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I don’t understand why categories show when I haven’t clicked them. “Impeach Bush’s” a bit old. “Impeach Cheney for occupying space” would make sense. I don’t mean this post to be a poor me one. My life is great. I would like it to be the best it could be. I do feel I deprived myself of much pleasure but my life has been sybaritic enough. I have excelled in the family, friends, actually be at work areas. Sometimes i was great at job hunting. Sometimes I was horrible at it.
I know what it’s like to be in love and I know what it’s like to crave solitude. I regret not staying in one relationship never written about here–never talked about, I never gave him a name on these pages but I didn’t stay. I wish I could turn back the clock and be turning 40. I wish my father hadn’t died eight months later. I wish my mother hadn’t become blind and our once simple relationship became difficult. That’s an awful lot to wish for.
Truly I wish my life remains on the sometimes even wonderful keel I seem to have been getting to.
*I believe that’s from Rhoda–Mary Richard’s (Mary Tyler Moore) Bff. Of course she meant that as in “look out, I’m taking over.” I mean it in “get out your HAZAMAT suits.”
I will be back in a week having seen family, friends and the friends of the Miracle of Facebook or childhood friends I still think about and remember with love. § Read the rest of this entry…
This is for this weeks 3WW Totally forgot to put it in! Me bad
I always start the story of Jeffrey and me with the day we met. That sounds normal until I remember I never start at the beginning. But that was one of the ten most incredible days of my life–and 50% of it happened before we met.
The allure of May 20, 1979 is simple. It was an incredibly beautiful day in the city everybody loved to hate. New York was supposed to be dangerous . I was out at all hours everywhere and my wallet was stolen once. I had just cashed my paycheck and everybody in my office pitched in to replace it. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else though I dreamed of a beach house.
I walked from my apartment at 5 East 63rd Street, one of the best addresses in New York though the building itself had and would see better days to Folk City, the club that Marilyn, Robbie and Joe were soon to buy. Folk City was on 3rd Street near 6th Avenue then. It was dark and tobacco stained. With a bar filled with talking people. Peggy the lesbian bartender who married a man gave certain friends of the house triples, though Robbie refuses to believe that. I could hold my liquor. But never there. The Roches didn’t write “Face down at Folk City“(read the lyrics. First time I heard the song I cried from joy) because girls were sober.*
It’s easy to say Marilyn, Robbie, Joe and I are old friends. Truth, the unvarnished truth is always simpler or more complicated. When we were very young Robbie and I had been briefly married. We weren’t meant to be spouses. I had run to Europe to start my life over in 1971. I came home not because I missed him though I suppose I did but because I had a premonition a healthy friend would die. Together we couldn’t figure out how to warn him and JohnnyB died as I became engaged against my better judgement and married a few months later.
By 1979 we were long divorced and had become friends. I wanted Robbie to marry Marilyn; and I wanted to fall in love. It’s hard for many people to understand that I wished them every happiness. I liked, and like, them. Marilyn was perfect for Robbie in ways that I’m not. The once overbearing love I had felt for him had long ago turned to love for a friend. I’m human; I wanted what I saw they had. And I saw it before many other people. If I’m devoting too much time to this, I want it out of the way. It’s only important to the story because it took place in Folk City and Robbie played a part in Jeffrey and I meeting. It’s not even absurdest or ironic humor but truly funny.
Be careful what you wish for had been my motto since I began college eleven years earlier. I should have remembered it as I walked through the various districts Manhattan had then. The sky was a vivid blue; a perfect blue. It was hot but not humid. I was wearing new jeans and stopped at Macy’s to buy some Willie Smith clothes. I didn’t yet know why I went out of my way to buy clothes but they would play a part in the story also.
Then I walked through the flower district so gay in every sense. From his perch on a human’s shoulder, a parrot asked if I was happy and did I desire sex. Yes, I thought, but not with you. I was happy though had you asked me I would have analyzed the thought to death. I tended to over-analyze every facet of my life.
Was it Lucinda William’s debut at Folk City? I’m not sure though I have post upon post, unpublished article upon article about that day; the last truly uncomplicated day of my life.
••••••••••••
*In the 90’s I saw the Roches perform at Steven Talkhouse in South Beach. They asked how many people in the audience had been in Folk City’s basement–kind of infamous. I didn’t raise my hand but almost everybody else in the audience did. The people I was with looked at me as if I were crazy, but I didn’t want to be part of a pretend party.
