Next week’s installment gets funkier or something. Absolutely different.
Here is a page I made of all chapters with a sort of synopsis. I write them in advance, for fun, and add the words. I fixed the chapters that were out of order.
Writing this has rekindled my love of writing. I have been coming to the sad conclusion that it takes a rare person to be both a blogger and a writer. To be blogger/writer is more difficult as it entails much social interchange, and I can’t right now. I do so admire blogger/writers.

The page is on the sidebar and explains that the USA, in 2030, is controlled by eleven major corporations. I think I picked good ones–so read it, please. It also explains how Justin and the ISB got Nell, Nadia and Denny to the roof, and much more. Chapter 9 is in the page.
I’m moving this along and getting to the fun part for me. Oh yes I’m perverse and proud. Please take your time reading and don’t worry about commenting.
Colliding Worlds is set, for now, in New York in 2030
Nadia fell onto the floor. The stun gun would keep her out for hours. An ISB agent picked her up and carried up one flight to the roof where the helicopter was waiting.

Nell was more difficult to get out of the bed than Justin thought. As she looked at him with no recognition in her deep blue eyes, she bore her weight onto the bed. Justin didn’t want to stun her nor did he want to give her any more medications. He hadn’t thought getting Nell out of the room would be the most difficult problem. He couldn’t take seeing her this way.

The most exciting thing about Nell, aside from her looks and her love for him, had always been her intellect. There had been many times he thought her too bright for him or most of the world. Nell could size anybody in a second. People thought her psychic but she would say: “Intuition isn’t an ability to look and know. It’s based on judgment, experience and maybe something unknown. But I won’t know until I observe his behavior, and it would be good if you get him talking.” Justin would. He would sit in the classes at The ISB where she taught “learned intuition” and be amazed by her ability to get people to examine their deepest fears, and begin to get over them.

Justin and Nell’s mothers had gone to Lamaze class together. For eleven years he had taken her for granted. Justin never forgot the day in Sixth Grade she was walking down a hall as he talked to his best friend Denny. She was dressed in an over sized tee and leggings, as usual. Her face and hair looked the same. But all of a sudden he realized she really was a girl. They were friends yet he hated it when she spent Seventh and Eighth Grades dating his other best friend, Denny’s twin Del. He was happy when they broke up, but it took him until the middle of Ninth Grade to go out with her, and it was only because she asked him to go to a dance with her.

Justin had followed Nell then. Years into their marriage he felt as if he were still following Nell. She would wake up excited about the day’s possibilities, and go to sleep excited about what the next day would bring. When Denny had first betrayed them he felt her anger but watched in amazement as she played Denny. He didn’t want to take her back. He wanted to punish her for the pain he felt when she married Denny. He couldn’t.

Looking at her lying in bed with her wavy golden hair stringy, her once muscular almost zaftig body way too thin, and her expressionless eyes and face staring at the mobile over the bed, he felt too many emotions. He wanted to make Denny pay but more than that he wanted Nell back.

Max came into the room. He almost shoved Justin to the side as he picked Nell up from the bed. They couldn’t afford to lose any time. Justin followed them up to the helicopter. When it was in the air, he pushed a button that sealed the townhouse. Nobody would be able to get in or out until The ISB came later that night for the USC agents.

Twenty minutes later they arrived at their destination, a deserted coal mine in West Virginia that hadn’t been made into a glossy tourist town. One battle was over, but another had just begun. Nobody could tell Justin if the battle to save Nell’s mind would be the more difficult one.
Chapter 11
2030 Somewhere in West Virginia
The helicopter landed in what looked like a deserted coal mine. For the final two miles the helicopter became a bus. It stopped, and went into what looked like a shaft. The dim light gradually grew brighter. Max gasped as Justin showed him the house. Decorated in late 20th century post-modernist style, the house had faux windows with screens that showed beaches and mountains. The house had everything people could need for an extended stay including a full gym, infinity swimming pool and Koi pond off the entertainment room.

Ella didn’t know where she was. Things looked different but she wasn’t sure what they were different from. The full body massage chaise Justin put her in scared her. State of the art it could simulate many different types of massages including head messages. Her body and head tingled. Things came flowing through her brain. Something was different. The voice she always heard in her brain was gone. She didn’t like the voice, because it didn’t speak English, but was used to it. If people only spoke English life would be better. What life? Ella began to shake and not from the message chair. She heard the man who looked like the prince and the woman who was sometimes nice speak. She could even understand some of the words. They were talking across the room. She stared at the pond and wanted to get up and put some of the blossoms on her hair, but she couldn’t move.

Nadia had woken up to find herself tied to a bed. Justin was standing over her. Nadia coughed and spoke:
You think you won
Face it Nadia I have. You’re going to tell me what’s in the ingredients or you’re going to be tortured as you never were in Latvia. I know you tortured people to stay alive. I know you’ll do anything to live.
Nadia smiled
I can live with your beloved Nell staying Ella. I can live with being tortured. There’s nothing you can do that can make me tell, and the ingredients are all in my head. I don’t mind dying to keep Ella
You have a brother. You’ll do anything to keep him alive, and I know he helped you with the ingredients. He’s the genius chemist, not you.
Nadia searched her pockets for her contraband cigarettes. Cigarettes had become illegal ten years earlier. Cigarette companies made better profits by selling pot.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. My brother died a long time ago. Give me a cigarette.
Justin took out a 3D picture/hologram of Nadia and her brother a week ago. They were talking in ancient Greek.
Don’t have any cigarettes. Do have your brother. We know what you were talking about, we just need the final formula.
You lie. If you have my brother produce him.
He’s not here. You’ll have your chance to speak to him.

