I used to love the Oscars. Every year I would practice my acceptance speech until it beyond perfect. Of course I was never sure what category I was practicing for, but still…and the best actress was a great default. And there are two writing categories.

My sister and I were always allowed to stay up for the Oscars when were kids. We weren’t allowed to watch much TV, but we were expected to watch any big event. And the Oscars were then. Nobody in my family liked Bob hope, but we weren’t watching it for him.

The Oscars began to bore me many years ago. Almost fourteen years ago I was speaking to my dad:
“going to watch the Oscars?”
Me: “No it was a long day; think I’m going to sleep.”
“You have to watch the Oscars; it’s history.”

My dad was not a big TV watcher. After Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and Soap he couldn’t find anything he liked except for late night TV which he had always loved.

When I was young he woke me up to watch Jack Paar cry; He was retiring and Johnny Carson was taking over so I know now it was October 1962.

I didn’t watch the 1991 Oscars, on March 25; my dad did. He spent all breakfast complaining to my mom about Kevin Costner who for some reason symbolized all the worst of my generation to him. Dances with Wolves had swept the Oscars and I can only imagine the one-sided conversation my dad had with my mom.

He was a CPA; it was the height of tax season, Tuesday, March 26 was my parents wedding anniversary, and Passover my dad’s favorite holiday was four days away. Until several years before then we would have 35-40 people at my parents’ house. They were fun holidays, but my parents were getting older; people were having kids and beginning new traditions. It was the first time my dad couldn’t get excited about Passover.

He went down to his office. My mom was leaving for some organization or another. She called his name; no answer, and found him slumped over his desk. He had a massive stroke and died five days.

My dad was the first person to see how talentless Kevin Costner was; he always did have good and edgy taste.

I have forced myself to watch the Oscars every year since; just in case somebody I know gets deathly sick the next day. More to the point I hear my dad’s voice telling me to watch it. (And no I don’t hear voices; this was the last conversation I ever had with my dad, after many years of non-stop talking, on both our parts. It’s sort of imprinted on my brain.)

I actually have a legitimate excuse; Robin Williams was planning to do a Sponge Bob routine, but was told to drop it as it’s too political.

We’re in the midst of a battle to keep The First Amendment, and we have to make sure that nobody insults James Dobson. I don’t think so.

Let the Oscars lose even more viewers. After political humor’s banned, what’s next?

Stumble it!

You mention in your post that you are not a linear thinker. That jumped out at me because I’ve held for some time now that there are certain psychological conditions that may be hallmarks of people on the far left, among them, an inability to think in a linear fashion. I wonder if you could categorize your political stance?

This comment fascinates me. Last night, while it was snowing, I began to formulate a response. I posted it, went to sleep, and woke up about five times to edit and add to it.

Being sleep deprived, I accidentally deleted the post. Fortunately I hadn’t deleted my e-mail.

I can’t reconstruct the post exactly, but I will rewrite it.

If anybody can explain the logic behind the comment I will give you something.

A comment by me: I didn’t say I couldn’t think in a linear structure, I said that I’m a non-linear thinker.

Big difference.

I arrive at answers through inductive reasoning. This means that I see the answer that is the wanted one or the socially accepted answer, plus several more without going through the steps. This is called thinking outside the box, and is generally admired. In a discussion I can argue for the other answers I see and get people not only to agree to their validity but to act on them.

I can go through all the steps when I need to. As I mentioned in Fiction or Fact, I have been a legal, tax, factual and social science researcher. This assumes the ability to organize information, and to summarize and/or critique it concisely and clearly. I have to put on my linear cap when doing this. I’m especially good at, and love critiquing social science studies.

I’m a licensed social worker with post grad training in research. I did better in my research classes than 95% of the doctoral candidates. Obviously my naturally non-linear thinking has not impaired my ability to organize material or to function on a very advanced level.

I have two questions for the man who made the comment. I’m not putting his name in here; it’s in the comments in my prior post.

1) Define “far left.” This one makes me laugh because I imagine people who are now old lefties at a Paul Robeson concert before I was born.

Then I imagine the PBS video of the making of The Weavers Reunion. Yes, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, the wonderful Lee Hays, and Fred Hellerman are/were red menaces. And probably non-linear thinkers.

When I think of the Far Left, like The Weathermen. While they were too far to the left for me, I would have admired their intent, had they not used violent means.

So I have no idea what leftist groups the commenter meant. I never condone violence; I don’t sit around and plot the overthrow of the United States Government, or believe that any violent action against my country is acceptable. Remember, I live in Manhattan. I know what it’s like to live through a terrorist attack.

I don’t believe in violent action toward any country. I accept that war is sometimes necessary and would have accepted a war against Bin Laden soon after 9/11. But that didn’t happen.

The commenter while pretending to be nice was completely insulting. I might have respected the comment a bit had he specifically stated the “psychological conditions.”

As a therapist who is licensed by the state of New York, I would have been glad to answer. I will anyway.

