You’re tired of seeing your name all over the Internet. It’s a badge of honor but you don’t like paying for the crime of being liberal. All your friends in the real world think that the Internet is a surreal world filled with slime, people with secrets, people who have things to hide, people who are trying new identities, and people who belong nowhere.

You disagree but lately it feels as if you haven’t been living your life for you. There are always people who want to exchange e-mails, people who want you to communicate with them. People who keep an active interest in your blog. A very active interest in your blog. They confuse the person in the stories with the person who is writing them; they honestly think that they know you. They don’t know what you left out or how you laugh or why people love or hate you. You’re not getting paid for any of this; you have reached the saturation point. They confuse amount of comments received with other things that are more important to you such as well, writing. Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

There was much more you had to say on the subject of blogging and the real world; but with one false key stroke you deleted it all.

You wish the person who tried to take your dignity and pride the best of luck. You’re glad that they get so many comments. Their ego needs it; yours needs to write, you’re a writing junkie. But all your work–gone with one key stroke.

You take it as a sign that you shouldn’t be working on your blog today. So you don’t.

It’s a beautiful day. You plan on enjoying it.

You come home; to take a shower, change and hopefully go to a barb-e-que. Unlike the one you never made it to on Saturday it has a real apartment as fall back if it rains, not a studio apartment.

You think about the meaning of Memorial Day: a family story; your father’s uncle on his father’s site was a soldier during World War One. He survived only to die still in France of the Flu during the flu epedemic. He was engaged to your father’s aunt on his mother’s side. His mother and all her sisters were known for their beauty. This sister, you can’t remember her name, was the youngest and rumor has it very nice. She died, family lore has it, of a broken heart. You’ve always known it was probably the flu, but like to think it was a heart cut into two.

Then you run across some really cruel things said about you in various blogs. Being selfish and and idiot has its advantages. You really don’t care. Hearing yourself described as “frail,” is almost funny. When Lucia and you were much younger and half of a woman’s group that met every Saturday around the kitchen table at your old apartment, you played a game. Everybody had to pick a name and describe that person as if you were an object–not of desire–just an object. Lucia got you and described you as a Ming Vase that looked fragile on the outside, but lived unscathed through the centuries. You’ve never forgotten that.

You’re so far from perfect it’s not funny. You’ve made more than your share of mistakes. You’ve hurt people; usually unknowingly sometimes knowningly. But it’s not one of your 100 favorite activities. A big reason that you broke off your friendship with Shelby was her inability to stop being sarcastic, fifteen or more years after college ended. Shelby’s sarcasam was sardonic, and never had a loving edge, just an edge.

Shelby’s then boyfriend’s friend wanted to date you. Shelby wanted you to date him but you would have had to pretend that you had been born ten years after your birth. You could have easily done it, but there’s something about lying about your age that’s always turned you off. How do you keep the stories straight? Music alone would give you away.

Thinking about music always leads to questions about other things. You’ve never actually been sure why. Maybe your blog has served its purpose. Maybe it’s time to cut the blog cord. No, not tomorrow. You don’t know why but you feel that you must continue this blog.

Life’s complicated and then you complicate it some more.

Stumble it!

In the post below, Mrs. Mogul points out my age in her comment. Thanks, appreciate that.

She had known when I figured out what high school she went to. It’s for people with much talent in art. Lucia, my best friend, is another graduate. Mrs. M and I play the New York game. You can find out almost everything about a fellow New Yorker with just a few good questions.

Every city must have the “who are you, in five questions or less,” game. Not needed in small towns. In New York it’s essential to survival. Though I met The Bum at the club, and the owner, my friend, asked many questions of The Bum and Lucinda, the unkown gravely voiced Louisiana singer who was his friend, back on May 20, 1079.

We didn’t consider it strange that The Bum’s friend was a woman, and mine a straight male. We’ve played many roles in each others lives. Neither of us had ever expected him to play matchmaker. That was unexpected, and the owner asked the right questions. But we knew nothing about New Orleans; we were New York. He was downtown cool and I was uptown constantly slumming, because I was too cool for the East Side. there was a club or two on each block on First Avenue and almost as many on Second Avenue but they had the appeal of of riding a bike with the training wheels still on. Men had gold chains, polyester shirts, and hairy chests. Even if they didn’t I think they’d paste some on.

