This is fiction. Used three words: blanket, stand (V), cautious, and wrote it in half hour. I did four using these words but the first three seemed to be things that I would like to to make into longer posts.

See Sar on My Musical Highway Project. She did pick the single best song in the world. OCeallaigh is Sar’s guest today for a fascinating look at product placement, uh, TV commercials and Spam

I am staring at myself in the bathroom mirror. It is something that I can do for hours while sipping coffee and lighting cigarettes that I hold, but don’t smoke. If it’s night I will smoke a joint, and drink water. I don’t really look at myself.

The bathrooms are the only private places in the loft. We have three: one for him; one for me; and one for company. Bathrooms are one of the few things we agree on. I tell people that I had agreed to marry him because he was the only man I could find in the early 80’s who valued separate huge bathrooms as much as I did. They think I’m joking.

Our loft has been photographed for many shelter magazines. It has exposed pipes, gleaming floors, a chef’s open kitchen, boldly colored walls including some neon, and colorful furniture. When people stay over we close the steel grating eight feet before the bed.

I tell him that the 80’s have been over for sixteen years, it’s time for walls and warmth. He doesn’t even like the colonial patchwork blanket I bought to hang over my couch in the part of the loft called my study.

He insists that our loft is a modern classic and will stand the time test. I think it’s so retro it might come back.

It’s more than a lack of walls, of course. We agree on such few things yet our conversations are interesting. The sex is even good. I have never felt in love with him.

Our conversations have become less and less frequent as has the sex. We shine with company. Our loft is a Thursday night, Sunday afternoon salon.

Our secret, something we both knew before ever meeting, is not to try to host, but to enjoy ourselves. I often cook something in advance, but we have people to do everything.

I take the cigarette out of the Lalique ashtray, and wonder if I have ever really been in love. I don’t think so.

Other women would leave. They would search for a grand love, or at least an apartment that has doors in more places than the bathrooms. True we have another house in Montauk, and it has three stories and two bedrooms. Other women would still yearn for grand romance, for a man she can stand to talk to more than once a week and with company. We don’t have kids. I’m not dependent on him. Why am I with him?

I feel lost and lonely in the loft on West Street in Tribeca, and find myself spending more and more time in the house in Montauk where my office overlooks the ocean.

The large windows facing the Hudson make the loft worthwile. I watch cargo boats drifting over the river, tall ships, cruise boats, it is a never ending symphony of flowing water and objects.

I put the cigarette in my mouth and begin to choke as they never get close to my mouth. After I recover, I realize that I will never leave. I’m much too cautious.

Stumble it!

When I was 20, I dropped out of college for the first but not the last time. Got a job for a publishing company and a friend found me an apartment with his friend.

It was my first apartment without he who has played a zillion roles, though he did move in with his best friend.

Before I moved in, I was staying at my parents house, and noticed my Mom at her kitchen office desk. She had a list and was making phone calls. “Pia’s moving to Stuy Town.”

The list was long and consisted of all her friends and our relatives who had lived in Stuyvesant Town or it’s slightly more upscale neighbor, Peter Cooper Village, in their salad days.

When I moved there, in 1970, it was in bad condition. I lived on 14th Street and Avenue B, which wasn’t today’s Alphabet Town, but a bad ass place in every way.

We paid $160 for a three bedroom apartment. It was cheap even then. My roommate’s uncle, the leaseholder, had to leave NY in a hurry. Think he had been something big in the police.

Almost every New Yorker has a Stuy Town or Peter Cooper Village connection. It helped keep the middle class in the city. Generations of families have lived there since 1947. They are middle class oasis’s

Please understand something about Manhattan. People who make between 50k and 70k a year, have a kid and an apartment, can’t save, can’t take half-decent vacations, and can’t live full and enjoyable lives.

Many very rich people are moving here. So? What are they doing for us?
Don’t tell me that they’re expanding our tax base. Too many loopholes.

Many new condos have ten year or more tax abatement’s. How does that help the city? The people who buy the condos usually stay for part of the year. Their primary residence, where they pay taxes, if they do, is another country–used to know the tax rules, forget, or Florida or another low/no tax state.

The sale of Stuy Town and Peter Cooper will hasten Manhattan’s decline. An Island that consists of the very rich and the poor can’t survive. The incredible prices that we pay for every day items have begun to trickle to the less trendy parts of the outer boroughs.

On this the first anniversary of the levees, I ask the Bush administration: who the f–k they think they are. They have to have seen how much prices have gone up in New York since 9/11. They have to have seen what has happened to New Orleans.

Do they care? I think not. The only thing that will help our country regain its former glory is voting every person who doesn’t see how these two events have demoralized so many people, out of office. Of course much more has happened to show why we need a complete change of leadership, but these events show in detail, the ineptness of the Bush Regime and most people in both Houses.

We also need to change how we look at problems. During the depression, Harry Hopkins was able to begin the WPA because there was no red tape to snip. The WPA put people to work at real jobs, not make work. Most of the art work is magnificent, and still around. The buildings they built are wonders.

Maybe we need fewer regulations. Maybe the new regulations could be about ethics and morals; real ones, not the radical rights’s determination to end The First Amendment and make us all believe in what they believe.

We’re regulated to death. But who do the regulations help? We need creative critical thinkers in power, not politicians.

