′s in New Jersey.

Forgive me for being a bit cynical but I know from these two experiences, first hand, that anti-Semitism is alive and well in the United States.

American Jews had nothing to do with 9/11 and to merely see that on the Internet is sickening. No Jew was given “advance warning,” it was the first day of school for most Jewish private schools. Law firms generally open at ten, and why am I even saying these things. I know many Jews who survived the attacks, some in my own family, and heard of many who didn’t.

It was Bin Laden who did it, I believe, not American Jews nor Israel, a country that I have no great love for, but will begin to defend, in the memory of my parents who though born here and were of course citizens, were always just a bit scared that their citizenship would be taken away as they had heard so many stories growing up, and saw the aftermath of the Holocaust.

When I was a child I was obsessed with World War Two and would constantly ask my dad why they hadn’t done anything to help:
“Because we didn’t know.”

As I was a child of the TV era I found that impossible to believe. I believe it now. I would die for this country if it meant that I was defending The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Amendments. I would also die for my religion that I don’t practice, because it is a religion that has withstood thousands of years of oppression and still somehow managed to not only survive but to thrive and not because of a secret cabal, or because we control the media, the Congress, the president or a myriad of other things people believe.

To begin to pin 9/11 on us, is beyond sick, beyond any sort of rational thinking. I personally will fight that assumption to my last breath.

Sorry if I’m not a good liberal, but to be a liberal also means sometimes taking stands that aren’t popular with all liberals–though any person who believes this should be mortified at their own stupidity. And if Israel or Jews wanted to plan a terrorist attack, why would they pick the most Jewish of cities in America? To throw everybody off track? Give me a frigging break; this scenario is so absurd it would make a great off-off Broadway play.

This is my personal blog. The First Amendment doesn’t apply. If you want to leave a sick comment, go somewhere else where it won’t be deleted or picked apart. I will not support anti-Semites on my blog nor will I allow any radical rightists using my post for any purpose or comments.

I believe that this is a great country with many faults. I have defended Muslims in these pages. I hate nobody but people who hate and spread vile vermin

Crossposted at BIO where of course I took out the personal blog part and added some more more things. I will be traveling today and catching up on last week Boston Legal Soprano’s and watching this weeks. Hey I have my priorities.

Welcome to the quirkiest blog, I have ever seen, read or written.

Can’t believe that in my best of posts, I forgot all about many of my posts from 11/04-1/05. I live a very exciting life consisting of trips to Fairway, my neighborhood supermarket; very occasional trips into JP Morgan Chase, the bank that loves to hate me, and so on.

Truthfully I don’t like to talk about my present day life because I then get panic attacks thinking about who I might have hurt and why.

Don’t do categories well. Will try to fix that someday…

If you haven’t already voted for me, BIO, Bob Geiger, and The Fat Lady Sings, what are you doing here?

Once again here is a direct link to “best writing.”

If you don’t know Jane she claims to have nothing to say now, and is or was deeply immersed in the NCAA whatever–I don’t follow it. It’s a good time to begin reading her archives.

Also soon I won’t be able to say that my youngest known reader and friend is nineteen anymore. Actually my youngest friends are eleven and fifteen but I don’t think they read Courting. Esoteric Wombat does, and EW, Alice is right, readership does fall off on weekends. EW is esoteric but not a wombat, and always interesting and a pleasure to read. I’m kind of esoteric myself so…

I’m also eclectic. Neil is not only the best story teller in the blogging circuit, but informative. Didn’t ever think I would learn about RSS feeds from him, but hey. His post today is classic–story telling at its finest. We’re both from Queens and played ringelevio–learn about it from him. Think that one is a couple of posts down. Neil’s a great fun read. But I moved from Queens, still the borough of boroughs, when I was twelve to Nassau County. Yes I said blogging circuit rather than blogosphere. Jews from Queens tended to learn all about the borscht belt circuit in the Catskill; where all the great comedians of yesteryear learned to hone and fine tune their skills. My father learned to be a waiter; I could set a perfect table for 20 by the time I was eight. Might write about it someday, and if you need material to fall asleep to….

