Much is happening in my life. Can talk about the dental work, and still don’t know when the two last appointments are. Feel as if my life has a big “hold” sign over it. That the feeling is in no way reality based doesn’t make it feel better.
Both my dental appointments will be on Monday the 19th. That’s exactly a month from a big day in my life. Used to extend it to all of July Now it’s all summer
My desktop will be replaced on Friday. Still have that unsettled feeling. Have heard too many stories of what can go wrong at the last minute. Wish people would be quiet. Paid enough to feel secure.
In America, sad as it, sometimes money does buy health, and I’m not doing this for vanity. She says after spending an ungodly amount of money on 24/7 Freeze products from Bliss
My dentists told me that I would learn patience. They didn’t tell me that I would learn both yoga and compulsive blogging. The only two things that I have had protracted patience for are reading and writing. Actually there’s a third thing but I’m not going to mention it here as y’all think I’m so pure.
Or that I’m a whore. But that’s in my blogging past.
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I understand that many people won’t understand what I mean when I say “what does marriage mean anyway?” I am not anti-marriage. When I began college in 1968, the times they were a changing. Yet girls were still supposed to be in college basically to find a husband. I did.
While the marriage didn’t take, the friendship did. We were too young and immature to be married. Today, we, and I do mean both of us, wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to get married. One of us wasn’t; maybe not the one you would expect to be in a hurry.
Though my parents had an examplary marriage, and I was a romantic, I believe that I began to have serious reservations about marriage when I had my first marriage proposal while in high school. I feel callous in saying that I thought of him as a temporary stop on the way to true love.
I think of my parents as being each others true loves. Their parents came from neighboring Russian towns, their fathers came over on the same boat and roomed in the same boarding house only to lose touch until my parents met. I think of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning as “true loves.”
Yet that’s a romantic ideal and I have recognized that forever. My parents “needed” marriage. If they hadn’t met I know they would have married somebody else. They might have loved the imaginary spouse less but they would have married. Maybe because I’m adopted, always knew and at twelve finally realized that I had been just another illegitimate infant, took some of the idealization of institutions away from me. Though I did hate Emma Goldman for living with a man not marrying him that same year.
I’m my Dad’s daughter; I change answers to suit each variable, and can argue any and all points in an argument.
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Thanks for the uploading suggestions. I am a person who thought some slot in my printer was a USB port. I will never make that mistake again.
The one job that I was ever fired from was a very early on-line research company. Thing was while my knowledge of tax research was outstanding, and I was hired to specifically do tax research, it was all about computers.
Many people had external modems then. If a certain noise wasn’t heard, it was dead. Simple. The only simple thing about the job, and four out of five CPA’s refused to believe me. As my dad never believed me except when he decided that I was the gospel incarnate, I had life-long training in how to treat an accountant.
But I didn’t belong in the world of fixing software and hardware problems. No, no, no. I have collaborated on the design of document control forms and have written training manuals. Yes, my brain switches from non-linear to linear in technical situations.
I feel resentful having to learn all this stuff that’s not about writing. It takes time and mental skills that I would rather not develop right now. But I like photography and plan on taking many pictures and DVDs, in what might be my last summer in New York. Really does pain me to say that.
While I complain about the expense, that’s the secondary, a very big secondary reason, not primary reason for the move. Can’t live in a 9/11centric city anymore. Most people don’t notice how many 9/11 articles are in The Times each week. I do.
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I had never had the complicated relationship with my Mom that I had with my Dad. Actually, it was more complex, but I didn’t see how my Mom could manipulate me until her last years when I saw all too well. On a scale of one to ten, she was still a ten as compared to Marie, Ray’s mother on Everybody Loves Raymond.
My mom had agreed to an aide four hours a day five days a week about a year before she died. Our relationship was slowly getting back to normal. I know that my mom lost her will to live after 9/11.
I have unfinished business; we didn’t finish mending our problems. With my dad, it was so different; we had come to an understanding. He remained in a coma for five days after the stroke. Yes, that was a blessing.
My Mom had been my friend. We read the same books, liked the same movies, and had the same politics. Now that every woman I know is a mother I so see how she accomplished that. As my Dad worked at home one or two days a week and shared in the child rearing, and I feel more a child of YUPPIEs than a YUPPIE herself, I see how different the father/daughter relationship from the mother/daughter one.
My Dad had been my hero when I was a kid, but my Mom was my rock. I’m trying to recapture the great memories while working out the problems that began between us when she moved into the widow’s complex as I call North Shore Towers with its eighteen hole golf course, arcade that looks like a movie set of an idyllic town center. Each night I would take out three large coffee’s for breakfast the next morning. My Mom had never grown past Sanka, and I think that good coffee equals three of the four food groups.
I was thinking about all this when I was reading Newsweek.com’s article, Marriage by the numbers, on its infamous, “women over 40 have more chance of being killed in a terrorist attack,” article
As I was 35 and had been married, I believe that my odds were slightly lower; I mean I had slightly higher odds of remarrying. I remember how hysterical all my friends and my sister were. Like eight of the eleven women in the article they did get married, and have kids. I honestly couldn’t have cared less.
What does marriage mean anyway? And why did the women who got married and had kids in the article act smug? They should be the most understanding, but often are the least understanding. It just wasn’t that important to me, sad as it may seem to others.
People who don’t know me very well think that was selfish of me. People who know me well understand that I might have been born independent, but I do give a damn.
Always thought that Gloria Steinem got it right when she married at 65, as she is my role model. Her husband did die a few years later. That’s always a possibility. Steinem, more than any other woman, personified the woman’s movement to me. She’s never been afraid to be sexy and nobody can argue her strength and intelligence. I have been influenced by too many women writers to list though Emma Goldman, Collette, Doris Lessing, and okay, Dorothy Parker come to mind immediately. I like strong women who don’t give a damn.
My Mom introduced me to each woman though she begged me not to read Goldman’s autobiography “Living My Life,” when I was twelve as I was too young to understand the nuances. She was right. I hated Goldman, not for condoning violence, but for living with a man. There is nothing like a twelve year olds morals. Four years later I reread it and loved her.
This is the last time I shall say, “but I don’t condone violence.” When I lived with Zachary, I took all the knives out of the house, out of fear that one of us would use them, and it might not have been Zachary.