My bff Lucia and I saw Jersey Boys
A new type of Broadway show that brought me some faith in Broadway. I don’t generally like it or even Off-Broadway anymore. As both are very pricey I can be picky But that’s a whole other post
She wanted to leave when she was 40 in 91 but her father died suddenly and her mother was needy.
Her office on Jerome Avenue in The Bron_ had graffiti all over the windows No matter how often it was taken off it would be back the ne_t day. The strange thing was she found The Bron_ a relief from Manhattan. She knew chop shops were all over Jerome, and she was never more than a few minutes from crack and drive by shootings, but her office was a DMZ. When she would walk the streets, men would come out of the buildings “Ms. Savage, that’s Ms. Savage. She cool.”
Generally she hated that type of attention. The roar of the construction worker, whistle of the Con Ed worker, but there was something almost innocent, something refreshing, in these boys.
She trusted them to keep her out of death’s door. She wouldn’t trust them for anything else and they knew it. Though she smiled and laughed more easily than the other white women she worked with, there was a certain coolness about her. A sort of “don’t fuck with me, mother fuckers,” resonated from her cream turned gold in summer skin
Though she lived in what was then the richest zip code in the city, probably the country, she would count the Olde English malt liquor bottles strewn on the sidewalks as she practically tripped over homeless people sleeping and would make her e-cuses.
That spring or summer a subway motorman went postal and killed a number of people Service on the East Side IRT was disrupted for months. The normal 20 minute ride took two hours.
She was the last legal tenant on her floor. On one side of her apartment the new landlord put $10 ho’s; on he other side small time drug dealers. She had five floods the landlords refused to do anything about and soon she had cockroaches coming from the ceiling. It was vile. It was gross. Call the city to complain and give her address, yeah really. She would hear ten minutes of laughter before they hung up. For years the city had ignored the lack of heat complaints also.
She could take not having heat. But cockroaches, mice and rats that ran from the fireplace once the new 63rd Street subway had opened, that was intolerable.
She could have waited to be bought out but she would probably be dead from something. She was only 40; the best dressed white woman at the Jerome Ave Social Security office where all the other Jews her age acted as if they were going to be eligible for SSI tomorrow.
Her laughter was infectious but half the time she felt it was the hysterical laughter of the soon to be legally insane. When her best friend would come to the office to meet her for lunch at the Paradise Coffee Shop, beloved by generations of native Bron_ites, all work would stop. All the guys wanted to meet her. Only later would they notice the wedding ring.
Claimants would ask for the “pretty well dressed” white girl. “Well dressed” she laughingly told her friends meant that if she were to wear plaid, and she wouldn’t, it would clash as a fashion statement. She was always shocked at how often “well dressed” was applied to her. She was just another city girl.
She moved to Riverdale, The Bron and the high point of her day was walking down the hills of Riverdale, over The Major Deegan and up the hills of Kingsbridge Heights and around The Reservoir that stunk of mold most days.
She wore silk short suits and would put on her pantyhose once she got to the office no later than 7:30 AM so she could do “undertime” or OT in the morning. Not because she wanted the money but otherwise the work would just pile up. She hated that job and didn’t yet realize if she was to remain in New York it was Manhattan she needed.
When the crack/drive by shooting years were safely over she moved back but never loved it as much as she had before the days of the $10 ho’s.
As others dreamed of the city she dreamed of escaping. It wasn’t Final Payments She didn’t live with her mother. Her mother didn’t stop her from doing things, but she couldn’t leave as long as her mother was living on her own. And her mother had no intention of ever giving into age and fraility.
Her mother died a month after 9/11 and it was so hard. She felt wounded and alone. First she couldn’t leave because of estate and patriotism reasons. Then there was another reason and still another.
Si_ years after her mother’s death she began to get her apartment ready. The closing is scheduled for midway between 9/11 and her mother’s death.
Every New Yorker has their 9/11 story. Hers isn’t that fascinating. She didn’t know anybody who died in the attacks but many who lived.