We need innovative solutions to long term problems. We are a country of vast resources yet we have a growing illiteracy problem, a growing obesity problem, a growing diabetes problem, a growing asthma problem. For the first time, children born now aren’t expected to live as long as their parents. They could live much longer than their parents if the problems I mentioned aren’t conquered. Many inner city schools no longer have gyms. Kids would rather be on computers than outside.

Of course all the girls I know well exercise because they don’t want to be fat at 40. Children learn from their parents. If their parents can’t set good examples because they work too damn much, or have problems, we can’t expect society to take over. Or can we? Maybe the earned income credit can be higher in cities such as New York. That would help one person I know very much.

Over 40 years ago, Michael Harrington wrote a seminal book The Other America Unfortunately the problems he brought up are still true today. Nathan Glazier and Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote Beyond the Melting Pot in 1963

I might not agree with everything that they said, and they did change things in later editions, but they laid problems out in such a way that solutions might have happened.

We need more people like Harry Hopkins, a personal hero of mine. We need creativity and people who think outside all boxes.

New York has never looked better. Beyond the facade, though….We’re dying.

Nobody could have anticipated, I hope, what happened four years, eleven months, and thirteen days ago. But the costs of 9/11 should be shared by the entire nation as should the costs of Katrina.

Our costs have gone up so rapidly and so much because the suppliers costs have gone up. But salaries haven’t. Unless you’re trading stocks, and bonds, the money people have been making is on paper, and bonds pay half what they did four years ago. Sorry, but I know that too well.

Here’s a link to an article that shows what’s really happening in this city. While The Bronx might have the lowest median income of any urban county, it has high prices–article doesn’t state that. Rents are going up everywhere

Explain why I should be a poster child for a city that has more problems than any newspaper or magazine dare admit? New York is a wonderful place to live, if you have a huge amount of disposable income, and if you do, if you don’t care about your neighbors or your city.

I have done my bit. I lived here through the 70’s and early 80’s; then the next recession began in October 87 through 94 when things began to improve. People have short memories. They seem to think New York was always a Disney/Rouse production.

Many people think that my generation the Baby Boomers turned into Yuppies after Viet Nam. We did. We also helped stop that war. We turned inner cities around. We revived failing school systems. We did many things that might not be construed as political but are necessary for a good quality of life.

Yes many baby boomers are politicians. Most aren’t my set of baby boomers My baby boomers aren’t building luxury condos that Paris Hilton could afford.

Let’s get real here. The generation before us, the so called silent generation were called that for a reason. GenX isn’t much younger than us. They could be part of the solution if they chose to be. Paris Hilton could be part of the solution.

For the first time “fame” is being studied. As people want to become famous for the sake of fame without actually doing anything. What about a Survivor that shows people working in very poor American counties?

Don’t blame baby boomers for all our problems because you woke up one day at 30 and realized that things in this country stink. By the time most of us were 30, Viet Nam had ended. We worked against the oil problems, but people don’t remember that. It’s damn hard to defeat corporate America and only a small percentile of baby boomers are CEO’s or COO’s or whatever.

Most people who read Courting know that I’m not big on heaping praise on Baby Boomers. We did do much, and that should be acknowledged, not spit on.

We wanted to live in decent cities. We wanted our children to grow up experiencing much. Perhaps in some ways we succeeded too well. If younger generations had worked as hard as we did from the time we were teenagers, maybe many problems could have been solved. Think about that while you cast blame at us.

It’s time for the generations that came after us to stop casting blame and take a good look at themselves. Many people didn’t become involved until they had established themselves in a career. We didn’t have that luxury as there were too many of us and too few jobs that were equal to our level of education.

We had to look for creative ways to make money because we didn’t want to live with our parents who wouldn’t usually cook for us or do our laundry. I once asked. My mother told me that I knew where the laundry machine was.

When I lived in Cambridge I had eight roommates. We lived frugally. I’m not saying that we were great examples. I’m saying that we didn’t know about living in luxury even if we had when we lived with our parents.

When I moved back to New York, I moved to a city that was out of control. I’m damn proud to be part of a generation that, along with the generations before us, brought it back.

All the improvements have come from private money, our taxes, our bonds, and our sweat. People don’t seem to understand that we worked hard to make New York a city tourists could love.

We didn’t see our promised aid for three years. Why should it be any different for New Orleans? I wish that it were, but with this government?

Haven’t said this in a long time, but on the anniversary of the levees, I can. Karl Rove, you are one sick puppy. Can’t help hating that man for what he said about “liberals,” and everything we learned next.

A year ago tonight I saw Light in the Piazza All I did was cry and say to my friend, “the levees, the levees.” He thought that I was crazy. Apologized a few days later.

If I knew intuitively understood what the levees symbolized what the hell was Condi Rice doing seeing Spamalot the next night?

And let’s not forget Bush “good job Brownie.”

Trolls aren’t welcome here. I don’t debate but do delete.

I want my city back, and that’s the real truth.

This post was partially inspired by the impending sale of Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village, and partially by a post Cooper wrote last year.

She was more eloquent. I’m too angry. And yes this is non-linear.

“Great job, Bushie. ”

As my boyfriend Zachary who was from New Orleans used to say:
“Where I come from we have an expression,’Don’t pee on me and call it rain.”

And those who don’t remember history, truly are doomed to repeat it.

This is the type of post that I can obsessively add to and subtract from all day. So I’m going out. Tomorrow, I will have fiction”
Beginning the week of 9/11 Courting will turn into an exciting zine for three weeks, while I ponder the really important things in life, such as why do I have my best thoughts in the shower and then promptly forget them?” I know, endorphins, but still.

