A few years ago if you told me that my idea of happiness would be going to a street fair and free day concert, I would have thought you deluded. The street fairs in New York sell the same sheet sets and mops. Here there are slate candles lit with oil for indoors or outdoors (my new version of a fire pit,) incredibly beautiful clips to pin hair up with, bird cages–OK tack alert, but everything else….

I couldn’t eat the food as I had my fried food quotient for the next several months last weekend, the ribs looked great and I did think about them but it doesn’t seem worth being on an exercise program and not dieting.

The “fresh squeezed lemonade” looked like lime pee but I’m sure the ice cream was good.

The music, Carolina beach music, the best of which always has more than a touch of soul was great.

It’s CLo and W’s last day for the summer–they have stretched summer out so that it’s now officially from the end of March to 11/01. They brought the dogs so we were very popular.

The sun came out just as it was over. And I’m not even complaining. Tomorrow might just be a beach day.

I thought 30 Rock was especially brilliant and funny this past week. Here’s the episode. It’s not a Halloween show; it’s a Northerners goes South show and I can relate to just about everybody

I tripped over a rock most people would have noticed. He first saw me then. Later he said that was the moment he fell in love.

My features were unformed; most people confused them with perfect. At eighteen I knew they were childlike. Most girls longed for beauty; I longed for character.

I did and didn’t want to blend into the curtains; to be camouflaged until I understood what I was doing.

That year, 1968-69. I felt as if I were a girl in a candy store. My candy store gave out real life boys. I was in hippie princess heaven, complete with sound track by Janis, The Airplane, Moody Blues, Donavon and Melanie among others.

For the first time since early elementary school it was better than OK to be me. I could dance to my own rhythm; sing out of key, be sloppy, do whatever people with the unnamed disorder did or didn’t do. It didn’t matter what I did. People either hated me or were entranced.

Life would have been perfect had I any idea about what I was doing. I accepted my life as a gift from the gods but was never actually sure why.

That year, and the one after that, and the decade that was to come gave me much warped confidence.

I knew I was desirable but wasn’t sure why. I thought I was smart but was convinced most people thought otherwise. Even when all the evidence pointed to the contrary.

I love writing in fiction. It’s something I discovered I was good in after I began my blog. But I feel pulled toward writing a memoir about living with non verbal learning disorder. People either feel pity or don’t believe it’s a real disorder.

I’m not a person to be pitied though I often hurt from what I can’t learn. That I can’t learn too many things no matter how much I try doesn’t point to stupidity but a bona fide disorder

Crossposted at Red Room Please comment there. I realize this is territory charted too many times. It’s language I’m playing with
I just realize you have to give your life story practically to comment at Red Room–which includes such authors as Maya Angelou. It’s a very interesting site. So comment if you want

We finished day four of boot camp. My pressing on is a metaphor for something but I’m too darn tired to figure that out.

It’s as different from a New York health club as a cold is from swine flu. In New York it’s everybody for herself, here there really is a feeling of solidarity. I think boot camp is going to be very good for me but I’m too tired to think. I should explain it’s not boot camp that’s making me so tired but gray skies. Yesterday it rained all day–we met at the park before the heavy rains but I’m a princess and rain and I don’t mix. At the same time I’m a fresh air fiend so I slept with all the windows in the sun room open and the sun room is connected to the bedroom. Sometimes I think about taking down the wall to the sun room but I love that room for itself.

It’s the only room I still have to furnish. I kept saying I wanted white wicker but I realize that I want all different white fabrics.

It’s not that New York seems horrible to me but I find I miss it less and less. It’s been a year today since I handed over the keys to my apartment and in return got a fairly substantial check. Actually two. I’m so glad I was insistent on selling when I did. A year or two earlier I could have gotten much more but now……

I own a house!!!!!!! That still thrills me. And because I’m about as handy as I’m athletic I have a house husband, Eldon. My cousin who is divorced and very handy actually came up with the phrase when she looked at something outside and almost cried out: “you have a house husband!!!!!.” Apparently he has done things she wouldn’t think to do.

Eldon and I redid the front “yard” on Tuesday. A lot of the plants hadn’t taken so I went for more ornamental grasses which I realize is what I really wanted originally but didn’t realize that yet.

I’m not being sexist when I talk about a house husband. My father could have used a house husband. I think, no I know, he was afraid to change a light bulb–electricity can kill you, you know. My athletic smart father looked as if he should have been good at somethings besides taking out the garbage but…..

