What happens when you can write forever?  Edit yourself pretty decently?  But the outline and what is this about?  Ha!!!!!!

I need to get this book finished.  I have never wanted something so much.  I’m beginning to lose focus and one thing I’ve always had when it came to writing or work in general was focus.  I don’t want to be “she has NLD, so of course she can’t do it.”  No I don’t want that at all.

Shayna did the graphic years ago.  I would use it for my blog template as I love it but white writing on black–no!  I’m thinking of getting cards made with the info on the back. Whenever I can’t do,  I design cards.  Kind of like a nervous tic

And when I don’t design cards I do home improvement.  Constantly.  Eldon, the contractor turned handyman turned house husband replaced some boards on the patio deck this morning.  I looked at Darryl’s house next door and wondered why when he had his deck redone he used the same ancient boards–new ones would cost $400-$500 total; composite about a thousand.  Too pricey for me but if my boards looked so bad nobody would want to set foot on the patio I would borrow from myself for the bazillionth time.  (Our homes are called patio houses as they have large decks on the second floor; I love living in a beach cottage all year round)

I only wondered about Darryl’s boards because Darryl told me how much federal taxes he paid this year. Did I ask?  Of course not.  Were we discussing taxes or money or anything like that?  Of course not.  I like Darryl a lot. He’s my de facto attorney and has given me great legal advice.  But in NY while money is the primary subject of conversation, next to real estate and schools, nobody ever says specific numbers except for real estate sales.  Here people spout out numbers.  Find that strange.

Next week the gate to my downstairs deck will be painted.  Then I hope home improvement spring 2010 will be over.  Though I welcome the distractions.  But please, I need to work.  Really work.  I’m losing faith in myself and that’s always a bad thing.

Though I’m calm enough to lie down on a chaise and read.  I’m never this calm.  Never!!  I hope calmness doesn’t equal lack of ambition.

I found this experience really strange and unsettling.  I haven’t encountered anything similar to what Dan said he has experienced.

Housekeeping–when I approve new commenters not all show up on the blog.  Godaddy’s on the case

Yesterday a young man came over.  Jewish, like me, he’s lived in the Myrtle Beach area his entire life.  The first time I met him he told me he was converting to Judaism because he’s engaged to a Jewish woman.

Yesterday he said: People never think I’m Jewish.  When I tell them my family came over from Germany and Poland they don’t believe me.

(Like me he has a small nose and non-stereotypical looks.)

I said: I thought you were converting.

Oh, I tell people different stories.  My grandfather came from Germany.  My grandmother’s family has lived here forever and pretended to be Methodist.

The conversation seemed random in a weird way.  He began telling me about all the anti-Semitism he has encountered throughout his life. I tried getting back to why he tells different stories but he seemed so eager to talk to somebody Jewish who didn’t know him I let him go on.

He’s a computer tech;  a geek who does good work and charges me less.  I couldn’t figure out why my router’s so good but somehow the signal never seems to reach Netflick.  It’s been an ongoing problem despite me trying to negotiate with the TV and DVD player; a series of firmware updates and Dan having been here before.

It’s not fun to be watching a movie and lose it in the middle.  The problem seemed to be almost random.  It wasn’t of course, it wouldn’t accept my router password.  Finally he figured out why as he continued to talk.

One customer asks everybody their religion before he lets them in his house.  I said I was Jewish and he wouldn’t let me in.  He said that he would never ever let a Jew cross his threshold though he didn’t say it in those words.  Ever since then I’ve been saying different things to different people.

Doesn’t that confuse you?  We all know a good liar sticks to one basic story.

Yes but I don’t want to really lie to somebody like you.

You didn’t need to lie to me at all.  You saw the mezuzah on the door.  You asked me about it.

I didn’t know if I could trust you then.

Trust me?  What would I do to you?

Oh I know you wouldn’t do anything.  It’s ingrained in me not to trust.  They hate us here.  You have no idea how much they hate us.

