My first blog post in Psychology Today

Almost six and a half years ago this began as a blog about my life and interests. My friend said “let’s begin blogs.”  I almost asked what one was but had heard of Anna Marie Cox then known as the Wonkette.  I am very political.

Somehow people enjoyed my stories and my blog took off.

I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan then in a luxe doorman building I wouldn’t have been able to afford moving into in 04. Read more…

Part One

About seven years before I met my birth mother I went to a meeting of one of the adoption groups that were big in the city then.  A young woman walked up to the podium with her very obviously  challenged brother:

Hi, I’m Casey.  This is my brother, Michael. I found him after I found my birth mother who lives in a mental hospital.  She had seven children by seven men.  It doesn’t matter.  I never felt part of my family.  Now my life is complete.”

Standing ovation except from me and a few other laggards. Read more…

I met my birth mother in the 80′s.  I have many great things to say about that decade.  Meeting her isn’t one of them.  It took me years, until I wrote a newspaper article about the experience to remember what she called me the entire weekend.  I was “my mistake.”  “Why hi.  How nice to meet you.  Just call me her mistake.”

The word guilt was invented specifically for me yet I felt no, OK very little guilt when I stopped corresponding with my birth mother.  She had told me how sorry she was she didn’t marry my birth father (I wasn’t as I wouldn’t have had my family) yet she would write me letters listing cities where I could meet Jewish men.

Hello.  I lived in Manhattan.  It was a bit hard not to meet Jewish men but I was looking, half-heartedly, for love and religion played no part in that.  Actually I was in the midst of a two year, get together for sex and fun–friends with benefits, before the name, with an Italian-American character actor.  But I had no desire to talk about it.

We had met at the Iggy Pop concert where I was carried in a rave, and somehow got my friend a job with Iggy who I had never met before the after party.  Being friends with doormen, managers and/or club owners all over downtown had certain advantages.

I’m not proud of a lot of things I did but I’m not ashamed either.  I didn’t expect my birth mother to approve of everything I did nor did I feel the need to tell her.  As I didn’t tell my parents everything.  I was a self-supporting adult who didn’t need a new mother.  Mine, adoptive, was everything I wanted in a mother.

So I let the relationship die a natural death.  I’ve googled her maybe a total of four times in the entire time I have had access to the Internet.   I was shocked to see a picture of her still alive and sharp looking.  She looked very different than she had 22 years ago.  Old but better.  Nothing at all like me–we have totally different noses, eyes, and mouths.  But the face shape, yes.  When I saw her she had a round face.  Mine hasn’t been round since teen years.

If I met her now I would handle the reunion very differently.  But I don’t know how.  It’s something I think you’re never prepared for no matter how “prepared” you go.

The picture stirred up feelings in me.

Feelings of needing family.  Feelings of being somebody’s child.  Unfortunately I can never be her child.  I had two of the best parents, and this year I know I will think of them often.  My Mom’s tenth anniversary and my Dad’s 20th.  Bookends I called them and they were.

I have incredible family and friends.  But I don’t think you ever stop wanting to be somebody’s child.  Even when they’re old, frail and maybe dependent, they diapered you.  They love you for the flaws, not in spite of them.  Well, a bit of everything.  It’s their job to love you!  They even pay you for the privilege.  Room, board, toys, clothes, vacations, college if you’re lucky.  And all the things you take so for granted.

This is an article making the FB rounds on quitting blogging.  Seven to ten hours a week on blogging?  At my height when friends mentioned above called me “lost to blogging,” rather melodramatically I might add, I was spending 70-100 hours a week on two or more blogs.  And paid for mine!!!!!!!!

The thing is my great-uncle cut his finger off because of “blood libel.”  He didn’t want to be conscripted into the Czar’s army and have to shoot his own relatives or any Jew.  My grandparents and their parents somehow escaped to England where they took ships to America.  We never knew how they escaped as they wouldn’t talk about that part of their lives, or their lives in Belarus.  “Past is past” they would say.  America was their future.  And their children’s future.

But my parents told us about “blood libel.”  I can’t remember when I was first told that people in Belarus thought Jews used the blood of Christians in matzohs.  My parents, both born in Manhattan, would have only known if people in their family told them.  They knew so little about their parents lives before New York.  “We didn’t ask then.”  “If we asked they wouldn’t have told us.”  Or I might have read about it.  A friend might have told me.  It could have been conversation around the court.  I don’t remember but I always knew the truly horrible concept, if not the name.  I do remember reading The Elders of Zion.  My father gave it to me.  We talked about it.  It made me ill.  So did Henry Ford. (I think I wanted to know why we never had Ford cars.)

