I’m tired of finding myself described as a “Socialist,” “Communist,” “moon bat,” “loon,” and that’s just for starters. Many people would take pleasure in being described in so many other blogs and comments. I don’t.

I intend to Keep Courting politics free, because I have two other blogs that I never mention by name. Janet, that was for you.

Janet needs my plug about as much as Mrs. Mogul does.

That makes me happy because they’re two of my fave bloggers. Actually they’re great examples as they represent two vastly different sides of me.
Yes I have various persona’s. Most people do.

In college I went to The Plaza for tea several times as the WASP girls would take me when they went to meet their mothers. I was Jewish with long frizzy hair–that was actually very nice and I knew it, a great nose–totally natural, good table manners and I was polite. But I drew the line at calling anybody “sir,’ or “ma’am.” Didn’t come from that world.

I came from a first name world. We called teachers and doctors by their last names–and our next door neighbors who were German Jews. My mother always had doubts about the wife, being born Jewish. I never understood why my mother put so much emphasis on that. They had two sons who were exactly my sister and my ages.

The older son and the husband both liked me. At my sister’s wedding the husband offered me a considerable sum of money to visit the older son in a distant warm state.

Though we were next door neighbors from the time we were twelve until we graduated high school, and our parents continued living there, I had never actually had a conversation with the son. He struck me as boring. In our yearbooks, there’s just his picture with some innocuous quote that the yearbook staff put in.

We had to have clubs in our college applications, and everybody in our class went to college. Other people lived in towns. We lived in a school district. Our school was largest in land area and smallest in student body in our county. It was the public high school that thought it was private.

My picture had many clubs listed under it, and a quote that I first appreciated when it came out. To live her life convention bound, she never would be willing. My closest friend, in the community, was one of the editors. Though I was listed as being on the staff, I don’t remember doing anything. Think that they were trying to give me credit for all my work against the Viet Nam war.

It amazes me that I was so shy and yet was able to try to organize a bus to DC for a demonstration my senior year. Didn’t say I could do it; but I tried. Not too much later things like that would be easy for me.

I have been really lucky. Though I think luck accounts for 25% of our successes, hard work, 40%, recognizing opportunities, another 40 %, and something intangible, the last 5%. Too late to analyze this further.

I have to be up early; have four weeks of grand jury duty, and have a long list of things that have to be done, before summer.

Summer’s sacred to me. I live for it. Should move to a hot climate, but need the ocean, no rain–oh I’ll think about it…

Just tired of being called names that make people think I’m something that I’m not. Which is why I wrote an incredibly inappropriate post–about investing–as the main way I make money. I did take it out.

Really I’m the consummate consumer. I can describe my furniture with a lot more affection than I can my politics. My politics are one part of me; my apartment interior shows me. As far as I can tell, I basically want to write a blockbuster for two reasons: so I can be a guest on Letterman, and show off my apartment in a shelter magazine. To be really honest, I would prefer a pictorial and essay by me in Vogue.

Oh yeah, the third reason: I love money and would love to be really rich.

Stumble it!

I’m getting spammed to death. This will stop soon, if I have to personally kill the inventors of on-line poker.

While it’s difficult for me to believe that people actually fall for these things, they do. I just don’t want them in my blog

Stumble it!

In New York, nobody is allowed to get off jury duty anymore, nobody–except for at/home mommy’s with kids under ten, if you own a business and have nobody to cover for you, or you’re sick.

Oh f-k, I thought it began at ten–begins at nine.

Used to love jury duty, but I’m so jaded.

Stumble it!

Why is this night different than all other nights?

Because I have to go out to Long Island as it’s so much easier than coming to my apartment in Manhattan. LIRR is the acrynom for Long Island Railroad. I hated with a vengance the first ten minutes of the Jim Carrey/Kate Winslet movie, because it took place on the railroad.

I will never know the joy of celebrating a family holiday in my own apartment and I have resented that for a long time.

