Bone supplies the words. I make up more rules. 250 words. I add a sort of theme based on one word. Tonight it was “scarce.”
July 1977
Janie was sweating. The subway from Queens hadn’t been air conditioned, had contained many people from all different countries who apparently ate food that left odors on their sweating skin that went to their shirts or blouses.
Stinky un-air conditioned subway that had been stuck underground for half hour. Janie wanted to die. She arched her body onto the cool tiled subway wall, and looked at the filthy subway tile floor.
Janie thought about how pretty the subway tile would be if it wasn’t encrusted in many layers of black dirt. Damn subway, damn city, damn Son of Sam who wrote to Jimmy Breslin, and targeted long haired brunette girls like her. Janie and her boyfriend lived on Dartmouth Street in Forest hills Gardens just a few blocks from a killing.
Tomorrow they were going to Springs, East Hampton until September. Brunette girls were becoming scarce in the city. Her boss had gladly agreed to give her extra time office in lieu of pay. Janie reminded him of his daughter who was visiting friends in Greece at his insistence. How crazy was that? Every girl’s parents seemed to insist that they take time off from their jobs, even if they lived in Manhattan. Nobody felt safe.
It wasn’t 9 AM and the temperature was above 80. While Janie walked the four blocks two avenues to her overly air-conditioned office she wondered if he would ever be caught. This wasn’t the way she wanted an extended vacation.
A lot of this has to do with winter. I don’t mind the cold. I hate wind. I hate putting on layers of clothes and carrying so much. I hate the potential for losing things.
I need to feel motivated. I need to feel that the sun has come out for me.
I feel as if I’m losing myself into the winter abyss. I know winter is ending. But I’m so bogged down I can’t see through tomorrow.
I hate waking up and opening my email. I belong to a media org that has classes, many many classes. Last week they had a seminar that cost $50. It turned out that the seminar was a tease for an eight week course.
That’s deceptive. It also helped me realize that they attempt to make a person feel as if they can’t write and be published unless they take tons of their classes.
It’s not that I felt less talented than others in my last class. I felt less mainstream. I felt more edgy. Really when I thought about it, more people have read me, both as a published writer and in my blog.
But I felt less than because I’m not organized. I don’t write perfect little stories.
Yet there’s more beauty in imperfection. More reality in edginess.
If only I could get back the motivation I had so much of. I’m hoping one good day in the sun where I can pretend that it’s 75 degrees and I’m basking, can begin to bring it back. Maybe even two hours….
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Today is the dawg’s two year blogevesary. We met about a month before when dressed in shining dawg suit, he rescued me from an onslaught by the radical right. Doug and I navigated the blogging waters together. I hit rough seas often, Doug never did. Just kept on getting witter and witter. Something about two line posts really suits the dawg. So do fables, and his weekend blog Prattler where Doug shows his ability to postulate amazing arguments.
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Tomorrow I will be doing a guest post on another blog. Not the dawgs. Where I show a side of myself, some might say a much better side, never shown here. It’s the side that I try to keep in check but probably shouldn’t as…well you’ll see.
On March 24 at Fordham’s Lincoln Square campus, there will be rock to save Darfur.
The world’s largest cause billboard blog will be undergoing its yearly face lift soon. While I’m basically interested in decluttering, as I wouldn’t live in a house this cluttered, I’m interested in input and your views.
So I will be having a contest to see what your views are. The prize of course will be BE credits. Stay tuned, or reading
As the train rode into Manhattan the sky turned an almost unbearably beautiful shade of purple.
It would have been spectacular, but it looked exactly like a grape slushie mixed with a vanilla egg cream (Vanilla syrup in soda water), not that I have ever seen such a drink.
After I finally got that image out of my head, I savored the sky. Skies are ultra important to me. I must live where I can have great sky views, and I do. While my apartment’s really two and a fhalf rooms, it is generous in windows, and has six.
In summer, sunsets are reflected on the building in the Avenue across the brownstones and courtyard, though I go to Riverside Park for them.
In many ways I feel so blessed. Blessed in light, blessed in people, even blessed because I live here. This used to be my dream.
Dreams change. I assume that changing dreams reflect growth. Yesterday I felt humbled when I visited an extended family I once knew well. They have an amazing ability to be great productive members of society and to raise teenagers and 20somethings you want to spend more time with because they have great things to say, and wonderful music to play.