About this time last year, soon after I finished Grand Jury*, that was totally boring and the biggest waste of tax payer money I have personally seen, I began to get incredible comments by somebody who would preface half with: “I’m only a 20 year old college student.” Did have my doubts about that, Cooper, but as I got to know you better glimmers of youth would slip through.
My Grand Jury only heard fifteen cases. The average NY Grand Jury hears 50. We had juror issues.
I’m not usually at a loss when describing somebody, but Cooper defies description. Have to say that the dawg with his-oh-so-sweet yet much more sarcastic manner has The Empress of Wonderlandornot, and The Queen of Courting Moderation Alice pegged, yet there is so many more sides to her
Alice turns 21 today. There are few people anywhere, bloggers or real life, who have impacted on me as Alice has. Like all bloggers, Alice likes the spotlight. Unlike all bloggers, Alice, does things for people without telling them.
She would have laughed at the woman’s study 20 years ago. I did. The terrorist line did make me flinch, and I love tasteless jokes. I had been on the first Air India jet after one was bombed the prior June when a TWA jet had been hijacked. We were held many many hours in an isolated area of Heathrow as our plane had a bomb scare
Several months later, I was in Europe with my parents when the Achilles Lauro was hijacked. Leon Kinghoffer’s body was on our plane coming home. Yes I had good reason to flinch at that line.
Life’s risky. Obviously my near misses, and I do have more, are risks of the privileged. Alice is truly privileged, and she learned early, as I did, that along with privilege comes responsibility.
My sister found a letter I wrote when I was eleven that my Dad saved where I told Danny Kay my life story, and enclosed some money for something. A dollar of it was from my sister. My Mom was at a party and unable to watch his TV special. I apologized for her absence.
Like Alice I excelled at manners. I’m sure that Alice’s mother doesn’t have to write her thank you notes. I apologize to about everybody I ever used to know for that. I was much better at writing celebrities who had no desire to know my life story
Having read Alice’s blog this year, I have watched her evolve as a person and as a writer. Alice has one of the super strongest, best voices around. Post secret: In the past few months I have been learning from her,
Her biggest cause is Darfur. Please play Darfur is dying. It will stay with you a lot longer than The Sims.
I couldn’t think of a suitable birthday present for Alice. She’s become our resident expert on Duke. Tried to think of a third cause with a “D”, but date rape could almost be a subheading under Duke.
Somehow stopping Alice’s mother from calling her “darling,” and her brother “dear” doesn’t seem like a cause worth fighting,but one to be preserved.
Please go to Alice’s Darfur, hell on earth site, and then to her personal blog. She doesn’t usually bite. She blogs on the edge and with an edge. Love edges because they can be dangerously exhilarating. And exhilarting to understand that while Alice might have a stronger more developed voice than most woman her age, she has to be speaking for many other woman turning 21 this year
Alice have a wonderful 21st birthday. Please party like it’s the summer of 1985, one of the last great party summers around.
Then most people got married, joined AA or both, just to show the study how wrong it was. Sure. They got married because they were ready to, I hope.
I partied because I was alive.
Stumble it!
Just love that line.
This is a part of a poem that my dad saved.
Mary Poppins was a
junkie, and
if, you can’t
trust, Marry Poppins. who can
you
trust?
Remember how clever I thought it was when I wrote it.
‘m writing a memoir that’s framed around my father and my deepening friendship as I went through the world’s longest adolescence. It’s been fifteen years since he died. We worked through our problems several years before he died, and he apologized for many things several months before he died. That was strange as I’m the only one in the family who ever apologizes.
I make up for the rest of my immediate family, and my mom was a lady who loved him something fierce, but she taught me to laugh at him. Sorry Elka my sister who doesn’t read Courting but is told about it. Writing about our father and knowing that people who knew him reads this is strange.
No two people saw my father the same way. The thought of my father around a political blog scares me. When he graduated from NYU in 1939* he followed Sidney Hook to The New School where he somehow began to take Earnest Van Haag’s classes. Thus my father became an Existentialist, but I’m not sure that my Dad understood what the word meant.
He was a CPA who taught me compassion, ethics, and the need to always be productive. The last can be a curse. I know that my dad was a better than good CPA, poker player and investor, all roles that required excellent reasoning power. I know this as nobody could have his success and some of his clients without it, yet he was both obtuse and usually wrong in real life issues. I said “yes, daddy,” and did whatever I wanted to do
It was my father who was really into me finding my birth mother, and he did accidentally find the last piece of information. Of course I pursued it. Maybe I needed to meet her to understand the difference between judging a stranger only related to you by birth, and judging your older daughter for whom you would walked across an ocean
He was obsessive and had anger management issues. One night I stayed over and heard him going ballistic on an airline clerk. I was scared that he was going to have a stroke or heart attack
He did have one massive stoke that killed him. When I heard him yell at the clerk I realized that he had only recently stopped yelling at me like that. Sometimes I would scream back, more usually I would freeze. Still other times I would pretend to listen,
Doing this book is the hardest thing that I have ever done because I have to relive much. I pull up memories, good and bad, of my Dad and my family that would rather stay sepia tinged. The problem is that I relive feelings, both mine and my father’s. He’s easy that way. It’s not a depressing book at all, but I have to be in the moment then to remember
The book begins when I’m 25, it goes back in time but personally I think the interaction between adult parents and children is more interesting. That’s probably biased, and I know childhood stories can be fascinating. I even write some.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose a parent early. I can’t imagine not having been a member of my family.
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This post was very different originally. I lost it. It was much better and for some reason had anecdotes about the summer of 1985.
It was the second time today that happened to me, and I think that’s telling me to get to the damn beach, or something. I have been hearing tons of dental implant horror stories. Have two more appointments, don’t know when yet and am very anxious to finish this.
At this second in time my only two priorities are to finish my dental work and to finish my book. I have many posts in the archives and many I never posted. Please remind me that blogging is my last priority right now. I hope that I can reach a point soon where I actually enjoy socializing without thinking after two hours about all that I have to do.
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I would like to thank everybody who commented on the last post. I prefer to just write a post and see what happens from there than to moderate comments. Only come in when it’s vicious. If I have accomplished anything with Courting, it’s civility
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The title? You thought that I was low maintenance? Which leads into; this month will be the end of two years spent at the dentist. It better be in the first half of the month. I am my father’s daughter.