Stumble it!

Today during TITTMTJanet asked who your first crush was on. I can’t help it, I was eight and thought Castro was hot.

Cooper has an amazing post.

I seem to be a failure as a commenter lately. The people that I know are so much more clever than I am. It pains me to admit that but it is truth is truth. Can’t be clever, can’t be flirtatious, can’t even be funny.

And when I can think of the perfect comment, so infrequently, somebody invariably beats me too it. Or comes later and says it more intellectually, more cleverly, with more humor. I have big comment issues, and I don’t think that there is yet a therapy or a pill for blogging comment issues. Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

I am beginning a digital photography class soon. Don’t know why I need to apologize for the one photograph I could put in correctly.

From last summer. We call the restaurant, “the club house,” because the restaurant is surrounded by club type amenities. Such as a walkway, bike path, a pier, kayacking, a wonderful river. Okay it’s not like any club you know, but…

Most people in Manhattan have vivid imaginations. I made a two room studio into five rooms without losing visceral or real space.

The sun better stay out because I need a walk and don’t like to run out just because the sun has decided to make an appearance.

I am moving. Just not yet. Have much to do, and it would be disruptive. I always knew that. Didn’t want to admit it. Because I love this city, but it eats money and rains too much.

Ever read your own writing and think, boring? Never used to happen to me. Does now. I have become too mainstream, and I’m not a center of the road person.

I want to put images in my blog with a succinct line or two. I want to write experimental fiction. James Spader is my favorite actor. Yes I dream that he reads my blog. No, I don’t. Yes I do. It’s too scary to think about.

This medium makes us all equals. It can help redefine who we are. We can put on whatever persona we want to. Some of us are so defined that we can’t fake personas. I can only do my four or five real ones. They’re good.

I am afraid to dig down to the depths. That never used to happen.

I have lined up a group of great bloggers for two or three weeks beginning 9/11, a day I will be doing other things vital for my life. Think maybe it should be a day for new beginnings. Hope it doesn’t rain. But I can’t complain about the rain because South Florida is gearing for a hurriciane. When the weather is off limits….what’s left?

The important things in life: the mundanities and minutia of relationships, all kinds of relationships. I have always known that and always cared greatly about family and friends, but I was determined to be able to live a completely solitary life. So that when I get old, if I get old, I won’t be disappointed by people. Makes no sense and it makes perfect sense.

I will continue Courting. It’s an important part of my life, but I need to be fresh, and fearless.

I need to forget about the judgemental part of the blogging world, for they are less than nothing. I need to remember that.

Great people read Courting. Very good people.

I want to put in writing worthy of them.

Tuesday morning. I need sun. But that has always been the last week of August quandary. My friends wanted to go away then to celebrate having made it through summer. I didn’t as I love summer, never want it to go away, and knew the odds for bad weather were best now.

People spend their lives dreaming of moving to Manhattan. i understand that.
I don’t want to destroy that dream. But this is my reality. My friends are returning. I will be saner when I have people that I can hang with.

Stumble it!

Today is Shayna’s first year bloggevarsary. She asks that you bring a song that reminds you of her. Going to begin charging her a plugging fee

Have seven or eight bloggers who have agreed to guest blog from 9/11-9/22, if two or three more people volunteer, I can stretch it out another week. This time away from my blog means a great deal to me. Need to focus without interruptions on my book.

I’m not going to be a part of the 2,996 project though I believe it to be very worthy as it celebrates the lives of the victims and not their families grief. Too personally painful.

Stumble it!

One of my bigger and sicker goals in blogging was to beat “blogs for Terri” in TTLB. She’s been dead for over a year. The woman was victimized while in suspended life. Her name shouldn’t be used for any purpose now. Yes that sickens me

Well I beat “Blogs for…”, and freely admit that I like links. Links help bloggers get to know each other. Links help bloggers see similiarities more than differences. Links are a good thing. Link me, and let me know Trolls aren’t welcomed here and will be deleted.

Your Fortune Is

War does not determine who is right, war determine who is left.

This was too good, I couldn’t resist it, and should have saved it for Monday. Could have been a whole post, damn. It is now.

I stole this from G who stole it from Sar

Am a finalist in Sar’s caption contest. In the crossover, crossover promotion department, Sar is the guest on My Musical Highway. She picked my number one song. I own every version of it Had Zevon on the brain. So go to My Musical Highway

It’s a rainy New York weekend. I am a barometer, so I have a humidity headache, despite the AC. It’s probably not warm out, because hot weather humidity makes me feel great.

Since I’m a barometer, I’m going back to bed to see if the new salt lamps do any good. Pretty. Smell like ocean salt,

And read and think about the fortune cookie.

Continued on a horrible Sunday after thirteen hours sleep.

This is the first time I lost most of a post after posting it. I want to cry or kill myself or do both at once. Neither is a very productive answer so….

I am looking for six guest bloggers for two weeks. I would prefer them to be consecutive but….You will have your post on Courting for two days unless it’s Friday and then you will have the whole weekend.

Can’t do the weeks that the High Holy Days are in, as I do celebrate them, and need weeks where I can work without interruption and not think about Courting.

It’s not that I dislike blogging at all. It becomes a burden because I have the whole alphabet soup of disorders. I realize now that I should have never mentioned them. But mentioning them has helped other people. I keep wishing that somebody will come along who either has them or knows where I can get help.