Of course I hated it when I lived with my family; didn’t all kids hate living in a suburb before computer games, the Internet, Ipods, and before parents catered to every whim? Mine tried, but they also wanted me to know that adulthood is when the real fun begins. After I left my parents house, I lived in various North Shore towns, on and off until I was almost 23.

I will never bash Long Island because I had incredibly wonderful experiences–after leaving the family manse. After all these years I can’t say I regret wanting to leave. It’s a very normal part of growing up. Wait, me and normal in the same sentence? My first and fave college had a course on “how to get rid of your Longguyland accent.” I never knew that people said “Long Island” like that until I read the catalogue. Think it must have been a South Shore thing.

Library Lady is from another borough, Da Bronx, used to love going there as a kid because I thought all kids were so much cooler than kids from Queens. Library Lady lives outside of DC is, guess what? a librarian and has two daughters. She also has some great recipes, rants, kvetches, and can teach you the language of our people, Yiddish. It’s a wonderfully descriptive language with double meanings and cynical attachments. We’re a cynical but funny people. Had to be to live;hope we don’t have to resort to funny cynicism again. There is a big difference between rants and kvetches. Ask her; she will explain.

Can’t use the word cynical and not talk about our dawg Doug Truly believe that Doug brought a whole new genre to our blogging world, or at least popularized it. Don’t have a clue as to what I’m talking about? Just read him.

If you don’t know MizB, you’re missing a great person with an incredible mind who can stir up trouble for herself like nobody I have met, but me. That’s a compliment, I think. She is fabulous.

Wow I missed so much by not reading blogs for a week. See the Dawg’s brawl, yesteday, over at Sar’s.

Last but not least for today is the person who first nominated me for an award. She happens to be another exceptional person with much to say, and her blog today is more provocative than the Courting pin-up. Who? Why Cat of course.

Will discuss more people next week and maybe even dish some dirt. I believe that mentioning people you like to read for one reason or another is important to imparting a sense of community to the blogging circuit, and way more important than linking less than you are linked to in order to further your Google rank

Have to go back to the beach and since this turned into a post I will put comments back on.

While I might not even make it into the top five or so blogs, I have the most enthusiastic readers and that makes me very very happy. Thank you all so much. Here’s a link to the koufaks best writing. Here’s the email address wampum @ nic-naa.net. (subject line add: Koufax) Want to say something else, I’m probably the only blogger who truly loves lurkers. Lots of people only want to read, can’t think of something to comment about, or just don’t want to. I truly understand. This will be my last post until Tuesday–I hope Put in a page about the very sad life and death of Terri Schiavo. It is cross posted at BIO Cranky updated on the awards; please read that also. Read everything in BIO, it’s good for you.

Would also like to thank the amazing Anna of Pixel Forte for saving Courting from death, and thus saving my life!

Good things that happen to me make me nervous. I spend a lot of time waiting for something to go wrong. When things go as planned or better, I wonder why. Yet nothing horrible usually occurs. Understanding that this is irrational helps but doesn’t make the feelings go away.

I wish that I were a person who could settle for something, anything mundane. But I have been practicing my Academy Award speech for Best Actress most of my life and have never had any desire to be an actress. I want glitz, I want glamour. I want to live a cloistered life far from people.

I had taught myself contentment yet for the past several months I have been feeling restless and scared. I feel awkward as I push to the stars only to find myself mired in mud. The mud miraculously disappears leaving me outwardly cleansed and inwardly inflamed and fuming.

Life used to be so much easier. I could delude myself into believing in tomorrow. One day I realized that today is tomorrow. Each day on earth should be lived to the fullest. But what is the fullest? Many people seem to believe that if they had they had my life they would do this, that, anything but what I do at that moment.

Other peoples opinions were just that, opinions that I could take, leave, make light of, ponder or ignore. Now they seem to matter too much. I want to spend my vacation reading, walking and doing a great deal of nothing. But this person insists that I do this, that person insists that I do something else. Read more…

Felt this to be my most revealing post–so I hid it in a page! Do that until I get the nerve to post sometimes.
Being adopted is a fact of my life. I think it’s a wonderful thing. Love my adoptive family, and would never in my wildest dreams call them that. They are my family; my one and only. They also provide much fodder for my posts and my memoir.