Many of my photos upload “no thumbnail” and I can’t make them larger. Others won’t click larger in some browsers. Would make me so happy to put photos here. If anybody has any suggestions.
Stumble it!
Due to numerous requests, well one from Bone who has an exceptionally beautiful post up, I made this into its own post as it was supposed to be.
This post was written for Shayna, and Patriotic Cowgirl
This Memorial Day please think of the troops. The post that I lost talked about how the government and some media outlets made many people believe that every Viet Nam protester was anti-troop. Yeah we all walked around with rocks and eggs in our pockets to throw at troops. And you try walking around with a raw egg in a pocket. It was hard but we had to punish the troops for serving.
Almost every guy I knew who came home from Viet Nam was an addict or suffering from post traumatic stress. The term was coined for them. The VA wasn’t set up to help them.
In the early 90’s, fifteen years after the end of the war, I worked closely with The Bronx VA which had become great. The hospitals are going down fast. Like so many institutions they have been faced with massive cuts.
Hate the entire Bush Admin. Hate Newt for the stupid stupid Contract with America which closed or curtailed so many wonderful programs. Please hate Karl Rove separately. He personifies immorality and evil to me. Plamegate, that was to be expected from a man who dared utter the liberal thing in New York. Our lives will never ever be the same
I wasn’t downtown. Nobody knew what was going to happen next. Everybody knew many people who worked downtown and/or were on the subways. I have explained why I don’t support this war many times. Not important for this.
Don’t support the war but support the troops. I spent way too much time last year explaining why people who protested against Viet Nam didn’t usually hate the troops. Many good people believed that we had.
The troops in Iraq deserve your support. Think of them on Monday. Think of the walking wounded who still have flashbacks from Viet Nam. Vets from the war in Viet Nam deserve everything. We have failed them. All of us.
Now we have a new opportunity, out of another totally bogus war to make right so many wrongs. I, obviously, wasn’t blogging during Viet Nam, and was too young to be able to say to an audience that being critical of a government doesn’t mean we can’t love our country with all of our heart.
Though when my sister and I went to see a revival of one of the greatest movies of all time Yankee Doodle Dandy and the audience booed it, my sister and I did boo the audience.
It was a different world then. Most people viewed things in black and white. The shades of gray that we see now weren’t available as there wasn’t instant communication or CNN even.
During Katrina I was blogging. People deblogrolled me because they said it was impossible to both cast blame and to help. As somebody who had been here during 9/11 I knew that it was the only responsible thing to do. Did they tell the people who said that the people who remained in New Orleans were idiots not to say that? Or did they secretly feel that same way? Barbara Bush said something horrible, yet I don’t remember those bloggers castigating her
Something else happened to me then. I finally began to feel some closure with9/11 and my mom’s death, a month later. And I met some of the bloggers who would become very important to me. G-d knows, they don’t usually think the way I do, well nobody does, but…they respected me for thinking, and taking every persons feelings into account, but this governments.
A country shouldn’t be held hostage to its government. Shortly after 9/11, Ari Fleischer the then press secretary told people to be circumspect in their speech. I couldn’t and can’t understand how somebody who is the son of Holocaust survivors could say something like that.
This is the United States of America. Don’t stand outside the funeral of a service person and say that the person deserved to die. That’s sick. Channel your anger. Do something productive.
We have a unique opportunity to let the Vet’s know that no matter how much we hate the war and the government, we don’t hate them. This can’t and won’t be another Viet Nam where so much blame was passed around, it became almost impossible to remember who were supposed to love or hate that day
It’s a different world now. We can and have to communicate with each other, and when we place blame, let’s blame the right people. Not the troops.
This all said, the blogoshpere was a very different place when I began to blog. The radical right watched my every move. I began to feel less and less free to blog about things like sex. I like it, for the record. I couldn’t even write about a glitter sock emergency without hearing from one of them.
Some questions that I’m tired of hearing:
Why do you hate Bush so much?
Why do you hate America?
You lost, why don’t you get over it?
Why don’t you move to France? haven’t heard that one in a long time
my personal favorite questions have to be:
next you’ll want to kill all small children and people with disabilities Okay, that’s a statement not a question, but really
Don’t you know this is a Christian country? The First Amendment says so
Why do you hate Christmas?
Why do you lack a moral center or higher purpose in life?
And this was after BIO was formed. I can’t write about politics much anymore. If I’m not fighting the right somebody from the left has to debate baby boomers, as if baby boomers were in positions of authority during Viet Nam. As if baby boomers caused Bush to be elected. And as if I personally am responsible to save the reps of baby boomers
I’m just not that important.
Individually, none of us are.
Together we all are important. Together we can get the country back on track.
Just don’t come to Courting expecting a debate. There are more than enough bloggers who enjoy answering the above questions and more. I don’t. Took me over a year to say that this is a private blog, The First Amendment, which clearly establishes separation of church and state in public places doesn’t apply. Think of Courting as a private house in the midst of a public golf course.
On Monday think about the troops. They didn’t ask to go to Iraq. Some National Guard People were forced to reenlist.
We can reclaim America, and we can begin by thinking about troops. Then electing Republicans out of office in November. One step at a time, and we will get rid of a regime that believes itself to be above the law.
We just can’t hate each other. Then the Bush regime does win.
I do delete. I don’t debate. If you’re looking for a fair fight go to BIO where I probably won’t be much
I’m not that important
I have my own goals, and I’m a baby boomer so all sides have assigned me roles. I’m sick of defending my generation, and explaining what we did after Viet Nam. At least the baby boomers I know.
Yes being a baby boomer has driven me out of political blogging.
Like the people who were at theater the day my sister and I saw Yankee Doodle Dandy you’re all too busy assigning blame to listen. So why should I?
Stumble it!
Today was the start of my first computer break in a very long time. I spent the week getting into condition for this by spending less time at the computer each day this week. I was proud. Way too proud.
My desktop crashed. For some brilliant reason that once made sense to me I had decided to get rid of my home network. Bad move, Pia, really truly bad.
