Higher Ground

Last night was an embarrasment of couch potato (remember that?) riches: higher ground, a benefit for Katrina was on the radio while the Gilmore Girls, Bone and Law & Order: SVU were being recorded by the DVR. And next Tuesday, next Tuesday marks the return of James Spader in Boston Legal.

I don’t know know what this says about me, but I can pick Emmy winners. Patricia Aruqette, so much bigger boned but facially so similiar to Rosanna, won for Medium, along with the new Closer, two of my three fave girl shows the other being, of course, The Gilmore Girls. And I will take Candice Bergen anywhere. Think Boston Legal’s incredible. Not just for James Spader, my absolutely favorite actor alive, but for how it uses older actors. Older than me is a good thing; it keeps me helpful, and they’re all wonderfrul actors playing great characters in a David E Kelley show that has dared to question the federal government albeit in funny ways since the show has been on.

I couldn’t have written the above until I hit 40 as I was the one person I knew, outside of my immediate family, not to own a VCR. Finally realized that while certain members of my family might have had an intellectual snob thing going I didn’t have to. Now fave sis, who has every new product for her eleven year old daughter, introduces me as:

“This is my sister, Pia. She could have been an intellectual but chose pop culture instead.”

No comment. Yes comment: my love of pop culture became acceptable when I began reviewing film; but I would have rather reviewed DVD’s; much more intellectually stimulating, the extras; the assumption that you will review the DVD in bed, and can replay at will.

The weather, last night, might have been sultry but there was an Autumnal chill in the air, and I could seep without air conditioning. Rafe couldn’t find parking which made it the true beginning of the Fall season. And he looks; never have met a person with more patience, and ability to find a parking space where other people only see a small spot and a do not park sign; somehow he knows how to circumvent them.

I had already seen Rafe at his hair salon, two blocks from my old apartment which I didn’t take pictures of as I never made it there. My friend Angie Ralph, is a hair stylist at the salon, so we talked for an hour outside it. It felt good to be with a friend who has known me since we were young and hot. Angie’s Lucia’s childhood best friend, and I was friendly with both Angie’s husband and brother before I became friends with Lucia. We all knew each other before adult life and death came hitting us in the face. We can all look at each other and see our 20’s reflected in our faces and bodies while everybody else sees middle age.

Note to the Ralph girls: I used to think your mom was too cool for me. She was a partee animal; and your dad was always your dad, willing to converse with anybody; he could and did become friends with bag people. The radio is playing Boz Scaggs and bringing me back to those days even more.

So in splendid isolation, last night, I reveled in the radio, and listened to some amazing rhetoric. It left me absolutely postively convinced that New Orleans must be rebuilt; it left me further convinced of the failure of the federal government to help people that they had never helped before.

I am blogged out right now. I like writing posts because I like writing; I enjoy reading other blogs and commenting because I like bouncing off other people’s idea and the mutual back and forthness of blogging.

But I need a very long weekend to chill. Even on vacation I was doing blog related things from two to seven hours a day, usually three to four. I want blogging to be fun again; so I need some time away. To finish organizing my apartment which scares me as I’m the least naturally organized person on the earth. So when I say that I’m scared; I mean it literally.

I need time to revel in having a first draft almost ready; it doesn’t seem real. I need to go to the beach; maybe for a day; maybe for several; maybe not if the weather turns in which case I need to begin doing the tourist in my own city things that I had been planning on doing.

It’s been a hard month and I haven’t cut myself any breaks, and thanks you who commented to that effect. You are right. I might comment in two or three blogs a day but if I don’t get to yours until the end of next week please like me anyway.

The only other blog related things I will do besides my Bring it on! post on the 27, and introducing Bonnie of Frogma as our Friday guest author this week; I’m going to take a blogger’s break. Though I always reserve the right to change my mind, and to post.

I am filled with love for the people of this country who have pulled together in a massive effort to help. Yes we in New York have a special obligation. The first car parked on my street after 9/11 was a cop car from Michigan. It made me tear up with the knowledge that people cared.

We care about Katrina; we care about our country. I hope more than anything that Rita doesn’t do much harm; and that we can reclaim our government so that it works for all people.