I know both my grandfathers came over on the same boat and were roommates for awhile in a boarding house.  They didn’t meet again until after my parents began dating.  I always loved that story. I had wanted to give my mother something with both their names on it as tangible proof that my grandfathers knew each other. But when I found the boat I could only find my maternal grandfather on it.  I’m sure my paternal grandfather used a fake name.  It sounds like something his family would do.  “Blood libel.”  Until they reached America, they didn’t want to be known as Jews.  We were raised on the few stories of the pogroms my parents knew, and my maternal grandmother would tell stories.  Except about the week she was caught in a pogrom, separated from her family and saved by a family of “friendly Christians,” as people who helped Jews were known.   She was eleven.

I can’t believe that even Sarah Palin knew the history of the phrase she was using.  Yet she used it in a way she (or more probably her writer) thought was empathetic.  It never is.

I hope that this past week brings back unity to this country.  I hope we have all stopped to examine our own behavior and beliefs.  I know; I’m seeing too much good in people.  But people are basically good.  Who wasn’t sickened by the shootings?  And President Obama was everything I had hoped he would be, for two years,  last night.  He made cry in a good way.  He made me proud to call myself American.

And I’m ready to put this issue to bed.  I have to focus on all the good that’s happening in my life right now!  Did I tell you I totally lost my ability to write?

•••••••••••••••••••••••••

Etta James is only 71–too young, way too young to be suffering from dementia.   She has cancer, too.  I think this is one of the most beautiful songs in the history of songs

I must thank Cooper.  When I look at this I feel such immense gratitude, and further words fail me.

This is a difficult post for me to write.  I have many religious friends.  I respect their rights to believe whatever they want as long as it harms nobody.  But when Westboro “Baptist” Church came to a town, and the counter-protesters were greeted with more disdain than the protesters–I kept my real reaction under wraps.  I can’t anymore.

First, in a large city like NY or in another political climate, I would have ignored them.  Here where most people wore red to vote, I felt it important to show that Westboro is an anomaly.   I’m not sure the congregants at this church realized how sick Westboro is. I think they thought the counter-demonstrators were the ones to be scared of and that made me sad.

I don’t believe in either heaven or hell.  I don’t believe in the big sleep where one day the Messiah will wake all Jews up.  I don’t believe my lack of beliefs condemns me.  And if it does, at least I have acted upon my principles during my one lifetime on earth or anywhere probably.  I would so like to believe in something bigger than us.  I can’t and don’t consider that a character flaw.

I understand why people in big cities ignored Westboro though I don’t think they will anymore.  Westboro is a sick sick sick group of fanatics who condemn every person, every church, every school that don’t believe in what they believe.  Which is 99.99% of us.

I got over it when a group of people counter-demonstrated members of Westboro who were picketing a nearby church last spring and the church had the police escort us far far away.  Though many in the police told us they supported us–being Vets and all.  Cars drove by honking their horns in support.  We were right to express our disdain.  There were Jews who lost family members in the Holocaust.  “By the time they came for me, there was nobody left to speak…”  There were people who just wanted to show their disdain against a false church.

I was told by members of the church that turning the other cheek is better, and how many people they baptized that day.  I wimped out and said “that’s great.” (It’s in a post and comments somewhere.)

I should have asked them if they know history.  If they understand that this incredible yet flawed country was based on the principle of religion freedom.  I could give history lesson going back to the Pilgrims, a little William Penn and then onto more modern history.

I could explain that my family came here as they weren’t allowed to have a profession, own land or do many things we take for granted. (Though I’m not sure about the land ownership anymore.)  My mother cried the day we bought our house.  She so wished her mother was alive to have witnessed that.  We were finally fully American.  All we needed was to switch from Miracle Whip to Hellman’s and to begin eating white bread.

Living in America is both a privilege and a responsibility. We are still the nation most people want to immigrate to.  We have tremendous natural resources (I will leave taking care of them for other people to discuss.)  We have tremendous wealth.  Yes it is centered on the top one percent and that has to stop but we do have opportunities most people never have.  I can list everything that’s bad about this country but in my heart of heart I’m glad to be American.

We have the Constitution.  Lately a lot has been said about “liberals wanting to change it.”  Where? I do think that public figures have a responsibility, a great responsibility to not make inflammatory remarks.  From the first time I saw Sarah Palin’s now infamous MAPP I was sick. She incites on purpose and then stands back and says nothing. Some people here think Palin’s a role model.  My role models don’t have “targets.”

My role models try to do the right thing and unfortunately that means being silent.  We can’t be silent anymore.  People who aspire to political office should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us.  They should voluntarily sign pledges saying that they understand “crying fire” has consequences.  They should understand that’s not meant literally, but that many people don’t understand nuances.  If people understood nuances would we have to use LOL all the time and colons with parentheses to show a smiley face or other things?

I hope we begin national dialogues.  I hope Sarah Palin understands that her MAPP wasn’t an innocuous fun exercise but something people could take literally.

