I knew I had to get my apartment on the market by the end of January at the latest for it to sell in a reasonable timeframe and at the price I wanted. But I was only the owner and couldn’t fire the contractor as he had too much of my money.
You’ll get it back in the sale
No I won’t. Listen to me.
But of course he didn’t. It was all about his needs and his wishes. I should have never tried to do him a favor for I might suffer dire consequences.
My 6 by 12 windowed marble bath has the wrong kind of marble. It’s not Carrera so what good is it? The huge reglazed tub isn’t a modern soaking tub so…? Oh the kitchen problems–they will truly haunt me.
I have only myself to be angry at am so I am. I knew I had to get on the market by January but who am I? Only somebody who saw what was going on and didn’t act quickly enough.
I’m angry at people who treated their homes as if they were a cash machine. Not talking about the people who got sucked into teaser mortgages but the people who thought the party would never end.
There are so many of them and we waste time feeling sorry for them? If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it. Simple. I hate to feel like a Republican on this and I do understand why the bail outs have to include people who weren’t acting responsibly.
But I was. And I’m paying for their partying like it was 99. The New York real estate blog delights in the fact that apartment inventory for sale is at an all time high. The other night I was reading it and realized exactly why I hate it and why I’m leaving New York. People don’t look at things in terms of people anymore but in terms of figures. If it can’t be quantified it’s meaningless.
They have no respect for the history of New York. No knowledge of New York’s social history. Had to Google rent control and rent stabilization. Didn’t know why it began. Youth is no excuse.
I could and have written long research papers on how modern New York came to be. I was so tempted to ask if they knew who Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs or Robert Moses even was. But I never comment on large blogs, and am not about to begin.
They didn’t understand the history of the Bronx–how Mose’s Cross Bronx Expressway cut it in half and White people with some money moved to Riverdale; White people without money moved to Coop City which had been a great amusement park, Freedomland, for a few years. They didn’t know parts of the South Bronx have become more surburban than bona fide surburbs.
They, not all of course, thought rent controlled apartments and stabilized ones are government subsidized. Not even the rent stabilization board is a government agency but why let facts get in the way?
Many new condos and rentals are truly government subsidized as they get tax abatements. The same person thought rent controlled and rent stabilized meant projects when it just means the rent is controlled or stabilized. The program began after World War Two to keep the middle class in the city. It’s far from perfect. I wouldn’t believe in it but nothing has taken its place.
Most people I know who are stabilized make between 40K and 100something. Have no real savings outside a 401K, are in “the helping professions,” exec assistants, paralegals, or in the arts. They have no savings not because they spend money wildly but because Manhattan is truly horribly expensive
But it’s a great city and these people are part of the reason why. I lived in a stabilized apartment for sixteen years. The first year the lease was in my father’s name as I had been irresponsible. The next year it was changed to my name and my name only. My boyfriend Zachary wanted his name added. Not even when we were truly in love would I do that. My best friend didn’t add her husband’s name when she was married–which was fortunate as he almost sued to get the apartment. It’s not the stuff of myths that people get divorced and divide the bedroom with markers.
My building had a great landlord. He sold it and the new owners tried to evict as many people as they could. They did evict both my neighbors. They sent me an eviction letter claiming that the lease was in my father’s name. It wasn’t but even had it been I had been paying the rent for the entire twelve or thirteen years I lived there and was obviously the tenant. No way could they evict me.
They could make my life hell and they did. This is an article about more modern day hell
I had five major floods they refused to take care of. They imported cheap prostitutes to live in one apartment next to me and drug dealers in the other. Whoever wanted to could sleep in the lobby and vestibule. This was during crack days and I was the first person in the building to leave in the morning.
I could have waited for them to buy me out. But I grew scared so I left. I sent the management letter a certified letter saying I was breaking the lease a few months early. They sent it back, and had the frigging nerve to call my elderly mother and tell her I moved without a return address or phone number. That was of course absurd and she told them so.
