You have to pretend that this is a podcast. It was going to be one. Imagination is good for the soul. Poetry is not something I excel in.

Cooper who comes from too many places.
Cooper has too many names to list,
none being Alice.
That wasn’t unexpected, no non-
masochistic parents would
risk so much teasing.
And really, the Empress of Wonderlandornot
has way more suitable names. Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

He watched her as she quickly moved her head toward him. His mother said that you could get a stroke from moving like that. No, a stroke would happen if you talk on a cell with your head bent while moving your neck. No, it would just automatically happen if you talk on any cordless phone with your head bent.

His mother would call at least three times a day with the newest surefire ways to get a stroke, heart attack or what calamity awaits if you do this, that….

He found it sad that he always remembered what his mother said, and would yell at Nell if she did something his mother found wrong.

Nell had been talking. He wished that he had been listening rather than ruminating on the world according to Gert Adler.

“You look a zillion miles away. Did you hear one thing that I just said?”

“You said that tomorrow…” He was trying to think.

“No darling. I said that I’m going to leave you tonight for Rick.”

“No you didn’t.”

Nell laughed. When she laughed, you couldn’t help laughing with her. It was one of many things that had endeared her to him that long ago summer, when they were share mates, in a house, on Fire Island.

“I might have said that for all the attention you have been giving me recently. I’m a bit tired of talking to myself.”

“I’m sorry….”

“It’s your mother. She has you thinking about every potential calamity. It wasn’t cute 20 years ago. It’s even less cute now that you have a teen age daughter, you’re imparting your fears to.”

“That’s not fair. I try to always act fearless when I’m with Lainey.”

“You don’t get it. It’s not just what you say but the expression on your face or how you move.”

They had had this conversation at least twice a month for fifteen years. He had been in counseling, had hypnotherapy, went to mediation, yoga, and once had pins stuck all over his ears. He couldn’t remember what that was called.

Oh god, he was becoming prematurely demented. His mother had warned him about that. She claimed that since Nell three years older than him, dementia was a sure bet. He had heard his mother say that Nell was as bad a shiksa, (non Jew) and only married him because he was successful.

Nell’s father had bought their house for them, so that was absurd, but Gert could never be convinced that he hadn’t really bought it. He had no idea what money she thought he had then.

Had he married any of the girls his mother had tried to set him up with he would live a life free from problems.

She still mentioned Beth Rosen who had married his cousin David. Beth was perfect. She had even given David a son.

Not that Gert would complain, but if you were only going to have one child, it should be a son.

That was never a complaint, but stated as fact. His mother knew that you could determine a child’s sex by using certain positions and/or drinking certain juices.

“Acupuncture,” that was the word he was looking for. When Gert had moved to Florida, he thought she wouldn’t call so much, but she called more often. His sister would cut Gert off immediately. He never could. Nell was talking. Right, he should listen.

“In two years Lainey will leave for college. We don’t want her to fear her own shadow.”

“Lainey’s tough. She’s bright, funny, has many friends, does much volunteer work, is in every school activity it seems. How much more well adjusted do you want her to be?”

“I want her to be able to take a shower in a lightening storm.”

“Nell that’s really pushing it to the limits. Anything else…”

His office phone rang. He let the machine pick it up.

“Dr. Adler. This is Jenna Fein. At the stoke of midnight, I’m going to leave this world. I just wanted you to know that my life will be over before summer this year.”

He fidgeted. Nell moved restlessly on the bed and put her arm over him. She mummered:
“Bad dream?”
“The usual. You and I arguing over Lainey. A patient I don’t really have calling to tell me that she will kill herself.”

Nell kissed him.
“Gert has a long reach, but you never let it affect Lainey. I think you’re wonderful.”

“I’m a psychiatrist. I know psychiatrists are just as screwed up as the rest of the world, but….”

I think I might have once worked with somebody who had a mother named Gertrude Adler. I’m not sure and don’t really care. The name Beth Rosen is familiar also, but it might just be that kind of name.
I’m not going to begin Googling names. You would think Pia Savage would be singular. You would be wrong. There is a librarian in New Zealand with the same name.

This was a pure exercise. No detail, no garnishing, no big story. The ending was lazy. I wanted to finish quickly and there’s nothing quicker than a dream. But I admit that I got the idea at the beginning of the story, for him to be a psychiatrist, and it just seemed like a good way to introduce it. Okay a psychiatrist having a bad dream isn’t lazy. But it was quick. Or something.