I am much poorer now than I was five hours ago. I am not any wiser. Nor is my desktop with the 20 inch monitor and truly great color working. Calling somebody in to try to fix it would make sense if I were making money. I lose money. This is a blog. Out damn blog.
99.999% of all people I meet are so impressed that I’m a large mammal in TTLB, they can’t yawn fast enough.
“Didn’t you used to write for a newspaper?”
I will forever be known as the person who once wrote for a paper and left to blog. That’s not why I left. I left to write a book. Then I found blogging or blogging found me. I have never totally understood. Love it. The book(s) have begun to take precedence over blogging. Thankfully. Maybe last night’s crash was a less than subtle hint about where my priorities should be, are, and will remain.
But I spend money on blogging. Though I should do ads, I would feel weird. It would ruin the integrity of the world’s largest billboards, my sidebars.
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I was reading some blogs. How can people describe themselves and their blogs as: “hysterical,” very very funny,” witty and wise,” and other things? People ask me to describe Courting; “Duh, uh, duh, I don’t know.”
“Are you funny?”
“uh, more in life, occasionally
I wish that I could be decisive, spew out all my great points, and write about my wild and wacky life. But I would feel strange assuming that other people think that I am. Especially since many people think that I’m dull and devoid of a life. While they don’t have a valid point, it is their opinion. They are entitled to think it. I’m entitled to draw the reader into my life through an amazing “about me.”
I can’t. Would rather people read a few posts. Then again they could be offended by titling a post “Visiting Dead Parents.” I know “passed” is more acceptable, but it’s just not me.
It’s eight AM, a bit after, and I didn’t go to sleep until five AM. Woke up because some kids were fighting. There are worse ways to wake up as I did last week to the roar of construction. And then there are much worse ways to wake up. I’m going back to sleep.
Now car alarms are blaring. My block has a private school on it. The adults aren’t loud, except when in cars. Then they’re animals especially when they are delivering their kids to school and are late. I assume, perhaps wrongly, that most kids who go to this school live in Manhattan. Why do parents take kids to school by car? Why live in Manhattan if you’re going to do surburban things like that, and blare your horn?
Though it’s kind of beautiful out. A hot humid day. We’re finally getting to my kind of weather. It puts in a great mood knowing that there will be many more days like that to come.
I will read blogs sometime during the weekend. Oh the sun went in. Now it’s out. Now it’s in. Hate schizzy weather
As a compulsive reader of weather.com, I have been totally confused as in the past several weeks they have gotten the weather correct twice. I could put in about me “weather obsessed.”
Actually I am just confused. I have had computers die mean, nasty and vicious deaths. I have never had one just crash. I am way too calm. This would scare me if I weren’t so tired. Oh gawd, yesterday was such a good day until nine PM. Can’t and won’t obsess about it. Yes I can, but I would really really rather not think about it.
My new Razor phone came yesterday. Took ten seconds to rip open the bag and put the battery in. Followed the instructions and followed the instructions. It finally was programmed. Maybe that should have been a warning? Why don’t days come with warnings? Don’t go near electronic equipment today. Maybe because in my case every day would come with such a warning. Maybe there would be one safe day a month. Just wish that I knew what one day of the month. At least the Razor phone was free. Did learn yesterday for the zillionth billion time that everything comes with a price. Everything.
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Do have a statement. This Memorial Day please think of the troops. The post that I lost talked about how the government and some media outlets made many people believe that every Viet Nam protester was anti-troop. Yeah we all walked around with rocks and eggs in our pockets to throw at troops. And you try walking around with a raw egg in a pocket. It was hard but we had to punish the troops for serving.
Almost every guy I knew who came home from Viet Nam was an addict or suffering from post traumatic stress. The term was coined for them. The VA wasn’t set up to help them.
In the early 90’s, fifteen years after the end of the war, I worked closely with The Bronx VA which had become great. The hospitals are going down fast. Like so many institutions they have been faced with massive cuts.
Hate the entire Bush Admin. Hate Newt for the stupid stupid Contract with America which closed or curtailed so many wonderful programs. Please hate Karl Rove separately. He personifies immorality and evil to me. Plamegate, that was to be expected from a man who dared utter the liberal thing in New York. Our lives will never ever be the same
I wasn’t downtown. Nobody knew what was going to happen next. Everybody knew many people who worked downtown and/or were on the subways. I have explained why I don’t support this war many times. Not important for this.
Don’t support the war but support the troops. I spent way too much time last year explaining why people who protested against Viet Nam didn’t usually hate the troops. Many good people believed that we had.
The troops in Iraq deserve your support. Think of them on Monday. Think of the walking wounded who still have flashbacks from Viet Nam. Vets from the war in Viet Nam deserve everything. We have failed them. All of us.
Stumble it!
I will probably be posting on Thursday or Friday for Memorial Day. Will be posting on Tuesday; wouldn’t miss 5/31 in blogland for anything. But for now I am drained and might even watch American Idol, no–can’t do…
I’m not big on cemeteries. We would go for funerals and unveilings, when the headstone was put in, and my dad would greet each relative and former resident of the town his parents came from who were now residing at Mount Hebron as if they were alive. But he too didn’t believe in going on anniversaries or traditional holidays.
I believe that a person’s spirit resides in the places that they most loved. For my father that would be the city. For my mother that would be anyplace my father wanted to be. Continue Reading »
Stumble it!
The thing about blogging is that it’s a game. I was never good at games but seem to excel at this one. If Arianna is right and the Internet rewards obsessives, wow, should I have been rewarded in the monetary not just the intrinsic sense.
My blog is read by many people. It has great stats and gets publicity. So I have nothing to complain about. Seems unseemly. How dare I complain when for a non radical right personal blog I have risen so high in the food blog chain? Having to write “for a non radical right,” gives me that right. Feeling guilty for succeeding at something that costs me money, but other people get more pleasure out of doing, and some resent my success. They forget or don’t understand that I actually spend time and thought on my posts, and my comments.
If your comment enabler doesn’t enable me, I can’t waste more than three tries each time. I do send emails explaining but I think that some people feel I’m doing that to get out of commenting.
I’m, also, complaining about doing such things as stringing together quotes by George Clooney and saying he wrote an article. Does Arianna think that blogs are exempt from ethical rules? Does she believe that blogs aren’t accountable? I know this happened awhile ago, but I’m thinking about it in other contexts.