I suffer from obsessive/ compulsive disorder, panic attacks, anxiety, ADD and some learning disabilities. I have frequently mentioned them in my blog. I don’t spend my time thinking about them, and am not an angry person, which is something the commenter might have meant in a larger context.

Somehow I don’t think that the commenter was looking for my answers. I believe that I know what he was referring to, but wanted to test me. There are three conditions that come readily to mind.

I believe that the writer is also talking about rational vs irrational thinking and behavior.

Truthfully all fringe groups might be said to have members that are angry, irrational or suffer from paranoia, schizoid thinking and/or borderline personality disorder. Personally I believe that most members of society feel borderline at times. I don’t find any shame in these conditions. I do find shame in comments meant to incite.

I really detest people who lack the chutzpah to say what they mean. While I believe that people in our country, and probably everywhere now, lack manners, I also believe that taunting a person with a comment like the above one is cruel, and the commenter should have stated his question so that I could have answered it.

Don’t ever underestimate a non-linear thinker. We tend to rule.

Stumble it!

Most of my posts are obviously opinion. My parents claimed I could talk in full sentences by the time I was nine months old. I would put this down to parental pride but too many family friends and relatives have said the same thing, when my parents weren’t around to gloat in stories about my brilliant childhood.

I do know that I have never been without an opinion. Every night at dinner we had to discuss the day’s events which meant that my sister and I had to be up on the news. Before we could read, my parents would read selected articles from The New York Times and other papers, and we would discuss them.

We lived in a huge garden apartment complex until I was twelve. Every family had at least two kids as it was baby booming time, and I had many friends, despite my insistence on talking about current events.

Don’t worry they deserted me by the time for I was eleven for being weird. Eventually I recovered. In college, I had great unpopular early adolescent stories. Though I was never without an opinion, I was shy. Boys encouraged me to talk, and I could write. That helped immensely.

I don’t usually do heavily researched posts. I’ve been a professional tax, legal, factual, and social science researcher; and I’ve been a reporter. It feels so liberating to just write opinions.

Sometimes I just have to research issues; though for now I usually leave it to my friend, Cranky, and many other people. When I do research something I use at least two sources; and I will never pretend that an op-ed type post is a researched post. Just want to make that clear.

Until recently I had no idea how to write fiction. There are several pieces in here that are fiction.

I know that many bloggers consider it unfair or wrong if a person scatters fiction through their blog, or assumes a persona not theirs.

Do you know anybody who has only one personality? I’d be bored if my friends always acted predictable. A therapist, one of the most best known and expensive, in New York, once said to me:
“you’re two people. One person before your period; and a completely different one afterward.

I looked at him with some alarm: “I’m paying you X amount of dollars, twice a week, and have been telling you that for a year, and you just realized it?”

I have learned to beat the hormonal surge and swing, but it took many years. You know the terrorist color coded alert? A long time before that, there was a Pia PMS alert throughout the city; it was even color coded with bright red being ‘don’t even try to call her;” light pink was “it’s safe to see her.”

I’m not a linear thinker, but can always get back on track.

I think that having had incredible hormonal problems, and not thinking in a linear style have served to help me think outside the box. Let me get real; I can’t think inside the box.

Since I began writing fiction, I fell in love with the second person. I know all the arguments against it; though the first person is supposed to be the most immediate, the second person helps me become the character.

This might change when I become more experienced.

I don’t think it matters if some stories are fact and some stories are fiction, if you trust the author, and know that she has been honest about who, she, the person is.

If I haven’t done that then I should hang up my blgging fingers .

And I’m really glad so many people agree with me about Seinfeld.

Stumble it!

Thanks for all your comments on my last post on manners. If I haven’t answered I will by tomorrow as I’m a bit under the weather today.

Sometimes there’s nothing like spending a night in with your two best friends, discussing the state of the world and your lives while drinking a couple of bottles of merlot. But the hang-over makes me want to crawl under my covers and do nothing.

Doing nothing especially well is the only thing that I have in common with Seinfeld, except that we’re both Long Island Jews who live on the Upper West Side. I’m probably the only person in the history of the world, who couldn’t stand Seinfeld because I found it to be a rude, arrogant and not particulary interesting show. Then again I might have related a bit too much.

Going back on track, when I was new to blogging, I didn’t answer all my comments. I apologize to anybody I might have missed and will go back in time, and try to find you all. I was so immersed in setting up the structure of my blog, I forgot my manners, and that’s not acceptable.

I used the word “new” instead of “newbie,” because I personally hate that word. It reminds me of “veggie,” “Bloomies,’ and all the other “ies’ words that just turn me off. However I don’t find those words to be rude. They’re just changes in the English language; and English is an ever evolving language.

There are certain things in this world that I don’t understand. When people Instant Message, they just leave to answer another IM or do something else. I understand multi-tasking; I don’t understand just leaving to answer somebody else, or signing off without saying good bye.