Stumble it!

It’s Tuesday. I’m leaving early Friday morning and can’t believe how gorgeous the weather is here, and how I’m taking a plane to go to the beach when I live near some of the most beautiful anywhere.

It’s just that what costs one night here can pay for a week somewhere else, and I love getting to know different parts of the country. I’m failing in first hand knowledge of the “deep South” as my relatives all live in South Florida which I know isn’t the South, or Mobile. I have been told that Mobile isn’t really indicative of Alabama or the South.

The only thing I know about Myrtle Beach is that is beautiful with many golf courses and a long sand beach that looks amazing. i also know that the world’s largest Wal-Mart super store is there. I have never been in one. Have been in many Kmarts if that makes me sound more American.

I know that Myrtle Beach has great crab legs, and isn’t as racist as people keep telling me. I know this because The Countess’s first husband was Black so uh her adult kids and their kids are, and they love it.

It’s a bit scary to go to a part of the country that seems so foreign to me. The Countess keeps emailing and calling with more things to do. Keep on reminding her that I’m going to write. But I am a beach bum.

I’m also very excited that I will be staying in a duplex with five rooms and a yard. I feel like I live a perpetual 25 year old here. When I wake up and walk from the bedroom to the faux kitchen I can’t help but pass the computer, and begin answering email. That’s never a good thing before at least one cup of coffee.

California never seems foreign. It reminds me so much of home–Manhattan and Long Island.

I’m staying in North Myrtle Beach. Am I going to feel like a New Yorker on the lam? Any suggestions for fitting in Southern?

Stumble it!

First see the Wombat’s wonderful musical critique post, and there are some great surprises.

The great unrequited love of my life, Frank Rich, has an excellent article where he compares Iraq not to Viet Nam but to WWTwo. Why? We denied exit visas to many many Jews and let them die. That’s another reason I became me. The knowledge that we allowed this has always crazed me. Yes I was the only nine year old to bore her friends with bad American policies. It’s a Select article. I should begin a page of copied articles.
The Times has a great editorial on our delusional president.
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Many people have died for our country. Many died to help to keep it great and for democracy.

Many have died needlessly. Many vets come back brain damaged. They did in Viet Nam also. There were no services specific for Viet Nam Vets. The VA was a mess. Yes, I know it is now. It was even worse then.

Most protesters always supported the Vets and would have died before hurting them. I can’t say that enough because I was a teenage hippie/anti-war protester who did end up pepper gassed when my friend wanted to go out for dinner after a protest in DC, and the policeman directed us into a riot.

It was my friend’s first demonstration. He was a Volvo driving frat president who wasn’t used to being treated like that. The experience changed him more than it did me as I told him not to ask a policeman. And I was so harmless. But if you looked like a hippie, you were the enemy to many people.

I never want the country to go back to not being able trust people who are supposed to help us. We are all in this together, and have become pretty united in our want for this needless war to end.
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i first saw Country Joe & The Fish when I was in high school. There used to be many free concerts at The Band Stand in Central Park. The first time I actually remember meeting the boy I would briefly marry was at a Jefferson Airplane concert there. He had introduced himself to me many times, but I was in my usual state of oblivion, or somebody this good looking, bright and funny, can't really be interested in me.

I was going to put in Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice Restaurant” but it is almost nineteen minutes long, and the code was disenabled, so here’s a link.

It was my father’s favorite song. My father supported the Viet Nam war. Had this non-understandable thing for Nixon and later Reagan but he didn’t think that people should actually go to Viet Nam and maybe die or be disabled.

When my parents and their friends went to Stockbridge my father got a much coveted present. A traffic ticket from Officer Opie. It’s all in the song. Non-linear I just realized!

My father didn’t like the first Bush.* First Republican in many a moon he didn’t love. Was scared of his CIA connections and power.

My sister and I believe with all our hearts that he would have hated this Bush much more passionately.