It’s horrible to be an adult with these problems as you’re supposed to keep a stiff upper lip and consign yourself to not experiencing everything life has to offer. Refused that consignment, obviously, except that I didn’t have kids because I was too afraid that I would make a lousy parent.

Think everything in life goes back to Middle School. I am going to see an Eighth grade teacher who has a much higher position now, and ask why she thought that it was too cool and too much fun to lead kids in making fun of me. Know that sounds stupid, but I need to confront and make peace with the past. My school was very much like the one in this book. So similiar, well…

I’m sure that most people don’t but sometimes I screw up a link. Did. Almost waited for the first person to comment to tell me so. Some people love to comment to point out mistakes. I find my mistakes; it’s my good points that can be hard for me to remember. But since my incredible insight that New York would be the most wonderful place to live in if it didn’t eat money, I’m remembering more and more of my great qualities.

Because I have lived here most of my life. And yes, it’s true, if you can establish networks and a good life in New York, you can anywhere. Did I just really use the word “network” for friendship etc?

Jerry Rubin the ex-Yippie, used to rent the Pallidium on East 14th Street during its waning days for networking events where everybody paid 20 I think and stood around exchanging business cards. Was forced to go once, was bored to death, and people thought it was cool. Frankly I’m much more of an Abie Hoffman person myself. His last public appearance was at a high school very similiar to the one in the above book.

My Mom went. I was told that she stopped people who were booing by telling them that they were booing their own children, brothers and sisters, or um, some parents of kids who had guts. I was told this by her, so…but unlike my Dad she never told a story for the sake of a good story.

However, even in the 80’s I knew one day I would have to pass a James Frey test. I had the story verified by four of her best friends. We’re coming up to her time of year. Her birth and death. Somehow I think that this year I can handle it and remember her life much more than her death. Have to thank the friends that I have made blogging for that. Especially one. So thanks TonyG.

Many people think that I’m forward, brash and brazen. Have to force myself to do more in the blogging world than just post. Love to write, hate the business of blogging–business isn’t the right word as most of us haven’t made a cent off blogging.

Want to write so many different things, and try so many styles. Know that some people in the political blogging world think that it was selfish of me to give up political blogging at a time like this.

Easy for them to say. They haven’t wanted only to write their entire lives and not be able to do it because of organizational problems. I can now, and if I can break out, then can’t I help more efficently?

Do people realize that each time I discussed a problem of mine I relived it? And that’s not fun. I was raped and felt nothing. Ten years later I lived with a thing that tried to abuse me. I felt rage as I had never experienced it before. Though even my father assumed that I was the cause of the problems, the rage was a good thing. It stopped me from being physically abused. Something that my Dad later understood.

For all my outward sophistication, I was a mess. It’s taken a lifetime to get myself to a space where I can be productive on my own, and I intend to go far.

Blogging has helped me look at my problems through the mirror of the blogosphere. It’s also allowed me to understand that I’m in much better shape and in a much better position than many people.

Call me selfish; call me too late. I really don’t care because I know that my life and my experiences have brought me to a point where I can actually stand my own writing. And yes, am finally ready to go the whole nine yards. Now I have to do the laundry.

Since almost everybody I know has been out of town this past week and are coming home late tomorrow night, I want to do something fun. Not that visiting with friends and relatives isn’t fun, it is. And my niece and I have developed a very special relationship.

After three days of rain even the Park will suffice. Either of them, Central or Riverside.

Central Park had my childhood and youth, but I always knew that Riverside Park was my future. Though I still plan on leaving New York, would love to be able to maintain my apartment. Can’t even hate Donald Trump anymore as he gave the city, was forced to, the Trump Pier.

Used to call gold dust that I would see all over the city Trump dust. How the hell did I know that it was pollen? Know it now all too well.

Sometime in September I will have photos of me. So you can see the face behind the Courting image. Frankly, I like my face better.

Stumble it!

Keep forgetting that I’m a finalist in Sar’s caption contest. As I haven’t even voted for myself, but once, and know everybody….though I have never actually won anything bloggingwise.

The absolute worst thing about my trip was losing my camera. Packed and repacked so many times, I think I might have left it in the room. Had it there as I had been taking early morning pictures of the pier and other morning smoggy Santa Monica sights. The physical city is perfection. I didn’t realize that you could carry more than a laptop, keys, a cell. Life’s essentials. So is a camera

I believe that the man who went to inspect my room took it. As soon as I arrived home I checked my luggage. Magical and delusional thinking comes in real handy at times. Had convinced myself that I had packed it in one of my packing/unpacking/packing rampages.

Called the hotel and was given many voice mails. Called them. Nobody got back. When I called back the last time was told that nobody had it. Bull.

I was a wreck Sunday. I spend most of my life doing things that I think of as work, though pleasurable, and much more at times as those who have read Obsession know. Photography is something I do just for me. I don’t care if it’s not perfect, I just enjoy composing photos. Sometimes they feel more personal than writing. That said I’m going to begin a photo blogger blog Courting Destiny: Pia’s New York I have a whole line of Courting Destiny books planned: Courting Destiny: stories from the blog, two memoirs and another book. I day dream big, and then put the dreams in action. Why else dream?

Monday and Tuesday I accomplished many little things. I don’t need ID in the hood because everybody either knows me or has seen me. Which is good because my non-drivers license is somewhere in my apartment, just haven’t found it.