It sounds strange to say that I didn’t live to be hit on. I found it to be gross, intrusive and why wasn’t I home reading? Men, boys, guys, don’t care what you call them, were like giant gnats to be swatted. And I did.

I was a supervisor for a long term temporary document coding project. There were hundreds of men: straight and gay; it didn’t matter. I spent my days secure in the knowledge that I was liked and many times longed for. At night I wanted to be alone with my friends, or with my friends downtown where men wouldn’t run up to me, and I would feel the whirl of being caught in the spin cycle of the washing machine. Don’t know how else to explain the anxiety my body felt then.

But then The Bum entered my life, and on that Friday a six year old crossed the street to go to school by himself. This week was the 26th anniversary of Etan Patz’s disapearance. I think about him every year at this time. Downtown streets were covered with posters; he was so adorable. May he better somewhere better, and his family have found some peace.

Stumble it!

THIS IS BEYOND A RANT. THIS IS ANGER; IT’S MORE THAN RATIONAL ANGER. If you think that this is sick or if you just hate me please go here

Don’t just read my post and the comments but the back story which might begin in a post called “Why I believe in abortion. I believe that it was posted on April 4, 2005.

That begins many comments and some follow up posts by me on the subject of abortion. I’m too angry to care who hates me. Let me amend that: I wear being hated as a badge of honor. As I’m a Jewish American who has always lived in liberal areas, I wasn’t really aware that people who have my beliefs are so hated until I began blogging.

I was going to say that I don’t know if this is logical, but I once wrote a post on not being a linear thinker–that brought many hate filled comments about both my mental state and my politics.

Since then I have realized that I am much more a linear thinker than I thought and that many of the people who spewed hate filled comments are both much more non-linear thinkers than I am and many other things. The comments ended up empowering me for many reasons that I won’t go into.

Christians might outnumber me, but I know that most Christians aren’t members of the Christian Right–or Wrong as Cranky always says.

You on the radical right think you have God and the President on your side–but we’re becoming organized. We will win in the next election because we will put aside our petty differences and make sure that our candidate wins. The only way we won’t win is if you pull a Florida on us, and we won’t let that happen.

The whole stem cell debate has stirred up feelings in me that I wasn’t aware I still had. As an adoptee I’m glad I wasn’t aborted and was adopted by my family. As a woman I’m very glad abortion is legal and has been in New York State for longer than Roe v Wade has been enacted.

Back room abortions have always been performed and will be again if abortion is made illegal. Only they will be harder than ever to get, because the penalties will be much more severe.

Think it was easy for me to watch people go through endless rounds of IVF treatments, because “you understand. Adoption is so difficult….” (?)

Yeah I understand you want to spend much money to have somebody genetically as much like you as possible–if the egg and sperm is used, just the sperm–or to pretend that since the woman is pregnant–if not using a surrogate–that “the baby is really ours.”

I never said a thing. But screw you all. Was I any less my parents child because I didn’t come out of my mother’s womb?

I’m in a really bad mood. Literally sick from the weather; have a fever that comes and goes–my throat feels like it has a life of its own. My body feels like a phlegm machine. Sorry if that grosses you out but I’ve been grossed a lot this week.

My mother might have lived had stem cell research been permitted and today I want my mommy. We had to spend years listening to promises of things that might happen–then might have happened had stem cell research been permitted to continue.

My mother had so much hope. Unlike me she never ranted in public, never showed her dark side. She was cute and funny and very likable and everybody wanted to help her. But nobody could. Guess I’m not supposed to be so broken up-she was only my adoptive mom. Not like it was a real relationship or anything. Should save my tears for the biological mother I met and didn’t like. Myreal as in adoptive mom was everything to me. So was my dad who died a decade before her.

