I am missing New York something fierce tonight. It was an incredibly hot day; one where my temper was as fierce as the weather. Then we had another tropical rainstorm which lingered into evening–not very tropical but I guess welcome.

My garden has been suffering. There are some potted plants that need to be watered maybe six times a day in this heat and I just can’t, but when it rain inches in an hour or two, the rain overwhelms the plants.

This summer isn’t a “nobody remembers one like this,” but there hasn’t been one with so many consecutive hot days. It does cool down a lot at night, now, and that does help.
You can almost feel summer ending though it’s so hot and that’s sad too.

The thing about New York is it’s all about possibilities. My move to South Carolina coincided with the worst economic times since the depression, yadda yadda….I was supposed to save money not lose it!

I don’t regret the move. I love my new friends, my house, having a new life and being so close to the ocean.

I bought a safe today as part of my hurricane preparedness plan; the other part is buying plywood as I live in what FEMA considers a low risk area but then I have to ask myself questions about FEMA and do I trust them? Then I remember that there’s a fairly new admin and I get even more confused as I’m not sure how much of FEMA consists of career civil servants and do they really make the policies etc? I remember how Social Security, a former employer of mine, could have five regulations for one situation and non superseded any other. As a claims rep you had to use your judgment, and decide which is the best for the individual. Though you have three months of training, every office has its own training and biases on rulings.

I would assume a hurricane’s more clear cut but then I remember Katrina and others and….

I know because I live east of Route 17 I have to evacuate if the hurricane is over a certain category. I have all sorts of plans and back-up plans mostly involving train rides or riding it out at my friend Lil Red’s house in Little River.

I have never thought so much about hurricanes but the storm two weeks ago woke me up to the very distinct possibility……

It’s the sad season for me, though this year I barely feel the familiar dual sadness of what September signifies for everybody and October for me. And not feeling that sadness brings its own mixed feelings for it means I have moved on, and left both my parents beyond somewhere. For when I grieved so arduously for my mother I also had my father. Now I have neither. Carrying them in my heart is very different.

Finally I know the age you are no longer an adult orphan. It’s the age you leave all the grief for whatever reasons. In my case I think it was because it was just too damn hard to carry it with me.

No it wasn’t New York I was missing tonight. It was both the life of sadness and the happy life before it I was missing. And yes I still can write but truly believe I need cooler weather. Even with the AC on my brain has been on melt.

This is an absolutely true non fiction story that happened on Thursday but we’re going to pretend it happened today. It could have
I was walking in the crosswalk outside of Bilo when a car came out of nowhere. I jumped onto the curb very very quickly. The woman was opening her window to yell at me–you could tell from her face when she saw the crowd of angry people and sped off.

They weren’t angry at me but ready to mob her as she had been going fast in a shopping center parking lot. A place where people, by definition, walk. This wasn’t me practicing defensive walking. I walk therefore I get defensive in an area where the car is king. People kept talking to me until I left the shopping center. Apparently I was very lucky as she came an inch or so away from me.

I laughed my way home as my hair salon is in that shopping center and I could picture what the girls in the salon would have done had I been killed. I am a very good customer.

Then I went to the beach. Now North Myrtle is in the midst of a tent controversy. Too many people bring tents and put them on the first line to the shore line. Sometimes they connect five or more tents. This isn’t good either for people like me who just bring chairs or more importantly for life guards who not only have to see but run in case of emergency. The way people have been talking about tents in the local papers you would think they’re as important to good moral character as motherhood, apple pie and lack of taxes. Really. Somehow all this gets tied together in letters. It makes my day.

So I looked for a space as far from tents and from umbrellas as possible. I plunked down my stuff and began to read. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a giant very heavy umbrella falling–coming straight for my head. I took my right fist and punched it away from me. The ten people who belonged to the umbrella couldn’t stop telling me how they had almost killed me and how sorry they were. They talked to each other about what a close call it had been. Really I was unaware but must have been vigilante because of the earlier incident. I told the people about it. They were insistent that I go home.

I didn’t. I took my chair and put it in the water as I love sitting in the water. Then I went out beyond the breakers and body surfed. Normally that scares me if I’m alone or don’t have a boogie board but I figured today is my lucky day.