” Your apartment is too small,” “Too much work.” “We don’t want you to go to any trouble.” “Where are you going to put the turkey?” Oh wrong holiday–”the matzoh kugel.”

I admit that my sister, who I love so much, is a great cook with great dishes, and does wonderful presentations.

So do I. Hardly anybody cooks anymore, and I’m so practiced at the art of presentation, or taking food bought and cooked at some of the best take-out establishments in the world, and making it look really pretty.

Now there are great take-out places on the Island, so my only real argument is moot.

Tonight it’s at my sister’s in-laws.

Tomorrow it’s at my sister’s where I will sleep tonight. I’m usually a first night, no day person, but I promised fave niece. Actually I promised her mom–but a promise is a promise. This brings up many other issues.

My sister’s house used to be my parents house; we moved there when I was twelve–which would have been child abuse–had they have been aware of the consequence of their actions.

The house looks great. It no longer looks like the house I spent the most miserable five years eight months of my life in. Not that I counted the time or anything like that.

I love visiting the house now.

But holidays always make a single womanwho is not the host–or the mommy–feel demeaned. They’re designed that way.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve achieved or not achieved in life. It doesn’t matter what people are really thinking or that once you actually get to the dinner you have a good time. It’s the day leading up to the dinner that’s a bitch.

You think that people who have known you all or most of your life are going to silently nod their heads (and later discuss with spouse) “she had so many opportunities; was such a knock out–how could she have let them all slip away?” As if success in life is measured by first the amount of marriage proposals one has had (I’ve had many,) and then by being and staying married.

You think that the people who are going to meet you for the first time or have met you once or twice will think: “She’s a great conversationalist; not bad looking–actually almost pretty. What could be wrong with her?” You know that they’re going to spend the next two hours dissing you. Though rationally you know that you’re not worth two hours of their time. They have kids. They have really important jobs. They have a 5600 square foot house; your entire apartment could fit into their master closet. Though your apartment is worth as much as their newly married daughter’s 2800 square foot house.

Who cares about your accomplishments? Or that you’ve traversed much of the globe by yourself; have never been a single/divorced/whatever person to sit home and pout over your single status. Since it was by choice you really can’t.

Oh that’s a lie. Not the choice part; the pouting part. I have sat home very very occasionally and pouted, because I will do almost anything to get out of taking the LIRR on a holiday.

It’s me, the 20 somethings, a few people in mismatched plaids (who aren’t making a fashion statement,) and some couples of all ages who whine at each other.

Passover happens to be my favorite holiday, though I have no idea if I believe in God or not, and don’t want to hear about how a belief in
God would make me a person who doesn’t complain and is much happier. I even find reading the Hagaddoh comforting. Though I didn’t go to my first real seder until I was fifteen, and we visited relatives in Mobile Alabama.

Yes my father found his religious Jewish identity in the deep South.

Holidays were fun then; I felt secure and loved. But both my parents are gone now, and holidays bring up every unresolved issue in my life. As soon as I get to where I’m going, the issues become resolved until the next time.

I am a happy person who loves to complain in print. I know many singles of all major religions who do believe in God, and complain twice as loudly as me about how unfair holidays are.

Two major differences: They only complain to other singles.

Second differernce: I don’t want to get married so that I’ll have a Saturday night and holiday date.

Boring. Stupid.

I really would rather read a book, or travel where I want to.

I mastered solo dining in swank restaurants many years ago. If I want to, I can always find somebody to take me or go with.

Truthfully I’m more satisfied with my self and my life than many married people I know are satisfied with their lives

But on the day before, or the day of a major family holiday I turn into a disgruntled childlike idiot.

Excuse me while I go pout.

Stumble it!

My friend Rafe told me last night that I shouldn’t read books more than once and should give them all away.

We’re both into form and function, and uncluttered looks.

Then he told me that I should buy a plasma TV. Almost every male I know has told me that. I think that they’re overpriced and overrated.

I will never listen to him about not reading books more than once. Think that reading books over and over again, if I want to is one of life’s great pleasures.