When I was fourteen I went to the adoption agency to find out about my birth family. At the time I was the youngest person to seek information and was laughed out of the agency. I went at my dad’s urging because he was curious; he, a CPA of some note, couldn’t understand why it wasn’t my right to know this information. Even at fourteen I knew more than my dad about somethings. But I was still young enough to see him in the reception area, and begin to cry because of the social worker’s obvious bias against me or any adoptee knowing information. This was in 1965.

Went again when I was 21 and engaged. Thought it was my right to know about my health history. This time I was told a pack of lies and knew it. Once again my dad was waiting in the reception area. This time I waited until we were on the street to break down.

Won’t bore you with the whole story; it’s in here somewhere. In bits and pieces and whole posts.

Around the time I went to the agency in 1972, the anti-adoption movement was becoming more and more and more in vogue. That movement makes me sick.

I say “more and more,” because I did have problems. My parents being progressive and sophisticated took me for help. For many years I was told that I was “resistant to being adopted,” had to “hate my adoptive family” and more.

Not many nine year old kids can say that they talked back to the child therapist. I can.

Couldn’t have learning disabilities; I wasn’t a boy and I was adopted. My parents always believed in me. I wish that they were here now. They did live long enough to know that I had many learning disabilities, yet had somehow managed to graduate from a good college, have a career, many friends, and some great and some horrible men.

Really don’t know if Aspergers is a component of Central Audio Processing Syndrome or not.

Personally couldn’t care less. Yes, I know times were different then. I’m always the first person to talk about that.

But I do know that “blame it on being adopted,” robbed me and my family of many things. Obviously my Aspergers is mild. On Boston Legal last week there was a woman who was fired because her boss wouldn’t keep employees who smoked. As the trial went on she began to become more and more nervous; fidgeted and played with her hair.

Meet me. Not anymore; awhile ago.
For some reason people found that endearing. I didn’t. I wanted to be perfect because my father thought I could be until my problems were finally almost diagnosed when I was around 36

My parents had no doubts that I loved them very much as I had no doubts that they loved me even more. But for so many years there was that niggling doubt that maybe I really was lazy, maybe I didn’t love my family enough. Even my father, the biggest perfectionist I have ever met, believed that I worked too much. This was even before the sort of diagnoses;

He would tell me that for every hour somebody else worked, I worked two–and I can be very fast. To anybody who knew my family it was obvious how much we did love each other.

My learning disabilities didn’t affect my reading or writing, except for grammar, spelling and tenses. Minor details, really. Just that until the era of modern computers I couldn’t organize myself enough to submit my writing. Had so many talents that I just didn’t feel worthy of having

I have worked very hard to overcome any remaining problems. Computers have been integral to that.

When I went into the anti-adoption site I felt that I was reading filth, dreck, revisionist material. My birth mother didn’t abandon me, she gave me up because other people could give me a better life. I always knew that. And I was very happy that she had because I so loved my family.

If I sound defensive I’m not; just tired of the subject. Several years ago when I first approached agents with my memoir, they loved it, with a caveat. Obviously I didn’t look or sound learning disabled, whatever that is supposed to look or sound like, so why mention it?

Because damn it, it wouldn’t be an honest story without it. My memoir doesn’t really go into my childhood, but those wonderful years in the 70′s and 80′s when I was a golden girl. It does touch upon my childhood and my problems; and I’m sorry if that upsets the people who want me to focus solely on the positive aspects of being adopted ple but I have always been about honesty, and in this post Frey era, hope that my honesty will be appreciated.

Nothing is perfect; nobody is perfect. I have been hiding behind my blog for the past sixteen or so months, and can’t do that anymore. Yes I will continue Courting; it’s part of me, an important part of me.