I have known the Mom’s since they were born. I felt both truly humbled and proud. Continue Reading »
My friend sent me this geography test needed to pass from third to fourth grades. They said I got Florida wrong. Who can get Florida wrong? Oh, yeah….
I have been trying to keep myself out of falling into a depression. Winter, though late, has gone on too long. It feels that at this point in my life, I should be settled, not still weighing the pros and cons of a cross country move, and trying to break into a profession that worships youth. Continue Reading »
Bone supplies the words. I give myself a 250 word limit, half hour time limit and pray. Sometimes it works. Other times, well, uh….
A few days ago Marly had been thinking how they never used the huge deck in back of Jillian’s third floor walk up on West 72nd. Now the deck would be coveted and used. In the early 70’s it wasn’t considered anything. Continue Reading »
3WW (Three Word Wednesday) will be on Thursday night or Friday
I was sent this book to mention. It’s by a woman who used to work for Judith Regan. To assume that I would like any book debasing Regan just because I don’t like her is absurd. Continue Reading »
Bone has this amazing ability to find lyrics to fit every post he writes. As I have problems remembering musician and song names I admire this. He must have some sort of cheat sheet, but I haven’t figured out what, and don’t really want to know.
In his weekly 24 update, he added some damn good lyrics by Tom Waits that I think perfectly fit this time in USA history.
I finally realized that I should be submitting articles, and have just begun. As I have never really submitted before I love each personalized rejection. Might feel different in a couple of months, but…
Oh, when I was published I was a freelance staff reporter. Try explaining that job title, I never have.
But it did mean I was published frequently, untli I left the freelance staff reporter whatever to blog because I was having massive dental work done and didn’t feel like explaining it to my editor.
So I talked about it on my blog, that I had begun to see unedited words in print, constantly. For the first ten months or so nobody in my real life knew that I had a blog. Life was easier then. I also went hog wild crazy because nobody said “this doesn’t fit,” or “what?”
Writing articles to sell, even if they are rejected, spurs my book writing along because I’m just a fool for writing. As I’m always one to sweat the small stuff, I began, my I really need to be published mania, at the top. This ensures that I don’t sweat the small stuff because they reject 99.99% of all submissions.
It’s weird. I can take the smallest thing personally, but writing rejection, never. Just writing structured articles makes me want to continue my books. I think I was born to write because I take rejection so well.
I did take the horrible comments that I used to get personally as they had nothing to do with my writing and everything to do with my morals, my life, my politics, the city that I live in and were damn nasty.
The right wing showed their strength a few weeks ago when they essentially had Edwards fire bloggers. Yes, they quit after being publicly hung out. I’m scared of the radical right and their power. It’s something we should all remember and work against.
No one group has the right to censor another in the USA. They tried to censor the blogosphere, now they’re trying to censor Democratic campaigns. We showed our strength in the blogging world, now it’s time to tell right wing people they have no business in campaigns that aren’t theirs. I could go on about this subject forever and will have fresher things to say soon. I’m just angry in a rather relaxed manner, for me.
I know many people who don’t like Tom Waits. Something to do with his gruff voice. The best concert or show of any kind I have ever seen was a Tom Waits concert where he was on stage for three hours. It was a religious experience.
If you know me and know the title to this song, you know I make the absolute worst puns ever. And am proud of them. Maybe. The lyrics are below the “more.” Continue Reading »
When I was in grad school, I would study all week and write my papers. I was so neurotic I had to have each paper finished and printed out the week before it was due.
Saturday was supposed to be my day to study. And I did. Luke and Laura returned to General Hospital. I have always disliked Laura but found myself taping each days show and would eagerly study each show, though I would fast forward the boring scenes which were many.
Somehow I developed a great love for Kung Fu: the Legend Continues, and never missed it. I kept on expecting David Carradine or his teacher to say something truly wise. They never did.
CBS had a great line up of late night truly trashy shows that I would tape to watch on Saturday. One was about a Vampire who was a policeman; another, my personal favorite was about a Judge during the ay, crusading vigilante at night. OK I know that I’m supposed to be better than this but…
I can point out many pivotal places in Beverly Hills 90021, and some show that was a rip-off of Baywatch but filmed in Santa Monica.
On Monday evenings I ran a support group for cognitive women in the nursing home. I had one goal. To get them and their wheel chairs back in their rooms so I could be home in time for Melrose Place. Again, I know exactly where many scenes were shot. Am I proud that I have seen every Melrose Place? Maybe.