I can’t listen to “Alice’s Restaurant” without thinking about both my father and my husband who was very good at evading actual physicals. Strange or not, the stories endeared my father to him. That and they both lived to make fun of me In a nice way

LET’S GET OUT OF IRAQ QUICKLY AND CONCENTRATE ON HEALING THE VETS. MIGHT HELP HEAL THIS NATION

*My perfectly healthy father, or so the doctors thought, suffered a massive stroke and died five days later in 91. He told me he was losing his will to live. Truth is I think he missed a good political fight. He had misguidedly trusted Nixon and Reagan, but how do you trust a Bush?

My Mom died a month after 9/11. Two weeks after the attack and two weeks before her death, she asked me if I thought the attacks were retribution. Said she couldn’t state that to anybody else. At the time, I thought she became demented overnight. I do think she too lost her will to live.

I answered her properly but I should have been cheering. I didn’t think it was retribution. I did want war then

Any and all anti-war work I do is dedicated to both my parents memory, as what has happened would have been unimaginable to both of them.

My father might have argued for the war in Viet Nam, but when I was in high school, he was very proud that I stood up for my principles. And waited for the bus from DC, when I went for the 67 moratorium while I was in high school, until four AM.

I honestly don’t care if bloggers dislike me for my increasingly strident politics. I love this country. It’s a wonderful one. We don’t have a draft. We do have an increasingly tired armed forces who should be home. I would be against a draft in this case. As Frank Rich eloquently points out, the people who we claim to be fighting for want to come here.

We’re a mutt nation, and were once the greatest country because we’re so hybrid. We must let people come here who risk death, torture and other things if they remain in their country.

It’s the morally responsible thing to do. Immigrants enrich our country. Not saying anything new but most of us are descendants of people who came from other countries.

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This is a story I’m a bit too proud of. It’s a courting classic. There is a new 3WW two posts below and the post below this is light and very New Yawk.

From now until July I will only be posting Friday Flashbacks and maybe 3WW’s. It depends on how much work I get done. I do want much beach time. Courting might go on hiatus. Haven’t decided yet.

a href=”http://fridayflashback.blogspot.com”>

This is mostly extraneous to the story I’m telling, but good background, for something. We were young and hot though we were the last two to believe that part. Don’t know why; enough people told us, wanted to know us, or marry us. Lucia was a four by 40 girl. This story takes place before the fourth marriage. I was a Maid (or Matron) of Honor more than most women; and I’m only counting Lucia’s weddings. She used to compare herself to Elizabeth Taylor:
“I believe in marrying them, not living with them.”
I’m more the let’s live together, not get married type.
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It was a hot June night. Not hot as in oppressive, I want to die weather like today, but hot enough. In New York, the hottest part of the day is always dusk when the heat’s had time to settle on the cement, and the buildings seem to ooze both heat and drops of hot water from the air conditioners. The steam rises both from the street, and subway gratings, and it can feel as if you’re trapped in a manhole cover or a pot of not quite boiling water. One thing you learn in New York early and never forget: heat rises. Continue Reading »

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A New York anecdote:

I was getting out of a cab near Madison in the 60’s, why I was in a cab on a beautiful day will be discussed later; two young and very healthy looking men began to get in. “59th and Lexington,” they said to the cab driver.

“No,” I found myself screaming. “It’s quicker if you walk.” Madison is two measly avenues away. It’s at most a five minute walk and…nobody should be in a cab on a day like today, unless they really really have to be.
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All week I have been feeling out of it, and couldn’t figure out why. It’s been damn beautiful and people have been coming out of hibernation. I keep telling people to call me, half hour before they come over. My apartment’s a child free, always presentable place so evenings begin and end here. Too often we don’t leave, but this week’s been one gorgeous gift.

Tuesday I was kidnapped and forced to go to The Boat Basin, or the clubhouse as we call it, as it’s in Riverside Park, and we spend way too much time there. It’s where I will be most of the weekend. Or not. It’s a good weekend to explore as so many people are away. Continue Reading »

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The name “Debbie Harry” has come up frequently this week in relation to me. Most of the time by me. My twelve year old niece thinks that in the 80’s I looked like Debbie Harry. I was so excited that she knew Blondie I told this to everybody I know.

Bone supplies three words. I wasn’t planning to write this story. It just came out.



Cassandra had long ago admitted she sold her soul to the nearest bouncer in exchange for an hour or so of pleasure with whatever rock star was playing at a concert hall or club.

Like most groupies she liked sex but desired more. She wanted to be a rock star’s old lady. That had never happened. Nobody ever talked about groupies who married rock stars near her.