That might be just my misunderstanding, but I think that it leads to a bigger problem. When I was a kid my parents would make me say “hello,” and ‘good bye,” with a big smile, to all visitors, even if I hated them or was scared of them. Eventually this became ingrained, and I found that I was rewarded. A smile and a hello work wonders in helping people feel comfortable around you.

Kids today (god do I feel like Paul Lynde in Bye Bye Birdie) usually aren’t forced to greet visitors. Then when they grow older and don’t feel comfortable talking to strangers, their parents begin freaking. It’s a little late when the kid is 25, a college graduate, and still hangs out in his bedroom at his parents house.

Obviously they know how to use the telephone; they spend enough time on their cells. But if they have to answer their parents phone, they revert to one word answers. I don’t like talking on the phone anymore.

E-mails and IM’s allow me to think about what I’m going to say, and I think that IM’ing can provide more honest answers. It could also work the other way. My official stance on this subject is “confused,” which seems to be my stance on much in life these days.

I don’t think that people should walk on the streets talking on cells; they tend not to watch where they’re going, and sometimes get angry at the person that they bump into. Please don’t smoke while walking and talking; I almost had an expensive coat burned once from somebody who wasn’t watching where she was going. I don’ t think that she would have enjoyed the consequences of her actions had I not jumped out of the way.

Cell phones conversations on elevators is just plain rude. With one big cavaet; if you’re on the elevator with a strange looking person who scares you, be sure to tell your 90 pound friend on the other end how much you’re looking forward to seeing your strapping Mafia connected boyfriend who is waiting for you in the lobby.

I’m not even going to get into the cell in cars or public transportation debate, but when I get into a taxi and the driver begins holding a cell phone to his ear, I ask him to stop and let me out of the cab. This is happening less and less.

Taxis play an important part in many New Yorker’s lives. If there is a taxi stand and line, I will always respect the line and will yell at people who try to get a cab without standing in line. It’s merely good manners, and I like organized lines.

However I’m the first to admit that when there isn’t a line I will easily steal one from another person. I do have strict rules about this. I have to be alone, at night, or with a kid under twelve. I will never steal a cab from a pregnant woman, a woman alone, elderly people, the disabled, or people with kids.

This leaves many men, groups of women, and mixed gender groups. Since they’re generally trying to steal from me also, I feel no guilt about this.

I don’t spend $11.50 to go to the movies and listen to other peoples conversations. Yet many people seem to think that the purpose of a movie outing is too catch up with friends. That’s for the hour before the movie begins. That hour includes advertisements but never includes coming attractions, no matter how often you’ve seen them, or how many trailers there are.

Please don’t bring stinky food to the movies. I have an enhanced sense of smell and can literally get sick from the smell of certain foods. You don’t want to pay $11.50 to see me throw up; it’s really not pleasant.

I do love eating in restaurants; I don’t love the sound of screaming children, and screaming adults make me want to scream. Sometimes I do have to talk too loudly to be heard over the screaming, and I don’t enjoy that.

In New York our streets are crowded. If somebody bumps into you, please don’t scream at him. Somebody could have bumped into him, and…the possibilities are endless. It’s not worth being rude just because you felt jostled.

There are probably a million things that I forgot to mention; thanking people for helping you seems to be out of style. Thank you notes are a thing of the past; but there’s always e-mail. We have so many new and good ways to stay connected to people. Instead we’re losing the connections.

Manners help. Use common sense. “Please,” “hello,” good bye,” and a big “thanks” never go out of style, and can even help us become a civilized society once more.

If you actually got to the end of this, thanks for reading it.

Stumble it!

Lately I feel like a stranger in an even stranger land. I’m not talking about politics; I’m talking about something much more basic.

Manners: I thought finally here’s something I excel at. Not so sure anymore.

If you’re a very large American male (say at least 250 pounds) would you put your coat down on a Long Island Railroad train, before the train leaves the station, go to the bathroom, and expect the seat to be waiting for you five minutes later?

It was a very cold day, the train was packed, and the seats were made to fit Japanese people. I’m an American woman, not huge but not small and I was wearing a down coat that I wasn’t going to take off because I’m always cold. I asked the people around if anybody knew who owned the coat. They tittered. I didn’t know how to take that but thought the open six packs of Bud Light might have had something to do with the titters.

When the man came back I knew that we both couldn’t sit there as he took up a seat and a half. I thought that it was rude and told him so. I had to stand until the train came to Jamaica twenty minutes later. This shouldn’t be a big deal, but the people around stopped tittering and went into full blown laughter. I felt totally humiliated.

If I had to go to the bathroom, I would have gone to one in the station, risked missing the train, and would have accepted not having a seat. I thought that was common courtesy, but I seem to be wrong about this as I am about so many things.

A year ago last Thanksgiving I was on the railroad. I sat in a handicapped seat because I was severely anemic, and fainted fairly often. It was the only available seat. People were saving seats, another thing that drives me crazy and I won’t do for friends in the final five minutes before the train leaves.