On Wednesday or Thursday she will walk down to the old Trade Center, walk further to the water ta_i to the new Ikea in Red Hook, Brooklyn and come back at night to look at the twin beacons of lights emenating from the site. Her best friend, daughter and some other friends went yesterday but she couldn’t go. They mainly talked about the ride and the food in the after event phone call. The beacons of light will always be meaningful
It’s been seven years. A missing person can be declared dead after seven years. Bankruptcies e_punged, debts cleared. Crimes e_cept for murder and rape are usually no longer prosecuted. Seven is the age of reason. Seven means so many many things, but most of all it means letting go.
She’s made up with the friends she fought with seven years ago, and hasn’t spoken to the false friends.
Her new future awaits not where she thought it would seventeen or even three years ago in Santa Monica or San Diego but in South Carolina.
She’s tired. Oh so tired. It took forever to sell her apartment and sometimes she think hers was the last one bedroom in Manhattan to sell for a half decent price. The doormen saga–she doesn’t want to go there.
She’s tired of people with their hands out. She’s tired of living in a city that’s so pricey and so crowded and people are defeated as living here is hard. Her neighbors are jealous–but there’s no longer a market for their apartments
She thought she suffered from a terminal case of bad timing but it turned out to be pretty darn good.
Caroline Kennedy on VP vetting. I have a friend who is going to vote for McCain because Hillary didn’t vote. She lost her job recently and is very much suffering the consequences of the past eight years but….
One very hot morning i saw a bus with the legend “God’s Country Tours,” on it. “That’s strange,” I thought, “I don’t know any groups called God’s Country.” Which would be a good name for one–but I had forgotten I was no longer living two blocks from The Beacon Theater where i see tour buses constantly. Rock, blues, etc. I long ago stopped noticing people on tour buses. Well I see them also, of course, but they’re not usually named except with exact geographic locations. Nor for that matter are the music tour buses. You just cleverly know from the sign on the theater.
This day began horrible yesterday when I went for a mani/pedi. I wrote a post about it but in the scheme of life it’s very unimportant.
I thought that I was through with my New York apartment except for packing. My friends were going to take over dismantling the wall unit, redoing the wall and painting the living room.
Only my building doesn’t let contractors work on Friday’s. New rule I was unaware of. My building insists that contractors buy building specific insurance–I was aware of that but nobody believed me as most buildings don’t have that rule.
I’m paying the profits before I even get them. Then my building takes two percent in what’s called a transfer tax. Add six percent to the realtors, and that’s eight percent +without even thinking, and trust me I’m trying not to.
I am totally not relaxed and feel that all the good these months have done for me have been mitigated. I should have said that if they wanted the apartment they take it “as is.” But no.
I don’t feel grateful to have sold in “these difficult times” as the $400 rebate check from Mayor Bloomberg always says, for owning and paying way too much in taxes.
I was feeling nostalgic for Manhattan; I was feeling that my entire identity was as a Manhattanite. I was devouring any junk I found on Manhattan and was wondering if I would feel like an outsider looking in
I have lived in Manhattan over half my life and in the city for most of it. That gives me bitching rights for the rest of my life.
I haven’t left here yet and can’t wait to return.
It’s so hot the pigs are sweating. No I don’t have any pigs or know where any are but….So hot pigs are sweating is an expression M the male owner of the house I’m living in uses. I find it funny and am not above thievery–he said he didn’t care about credit.
Yesterday evening I was walking into town and passed a teen rock service at the mega church. There was a cook out and the music was decent. I would have gone but I haven’t been a teen in many a decade. I’m Jewish. I was on my way to a mani/pedi appointment in a place that’s worth going just for the message chairs which can cure anything. They have Opi nail polish. North Myrtle is very civilized.
This town is beginning to remind me of a continous episode of Friday Night Lights the best show on TV that will be back due to a very strange deal.
I hesitate to say what happened next as it sounds not American, 2008 but what the hey. I came home to find out that my brokers had rejected an all cash offer for me as I won’t go below a certain price. My brokers believe as I do that my apartment is a worthy commodity.
I do miss New York but between my friends and sister I can go back every two or three months and always have a place to mooch off stay.
What happens if I don’t get another offer by the end of August–the time I have allotted to this? I go to Plan B and beg the coop board to let me rent out the apartment for two years. I beg extremely well. If Plan B doesn’t work I have a Plan C: move home, find an office as I absolutely can’t stay in that apartment during the day, and continue to bitch about it.
