Happy New Year: Revised, there’s always something to add, and add 12/30

Dammit Pia, even in fiction you can’t help but hit the nail on the head.
What pseudo-sicence created this gift? And why hasn’t it given you a television series??!

Dan I ask myself that question nightly. My sit com would actually be funny. And one actress could play most characters–me. Pseudoscience: don’t know which but one would define me. Maybe there is a psuedoscience or a hundred yet to be discovered. One will be named for me. Very good question.

It’s a difficult journey but an interesting one with many great forked roads, and so I like it.

Two blogger’s books didn’t meet expectations, not to forget the advances. The magic figures every first time writer dreams of. You don’t want to tempt fate, the Kinehora, by thinking seven figure.s so high sixes do. You do understand that the probability of winning megamillions might be higher. Life’s a crap shoot and you dream.

James Brown did, and there was a character based on him, a bit, in Dreamgirls, a film that did make you believe in the impossible. Though everybody was amazingly talented, they had one thing against them. Skin color. As people do they forged alliances to get ahead, and left out one pivotal person. In many ways it was an old fashioned feel good musical but it was great.

2006 was an amazing year. I have never been a cover story before, and was part of an interview and a quote in a major paper. That last has happened before, though not because of a blog. It’s nice to know that it could happen for me and my blog. The cover blew me away.

I want to thank every blogger who played a part in my life this year. You were all beyond amazing. I asked a lot of you. The truly dumb contests. Thank y’all so much.

I do read blog posts about me not by friends and they make me laugh. I want to be liked. That is a definition of a blogger. But I only want to be liked by people that I respect.

This was the year I learned that I was the slut men wanted to wake up to in the morning. Of course I knew that before. It was good to see it in an Internet test result. Not once but after too many attempts to change it to a non-slut name.

Just couldn’t change the answers to questions about why I go into, or went into relationships. The fore knowledge that I carried in my soul. Somehow I was going to end this relationship, or that one, so that it didn’t have the happy ending, fade twenty years, and still married for the kid. Or not married any longer but solely responsible for the kid. No, I cut those scenarios off before they could happen.

There were third and fourth scenarios: happily married with kid(s); happily married without kid(s). Really? I saw too much in the 70’s and 80’s, the dance of the divorce and children left adrift and alone. Then people began to stay together because it was easier and safer.

I felt it too much. It took the romance out of relationships. Most began to feel like human turkey baster dancers. Somehow that image made staying single very attractive.

This was the year I began to wonder what lies ahead and would it be easier and maybe more fun to have another person to share it with. Though I do like my space. You have no idea how much easier this is to do in the second person. Probably reads better too.

Then there is the present thing. It’s my job to give because I give great thoughtful presents and of course kids aren’t supposed to give back. Even when they reach an age where…well anyway, you give presents to their parents on birthdays, holidays and anniversaries. I have learned to expect the joy of giving as my present. That’s such a lie, but it sounds noble.

Here I transform into the second person:
You have read enough chick lit novels to know that your writing is more meaningful, interesting and you wouldn’t do modern day chick lit unless you could do it your way. Actually you have had some experiences that would make publishing people salivate but you have this stupid code. No, you’re not going to break the seal of the modern day confessional though others would if they could write it half as well as you could.

My blog could be way different. It could be filled with stories that include recognizable characters. The people behind the people who make news. People with newsworthy pasts. But I took those vows, and ownership of stories seriously. I can be such a fool.

I could write posts that would garner universal likablity. I’m a good writer and can change voice, mood, tone, and subject on will. if people think that I’m playing with their heads, they’re wrong. I’m taking my writing where I want it to go, with a few exceptions.

I wrote myself ragged this year, and through my writing discovered a love for and a knack for writing fiction. I am now officially writing three books and I enjoy that. Fiction takes me to new levels of honesty. Plus it lets me look at life as other people see it. Or as I perceive their views. And I can work myself up to writing stories about the people I feel a confessional oath to protect. Maybe I won’t in 2007.

I just recently rediscovered the thrill of reading and movie going. I don’t talk about the books that I read, usually. It’s an essential part of me and feels more private than the things I talk about. So does photography. I photograph objects, mostly, and they show me to the core. I’m photographing my glass collection using different zooms, and modes, and it feels more revealing than my face..

I’m setting limits on my blogging for real this coming year. I have been getting better about limiting my posting, and three word Wednesday can be on a Friday, but…

Since I have been blogging I have been doing very un-me vacations. I’m a New Yorker. I used to go to Europe often. It was as easy or easier than going to California, because if you’re going to London, Delta can’t make you change in Atlanta. If you use sky saver miles, the cheaper one, they probably do make you change in Atlanta if you’re going to Europe. I will spend a day traveling which is very self-indulgent to make sure that I’m not in coach. I’m convinced coach breeds germs and could potentially kill easily. I don’t mean Avian flu. No, I probably do. I really mean the common cold which can become very uncommon after bad airplane rides.

I’m going to Cancun on an all inclusive hotel thing. I am so not a resort person. Though I stayed in one in Maui that was a lot of fun, and one in the Bahamas, but I was surrounded by friends that I have known forever. I have been on only one cruise. Resorts remind me of them, but you can walk on sand whenever you want to.