Ella began remembering things, but her memories were all a jumble. She was Nell who designed books and did something else. She lived with Justin on the Upper West Side, but that’s all she could remember. Nell didn’t want to live this way. Conversations floated in and out of her mind. Who was the woman with Justin? Was he cheating on her as he had with Anna when they were young?. She saw the swimming pool. If she could get out of the chair she could get to it and swim far away from everybody.

Nell willed herself to get out of the chair and into the swimming pool. Instead of swimming or floating she fell to the bottom of the pool.

Stumble it!

Shayna moved her blog again. I blogrolled her immediately–though the big T (technorati) didn’t pick it up, and I didn’t take out all her other blogs for I adore Shayna and the more Shayna the better. She imported the “Eugene” stories and they’re great.
Here’s a vocabulary test that can be very addictive. For each correct answer you donate a grain of rice to the UN. I had to stop before I spent all day doing it.
I know I find humor in the most stupid things but here are many many Google entries on “pour on the upper west side I don’t live on the pour floor. Though I live in the poor wing–the west wing is pricier.
Every two weeks I go out to breakfast or lunch with my favorite person, me. I would do it more often but forget how exciting lunch out with me can be.

Two weeks ago I was leaving Popover’s when I spotted an unusually handsome man, 60something a bit too much work but:
“When I was conducting Anthony Newley”
I think I know who I saw but I’m not really a celeb spotter. When I lived on East 63rd off Fifth I must have passed 100 famous people a day at least Used to say I could run into Woody Allen at a phone booth and not recognize him. Now of course neither of us would deem to use a phone booth even if our phones weren’t working–germs. Did recognize the diva of diva’s the horrible Diana Ross and the wondrous Jackie O.

Today I was having lunch at Fairway’s cafe. It’s a breath of sanity in an insane place. I wasn’t really listening to the conversation in the table behind me:
I don’t see how I can brand myself
You have the name
I don’t see it.
To many people Gael Green is more important than Martha Stewart.

I wanted to jump up and down. I wanted to say that I would make a donation to Meals on Wheels, her cause, if she would call my sister. Green isn’t just a great writer but somebody who helped define modern cuisine. To call her a foodie, a term I abhor, would be like calling Martha, a cook. I like Martha Stewart but Gael Green I love. I was in an awkward position, the next table up, and couldn’t get a great look at her but I think I know why she probably still does well under sheets.

This didn’t at all equal the first time I met Caroline Kennedy–when after being introduced to her, and she left the event, I ran out to call my mother, but….

I comforted myself by thinking that I will be back in New York often, not have constant responsibilities here, and will be able to finally celebrity watch.

My apartment should be on the market in two and a half weeks. Watch out New York, I’m selling.

I’m taking the time to make it triple mint as I was grossed out by apartments, and their owners, who didn’t make an effort when I bought. It is and isn’t for extra money. It’s pride in ownership. As the people working on it can only work in early morning and evening, it’s taking that long. Otherwise it would be ready by the end of the week.

The Times had an article on steep declines in housing sales. The New York City area declined 0.3% one month and 0.7% another month. Which is a polite way of saying that it’s declined by a percent. They didn’t separate out Manhattan. Hopefully….

My sister just called and said I missed the opportunity of a lifetime to say to Gael Green “yes, you appeal to me more than Martha,” as I jumped up and down. My sister’s sure I just missed my chance to have a book published. Love my family, I do.

Just let me enjoy, overhearing conversations while not being in people’s faces. Maybe I should have been. Maybe my entire problem is that I don’t take advantage of connections or run to make new ones. I have soap star friends. I know the last thing in the world they want is privacy. Yet I persist in a myth of my own making that people want privacy.

Maybe this was a private conversation that shouldn’t be blogged about. Then don’t talk in restaurants where the tables are almost on top of each other.

Stumble it!

I’m real nervous about many things so I included the perfect song and video. Perfect for many reasons. I used this blog like a nervous tic today. wrote the bottom yesterday. Work started on the apartment. Now my cable’s out just when I want to retreat from the world and watch totally mindless….
Unless I can think about other things this blog is going to be mostly about selling a coop, and other minutia in life
I totally forgot that I have sold a coop. My mom’s and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I deleted the rest of the post as I need positive energy. Lots of positive energy. It had a happy ending. My sister and I became closer and we did make money. I spent a good part of my share at the dentists.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I didn’t get my mail yesterday so I didn’t know that my bank had bounced my health insurance check. This was very confusing as they included my balance which was more than ten times the amount of the check. The balance reflected this check as having been paid. With me so far? Good because I’m lost.

By the time the woman said they would refund the $25 service fee I was laughing too hard to listen. She began to laugh, as she tried and failed to come up with some excuse for the bank. I have no idea why I found this so funny tears were coming from my eyes. We were both choking by the time the call ended. She dispensed with the usual formalities as she was laughing too hard. The letter told me that I qualified for a credit line. That I have one and the amount was mentioned a few sentences down. I scanned it in both to keep it and as proof that not every problem in the world is caused by me.

It turned out that they actually resent the check to the health insurance company with an explanation. Still I know I will have to spend an hour tomorrow straightening this out. Epilogue: it’s a dull and dreary day and I can’t deal with health insurance companies. If they cut me off, I will….

I’m truly tired of this bank making mistakes that I have to straighten out. They seem to especially like to bounce or lose then find checks to health insurance companies–the one industry that will cut you off before the due date. It’s no longer a New York bank but is very much associated with New York.