Still fourteen more minutes to go

This photo was taken from a portfolio by Ed Piorowski of WPDE
I live a few blocks northwest from here. It rained. A lot.It’s raining again. Not fun

My rain gauges–yes plural, I’m that weather obsessed measured 4.5″ which was two inches more than the official estimate but hey…..
There was a blackout. Santee Cooper the electric company had us back up in an hour and a half or so. Ironically I had a man over in the morning taking measurements for hurricane shades. The rain showed me what I need to do in case of a real hurricane.

I came home from lunch just as it began raining. My friend and I had been laughing over our hurricane preparedness plans. The storm told me it’s time to get serious about hurricanes. My poor potted plants. The Cinnamon Basil lost much dirt and had water all through the pot and saucer. Idiot (me) should have realized they had no drainage. My coconut potted Petunias have gone goth on me. Almost all the plants look as if they lost their nutrients. I’m waiting for them to dry out even more. I have no idea what I’m doing. Faking my way through home and garden. It looks good however.

Now that my house and garden looks good I have been having summer company. Really why have a beach house if not to share it? I have learned that I’m not the recluse I thought I was turning into but the opposite.

As a single woman who owns a home I belong to the most rapidly growing group of owners. It feels good. Owning a coop always felt like renting but I paid a substantial price for the privilege and was fortunate enough to get it back plus more when I sold. Owning a house is a whole different thing. Again I was fortunate enough to find great support–Eldon who called during the blackout to see if everything was alright.

This is an easy city to meet people in, and it has many classes. Few jobs but a great city owned fitness & aquatics center plus many courses at the community center and library. I’m back to believing we can find stimulation in the most unlikely of places and it’s our job to seek it out.

I will be putting up some Courting Classics for the rest of the summer. As always I reserve the right to write….

The temperature has fallen to a cool 81, and we’re having a thunderstorm. I answered that age old question I never knew I asked: “would I risk death by lightening to take the garbage trolley out of the yard, about 75 yards to the edge of the court where it will be picked up in the morning?” Apparently the answer is yes. Our garbage is picked up once a week and I had lots of half eaten containers of various salads of the mayonnaise variety.

I brought the cold cuts to a place not far from here where I know homeless people live. It felt as if I were doing something illegal as an organization likes to be the group to feed them but the New Yorker in me couldn’t just throw it out or bring it to a far away food bank when I don’t have a car, and am really feeling that lack right now.

I called my best friend, almost crying, and said that if there were a housing market I would put my house on the market though normally I love it here. She gave me an unsettling answer: “don’t you dare. It’s going to be worth a ton once the beaches further South go.”

That answer of course made me totally tear. I hope she’s wrong. Not that I don’t want my house to be worth at least what it was when I bought it plus the cost of the renovations but I can’t bear to think about what she said.

The day began horribly when I called the AC company as a vent sounded as if it were a jet way at Kennedy Airport. Well I didn’t know somebody closed the vent. I wouldn’t mind having paid the $80 (which I do think is excessive) if several months ago I hadn’t called to say that there was an AC leak and I smelled something more. The leak turned out to be condensation. The man said it was my fault because I had a door partially open and didn’t bother to look further. It smelt like mold and old people. I didn’t consciously think that the old people smells were from my childhood–and really my grandmother, of The Bronx, Miami Beach and Monticello–the woman didn’t have a cent to her name but she did live well and had a ton of mildewy suitcases I still can picture.

About a month ago, I brought some suitcases into the crawl space and discovered all the insulation falling off and tons of water. I had Eldon fix it and bought a dehumidifier which has been filling up with water every damn day. It’s good for my upper deck plants, the water that is. The company told me today that they would have paid for it then had I called.

Why do I listen to Eldon? He’s the king of passivity. Today I told him that it’s his responsibility to call the plumber to fix the shower that I spent way too much money on, can hardly use and it flooded due to the plumber both inventing a flood and fixing it wrong. Only cost $850 to fix. I wouldn’t use him to fix the shower but I’m so damn tired of spending money on this house.

Now of course Eldon’s angry at me. Not angry as much as wants nothing to do with me.

And sadly I both like him as a friend and need him for all the little things my friend’s husbands attempt to do, and for rides when I don’t want to call a friend or take a taxi. I can’t believe I live in a place where public transport doesn’t exist and isn’t a priority. You have no idea how infantilizing that is. There are buses to Charleston, but I’m going with a friend in the fall. Trains run from Marion or Florence (I get the women named towns confused.) Both are about an hour and a half from here, and Eldon said he would drive me if we have a hurricane. That and my huge closet that opens both into the bedroom and bathroom are my entire hurricane/tornado plans.