In the last couple of years much of her family–not my sister, brother in law–and his family–didn’t want to see her because she looked so frail–and they acted as if it were catching. Screw them. Her mind was still great; they would talk to her on the phone because she never developed “an old lady voice.”

But cells on a petri dish were worth more than my mother’s life. As she wasn’t sick, and died of complications from a fall, I would have to say that lack of treatment for Macular Degeneration did kill her. A new medication has just come out that’s supposed to be great. Frankly, I’m too sick and mentally exhausted to read about it. I don’t know if it helps “wet” or “dry” macular–she had wet which is much more severe. She had much eye scarring. Laser surgery made her Macular worse. Stem cell research–we heard about that for more than a decade. My mother had to spend the last fourteen years of her life become progressively more blind. It wasn’t fun.

Okay so my mother was just an expendable old lady. Is Michael J Fox? He should be in the prime of his career and his life, but he’s not. Okay, he’s too liberal for you. And Reagan was too old.

Screw all of you who believe that life begins in a Petri Dish. Screw all of you who want this to be a Christian country. It’s not, and if it ever became one would not be the United States of America. The Founding Fathers would die again; they’re probably rolling over in their graves–as my mom would say.

The filibuster–all that-it’s important, but this is where we’re putting our money where our mouth is. This is about real lives that can be saved if..I was going to say reverting hundreds of years but if this technology was available then the Founding Fathers and every person who thinks–not in rhetoric–but thinks about life and its worth would have wanted stem cell research

My sister was married the year our father died. She had the wedding of her dreams anyway because life goes on. Of course it could have never been the wedding of her real dreams because she wanted both our parents to walk her down the aisle. She, and my mother and I wanted my father there. But it couldn’t be and we accepted it.

I feel like a stranger in my own country. I feel that soon we will become a Christian country and that everybody who doesn’t believe will be sent to camps or other places to be indoctrinated into the new America. Logically I know that not to be true, but…I feel the oppression that my people have traditionally felt beginning here. No I’m not saying Hitler–but the drunken Cossacks, who tried to gang rape my eleven year old grandmother, and she spent a week hiding in a friendly Christian home while her family didn’t know if she was alive or dead–god I can’t believe that can happen here–but cells in a petri dish being worth more than a living human makes me wonder what our priorities are.

How dare you all put your religious beliefs before the good of the country and the world?

How dare you talk about the frigging petri dish? What good does that do besides serve your self-serving needs and wants? Don’t you want the people who are already alive to have a good quality of life?

This whole debate has gone beyond abortion and anything rational. I’m a third generation American. I’m just as American as you. Live with it–because I will do everything possible to make sure that this never becomes a Christian country. Everything and anything.

Stumble it!

At our first ever family reunion I will be the only person from my generation not to have a child or several under my name, in the family tree. I’m sure that will be doubly emphasised. Maybe my name will be up in neon: Pia Savage fails at the only important thing in life. Why did we invite her?

When I was 23 I was already considered to be a failure because I was separated with no children. My grandmother told me in no uncertain terms that I had failed at my biggest responsibility. And how could I have not kept such a nice young boy–even if he did have long hair? Maybe I didn’t tell my grandmother everything or anything. My grandmother felt double the pain as my cousin who is a year younger than I am was also separated–from a boy who became a Hari Krishna. My cousin did go on to have three children so she will never be a failure in the family’s eyes.

The reunion is taking place in Manhattan. As I live in Manhattan I don’t see the need to get a hotel room. Think that was a mistake and I was supposed to say ‘oh, of course I’ll pay at least $200 a night to sleep 30 blocks from my apartment.”

The reunion takes place dab in the middle of August. I’m going away in August but since this comes first, I have to make my arrangements around it. The reunion’s being planned around one cousin’s (who I haven’t seen since we were about eleven) schedule. Why? I don’t know, but apparently she’s important to the family.

Never mind that my first cousins might not be able to make it or my sister. Never mind that I have no separate identity in this family. We are periphery, the garnishes around the room rather than the flowers on the tables. As such we have no say in anything. I distinctly remember offering to help when the subject was first approached last winter. That way I would be able to talk them into making it in September or sometime not in the summer. Unless we were going to a resort. Since much of that part of the family comes from the Catskills–the Borscht Belt as it was called, it would be fun to have it up there. I think.