Ever since I went into that anti-adoption website the nagging doubts have returned. I can’t and won’t allow them to take center stage. I understand that I can’t go back into time and confront the people who called me a liar, lazy, sloppy. There is a certain guidance counselor at my old high school who once was my teacher and mortified me in front of the class. Was used that by then. But for some reason the things she said about me to my whole eighth grade class have remained with me.

I think I saw that day how she was trying to win the affection of the popular kids; I think that day was a turning point in my life because I finally understood that teachers also were needy. But did she have to be needy at my expense?

I wasn’t a Columbine waiting to happen; nor was I suicidal or had destructive tendencies. When I went to my therapist De jour, he decided to discern the truth in what she had to say. My sister will verify that our family only had one TV and it was black & white. My therapist tried to make it into a “was it the way you said it?” “Maybe that’s something that you shouldn’t be honest about,” “were you dressed poorly?”

Who the hell cares? Why put it back on me? Why was every adult in authority right, except for my poor parents, and I was always wrong?

I thought I was over the anger and bitterness. I thought I had no more rage. I was wrong. I can’t blog while angry, and I know that this anger will pass soon.

I did become “popular.” I have spent much of my adult life championing the underdog. The country might be falling apart, but I need to champion me. Courting has taught me that there is an audience for my work. Deep inside I always knew that.

Sometimes when I read about LD’s, CAPD, and Aspergers I become angry. While life is still hard for kids who have them at least most of the time they are acknowledged. My parents were too sophisticated, well dressed, good looking and successful frankly for people to dismiss them out of hand. But they did dismiss them eventually.

Parents today know that if they fight long enough good things might happen. Schools generally, sometimes after long battles, let them take steps to ensure that their children aren’t ridiculed, harassed or thrown into the bushes–thank you–won’t name them.

I went to grad school and while I did a clinical concentration, I refused to study adoption. Knew some of the leaders of the now not called anti-adoption movement, and knew that they were influential there. Maybe I should have. Maybe I could have made an impact.

But all I ever really wanted to do was write, and even my professors would tell me that while I had the potential to be an excellent social worker, I had a very rare talent with words. I even began to believe them, and this past sixteen months has reinforced that belief incredibly.

I feel so stale, and as if I’m going in circles. But I will never let anything come between me and my dream. We are all responsible for our destinies, and our success in life.

“My name is Pia. I am a blogger. I love blogging and will never stop. But I will put my goals and my desires first. I have been hiding behind my blog. From now on, it will come second. After I have finished my work for the day.”

Don’t want any Pia love fest comments; any comments that I consider to be rude or crude will be deleted. Hate being adopted? Talk about it somewhere else. Consider adoptive parents to be slave owners? Take your filth somewhere else. That slimy sick web site has brought something out in me. Something that I don’t like. It has made me want to advocate for every adoptee, adoptive parent, birth parent. It has made me want to advocate for every person and their families affected by LD’s, CAPD, Aspergers. No that’s not what I don’t like.

I don’t like being angry. It doesn’t become me. It doesn’t become most people but I can’t tell them not to be angry can I? No, I can only tell myself. When I think of all the wasted money, time and emphasis on wrong problems I want to scream.

I don’t want this to happen to other people. I don’t want my friends to begin to hate me because I’m so angry. So I’m going away on Saturday–really four AM Friday night, because when the going gets tough people in my family go on vacation. It truly helps. And yes I’m glad that I can afford to, and refuse to apologize for saving money and not having squandered it.

The friends that I have made through blogging understand. But I have had comments that would have made many people give it up. First from the radical right, now from some people who view my “blogging success” as a threat or something, and leave comments telling me that I have too much money–don’t–and am not part of the real world. Delete the comments. Don’t tell people about them. But give it up. How much realer can my life get?

Will they only be happy if I fail? Screw them. I will take their comments and make posts out of them, because I truly don’t deserve to be treated that way.

I’m sorry if my non-linear style doesn’t satisfy everybody. I’m sorry that everybody doesn’t have enough money. I’m sorry if people are having a bad day and want to take it out on what seems like an easy target. You don’t know how I can take a comment and make mincemeat out of it, and you don’t want to try–that’s you the person who once was in my real life who has left more than a few comments that I have deleted.