Remember the days when celebrities would be asked when they first knew they were making it. “When I could afford a hard covered book.” Didn’t believe most of them, but it sounded good.

Nobody has ever said (to my knowledge) “I knew that I was making it when I bought a 52 inch Plasma TV.” They might think, it but…

I sometimes call my apartment The Sharper Image warehouse because I have so many gadgets. But I have absolutely no interest in plasma TVs–even if I could afford it–which I can’t.

I don’t know any woman who wants a plasma TV.

Am I missing something?

When did TV become more important than books?

Is it a male/female thing?

Or is it just a Rafe/Pia thing?

We never fight but we argue over every little thing.

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I was jaded. When I had first moved to 63rd Street I was very young and ashamed of living in the richest zip code in the country. It seems so strange now, but then people didn’t parade money or riches around.

The world was changing. Soon Rupert Murdoch would buy The New York Post; People Magazine would be first published–or maybe it already had been. (Have to say that I love People, and seem to have a lifetime subscription. Also think that nothing beats the Post’s horoscope.)

I was a downtown girl living uptown, and my life took place downtown. But I soon realized that other people liked knowing a girl who lived at my address, and it gave me a certain edge.

I lived very close to Regines, a club that was very hot then. I was a non-club person trapped in a club life. My memories of Regine’s aren’t very vivid. Like most people then, (not that’s an excuse) I drank and drugged too much. Yes it was an excuse.

Regines was supposed to be very glamourous. I didn’t think so. For somebody who didn’t like the club life, I had very high standards. Most people who went to Regines were older than me, and while I should have exploited my youth I felt funny.

Other people enjoyed my stand-offish behavior. They thought it was Pia playing Ice Princess. Shelby, my best friend then, who had been one of the two most beautiful girls in college; the other being my other best friend, encouraged me to be icey in public, and in private would lecture me about it.

Shelby never had a shy day in her life, though she pretended to be modest about her looks. An editor during the day and a club person at night most of her men were married. She hated my no married men rule; and was always slightly angry that I had real boyfriends, and had already been married. That last item supposedly enhanced my status in the world.

I would spend winter and spring breaks at Shelby’s parents house during college as they lived in Miami. One Passover her mother served a half cooked ham that nobody ate. That was the year her mother called Shelby in hysterics and told her that we were supposed to be very nice to Janey, Shelby’s younger sister, boyfriend.

Mike was a convicted felon who had just gotten out of some Florida state prison. Shelby and I thought no problem, we knew many guys who had been in jail. They were fresh faced and just like all the other boys we knew.

Mike wasn’t. He had long, stringy hair. While most boys had long hair, they washed their hair more than once a month. His skin was bad and he had a prison pallor. Even his jeans and tee seemed less than…but the second worst part were all his tatoos. We didn’t know people who had them then.

The worst part was his speech. He mumbled and couldn’t or wouldn’t speak in sentences of more than three word. He also had horrible table manners.

That was the the Passover I first confronted my inner snob. I had never realized that I was one before. It was a big revelation. I didn’t like it.

Shelby and I ran from her parents house to meet some friends at the Polo Club, a club that was hot in Miami then.

It was so familiar; I knew I belonged in this world.

Hating that I went to Coconut Crove where I picked up a really hot guy and spent three days with him; I pretended that I didn’t have a boyfriend at home. It was an easy pretense as we were constantly breaking up.

The guy I picked up was a record producer. I only had things with guys in music. Sort of limited the category to half the straight males in New York and Miami. They were the only places in America I knew well.

He was older and owned his own home. The garden was lush with fruit bearing trees. When we weren’t in a club or in bed, I pretended that I lived there. It was a nice fantasy, but when Shelby and I went back to Florida again, I found too many things wrong with him.

As people were always telling me, I was my own worse enemy.

Stumble it!

Continuing on a blogging theme:

I just don’t get it!

When I began blogging I thought it was a place where I could write and see how things looked in print, before they were really published, and I could practice soul baring, soul searching, experimental, and other writing forms.