The one truly brlliant show I watched was David E Kelly’s masterpiece aside from Boston Legal, Picket Fences. The first season is coming out on DVD this year. It’s worth anything.
I tried to get my Mom to watch it:
“I don’t want to watch a show about a small town.”
“NO, ma, this is different. It’s weird. I promise you will love it.”
She called me one day the next year:
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about Picket Fences? It’s the quirkiest funniest show I have ever seen.”
“Uh, ma, I told you about it every week last year.”
“But you didn’t tell me how strange it is.”
“I did, ma, I really did.”
I had begun calling my mother “ma” some years before because Rhoda called her mother “ma.” It annoyed my mother more than anything, as she thought that it was classless. It wasn’t that I wanted to annoy my mother but she relentlessly refused to watch the TV shows that I knew she would love.
She never watched a soap in her life, and couldn’t believe that I would tape all five days of GH which meant that I couldn’t tape anything not on ABC unless I was home. My mother was constantly angry at me for not being in love with Charlie Rose as she was.
As I was never home except on Friday nights and Saturday days, this did limit my TV watching. I would change the channels for the CBS shows about one week a month and hope that I remembered to change it back in the morning.
There did come a day when GH began to feel like a tenth rate Sopranos. However I kept obsessively taping and obsessively fast forwarding it. I finally realized how sick this was; just when I got a Tivo, and could tape anything, I gave GH up.
I had to give the Tivo up as I began to play games with it and would make it guess names of obscure French films. This game became more fun than actually watching anything
Life’s much easier since the invention of DVR’s. I can watch all the shows I want between 11:30 PM and 2AM, and actually feel virtuous that I have spent a full day accomplishing things, can fast forward all the boring or too gruesome parts. I never go into the bedroom until late at night as that room is a computer free zone. I refuse to even let my laptop see it.
However in the past three and a half weeks nothing has been more satisfying than being in bed watching TV. Maybe reading when I’m not sneezing. Once again my luxe apartment doesn’t have heat, and it’s becoming progressively harder to do anything.
However, thanks to persistent lobbying by Bone, I began to watch GH again. Not all the time, and I gave it up, I thought forever when Laura who I still don’t like came back only to go back into a physical catatonic state. This is a condition that could only exist on soaps.
The past week has been more exciting than I should admit, on GH, not my life, and Alan, Stuart Damon, the only true Prince Charming–Cinderella, Lesley Anne Warren and him, is dying. This is more heartbreaking than it should be..
Maybe this will be tacky, but I hope that in his final death bed scene, they will play “One day my prince will come.” Damn yes, I’m a romantic. Hopelessly romantic actually.
My blog is sad. We tried scanning in pictures we drew when we were ten and people thought us talented and only parts of the pictures showed. Continue Reading »
The words are from Bone. I give myself a 250 word limit, and hope that they make sense. Of all the pictures, he liked the one where she was 22 and smiling as if she knew the best secret, most. Other people found that selection strange. They weren’t silent in stating that she didn’t look her prettiest, wasn’t dressed especially interestingly, her eyes looked closed, and none of her special qualities showed.
He alone remembered the day the photo was taken. On the drive back from Jones Beach, they had sung to Billy Joel songs neither would admit having listened to. She couldn’t stop giggling. The beach had that affect on her.
They parked near Phoebe’s, where The Bowery begins or ends. She stood at the doorway to the restaurant and smiled, her largest most real smile at him. Instinctively; he took the last shot in the Instamatic.
In her haste to become an icon of hip, she adapted different personas. He never understood why she didn’t realize that people liked her for herself and not because she drew trendy alter ego cartoons.
People didn’t really understand her but pretended to.
They imitated her, but never got her essence.
Something about her carriage kept people from invading her world.
He marveled that she let him into her life, and became part of his.
Decades later there was revived interest in her work. Kids came over and bypassed the better known shots of her pouting, made up, dressed…for the one he secretly called “Annie’s Essence.”
He was overjoyed that Millennium kids got her.
243 Words
Here is an excellent article on the autism spectrum. I was a very cuddly friendly kid until puberty when I became totally unfriendly. Then, somewhere, in my late teens I changed again. Puberty and teens aren’t one and the same. Continue Reading »
I'm Pia Savage. Just a writer with a blog title few people truly get. I suppose my destiny has taken me from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Myrtle Beach as I barely heard of it eleven months ago. My email is Pia(dot)talks@gmail(dot)com.
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