I can’t wait to officially move and cut all ties to it. To truly go on with my life I have to leave the New York area.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Work begins on my apartment tomorrow. The guy I hired, to oversee it and hire the others, is the son of the man who named Talking Heads. My deep love of music and Talking Heads–late 70’s–80’s played no part in this decision really. He happened to see a book an old beloved friend of mine wrote that has pictures of many Village musicians on the cover. He said “that person looks familiar. Is it?” “No he is___” We have been finding that we know many people in common.

I admire women who can take care of twins and three other kids while selling a house, buying a new one, working full time, and are deeply immersed in a new relationship. I’m not one of them. Recently I have begun to give myself permission to be imperfect.

Beginning to give myself permission isn’t exactly allowing myself to screw up. It’s so hard to be imperfect and want to be perfect.
here were many Talking Heads “psycho killer” videos to choose from, and most sounded more professional and more Talking Heady–but only the one from CBGBs would do. Really the New York I love lives on in many memories.

I can’t seem to face up to the facts
I’m tense and nervous and I
Can’t relax
I can’t sleep ’cause my bed’s on fire
Don’t touch me I’m a real live wire
Psycho Killer
Qu’est-ce que c’est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away
Psycho Killer
Qu’est-ce que c’est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away

You start a conversation you can’t even finish it.
You’re talkin’ a lot, but you’re not sayin’ anything.
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.
Say something once, why say it again?

Psycho Killer,
Qu’est-ce que c’est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away
Psycho Killer
Qu’est-ce que c’est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away

Ce que j’ai fais, ce soir la
Ce qu’elle a dit, ce soir la
Realisant mon espoir
Je me lance, vers la gloire … OK
We are vain and we are blind
I hate people when they’re not polite

Psycho Killer,
Qu’est-ce que c’est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away
Psycho Killer,
Qu’est-ce que c’est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away

oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh….

Stumble it!

Here is a page of all prior chapters. The page includes a full explanation of the story.
.
Colliding Worlds is set in New York in 2030.
Soon Ella was going to be Nadia’s. Nadia loved Rachel but couldn’t trust her. How did she know if Rachel was telling the truth? Rachel claimed that Denny thought Justin a mid-level ISB agent like him who lived in an intellectual fog, and was allowed in the townhouse under orders to tell nobody including his superiors about it. True Nadia had thought this was an ISB experiment and had never understood Justin’s position. He wrote two best sellers a year and owned Web Warriors. That seemed to occupy all his time. Even now he was playing games. If he truly loved Ella he would find someway to get her out. Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

Here is a page with all prior chapters. Colliding Worlds is set in New York in 2030. Nell, Justin, Denny, Denny’s twin Del and Rachel had grown up together and gone to the same college. Nell and Justin had been a couple forever, but Denny convinced Nell that Justin was seeing somebody else. They married in college. All had been recruited by The ISB, an international peace organization. Nell found out that Denny was secretly working for The USC, an organization that wanted to take over the newly peaceful world. Nell played along for a year then left Denny and married Justin
In 2028, fourteen months prior to this story, Denny kidnapped Nell. She was fed hallucegnics and meds, and would have brief periods where she remembered her former life. Denny convinced Nell that she was named Ella, had left Justin who supposedly died. Denny convinced Nadia a nurse for the ISC that Justin and Nell were traitors. He brought both Nell and Nadia to Colombia where Nell was constantly losing and sort of gaining her mind. Two months ago he brought them back to New York. Nadia was feeding Nell more drugs for her own agenda. Nell had regressed to an almost infant like state with periods of lucidity
*********************
Two months ago he brought them back to New York. Nadia was feeding Nell more drugs for her own agenda. Nell had regressed to an almost infant like state with periods of lucidity
*********************
The United States is now controlled by eleven major corporations. Actually the corporations are controlled by The ISB. Global warming is a thing of the past. Most American’s are content as diseases and poverty are being controlled. The average life span is 98. Workdays are short and work is fun. Most people don’t mind that The Fourth Amendment was done away with in the last days of The Bush admin. They don’t mind the security cameras that are everywhere or that Google controls the news. They have gladly sacrificed some freedoms to live great lives.

Denny minds. He wants The Constitution back. More than that he likes strife. He doesn’t realize that while The ISB is in control they are also working to get back freedoms. That in order to keep peace they have to pretend to agree with the CEO’s of the Big Eleven as the corporations are called, all other governments, that include new “Third World” countries. The ISB is about to take over everything, and bring true peace to the world. Denny has always been a tool and he is a tool of The USC which is trying to stop the USC.
••••••••••••••••••••••
I am telling that part of the story quickly and the following two chapters as this is a first draft and I do want to move the action along.

Denny felt on top of the world. He was walking back to the townhouse from a meeting with the top USC people. They had assured him that their new laser guns would cut through brains and hearts with one quick motion. Denny had slowly been getting his revenge but soon he was going to have it all. Justin was going to pay for getting Nell back. First he was going to allow Justin one night with the old Nell.

It pissed Denny off that no matter how much truth serum he had inserted into Nell she would never talk. The regression experts had assured Denny that if he regressed her and let her come back, she would talk. It had never happened. The USC regression experts insisted that he keep regressing her. They wanted to see the affects of continually regressing a person and then giving her different levels of awareness. They wanted to see how implanting false memories into a person who couldn’t break would eventually affect that person.