I hated having to use my passport in California, and was going to go to the express DMV on West 34th Street, after going to B&H, the best photography store in the world.

I was going to walk but am no longer used to summer humidity, one of my favorite things in the world. It’s semi tropical and refreshes me. But I had been jet lagged, something I don’t usually feel, and didn’t trust myself though it’s only about two point five miles each way

When I got off the subway at Penn Station I saw more National Guard than usual. As my best friend works in Penn Plaza and Penn Station can’t be secured, I worry. She’s in Myrtle Beach, so obviously we couldn’t meet for our usual lunch before Macy’s or B&H. Okay, we like to look at the serious photographers in the store. But less than buying equipment

When I was nearing Eighth Avenue I heard an explosion. We all have that second of panic when we hear noises like that. Especially in a prime target area. Used to get emails making fun of the terrorist warnings. Don’t believe them, but can’t find them funny. At the same time I believe everything.
Yesterday made me think I might need to see a 9/11 movie. To take everything slightly more seriously again.

Lucia hadn’t believed me when I told her about the implosion. Now she has pacts with co-workers. Some are good: get out at every fire drill siren, etc.; one is a pact to jump out the window. Rodney Gilles, the last cop to be sorta found, his gun and shield; his mother worked with Lucia. Believe that she took early retirement.

I continued walking up the block because I really really wanted the camera. Have a New Yorker’s curiosity.

Saw a fire emanating from a manhole on West 35th Street just as three Hassidic, (Ultra Orthodox Jews) men and three Black men ran out of the store in tandem. I began to smile, because that would have been so unusual thirteen years ago. But life, and 9/11 changed everything.

Then I began to think. Did they expect the street to blow up? Fortunately some more men came from the site. It was just a transformer fire. Apparently things like that happened often when I was away. They were expecting Con Ed to black out the neighborhood. Was glad to hear this as I planned to go into the store under any circumstances

The staff was on edge but great. As I had heard it and then saw the fire start, they gave my order priority. I have never met utra-Orthodox and Hassids who flirt with women before. At the old, missed in a sick way, 47th Street Photo, they would avert their eyes when they looked at me. Think they try to be the opposite of 47th Photo.

I wasn’t on edge but decided to skip the DMV. I had a new camera and company coming over The one person I know who is in town now, Rafe.

Had to stop at Macy’s. There was a pair of silver and pink Nike’s I have been lusting after. While I am very used to the MBT’s, I couldn’t walk as fast in an emergency, and in rain, sleet, too many leaves and much more they would be useless.

One pair was left. They fit. I gave the salesman my credit card and passport. He looked at the truly awful picture where my face manages to look fat and haggard at once. “Beautiful,” he said, not in the old New York’s manner. Been so long since I heard it, I forget how I would spell it. He was without doubt a child of the inner three boroughs. Can always tell.

Then he looked at me. My hair was in quickly made modern pony tail. Discovered this summer that women over 40 can look great in them. The salesman was anywhere from twelve to 20 years younger me.

“Classy. You have the whole package.” Then he asked me what I was doing for dinner.

“Home.”

“Can I take you another night?”

“That’s sweet.” I smiled at him as I walked away.

This is what scared and attracted me to New York when I was young, and still can. Men can be so out there. They let you know their feelings immediately though the men I liked were usually into games, or just shy, and I didn’t realize it.

Still scares me more than a bit, but lets me know that I’m alive and kicking.

When Rafe was over last night, he tried for old times sake. I couldn’t stop laughing. Then he did.

Stumble it!

I am a lifer. Can’t help it. Think I found ways to cut the obsession, see the following post.

Actually I suffered from acute anxiety/depression cycles over the past decade first caused by not being able to help my Mom, not being able to live the life I wanted to because of too many obligations, yet I wasn’t married or had kids, then by 9/11 and the personal fall out.

Moving sounded very appealing. It still is way too expensive here, and I’m allowed to talk about that because my once “too affordable” coop’s maintenance has gone up every year–and more since 9/11. Food prices are sad, and you will be sure that I will complain about the weather as I do that so well.

While I am on this truth drug called finding my old life was great and shall be again, let me say this: I am a very shy person underneath it all.

Find that I comment on blogs that comment here because I know they like me, or something. If I get up at six or seven can blog, do my book and comment. I love staying up until two–but as Zevon said, and this ain’t a great example because uh, “you can sleep when you’re dead.” His third anniversary, somewhere not here, will be September 5th–the day I must reenact how Elka, my sister met Eddie my b-i-l. You will see why.

In the cross-cross promotion department, Shayna sings without music–can never spell that “a” word properly on my musical highway project. She has a great voice, is a great person who began the best blogroll in the blogging world.

The very beloved, but sometimes I wonder why he is–just joking, maybe:) Dawg–who was my first real blogging friend is this weeks attraction in the project. Love that the project highlights another blogger each week.

The Dawg, sometimes known as Doug, highlights Shayna in his special guest Wednesday

Being a very shy person, and I can provide references, means that I don’t reach out enough. I do plug a lot, because that’s a good way of meeting new people. But I know them all. Cooper and Jason have a great new picture for bloggers for Darfur. Got the code from Cooper, and have a wonderful eternal flame. Don’t know what the solution is only that it shouldn’t be. Read hell on earth, because it is.

Will have a post on Friday on an incredible NY experience I had today.

I have a list of questions and am seriously interested in the answers.