If I’m going to a family reunion I want it to be someplace where I do feel comfortable paying for a hotel room. So does my sister. We will use almost any excuse to stay in a hotel; we love hotels; we love nice motels. We love anyplace where we don’t have to make the bed. If the reunion was being held downtown in one of the new hotels in Tribeca or around Battery Park City I would take a hotel room in a hot sec, but the East 50’s around Park or Lexington?

As I lived on the East Side for sixteen years I have no desire to stay there. Is that being selfish?

Of course I’m bringing excess baggage to this reunion no matter where it’s held, and whether or not I do take a hotel room. The second to last time I saw much of my extended family was in 1989 when I was 38 and was constantly being mistaken for some sort of generic star. Lucia was always saying that when I walked into a restaurant/bar the room would go silent while people tried to figure out who I was. Frankly I never noticed.

The last time that I saw much of the family was at the nadir of my looks. Some of my family actually acted dismayed to see me. That was a heart warming experience. Well I don’t look as great as I did in the ’80’s but don’t look bad. Actually kind of the opposite. But I will never have that fresh faced early 30’s look that served me well, and well into my 40’s.

Then I have heard rumors about my sister and I. How we forced our mom to sell my sister the house and buy me my apartment. That the rumors aren’t true don’t matter. We bought our abodes ourselves with our own money. Did anybody ever ask my mom?

Did anybody ever visit my mom? See how well she lived? God, I feel like my sister and I have been judged guilty of mother abuse when the exact opposite was true. But as my mom had been a family star–and now she was older, blind and frail, not too many people–from either her family or my dad’s wanted to visit her, any excuse would do. Guess they didn’t want to see how we forced her to live in a very pricey apartment complex or forced her to have help or….As nobody could force my mom to do anything she didn’t want to do that last part’s not true. It took us years to convince her to move out of a four level house that she lived in alone. Is that a horrible thing?

Being single was I supposed to tell my mom the day my dad died that I would move in with her? Actually I did. It was the only time that day my mom laughed. She told me that we wouldn’t last a week and she wouldn’t want me to live with her.

Don’t drive and have no desire to as I would probably kill a convention of nuns, priests, rabbis and ministers my first day solo. Had a very demanding job that would have taken me two-three hours to get to and come home from by public transportation.

My parents and I had become good friends when I was in my 30’s and I resent my extended family for not understanding that parents and an adult single child could have a good relationship based on mutual love, like, humor and all the other things that make people friends.

My parents, sister and I occasionally traveled together. I have read that this is a 9/11 phenomenon–but as my dad had died in ‘91 and my mom a month after 9/11, I think that not true. Know many parents and adult children who traveled together at times. But it suits peoples purposes to make this a kinder, gentler world since 9/11. Have noticed how people love to discover new things–and by god an adult family traveling together will be a new thing.

Why can’t I come from a family where people just want everybody to be relaxed and to be happy? Why can’t I come from a family that considers gossiping about anybody who lives outside a narrow boundary–that the family defines–to be the ultimate sport?

I promised myself that I was only going to write funny and light stories for the summer. But family reunions seem to bring out the worst in me.

For anybody keeping track–this is a whining post. Hey, I’m a New Yorker–we whine sometimes. Live with it. Because I really don’t care what you think. Have much bigger things to think about. Like how I’m not going to spend a weekend in August, letting virtual strangers tell me how my parents had expected me to conquer the world–and what a disappointment I must have been–no spouse, no children).

Because to my parents I did conquer the world.

Stumble it!

In real life I’m very different than I seem to be on my blog. I’m not argumentative. Much more fun to argue on paper. Kind of mellow, and smile as much as possible.