The USC regression experts had the highest security clearance. The USC revolution was going to be conducted through mind control. Control the mind, control the person, control the country and eventually the world. Denny wasn’t supposed to tell anybody including Max about this, but he had been so excited when the laser gun was perfected, he couldn’t help himself. Denny had never slipped before. Max was loyal. Max hated Justin even more than he did. Max hated everybody who worked for The ISB. There was something more. Something personal. Max wasn’t a big talker but sometimes when he had too much to drink, he would let out his hatred of Justin out. When Denny was arranging for Nell to be taken to Colombia, and during the time in Colombia, Max was working on another weapons project in the Arabic world. It would have been smoother if Max had been with him, but the head of The USC wanted Max there. The operation had been a success. It didn’t amaze Denny that Max was content to be his second in command. Max’s forte was computers and weapons not designing and managing operations. Denny thought of himself as a theater director/producer in charge of every person from the stars of the operation to the grips. Workers at The USC spoke in show talk. There were times Denny thought that his most brilliant contribution. Not that he would ever admit that.
•••••••••••••••••••

The Imac screen, and laptops were set to show when people walked to the townhouse. It showed all movement from the downstairs duplex to the top triplex. One laptop monitored the duplex, the other the triplex. The sensors were above state of the art. Denny didn’t know that the room monitors could be manipulated. The real ones were invisible. He thought he was working on state of the art security for the ISB. The USC, designed programs that could override the ISB’s. Denny was sure that The ISB hadn’t figured that out. Denny had been sure of himself since the day he had talked Anna into seducing Justin. When Nell had divorced him, he was glad as he was sure she would interfere with his plans for The USC. But he hadn’t met a woman he loved more, and he hated that she left him for Justin.

Denny had met Max when he was a nineteen year old Stanford scholarship student. Bitter because Google who owned 90% of the Internet had rejected him for his attitude, Max made the perfect USC computer geek. He turned out to have many other talents. Denny trusted him as he had never trusted his best friend, Justin, or his own twin Del. Del supposedly had been lost in one of the new Arabic countires.

Denny didn’t know that Max reconfigured the programs to sometimes show people in different rooms than they were really in. The programs could make people seem to disappear and other people appear. The programs could make many false images and other things. There was no way The USC could detect the program changes. He had no idea that Max had been working for The ISB since high school or that the people Max hired were ISB agents. Still two thirds of the agents who worked and/or lived in the duplex were bona fide USC people.

Though all spoke with distinct American TV voices most were from other countries. They hated this new America that had seemed to risen from ashes in 08. What Google didn’t control, Apple, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Home Depot, Juicy Couture, Coach, Barnes & Noble, McDonald’s, Ben & Jerry’s, and HBO did. Americans were happy again as most had good jobs with one of the Big Eleven. American salaries were huge, health care was what Americans had never dared dream of. Six week vacations were mandatory as was the four day work week. The USA wasn’t quite the country the Founding Fathers had dreamed of. The Fourth Amendment had been abolished in the later days of Bush Two’s admin.

Somehow the Democratic admin under President Cash, a Steven Colbert type president, who had come out of nowhere before the first primary in 08 had never gotten around to insisting that the Supreme Court rule on the legitimacy of abolishing an Amendment without proper procedure. People were used to The Big Eleven knowing more about them then their spouse or therapist did. Most people didn’t go to therapy anymore. Life was easy. Life was fun. Global warming was a thing of the past. Pills helped many conditions. Laser therapy helped many more. The average life expectancy was 98. People still got cancer, heart attacks, strokes, dementia and other things, but they lived longer in better condition.

Denny felt more secure and happier than he had been in a long time as he walked into the first floor of the townhouse. This new America was a conglomerate dependent shit country. Even farmers worked for Whole Foods. He would never understand why people were satisfied working for one of eleven companies. His disaffection with America began the day Juicy took over the clothing industry. Women ran it. Not just women but rock star’s wives. When one retired another took over.

Nell would have made a good rock star’s wife. Denny had been a Google/YouTube star in high school. Still Nell preferred Justin. He could never forgive her for that. He would never stop loving her. When this was over, he was going to take her to a country far far away. The years she had been with Justin would be erased from her memory. She would be constantly confused. Denny had loved her when she was smart but this was better. He wanted an old fashioned dependent women. His father had talked so lovingly of his grandmother who had been a typical 50’s housewife. Denny had never met his great grandmother but idealized her.

Justin and Max watched Denny walk onto the building.. Justin shook his head. There was a jaunt to Denny’s step Justin remembered from childhood. He would walk that way every time he had a plan to beat somebody in a game. He walked that way during the weeks he had hatched his plan to get Nell from Justin in college. Denny had convinced Anna that Justin wanted her. He talked her into seducing him. There were many things Justin hated Denny for but that was the first. Until the kidnapping he hated Denny more for that than the betrayal. Justin could understand hating this Googlized world. It was better than the alternatives. He spoke to Max:
We have to get Nell out of here tonight. He’s up to something.
We need a few days.
I can overpower Denny. You stun Nadia. We can have enough people here in minutes to stun all Denny’s people.
We have to wait for the laser disenabler. I gave them the prototype yesterday. We only have the three I made
You said three disenablers can stun 30 guns
I said I think they can. We haven’t tried it and they’re still working on getting out any possible bugs
We have to chance it.
OK suppose you’re right. What about the safe house and getting Nell there?
I have my own safe house. I can have a helicopter here in five minutes.
I know you’re rich, but The ISB…..
That nice elderly professor? The one that recruited you? My father? What do you think he really does?
Max tried to joke:
He screams about The First Amendment.
Yeah, he does that too. And his father began The ISB. My family, it’s ours. I don’t know what Denny did to Nell. I don’t know if he inserted her with a truth serum. I know Nell. There isn’t a truth serum we know about that could make her talk. But it’s what we don’t know. We’re getting her out tonight.
I know how much you love Nell. But you almost sound as if you want her out to see what damage has been done.
I want Nell back. The real Nell who wouldn’t want to live like this.