I should have bought that year–91. I could have a bought a large two bedroom dirt cheap but I didn’t want to profit off peoples misery as the housing market was down almost as much as it could be.
I used to believe in karma. I’m not sure that I do anymore. I want my apartment to sell and soon. I don’t need the realtors to tell me about their other apartments that are moving. What does that do for me?
And I hate this weekend. I have neither a mother nor a child. Am I supposed to retreat for the weekend?
The Town of North Myrtle will be 40 tomorrow. They’re having a concert with The Beach Boys without Brian but with Dean of Jan & Dean. If they do Mother’s Day things, somebody might have to ball me from jail.
I lived in New York during 9/11. A big part of the reason I’m leaving is because of everything that happened after. I don’t want to rehash it now but people who have read Courting for years know about my personal tragedy a month later and the help I couldn’t find.
Hillary Clinton was an influential senator who could have done much to alleviate the suffering. Not just the counseling I sought, but she could have helped New York get its promised aid in a timely manner. Montana needed it more. I can never forget her for forgetting about the city she claims to represent. I can’t stand the people who choose to overlook that.
So would Hillary be good in an emergency? Only if it suits her needs.
OBAMA BRINGS REASON AND INTELLECT. OBAMA BRINGS HOPE. OBAMA CARES ABOUT ALL PEOPLE. HE IS ALL PEOPLE. FOR THE FIRST TIME WE HAVE A CANDIDATE WHO UNDERSTANDS BOTH THE BLACK AND WHITE WORLD. OBAMA ISN’T A MACHINE CANDIDATE.
OBAMA IS THE ONLY HOPE WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF THE MESS OUR COUNTRY IS IN. THE MISTAKES HE MAKES ARE LITTLE MISTAKES. THEY’RE NOT MISTAKES OF REASON OR POLICY.
IF G-D FORBID SOMETHING ON THE SCALE OF 9/11 OR KATRINA HAPPENS I HAVE FAITH THAT OBAMA WILL BE THERE FOR ALL OF US. NOT JUST THE CHOSEN FEW.
This went into private though didn’t say that last night–nor did I touch anything to make it so. I need a design company to retweak Courting and another hosting company
The most exciting part of my day today, Monday was walking past The David Letterman Show twice and pretending that he came out to discover my brilliance and my Southern/New York beauty and put me on the show as an added guest. A girl can dream.
Until I sell my apartment, this will be my legal address. I’m coming back at the end of June, and suspect I will be coming to New York often even after I sell. New York runs through my blood as no place else ever could.
Spirit Air was only a half hour late. For Spirit that’s like being two hours early. At the Myrtle Beach Airport they had a display of banned cigarette lighters. Many looked just like guns. It was scary to think of what could happen if somebody took one out…I had never seen anything like them before. Hey I think Aim Flames look like guns–but these looked like the real thing.
Lucia and Rafe my two BFF’s came over. Lucia wanted to scream about how much she loved my hair but as Rafe was my hairstylist for so many years….Even he had to admit it looks great. We went shopping at Fairway at ten PM. It was much more crowded than any store I have been in, in North Myrtle during prime shopping hours. Thursday night I loved the exhilaration though I know that will wear thin. I bought sushi for breakfast. Sushi is one food I will never eat in North Myrtle–OK, it was brown rice, smoked salmon sushi but still–I wouldn’t buy any fresh fish that I wouldn’t eat within an hour or two. I did sample it when I came back home. Bought rough cut oatmeal as I can’t find it anywhere in North Myrtle. Rough cut oatmeal makes oatmeal into a truly divine experience. Have to buy hot wasabi peas and a few other things. Have a feeling I’m going to be buying many things over the Internet.