However I feel that Plan A was a good plan; and I didn’t time it too late but too early. Now people are going to wonder why they want to spend 900K on a one bedroom when for less they can get slightly less but a great apartment, prestige address and I will make a book of every restaurant, diner, take out place and food store on the Upper West Side with copious notes on each. For example you want to order waffles from one diner but not oatmeal and oatmeal from another but not waffles. Yes I order oatmeal. I do prefer to make it myself or go to Sarabeth’s, but diners are uncomplicated. Diners make the food quickly; diners are like Chinese restaurants, the delivery is quick and uncomplicated.
I will be in New York from June 20-30th for doctors and dentist appointments, a high school graduation, a visit with a thirteen year old before she goes to camp and her parents and to see many friends. I have two hours open on Thursday afternoon if anybody cares.
I will make a list of all the restaurants I go to with notes and websites. I just looked at Sarabeth’s and had no idea she has a restaurant in Key West. My mother knew her mother. This isn’t really newsworthy. My mother seemed to know everybody’s mother in New York
She was truly interested in people and they would find themselves telling her their life story. I have often wondered when she would meet the mother of so and so how she felt having such unfamous children. She would tell us how wonderful we were and how nobody else had children who were so fascinating and good to their mother.
Have I mentioned that my completely reality based mother was delusional when it came to me? I don’t think I’m supposed to publicly state that however…
She always said my day would come. I think I’m beginning to believe her.
And I’m still on an Obama high.
I feel as if I’m on a high wire trying to remain balanced while having a panic attack. Today two one bedrooms in my building that went on the market at the same time as mine or after closed. One is smaller, the living room, bedroom and bath not as nice but the kitchen is much nicer and it has river and park views. It’s maintenance is lower too which really angers me as apartments on that line command top dollar for the view. The other is much nicer.
I think I’m allowed to sulk about this. If the damn contractor had only listened to me and did only the renovations I told him to do in a timely manner I would have at least been in contract by now. But no he had to express his artistic side and then go into a major depression while he had my money.
It’s cost me a lot to have a valueless apartment and until the apartment goes into contract I believe its value to be zilch. Actually it costs me over $1200 each month so until I sell it has a negative value.
Excuse me for not appreciating my surroundings today. This is a big chunk of my future I’m focused on. For reasons that will be explained in my article that will be published in July I don’t have the greatest work record.
Which makes me laugh half the time as I have coordinated more projects for well known progressive agencies for free or minimal money always because the person they hired for mucho money couldn’t do the job. The “great” jobs promised me never came through. Still I believed. I am an absurd optimist and have no idea why.
It’s the reason I don’t do volunteer work anymore. I was always so nice, so smart, so able to do the work, so willing to work extra hours, so good, such a great trainer and motivator, and just a tenth of a beat off. I’m not even sure that I appeared that but I must have had a sign “take advantage of me, please.”
I could afford to do this in the late 90’s and early 00’s, but now I have a reached a point where my future is important to me. I was never poor in youth and don’t want to be in older age.
When I learned about non verbal learning disorders (NLD) so many things began to make sense. Honestly I don’t feel as if I truly suffer from most of these problems anymore as I learned to compensate years ago but never quite trusted my “compensation” techniques. I was told I hadn’t learned to compensate but to cope yet when I thought about it or discussed it with other doctors it was the same thing.
Still I let the testing psychologist play a too large role in my life. I decided not to see him as there would be no satisfaction in that. When I Googled him nothing came up and I know people with his job love to be published or have publicity or….
What could I say? I’m Pia Savage and you’re not? My blog was a monster for almost two years until I decided to tame the wild courting as I was truly seeking my destiny? I have had over 50 article published under another name, and am beginning to be published under Pia?
Ultimately I would have just satisfied my thirst for revenge and to show him how wrong he was when he pronounced me profoundly learning disabled.
That’s different than being given a mental illness diagnosis as it’s basically saying I’m unable to learn; to be a productive member of society. i have something that can’t be cured with medication and therapy.
I should have understood how wrong he was when I went to grad school and graduated with a 3.84 cum and outstanding field placement evaluation but grades feel worthless when you hear students tell professors they will only settle for “A”s and don’t feel they have to work for them. It was social work school and the height of political correctness and I feel so gypped of a chance to have really excelled in a difficult program. That was my neurotic need, and I realize it’s partially absurd and partially reality based. Grad school should be intellectually challenging. Not just the full year research course, ego object and self, and my independent study on elder abuse.