I still didn’t understand how telling me he was converting to Judaism because his fiancee Erin is Jewish was “better” than being born Jewish.

Dan went on and on telling me more stories about how much Christians hate Jews here. He had too many stories.  He’s been called the “K” word more times than he could remember.

I know some Jews who belong the same temple he does and they love it here.  They don’t find it anti-Semitic and their kids went through the school system.

My mother grew up in Greenpoint Brooklyn.  It wasn’t hip then; it was a place where few Jews lived.  She, her brother and sisters would have eggs, rocks and tomatoes thrown on them.  They would be taunted.  She chose to live in gilded Jewish ghettos as she never wanted her children to go through what she went through.

Maybe because I grew up in a world where Jews weren’t just accepted but ruled I’ve never thought being Jewish is anything to be ashamed of.  I couldn’t understand what Dan and my parents understood; many people just don’t like Jews.  I will never accept that.

I’m a Jew in the Bible Belt and if people don’t like that they can negotiate a price for my house.  It won’t be cheap.  Not because I’m greedy or anything that people stereotype Jews as–quite the opposite actually.  I put a lot of time and money into my  house.  I plan on this being my home for quite a long time.  I love it here.  It’s different than anything I’ve ever experienced.

The experience with Dan left me unsettled.  I went down to the beach.  Not to walk or sit but just to watch the waves ebb and flow for a few minutes.  I thought how random it was that a Jewish tech came to my house and told me stories that made me ill.

“You’re such a disappointment.”

Who the hell are you, I thought but didn’t say.  Oh I knew her well.  One of the biggest bitches in the city, and the woman people thought was one of my closest of close friends.

She was beautiful.  The woman who had borne a rock star his last and favorite child.  She didn’t have to do anything but be beautiful.  Her life work was decorating his life with color and wit.  She wasn’t brash.  No, her style was more hit them with kindness.  Everybody but me, of course.  I saw through her faux kindness.  She would bring soup to sick people.  Visit everybody’s old aunt.  Everybody’s but mine.  My relatives weren’t even supposed to be seen by me.  I was supposed to accompany her on her mercy missions.

I was supposed to be famous.  I was so bright.  Such a good writer.  Pretty too.  The brilliantly wrapped package had a carpenter’s ant or bee hole in one corner causing it to be imperfect.  The sparkle was ruined.

My motto had always been, “I live to make your life easier.”  As long as I was solving other peoples problems and had no issues of my own I was much desired as a dinner guest, movie to travel companion.  But once I brought up any problems or couldn’t fix others I was damaged goods.  It was easier to play the saint role.

“You’re such a disappointment,” rings through my head at the oddest times.  I wonder how many other people thought or think it but have a bit more class than she does.  I walked out of her life the night she said those words.

She contacted me several times.  I couldn’t help but think she was trying to lubricate her way back into my life.  Not push; not shove nor be nice about it but she acted like a snake that was pretending its venom was harmless.

A lot happened in the ten years since she berated me.  My life once again began to belong to me.  I wrote a book.

We ran into each other at a Christmas party.  The rock star looked old and tired.  She had too much work.

My fiancee began to introduce us.  I laughed: This is Shelby, my college roommate.  I guess I forgot to mention that she lives with Nick.

To Shelby I said I only tell stories about us in college.  Everything else is too boring.

If her face could have moved she would have looked at me with horror.

A friend, not at all like Shelby, who I first met at 12 began a blog this week.  ChictoChick

This was a very quickly written character sketch.  I revised it in my head a lot before going to sleep last night but am not sure it’s worth revising blog posts.  Or should I put a first draft, then a second?

She wasn’t mean.  I knew that.  I wanted to like her but there was something, just something off.

Miss Frances wasn’t demented.  At 79, her thin gray hair was cut just under her ears.  Unlike the gray haired ladies, few as they are, I know in New York, the gray wasn’t shiny and/or silver.  She was small and a bit stooped; her clothes perfect for gardening.  I shouldn’t say anything.  I’m a jeans and tee person until April when I wear white pants or capris.