On Friday I began walking down Broadway looking for a certain mani/pedi place. The weather was incredible. When I passed Gray’s Papaya, I began tearing up–will take pictures and begin a photo blog to show you why. The thing is I can’t deal with the smell of hot dogs and have never actually been in a Gray’s. If I get a drink somebody has to buy me one. I was getting over an allergy induced migraine–my allergies are much better near the beach. But Gray’s symbolizes real New York to me, and my sinuses were clogged so I didn’t smell anything. Just stood there and teared and teared for my heart belongs here. Continue Reading »
The above is the absolute worst blog post title I have ever written. But..
The average apartment in Manhattan stays on the market for 188 days, and that was before Bear Stearns. Have to keep remembering that. Then I feel guilty as I’m not facing foreclosure or being forced to sell. Yet I feel relaxed, so…
You never made it to 30. Then how did it seem you were there all my life?
We never talk about you anymore. We have moved on.
To some you’re a symbol of the beginning of a great war. Not to those of us who knew you well. We loved you for you; Manhattan’s best indoor mall. Manhattan’s largest office complex. A restaurant with the best views and decent food. A high flying lounge with great appetizers, a piano play and wonderful views. Even an observation deck we would go to once or twice, take tourists to, watch tourists go up to. The best damn TCKTS booth in NY. The line moved rapidly and the plays seemed better as the tickets were bought from you.
For several years, in my 20’s, I worked across the street from St Paul’s Church. It felt like such a long walk from your subway stop as it was so windy. I would often stop at Trinity Church to look at Alexander Hamilton’s grave.
In my earliest youth I would meet friends on the concourse for drinks. We would mean to stay for a drink or two and somewhere long after midnight….good thing subways were there and a never ending procession of cabs.
Later I moved up to the pricier places with a view worth dying for. I wanted to grow old with you. Not that I thought about it, except that day in 93, when I lived in an apartment that had a dead on view of you. I spent the night on the terrace looking at Staten Island and Jersey. Actually it was an amazing view seeing beyond your lights. Slightly discomforting but I knew you would be back in the morning.
My sister lived in the building closest to you. We had been together that day. I don’t remember if we thought it was a fire or knew that it was a bombing. We laughed about looking at Manhattan without your lights. Laughed and were frightened.
The new mall that was built was even better. You had more fun stores and better more modern concourse restaurants.
My sister’s daughter and all the kids I knew viewed you as a giant playground. One that was more fun than most real ones.
The “covered bridge” that lead to The World Financial Center had an art gallery for us older ones and pieces of rubber next to the large windows, kids could climb on and look. “Wow, Pia, can I really play on this?” The art gallery had socially significant events–the story of desegregation among other things. It forced you to think as you were walking. That’s the best kind of gallery to me.
That other day I try to forget it. But it’s imprinted in my mind. I can’t forget it, and I had my own personal tragedy the next month, the one that made me realize I would have to leave New York so yes I want to forget.
My heart still breaks for you. But this war, you wouldn’t have wanted it.
You were as New York as any of us. Many of us measured great moments in our lives through you. It hurt so much for so long to look down and not see you.
You had a New York tude. I was supposed to go to the last concert in your outdoor space. Pete the K9 cop was going to hold good spots for us. Janis Ian was playing. Fitting very fitting. We tried explaining how Ian was probably more socially significant than Alanis Morissette or any of the 90’s girl folk singers but each generation thinks theirs is the best.
You were so big. So sturdy. We didn’t realize we thought you would always be the backdrop to our lives. After your loss we realized how much we had depended on you.
People talked about “Ground Zero.” That’s meaningless to me. It’s you, The World Trade Center, that remains in my heart.
I could only find “tributes” to “Society’s Child” but this will do.
Pete the K9 cop–my good friends the Waldo’s brother-in-law was supposed to go to work at noon that day. He was driving his wife to work when he saw smoke. Before he could get a call, he called. Both he and his dog survived. It’s an urban myth that all dogs died. I know as I know Pete.
He retired, and has a management job at a large security firm. He and his wife bought a large expensive house. Life goes on. He was always a good time guy and still is. But sometimes….