I’m going alone because I need to get away and walk on white sand beaches. I’m a Cancer, the next 25 years are supposed to be turbulent for me and for the country. Turbulence that propels you forward can be good. I’m actually looking forward to it, in a weird warped way.

I’m beginning to understand that daring to dream a big dream might be reality based. I’m sorry that it took me this long . But if it hadn’t I might not have met all of you, and I can’t imagine that. As I have never been able to imagine life without people from my real life in it.

I have been listening to too much Amos Lee. Tomorrow I’m walking three blocks to see Gov’t Mule. Los Lobos is the opening act. As much as I love concerts at the Beacon, I love leaving and walking those three short blocks home.

It’s been months now since I have felt guilt about, or mourned my Mom’s death. Now I’m in the ironic yet funny memories, and maybe I should still be in mourning stage. The later thought passes quickly.

Once more I can’t thank bloggers enough for their support and so so much more.

2007 will be the year I truly act on my dreams. I have been holding back. The damn loyalty is an excuse though a good one. It’s time for me to get with the times, though I still don’t want to hurt people. That’s where the memoir can be mecentric and the fiction really not. Oh I would be so happy just writing fiction, but maybe that’s why I keep thinking the new year will usher in 2008, not 2007.

Odd numbers that can’t be divided by whole numbers have never been my favorite. Maybe I can will that to change. I will go back to interviewing my personas in my blog. That and fiction are fun. I do dream because I have worked hard, and while I know that usually means less than nothing, maybe it does mean something in my case.

When Courting first became “successful” professional writers were aghast. They told me that I should have gone the lit journal route, the submissions to major papers and magazines. I should have done that also. Thing is more people know who I am than who they are. I am beginning to believe, again, that really does count.

Courting gave me the confidence I lacked. I do feel ready to soar. Without the support of bloggers I don’t know if I could have reached this place.

And sadly I think of all the people that I have over tipped, and over presented, and am honest enough to know that in my heart I do believe in Karma. A reason I have never written a tell-all. Though I l have learned much about fiction, and it just might work that way. Again it’s bloggers who have given me the courage to dare dream and to believe.

I hope that I believe this enough. Because our world rewards people with cojones and chutzpah. Judith Regan might be too crazy to come back. Then again it would make a great Fox special: Rupert tells Judith how brave she was to risk breaking down in public, and how she and her ex-husband showed great humor by replacing mezuzah Torahs with torn dollar bills at apartments in her old building. I didn’t believe any of the anti-Semitic stuff until I read that. It seemed sickeningly real. I can imagine crazy people that I know doing similar stuff.

Talking about crazy. I said too much about my problems. I do believe in boundaries, and understand them. I always have except physically, but over compensated by the time I was a child. I was exceptionally observant, and my parents loved how I described people and situations. I thank god for that, and for parents they so believed in my intelligence, insight and verbal abilities.

Because my father believed in me so much, he thought that I could be perfect, and probably made many of my problems much worse by insisting that I try to be athletic–swimming which I have always been better than most people at, bike riding which I did though it was considered nerdy, and regular or ice skating weren’t considered to be sports because they didn’t involve a team.

My dad did begin NYU partially on a basketball scholarship, and on a math one, so team sports and games of any kind were very important to him. Oh, not Scrabble or word games. Real people play Battleship.

Last spring I arrived in San Juan for a badly needed vacation, plugged in my laptop and found out that I was a finalist in the Koufax awards. The LiP wanted to do the cover quicker. I’m glad that I had an oceanfront room, the hotel had room service and the cleaning woman was very friendly. My blog was a mess. I had begun it before the Google spell check era, and that is the one of the two greatest innovations in browsers to me. The other being Firefox’s tabbing.

I don’t want to be nominated for any awards nor do I plan on nominating anybody because I want to nominate so many people. Though most people would take being a finalist as something to be proud of, and not something to be frazzled over.

I was blog obsessed. I began coming out of denial about Aspergers, and I have a blog so…Of course, I became obsessed with Aspergers and eventually had my first full fledged panic attack in almost 20 years. It helped though it seemed deadly at the time.

Things began to come together as they felt that they were coming apart. Somehow I feel more organized, way less guilty and ready.

No way, I realize now, can I make my book about Aspergers because that would be untrue to the life I have led. I learned to harness the anger many decades ago. When I became angry now, it only showed in my writing. I lost it because I began to remember that I have a great life with great friends.

This blog, it is an accomplishment. One I make fun of because of its lack of monetary compensation. I would be on an “A” list that usually doesn’t bring money to the grass roots personal bloggers.

I really want to believe that this country is changing. And people will no longer be rewarded because they can eat live insects. I want to believe in the James Browns of the world, and the people who are rewarded for talent and persistence, something Woody Allen says is paramount.

I dare dream that 2007 will be the Year of this Savage. 2006 was a great year. It brought Courting and through extension me recognition. People read us because they enjoy our writing. Wow. If I could do this, a book would be easy.

I hope that 2007 brings you whatever you dare dream of.
And feel good. This is the only life we’re sure of living.