1) How did you meet the bloggers you like the most—love my blogging friends and hope that they know it

2) Do you expect theme days in a blog?

3) Do you like the unexpected?

4) I’m not good at contests or anything clever, really. I am a good interviewer. But it takes a long time to interview people that I don’t know well. For example I could do MizB without actually interviewing her. But she is a mistress of the unexpected and I don’t cheat. Failed that part in school.
Should I do an interview a month?

5) How important are comments to you, really, in your heart of hearts?

I asked that question because comments have really never been that important to me. I have always called lurkers readers because they are, and I respect that. Would probably be one myself if I didn’t have a blog.

For my sixth and final question:
6) Almost everybody seems to moderate comments.

6A) To the commenter, does that make you feel more involved in the blog, and want to comment more often?

6B) To the blogger: Do you enjoy it? I, who never runs out of words, can never think of clever things to say.

Okay a seventh and final question–or eighth if you’re going to count A+B. My posts tend to be long. Does that attract you? Turn you off? Are neutral?

Not that I’m planning on changing my blogging style, I’m just curious. And if I ask a lot of questions–my many job, four career lifestyle all entailed thinking up and asking questions.

When I was a child, my Dad made me ask questions all the time. When I was eight, there was one question that he couldn’t answer. I had my first crush, on anybody, on Fidel Castro. He was a hero to America then. We even gave him a parade. True in Jamaica Queens which was kind of weird, but a lot of people who worked for the UN lived in Parkway Village which was a large garden apartment complex near there.

Then one day he wasn’t. In my Dad and my private time–in the car on the way to the child psychologist, I asked him why Castro wasn’t a hero but the enemy. It literally seemed to happen overnight.

I will never forget how he played with hair, then chin, and then eyes downcast said:
“You know, Pia, I have been trying to understand that myself. Batista was a horrible dictator. Castro got rid of him. True, he’s a Communist, but maybe Communism can work somewhere.”

I couldn’t believe this. My brilliant daddy who always knew the answer, didn’t know the answer to this. I think I liked it, as he treated me as an adult but he always did. At the same time, if he didn’t know the answer who would?

My Dad had come from a Socialist family; my Mom from a Communist one. My Dad fell in love with my maternal grandmother and Communism. Then his Dad died, before I was born, and my Dad was to spend the rest of his life regretting never telling his Dad that he was right, Socialism was the answer.

Problem was he had turned into a major Capitalist, and then Reagan lover–but ideologically….He actually tried making my Aunt go to the Henry George School.

I own a copy of Progress and Poverty My Dad used to spend hours at Fourth Avenue book shops, and he gave me that book when I was young. It did have a profound influence on how I viewed the world

To try to explain his philosophy would be simplistic. His very famous granddaughter in a very different discipline–the arts–doesn’t do the greatest job, but it’s wonderful to find out how he influenced somebody who continues to influence some worlds, as does her grandfather. She also provides great links.

I say that Henry George continues to influence because there’s still a Henry George School, literally and figuratively. One year, Lucia of all people, got very excited by a brochure she received and was going to take a class.
Does she listen to me? Her best friend? That’s a matter for another time though.

Stumble it!

Carol who included Courting and me, in an interview for Newsday was very unfortunately widowed that weekend.

However, her sense of humor remained intact. Please visit her new blog.

Saturday night/Sunday morning I was half asleep and even more spacey when I vaguely heard the car driver ask me something. As I’m polite I said:
“What?” Okay that’s not really polite but at least I answered
“How many kids do you have?”
“Ha? None?”
“Are you married?”
“No, divorced.” I never know which sounds better.
“Who takes care of you?”
“Ha?” I had two hours of sleep the night before. Had I suddenly lost my portion of the fountain of youth? Then I realized what he meant
“I take care of me.”
I thought some more.

I’m jet lagged, exhausted, did some major errands, shopped at Fairway, and finished reading the mail, except for the magazines, credit card offers and the like. I want to sit around and space out, but I need to tell this story before I begin to color it.

I hadn’t done such a great job of taking care of me, in the prior two weeks, when I consciously stopped complaining after the first night when my blog seemed to disappear, the Internet connection in my room wasn’t working, and I needed my blog if I were too stop obsessing.

If everything is in order, I can relax. I know that there are some situations we can’t control, but don’t believe it about my own life.

Last summer in Santa Monica/Venice I stayed in an all suite motel in Venice Beach. This year I stayed in The Bates Hell Horror Hall. In the room next to Janet Leigh’s. Yeah I know, two years ago….The people who worked at The Bates Hell…were worse than Vampires but walking venom who deigned to take the fun out of a holiday.

“What do you want me to do? Reimburse you for the free Internet service not working?”

“Am upgrade would be satisfactory.” Since I have stayed at this chain for three summers in a row, and this thing that calls itself it a Hotel to get out of having a laundry or putting fridges in rooms, doesn’t give free nights, I think I have a chance as people always upgrade you

He laughs and I look at the mud colored rug and balcony that overlooks the parking lot, home to lots for many trendy restaurants. and think that this could be interesting. It’s been a long time since I haven’t been offered the full ocean view. One year it was an 180 degree view with a hot tub on one of the balconies, jacuzzi under the skylight, and wow, did I wish that I wasn’t a born again virgin. Something the people who worked in the hotel wished also.