I had no right to judge her.  Yet she was one of the rare people who came into my house and I wanted to leave immediately.  Miss Frances tried too hard to become friends.  She gave me two bottles of a cheap Rose.  Who drinks Rose?  I am and always have been a Merlot person.  It’s become a joke though I drink Chardonnay if I absolutely must.

She studied my house as if it were a course she had to pass.  Again it’s become a joke that I bought a house and basically tore it apart. But I loved the house.  I wanted a  more open kitchen with maple cabinets, the standard granite, a black cast iron stove and other more modern than most houses around here features. I couldn’t move in until the carpet had been torn up and bamboo flooring laid, and the small boring bathtub was turned into a beautiful shower.

She invited me to her house and I had to go.  We spent three stifling hours in her hot musty living room overladen with furniture and things.  The sunroom and upstairs deck room were sick rooms.  Her husband had died the year before. The air smelled of slightly old age and incontinence .  Most people wouldn’t have noticed.  My nose is very sensitive.

Every surface was covered with something. It’s not that I’m against collecting things.  I have many collections myself.  But there’s air to breath around them.

She told me about her son-in-law and proudly told me the name of the institution he’s Chairman of.  In 2009, it wasn’t an entity you mentioned in company. (Something that contributed to the financial meltdown.) I told her she must be very proud of him and thought how out of everything she was.

After seeing her staircase which had about 100 pictures, I put mirrors in the shape of stars on mine

I wanted to warm up to Miss Frances but I couldn’t.  She talked about her late husband and how much she loved him and I felt the requisite sorrow for her loss.  Usually I would have felt more.

Miss Frances moved last fall.  Groups of neighbors have been telling me about her.  Her husband hid his bottles all over the court.  Once he fell off the step to their porch.  His head was bleeding.  A neighbor tried to help him get into the house.  Miss Frances threw out a towel and said “let him stay there.”  She refused medical attention though somebody called for an ambulance.  He stayed in the hospital for ten days.

I am a geriatric social worker. I can smell abuse anywhere; it was my biggest talent.  I’m pretty sure Miss Frances and her husband mutually abused each other but I’ll never know.  I’m also exceptional at feeling things about people.  I’ve been called psychic by some world famous ones and maybe I’m more empathetic developed than most people.

I wish I didn’t have this particular talent honed to a science.  I would like to see people and not feel their secrets.  Usually I can turn it off.  But sometimes as with Miss Frances it comes spilling out.

Crossposted in my new facebook group–NLD in the middle ages.  My middle age, not the years.

Lexington Avenue has always been my favorite Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan. It’s the only neighborhoody one, and still has small non-chain stores and too many coffee houses for safety.  I was killing time before going to the dentist and didn’t want to stain my teeth even more than I thought they were.

I passed a Mitzvah Mobile, or van with ultra Orthodox Jews, out to make sure Jews comply with the laws of Pesach (Passover.)  A young man asked if I was Jewish.  I smiled and continued up the street.  Then thought why not speak to them?  I walked back.  “Yes. I. Am.”

“Do you know the story of Passover.”

I was a bit insulted as my family had a real Seder every year since I was fifteen.  We were heathens before daddy got religion when we went to visit Orthodox relatives in Mobile AL.  Not really heathens but we never belonged to a temple and had elaborate family dinners for Jewish holidays–only the major ones.  Very major ones.  We ate bacon at home but never other pork dishes.  That was for Chinese restaurants.

“Of course I know about Passover.”  Everybody cheered when it was my turn to read because I speed read the sections as fast as my mouth would work.  But I do love the story.  Before the meal there is the seder.

“But do you know what it really means?”

“Tell me.”

“It means overcoming the impossible.”

I thought about that.  I knew he was speaking the language of spiritualism and trying to get people like me to really celebrate but still I liked that.

I also liked the matzahs he gave me.  Homemade from Brooklyn they easily cost $18-$21 in a store.