One big measure of my life is thin, average, a bit heavy, etc., and those were average, thin years. Age hadn’t caught up with me and my fellow students thought of me as younger than I was, brighter than thou or the one who would be chosen to lead presentations as I would know everybody’s part (if it didn’t pay I was brilliant at it) and selfish as I said I wouldn’t have kids. I never gave my age or the reasons why.
Given my history–and I haven’t told much of it though this blog seems endless–I think I deserve to be paid for many things. I don’t believe in unpaid internships or field placements. I know I was exploited. And if you’re going to have a volunteer “save” a project, you better find money in the budget to pay her.
I can’t believe how I undervalued myself and let myself be used and tossed. I won’t say the names of the agencies as they’re good ones with new staffs. I always feel that I should be apologizing for not doing volunteer work but I promised myself I won’t until I’m paid well for something or am old and need something to do.
I was reading a board where people with NLD were talking about the hard time they had getting jobs. I never did. My father would scream at me to work for the phone company when I would work for a company that worked for the phone company and the managers would tell me to apply. I didn’t understand that if they told me to apply they would serve as my references, get me the job, be my rabbis so to speak.
Clueless, I’m so clueless when it comes to myself and so insightful when it comes to other people. But that’s hard to understand and I’m sure most people, who don’t know me personally, think I’m clueless when it comes to other people.
I am different than many people with NLD as I work well by myself but equally well or better with people–large groups of people. I’m not reclusive nor a solitary person though I have always required a day or a night of alone time
I decided to devote the next three months to writing a book that tries to explain NLD by telling my story. The whole story from childhood to now. I know three months isn’t enough but it would just be a first draft and I’m told that one of my problems is I never mastered the necessary shitty first draft.
It’s easier to work on this outside New York and now that W–the male half of my landlord/friends–installed a router I can work from the patio. I bought ergonomically correct beach chairs as the first possession for my new home I hope to buy in the fall or winter. And I might buy a house as long as it’s in a condo community or has pebbles instead of grass and the community has a pool.
Please hope that my apartment sells. I deserve that. And I deserve to go into the later part of my 50’s knowing that my older age will be secure. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with liking money or the things that it brings.
When you have the scattered work record I have you have to worry about the cost of health insurance and getting sick. When I’m eligible for Medicare I expect to have pay a lot for a supplement. I have never believed this is an easy country or that you get something for nothing. I have never lived off the “system” and never want to
Damn I wish that quarters spent doing meaningful internships, field placements and volunteer work counted for Social Security. More than that I wish I hadn’t undervalued myself.
The other day New York City released almost a million debts because the collection agencies couldn’t show the back paperwork telling the history of the debt or if in fact money was really owed.
Like I would buy a subscription to Car & Driver? I paid the $47 I turned out to “owe” because it was worth it to me to make the phone calls stop.
And I have a blog. I don’t get mad. I do get even. I’m very proud of my Allied Interstate page
I don’t know how many comments there are in the page and two posts, but they make for much interesting reading than the actual post. All comments, rants etc about Allied belong in that page
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
The words come from Bone.
“I’m the wanderer, yeah the wanderer.”
Dion had been popular when Delilah was a little girl, now he was popular again. She had been too young to think him cute or sexy then. Later he didn’t have long hair. During the late 60’s, or early 70’s he had reemerged for a hot sec, and she thought him a joke.
Something happened in the early 80’s. She developed a secret love for early rock. Delilah’s coop was in a building that had housed some of the biggest musical stars during the 30’s. It was soundproofed so fully, a resident had been killed in the 50’s by his wife’s lover and nobody heard the screams.
Nobody could hear her singing Dion songs until she was hoarse. When she would buy early rock & roll CD’s at Tower, she would change her hair, her clothing style, her makeup and wear RayBan’s instead of her collection of vintage designer sunglasses.
Most were so old that they had become vintage. Delilah had learned years ago never to throw sunglasses away. They would come back in style within the decade at three to ten times the price.
Delilah was a clinical social worker who ran three halls for demented nursing home residents. She would constantly sing “The Wander” to herself. Most of the residents tried to leave. Rose wanted to go downtown to resume her flapper days.