I don’t make a good dependent type person. Too ornery.

I haven’t been very productive for many reasons and I’m scared that I lost my will after all these years of wanting to do nothing but write. I’m joining a writing group that meets in the library. It’s been a long time,actually never, since I’ve been in a writing group where you don’t have to be selected.

My reality is that I find myself boring. I know the story. I need encouragement. I need a lot of things. It’s funny that I live at the beach and yet really feel that I need a couple of days just being at the beach–I go after everything else is done. I do love it this time of year though yesterday I began sweating when I walked into the water which was certainly strange and stranger since I’m the glisten not sweat type.

I have no idea where I’m going with this post. So encourage me to do other things such as be productive. Tell me you will buy a copy of the book though if you comment here you will probably get one because just because…..

I wrote this for Redroom

It’s the first half-decent thing I have written since April.

I don’t believe a disability is an ability turned backwards or whatever that expression is. I have spent my life seeking help. I don’t know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars first my parents then I spent on therapists, testing and much more.

It reached the point where I would write people famed in various disciplines all dealing with either work or mental health or both. Anybody who knows me just a bit knows how hard it is for me to reach out. It’s much easier for me to help others. And I have had career success. It was I who always thought I could do much better even when my evaluations were near perfect.

They either ignored me or told me to find work in a sheltered workshop. I’m more educated than many of them and certainly write as well or better. The later (sheltered workshop) would have killed me and I know that.

So much was happening in my personal life it never occurred to me to look for jobs the normal way, or the way I had before my life became encased in tragedy and uh blogging which for awhile I thought would lead to so much. I had the stats, the readers, the writing–everything but I was “difficult,” not young and trendy. I didn’t blog about one subject. I did everything wrong and yet I created something wonderful and will always be grateful for this blog. I think I tell good stories.

I hope to have years more. While I truly don’t have a desire to write a memoir as I like writing in other forms more, I know that knowledge about non verbal learning disorder (NLD) is lacking. I aim to change that.

Many people with NLD have a difficult time conceptualizing order and I understand that’s what’s been holding me back. Understanding is just part of the solution though. So I found me a great editor!

The long hot summer continues and beginning Friday I will have a house filled with people for a week. I need them–Godchildren and significant others. I feel so lucky that people who are related to me through friendship actually want to visit me!
Comments are off here as once again this is a totally self-centered post.

I have my joie de vivre back! And love for this wonderful South–politics and all.

I hadn’t been feeling well since Mid May which coincided with the stock market going to the not good South; wondering if I had made the right move and obsessing over ever possible scenario that could have, would have, didn’t happen, the heat, and my closest friends here being away.

To make a long boring story, both less boring and long, I finally went to the doctor who said I suffer from the affliction of the gifted which is a wonderful tactful oh so Southern way of saying I make myself sick. As if I didn’t know!

I didn’t go the doctor sooner as I’m phobic and a large part of that phobia peripherally
stems from NY doctors, a bit too familiar, telling me that my heart problems are panic attacks. Hello! I know that but someday they might be heart problems. Nobody really knows the cause and affect yet. Trust me I read enough about this.

Were I bipolar or plain depressed, NY doctors would be more empathetic. But me thinks extreme anxiety’s too close to home or the opposite–out of many doctor’s who do believe they’re perfect–in their dreams–range.

Extreme anxiety’s a lot like being a drug addict. You even get the hollow face and pinned eyes while walking back and forth expending many many calories. Though if you’re me and seriously ate at the most a banana a day much of the time–for the frigging potassium and because they go down well. Later you added Greek yogurt then anything. Anyway for most people this would have been a period of extreme weight loss.

However, the doctor and nurse said in tandem, “honey, you live in the South now.” Must be something in the air…..(You, you of all people, call people “Honey,” and “Miss so and so,” so you’re used to all the “Honey’s.”)

The thing is your insurance coverage, for which you pay double, won’t cover the affliction of the gifted, no matter how it’s coded.

You feel stronger now. You will get this straightened out And you can’t help but be impressed by how reasonably priced doctors are when they know insurance won’t cover it or you don’t have any. And the price of meds. Honey you’re not in New York anymore. And you think that’s a wonderful thing.

You will of course be in New York in September because May to September is about the longest time you have stayed away.

And your test results were good. Very good. None of that pre-this, pre-that, maybe this will happen in ten years….
But at heart you’re a New York Jew. So kinehorah!