I continued my saunter down Lexington Avenue.  I passed a Mexican store that seemed to specialize in Oaxacan things, at least that’s how it looked in the window.

“Wow this is nice.  I spent high school summers in Oaxaca.”

The owner looked me up and down.  I almost stuck out my teeth so she could inspect them.  The stuff in the store was cheesy and not up to my former 15-16 year old standards.  As much as I love color and I learned about color from living in Oaxaca, I like my Mexican pottery and figurines to be brown or made from Oaxacan black pottery. OK I’m a snob.  A total snob.

“Did you live with the Sciaky’s?”

“Yes I did.”  The Sciaky husband was an anthropologist who died before my time and Mrs Sciaky was a great woman who accepted “interesting girls,” who had to read many books before coming for the summer.  Once there we were immersed in the culture, and truly learned about a culture so different from our own.

It turned out that the owner hadn’t been a Sciaky girl but had a college roommate who was.  We knew absolutely nobody in common and I couldn’t find anything I wanted to buy though I felt almost compelled to.  I did ask for a card, then realized I was going to be late to the dentist if I didn’t get out of the store.

After the dentist finished I asked him a question that had been burning through my brain since I had been to the Mitzvah Mobile.

“I noticed about five Mitzvah Mobile’s.  They give that great homemade matzah.  Is it ethical if I go to more than one so I can have matzah’s for every house I go to while I’m in New York?”

My dentist was very excited at the thought of free homemade matzah.  (I can’t think of its name.)  He said: “Only if it makes you a profit?”

“Ha?”

“One year I had an Orthodox patient who had all permanent implants.  As you know implants are made from plastic.”

Passover laws are even more strict than regular Jewish laws.  Many Orthodox people have two kitchens.  One just for Passover.  Other people go away for the holidays.  Then there are the rest of us….But still this man was all ferklempt because meat and dairy dishes can never be eaten at the same meal.  For Passover, well I’m not sure, but he wanted my dentist to take out his implants.  My dentist refused.  The man went even crazier.  Finally he consulted his Rabbi.

The Rabbi’s decision was thus: Implants are Kosher for Passover if he paid the dentist twice.  Once for meat; once for dairy.  My dentist was paid twice for full mouth implants.  Normally  people have to raid the family store or borrow money for one set of implants.

I know this is a hard story to believe but years ago I was waiting to pay at the gynecologist’s office.  The billing clerk was having a very hard time with the woman in front of me, an ultra Orthodox Jew.  Finally the clerk said ” the thirteenth is free–like a baker’s dozen.”  It turned out that the woman went into labor during the High Holidays and didn’t want to go to the hospital.  Therefore the doctor wasn’t charging her for the labor he didn’t participate in or the follow up visits. And they knew she would be back the next year and for all the rest of her child-bearing years.

After I left the dentist I walked around the city looking for Mitzvah Mobiles.  Unfortunately it was after five PM and the next day was Friday when they were preparing for both Shabbos (the sabbath) and pre-Passover.  I didn’t realize that the whole day was a sort of holiday and spent it walking the windy freezing weather looking for matzah.

Passover has always been my favorite holiday, aside from Thanksgiving so this story was written with much love.

It wasn’t only windy and freezing that day but the first three days I was in New York.  Then it rained.  And rained.  And rained.

I’m so happy to be home where Eldon, the house husband, is adding to my downstairs deck.

Something happened to me when I was in NY.  Maybe it was seeing Rafe not once but three times.  Maybe it was…I have no idea what.  I realized how stupid it is to worry about what might be in the future.  I finally understood the concept of living in the moment.

I’m happy.  Truly happy.  The kind of happiness you feel when spring has sprung and the beach is calling your name and your close friends are coming down and……

Rafe was in the hospital for three months.  Only four days were denied.  Four days that came out to $459,000.  Credit cards are accepted.  He’ll win his appeal because how can you deny four days out of three months? and we will make such a stink if he loses the insurance company will want to die itself.