You see your apartment being discussed in a real estate blog as if it’s a loin of pork, only its tenderloin. (You really don’t know meat so the metaphor might be weird but the only apt comparison is a “side of meat.)

I have an intro to a chapter in this book I will talk more about it later.
If I had known what a blog was, had been home and had a laptop with a router I could have blogged about the blackout. But I was in Brighton Beach with my friend who since sold her apartment for mega money–though it’s not as nice as mine–and it took us 9 hours to get home.

It took me an extra half hour after we walked to Sheepshead Bay, took two buses to the Brooklyn Bridge–watched the Mayor greet all the people going to Brooklyn, saw many groups of people have parties in Tribeca, Soho and The Village have parties. She lived in the Far West Village. I bribed a cab driver to take me to the Upper West Side. My super, the doormen and some residents were smoking cigarettes outside. I asked if anybody had an extra lighter or matches so I could have light walking up nine flights of steps. Nobody would give me any

That wasn’t the hard part. It was finding my apartment in pitch dark. I had no idea where I was–it took me many tries and 20 minutes. I felt so guilty that I had sometimes been impatient in reality with my mother who had gone blind from macular degeneration, and more times in my thoughts.

I missed the blackout of 77 when I was young, lived on the first floor, arrived home just as the lights went out, and spent the next day getting drunk with my best friend then Shelby as every bar was giving away food and liquor.

But I would have never been in Brighton Beach then and the bus went through neighborhoods I couldn’t have been in, in 77. Instead of looting people were directing traffic and giving out water

Stumble it!

I was going to spend a rainy day doing something productive like filling my Ipod Touch with music. We have been having an incredibly rainy day–of course on the day South Carolina declared a drought emergency–and I spent most of it having a nervous breakdown as I was asked for something important that would have been impossible for me to have.

Ever since I wrote the article about NLD I have assumed that people think I’m a screw up. For a person who has always self blamed, well me thought I was getting away from that but on days like today where the lazy river is pack to pack, wall to wall, filled with people desperately trying to hold on as the current is more rapid than a lazy river is supposed to be, I fall into that space called almost self-hatred. Then I make myself laugh so….

Four years ago today I began this blog never suspecting that it would take on a life of its own and sometimes be bigger than me. Irony of ironies: I wanted an intimate audience and found a large one.

I pulled away. Life is supposed to be lived, not blogged or twittered or….Now I need an audience and can’t make a decision without consulting my best friend and at least five other people.

I’m going to spend the next ten days finally relaxing and go back to New York to do everything that must be done and you can’t begin to imagine how my calender is tripled booked and that’s not my view but in view. And I have only watched The View when C or my sister, Elka, force me to. C is my landlord and a sister and sista as she’s my bff Lucia’s sister. Lucia has heard from me too often today.

Jason thank you. When my blog is finally redone ,and Jess has been working very hard–my server’s been down and other problems that have nothing to do with me or her, I will give out the Delete Award–I treasure it for many reasons but somebody giving me an award called “Delete?” It’s funny even to me, but Jason is right–I don’t do politics very often, anymore. Though if there’s a floor fight for the Democratic nomination I might become crazed and I just don’t have the time or mental energy for that.

Hillary lost. I hope people can accept that as if they don’t we deserve to lose the general election

My original URL freenynyfrombushtoday.blogspot.com was a protest against the RNC in New York. I knew less than nothing about blogging and didn’t realize Blogger wouldn’t let you change URL’s. Or that people read blogs.

How was I supposed to know? Most people in my age group didn’t know what a blog was. And thus ends my yearly speech. I will probably post when Jess completes the redesign and on 9/11 for this 9/11 will be the last I will be living in the apartment I was in that day.

Many people refuse to admit how much things changed in New York. They refuse to admit that the price of housing and people’s incomes bore no relation to each other. It was stupid.

Oh yes, she can say that, she did well, you think. I made my price reasonable, really. And think it’s really cool that I’m selling to economists–well, they do other things, but of course I googled them.
Me to my sister: I googled the husband.
Elka: You found a husband on Google? Eddie, Pia, no you didn’t really…

My sister wants me to get married and obviously doesn’t care where he comes from. Elka and Eddie are spending the rest of their time in the Hamptons–where they met—figuring out the logistics of a Google match.
I can’t write half decently right now. It’s so hard to focus when everything in my life is about to change. For good, but…..

Stumble it!

It’s 8/8/08 and I know this is supposed to be a great luck day and maybe it will be, but personally I can’t wait until 9/9/09 as 9 is my favorite number. In elementary school I was sent for further counseling for loving the number 9 so much.

You can read about it in the book. it makes me laugh as I know there was nothing sinister or sick about my love for 9–it has the “n” sound which is still my favorite. I think they were trying desperately to find bad neurosis in me as I did have problems and they couldn’t accept that my inability to learn many things despite my IQ and my clumsiness etc DIDN’T have to have a neurotic basis, OK psychotic, as they couldn’t find a physical base.