Oh I want to skip over the indignities I suffered at The Bates, just one block from the truly amazing pier that did become a substitute for a balcony. But I like to wake up and see the Ocean. Oh I miss The Ocean View Resort in Montauk. Nobody can find the Resort but one room door opens to town and the other to the ocean. Only the second floor is worth it because the dunes have grown too far to be able to see the ocean.

This is how important the ocean is to me. I find the further I go from Long Island, the more manicured and less oceany, the hotel, motel, resort, hell hole is, though the Bates is on the wrong side of Ocean Avenue. The ocean view rooms are spectacular, and I am all about ocean and light. New England beaches are too cold for me. I like parts of the Jersey Shore and have never been further South, to beaches, except of course the other land of my people, South Florida.

For two weeks I can’t relax. I do figure out what’s wrong with my book, and write on different beach benches. Though I walk constantly, I never space out and go into myself. A form of self meditation that has always served me well most of my life, it is the reason I go on vacations where I can walk on or near the beach all day.

Instead I smile at strangers and we speak. It is something that I always felt I had to do, and actually give myself points for inviting them out to a meal, and more points if they accept.

I flash back to my childhood and realize that Freud wasn’t entirely wrong. My father used to take my sister Elka and I to fancy Fifth Avenue hotels and ask where the ladies room is. I hated it; Elka, two years younger than me loved it. She couldn’t have been more than eight and I was ten. When we were in Miami Beach we would have to walk to the fanciest hotels and ask to use the pool.

I have spent decades proving to my now dead father that I can ask. But barely a decade and a few years after the Fifth Avenue ladies room lesson, I pass The Pierre every morning. For fifteen years the doormen would ask if I wanted to go in. What did I have to prove? If the doormen wanted me to be a Fifth Avenue hooker, and the Madam’s clients thought I was one of her girls, I had the class and polish my father so desperately wanted us to have.

I can’t believe that I never understood that before. It’s so simple yet it’s taken me exactly three decades and seven month to understand this. Staying at The Bates Hell Hole helps me realize that I have always fit where and when I wanted to. I knew it but I never verbalized the whole thing. I believe that until you find the vocabulary, you can’t analyze or understand.

While I am at The Hell Hole, all the plane rules are changed. I find this strangely comforting as I had been traveling too often when real tragedy happened.

I am agitated and find it difficult to understand Delta’s memo. I am reading it too closely. I am in no frigging mood to analyze it.

I pack and repack compulsively. When I checked in at LaGuardia I had the sky captain weigh my overweight suitcase, but I didn’t have him weigh the other one.

The Hell Hole doesn’t do FedEx or UPS. I make them as I have never heard of a hotel that didn’t do that. I FedEx the small suitcase and walk to Venice Beach to buy a suitcase. Venice Beach Boardwalk is the Village, East Village, 14th and 34th Street before the Millenium. I love it much more.

It’s on the ocean, and the houses just outside the Boardwalk and through town are all Craftsman or fabulous modern. I even develop a love for Marina Del Rey that I never had before. It reminds me of Florida for which I am fast rethinking buying a condo in

South Beach has hotels with stone floors. So much more inviting than a mud carpet spewing up dirt. I am convinced that the AC filter hasn’t been cleaned in months. Without a fridge there’s no way that I can have a great antioxidant diet. I can’t stand sleeping in a room that smells of fruit.

When I check out a man is patrolling the floor making sure that people don’t go straight to the parking garage without checking out, and they inspect the room. The maid has been in it every day. The person who hands out the towels that are the thinnest I have ever seen, sees my room. Obviously it’s clean.

What do they think I’m going to steal? The generic coffee maker? I use a Melita.

In the car service I think how lucky I am to live in relative luxury in a building the board called during the heady pre-Millennium, 9/11/01 years called a “world class building.” Perhaps it is. It’s not as beautiful as my building off Fifth that was built earlier in the 20’s when the molding was more lavish. But it’s my kind of beauty: form, function, simplicity and color. I decide to repaint it as color has become much more adventurous. I was ahead of the curve in 97. Now, it is shameful People used to come just to look. My use of two lavenders on the ceiling and beams, and pink was talked about all over.

My bed room is a jewel box with, sky blue walls, lavender doors, a high metal four poster bed, a metal bureau with contrasting turquoise and pink drawers, a six drawer wooden night table, a mustard stressless, the 27 inch Sony metal entertainment center. When I get into bed with the patchwork comforter, three more blankets, and six pillows, I feel comforted.

I know that it’s a childhood bedroom remade to suit an adult, and I love having done it all. Nobody has ever found it cute or unbearable, but everybody begs to take a nap. Can’t wait for the White Sales as I need a new comforter, some shams, and more. Yes, I’m getting into nesting and self-love.

The late night doorman greets me with every word in English he knows, in one quick gulp. Apparently the doormen, except for the one who did the deed on top of the laundry machines, think that I’m one of about three people who “were raised right.” While we’re judging them….and not to speak up for me, they’re generally right.

If heaven and hell exist people will be judged by how they treat “the little people.” Please understand I’m using that term ironically.

I’m seeing the city where I live differently now. With the zeal of a new comer because in a sense I am.

In order to write the book I have to see and be immersed in the city as it was. But I want to be immersed in a New York where 14th Street symbolizes wealth, not arm pits. I used to think of 14th and 34th as Manhattan’s armpits.

But I remember the 14th Street of my childhood where I bought my first record album. It was a good one for it signified change. Chubby Checker “The Twist” I might have only been ten but I could tell trends.