She lived in the same one bedroom she had always lived in near Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. Then it had been filled with roommates, talk, guys brought home, drugs and liquor. The constant smell of sex permeated, along with incense and flavored oils.

Cassandra’s been alone in the apartment for many more years than there were roommates and fun. Walking up five flights takes longer now. After a day spent taking orders, delivering drinks and food, in a coffee shop that used to smell of too many stale cigarettes, she really doesn’t care if the apartment’s filthy.

When she remembers she takes the garbage down. Sometimes the empty beer bottles and cigarette butts remain a study in still life, or so Dinah thinks.

Dinah was Cassandra’s bunkmate in camp. They had never been close. But Dinah felt a responsibility for everyone she had ever known.

When they turned seventeen, Dinah would walk into the club or concert hall with her boyfriend, a British rock star she married at nineteen and was still with 35 years later. It had always saddened her to see Cassandra waiting outside the doors or in the aisle waiting with the other groupies. They looked as if they were waiting to be fed, over eager or sullen and bored looking, it didn’t matter. They weren’t girls who counted. Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

You appear to be doing very well for yourself at the moment but, in true Cancerian fashion, you are already beginning to worry that what you have gained will somehow be taken away from you. Remember: your thoughts create your reality, so if you think like that it is more likely to happen.

I was kidnapped while putting this up last night and forced to go to the Boat Basin Cafe in Riverside Park. The people looked as if they came from central casting, any and all variations of 20 and 30somethings who reside and/or work in Manhattan. It looked like a TV studio for an end of the year special involving every show.

I pointed this out to Lucia and Rafe and we spent some minutes watching. We didn’t exactly envy them. But we knew each other then and all thought those days would go on forever.

It was hard envisioning turning 40, let alone the new 30. I think it’s normal to worship youth. Everything and anything can happen. That said I think it distinctly not normal to worship the current set of pop stars. The few with true talent yes, but they ain’t worth our time and the amount of time spent talking about them.

It used to be easy to know where the people who went to The Boat Basin where from. About a decade ago it was the Upper West Side’s secret club. It’s not a secret anymore, but the inside of the coliseum type space is cavernous

I forgot my camera but will take some pictures and you can see if I’m really the only photographer to regress.

Because I was so rudely kidnapped by two so not 20 or 30somethings, I couldn’t write the post.

Some people make a big deal out of not believing in Sally Brompton. Others call her the witch as she is so damn accurate.

Before The Post was free online, it was worth the 25 cents just to read the horoscopes. My mother who forced my father to stop exploring psychic phenomena because she was a bit scared and more unwilling to believe in anything that couldn’t be quantified, and yes my Dad was the CPA, would have me read her hers.

I would read it to her on the bus going from Riverdale where I was working to Manhattan as I had moved back. Sally Brompton became a bonding ritual when my Mom and I were at a loss. We had always been so close, and her increasing blindness and frailness made it difficult

i put that horoscope up because it so scarily describes me, and must remember that I’m working towards a goal not from it.

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The post below is much more interesting. This is what I call a vanity post. Not a pity party as I’m not pitying me, but was written for me, by me, because I needed and wanted to get it out.

Oh nobody should blog while high on life. Gorgeous day and yes I am weather obsessed.

Saturday it was raining and miserable and I was antsy because I needed to be out walking, pacing the 600 square feet just doesn’t do it, nor does the cute bike machine or the even cuter exercise horsey.

When I was blogging for two blogs, there never was a day that there was an email lull. Was Saturday. Part of me was thinking, nobody loves me, part of me was wondering if Gmail was down, and part of me was delirious with joy Continue Reading »

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It was exactly half a lifetime ago tomorrow that I met Zachary. So scared that I won’t have another half lifetime from now—you know what mean? 28 more years? Kind of like living even when it’s a mess

Wrote the above in an email to a friend yesterday; he said “you won’t put it in your blog, but you should.” Because he said I won’t…
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On a raw, rainy day in late May, she remembered a perfect May day in 1979, when she walked into a club not knowing that her life would change forever. She remembers most details of that day, the lavender cotton tee with wooden beads hanging from leather around the V neck, the Willie Wear lavender pants designed for girls with small waists and larger hips, the lavender Candy cork bottom sandals that she wore.