Sorry that you didn’t make it as a blogger. But it takes time, discipline and talent. You might be missing the two more important variables. No longer going to apologize for being talented.

But if I keep on deferring my dream because this issue is important, and that’s important, and I’m not, I’m useless to everybody. Most of all myself. And I sort of treasure myself

Will probably regret posting this. But ever since I read that website, I have been mad as hell. Because some people still buy into that crap. Usually don’t use words like the ones I have been using. But no other words feel descriptive enough.

Please read this blog for a much more intellectual, almost ego-less, in the best sense of the word approach to the subject. While our symptoms are very different as as our are skills and abilities, I could relate. Anybody who reads Courting knows I have problems putting a phone cord into a phone; she’s an engineer.

My socialization skills were excellent for anybody with or without Aspergers. Thank G-d, if there is one for giving me remarkable parents who always laughed at my stupid jokes, and other things.

There were people who made fun of me, in adulthood, for missing cues etc., but fortunately they were in the minority.

It’s too complicated and will take too much time right now for me to get into in depth. Really need to escape from everything political and Aspergery for a week.

I was always successful when I wanted to be or needed to be. Courting is the first project that I have undertaken totally on my own, though I have always had so much support from other bloggers. Actually I had to learn the ins and outs on my own, but the compassion and caring, wow.

Blogging has really helped my organization, my learning disabilities–while I might dislike somethings Google does, their spell check makes everything worthwhile. This isn’t a great ending. I have much more to say on the subject, and will, but not today!

Had the post up for about an hour, and took it down because it just felt so damn personal. Received an email from Esoteric Wombat who asked if my site was being funky–though he said it better–because he wanted to comment on it. EW is my “youngest known reader” and gives me much faith in our futureMore than most people he understands how history impacts on each generation, and the importance of communication between individuals and generations.

Originally wrote this post to try and explain some things to Bone, who is a better friend than I deserve.

Well I can be a good friend also, especially when too exhausted from wonderful tropical ocean air to think or talk. Bone has the potential to be a truly great writer, and I never say that lightly, he just doesn’t know it yet. Have watched with some wonder his soul searching and have seen that shape his writing.

Think we’re all going through the end of winter blahs. That’s why I’m away from home this week!

Whoever thinks blogging isn’t time consuming and work, though oh so rewarding, doesn’t have one, or doesn’t update frequently, or comment on other people’s blogs. That’s part of the wonder of blogging.

But most people get a paid vacation for at least one week a year from paid work. And this doesn’t pay in the money sense at all; but it’s usually much fun.

If I have been negligent in answering your comments please forgive me, please.

If I haven’t been to your blog lately, my life’s been one giant version of “As Pia turns and tries to live she falls on her tush though very elegantly and with no side affects though possible brain damage but nobody knows when that happened.”

I will take Courting with me on vacation and Savannah Fall Two, the laptop, and will try to post. One year the car service driver ran away while I was trying to take my back pack out. Fortunately after an hour of phone calls, and some calls from JFK Security who had witnessed this, the driver came back. The next time I forgot my extension cord.

My life is filled with endless drama all made by me, to put me into panic attack mode. Ain’t going to happen anymore. Am going to let myself chill, chill and chill some more.

Have a great blogroll; please read some of the people. Totally believe in the power of linkage; it exposed me to so many wonderful people.

Used to be a New Yorker who would forget which “I” state was what. Actually used to drive my friend, the late Phil crazy because I could remember every detail of his life story but one. Could never remember whether he came from Idaho or Iowa. Iowa, i know now. Memorized it after he died. A dollar short and a day late, but still…

This is a wonderful country and I never knew how great the people were before. Have always loved England and Europe. Really was a total East Coast/So Cal snob. Truly stupid thinking

The only way America will regain its greatness is if we all start talking to each other as people not oddities. It’s more important than ever

Blogging allows us to do that and to impact on one another. So talk to somebody you never thought you would talk to before. It’s fun and more than that so worthy because it helps us learn that we all do bleed red, unless you’re a true alien, I guess.