I admired some of the politico bloggers–that part I understood–and in the spirit of never thinking anybody would read my posts, and in the spirit of living in New York, a city that I love with all my heart, but sometimes without my feet and soul, gave my URL a very political name. it seemed right at the time.

Blogger’s price was right, being free, and it just seemed fun.

We (you’ll be introduced to all of us soon enough) love the ability to instantly communicate with the world.

We also love the ability to instantly edit, or in our case, just change things in our post.

Our dad claimed that before our time, The New York Times, would have one story in its earliest edition and a completely different story with the same headline, in its last issue. We can relate. We call that acting on our compulsions and as compulsions go, it’s not a bad one.

Then I learned about BE and joined it. That’s when it became weird.

What was a banner which is really I’m told a button?

Why does blogging really seem to be about HTML skills, and she who has the most buttons wins?

Admit to being totally helpless about HTML–though we knew it when it was called DOS–or was that a close relative?

Why are there so many blogging organizations?

Who has time to surf the blogs in all of them?

Why are the most “popular” blogs, not about writing or politics–two subjects I do understand–but about contests or total trivia?

(I did end up liking many of them.)

I changed my URL to one that 52% of the voting population wouldn’t hate.

Why are skins (or designs) so important?

We get the need to look good visually part, but it seems unfair to people without design skills or bucks to pay the designer.

We got the great looking skin because we’ve always been into looking hot.

We thought that we had Technorati down, but frankly we don’t get it at all, or can’t do it, or thought that it had come with our hosting company or the WordPress, and oh we just don’t get it.

When did this begin seem like a full time job I don’t get paid for?

We would blog forever if all we needed to do was write and answer comments. Really.

We don’t write totally comment friendly because we’re really into writing what we feel like writing, and not putting the extra hook in.

Oh yes, we forgot to mention that we do like reading blogs, and even making comments in blogs that didn’t make comments in ours; or don’t have us Blogrolled.

We’re much more user friendly then we let on.

We want to push Sally who has a great post on one of our team blogs. I mean super incredible. You all knew she was intelligent, not to forget pithy, sarcastic–who else would name their blog, well just go see it.

We’re also partial to Mulligan, who had a great post on that same blog Monday. The three original girls of the team go in a row–kind of Kool.

We keep on being pushed off the Internet? Trying to tell us something?

Though maybe now that (we hope) we’re going to have a completely working computer, we’ll have an extra two and half hours to the day.

We would use them for walking or doing something social, but maybe….

Sorry about not answering comments recently.
My imaginary dog, Toto, ate all the responses.

No, Toto and I have been a bit busy recently.

Savannah Falls fell down on the job; she will be on an intense feeding tube today, and yes we make horribly un-PC jokes about Savannah to Toto–who actually laughs, Lucia, fave sis, and a few other select friends. Who laugh heartily.

We’re all sorry Savannah but life isn’t all about being morally correct, you’ve been driving me crazy, and un-PC jokes and coffee are the last guilty pleasures available to us.

Her big sister, Arial Black, the desktop died. Just went and died. The burial will be today.

This is all part of our big excuse for not answering comments recently, and having found a mess of them, we–me and Toto–might not have answered. We began answering them yesterday, but then Savannah crashed uh, died several times and we had to bring her back to life.

Oh yes, links–you link me and I’ll link you–haven’t played that game yet, though we’re not really adverse to it.

In the beginning of our BE days, we noticed Blog Shares on our friend, Tammy’s blog. We were mildly curious, but just mildly.

We’re pushing her today to show that the first friend we made on the Internet is literary, and a great writer, and someday we’ll be able to say that we knew her before she became famous.

We hope to know her even after she writes that best seller. (Kinehora) A Yiddish equivalent to touching wood for luck.

Our first appointment of the day just called to say he would be late. Something about the intense heat sinking part of the Bronx River Parkway–couldn’t really get it as his cell kept breaking up.

It was all so innocent back when we first joined BE. Now we have the time to push people but every time we try, we get kicked off the Net. Maybe it’s sending us a message.