Stumble it!

I should explain that I have changed the bottom of this post every day for the past six. I also wrote another post, put it up, then put it in draft as I’m having ten zillion anxiety attacks at once
November 23, 2007 — Chances are you will do something outrageous today, something even your closest friends think is evidence that you have finally lost your mind. They’re wrong, of course. If anything you have finally discovered your true self and intend to follow your dream without fear and without seeking approval. Good for you.
November 24, 2007 — You need to overcome your fears and you need to overcome them quickly. For some strange reason your worries have got out of hand of late and the result is paralysis - you cannot move one way or the other. Trust that life will always support you, then make a supreme effort to get moving again

On the sidebar is a new chapter and link to a page for Colliding Worlds–the page has a summary and explanation

Ten years ago today I officially moved into this apartment.

But put me in an elevator.

I’m not a romantic. Actually maybe sadly the opposite of one. When I left a comment at Cooper’s blog defending benevolent sexism, I was really defending my using men to help me with everything to do with selling this apartment. When I bought it was an all woman thing except for the seller’s realtor. I’m bad at accepting any kind of help. I think I should do it all myself. This move has me crazed and I find myself accepting any help. I find myself obsessively making arbitrary deadlines based on nothing but a feeling that I have to get it on the market before the end of the year.
I read blogs, magazines, newspapers and various websites. It feels as if everybody thinks they’re an expert on some subject or another. If every American who claims expertise truly was, then wouldn’t this country be in better shape? Reading all this works me into a state of paralysis. I was reading a real estate site that I love as it gives real prices, days on market etc. However the comment threads are dominated by idiots. I wanted to ask real questions but didn’t see the point as I would be told to buy gold. That has nothing to do with the questions that I wanted to ask. I think we suffer from too much bad information.

Little Luce and I spent a couple of hours figuring out weird things about my Imac. She’s kind of an expert and it wasn’t just me. Wow do I feel great. And feel great about what I didn’t understand and do now.

Stumble it!

Yesterday I missed the family, our family, Thanksgiving. Thursday I will go to my sister’s in-laws who are lovely people but they’re not my family. I’m comfortable there but haunted by Thanksgivings past, and want new traditions of my own. Finally I want to be the grown-up. How old do you have to be to stop being an adult orphan? When your children reach college age? What happens when you don’t have kids to mark your life cycle?

I’m anxious. At one with Streeteasy.com which has real prices, how long apartments languish for, reductions in price, pictures of apartments, sometimes videos, and floor plans that do or do not have square feet. It lets me see what I should expect. My apartment is larger than some on sale in my building, and smaller than one. It has one more bath than all, and more marble and granite. I know marble and granite’s so yesterday but I’m not going to change it, just buff it. My apartment had its walls skim coated in 90 and they are still in excellent condition. Just look tie died from the floods.

Floods aren’t a bad thing. They allow the steam risers, something I never heard of until last year, to be replaced with the building’s insurance. The building is making a schematic of all pipes. This is a well run building. The super is an expert in floods and in luxe pre-war Manhattan buildings that’s what counts.

It took me weeks to get the nerve to go to the storage room. In my imagination it’s a huge scary place where everybody’s cages are more organized than mine. The reality is different, but I literally get sick before I go down each time. Last week I became sicker than ever.

On Friday I cleaned out the storage cage. Apparently clothes from Studio 54 days are in vogue. Many books were ruined by the basement flood. But I did it. And formed my storage cage theory of life. When you’re ready to tackle the impossible you will. No matter how scary it feels at first.

Today I was too antsy to stay here. I was going to go a movie, one of my Monday afternoon guilty pleasures, but there wasn’t a movie I wanted to see badly enough for $11.75, no Fandango. They’ll be on pay per view soon enough.

I wondered the streets keeping myself outside of stores as I’m into getting rid of things, not adding. This holiday season will be on the cheap. I’m also one with Morningstar.com and don’t see any good signs.

When I point out the newish West 72nd Street subway stop and park to people who aren’t Manhattancentric or didn’t live her then, they don’t see the beauty though it looks like a Nora Ephron movie set. They don’t know it once was called Needle Park, see Panic In Needle Park one of the most underrated movies ever. Logically to me Panic… reminds me of my father as he knew Jerry Schatzberg, the director.

I guess my father knew him during his photographer days as he knew many, but I remember him telling me a story involving Schatzberg and a porn film, Elka don’t read this, that my father somehow was involved with. Apparently people did porn films for tax write-offs but this one was a success. I remember reading an article in Playboy about it. I could be wrong but I’m 99% sure it was Schatzberg though it’s in nothing official about him and frankly I didn’t feel like delving further.

This Island is filled with real people and ghosts. My father’s ghost being the most preeminent. Last week
The Times had an article on high stakes poker games that made them sound sleazy. I don’t know when my father’s game began, sometime before I was born. I do know he met many of his clients and friends through it. I imagined it to be like Felix & Oscar’s game. Though I knew there weren’t people like Murray the Cop. It began at an Ivy League club and moved to apartments. For most of my life it was on Monday night, then Thursday.

My father and I had a standing dinner date. He would go through food phases. One year it was all Shun Lee Palace when Ed, Shoenfeld was maitre de and the nation’s first Jewish Chinese food specialist, though some would argue we all are. He would come sit with us and tell us stories. Probably my father told more stories.