It must be so wonderful to know all the answers. To exist on pure faith alone. That’s behind my imagination. I never use the word “religious” before rad right because I can’t believe that a truly religious person would be a member of the radical right. To be truly religious you have to have ethics. That’s something sadly lacking in the radical right.
This isn’t really directed at them. Until I was 25 I lied, though only to my parents and usually by omission. Wasn’t very good at it, and they forgave me because they knew I had problems and was a good person. In the revised family history, later, I had always been perfect. As perfect as I had been when I was a baby, toddler, child… Continue Reading »
Stumble it!
I put in a page, from The New York Times, about how New York has the third amount of road rage of any city after Miami and Phoenix. As I know Miami well I would have been surprised if it hadn’t topped the list. However, I exempt all members of my family and some former best friends from that list. Maybe I should stick to the first category.
Clyde Haberman, the author, suggests that it’s time that pedestrians get angry. I have been angry since I moved back to Manhattan over eight years ago and realized that the Island that I had so loved to walk in wasn’t truly walkable anymore.
Every person who lives in and/or works in Manhattan has seen cars go through red lights on purpose. Sometimes the driver and/or passengers gives the finger to whoever is trying to cross the street. People make illegal “U”s on West End Avenue, a strictly residential street all the time. How can we show our anger at people who could easily kill us?
The best thing about the Giuliani years was the police car permanently assigned to the corner. But times are tough and that’s a waste of a police person and car.
“Red on red.” Not allowed in New York City, but try telling that to a driver from Jersey. They use the time honored: “I didn’t know, I’m from Jersey” excuse. I first noticed the Jersey driver syndrome when I lived on East 63rd Street and would walk down Park Avenue on Sunday mornings. It would be deserted except for cars from Jersey which sped along obeying no known laws. People would laugh at me, but Haberman mentioned Jersey drivers three times.
Now he will get the credit for this astonishing discovery and I will still be laughed at. That’s okay. I’m a blogger. Found a great quote by Arianna Huffington in The Times “chatter” business section, print version not the online edition unfortunately.
I’m an obsessive, and the Internet rewards obsession
And it rewards lots and lots of money being put into a blog that strung quotes together by George Clooney and said that he wrote the article. Where I come from, New York, actually that might be rewarded by many people. I call it unethical, and have just spent the past ten minutes pacing around my two and a half rooms debating whether or not to keep that sentence in.
Who am I to call Huffington unethical? Maybe behavior like hers should be rewarded. I’m the one person in history to pass a drug test, cleanly, and to fail the lie detector test three weeks before they became illegal for pre-employment hiring because I admitted to something that I had never done.
It sounded like something I might have done so I said that I took a hit of a joint at the workplace when in actuality I had smoked in Fort Greene Park during lunch. That had been about eight years before this test, I never did anything like that again. The two friends that I had smoked with went onto become well-known in their industries and forgot about it until I failed the test. When they and everybody I knew including my parents couldn’t stop laughing.
I have never believed that I truly failed the lie detector test but something bigger. I failed the I-can-forget-when-necessary-test. Or in my case,I passed the I-can-make-something-up-to-make-me-me-me-seem-guilty-test. While I might not believe in heaven or hell, and don’t think that ethical behavior is always or usually rewarded, it’s just easier and about the only thing I can truly pride myself on being.
So sad I know. There’s nothing like calling your mother and hoping that she will comfort you while you’re also waiting for her to yell at you because of the dreaded: “You did what? You smoked pot?….” And instead she began to choke with laughter: “M–a-x, pick-pick up the phone, quickly. You’ll–you’ll never believe what Pia did.”
Then both my parents comforted me.
That day I came to terms with one sad and inimitable fact about me. There is a good side to every defense but shame. Guilt, and the want to do the right thing, keeps me ethical. I hope that I want to do the right thing and am not just the most guilt-ridden person in America, well, I know one other blogger….Truly great thing about obsessive blogging; you get to know many other bloggers well and in ways that you might never get to know people in real-life.
Yes, Arianna, the Internet does reward obsessives. Just maybe in ways that you’re not used to. The intrinsic satisfaction received from real and honest communication. That said I’m a writer and would love to make a lot of money. I am using my blog as a vehicle toward that goal but I do believe and have written extensively on how blogging is a meritocracy that is in its infancy, evolving, and political blogging especially should be about searching for truth, and I’m not sure that it’s right to profit off blogs yet.
My own argument is weakening each second. I spend more time on blogging than most people do at their jobs. I’m a founder of BIO, and have proven that a quirky pink, personal blog with a pin-up written solely by an ACLU member will be read and talked about. I’m torn between considering this an accomplishment, a joke, or an accident of timing. It’s probably a bit of all. Thing most things are.
And I live in New York so I need as much money as I can make. I made a page with an article from The Times, of course, about the cost of living in New York. Remember that this article is talking about the entire city. Since 2003 which is the last year this article talks about prices have risen and risen and risen.
Most New Yorkers live in smaller apartments and have less disposable income than people in the rest of the country. And if you live in a small apartment, and walk the streets of Manhattan, man, do you need to get out of here for the sake of your sanity. My downstairs neighbors apartment is twice as large as mine. When the building went coop, they remained renters and bought a large country house.
Really the only way to remain sane in Manhattan, and not be run over by cars that are running red lights for fun, is to own a second home, but contrary to myth most Manhattanites aren’t in a position to do that. Any decent Memorial Day to Labor Day rental costs about the same as a down payment on a nice home, or the cost of my dental implants.
That last will be happening in two to four weeks. This has been an amazing experience because I did cry into my blog about it. Between the people in my real-life and my blogging communities an experience that should have been shameful to me was enriching, though not in the monetary sense.
Maybe I don’t think in terms of money as much as I should because I have always had. When I was 20 and my dad almost lost everything including the house, I dropped out of school. Something that I really wanted to do anything, and actually asked for permission as I knew that my dad wouldn’t let me take a loan out and find someway to pay for it.
I will never forget how relieved my parents looked when I asked. I was just 20, as somebody I know won’t be saying much longer, but I already knew that if somebody could make, lose, make and lose several small fortunes he could do it again. It was never about money to me. My mom said that I was the only person he could talk to then. His 20 year old renegade hippie daughter.