I was holding a fragile gift. A blind woman and her friend came. They wanted the seat. I tried explaining. I will never forget the look on the friends face as she cursed me. She told me, in no uncertain terms that if you didn’t see the disability it didn’t count, and how could I be cruel to the blind? As my mom was blind in her last decade and a half, that was especially cruel and hurt me much. But I wasn’t about to explain.
I began getting up. Because I was anemic, I could easily pass out so I got up slowly (and I do everything too fast–this would have been hard for me any other time.) And why do people think that cursing is proper? I’m not anti-cursing. I just think it sounds better when it’s done to tease. As in “you bitch.” Forget it, that’s nowhere near a curse anymore. Okay, fuckin’ a–now that’s a curse I like.

I didn’t get up fast enough. Both women were now yelling at me. The whole car stopped talking as I was obviously getting up but wanted to make sure that I held the gift properly. And damn it I was dizzy.

I know; I know, I had no right being on a crowded train. But how else was I supposed to get there? This was a temporary problem, but I began noticing the problems of the hidden disabled. What are people who have physical problems that don’t show supposed to do?

Today, I was in a supermarket. The person before me had left her cart, to get “a few things.” She came back with a full cart and began yelling because I (who was just behind her) put my stuff on the conveyor belt near the register. The cashier agreed that I was right but….

Often, lately, I see couples–one will stand on line with a full cart; the other will come back, with a full cart, just as the first person gets to the head of the line. I don’t get it. Am I out of touch with modern society?

Then there’s my big issue: bike riders who insist on riding on spaces clearly marked for walking. And why do bike riders get preference everywhere over walkers?

I have a horrible habit of saying “I’m sorry,” even if a person bumps into me. My friends constantly point out that I wasn’t the one to do the bumping, but still it comes out. This gives the person who bumped into me license to yell at me.

I used to think that these were New York problems. But they’re not; they’re everywhere.

I believe that manners are important; I believe in many ways they are the bedrock of a society. But the manners that I have practiced all my life aren’t the norm anymore. I become angry and it takes every bit of self control for me not to yell.

People seem to think that it’s fine to be late for dinner appointments and other things. Everybody has a cell. Do they use it if they’re going to keep you waiting for an hour? Yes they use it to take pictures of everything that they pass. I’ve dropped those people from my life and I’m a happier calmer person.

I don’t yell. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. These are the things people seem to be killed over lately.

I think that my lifespan is going to be shorter than it should be. I try not personalizing; I try ignoring people. I wear a fake smile for so long that my mouth hurts.

Maybe if we spent a little less time focusing on moral values and a little more time focusing on human decency, we’d live in a country where people could see past politics and religion.

I don’t know maybe it is me. Maybe I’m supposed to always be the last in line. Maybe trying to be considerate is so yesterday

Stumble it!

You never told him that his friend’s mother called him Svengali. You wouldn’t have to tell him which friend; he would know it’s the best friend, the one who left to get out of the web you spun together so seamlessly.

Nothing was seamless about your relationship but the webs you could spin for each other. You were only eighteen when you met him, the hippie prince with Byron’s face and the tall body of a boy not yet a man. As you looked fifteen on a good day, it was a fated meeting.

You ignored him the first ten times you met. So many gorgeous boys; you were in shock over the attention paid just to you. Recently he told his son you were the “prettiest and most popular girl on campus.” You didn’t feel it, but a part of you knew it then.

Though forever after you would tell people that you were his creation; you were an illusion he made out of air. He took some basic good features with too many flaws only you could see, and voila, a Long Island legend was born. You would be the first one to understand the irony as he recreated a true Long Island legend some decades later.

It felt like all you had to do was look at one of his friends for half a second and they’d fall in love with you; he would hear about it and come running back. Oh yes the game began and you were the primary player, the primary winner and the primary loser. Three weeks together; three weeks apart, that seemed to be the pattern. Only you understood why you agreed to his terms.

You wrote a poem: he was a pied piper leading people back to his lair whether on the Island or the East Village. He was the second of many boys/guys/men you dated slept with, lived with in a five block area in two seperate geographic locales; he was the first you loved.

That first summer you wore out two copies of Tom Rush’s “The Circle Game,” after he stood you up. On your birthday; the day the astronauts first landed on the moon. How were you supposed to explain to your parents that he was scared of meeting him? You didn’t.

You went back to your college dorm room and let friends cure your broken heart with pot, chocolate (you remember them as bonbons but they couldn’t have been. You stayed in bed, got drunk for the first time, ran around campus and refused to go to Woodstock though many people offered to take you. The summer you had turned fifteen you had camped to the Grand Canyon and back. It was a once in a lifetime experience; never again would you willingly stay in a sleeping bag, even with a tent, without a real bathroom. There was the yurt in Sonoma years later but you made them stay at a motel the next night because you had no idea.