Happy birthday World Trade Center. You didn’t live the long life you should have but you are missed As long as I’m alive you will be talked about as you were. It doesn’t hurt to think of you. I’m numb when I think of that day, but everything after–that hurts. And you had nothing to do with that.
I don’t know how to end this because your ending was so unnatural and so wrong. I’m no longer in mourning for the people or my mother–my personal tragedy. Now I mourn for you.
The Trade Center was bounded by Tribeca and The Financial District. They are the richest zip codes in Manhattan now Perhaps that’s your tribute.
I put the post I wrote on the sidebar as I wanted this to be front and center. If this bores you don’t read it. I have to get it out.
The real estate blog I read was filled with people exuberant over the “death of the Manhattan real estate market.” One man in particular has been all over the threads and in posting so much spreads negativity.
He has a very vested interest in seeing others suffer as he wants to buy at depression prices. He cashed out. Or something. You never really know who commenters are. I gave up on political writing for large blogs a long time ago (as defined by the “youthful age of blogging”) because so many commenters had an agenda and would refuse to listen to any other POV. They and a few other people know everything and they know it well.
If they did, they would understand that a bad housing market is good for nobody as is a bad stock market which does go hand in hand. I caught this man talking about putting 250K into the stock market instead of a down payment. He mentioned putting it in one stock that would pay eight percent therefore paying $20,000 a year in interest.
In that one statement he showed ignorance in everything that he was trying to be an expert in. Nobody puts or should put that amount of money in one stock, one stock fund, bond etc. The 250K–put in a diversified portfoli– might go up but will probably go down. Therefore eight percent is eight percent of a lower number that is probably constantly changing and can’t be reliably predicted this year. He created a perfect stock market scenario which is exactly the opposite of what he says for the real estate market. You can’t have it both ways.
But what do I know? And for the record I don’t comment on that blog. It’s not worth it.
These people don’t seem to understand that that many of us bought not thinking of an apartment as an investment but were forced to by the very media that now tells us we never should have thought that way. And the psychology of entitlement that pervaded this country.
I never bought into that. I have never felt entitled to anything including being comfortable with my own intelligence and/or talent. This lack of feeling entitled caused me to wait too long. Or maybe not as I priced my apartment too high for me to feel comfortable with but I did that to see if anybody would bite. It was a couple of days before Bear Stearns went under but that was one event that shouldn’t cause an entire city to give up.
I know longer no what a fair price is but I know it’s not 100% less than somebody with a comparable apartment who sold last month. I have bills to pay and a life to maintain. Unfortunately it is that simple. I don’t have a mortgage so I can afford to be more flexible than most people but….
If my apartment doesn’t go into contract in x amount of time I will take it off the market. I can’t afford to pay maintenance and rent indefinitely. A strict coop board might be forced to let me rent me out.
Personally times are very different for me than during the last recession. I’m older. I can’t afford to wait ten years for housing prices to spike back.
I think new media and the affect of it on MSM can be very dangerous. People should bear some responsibility for what they say and not be content saying “the public has a right to know.”
The public doesn’t have a right to feel fear needlessly. And so far much of what’s been happening in Manhattan specifically is very fear generated. It might be a one industry town–the stock market–but it is different for many reasons I don’t have the time to go into now.
Tosay is seventeen years since my father died. That day was also the day the government officially said the stock market began its long trip upward.
I refuse to give into either fear or depression so I’m getting my hair done. Of course it’s pouring and very cold for the South.
I think murdering a contractor who took my money and stopped working and kept begging me for another chance would be considered justifiable homicide. I don’t want to get into that mind frame.
We are all in this together and we have a responsibility to look for answers that help all of us, not feed our own agenda.
If I had a countdown clock it would be counting down the hours until Wednesday morning. People keep saying “wow, you’re going to be living in America,” as if life outside of New York, Southern Florida or California requires a passport and shots. So many people have been doing big and little things for me, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and happiness under the anxiety.