Because I knew my dad I could always see the different sides to an argument. When we talked about the stock market and business we also talked about politics, social issues, the war in Viet Nam. He forced me to understand that many sides of an argument have credence.
We had a complex-compound relationship and fought constantly. Yet I feel my father in the streets of New York. It’s a stumbling block in my quest to leave New York. It feels almost as if I was betraying him. I know he would want me to be truly happy, and…..
My father’s best friend’s law offices were on the 86th floor of The Empire State Building. My dad used it as his office and for awhile had an office of his own there. It’s the building that I most associate with my father, and I have always loved it.
Happy 75th birthday to the Eighth Wonder of the World. May you always be there.
I was going to go to Montauk tomorrow which is technically in the town of East Hampton, but a world away. Think it’s too cold for me. It’s always something weather-related to me.
Do think my dad would understand that I’m leaving not because I hate New York but because it’s more expensive, stressful, I saw an underbelly after 9/11 most people didn’t, and maybe most of all, the magical energy, that enchanted my dad for a lifetime, has lessened so much
Stumble it!
I’m not an easy landlord–landlady, whatever. I asked Bone to put in the story he has up today because it’s my favorite of his stories. It’s very beautiful, and very telling. Southern story telling is a weakness of mine. But there’s nothing weak about this story.
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Alice wrote a line that totally cracked me up, though it shouldn’t have. Cervical cancer usually has no early symptoms. Merck has a vaccine. They say that it works best on girls before they are sexually active. How the hell would getting a vaccine make a girl sexually active?
She’s going to be or she’s not going to be, and only locking a girl in a room for life would cause many not to be. Yes I would have to include myself in that first category. My parents would have made sure that I got the vaccine for health reasons. The 60’s were just as scary if not more for parents as they knew nothing about drugs, and maybe really did wait until marriage, and I can say with certainty that my parents didn’t have many sexual partners.
It was my life and all they could do was hold their breath. Then they finally sighed.
This country is being taken over by radical right idiots who want The Constitution to be rewritten. Harry Reid has a petition to stop Frist from rewriting the Constitution with the Federal Gay Marriage Ban.
Not top of my agenda, either. What I mean by that is I think the whole movement to stop birth control and overturn Roe V Wade can kill people. So can many other things such as an illegal war….I remember when AIDS was called the Gay Man’s Disease. I remember what treatments were like. That’s gotten so much better. However, people can still be laid off and lose health insurance after being diagnosed. Health insurance is another issue that can overtly kill and/or bankrupt. So many problems in this country.
But the Constitution has always moved forward
To understand the 2000 Election better I took the relevant parts of the Constitution and the subsequent Amendments. I found it to be a fun exercise. Do admit that my idea of fun can be a bit different than most people. However I think a board game showing how The Constitution moves forward is an excellent idea, that I thought of.
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Riverside Park is a truly amazing place. When I lived on East 63rd would walk through Central Park to get to it. Now I live virtually across the street, and it’s pretty much the one pro for staying in New York–and my friends and family, but…
When I lived on 63rd Street, Trump was building in my neighborhood. I used to call the dust Trump dust and marvel at how he managed to have yellow dust certain times of the year. Well I didn’t know about pollen then. Only had a strange allergy to mold that comes out in rain. However, Riverdale’s something like 65% parkland. When I moved there I was very excited to have a terrace. That’s when I found out what yellow dust was and that I was allergic.
When I moved back to Manhattan I looked for an apartment way above the tree line. Mine faces brownstones from the living room, and the courtyard from the bedroom. Seemed perfect as my building doesn’t have trees in the courtyard and most appear to be fake.
For the first time yellow dust has invaded my apartment. Have to put on a mask and gloves to dust. Am getting new air conditioners and sadly will use them with the windows closed,. I love my cross vent. Both the living room and the bedroom have two large windows, and the bathrooms both have one, During the fall and early to mid spring, sometimes in summer, I get salt breezes from the Hudson It’s wonderful. Putting air conditioners in two windows both messes up the asthetics and the cross vent.
Yesterday, Wednesday, I felt officially weird. Even cancelled dinner plans at the Boat Basin in the park because I had no idea what was wrong. Truly thought I was suffering from some unknown illness that inhibited my ability to read the print while typing and to think. Actually was a bit scared.
Went downstairs this morning. Fernando the doorman could barely talk as he has a sinus infection caused by allergies. Fernando not being able to talk is a truly sad sight.
I walked out of the building, and immediately sneezed three times. Yes I’m a triple sneezer. My sister pointed out years ago that I say “achoo” when I sneeze. Have tried to do the “achoo” “ajew” “achoo” “ajew” from Annie Hall and usually can’t.
After three more triples I made it to the pharmacy where I think I bought every small thing of Puffs–so I can cover the entire bottom of my face. Began to sneeze as soon as I walked into the pharmacy. Now, it could have been me as I really wasn’t feeling well, but I’m pretty sure that at least a third of the people in the pharmacy were sneezing. Okay, told myself that it’s a pharmacy.
Went next door to FedEx, began sneezing, so did other people. Went to meet some friends at the Boat Basin for lunch, we all sneezed our way through lunch. Maybe those were just pity sneezes.
Couldn’t go into Fairway which is a great barometer of just about everything as the store is always so crowded and people bump into you, curse and demand an apology. You get used to it. Though Fairway looks dirty, its turn over rate is amazing, they have foods you can’t get elsewhere, and the lines are incredibly managed. But I just couldn’t do it. Felt like the biggest chore in the world.
Went into Citarella where I proceeded to buy tons of soup. Never drink juice, fruit, but they have fresh squeezed blood orange juice. It’s good. Have already drank half a quart. Their soups are excellent. We do have great soup in New York. Love diner pea soup, really good hot and sour soup and soup from Hale and Hearty.
Just seemed like every third person was sneezing. Haven’t sneezed since I came home, but I did take a long hot shower.
Had all kinds of horrible thoughts about how quickly the Avian Flu could pass through New York since many people didn’t have tissues or wipes. If you don’t want to carry tissues, alcohol wipes take no room, might not feel great but…
Then I began to think of all the ways people could put bio-hazardous into New York’s dust. Between pollen and construction dust, who would know?