Then it seemed to take over our lives, like Seymour the plant, on what cult movie and show? Not The Rocky Horror Show Oh god, now our almost perfect memory for totally irrelevant facts is going.

Who else would want to?

Stumble it!

A month ago today, my cell, doubling as my alarm clock–it’s so multifaceted and talented–rang three times, at ten minute intervals. For the first time, I fell back to sleep and would have missed my plane, but there was a problem with the car the car service was sending. I woke up to find both my regular phone and my cell in my hands—can’t imagine the conversations I had.

Yes I was so excited by my vacation (or physically and emotionally exhausted) that I began cursing because I did make the plane.

So began a month where I was in various stages of sickness, surgery, and healing, all month.

I’m better now, but need a few days to get myself back on track. To where I don’t know, but back on track sounds good.

I loved my blog. Still do, though I haven’t been at my best recently. Maybe being in various stages of sick, trying to keep my life going, and my blog together are just a wee bit overwhelming.

Especially since I became involved in the formation of two team blogs that I never mention by name in my blog, but constantly plug anyway.

Haven’t been great at getting back to people outside of the members of said blogs, and a few others.

I will. But it might take some time.

When I began blogging I thought of it a fun way to practice writing.

Had no idea of the intrigue, the personalities, the way blogging becomes not just a writing obsession, but a skin need, and a community with all the good parts and the bad parts of real life.

It’s like playing the Sims but with real people, real fires, real killings–verbally, please. The buildings are still being refined, along with the community.

How do we communicate? With whom do we talk? Not talk to? Play nicely with? Grab toys from? Give toys to?

I would love to be in grad school, and doing a thesis on “Blogging as a Community.” Not–let me make this clear–as a substitute for real life–because nothing substitutes for real life–but it does take on all these real life dimensions of its own.

We can create persona’s, pretend to be people we aren’t. Or that’s the fear most people who don’t blog have.

I believe that peoples true personas tend to be exaggerated; the warts show more when a person blogs frequently.
I don’t see how a person could keep up a fake persona every day, but I tend to see the best in people, and have faith in inherent goodness.

That could be my best quality and my worst all in one.

I need to end my month of hell, and go restart my life.

The life that isn’t a Syms game.

The life in which I actually interact with people face-to-face, and not on computer or on the phone.

I’m about to push the re-start button and go into real life mode.

I wish me luck.

Because I’m me, I also give myself the right to clarify my posts and/or change my mind.

Stumble it!

I used to spend every Sunday walking every block in Manhattan below 96th Street (East and West).

I thought of it as a hobby, an easy way to stay in shape, and a fun thing to do.

I never thought of it as a book in itself. Guess that’s why I don’t have one.

I did love passing the changing neighborhoods, and over the years, watching the neighborhoods change.

Now it’s too crowded, and too homogenized.

I lived for the day that The Hudson River Walkway would open. It finally did.

Despite its name The Walkway is really for bike riders. Even in places where it clearly says “yield to ped,” bikers rule. If I’m alone I have to cover my front and back. Instead of being fun, it’s a constant challenge.

I can’t develop a rhythm, walk really fast and get lost in thought. I’m too busy looking for bikers.

I’ve discovered that most women over 40 will yield to me as will most men of any age whether alone or with other men. When with young women, the young women will curse me–even if I’m in the right place, and they’re not.

I don’t get it. Walking is one of the first things we can, usually, do as a toddler, and we should be able to walk well into old, old age.

Walking is great exercise, costs nothing in equipment, and should be encouraged.

(Okay people like me tend to buy sneakers that might cost as much as some bikes, but I hope I’m an exception.)

I really don’t understand why men tend to be so much nicer than women. Why do women–especially when riding in packs with men–have to curse and tell me that I’m in their way?

Especially when I’m on the cobblestones and they have a nice smoothly paved, no pothole surface to ride on?

I’m constantly befuddled by this, and tend to hate Manhattan on weekends.