In the 80’s there was a cheap chain of seafood restaurants Hobeaus,(each restaurant had a different name, and once Lucia and I had an inadvertent lobster fight that people applauded) that everybody went to including us, when we didn’t go to Faye & Allen’s or a few other pricier ones. My sister lived in The West Village and my father was determined to eat in every restaurant in it.

Toward the end of my father’s life he began to revolt against pricey restaurants and we would usually go to Ottomanelli’s Cafe a chain of Italian past restaurants based on a butcher shop.

When I think of my father I think of restaurants, poker, New York and so so much more. I went out, and go out all the time, and will never classify myself as a “foodie” a word I disdain as it implies and infers being better than others. When really most Manhattanites live their lives in some restaurants or others. I don’t find it exciting or interesting anymore. There seems nothing left to be discovered. Nothing new. I like bistros, tavernas and diners though I can live without actually being in them.

I’m jaded. I know that. When you live in Manhattan for most of the past 32 years and can’t get excited about restaurants it’s past time to leave.

There are so many other ghosts. I used to have lavish parties when I lived on East 63rd. An old friend asked the other day if I still make rice with vermouth and I had to dig deep to remember that dish I invented. I used to read cookbooks for fun, and substitute ingredients. White vermouth, something I have never been able to abide straight, is great for cooking as it has many herbs.

I no longer eat rice, white or brown, nor do I usually eat pasta my very favorite food.

I’m trying to calm myself down by writing about my father’s ghost and food. It took me a year of searching to find this apartment. I don’t know how many apartments I saw. Most were ordinary and no amount of decorating would change that. Many were put on the market dirty and in much worse condition than I can imagine my apartment being in.

Though prices were much lower then I felt the owners greed. I didn’t feel that when I first saw this one. I saw an apartment that had been lavished with love and respect for original detail. I want the person or people who buy mine to have that same feeling. I want them to walk into the building and think “please, please, let the apartment be as nice.” It was nicer.

I know I will never be a recluse and only the doormen will know my name. I actually tried that and it didn’t work. I have too much of my parents in me. But it scares me that I take little pleasure in restaurants anymore.

I never imagined myself moving to The South. Southern Florida, yes, but I know too many people who I don’t want to reestablish relationships with. Something vapid in their values. Cousins excluded.

I’m antsy and I can’t work on the novel I’m writing strictly for fun. My head is filled with lists of things to be done. I have to decide what to get rid of; what to keep and put in the storage cage so that next week when my apartment is worked on it will be an almost clean slate. Clothes, I can get rid of in a second, but books they are hard.

I hope to look back at this time in six months and think how much easier it was than I thought it would be. I hope the person or people who buy it will be as entranced with painting it and making it into a “wow” statement as I was a decade ago. Now everybody has multi colored walls. I want them to love how secluded the bedroom feels, almost as if it’s part of a private home.

I want them to be haunted by their own private good ghosts, and when the ghosts begin talking too much or stop talking to know it’s a sign. I’m not sure what the sign means but it means something.

Stumble it!

This is a very scary time for me. Getting ready to leave all that is known. I bitch about New York all the time but I have only lived here except for two years in Cambridge in my early 20’s–and all over the place before then. But I was young, very young and had few things. I was impulsive then and am so the opposite of impulsive now.
I don’t know how that happens. Becoming settled. Thinking of everything that can go wrong, when once I just did. I have such deep roots here yet I know it’s time to shake the roots.
Writing has become so important to me. Once it was a hobby. Something I did to amuse myself. Something I did better than other people at work or in school. It’s the anchor that’s almost making me do this. Lately I have been scared that I’m losing my talent or whatever makes me unique. I begin to think that I’m too old. That great books and articles belong to the young(er) and I never gave myself the chance before. Serious writing requires an organizational skill I lacked until modern computers.
I have an entirely different side. In person I’m funny. In many emails and some comments, but here…I think I need to be settled.

The title of this post refers to my great love of Frank Rich–and how he’s writing about people I can’t stand. I so hope Judith Regan is Rudy’s Linda Tripp. But often I think he should be the Republican candidate as nobody in New York can imagine him winning. We have been wrong before. I remember going to vote in 2000 and a woman said “if everybody on the Upper West Side stands a certain way we can win.” I thought she was crazy, but have thought about what she said she often–that was before that night, and the Florida results. Maybe we didn’t stand the right way.
The quote from the Frank Rich article is beneath all this–If anybody can explain how RudyG can be so truly devoid of morals yet be so popular when Clinton was crucified I would love an explanation.
and click the help stop global warming link
Have to decide what to give away and what to keep. Not easy. My apartment will be on the market shortly. I know there’s still a market in New York for apartments like mine. Not sure how to price it.
Help stop global warming. Got this from Little Luce who got it from her school.
Frank Rich on Judith Regan and Giuliani. Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

Psycho killer stuck in elevator My newest favorite search term.
Have new fiction two posts under this. Really getting into the story. This is one of the reasons I’m leaving NY. My building is a large coop with many rules. The building next door is small. I suffered through three years of constant construction right after my mom died. They did construction on Saturdays–including one Yom Kippur. They did construction at nights, on Sundays. If they didn’t like the way something came out, they would redo it. The wall was redone at least seven times. Just before construction began I bought new furniture and had chairs rehupolstered. Big mistake. Opening a window shouldn’t be a luxury that I feel apologetic about.

I began questioning values as it’s just damn inconsiderate to spend three years doing something like that. We who live in small apartments with no terrace pay a premium to have a Manhattan address. People who can afford to build penthouses should be more considerate than the average person. My “neighbors” flaunted and flaunt their wealth in every way. They don’t even use the huge terrace. That should make me glad but sickens me. To have such an amazing resource it’s truly priceless in New York and use it three times a year?