Yesterday in petit jury, as I’ve taken to call my Grand Jury, we were talking. Nobody thought that I was from New York as I don’t shout–actually have a soft voice. I think that there are traces of New York in my voice, but they don’t. Kind of a bit upset about that. Wear jeans, tees or peasant shirt with the most expensive sneakers or walking sandals around. Beginning to lose the vertigo I was feeling when wearing them. Once I get into a rhythm, I feel like I’m walking on air. I’ve always hated just standing; but with MBT’s (yes they are) even standing is pleasurable.

I was officially called too sweet to be from New York. Real upset about that. Being a New Yorker is a major part of my identity. And I am third generation–so what else should I be called?

Do over use the word “so,” which I think is a real New York word that can substitute for almost anything including “hi,” “bye,” “How are you?” And so on.

I am hung up on my teeth. Teeth, to me, represent much more than just teeth, but beauty, health, wealth and the state of my mind.

Feel that I’ve done a good job in reducing the national debt by helping make rich dentists even richer. One of the newer Fifth Avenue buildings (about 25 years old) is fondly called by many New Yorkers, the dentists building, as every office on the office wing seems to be a dental office.

I have known one of the dentists all my life as our parents were life long friends and even business partners at times. Don’t go to him; always feel that it’s awkward to mix business and people you’ve always known.

When I lived on 63rd off Fifth, I went to a dentist on East 72nd Street. Would quiz him on the status of his Porsche that I helped him buy. Now I look at my dentists’ office staffs and think how much I help people stay employed.

Always hated my teeth because they were small. My dental problems really began when I set out to make them larger and whiter. This is where I should begin preaching: don’t fix what ain’t broken. Because then the problems begin for real.

I’m a great example of somebody who was never satisfied with who I was.
“What, I look all-American? Exotic is in.” “But I don’t want to be sweet, soft spoken and serene; I want to be surly, sarcastic and sadistic.”

Not really. I learned to be sarcastic early in life–it’s a great defense mechanism when all the men in your life mastered sarcasm in the crib. Sadistic–think that belongs to the Gestapo and Marquise de Sade.

See what merely thinking about teeth does to me? Reduces me to somebody who has to find adjectives that all begin with the letter “S,” when thinking up adjectives that begin with the letter “T,” would actually make sense. Or “E,” for expensive; “M,” for money; “P” for pricey and Pia. Pia is pricey. My dad had plenty of pricey Pia jokes; so did a few other men. They weren’t funny then and aren’t funny now.

Should go and find some strangers to smile at. Should really make back the money this mouth has cost me–so far.

Truthfully I’m jealous of Little Luce (yes you girl) and fave niece as their generation won’t know the teeth problems mine has endured. No, I’m a better person that. Happy for them. Really. They’ll be able to spend money on things much more important than teeth–wait there is nothing more important.

Maybe my petit jury is right: I’m the living embodiment of a shallow California girl. Do dream of moving there. Maybe I secretly just want to be shallow, vain–live in a space that has more than 600 square feet, and am able to smile at people on the street without fear.

Now that’s a cliche. Do find that when I smile at strangers on the mean streets of Manhattan, they smile back. Even if they obviously didn’t want to. Smiling is sort of like a yawn; it elicits a similar response. There have been studies that say if you smile when you wake up and tell yourself that today will be a wonderful day, it usually will be.

So I began practicing that this week. The results have been good, so far.

Am waiting for merry mirth. Rapid rapture. Frolicking fun. Sensual sin. Lasting lust…you get the drift

Stumble it!

Ever since the Countess went on her first date with the Count to a Stones Concert I have been convinced that the key to youth is seeing the Rolling Stones every several years. I will be at their concert in New York. No way will I miss that. One major problem with that. Didn’t see a concert in New York or New Jersey listed. Better be an oversight.

If anybody wants to hear the story about how my father kept me from meeting the Stones not once but at least three times, I will tell it. He thought that a father’s job included protecting his daughter from ever coming within five feet of Mick Jagger.

I was upset when I was seventeen but could understand it. However when I was 20 something, he still thought it cute. Not!

In the department of making me feel ancient: Today is Stevie Wonder’s 55th birthday. I happen to know that more than a few of you remember when he was called: “Little Stevie Wonder,” and will always remember “Fingertips: Part Two.”