My sister has not just come to terms with it but seems to like the thought of the move.
In 1997, I was self employed. My health insurance premium was $347–found checks when going through files. It’s now over $1200 a month–not because I’m older or have any conditions as anybody can buy health insurance in NY who can afford to. I bought my apartment that year. The monthly charges were $535–now over $1200. Most of the increases happened after 9/11. Yet they say inflation is just beginning. Not in New York.
This all began to be real to me when I canceled my subscription to The New York Times.
This move to a place I didn’t know before last year couldn’t have been possible before I began to blog. I learned so much about people and this incredibly wonderful country that just needs a lot of fixing.
Lucia and I took Little Luce to this Simon & Garfunkel reunion concert when she was eight months old. Her father was scared that something bad would happen–but Lucia and I know Central Park. I don’t know if anything will be in my skin and bones as much as New York, but I’m going to look.
The first concert my sister and I went to was a Simon & Garfunkel concert in Lincoln Center. Our parents sat several rows away. It was horrible that they insisted on coming. I wasn’t going to admit knowing them nor would I be seen talking to them.
This has always been one of my favorite songs. It reminds of being the age Little Luce is now when life was one of infinite possibilities. I’m beginning to feel the possibilities again.
This next one is for the friends I saw last night and a few more. After 30 years, so far I think we’ll be sharing park benches somewhere when we’re 70. It has a bonus song with one of those seminal 60’s words
I will be commenting and posting more regularly once I’m a bit settled.
This is my first attempt at Writer’s Island. This weeks prompt is Second Chance.
As always I thank Bone for the words.
Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the first attack on The Trade Center. I will never forget either attack. The fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq is quickly coming. We’re not honoring the dead by remaining in Iraq.
My printer is throwing a fit so I almost run to FedEx/Kinko’s on a very gentrified West 72nd Street. When it was just Kinko’s I used to feel I was in a Al Pacino movie, and would look for all the lonely crazy people. My cable was down more than it was up when I was a reporter and I thought it would be a fate worse than death not to have friends I could wake up at midnight to use their computer when I had just seen a movie and had a six AM deadline. I couldn’t imagine being in Kinko’s through the night. It seemed so transient.
I have had many second chances in life. It almost seems unfair to be constantly reinventing my careers. Same city–three apartments, same friends, but oh so many careers.
There is only one career I crave and I crave it so much I feel like a vampire sucking blood. Who am I to think I can make it as a writer? Lately I have been reading so many good blogs I think I’m not even a ripple.
On March 5, I will take a 90 minute plane ride to a new world for me.
90 minutes by plane but a world away. A new life. A new chance. I won’t be stressing about things costing more every day, or a woman yelling in Fairway:
You, you deserve to die.
I have no idea why she pointed to me and said that. Neither did the other people waiting on the long line. I could understand the man who screamed at me as I almost went to his check out counter instead of the one just across from it.
He told me that I owed him an apology. I didn’t think so, and I’m the former princess now queen of apologizes. I had already told him I was sorry. He wanted something more. Something neither I nor the other people in Fairway could have given him.
I accept people going crazy in Fairway. It’s built so that the aisles are too small and everything looks dirty though the fish is always ranked first in freshness, least in mercury, etc.
I know people who won’t shop there as they don’t want to be yelled at. They want to be distant from the fracas yet really all life in Manhattan is frazzled.I accept Fairway as a normal part of Upper West Side life.
When push comes to shove, and it does all the time there, do I have to accept it?
I write about Fairway too much as it’s the bane and justification of my existence.
The years immediately preceding and subsequent to 9/11 were the worst of my life. My mother was rapidly aging. She was the person I had always gone to for advice, for validation. She wasn’t at all demented but blind. People treated her as if she was demented. Sometimes they didn’t but she thought they did. It didn’t matter. I heard it all. I had no filter that separated her feelings from mine. I tried to consider her feelings. She tried to consider mine. Yet so many times we didn’t act considerate of each other.