As Rose worked in a sweatshop double shift before she was married, and single shift after having two sets of twins in sixteen months, Delilah envied her imagination. Delilah wished she had known what Rose had really been like. Her eight kids only knew her as a tired bitchy woman who would come home to Williamsburg and ordered them around. Most of the kids, all of the grandchildren and great grandchildren refused to see her.
Her oldest daughter, Ann, a staid Larchmont matron did the speaking for the family. She wore amazing Chanel suits during the year, and original Lily Pulitzer dresses in summer. Delilah coveted her wardrobe, and was amazed by the bitterness in her voice when talking about her mother. Ann was in her late 70’s and really should have worked past this by now.
“It’s all an act. My mother wouldn’t be nice unless she’s getting something out of it. We bended to her will every day until we escaped. I vowed when I had children, they would be treated with love and dignity.”
Delilah had lived with Ann’s youngest son, years before. None of the kids knew their grandmother, but they all suspected Ann was a rich better dressed version. Ann’s children saw her on major holidays.
She didn’t like working with people from her personal life, but nobody else in the nursing home staff saw anything wrong with it.
“Ann, we have discussed this before. Your mother’s too demented to act, or cover. Maybe she dreamed when sewing the dresses. Maybe this was the life your mother wanted. Maybe she became bitter because of her circumstances. There are too many maybes to count.”
“Delilah, you always looked for good in people. My mother had no time for dreams. That’s one thing we had in common. It’s very hard for me to think of you as a professional. You were the one who dreamed and still do.”
Ann still thought of her as a 20 year old hippie anti-war agitator with good manners. She would invite them over and always invite some single girls who looked like Richard Nixon’s daughters. Ann had never forgiven her for being the one to leave. But she knew that Ann insisted Rose be placed in this nursing home because of Delilah’s rep. § Read the rest of this entry…
In the response video to the Fox one, most or all of the speakers are Catholic. Have nothing against Catholics. Almost all my good friends are. However, if all or most were Jewish, it would be labeled a conspiracy, and somehow good for Israel. If most were Muslim, Hindu, Sikh….Why is everything about religion in America?
Somewhere I saw “Cooper” as a Technorati tag. Yes Cooper.
A prologue to the paragraphs on moving. A Loehmann’s is moving into my immediate neighborhood. I did what any self respecting daughter of a woman who thought Loehmann’s was a true bonding experience and reached for the phone, as she would have died. Then I remembered….
As exciting as my Mom would have found it, this sealed the moving deal. My neighborhood is over crowded on the most quiet days. Loehmann’s is a destination store. We don’t need more people walking in the neighborhood. This isn’t the Upper West Side anymore. It’s the Broadway Mall and enviorns. I’m sorry but I don’t find it fun to be trampled. If I did I would have moved to Soho. Nine years ago there was still a neighborhood feel, here. Now….
I wonder how the people who are buying the condo’s in the Apple Bank for Savings–2 to 4 mil–will take this. Or are they planning on having limos take them everywhere to add to the congestion in the streets?
And Lucia, my best friend, who never saw an item of clothes for $29.99 that she didn’t like? Not only will she spend all her time in the store, I will have to physically restrain her from buying junk as I did a few weeks ago in Mandy’s, a store I personally find repulsive. Yes I had to restrain her…Fortunately Mandy’s has a large selection of fake leather belts I could use for bondage….Threw that in to see if anybody actually reads this
I am planning to move. So far it’s between Santa Monica/Venice and Miami. I love hot weather, the ocean, humidity when it’s over 80 degrees and hate humidity when it’s under 80–give or take a few degrees. I hate rain but love thunderstorms, don’t mind hurricanes, earthquakes or other natural disasters. Sorry, Chandira, Seattle is out because I would have to drink even more coffee than I do unless there’s a long–like 20 years–drought.
I don’t drive and don’t plan on driving. Safer for humanity. Santa Monica/Venice are navigable on foot with good bus systems, and Miami, well it’s always been like a second home. Love the tropical humidity. My family and friends are real big on Miami as it’s a quick Jet Blue plane ride from here.
Any suggestions for any other cities? They have to be near a coast, preferably as close to the beach as possible. Hawaii’s out. No offense to anybody who lives there or loves it, but the one time I was there I had a great time but never felt quite at home. I can live among Republicans as long as they’re tolerant. Actually for a short time Coronado and La Jolla were in the running. They still might be, it’s San Diego proper that weirds me out–again no offense meant.