I used to love bike riding but back in the 1970’s and early ’80’s Manhattan wasn’t bike friendly and my tires were constantly being blown out by cut glass and other debris. I lived just off Fifth in the 60’s, and every weekend there would be a parade.

People, not my neighbors, would gather on my building’s stoop. I didn’t have a very loud voice, and when I would ask people to let my bike and I through, usually nobody would move. I was scared to ride on the gutters; I don’t even drive. It was difficult walking my bike across Fifth Avenue to the park.

I still dislike all Manhattan parades on general principle. Parades other places tend to be more fun, less frequent, and not cumbersome.

My building didn’t have a bike room or other place for bikes, and it cluttered my large studio. So I began to concentrate on long distance walking.

It was the best way to learn about each block, and I still remember where stores and restaurants used to be. I watched, say, Madison Avenue in the 20’s, go from being a “nice” neighborhood to homeless hotel heaven to a good ethnic East Indian enclave.

I remember when South Street Seaport was a dismal rotting pier people would sun bath on. I liked it much better then. South Street Seaport could be in any river city.

Though Manhattan is still a great place to visit, and somehow the streets might empty for tourists.

My heart still belongs to Manhattan, but my feet belong elsewhere. It’s easy for me to understand why Manhattan is no longer considered to be the place for walking in the country.

Walkers aren’t organized; walkers have few rights. Oh heck, I’m planning a few other revolutions; might as well plan a walker’s revolution. Anybody joining/

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Happy April 15th! I used to approach this day with mixed emotions. I missed (still do) my accountant, who I always included by name and with chosen profession in my many imaginary Academy Award speeches. Because in public I called him by his first name, and in private I called him dad, or more usually dad-dy.

I would delay gathering all the needed papers until the last minute–you know the $50 here, and the $700 there stuff, not forgetting receipts and all the other things I’m so horrible at organizing. Then at the last minute I would send the stuff to my newest accountant with a profuse note of apology. Fortunately I’m good at organizing the actual numbers and names that go with the numbers. However, I would procrastinate forever. It was very sad.

The accountant–except for the one who fired me as a client–would ask some questions that I wasn’t always able to answer. Then we would have to “research” the information. (Can’t believe that looking for an answer is called research these days,) and the accountant would have to put in the revised information. Somehow he would always get it back to me the day before Tax Day. Thanks Andrew–it’s been three years and you haven’t fired me yet!

I would run around after spending half hour at FedEx, forgetting that they don’t take Post Office Box numbers, and then would have to run to the post office where I would find out after an hour and fifty five minute wait, that I filled out an address label wrong–with me it’s always the small stuff that causes major heart problems.

Since I was going on what turned out to be a horrible vacation, I had to get everything together early. I had my return in hand last week, and since I was having a four hour oral surgery on Saturday and had major sinus problems decided to send it early. Just in case I died or something worse. I didn’t want to leave this for anybody else to have to deal with. Trust me, they’ll have plenty of other things to worry about.

I walked to the closest UPS store which accepts PO Box numbers, and in three minutes for a grand total of $2.14 had it sent.

This is the first April 15th in many a year that I haven’t wished that I were dead–and just for thinking that I’ll probably get audited. No I don’t wish for death. Like living too much. but a short term coma with no bad consequences always sounded good. Oh no, double audit.

I write on two other team blogs.

We’re having a theme day. Guess the theme and you might win the same lotto I’ve been winning every day for two months now. You know the almost illegible e-mail from some country where some person has decided…then again my e-bay account is being suspended. Received three of those e-mails yesterday!

I might actually sometimes worry about it if the e-mail wasn’t so illegible, and I had an e-bay account. Since I don’t….

Oh I’m in a good mood. The five weeks that I spend partially mourning for my father is over. I’ve survived six days–though I do have a bit of a fever, I don’t think that it’s going to turn into an infection.

Mostly I’m happy because I did almost everything that I had to do this week, last week.

Happy Tax Day, dad-dy, wherever you are!

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