Generally she dressed to be noticed in lower end designer fashion mixed with vintage 40’s and 50’s dresses. Fortunately she had stopped in Macy’s before going to the club because she bought Gloria Vanderbilt jeans She also bought a tie dyed tee, newly back in fashion, as they were every few years.

This was all good because she wouldn’t be going home that night and had a job where, well once they sent a guy home because his fly was broken. That was the extent of the dress code.

May 20, 1979, the last day of her life as she once knew it. Much loved at her job because she could get maximum work out of people and have them thank her, nobody except Adam the time keeper minded her coming in late that whole week.

She was the only supervisor under personal probation to Adam. That was a joke as he was a drunk who would fall off bar stools after maybe two drinks.

She was forever trying to explain to the people she supervised that if they came in between 8:30-8:37, they wouldn’t be late for payroll purposes but would be late for company if we want your ass purposes.

Nobody seemed to be able to grasp this simple and stupid concept. So she would take the time sheets and change every body’s times herself.

Obviously she couldn’t do this if she continued coming in late because her new boyfriend Zachary would stand at the door and say:
“You can’t go. You’re a prisoner of love.”

She never found this enchanting. She needed her job as most of her best friends worked there. When she had first begun almost two years before, she couldn’t believe the wide variety of people she met, how friendly they were, and how she felt, she was essentially paid to socialize.

No matter how much work she kept back, she still always had the highest production in the room. Coding documents with little summaries isn’t brain surgery and she couldn’t help being fast.

She wasn’t one of the first to be promoted.

Most people couldn’t believe that. They didn’t know she had woke up one night to find herself in the project director’s bed, and had running screaming out. He was a nice guy but at 350 pounds not really her type.

She did feel bad that she had let him on, and allowed him to buy her meals she didn’t eat as she was always on a diet and drinks she did knock back because everybody knew that liquor didn’t count in calories ingested.

Oh yes the 70’s the last great debauchery decade. She lived in a building where she was the youngest, and watched her neighbors drink constantly.

She worked across from St Paul’s Church. Many years later it would become famous as a place where Ground Zero workers could go to relax. Then it was famous among her friends for morning devotional services, or a place where her friends go during morning break to smoke pot.

She never took part. Partially because she didn’t believe in wasting a good high at work, partially because she was basically a girl who could find trouble easily enough without inviting it, partially because she was scared, and partially because she sat next to somebody who would take out a sandwich consisting of every smelly meat and cheese possible ten minutes before break began.

As soon as he took out the sandwich she would begin to heave and then would run into the ladies room. She did lose 20 pounds thanks to sandwich man, and a diet of her invention which she won’t go into as it was so weird and she wouldn’t want people emulating it.

Her job became her life. When she finally was promoted, the project director forgot how angry he was at her and took full credit for her being such a great supervisor. She never told people about that night, except for the Blenderbusters and they didn’t count as they were her three best girlfriends. The project director told many people.

She developed a rep for being bad, but sweet and a great worker. So bad that a few years later when she worked at another company doing the same thing but without the weird time rules, a man who would become the one after Zachary asked her if it was true that she had slept with __and__and__and__and so forth.

She hadn’t. She still find it odd that the project director told so many people. She’s in a weird mood today and wishes, a bit, that she hadn’t chosen to go into the club where her ex-husband was soon to be the owner and Lucinda Williams was performing

She can’t remember if people at the bar where she was sitting stopped talking when Lucinda played. She would bet not as she’s pretty sure Lynn Samuels was there. Lynn never shut up, and had the New Yawk accent nightmares are made of.

It was before Lynn became a radio host and had elocution lessons. She, or I to clarify, knows that’s hard for people who have heard Lynn on the radio to believe, but yes, Lynn’s accent was much worse.

Lynn always wore combat fatigues with a hat. She blessed Lynn because it was it so easy to look pretty next to her, and she was constantly in this club filled with the used to be famous, soon to be famous, almost famous, never had a chance to be famous, as in Zachary. Obviously she had problems. That’s why she ended with Zachary.

She is in a weird mood today, not really due to tomorrow’s not major anniversary. She just wasted an hour looking for “The Roaches” “Face down,” and she will be damned if she’s going to sing it.

Walked in
looking so pretty
now you’re face down

I need a name for the club. I need motivation. I need good weather. I have the same friends I had then. They claimed I was lost to blogging. I don’t believe that to be true.

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