Forever after you pretended not to think about the hearts you broke then; they stopped talking to you. It was so obvious to everybody but you that you were using them, biding time until he came running back to you. Years later during lonely times you would wonder what if ….No sense playing that game; it just goes round in circles. Though…what if your kharma was so nasty then that you spent your 40’s paying for your wild late teens, 20’s and 30’s. Sheet, you had a long run.

When you turned 20, you stopped living for his approval, for the bones he threw at you. You started becoming a woman. He appeared begging for your approval. Forever after you would understand the dynamic allure of the hard to get.

You left, and went as far as a nice Jewish girl from Long Island could go. First there was the obligatory solo back pack trip through Europe, and stay at an Israeli kibbutz where they would pay you to volunteer. It was just a stipend but your father had insisted on opening a bank account for you.

You had nice luggage because your father would have died on the spot if you had taken a backpack and ruined your back.

As it was your father told people that he would have flown half-way with you, parachuted out and swam the Atlantic. Your father was both afraid of heights and the ocean.

He was very much like the boy you left behind.
Once you came into the city to go to Planned Parenthood to find out if you were pregnant or not. You and your boyfriend, that week, stayed up all night talking. You were going to use the abortionist all the girls at school went to. Pearl was a nurse who dispensed a needed though illegal still service.

He told you that if you went through with the abortion he would jump off the subway tracks. You just laughed as you knew how scared he was of the subway.

You had turned out not to be pregnant, but on your way to Planned Parenthood you ran into your mother who was going to the Cooper Union Museum with a group of suburban housewives. She never would have seen you if you hadn’t yelled “mommy, mommy,” like the true idiot you were. Her friends had to pour her off you as you were supposed to be at school on Long Island, not on the beginning of The Bowery.

Maybe you were pregnant; maybe you weren’t; you bled as you had never bled before soon after. And you’ve always been the heaviest of bleeders.

You felt so guilty and at the same time, adult for you were eighteen, and you loved this boy though you knew he should have been out of your life. You couldn’t stop helping him spin the web.

What is it with Russian/Polish Jewish men and that droll sarcstic wit, or the dramatic gesture that would make you laugh because you knew that they were babies and would never do anything that could possibly hurt them?

Yet you still find them irresistible; they don’t have to be Russian/Polish Jewish to have the darkness that inhabited the inside of their souls and made them seek great adventure through stories, not action, though in every other ethnic group the male usually knows how to change a light bulb, at least.

The web he spun that you helped weave fit so perfectly. You knew you were toxic together, why else would it have taken you two months to say yes when he asked you to marry him? You only said yes when he issued an ultimatum, and you knew that was wrong.

You were 21 and his was your third serious proposal. Maybe nobody would ask to marry you again. Third time is the charm; three on a match. You know all the magic of three; all the stupid sayings.

When he called you that most affectionate of nicknames “idiot,” he knew what he was saying. Of course that’s what you called him also.

After the brief marriage, after he left, and then followed you all over the Island, after you moved from the house of junkie/lesbians, old friends who neglected to tell you what they had changed into, as you had been distracted for the past several years and hadn’t really paid attention to anybody but you and him, you moved to Cambridge.

You were happy in Cambridge where you made many friends and were offered jobs immediately. You had really only gone to visit your sister for the weekend.

You shouldn’t have accepted his phone call when he got your number from the friend with the mother who called him Svengali. But you did and the web began to be spun again.

Stumble it!

My blog is experimental.

I throw things in that I’m not sure people will like or read or make them want to come back.

I take some things out for good; rework other things; put things back in without change just because I feel like.

Sometimes I post something and go about my day or night. Something has been bothering me, and I realize that I just have to take a word out, or put in another.

Blogs are fluid, and changes can be made at whim.

Blogs feel like living and breathing creatures.

Blogs are the one form of communication where mistakes can be easily (at first) rectified.

It’s one, communication tool and art form, that I enjoy, and that gives me great personal satisfaction.

I would say I don’t care if other people don’t like it, but does anybody not care if people like them or not?

It’s the degree of caring that makes the difference.

Not caring at all sounds almost not human; caring too much presents too many problems and generally is reflected in the quality of the writing.

Does anybody who writes, not write for an audience?

Sometimes I pretend not to; those could be my best and my worst posts.

Being me they can be best and worst in one post.

My blog and I, we’re finding our center together.

Sometimes the road is rocky; sometimes smooth.

I do so love an audience; and I have to admit that.

My blog and I, we’re here for the long run.

We like the attention; and we like to just post.

Anything wrong with admitting that?

Stumble it!

I put my prior post into draft form.

That was me thinking in a bone cold apartment without heat and with water that had just been turned back on, and I didn’t trust because Con Ed had been working on the sewer lines when they did something to cause a flood in our basement where I have so much stored.

Books, files, and chacka’s that have some importance to me, but obviously not too much or I’d have them up here. Most of the books can be replaced; the files are unimportant.

I just didn’t trust myself to throw them out; maybe someday some person will ask me about one of the papers. I’ll live; they’ll live.