If you were going to start over given the above conditions where would you move? And I’m at the debating selling or keeping my apartment stage. That’s the hard part. Were I renting I would be out of here tomorrow. Not that I don’t love New York…love it with all my heart. But I so need to live somewhere where the sun does shine, where it’s fun to walk and not an exercise in patience or almost getting killed every day by bike riders or Jersey drivers who think that since they can legally turn right on red lights in Jersey, they should be able to do the same in Manhattan. Never mind the people crossing the street. We’re dispensable. Offense is meant to Jersey drivers who do that, and in my vast experience and it is vast, it’s always drivers from Jersey. Sorry Janet, I know you wouldn’t.
Have to go deposit my Star rebate check before the state goes broke or something. And the $57 check the state just sent me will buy me a bag and half of groceries. Wow, can’t wait to spend it.
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I have a question that directly relates to Rush Limbaugh’s idiocy but also goes into American society in general. Okay two questions. Or more.
Why are we so quick to judge each other? And if somebody doesn’t do something exactly the way we want them to do it, why do we assume stupidity on their part? And I include myself in this, as I seem to insult people with some regularity when I write about issues which is a big reason I have stopped. But the election is important.
But maybe more important is how Limbaugh judged Michael J Fox.
I can relate to how Fox was treated too well. Put it on him. He’s the one at fault because he dares speak out on an issue that directly affects him, and some people just don’t want to hear that.
This is long and classic whiny, sort of so here’s the “more” § Read the rest of this entry…
Sar was nominated for best political blog at blogs of summer. She needs ten nominations to make it into the finals. Doug seconded whoever, thank you, nominated her, and I did whatever seconding the seconder is called.
Monday update: Sar made it into the finals. She’s the only person with an Impeach Bush banner. You can vote here.
I don’t nominate people for political blogging awards nor campaign much more than this. Just putting Sar’s nomination out there because Belle of the Brawl is a unique mix. We did meet brawling and have become friends which is why I love the name of her blog so much. Sar provides a place for people to feel safe when discussing issues and that is rare. Love people who mix things up. Life’s about much more than politics and issues. Sometimes we need cruises and James Spader–and Boston Legal better be back on in the fall.
The other blogs include Michelle Malkin’s who shouldn’t really be nominated for something like this. It looks like Sar’s blog is the only “left” leaning blog.
Yes, I’m off politics and issues for the summer. So this post is a mosh pit of issues
Bush’s veto of stem cell research was beyond sick. This is why I love Frank Rich, and wll make this into a page.
It’s not a choice of IVF babies or research. There would be more than enough for both. As an adoptee I admit to a strong prejudice against people who are so ego-filled that they won’t consider adoption. Am strongly pro-choice. But that’s not even the point.
Bush purposely paraded kids who would have been born and clouded the issue. The snowflake babies.
This country cares more about the rights of the unborn than the rights of the already living.
William F Buckley equates stem cell research with moral guidelines that Hitler might use. No it’s the opposite. It’s to save lives, not kill them. That didn’t link properly. Found it in Yahoo news or wherever somebody I once had respect for might write.
Hope that none of the Bushes ever develop a condition that might be cured or controlled with something derived from stem cells.
If you have ever seen somebody you love develop a debilitating condition and be told by all doctors that it might possibly be cured with stem cells, it hurts and that hurt never goes away completely because so many other people have or will develop conditions….It doesn’t make sense.
Bush is pandering to people who have no respect for human life.
If they did they would want Michael J Fox and millions more who are suffering from Parkinson’s disease to possibly be cured. So many other conditions. I’m a baby boomer with a vested interest. As an adoptee I really don’t know what conditions I might develop. As a nursing home social worker, I saw the sickest of the sick.
People with advanced Parkinson’s, and so called Parkinson’s dementia would answer your question 20 beats later, because they weren’t really demented, just in another time space. To know that they are aware of this is horrible.
I couldn’t work with older people anymore. It wasn’t the dying that disturbed me. It was the quality of life. Sometimes when people hear that I could no longer work with the very sick elderly, they think I lack compassion and guts. Of course these are the same people who think “old people are cute,” and dementia is a second childhood. No, most people fight it for years, even after it’s advanced.