We all have the same fears, hopes, dreams, and in my case many phobias. Blogging has allowed me to express them and see that other people have the same fears, hopes, dreams and in some cases phobias, though I think I might be in the minority on doorman phobias. But hey, you never know!

Finished all the business things I had to do this week, and did in record slowness, and can spend tomorrow getting ready for my trip. Shall leave her at four AM Friday night/Saturday morning. Can’t decide whether to stay up or not.

You can’t imagine how happy it makes me to be able to do normal girl things tomorrow because it’s St Patrick’s Day, and when I live on 63rd off Fifth truly amazing years, St Patrick’s day was the absolute worst day of the year. Lived a block from the Grandstand, and the police would let every old lady in lime green polyester with a green carnation through, but me….They wouldn’t even believe my ID which I carried ever St Patrick’s day, an American passport. Think I fit the IRA terrorist profile, or more likely girlfriend of.

People would be gathered on my building’s stoop drinking copious amounts of beer. Sometimes they would be in the hallway, and I lived on the first floor. People would ring my bell and ask to use the bathroom, One year a woman rang and said she had somewhere between ten and twenty girls with her, would I be so kind….

No I wouldn’t be. People always used the hallway which was gross, but I have never been the embrace a stranger and let her into pee type. It’s just not something I would or could do. I am a New Yorker and have some trust issues. Could have really used a doorman then as I also had stalker, multi, issues. The doormen at the buildings on Fifth did look out for me.

When I moved to Riverdale for five years that I spent enduring my 60′s apartment that reminded me of a not upscale motel suite, I had doormen. I was also working at SSI or the nursing home and going to school, so I was a normal 9-5 person.

But here I have been working from home for the past four years. If it weren’t for the doormen, I think I might never leave my apartment in winter. I have read enough police procedural, and have seen enough Law & Orders to know that your doormen will be the most important people in my life if I’m ever murdered, raped or suspected of anything.

My doormen know all my habits. They know every person in the building’s daily routine, were we shop, when we leave for work, generally come home, what condition we come home in, who we come home with, how we are dressed, if we’re made up or not, how often we have food delivered and where from, and who our friends and relatives are.

Fernando, the doorman also knows every inch of my apartment as twice a year he comes into take out or put in the air conditioners, and wash the windows.

Doormen have true power. Most people do want to be on their good side. Frankly I tip them more than the super because they need it so much more–and I don’t want them telling the police horrible things about me if I’m killed. It’s like wearing clean underwear, and keeping files in some semblance of order. It’s something I do as an insurance policy.

Really not sure that I would go out in winter but I don’t want the doormen telling the police that I’m a recluse. I don’t think having company over twice a week, or having people come in counts.

“People” is a kind of New York joke. One of the best and funniest New York Times City Section articles was on “people.” Folks who live in other places have friends. We have people. They usually come to fix, clean or make new things, but we keep them longer so that we can talk to them. I draw the line at delivery men and anybody from the Cable company, but everybody elses fair game.

I wouldn’t have missed being here, for anything, when the then carpenter now famous cabinet maker, built my combination desk, book shelves, and entertainment center for anything. Actually my girlfriends would come over when he was coming, because the back of his body was a wonder of nature and nurture. He was also sort of brilliant and didn’t try but did succeed in making me feel inferior as I listened to the wrong NPR station and didn’t read the classics.

Almost went out and bought some, but as my coffee table book then was the something anniversary of Valley of the Dolls, I thought it might be a bit obvious. Thought it would impress my sister also, but she loved the way Valley of the Dolls looked.

The table was black lacquer and I had really grown to hate it, and needed as much pink as possible. I am not and never will be embarrassed to be a pink person. Almost all shades of pink, sea foam blue, sea foam green and turquoise cheer me up.

The carpenter was my only real “person,” but I could relate to the article. Sometimes I think the basic reason I have friends over so often is too fool the doormen into thinking I”m not a friendless recluse.

Think I do way too many things to make people think I’m somebody I might not be.