No body’s asked yet; why have I always lived as if some authority is going to bust in demanding to see some
paper from 1991?

Short answer: I’m a CPA’s daughter and nobody in my family ever threw out anything.

Pity me, not was an exercise in self-indulgence.

We’re all entitled to that sometime. For a hot minute or two.

That was me at six PM or so with a fever and a head that felt like it wented to go to the desert now, or have a sinus transplant, actually that idea is appealing.

This is me with at one AM with five or six hours of sleep, a sore throat but a much clearer head.

That was me being petty, jealous and wanting revenge; only why?

I have a good life; with more than most people.

Perspective, something I usually have to spare, was totally lacking.

To let myself be drawn into pettiness is the ugly persona talking; the one that comes out when the apartment temperature is falling and the body fever is rising. It’s not reflective of all the other persona’s.

The ones that feel joy and happiness for other people.

The ones that believe in me, me, me.

And believes in other people too.

Those persona’s know that I can only grow and succeed when I’m happy for other people.

And keep on working to make myself, what?

Not perfect: that would be asking the impossible and would be insufferable.

Not never the bitch; that would be weird.

To make myself keep on working; bettering my writing; bettering my friendships.

To keep on striving, but under my terms; my way, whatever that is.

One person idolizes me; okay she’s ten and my niece-but she’s worth the world.

They’re going to Disneyworld (we hope–if her fever is gone, and her mom’s not sick–feels like everybody in New York has something.)

My sister wanted to eat in some restaurant where Cinderella comes and sits with you.

Fave niece said
“why, you know I’m not that type of girl?” And then she said the question I never dared asked, out loud at her age:
“what happens after the fairy tale is over?”

I who was never afraid to ask anything never dared asked that one. My parents would have loved it. But I didn’t want to ruin the illusion for my sister or any of our baby booming friends.

But my niece goes places I never dared go.

My niece was not yet three when Princess Diana died. Just yesterday morning I woke up thinking about her and how we finally did get to know how the fairy tales end.

My niece is growing up in a post Princess Diana, post 9/11 world. She will be forced to confront truths, I never had to think about. She already is thinking about them.

I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I just know that her reality will be so different from mine.

I hope she has even more opportunities than I have had–even if I feel like I sleep walked through half of them.

I hope she never loses the imagination that has led her to write her first novel, at ten. I’m editing it for her now.

I hope she never sees success or failure in black and white, or the amount of book deals she has, or anything like that.

I hope she treasures the people who love her; and doesn’t care what people think about her.

I hope she knows that while the world can be scary it can also be so awesome.

Pity me not for I have so much. I just want more. And I just might get it; then again I might not.

I might not get exactly what I asked for, but something entirely different. Maybe something much better.

I don’t know; that’s the beauty of life.

I had forgotten that for a minute.

Life never fails to surprise; and some of the time it really disapoints, or causes fear, or tragedy.

But some of the time, it’s a magnificent journey, and I feel so lucky to know that.

And to have a niece who hasn’t had her imagination tampered with yet; and can let out her truths, her fears, her wishes on paper.

She’s always reminded me of somebody; I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

She reminds me of the best of me.

May she always grow, and prosper in ways even she can’t imagine yet.

I have to go back to sleep; sometimes sleep is the only real medicine.

If people clamor for my pity part, part one, Pia the bitch from hell, I’ll put it back up.

But right now the bitch is gone; and I’m back.

The me who doesn’t define success the way most of the rest of America does.

The me who cares too much about how other people feel.

I can live with that flaw.

There’s so much else that I can say, but first some more sleep.

Thank you all, for all those hits.

I’m not above loving that; I’m only human or merely mortal as people say now.

This mere mortal still has, she hopes, a long way on her journey.

The drawn out journey really does teach.

And success is only a day away. Oh no, that’s Annie’s success.

My personal success can’t be measured in a Broadway show tune.

Maybe in Tom Waits’s lyrics; maybe in a beat I invent that’s all my own.

A beats that’s a little off-centered; a little eccentric; a little sort of cute; a little ditzy; and one hundred percent pure me.

I’m looking forward to it.

Stumble it!

I’m quick to anger; quicker to forgive, but when I get a comment like Robert’s in my Hating to hate
post, I become irrational.

Nowhere do I say anywhere nor do I imply, infer or anything like that, that America got what it deserved. If anybody thinks that it is their own distortion of my post, not mine.

I hate how divided this country has become.

It’s worse than the 1960’s: that was a generational divide and a change in economies—from a manufacturing economy (the industrial revolution) and a service economy; to a more refined service economy and the beginning of the technology age.

Though I was very close to my parents; always said my dad invented parenting, we didn’t have as much in common as kids have with their parents today.

Our music was different than theirs as was our hair and clothes. Though they caught up, somewhat, in the 70’s.

We saw many injustices and strove to change them. I always regretted being too young to go down South for Freedom Summer. My parents physically barred me from going to the 1968 Chicago Convention.