I’m exhausted. So much has happened since the beginning of July. I’m proud of my LIP article. It was a coming out of sorts as I sent it to every living relative. My relatives were always great to me–well my one year older boy cousin and I had a sibling rivalry–according to our Aunt A–but when we grew up we liked each other. We really like each other. Not that we’re close

My friends are my family and my sister and her family of course and my b-i-l’s family–this is getting even more exhausting.

But my family of friends are taking over my move which is happening exactly when I thought it would. (Note to self: rethink The Secret,no don’t–it was a combination of market forces, pressure on the realtors to deliver, and much else.)

I will celebrate when it’s all over. I’m overwhelmed by everything and overwhelmed by gratitude to my friends and that includes blogging friends–Alphabet Girl Who Is A Woman Now you occupy a special place in my heart–for keeping the faith and much more.

OK. I’m a bad blogger. Last Friday night my blog disappeared and while I got it back I still haven’t reinstalled the links and much else. Too much is happening in my life. Most bloggers do respect that. I find it amazing the bloggers that will de-link you immediately, not even caring about karma and really showing that they couldn’t care less about blogging as a community.

I stopped caring about links over a year and my lack of them shows that. The blogroll will be back up shortly. I apologize about that.

I plan on enjoying the next two weeks as I have to go back to New York on 8/25 to finish getting ready to move. Lucia has taken over responsibility for getting the built in wall unit down, rebuilding the wall, and painting the living room.

My sister thinks I should move to a college town, me being a great mind in need of constant stimulation and all that but I’m beginning to build myself a nice life here. I’m confused. I think I can start a book club or writing group through the library, and a writing group on the Internet.

I was going to write a post or hopefully article on what I would have done differently when I bought my apartment. Then I realized two things. Eleven years ago the info on the Internet today wasn’t around, and I didn’t buy my apartment as an investment but as a place to love and live in. Guess what? I’m going to buy my patio house as a place to love and live in also.

Me thinks I’m beginning one of those great periods of life that used to happen to me every other year for three to five years—then once a decade if I was lucky. I can’t decide if the time when Courting was hotter than hot was a great period of life or was an interesting anomaly. I don’t exactly tell people when I meet them for the first time that I have a blog and once it was taught in at least two universities and I’m a side note in blogging history.

I don’t explain why I don’t drive. Since I have been moving during the oil crisis I have been using that to my advantage and saying that I’m experimenting with living in a town with zilch public transportation without a car or valid license. Myrtle Beach actually has Greyhound buses that go everywhere, and there’s a new bus company that goes many places much cheaper and is very luxe.

I didn’t reinvent myself through my blog. I was honest but it did help me see that a person can reinvent herself, shake up her life, and become the person she was in her 20’s and 30’s before life became so complicated but without the baggage and torrid self examination

When women talk about the 40’s and early 50’s being a wondrous time, and how being over 30 brought peace and contentment I wonder about them. Did they just stop living? Were they really that together and I was missing a lot? Did they have elderly parents who were becoming more dependent and thought that was a picnic?

Life doesn’t have to be as hard as it was for me. Now that more people have aging parents, it’s not a verboten subject. My best friends found ourselves moving away from each other during our 40’s for many reasons. We have found our way back to each other, and this is a subject I might explore in my blog because if there was a mistake to be made I made it. Fortunately they love me anyway.

Stumble it!

I still have a blogroll. It just doesn’t show It will later today. I don’t know whether I’m going to put my blog on hiatus until I’m more settled or not. I wanted my blog to glide along effortlessly until I was ready to return to real blogging. However….

I want to scream. All week it’s been too hot to go to the beach during the day. Not that I go all that much anyway and I live less than thee blocks from it. There are always errands; always things keeping me from it. But I go in the evening and walk miles. Last night I looked at the beautiful light falling over the ocean. Duh. Lightening–and not heat lightening.

Today I had to do something for the lawyer. Not my lawyer. The buyer’s lawyer. This might be a buyer’s market but I resented that. It was something stupid–I had to pay something that really wasn’t expensive. But the damn principle. I guess I hate it when people nickel and dime me as I’m so the opposite.

I feel like screaming. The walk made me sweat but didn’t do jack shit for my mood. I walked back with groceries, and groceries, a mile and a half at least and 90 degrees feels like 110 don’t go well together.

I hope to care about something other than this someday. But I thought I was through with renovating that apartment. I have to take the wall unit down–it’s built in–redo the wall and paint the living room. Well no, I’m not going to do it personally. I have a best friend who used to be a girl contractor. Though she volunteered and offered her daughter and all our friends I feel weird. Very weird.