And when Westboro comes to town we should come out enmasse to show that their power lies in bringing people together, against them.  Nothing else.  I stopped being over Westboro when they attempted to picket Elizabeth Edwards funeral and now when they plan to picket the funerals of people killed in Mesa.  Yes they have First Amendment rights.  So do I.

*The church I’m talking about has beach baptisms in the summer.  They have them near where I sit but I can’t say anything as it’s within their First Amendment rights.  It’s not within any rights for them to bring a car and park on it the beach but….So why do they think they can hamper my First Amendment right to peacefully protest by having police take us far from the church?

Yesterday I found a recent picture of my birth mother on the Internet.  (She looked good for 87 : She wasn’t young when I was born) As I was emailing and phoning various family and friends, the phone rang.  It was an editor at a major magazine, one I have read forever and turn to for mental health issues. (I had a friend in college who read it for the art work) offering me a try out as a blogger.

I was planning my bio and first post this morning while walking on air.

And wondering about my birth mother. My birth mother means something I don’t quite understand to me. I was thinking about how differently I would have done my meeting with her knowing what I know about people now.  I was frantically cycling on the Exercycle.  My plate was full.

( I only have one real mother.  I called her mommy despite the laughter of her friends.  I called my father by his name in public.  He thought it more professional.  I believe this began when I was in elementary school and would go with him to his clients on school breaks. The are, were two of my favorite people anywhere and I missed them a bit more since Friday evening.)

Then I found out about Gabrielle Giffords,  Judge John M Rolls who was just there to say hello, and so many others.  I thought from the beginning the gunman was one alone sick male.  Those variables fit the profile for this kind of shooting.

Still I blame Sarah Palin.  No person has a MAP with gun sights, innocently.  That’s an overt or subconscious rallying page for sick people to take action.

I live in Horry County SC which actually has more than eight Democrats.  You would never know it at street fairs or events where there are signs dissing President Obama everywhere.  There are no Democratic tables as they’ve been made fun of too often and the table was turned over or so I was told.  I don’t believe that any sane rational person here would do anything to another person.  But so many people are no longer sane in any sense for so many reasons.

I was going to watch the documentary about Facebook, Catfish, and go to sleep early as I didn’t sleep that much last night.  Once I fell into a deep sleep the landline rang at Three AM.  Going to turn off my phones on Friday nights I think. Developing a pattern here.  Now I have to wait for Keith Olbermann’s special report, and then I’ll probably–no I will watch Catfish.  It won’t play on my DVD player or computer.  Tried straight out of the box…..

I feel so so sad right now.

Yesterday as I looked at the assorted pick-ups parked in my court cul de sac, it finally occurred to me that I went from living a sophisticated Manhattan life to one that The Dukes of Hazzard would be proud of, not that I have ever seen the show or movie.  Nothing against pick-ups; I have become very used to riding around town in Eldon’s only cleaned on Christmas and his birthday truck that’s chock full of instruments of the contractor/handyman/bar designer/floor installer trade.  And my next door neighbor’s is downright pretty.  The Professor is a retired judge turned law school professor.  Whenever I call him The Professor he chokes with laughter as most people around here think he’s a retired handyman.  He likes people to think he’s an uneducated redneck and does a damn good impression of one.   He has long white hair that’s thicker and frizzier than mine if that’s possible, and wears shorts and sandals even in the dead of winter.  I only know his profession as my neighbors on the other side are both lawyers and they know people who know people who know him.

I’m not a New Yorker anymore!  Not only am I not a New Yorker, I moved to the wrong Carolina*, didn’t move to South Florida, California or any of the four other places Upper West Siders’ move to.  When I’m not freaking about losing my bragging rights to Manhattan I truly love it here.  But the transition’s taking a long time.  Though most of my “problems” are truly stupid.  I’m freezing because I forget that the landlord can turn up the heat!

Will I ever call myself a Southerner?

*Asheville, Chapel Hill and even Charlotte are on cool lists. Oh, I forgot about Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach– a mini Charleston that’s also a TV & film production town and one of the most beautiful beaches anywhere.

Once, I was engaged to an East Indian.  He was two or three or even one on the “sweetest romances I have ever had, in the beginning,” list so please don’t assume from this story I’m prejudiced in anyway against East Indians.  At work they gave him a Rebel Without a Cause poster both because he was a rebel with too many causes, all against himself it turned out, and he looked like a darker James Dean.  I remember when he would slick his hair back and roll up the tee shirt sleeves to assume protector of Pia role.  Uh yeah it worked as well as it sounded.  This was in the early 80′s.  We worked on East 28th between Madison and Park which was a welfare hotel capital then.

Me=native New Yorker with a tude.  He=MidWesterner trying to adopt a street face. He was eight years younger than me, had a law degree by 21, and would be getting a PHD in AI.  Couldn’t scare anybody, but tried so hard.   Oh I do remember this relationship with affection.

The above was me being defensive.  Here’s the story: Read more…