Our divide then was based on two very different generations converging. Yes there were radical older people and younger people who loved the status quo.

The divide then was based on issues.

That music, clothes and hair styles played a big part in a divide seems almost laughable now. It was a physical way of showing that we were changing; what we did to help stop racial injustice, the War in Viet Nam, among other things wasn’t.

The divide became very understandable during the Chicago Convention, and during the killings at Kent State. our parents thought that could have been my child. By the time Watergate happened, much of the divide was over.

Yes, I’m looking at this from the perspective of a New York Jewish woman; that is the only way I feel comfortable talking about generalities.

What is this divide really about? I’m not sure that I understand it.

I’m not saying that I’m Miss Manners, or the most wonderful person on earth, because I’m not.

But I try to listen to other people and understand what they are saying and why they are saying it.

Some of the people I love the most in the world are or were Republicans.

I hate labeling people because of their politics.

But when I get a comment like Robert’s, my blood begins to boil.

How is he trying to understand me?

Yes I can speak with some authority about 9/11. Though I live five miles uptown the smoke came up here. I saw people all day with ash covering them. I heard their stories–that day.

I received hysterical calls from people asking if their children–who they hadn’t heard from, could stay in my apartment.

My best friends treked uptown still in high heels; the phones weren’t working by then. We met at my friend’s daughter’s middle school. Little Luce, not yet eleven, had been told by her teachers what was happening as they thought she was mature.

While she was assured that the attacks happened only at The Trade Center, she knew her mom worked in a large building that could have been a target.

That fear will remain with her for the rest of her life. How can it not? What words of comfort could any adult offer any child?

Could we say then that it wouldn’t happen again? Could we say it now?

Robert did admit that I could speak with some authority about 9/11.

Then he went on to say that I can’t speak about the Florida election. I don’t get that.

Was there smoke to feel and smell? Were people killed? What is the similarity.

As usual Cranky Liberal, in his comment was far more astute than I could ever hope to be. Read his blog. It’s good for you.

Like 9/11, the Florida election and after election affected us all.

I have never denied that 9/11 was the nation’s tragedy.

I do believe that New York has never really recovered from it.

Yes the average apartment in Manhattan costs one million dollars.

How does that help the average New Yorker?

We have the highest cost of living of any city in this country.

The average New Yorker is being driven out of the city of their birth by rapidly escalating costs.

While the rest of the country had felt the affects of the stock market tanking, we also felt the direct affects of 9/11 and are still feeling it. Too many businesses closed for good; too many people lost their jobs and can’t find new ones.

I hear the argument over and over again that wages rise faster than inflation. Not for the average New Yorker, no way.

We’re in some weird kind of economy that nobody talks about or tries to explain.

But I do understand that the Florida election affected my life as much as anybody in Florida. Like the rest of the nation I watched Katherine Harris distort reality.

The reality is that if the election results had been counted properly; Gore would have become president.

The reality is that nobody knows whether or not 9/11 would have happened.

Another reality is that the new right is smug without having anything to be smug about.

Blame everything on liberals; it’s so much easier than having a meaningful dialogue.

I have often stated that I would have backed a war had it happened soon after 9/11.

But this war; what are we fighting for?

We can talk all we want about bringing democracy to the Mid East.

How are we really going to accomplish that?

American soldiers are dying, and for what?

Yes I believe that 9/11 brought validity to Bush’s presidency. I think that’s shameful, and won’t let people stop me from saying that.

There is a wonderful book by Vincent Bugliosi
He talks about how the Supreme Court managed to overlook facts–such as election tampering, and appointed the President.

It was published on May 1,2001, and was just being discovered and talked about–summer lite reading took its place– when 9/11 happened. Bugliosi can hardly be called a liberal; he was the lead prosecutor on the Charles Manson case. He was known for strict views on law and order.

But he understood how the Florida election underminded our country’s democratic process.

All I am asking for is meaningful dialogue. But that seems to be impossible these days. Say anything and you’re branded a liberal.

I don’t remember Joe McCarthy, the blacklist, and the House of UnAmerican Activies Committee (HUAC)but it sure seems that we’re traveling back in time to that era.

I dedicate this to Arthur Miller who wrote The Crucible in response to what was going on in this country then.

I know he was 89; but I still believe that he died partially of a broken heart. The link I have included has an explanation about why he wrote it.

Many people are under the misconception that the blacklist only included people from Hollywood. When I Googled Joe Mccarthy and HUAC the most popular results made that seem true.

One example of why people have to search further and not rely on Google as a primary research tool.

The blacklist included ordinary people–friends and relatives of my parents.

I know because I heard about this all my life.

The only way I can honor my parents memory is by helping make sure that the Blacklist, HUAC and the resulting horrors don’t happen here again.

But when so many Republicans are arrogrant, refuse to engage in a meaningful dialogue and just want to hate anybody different from themselves how can that be possible?

Stumble it!