My mother was handier, and did the little little jobs. Everything else was foisted off onto professionals. Or family friends. So I’m just continuing a tradition.

I think this move is going great and I’m actually looking forward to cold days when I don’t feel obligated to run around and can sit in one of my decks in ten layers and just write. Though I don’t like how it went from AC/beach weather to cold seemingly overnight. I think it’s going to get warm again. I know, we all know,(how could we have missed the articles and news casts?) how colds and flu’s are transmitted but I will always believe chronic weather changes and rain play a part.

Selfishly I don’t want it to rain again until boot camp is over–and my best friend is coming a week from today so it would be nice if it’s warm and sunny. But I don’t want to tempt the gods by asking for too much.

This is a small town, in many ways. Eldon’s been telling me about somebody who goes to boot camp but is away this week practically since we first met.

It wasn’t infidelity. Letterman while living with his now wife wasn’t married. Neither was the woman he slept with.

I might think that living together equals marriage but it doesn’t to many people. And if he was married? He’s a late night talk show host not a politician. He doesn’t have to be better than thou. I know so many straight men who ran to judge Letterman. Before they knew the facts.

I believe they relate to Letterman too much. Not sleeping with other woman. But there’s something normative New York about Letterman. He’s a bit snarky but I don’t find him nasty. He’s the regular guy who became something big and everybody wants to be like him–or wants to hate him.

Letterman had more reason than most to be scared of a blackmailer. He had a woman stalker for years who called herself “Mrs. David Letterman,” and probably believed it. She killed herself. That probably creeped him. An employee of his was convicted of conspiring to kidnap his son, Harry, and Harry’s nanny.

We live in a society that’s turning more and more to the right. I live in a place where the regular Republican party has a table at a fair with big letters “Obamacide.” No Democratic table. I don’t consider myself a Democrat anymore–party of wimps, but I’m going to the next meeting and if I have to get tables at every city and county happening, hell yes. People have to hear balanced views.

I don’t remember Joe McCarthy but I heard about him all my life. We live in a society with a faux morality where Republicans seem to be more moral though god the scandals. I don’t want a return to the days where celebrities who lived with people outside of marriage openly had to leave the country. Nor do I want to live in a country where celebrities overtake the country. I’m a bit sick of Jon & Kate & all eight kids. I’m sick of celebrities leading the news every night.

It’s not that I lack a sense of humor or fun. It’s just that I think we all, Democrats, Republicans, everybody, seem to have things backwards.

Letterman is a good example of that. He went to the FBI. He gave a phony check for two million and the man’s lawyer is saying that’s proof of his guilt. I hope nobody buys into that but really our society has a critical thinking quotient of minus ten.

I don’t care about people’s sex lives. It’s their life. I think we would all be a lot better off if we stopped focusing on sex lives, and began to focus on what’s wrong and what’s right with this country.

When you go to 9/11 Memorials that really are preludes to tea parties–on public property with the mayor speaking, you begin to truly question everything once again. 9/11 was one of the transforming incidents of my life. Politics don’t belong in 9/11 Memorials. I can’t and won’t let that go.

Nor will I let Republican tables that scream “Obamacide” go. The people sitting there were laughing and laughing over the absurd health reform fight. Maybe they all have great health insurance. Though a lot of people here don’t have health insurance. If they don’t have resources they really don’t care about a hospital suing them. And the people who do–well they can afford the $80 for a check up. They don’t want to subside the lazy people who can’t.

I can afford the check up. It is the things that possibly can be found at a check up that I can’t afford. I think too much about things that aren’t going to happen, you think.

That’s why one of the best friends I have ever had is in the hospital recovering from surgery from one brain aneurysm as the doctors figure out what to do about the second.
I’m scared and so I watch Letterman because he makes me laugh.

Ahmadinejad’s revealed to be Jewish. He can deliver a hate filled rant to himself.

That’s funny. I’m Jewish. It’s too true. I do them all the time.

My mother refused to believe Letterman wasn’t Jewish. His name. His humor. His being….Yes she saw Dave’s Mom in Indiana. That only made her more sure. He’s Lutheran, mommy, Lutheran!!!!!! I speak to dead people. Uh, I even yell at dead people. My Mom will have died eight years ago next week. And her birthday would have been this coming Saturday. This isn’t my favorite time of year even when everything is going perfectly

I love Letterman’s timing. I love the way he repeats lines he loves. The way he twists his tongue. His ties that match the set. OK I love Letterman but not in a creepy stalker kind of way.