Someday this week I will go Jones Beach because no summer is complete without a day at a Jones. It is perfection. But I’m an Island girl who couldn’t wait to leave then spent most of the next five years living in Sound towns..

I feel the relaxation I never could feel when away. It’s August in Manhattan, the best time of year to be here.

I’m going to take many classes, from intro to digital photography where I can feel advanced because I do know the menus, to four kinds of meditation classes, Yoga and Pilates where I will feel like a klutz but really really won’t mind.

But nothing in Manhattan begins until after Labor Day. This is the time of year where you can hear yourself breath. It’s a good time to explore.

I will be exploring until then. One day I will take the subway to Coney Island, walk to Brighton Beach where I will swim because it’s a great cove, then walk to Sheepshead Bay via a formerly very charming now garish town, the name escapes me.

Another day I will go to Queens, and Riverdale especially for Wave Hill. I have the zeal of a newcomer with the knowledge of a lifer.

With a certainty and firmness I have never felt before, I know that I am healed from the personal events that to me before and after 9/11.

I can remember my mother with laughter now. I see her more clearly than I have in years.

While I know the Bates Hell Hole is relatively decent, I see the difference between the room, and my windows which might not have a terrace, but have views.

I have no idea what I’m saying. I’m still jet lagged, and drinking my favorite comfort drink, iced ginger tea, made from tea bags and ginger I keep in the freezer, and diet coke. There is a combination of spices that both stimulate and comfort me.

“Look out, Manhattan, I’m back.” I’m pretty sure Rhoda And I didn’t even have to go to Minneapolis and be Mary’s best friend. Not that there was….

update. Last night was the first night I really slept in a week or more, am still jet lagged, something I almost never get. Still haven’t done my laundry, still haven’t gotten a replacement camera for the one that was stole at the Bates Hell Hole. Still haven’t….really need to be good to myself, and not think of my life as a collection of chores. Just so jet laggged.

Stumble it!

I took down the post that I had up before–it’s in draft along with about 800 more posts. Was going to try to sell this, wrote it on the beach. tomorrow is my last full day here. This post pretty much summarizes how I feel. Join Shayna’s My Musical Highway Project. Music is a common language. Emily Loveless is going to join her as an administrator. Emily hesitated because she is a lesbian. Understand her feelings. The blogosphere should be a place where all people who don’t hate, aren’t racist, bigoted or violent should feel welcome.

I know that I plug Bone a lot, but he is one of the finest writers, I know–blog or book, he is going to make it, and I will always be able to say that I mentored him, just a bit

It is an obsession unlike one that I have ever had before. I find it difficult, if not impossible for me to be away for more than six hours. And when I am away, the object of my obsession is always on my mind.

I, who was voted least likely to ever fall for a woman, at one of my jobs, am hopelessly obsessed for I can’t call it love, with a she who requires constant maintenance and attention.

I have given up socializing with family and friends for her. I only go away if I can take her, and she contributes nothing to the upkeep, but cost me plenty. She flirts with me, and seduces me as no man ever has, but she gives me no solace, no words of wisdom, and demands my attention when I am sick or down.

Everything is about her, her, and more her. She is the one who is recognized and who the public adores. She is a cult celebrity in an ever-growing world. There is much competition, but she says she must keep her place and try to be even better known. I constantly tell her that it might be impossible and even dangerous. She doesn’t listen but demands more celebrity status, better surroundings and an ever growing audience as I have gone from staying in first class hotels to flea bag motels. She’s delighted by flea bag motels as we met because of a shared loved of pulp and noir. She is retro to the max, and always must look like an Alberto Vargas pin-up.

I know that she cheats on me often with many returning lovers of both sexes, and many one night stands. I know that yet I know that she comes most alive for me. When I touch her, she charges as she does for no other person, and she lets me explore parts of her nobody else is allowed to touch, and I feel so alive and in lust.. At those moments, she is mine and mine alone, and I delight in exploring all aspects of her.

I don’t remember ever feeling this obsessed before and I am an obsessive compulsive. I really don’t enjoy it. I thought I had conquered that side of me.

Yet I was a willing hostage. But it’s been two years now, and one of us has to learn to let go. I can’t afford to keep her anymore. All the expenses have become unbearable. I am really hetero, and begin to flirt with men but hold back, because I know that without my constant attention she will wither and be nothing.

Then who will I be? I don’t know myself anymore. All my attention has gone to her when it should have gone so many other places. Yes, we share many common interests. Yes we have made many friends together. Yes she has helped me get through my darkest moments and fears. Together we have conquered our “I’m an Upper West Sider and so much better and more important than Americans who don’t live our incredibly exciting lives,” bias. Together we have helped causes and individuals.

The Radical Right declared us an enemy and together we fought back. We don’t care that they hate our morals and values, for personally we think theirs are bogus. We have stood up against them when they sent hundreds to our door. They told us that we had no rights to our opinions and to our stories. We said things back, and they no longer come to our door.

Who are they to tell us not to write our stories that don’t even talk about sex, but longings and wishes? Then people on the left told us to get used to this criticism if we ever want our book to be published. “No,” we said, “reviewers don’t review morals but content, and we have that in spades.”

My obsessive love is my blog, Courting Destiny, and she is the most demanding lover that I ever have had. I need to break free or at least limit the hours I spend on her and comments each week, but she wants my full time attention and that I no longer can give. It’s time to move on, but she just doesn’t want to let go.

Stumble it!