This is the last Will & Grace a program I was never into, but kind of relate to a bit too much to.
I think that the long weekend of rest I was planning to take from the winter of 05 to now has finally been forced upon me. But damn, I have all these new things to worry about.
Just saw the last Will & Grace. Made me happy but sad that they ended up with a happy ending, and my direct generation of Gay friends–all gone.
Some of the vibrancy left my life too early. It was much more colorful.
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Have always assumed that Jimmy Hoffa was buried in the Meadowlands, but much more importantly have stayed up nights wondering who or what Meadow Soprano was named for. Not nights, maybe two minutes, but.
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Am going to stop getting up at dawn to see if somehow Karl Rove was indicted. As I go to sleep late, Karl’s making me chronically sleep deprived. Know he wouldn’t be indicted at five AM, but hey, you just never know.
Stumble it!
Did this post August 1, 2005, when I was in Ken Grandlund’s county, San Diego. Ken’s the first blogger running for Congress that I know. Actually Ken was one of the first bloggers that I knew. Even if you don’t live in San Diego, you can help. Ken’s a good person, very intelligent and thinks for himself. It’s really exciting that this community we’re spawning has spawned a Congressional candidate
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Visit my renter. He’s much nicer than I am, and should probably be charging me.
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Sar’s guest this week is EW on the telecommunication industry–an industry I cut my professional teeth working in.
More personally, I have never been a patient person. When I began the dental implant procedure, they said that I would learn patience. I did. But now with only two and a half to four weeks to go, I have run of out patience.
If I bitch into my blog, that could be perceived as being whiny. If I keep putting posts in like this, I can be perceived as negative and bitter.
I don’t think this is either a negative or bitter post.
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I do believe that our greatest legacy is what we accomplish on this earth. We, as in the individual. As Cooper, the daughter I would have wished for said, it does put an unfair burden on the child to consider them a “legacy.” That’s a hospital wing or something.
To truly over simplify, people aren’t objects. Children don’t belong to their parents. To tell a child “you are my legacy,” is one of the cruelest things that a parent could do to a child. To tell a child, I will live on through your memories is something I personally wouldn’t do to a minor child unless I were dying and my child knew and understood that, but it implies that you are leaving your child a treasure of wonderful memories, I hope, and neither expect nor want your child to become president.
I do feel strongly about this as I do hope to leave this earth one day having made it a bit better for my being here. And I don’t have kids. We live in a regressing society. I do feel implored to bring up views that aren’t mainstream, because when times are tough, the weak hide behind “family values.”
Every morning this week I have jumped out of bed to see if Karl Rove had been indicted yet. President Bush had promised to sideline any person who is under investigation, let’s never forget that. He didn’t. Doesn’t matter if Rove is innocent or guilty; it matters that Bush went against his own word. People forget that. To go against your own promise is something that I can’t forgive nor would want to.
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There’s a lesson for the high school graduates of today. When all is said and done, the most important part of your legacy will be the kind of kids you raised. It’s the only thing that will matter to you – or to anyone else.
This was in an op-ed piece in the San Diego Union-Tribune by Rueben Navarrette, Jr. I sent him an email thanking him for confirming my worst fear. Childless, so what will my legacy be? Obviously I’m a zilch to him.
I’m sorry but I just looked at the quote in print, and it is so stupid I can’t believe that I felt the need to answer it. But since he’s a columnist in the largest paper in California’s second largest city obviously people read him. I hope that he understands how unfeeling and sick that looks. Now I will go on…
The thing is that you never know how your children will turn out. When I was growing up our neighbors had three children; two were leaders in school and became very successful; the third is a career criminal. Our neighbors had to move in the middle of the night and not leave a return address as David would pick the locks and rob them of everything. Three children raised in the same house by the same parents with the same amount of attention and love. Is there legacy going to be the two great kids or the one bad one?
What happens if you have a disabled child, or a child that’s injured in an accident? Oh but that’s not what he meant. Of course those parents will have a wonderful legacy; they had such a difficult time raising those children. But he didn’t say that.
Mr. Navaratte was talking about his 20th high school reunion. He said that when he went to his tenth people were still establishing themselves, and from the article didn’t seem to be parents yet. That sweet faced adorable ten year old girl, who seems so happy and filled with potential. Then her hormones kick in, and despite the best parenting in the world, she turns to heroin. Won’t happen, you say. Can’t happen to a child raised in a great home with loving parents who know how to establish boundaries, limitations, and are religious. Sure does happen. Even (gasp, shock) among home schooled kids.
I am so tired of the smug superiority of parents who know everything. When I was with Zachary I made a conscious decision not to have children. Neither he nor I were ready to be parents. He wanted children; they would help save him from further despair and hurt. I might have been young but I wasn’t a fool.
Later I had other opportunities to become a parent. Thank god for birth control. I knew that I had a tendency to pick unstable though beautiful and bright men. Despite what my therapist de jour said, I didn’t think that it reflected well on my maturity. My next fiancee took me to where his father had killed himself. We had to cross a creek and a hill to get to the exact spot. He hadn’t told me where we going or why. I just stood there open mouthed and speechless. Though I had suspected that this relationship wasn’t going to last, I knew at that moment that it was over.
My best friend’s marriage to the father of her child was over by the time Little Luce was three. I can’t and won’t imagine the world without Little Luce, but I know how hard life has been for Lucia. She has struggled so that Little Luce could live the life of a privileged city child. I’m not talking private schools, and sleep away camp, expensive clothes and vacations. Tutoring, braces, even going to museums and the movies–it all adds up. Lucia has given up much of her social life, vacations, and many other things so Little Luce can have.
I never wanted to be a single parent. Call me selfish, but I always knew how hard it would be. I never needed a child to define me or to make me feel complete. When I was an SSI Claims Rep, I kept a picture of Little Luce on my desk and claimed her as mine so I wouldn’t have to listen to claimants tell me how incomplete my life was without children. Yes, I could have answered them rather rudely, but I didn’t want to. Yes I could have declared the subject off limits, but I worked in a bad neighborhood in the Bronx during drive-by-shooting days. The only thing that the women had was their children and I wasn’t going to take their pride away anymore than it had been or was taken away by different agencies.