They’re bigger in the photoblog. I’m standing next to a stranger. Well in a sense…We were young and youth is the best defense for just about anything.

Too tired to attempt to make sense….Have better pictures of when I was a brunette again with some red highlights and didn’t scare people. Idiot can’t get into them into a jpeg. Somehow got two into the proper form after hours of obsessive trying.

Idiot has always been one of my more affectionate terms for me, and I do mean affectionatel

This moving business is very tiring. Think selling a home is one of the top stressors. Now that I’m going full throttle will have less time to blog. I haven’t been great at commenting or meeting new bloggers for awhile as I was trying to get over my blogging addiction and then was obsessed with the thought of moving.

Now I’m obsessed with action. But I have an early Thanksgiving on Sunday, and am spending the night at my sister’s on Saturday unless I fall apart. I couldn’t sleep last night and while exhausted just can’t get myself to go to bed.

This is a big social week. Apparently people think that I’m going to fall off the face of the earth and all want to see me. Which is nice.

I hired somebody incredible to do all the grunge work, the painting, the fixing up. You think somebody who can’t get a JPEG into a proper file is going to attempt this?

I took a tour of the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s today when I tackled the now empty storage cage. Uh, do I have clothes. Gave most of it away to the Church of Fernando my doorman. He has seven kids and I’m not sure how many siblings.

I will be living in North Myrtle for the winter but am not planning on buying for awhile. Really this means I have the whole country to chose from. I’m psyched. Have Imac, laptop, cells–this new world amazes me. The first time i was in North Myrtle I was solving family and friend’s problems within the first two days. Made me we realize that we’re never out of touch. Sometimes I would like to be but it’s good to have people who care….

Stumble it!

I was adopted when I was four months old. The anniversary is actually next week. I’m a week ahead of myself this month. I made a page for what some people to be the best thing in this blog. My dad’s story about the adoption. I do get teary when reading it

The post under this is about RudyG. As a New Yorker and one who worked in social services in The Bronx when he was elected I can speak about him with authority.

This page includes all the previous chapters. Including the mysterious but explanatory chapter 5 which was never a 3WW but on the sidebar.

I only intended to write one story, then I decided to add a chapter, and it began to grow. It’s a true first draft and something I do for fun only. Colliding Worlds is set in New York, 2030. That means I can’t make it true sci fi. But can use some medical advances, corporations, and political–not advances. It will come out slowly.

Justin looked at Nell lying on the bed. He didn’t want to think about the last day they had really been together, fourteen months ago. That Sunday, Nell woke him up early:
It snowed late last night. Let’s go to the park
The snow will still be there in an hour
He turned over to go back to sleep. She ran her hands over his body. He was about to tell her to stop when she whispered into his ear. All thoughts of sleep were forgotten as their bodies melded into one. It was always best early in the morning. Justin smiled and followed her into the shower:
I’m going to get you for that.
Bet you can’t wait.
Showers had always been important to them. They couldn’t stop laughing as the many massage sprays mingled with their bodies. Showers reminded me of them of the day, Junior Year in high school, Justin had sort of innocently kept talking to her as she had walked into her shower. That day they first declared their love for each other: the day they first made love in Nell’s retro floral print wallpapered bathroom, next to her parents bedroom

After this shower, Justin watched Nell straight iron her hair. She was meeting the girls for brunch. He was going to work on a book. Snow began to fall again. It was supposed to softly snow all day. The weather was just cold enough for it to stick without being icy. Justin and Nell were going to meet at Central Park at Two, make snow angels, and go ice skating. Nell had taught him to fall into smooth rocks. It was easier for people over fifteen. Justin waited at a rock near West 79th Street with their ice skates. Nell had called it their rock since they had once made love on it in the middle of the night in high school. She was very propitiatory about the rock, and funded maintaining the grass and trees, nearby, that kept the rock hidden from public view. Every year on the anniversary of the night they had first found the rock, they would bring a bottle of champagne, a joint, and reenact that first night. Each year one was responsible for thinking up something new to add to their repertoire. As neither Nell nor Justin were into public demonstrations of affection, it always felt slightly naughty and as though they were still sixteen. It was Justin’s favorite night of the year. This year was his turn and he thought he had come up with the perfect move. Justin could maneuver the tapes the video cams made that monitored every inch of the park.

He kept calling Nell’s cell and getting her voice mail Their cells had GPS’s for emergencies. Nell’s was disabled. He called her girlfriends. Nobody had seen her since she got off the subway at West 79th Street. The subway videos showed her getting off a train, laughing and waving to her friends. The street video’s showed her walking alone until Columbus Avenue. Then she seemed to disappear. That was impossible. The videos captured every street, store, restaurant and apartment building. In America, 2028 people gladly sacrificed privacy for security.

Only The ISB was supposed to have the technology to maneuver the tapes. The videos were all synchronized so that one person could be seen from the time she walked out of her apartment until she walked back in without pause, if she stayed in public places and didn’t go into the apartment of a known dissenter, or might be dissenter. Most Manhattanites had been on that list initially but the list grew smaller every year.

That was the last time they had seen each other until six weeks ago. He kept feeding her doctored water. It didn’t seem to do anything Justin mistakenly whispered into her ear. It agitated her, and seemed to make her want sex. Oh he wanted sex with Nell but not this way. He wanted her back whole. Justin had so many resources, so much medicine, analysis of medicines, blood and more, and specialists available. Nothing seemed to be working. Max called. Nadia was coming up the block.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

When Nadia came into the townhouse, Justin and Max were playing a computer game. She assumed their games were exciting. They had designed the game and many more. Web Warrior games were very hot. Peoples avatars could morph into different characters at any time The games were 3D and the visuals were as exciting as the game. Nadia’s friends who disdained computer games in favor of massages and cards played Web Warrior. You could get your evil side out, your submissive side, your good side, all in one segment.