Last fall I was asked what I was going to give up for boot camp, and health. I gave an appropriate answer.

Lil Red (a brunette that I call Lil Red for other reasons) said she was going to give up the tonic in her gin. She caught me trying not to laugh as everybody applauded. Had she said she was going to give up the gin I would have understood the applause. She doesn’t really drink that much and honey this is the South!
Thus began one of the best friendships I have ever had. She has me in committee after committee.

She’s from New Orleans and moved here for that most satisfactory and not reason–love man love. Tall Husband Suitor (THS) is worth it. I think they’ve made me part of the family!

On the Fourth in 09 I had a barbecue for friends from Atlanta. Then we went to the Cherry Grove fireworks, known as the best on the Grand Strand. This Fourth I went to a barbecue at Lil Red’s and THS’s. I’m not a meat eater but had two small pieces that were incredible and could have converted me if I didn’t spend half my time obsessing about food put into my body.(Have to work on that one.) Fortunately we decided not to go to the fireworks. They started an hour late and weren’t great or so everybody says.

I’m working on getting my mojo back. Moving from everything known and a giant support network that I did take for granted hasn’t been easy. I wasn’t feeling well in June. It wasn’t the weather but a confluence of things such as “this house is really nice. Now where is my city apartment.” I know the move will be worth it, in the long and short run, but will never take people for granted again..

Last night I went to a memorial service in a club. It’s not that I have spent my life wanting to go to memorial services, but yes I have wanted to go to one in a club. People were dancing,talking, crying, looking at slides, listening to music, and as always eating and drinking.

As I have a pivotal birthday in about eleven days, I’m thinking too much about everything that can go wrong–in life, death and everything in between.

This birthday’s making me wish I were a praying person. I’m not so all I can do is throw great thoughts everywhere and hope many good things–if I sound obtuse, well, the book won’t be. I finally understand, and am able to rectify, what’s been holding me back! Or I hope that last sentence is true. I hate being so Woody Allenish. I would settle for Seinfeld but I’m afraid he’s too optimistic for me. Then again…..

I think the heat spell is ending. I would say it’s been the least productive month of my life as I couldn’t write. But. I mucked around in my crawl space, discovered a flood–nipped it, I hope–take that all the sides of me that thought I would fail home ownership.

Obsessively straightened out closets as an antidote to “I’m losing my mind. All my great lines have been written by me already and I’m too lazy to look at my writings and get them in order.”

Basically felt lazy except for cleaning closets and ordering a friend who came from Baltimore to go to Pawley’s Island, Brookgreen Gardens (highly recommend the pontoon ride in the rice fields–perfect for the hottest day. Though the two and a half hours of walking around after the ride was a bit too much.) Aside from making him go to almost every beach on the South Carolina Grand Strand thought I would make him go to the North Carolina beaches. If he comes to visit again it will be a miracle as I was an interesting combination of hyper and spacey.

Gardened like crazy. Learned that you really shouldn’t have annuals here because most wilt in 100 degrees.

Bought canning cans and look at them. Scared to start the disinfecting process though I know it’s real simple as I read the direction in Real Simple. Still.

Read more books in a month than I have all year. Think this had a lot to do with being away from the computer.

A keyboard died of heat related factors. Learned you just can’t go to a neighborhood store and get a Mac compatible keyboard as you can in NY. In NY of course you have your choice of Apple stores too. Somehow this memory, and I love Apple stores, brought back the reasons I left

Became one with my stability ball. Would take it out at night and look at my deck upside down. Very relaxing. Unfortunately when Noel came it became too hot. He’s the last person I know to smoke and I would actually sit in the garden and talk to him as I learned that extremely high humidity and very high temperatures don’t make all smells exaggerated but seems to eat the smoke. This I didn’t know. We didn’t get into pesky “smoke in the house” issues as there’s no house he’s allowed to smoke in. I found an ashtray I bought in NY because it was pretty.

I learned I can’t eat pancakes and other foods that aren’t good for me. Whether this is permanent or a byproduct of the heat I don’t know yet.

I would have to say June 2010 was one of the strangest months of my life, and love to hear about how other people found it strange.

Oh just to make this clear–I do love heat. But I’m convinced this heat spell was a byproduct of the Gulf disaster. Don’t ask me to be rational about it. It just felt strange. Very strange!

And I hope we have lots of lightening tonight I can watch and daydream to.