I might be selfish but I’m not unstable. I don’t think that having a child would have made more mature, more selfless, more wonderful, more productive, or happier. I’m not denying the joy a child might have added. As an adoptee, I know giving birth isn’t the mark of a mother; I know that fathers add immeasurably to a family.
But our legacies will be based on our accomplishments; our compassion; what we did to to help make the world or a little corner of it better. Our legacies are based on our total lives, and how our kids ended up, well, many times they became brain surgeons despite our awful parenting, or career criminals despite our great parenting.
Stumble it!
I called my niece who properly chastised me for calling during American Idol. Her mother hated my commercial TV taste. Times change….
I have a renter. Am not the greatest landlord as my sidebars are so cluttered, I feel like I’m renting space in a trashy trailer, not an end glass and steel triplex townhouse condo. Owning a condo like that and being a guest on Letterman are two of my biggest goals in life. For a New Yorker the end glass, steel triplex townhouse condo is a very big goal as it would involve coming into money suddenly so I could have a second home home, or making the decision to sell, and then actually doing it.
Don’t remember how I met my renter, Bone. Measured by blog years, it was awhile ago. One of the best things about blogging is watching people evolve. Bone has evolved greatly as a writer.
He says that Courting feels like it’s close to a big city yet homey like Newhart’s lodge. Don’t think I ever mentioned that Bob Newhart teaching the hokey-pokey was probably the funniest thing I have ever seen on TV. I still double over in laughter when I think about it. Every time I have tried to tell somebody about that episode, I begin laughing, and can’t stop. Fortunately most people have seen it.
Bone is still forever trying to figure out what girls like and what they might like about him. I wrote the initial description in the post below, almost six months ago.
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Cooper* can rent my blog, despite who her daddy is. Yes we’re going to burn him
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Would like to say now that Mother’s Day is over, I think that it’s the cruelest day of the year for women who have neither mothers nor children. Can’t imagine what it’s like for somebody who desperately wants a child. I picture my mom married for eleven years before I was adopted and the pain she would feel. People thought nothing of asking the sickest most personal questions. She would never show her unhappiness.
My mom was a lady in every sense of the word. But she told me stories that made me cry. She no longer felt sad as she claimed to have the two most wonderful daughters in the world. We had the best mom. Most of the time I can think about her without crying or feeling too badly. I can separate her death from the horrors that happened a month earlier.
Both the Federal Government and everybody involved in rebuilding downtown must stop talking about 9/11 so often. For many of us it’s just not healthy. Nobody will ever forget, but we don’t have to rehash it all the time.
I know that I say that often but September 2001 to January 2003 are times I would rather gloss over. Yes I so want to be shallow. Just about that time frame.
I would like to remember 9/11 in September, that once most glorious of months in New York.
September 9 was the last perfect Sunday. Lucia and I were on a friends roof deck. I looked for all our friends apartment buildings. I looked at the Ramapo Mountains in New Jersey, and mistook them for the Catskills. A common mistake, I would assume. I didn’t look for The Towers. Yes, damn it, I felt guilty.
Unfortunately I do read newspapers and local magazines. Thinking of stopping that. But I can’t. My parents ghosts would haunt me too much.
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Last night must have been the trimonthly loon meet. I delete comments without thought and put emails in spam if they’re designed to personally hurt me. The mere act of blogging is a bit vain as there’s the implied belief that other people will want to see your blog. Yes I am slightly self absorbed and slightly vain.
My pin-up is far from archaic. Alberto Vargas the artist was brilliant, and pin-up art makes a statement. I am a very straight woman. I am a feminist and secure in that, my ability to earn a good living, and my sexuality. Received a very hostile email, saying that my “masthead is,,the artistic equivalent of Barbera Striseland, deliberately misspelled, perhaps that might occasion a thought or two,” The person also said I should do this as I say I’m not a gay male.
Would love for somebody to explain the logic behind that email. Am proud of my template. Would be proud if I were a Gay male, though I think the email author meant Transvestite. When people trash other people should at least get their sub genders right. And would be proud if I were a Transvestite. But I’m a straight woman. Am proud to be that.
Many real men read pink blogs. I know from the comments.
Just came back from a two hour dental visit so I’m in rare form. Can’t use Novocaine in these last few visits, too many teeth involved, so pain is me.
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If I haven’t been to your blogs recently, I am sorry. This is a very busy week. Never did get to my James Spader film festival.
Seem to enjoy spending rare days with nothing pressing to do fighting people who believe that my generation is the scourge of the earth. I will say this until I die.
All we have in common is an age range.
To blame “baby boomers” for all present problems is a bit like blaming your mother when you had a bad day in First Grade that was made worse by the ice cream truck being late.
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On Thursday’s Sar, a far better blog hostess than I could ever hope to be, has a guest who writes a post and poses an interesting question. Found Lego’s post and question on striking a balance between idealism and realism to be particularly apt these days. I liked my response, and yes my dawg, am very aware of the true Conservative/Liberal quandary.
However, I never labelled myself. I have been labelled as a liberal, and now proudly use that word because I believe the entire Bush admin, and that includes such people as Dobson and Frist to me, are people lacking in true morals and ethics. I encourage comments that thoughtfully disagree; I delete comments that talk about my lack of a moral center etc. And I’m going to be in a bitch of a mood later and tomorrow. I wouldn’t want to upset me.
I think that we as individuals have to begin to admit when we make mistakes, to admit to lying and most important to take actions to fix that.
We have lost the sense or more truly the reality of personal culpability, and that gives license for leaders to lie, or to fix their lies with truth
Once we begin to accept responsibility for our own action or inertia, we can begin to understand that to err is to be human, and we can more readily accept imperfections in others while demanding that they be truthful and live up to their responsibilities
We seem to expect other people to change while we don’t have to. Why should we expect our country’s astoundingly sad indicators to change in such areas as literacy, life expectancy, and other things that shouldn’t even be a question for a country that once ruled, when each of us believes that it is the other person’s responsibility to change?
I believe that “me, me, me” is fine–once we have lived up to the above. Then “me, me and more me” goes to a different level as we have satisfied our wants while having helped others.
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And every day that Karl Rove isn’t indicted, that we remain in Iraq, that we allow this country to rot is a day wasted.
*Cooper’s daddy is Rove. She has been spending too much time around DC lately.
Stumble it!