She smiled her mousy smile at them. It was good that she looked so plain and could bring up facial expressions at will. Now she was the competent nurse with no love for anybody. She walked into the bedroom where Ella was trying to grasp something that was invisible to everybody but her. Nadia switched off the room monitors and put on lights that constantly changed colors.

If Ella really tried she could catch the lights. They were brighter than they had been all day. If she caught the bright pink one, her prince would come. She had just seen a man who looked and talked like her prince. But her prince would know that he had to catch the lights. He had walked out just before the woman came in. She liked the woman. The woman would help her find the real prince. But something about the woman was scary. Ella didn’t want the woman to touch her. She told the woman to leave but the woman pretended not to understand her. Ella’s doll could make the woman leave. Ella’s doll refused to help her. Ella needed to catch the light. If she caught the light she could summon up angels. Angels could do anything.

Nadia couldn’t help but think of Nell as Ella. Ella was a non-person without most memories or a mind. Nell was somebody else. Somebody who might be worthy. She gave Ella a drink; chocolate milk with an ISB med.
Here this will sooth you.
Ella looked at the pretty pink straw. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with it. She began to play with the chocolate. Brown is an ugly color. Ella only wanted pretty colors. Prince’s liked princesses who wore pretty colors. Didn’t the woman know that? She knew she was right for disliking the woman. Nadia looked at her with a combination of disgust and lust. She murmured:
You’ve really regressed haven’t you? Good but they all want you a bit more aware. Justin, he wants the old you. Ain’t never going to happen. I’m going to make you perfect for me.
Nadia fed Ella the milk. Ella instantly became a bit more aware. Her eyes brightened and she said something that almost sounded intelligible. Nadia spoke in a low sexy voice
You think you make sense Ella? You don’t. I might have to let you make sense, but it will be for brief moments. You’ll want to be Nell again, and it will be so so pitiful. You’ll learn who the one person who can help you is. You’ll learn to love me, when you realize that you’re just plain Ella, a nobody.

Ella wondered who Nell was. Nell was the princess. The man who looked and sounded like the prince but couldn’t be said she was Nell and he was__she couldn’t remember. She didn’t want to catch the light. That was for babies. She wasn’t a baby. She had a life, a life she couldn’t remember. She wanted to get out of here. She wanted to find the man. Princes were stupid. They were things little girls dreamed about. She didn’t want to dream. She wanted to live. If she was nice to the woman maybe she could get out. She smiled.

When Nadia had come to America she had been amazed by American teeth. Now her teeth were laminated, and whiter than white. But Ella’s teeth made her smile enchanting. Nadia couldn’t understand that. They weren’t anywhere as white or perfect as hers, but they looked better. Nadia hated and desired pretty women. She didn’t have to hate Ella she could just feel sorry for her. Instead of going to the medicine chest for the hypodermic and “medicine” she went to a secret draw in a closet where she kept the needle and hallucinogens she used. Nadia believed anybody could tamper with her things. She smiled at Ella as she came with the hypodermic.

Ella resisted. Nadia shoved her onto the pillows, and quickly and expertly shot up Ella.

Nadia knew how to make hallucinogens there was no antidote for. She had been giving Ella small dosages since the beginning. Nobody knew exactly how she mixed the acid and TMHL, nor that she put a third ingredient in it. One that nobody knew how to make but her. Nadia had a Masters in Chemistry but had gone into nursing for the money. She had done her Masters under another name and Social Security number. Even The ISB hadn’t found out. Nadia thought having another career and identity could come in handy some day. Yesterday she gave Ella a double dose. Today she gave her three times that.

If anybody analyzed Ella’s blood only the right ingredients in the right amounts would show. If her plans went as she expected she wouldn’t mind the world not knowing how truly brilliant she was.

Nadia didn’t know Justin and Max had put surveillance cameras in the room that couldn’t be detected. They were watching from the Web Warrior game on their 40″ Imac screen, and the laptops they both used to make their moves. Justin owned Web Warrior. People thought Google owned the Internet. They didn’t know there was a company, The ISB, that owned Google. The ISB had funded Web Warrior.

Nadia walked to the other side of the room as she watched Ella’s body jerk and twitch. She knew what that meant. Ella would love it so much more in a few minutes. Nadia had no idea if a few minutes was the equivalent of a day to Ella. She walked closer to Ella:
This will make you feel good.
She tickled Ella and got into bed with her. Ella began to hallucinate quickly.
••••••••••••••••••••••••

Nell and Denny were making love. Justin had died and Denny came back to her life. No, but she wasn’t Nell. Nell was somebody she had once known. Maybe Justin’s girlfriend when they had broke up. Denny said that she and Justin hadn’t been happy together. She left Justin for Denny, and they loved each other passionately. Something happened and she and Denny had to live with many people, and Denny had to pretend to be Del. But Denny said if all the people didn’t live with them, she would have to live in a hospital. This was more fun. Nadia was in bed with them. Ella must be a princess to have two with her.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Justin knew he had to get her out that night. It didn’t matter that they were outnumbered by Denny’s people. It didn’t matter that The USC had made weapons superior to The ISB’s. He had gotten one of the weapons. The ISB was working on disabling the weapons. They were almost ready. Almost wasn’t quick enough.

Stumble it!