I have to face up to demons, my own personal ones, I have been avoiding for a few years. I have to pack, arrange for the move, and do everything in one month. For so many months life dragged on but i was tied to my computer and cell. Glad I didn’t get a Blackberry or Apple Phone–would have died in the great cell in the sea incident.

I was so tired of waiting and now I don’t know how to describe how I feel other than crazed.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

There is nothing you cannot achieve if you want it enough, and if you keep telling yourself that fact you will be surprised at how quickly your dreams start coming true. Just make sure that what you think you want is what you truly desire. Don’t lie to yourself.

Usually I do feel like this. Today however my apartment is taking too long to go into contract and everything feels out of my control. I will probably feel differently tomorrow or maybe even this afternoon, but I so need to feel control over my life.

Being in control has always been the most important thing to me. I have been trying to learn to live without so much control, and thought that I was succeeding. But waiting slowly for each step with my apartment and then feeling guilty and as if I can’t write about it because at least I can sell my apartment. Why should I feel so guilty about something I have worked so hard for? The contract should have happened already and each hour that it doesn’t makes me think I will have nothing to feel guilty about.

It’s not as if selling my apartment is my end goal, though at times it feels it. I want to sell my writing. I know we’re supposed to be coy about that and if we get a book contract say that was the last thing on our minds, until the first comments come telling us how we didn’t work hard enough or some such thing, and then we’re supposed to say “What do you mean? I had a plan. I read every damn writer. I mimicked their styles. I studied proposals. I did this….”

I’m an insatiable reader. However I’m truly incapable of the master plan. The only way I can get a book contract is by writing a book. I have been.

My blog will be four years old this month. I will probably put in a lot of picture posts once I stop getting an error message when I try to. My article explained my problems. They’re not excuses but it’s hard to have my problems and feel that I’m not excusing myself from things that are so easy for most people.

I hate feeling the way I do. Vulnerable. Sad. Scared. Lately I have been imagining what my life would have been like if I didn’t have NLD and I have to deal with that loss also. The loss of self that could have been, and really should have been. I do feel robbed as I’m so close to “normal” and can truly visualize my more “perfect” self. I try not to do this but I have a feeling that it’s part of the process of reclaiming me.

And I do like me very much. I’m a great friend, sister, relative. I’m fun. It takes very little to get me laughing. I want to be laughing a lot more and hopefully will be shortly. I know I will be as I will be in New York for most of September, friends will be here later in the month, family will be here when I come back.

And hopefully I will get to buy a house. My bff Lucia said that’s when I’m going to turn into a true Puerto Rican as she’ll come down (she was a girl contractor) her sister C will be here, C’s husband W who was one of the original VP’s for Home Depot and a supporting cast–everybody has to inspect everything.

I was going to write a post about how my three best friends and I decided to share our homes when we get older. We will have two Manhattan apartments, a house in North Myrtle, a house on a Long Island Sound town and a house in Sag Harbor.

This way we can remain in control and not be dependent upon the one child among the four of us, or hopefully anybody else. And we will be laughing. A lot.

Stumble it!

It was just another 90 degree in the shade Friday night and I was planning my day tomorrow when something made me look at my sitemeter. It stopped working at 4:54 PM. But there was more. My whole blog disappeared.

I don’t want to go into the whole story of how I was begging my old design and host company for months to change my custom WP as I wanted to be able to make changes myself.

My head feels as if it were split open and not stitched back together so I’m just going to thank Jess of Delicious Design Studios for saving my blog, and I do mean saving the entire blog.

I was able to successfully back up my blog for the first time. Once again I had been blaming myself for a problem I didn’t cause. It feels so great to have control. Thanks Jess

There will be minor differences in the template that will or won’t be noticeable. Or maybe major ones!

I wasn’t going to say anything as I know how hard it is for so many people to sell their homes, but my apartment–well it’s good, it’s very good and by November, I should be the proud seller of my apartment.

In New York we “go into contract” and the coop board has to approve the buyers. It’s a long drawn thing made longer by banks doing whatever they’re doing these days.

It’s almost too good and while I know how hard I worked to make this a reality I will believe it after the closing is over. I know the song I’m going to put in my blog. Began singing it to myself. Thought I wrote an incredible song–with music. Then realized Stevie Wonder did many a moon ago.

There are too many one bedrooms on the market Mine is smaller. I bought it in 97 and priced it much lower than the Uppper West Side apartments mentioned in this article. If the sale doesn’t go through I will be miserable, and as I said I can’t be too excited until the closing

I rejected totally insulting bids from people who couldn’t pass the coop board. I found myself not only being insulted for myself but for the building. The people who I hope to go into contract with and then close are perfect coop residents and not dependent on Wall Street at all.

If this falls through I will take my apartment off the market, live in it and try when the market rebounds. It would be the end of a dream, but I have to believe that everything will go as planned.

Signed:
Somebody who used to have a good grasp of the English language but lost it tonight; I feel as if it should be August Fools Day

Stumble it!