I worked in a nursing home. Surrounded by old age I almost became old myself. I felt adrift and alienated from almost everybody. It should have been easy, for me, to find help to deal with my conflicted feelings. The professionals in the nursing home couldn’t understand how I could let my mother live alone.
I would quote them to them. “She has capability in all areas but sight.” They would tell me that if it were their mother they would insist she live in an assisted living facility or a nursing home. “But you’re the ones literally writing the book on the many types of capability. Don’t you understand, stubbornness? Vanity? The want to live an independent life? I can’t tell a woman with capabilty in almost all areas where to live” No, not in this case. She was blind. That she could distinguish medications by putting different sized rubber bands on the bottles–a home care agency test of cognizance–didn’t matter.
That she was sharp and mindful of all possible problems didn’t matter. Didn’t I know I was a bad daughter?
Therapists outside the nursing home would tell me I had to separate. I knew that but how? I didn’t live with my mother. There were five mandatory phone calls a day. If I didn’t call at exactly nine AM she would get sick to her stomach. They didn’t know what I could do. They just knew her dependence on me wasn’t healthy. I knew that also. They refused to believe I was also dependent. I seemed so strong. I stopped believing in therapy. I knew this wasn’t an easy problem but I needed support. I needed to feel that I was a worthy person.
Oh sweet irony. I had gone into this field to learn how adult children and parents could get along. I had gone into the field to look for new ways of housing when people became old. I had gone into it with many expectations that people didn’t want to consider then.
Now the news is filled with this problem. Then I felt so alone. After her death, shortly after 9/11 I felt guilt, sadness, despair. Nothing but time could heal this.
I became the person I hated. I became a person who screamed in Fairway. My gait is slightly off. It’s not noticeable except when I’m tired or my psyche is worn out. I would bump into people. They would scream. I would scream back.
The supposed 9/11 affect of people becoming nicer; the halo that was supposed to have surrounded this city; it bypassed me. I felt as if I had become a punching bag for everybody with any problem to dump on.
Later I was to realize that no matter how horrible the problem we have a responsibility to only let it out at the right times. That there were few right times then–that this was a city in deep mourning—I truly should have understood that. Yet my need to mourn my mother should have been acknowledged.
I was right in giving up the friends who told me to stop mourning after six days. But I made my other friends responsible for my happiness and that’s always wrong. I felt so sad and distant from the world that once seemed to belong to me.
It was my straight male friends, and one great girlfriend, who were there for me. I can never participate in straight male bashing. One was physically present whenever I truly needed somebody to cry to. He would drive me where I needed to go, and basically translate my language of despair and need to our friends.
Another knew how to make me laugh. He has known me most of my life and knows I would rather laugh than cry, and needed people who understood that. I hope that there is never another terrorist attack or Katrina type emergency. But if there is all people affected should be given counseling if they want it
I have moved past mourning my mother. Still I needed continuity. My city, the one constant in my life other than family and friends, was quickly changing into a city I no longer knew.
My best girlfriend would walk the streets with me and point out how many people bumped into me and yet I would be the one to apologize. That gave them license to yell at me. She pointed this out and pointed it out until I understood apologizes were unnecessary. Not everything in the world was my fault. I will always love her for that and much more.
The first time I was able to go into Fairway without feeling scared that I would blow up was my biggest victory in my adult life.
I came back to myself. I’m an improved version as I have gone through the eye of too many storms that hit back to back. I did come out of the funnels stronger.
I never yell in Fairway. Even this past Sunday when the store was wall to wall people, when I was told I deserved to die–something I had thought in the horrible years–even when the man thought my “sorry” wasn’t enough, I smiled.
I don’t want to use all my energy just getting through the day.
This past decade wasn’t all horrible. I watched two young girls turn into wonderful young women. I became closer to my true friends. I met many new people. I learned that America consists of more than the NorthEast Corridor, South Florida, and SoCal.