I play the 9/11 card often in my blog.

I play it because I live five miles uptown from Ground Zero; it happened on my Island, in my borough, my city, and why I always feel I should apologize for not living closer or being there then is beyond my imagination.

There was the “uptown” v “downtown” argument; but that’s a hometown argument best left to verbal sparring, in a restaurant or actual home. I believe we argued all we could about it several years ago–because if there’s one thing New Yorker’s love, it’s a good argument.

When I was in grad school sometime before this happened; I had a teacher, from a far away state, who couldn’t understand how we could spend our class time sometimes screaming at each other, and then leave for lunch together, laughing about something totally insipid.

It’s in our genes; maybe the water we don’t drink; arguing allows the steam valves to function properly. We live on top of each other; our streets are crowded; and we have learned that a good argument solves many problems. Maybe most of us come from cultures where arguing was viewed as the proper way to converse.

My city has never had a major race riot. Never.

When I travel far from New York, people always do seem a bit disapointed that I live in Manhattan and wasn’t in the immediate vicinity of the terrorist attack. Always feel that my value as a real New Yorker who was here that day goes down to bargain basement rates.

Something I have pointed out before that never fails to amaze me.

I know many people who survived the attacks; personally I don’t know one person who died that day.

But I’ve only begun to be able to look downtown again. I’ve only begun to feel like my old self again.

What I don’t get and the

http://www.libraryladymom.blog-city.com/
lady, Elizabeth–sorry I still have to master how to link in Word Press–pointed out in her comment on my prior post–the further you get from New York or DC (except of course for the admin and everybody who loves them) the more people support military action.

The more rabidly patriotic they become.

I don’t get it, Are we in a test to see who loves America more?

I don’t get why every Democrat is a whiner; and every Republican is an upbeat happy wonderful person who does everything perfectly, and is clearly superior because they have moral values while we have city (lets get real–ghetto ) values.

They acted as if 9/11 happened in their backyard. Yes I know it was the nation’s tragedy and the world’s and belongs to all of us.

But it happened here to us dirty people of all colors and ethnic backgrounds.

We don’t represent the right America.

While New York’s boroughs have, probably, the largest amount of religious book stores, and thus people of Faith, they don’t go around trying to convert us to their point of view. if anybody has earned the right they have.

But we all know that in order to survive as a city, we have to keep the steam valves functioning properly.

Why don’t other people get that?

In the 1977 blackout there was much looting. In the 2003 blackout, there was hardly any.

People stood at street corners and waved traffic through.

People bought water and gave it to other people; then stores began giving water away.

We know what it means to really suffer. The blackout didn’t even register on the radar.

We know what true tragedy feels like.

That doesn’t make us better people. That makes us less innocent.

We lost our innocence that day.

The “red” people in red states seem to have had the opposite experience.

They and their president became validated.

Bush never had to account for the Florida election.

I know, so old, I’m harping on past events.

But I’m not. Since Bush was never forced to really account for his stolen election, he felt that he was really elected. Was he?

His supporters seem to believe that he became annointed that day. Holier than holy, he didn’t have to account for anything.

A friggin two percent win became a mandate. Did he really have that two percent win?

Were the Diebold machines in proper working order?

Excuse me, they worked for Bush so they must have been in proper working order.

I believe that we lost something precious during the Florida recount. I believe that we’re no longer a working democracy. How can we be when we don’t know the real results of the last two elections?

God help me for thinking this–if there is a God.

I don’t really want to go back to 9/1o; I want to go back to the prior November. I want a real recount not one orchestrated by the Bush family and their followers.

That’s when our way of life was forever altered.

But we’re not supposed to talk about this.

We’re supposed to be all be perky and cheery about our country, Social Security reform, and a tax reform.

Forgive my innocence but a tax on the total amount of money spent?

I don’t understand that. It goes against everything our country is supposed to stand for. It’s regressive. Will I be taxed on the amount of money I spent at the dentists this year? My insurance doesn’t cover that; I’m supporting the office for a year; and it can be argued that much of the work isn’t necessary but cosmetic.

I’m purposely doing something that’s done all the time in Republican blogs; I’m arguing about something I know nothing about. I can go on and on; I could probably convince some of you to see things my way. I’m good at that.

Being good at arguing without facts doesn’t make it right.

Invoking Faith and God doesn’t help an argument either.

I began this post because 9/11 and Iraq have nothing to do with each other.

People who weren’t personally affected by 9/11 can’t tell me how to think.

I can’t tell the family of a victim what to feel.

I haven’t walked in their shoes.

Until you walk in somebody else’s shoes, you have no right to tell that person anything.

I believe that’s a basic concept in most religions.

I believe that until neocons–a term I hate–try seeing things our way there is no hope for this country.

Me and my fellow New Yorkers live among the wreckage–and I don’t mean Ground Zero–yet we are the ones who are supposed to compromise; we are the ones who are supposed to fall into line.

Not as long as I’m alive.

Stumble it!