I did an interview with Jancee Dunn that is on BC.
Before there were online dating services there were personals. Around 1986, I put one in as I had broken up with my fiancee and didn’t seem to be able to meet anybody I wanted to date.

I was a bit too impressed with myself and I guess the personal reflected that. Don’t remember what I said but I got around 250 responses and only 30 were from prisoners.

It was overwhelming. The Blenderbusters read through them and we decided who I should answer.

I went on a couple of dates with a man who seemed perfect on paper. He was a certified social worker who had gone into the family business and owned a small but very upscale chain of stores

We had two decent dates. Then he went skiing. He called me from his ski trip and said he was coming home early so we could have our third date. I was big on the third date rule, unless I was overwhelmed with lust.

It was very cold and I wore a denim mini, huge sweater, black fishnet stockings with black nylon in back of the fish nets, hand painted Converse high tops and my nutria–Louisiana swamp rat–coat. My hair was big and red, I wore ear muffs as no hat fit my head or my look. I think I was going through a too much make-up stage.

It was just before the advent of multiplexes and we had to wait about an hour outdoors to see the new Woody Allen film. I can’t remember which film but do remember that it was on Second Avenue. After the film we were supposed to go to Sign of the Dove, a pricey nice restaurant.

Alan, don’t remember his name, had a cold. He should have canceled the date, but…

Not only didn’t he use a tissue, but snot was coming out of his nose for the entire time we were waiting. I kept handing him tissues, but somehow he didn’t seem to realize….

We never made it to Sign of Dove nor did he make it to my apartment. I made some lame excuse, and went home determined to never see him again.

A few days later I got a letter from him. He was “breaking up” with me. Something about me had made him up his therapy sessions from ten hours a week to fifteen.

He broke up with me? We didn’t even have a relationship, and I did the breaking up unless I forced fights something I excelled at.

I threw out all the letters. Dating from personal ads was just too much work.

I will be away for a bit more than two weeks and might or might not post again. i feel so stupid not being able to keep to a schedule when I don’t have six kids, or anything like that. Just a book I’m desperately trying to get together. It’s hard because it’s on the teenage me, and I want to be true to who I was without sounding preachy. It’s hard to dredge up the feelings without becoming immersed in them. I so envy people who can redo their blog posts for their book, but this isn’t a bloggy book.

Stumble it!

The one and only Cooper added my name to a list of personal development blogs. Cooper I can’t thank you enough. Really.

This list was begun by Priscilla Palmer and is I think something worthy. I am away and won’t be really blogging until October. Sometimes other things have to take precedence over blogging. This would have been impossible for me to believe a year ago.

I want to think about who I add to the list rather than link for the sake of linking. I also have to add the complete list to my post and can’t do that right now. I did find a personal friend. Only her blog doesn’t appear to be working. CS call home

Many bloggers have inspired me in different ways but who has helped me grow? Many I believe. So I have to find some measure or scale to do this properly.

I am big on personal development, and I would love to someday not feel guilt if I don’t do blog things. Blogging has helped me grow so much that the guilt meter is working overtime with this one.

I do feel proud that Cooper included this blog as she is one blogger I have watched grow into an amazing woman.

Tune in later to find out. By later I mean anytime from tomorrow to sometime in October

I do ask that bloggers try to understand that sometimes a blogger has to disappear both to be a better blogger, and because sometimes blogging is a luxury we can’t afford at the time.

I do return comments and put work into my posts. The bloggers I admire are bloggers who comment on other blogs and don’t think that their posts are so important they don’t need to. I don’t understand why some bloggers send the comments back with one line acknowledging they received the comment–obvious, I think–yet comment on other blogs. That’s part of why I’m a bit down on blogging now.

More importantly I have other priorities at this moment in time. It’s nice to see “newer” bloggers so psyched about blogging. Please understand I love it also. Love it so much I can forget I have a whole other life.

Stumble it!

For once I truly am out of words, and must focus on my book. See latest sidebar post for clarification if interested

I need joy and good things in my life and if I have learned anything these past six years, it’s up to me to make my own destiny.

Stumble it!

I have never blogged about subjects people want me to. I have always been contradictory. I always derived a certain amount of pleasure from blogging simply because I love writing and reading so much.

Purely personal bloggers understand what I mean. This blog will never have the stats it once had, but I didn’t begin a blog looking for “popularity” money or status. I began it as a way to see unedited words in print.

I have said that so often it’s become a cliche. It became something bigger than I had desired or knew what to do with. Well, I’m pretty good at getting publicity but I’m a good writer.

Many people don’t seem to grasp the concept that there are people who will read a non-focused, non-niche blog by a blogger who claims no area of expertise simply because the posts are interesting.

And said blogger doesn’t give progress reports on her book, sample chapters or usually talk about it. I have been told by mainstream reporters how unusual that is for a blogger. I don’t want to be defined as Pia Savage, blogger, who is forever writing a book, who talks about 9/11, a changed city and a dead mother.

Really I hope that you know me well enough by the time it comes out to want to buy it, and I know a few people who will gladly pimp it for me.

This past year, and I do measure years by school years, now from 9/11 to 9/11, has been about reclaiming me. I’m trying to uncomplicate my life and find the joy that has been missing.

There are times in the blogosphere I feel adrift. Who am I? I don’t have hubby and/or kids to talk about. I don’t really enjoy politics–once it was fascinating now….

I intuitively understand how to optimize my search engine whatevers and that’s a bad thing because when I read posts on that side of the blogosphere I can’t comment and tell the blogger how brilliant he/she is, and run to my blog and link to the post.

Thank you for smoking is one of my top ten all time films. It did put viral marketing in its place.

I hate how obsessed I become with a subject and have to learn everything about it. Nobody awards PHD’s in blogging yet.

I’m always talking about time away from blogging. I need to recapture the joy in writing and this blog feels like a noose that keeps me from feeling good about my writing. It’s one big responsibility I don’t need, at least for the time I’m in North Myrtle.

I haven’t had a pure vacation in three years and won’t this time, but at least I can let my blog coast.

I feel guilty because new people are always discovering my blog, but I have month by month archives and categories I wouldn’t really trust because sometimes I forget to label posts with all the relevant ones.

I have a light humorous side that I don’t show in my posts. I would like to. I don’t cheerlead for movements or for me. When it comes to me I tend to do the opposite because that comes so naturally to me, and I want to change that.

I want to write and I want to enjoy myself and I was doing so well in the later area this summer, but today, the day I was going to spend all day at the beach, I found myself crying not just for the people who died, or buildings that were lost, or city that has changed but for me also.

I’m not the person I was six years ago and many people claim that to be a good thing. I’m not even the person I was four months ago

I have toughened. Paradoxly I have found that to experience joy one must let out the naysayers, and I don’t find that easy. It’s my instinct to try to fix what’s broken; to right wrongs and ultimately to let myself be used by people who are too needy of me.

This is so hard. This is where I count on blogger support. But I can’t ask you to do for me when I’m not really willing to do for others outside of my family and true friends right now. They need me and I must reserve my giving strength for them.

I am so drained of all energy I feel as if I could sleep the next three weeks away. It’s not depression drain, but the kind of draining that comes from being pulled in too many places by too many people.

Then I feel guilty because i feel only people with spouses and/or children or truly important jobs have that right. I go back to feeling that I must be all things for all people. It’s not easy being me.

Please understand that this isn’t about you but me and the changes I’m undergoing.

When they begin awarding PHD’s in blogging, I will claim mine.

And I so resent the people who say that stream of consciousness blogs should be password protected to prevent inflicting their blogs on the world. Isn’t the blogosphere large enough for all?

Stumble it!