I learned that despite my disability, dyspraxia/non verbal learning disorder, I can move where ever I want to. I learned that I can take the best of me and make it better.
I have a chance, a true and planned chance at a new life. It hasn’t hit me yet. I don’t really understand that once I sell my apartment and buy something new, my expenses will be cut drastically. It hasn’t hit that when people in North Myrtle say something is crowded, I have to look–and never really find–the crowds.
It hasn’t hit that I will live in comfort with a dishwasher, washer/dryer and things other people take for granted. And it won’t cost more than $1200 a month above the purchase price.
Outside of New York I can focus on what’s important to me. I know the first six months or so will be difficult. I will be selling one apartment and looking for a townhouse to buy. A townhouse, a place with steps and room. It feels like a fairytale. It’s not
More importantly, New York, is the city of too many memories. I find myself reframing my mother’s final years. I wasn’t a bad daughter. I was a daughter who helped allow my mother to live her final years with the dignity she so badly wanted. Somehow it’s easier to understand that outside of New York.
New York was my dream city in my 20’s and 30’s. I have changed. New York has changed. Change is good. Change keeps cities thriving and people growing. New York has a chance to remake it into the model international city. I have a chance to devote my time to my passions, and I have many.
Really I’m just a simple girl from Long Island gone country.
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I can’t comment right now so don’t feel the need to. ..
Doug, my dawg of wonderful colors is on vacation. But he left an interactive post to help me design my new house. So help me please!!!
This is long and maybe a bit verbose but my heart is bursting. I forgot to say my apartment’s 600 square feet. Everything I did was with tricks and gives an illusion…
In Manhattan it’s always been about real estate and always will be about it. A good apartment with that intangible “wow” factor brings up the apartment’s worth immensely. Today’s consumer might be perfectly prepared on paper, but falling in love is falling in love whether with a person or an apartment.
*Actually I met them yesterday.
Ten years, seven and a half a months ago, on my birthday, I circled the ad that led to the first apartment I found that said to me: WOW, I HAVE TO OWN THIS. Continue Reading »
I was just telling somebody a story about two guys I have known. One intimitely and forever though not forever intimitely, and the other just kind of forever. Both are rather well known in their fields which I will leave as pop culture.
Then I realized, not for the first time, I have had a whole incredible life that’s never been talked about here or will be in a memoir because while I will tell good friends stories about my life as it did happen, I don’t feel comfortable talking about my true personal life–even things that happened many years ago. Courting and hence Google presents a very distorted view of my life.
Sometimes I wish that I were a very different type of person. One who would really say anything rather than giving the illusion of saying too much.
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I put my friend’s letter in about the super delegates because this is an election
unlike one I have ever seen. Here’s an oped on letting the people decide. hey even I’m too young to really remember Kennedy’s election.
I will vote Democratic as I personally believe it extremely important that a Democrat occupy the White House. I believe that Ralph Nader was the true reason Gore didn’t win.
In this current election I have seen people who were totally disenfranchised become involved. I have seen them begin to believe a bit in America as a true democracy. I find that wonderful.
Hillary is a machine candidate, (here’s Frank Rich on her) and here’s something more personal. New York made a remarkable recovery after 9/11 or did we?
Bloomberg who few people truly like but most people respect has moved as much money around as he can. I can’t afford to live in Manhattan anymore and will sell my apartment, shortly, to somebody who does have several million in “disposable” income, and access to much credit.
Is that what we want Manhattan to be? Anybody who has read this blog for any length of time knows that 9/11 changed my life and not in a good way. I don’t have warm and fuzzy feelings about how great the people were. I remember the people and I do speak in glittering generalities as being worn and not able to deal with my personal tragedy.
It was the first time in my adult life I felt out of place. Time heals and I have put my mother’s death into perspective. There should have been help for people like me. I am a licensed social worker who did offer to begin support groups for people who lost loved ones around the time of 9/11 but not in it.