Happy Birthday America! May you become the country I know you can be; and there be jobs for all.
No CLo, I’m not becoming a teaparty person just because sometimes I take my chair behind beach bars and listen to the music. I don’t quite get the connection but hey I was slow this month.

I’m reaching a stage in life where I think I should be mature and wise. And I’m not. I wonder how many people truly are.
It’s 94 feels like 103 which isn’t as bad as yesterday’s 97 feels like 107. I can’t be turning into somebody who can’t take heat; I can’t. Though this heat feels different. Read the post and see how. It also colors the tone of the post. Sorry
This state’s a frigging embarrassment. I had no idea that Spirit Air was my lifeline until it went on strike. Of course I had no idea it was going on strike until my friend called from Atlanta to say she couldn’t get here as her husband had been relying on Spirit to get back.

I looked in all last Friday’s newspapers here. Nothing about the strike in the print version of the Sun News. Nothing anywhere.

Then of course there’s the candidate from hell. Poor man probably doesn’t even realize he’s supposed to lose to DeMint. South Carolina bought voting machines from Ohio. Ohio, state of massive voter fraud in 04.

Ever since Westboro I have been feeling alienated. Where I come from we don’t turn the other cheek. Where I come from we believe in debate and protest.

But I moved here. And it’s hot. Not as hot as it was on Sunday or Monday but even inside with AC I feel the need for more and more water. I don’t like AC though it’s the one thing I won’t be green on and will put down to whatever I feel like. In a normal year there are a few months where you need neither heat nor AC. This year there was only one.
I like heat. But except for nights, the air hits me in a way I’m not used to. Then when I come in I sneeze. And sneeze. And sneeze. Couldn’t figure it out until I saw the pollen report. It’s very high which is strange as pollen is supposed to stagnate when the temp becomes high. Apparently the long winter has done something weird. Or something.
But there’s no such thing as climate change. Oh don’t get me started. I’m feeling very “L”"J” today. Neither are good in South Carolina.

Yes I do take it take personally!!!!!

I’m having friends come–by car–next week and am focusing on my book. Unfortunately this blog is like a nervous tic. Something I have to keep up. So…

I haven’t seen my friend Noel who is coming next week in quite awhile. He asked if my musical taste was still eclectic. It is but “Ophelia” has been my absolute favorite song for the past two years–and Levon Holm’s taking over Warren Zevon’s spot as inspiration

Click the photograph to see the filthy signs. Read them and try not to be offended. “Pray for more dead soldiers.” How frigging sick! “God hates you.” Not my G-d. Mine is a just one.

Sage linked to a much more explanatory coherent post he wrote several years ago. I was too angry.

Westboro Baptist Church came to North Myrtle today and I went to my first demonstration in the South.

As a New York Jewish liberal I don’t often talk religion or politics here with anybody but my friends from home. It’s easier and I don’t really want to.

I say all this as I had problems understanding why Westboro was picketing churches, especially an Evangelical one. After all don’t they have the same basic aim? To baptize people into Christ’s love so they can go to heaven?

Then I realized the word love isn’t a word anybody associated with Westboro would use. Love is a concept they wouldn’t understand. They understand hate and only hate. It’s difficult to get anywhere near their mindset.

There are people who go to Barefoot Community Church I consider to be friends. It’s a church I have spent much time in, not for religious events. So I hope that nobody from Barefoot is offended by anything I say or do.

I will be demonstrating on Friday when Westboro hits schools and other public buildings because as a Jew I know how Hitler began. He was a radical fringe idiot people said “don’t listen to. He’ll go away.” Six million Jews and countless other people later he did.

I come from a long tradition of protesters.

Being silent sounds good. But turning the other cheek doesn’t work. I was raised on stories about my great grandparents and grandparents escaping the programs of Russia, about the Scottsboro Boys, and yes I was a young teenager during the civil rights movement who wanted nothing more than to be old enough to be a part of it. I proudly worked against the Viet Nam war but never once disrespected a troop and find it insulting when people assume that all of us who protested were against the troops.

I love North Myrtle. I put a lot of time and resources into my home. I have been developing a good life here.

I hope that my beliefs are respected also. It’s not me who is preaching hate. It’s not me who boycotts troops funerals or calls every American who doesn’t have Westboro’s beliefs “sodomizers” and “murderers.”

This is my blog. It’s not protected under The First Amendment. That means I can delete any comment I want to. Fortunately I don’t get the comments or the readers I once did. But this post–this post is important to me as I will not sit silently when messages of hate are being spewed in my front yard.