Just looked it up–was only called “Fingertips,” but what happened to Part Two. For that matter was there ever a “Fingertips: Part One?” Just a question to ponder.

Some people might notice that my mood is considerably better than it has been recently. Only six more Grand Jury Duty days!!!!!

My faith in Mankind has been restored. No not thinking about justice or anything dealing with anything legal or serious.

There are some seriously nice guys sitting around me: Rico, who I’ve already mentioned, the personal trainer who is just the sweetest person around. He looks like a much better looking Carlos Leon (father of Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes) and is always offering me food and vitamins. Then of course there’s Bob Newhart’s much younger twin brother–and a few other really nice guys who are really friendly, and make those three tortured hours a bit more palatable.

I was in an awkward social situation the other night where I had to make up a boyfriend very quickly and very in depth. Used the personal trainer because I could honestly say we’re together in very tight quarters often. Did imbue him with Rico’s name and personal charm. It feels great to be back to making up boyfriends! Not that I do it to make me great, but sometimes it stops a potentially awkward situation dead in its tracks. Yes I should be at an age where I don’t need to do this because I’m so secure–but I would rather have somebody make up a girlfriend than toy with me all evening.

Slept for about an hour last night so I’m pretty giddy and sleep deprived. Better stop before I spill my guts and say that last Saturday night’s dream…well, I would never put him in the made up boyfriend category. Won’t jinx a definite almost certain possibility.

Stumble it!

I’ve been downtown five days a week recently and thought that I was hallucinating for a sec when I saw a poster for a New York Dolls concert. Wow, man, groovy–David Johansson is not performing as Buster Poindexter. It was a name he used when under the spell of his big band persona.

Lucia and I still call him Dexter Coinbexter. We first called him that one night when we were very stoned on some very good pot, found it very funny and still do. Maybe it’s just us but we like to think that anybody who saw David Johannson perform as Buster…would.

Once Lucia and I actually paid to see him perform under that name. However our drinks at The Bottom Line were paid for. Later we were taken to One Fifth–our favorite hangout in 1982, our calamari was paid for as was our martinis and then champagne followed by desert, coffee and Sambuca–it was the decade of sambuca. At the end of the night, 4:00, we properly thanked the men who had been hanging onto our every word and went to our separate apartments. Lucia called me and we spoke until seven.

Lucia and I had known each other for five years and had been friends for four of them but she had lived in Atlanta for several years and it felt as though we were just really getting to know each other. I had been with the Bum for most of those years. Lucia and he had been friendly and she was just learning about the Bum’s dark side.

Lucia and I couldn’t stop talking. It was a never ending gush of words; one long phone conversation that went on for years, and another in person one. Lucia and I were enchanted with one another. Angie Ralph was Lucia’s best friend and Shelby was mine, but it was inevitable that Lucia and I became best friends also.

Though we worked long hours, we went out at least four nights a week. As we were both in recovery from good love gone bad, we really didn’t need men to complicate our lives, though at One Fifth one night Lucia met The Kangaroo Kid, an Australian TV star, and I met Derek, a Soho art dealer.

I had issues dating somebody named Derek; his pants while obviously expensive were too short, and he lacked a personality. The last was his saving grace. After the Bum I was in desperate need of somebody who could blend into the bar stool. Neither the Bum nor I had ever been able to blend in anywhere.

Derek was more than willing to double date with Lucia and The Kangaroo Kid, who would spend the evening explaining to anybody who listened that he was a big TV star down under. Lucia and I would then be free to talk to each other, as we had the evening’s dinner and drinks paid for, and we had dates so we didn’t have to flirt. When we felt the urge to flirt we would go out without them.

Though neither Lucia nor I owned a VCR, our mutual best friend, gay category, Patrick owned two, so were able to see The Kangaroo Kid on Australian TV. He was who he said he was.

It’s strange that seeing this poster brought back memories of David Johanssen, because I have much earlier memories of The Dolls which I will share tomorrow

Stumble it!