The man who lives upstairs from me is a drunk, fortunately in recovery now. He had to move back to the building as he was deemed a security risk living in The Boat Basin. He fell not once but many times every night for months. I would incorporate his falls into my dreams. Every night I would dream of people falling from The Towers. They would have my mother’s face as she died from a fall. She lived in the city; I live in Manhattan.
Yet I wasn’t eligible for the free help that was given so readily to people who had a second cousin once removed die in the attacks. I can’t forget that. I can’t help but believe if we had an administration that gave a damn–and senators who cared it might have been different. Every person who lived in the city was affected yet we were the only city not to have rallies, not to have the little things that help people heal. It was everybody for herself.
Yes that began my dislike of Hillary. She could have done so much for the people of New York City. She chose not to. She should have been screaming for the promised aid to come to New York then not to Montana and finally to New York three years later.
I will vote for her if I have to but it will be reluctantly.
I’m sorry I’m playing the same old song. I don’t enjoy it. I had to totally remake myself after 9/11. It wasn’t easy and it took time. I did but the psychic scars remain.
I updated my other blog. I’m past the point of caring if people know
New York Magazine has an article on the recession people seem to have forgotten–89. It dug deep and lasted a long time. Much of our economy had changed in the 80’s. The vibrancy I talk about had gone out. New York was in many ways remade by this recession and not for the better.
I’m hoping that this year equals 87 or much of 88 as it really didn’t hit New York until 89. Once it did it was horrible. I knew people who lost everything. I regret being scared to buy a coop as they became dirt cheap, but frankly I had stopped loving New York. I only bought as my mother was still alive and I couldn’t leave.
Read this article. It says what nobody has been saying, and has to be talked about.
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People say they know what a renovation feels like. Unless you live in two and a half rooms and are having both of them worked on you have no idea.
For the past five weeks I was living in a war supply zone. No work. Just supplies. Silly me, I can’t put doorknobs in myself. I have lost my mojo.
It’s hard to hear that I have a rep as a cold person when in “real life” I feel so badly for people I let things go on and on and on. I did lose it this weekend, to my friends delight.
I only was taken seriously as I took all emotion out of my voice. I can’t believe I’m a person who used to manage huge projects. I have even more respect for my best girl friend, Lucia, for having been a girl contractor at a time when girls were girls. We still are in the bad sense.
Call me selfish but I don’t want to be the person who the New York housing market collapses on. People keep saying “you’ll get it back….” They seem to want me to design the frigging Taj Mahal–have to keep reminding them that I’m renovating to sell. That nobody knows what’s really going on in the housing market. The three apartments for sale in my building have been for sale for quite awhile.
I hear their problems. They don’t hear mine. I’m really losing it. Nobody but Lucia, Rafe and Bone have truly heard the depths of my despair and I thank them. Bone is very funny–it’s a job requirement for my friends–but he’s also very compassionate–and even answers my hysterical emails and texts. Gary Cooper meets Hemingway meets Seinfeld. Oy.
I can’t write seriously. My body feels as if I have a giant toothache and the nerves are exposed.
I came very close to asking to be signed into a mental hospital this weekend but I realized that would only delay the inevitable. That I had to get firm. And I know the reaction I would get when I asked:
I’m losing my mind over my renovation and move. You don’t understand. It’s worse than horrible.
Then I would hear their renovation horror stories, and they would ask why I don’t get a new contractor.
I like him. He’s a nice kid, with kid being the key word. He hurt himself last spring and spent the summer out of work. He needs a chance.
So yes it really hurts when people say I’m cold as they don’t know me.
I'm Pia Savage. Just a writer with a blog title few people truly get. I suppose my destiny has taken me from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Myrtle Beach as I barely heard of it eleven months ago. My email is Pia(dot)talks@gmail(dot)com.
I knew I had to get my apartment on the market by the end of January at the latest for it to sell in a reasonable timeframe and at the price I wanted. But I was only the owner and couldn’t fire the contractor as he had too much of my money.
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