I make no apologizes for not being able to handle something so sad. At the same time my Mom was aging too rapidly from Macular Degeneration. You don’t know how many times we were told, “stem cell research.” My mother died a tragic death that haunted me for years. While it doesn’t anymore, it’s in her memory that I care so passionately about this. Also hope to live until I’m old–a full and wonderful life.
Lyn who is sponsoring the blogs of summer has a very different take on this. Read her at blogging out loud. Please respect her blog.
And boobs. I have them. Therefore I have joined a new blogroll called bloggers with boobies. Don’t have to have them, just like and/or support women who do. Breast cancer is a subject for another time.
Pandering to the radical right is wrong, and I’m scared that this will give many people license to think that they can troll. Don’t even come here. I delete; and somebody else has the password for those rare times I’m not in front of a computer;
The always brilliant Cooper has a transcript of an IM between her and EW that is priceless. My blogging friends are in rare form today. The wacky life of MizB is wackier than usual. I’m putting Doug’s word of the day on my sidebar, with his definition. Logo is this weeks guest at Sar’s, and the conversation is fascinating. Out-intellectualized myself so much that I have to go to sleep now. But did leave the best comment of my commenting career.
I can’t believe that I have an imaginary dog named Toto, and forgot that they did “Rosanna.” And in the category of weird: How can I go from being a large mammal in TLB to not even being able to find my blog? Wasn’t a large mammal–but sure photosnapped it. Was almost one. Could be called one in real life
Found it to be too thrilling. Not that I care about ranking. Am so beyond all that, yeah right…
This post is not about disparaging older people. Just one man who made my life miserable. Writing this turned out to be incredibly cathartic. There is a theory that you have no memory until you understand language and can put words in order. I think I can’t get over things until I can write about them fairly succinctly. Feel like this incident was hindering my progress and can go on now. So in love with this hypothesis, it might be my next post.
Though I begin by recapping the story, it sort of turns into the whole thing. And I’m putting it in now instead of Friday as I have no intention of reading it again.
I did write the entire story of being harassed by a 74 year old man, Dr. Gene Kravitz, a retired Latin professor, who needed a hip replacement. It was long, and I was going to divide it into two parts. When I hit “save” only the first third was saved.
I even admitted to being slightly culpable as I once went out to lunch with him. And I didn’t report him until after he repeatedly called me a seductress. He honestly believed that I had one ambition and one ambition only: To find a demented old man who was a private pay patient and seducing him into marrying me. Yes I have always been confused with a low rent Anna Nicole Smith.
To quickly recap some of the highlights as I have no intention of writing this story anytime soon: The Social Work Supervisor and the Director of Social Services soon realized that they had made a really big mistake in offering this man an internship. He had no intention of being a social worker and every intention of being strictly a therapist. He advised a resident who had a history of psychotic breaks to stop taking his meds if that’s what he wanted to do. Nobody but a doctor, a medical doctor, could make that decision, and in theory it’s a decision made with the consent and knowledge of all relevant departments.
Gene couldn’t follow simple directions or instructions. He asked me every week how to get to the IDCP meeting which was held directly over our office. As Gene had responsibilities taken away from him, and I had more added, he began to resent me even more.
I was “seducing” the residents and the staff into liking me. I reminded two thirds of the residents of their granddaughters and the other third liked the way I dressed and my manner. I have a perky but professional work face that never failed me.
Each week I was supposed to have supervision sessions for an hour. My supervisor complained about Gene and I gave her advice.
Gene became increasingly irrational; I began to cover for a social worker who was going on maternity leave and was going to take her place the next semester. Social Work isn’t brain surgery. I had been a large scale litigation support manager for over a decade and then was an SSI Claims Rep prior to going back to school. Yes I was used to getting people to do things that they might not want to do. I was used to interviewing people and finding out their needs and wants.
Social work allowed me to practice more fully what I had always loved to do. I was counseling my own supervisor, and while I would have preferred another type of learning, I realized that I was finessing my skills in a slightly unorthodox but maybe more worthwhile manner. I had to remain positive.
As I was always in the residents halls or in the social worker’s office that was soon to be mine, I only saw Gene for ten minutes in the morning in our office and at the mandatory staff lunches where we were supposed to discuss social work concepts. While nobody but the director enjoyed the lunches, Gene’s Freudian take on everything would have confused Freud. Freud, social work and a nursing home aren’t a good fit.
During those ten minutes each morning Gene would accuse me of one thing or another. No matter what the complaint was Gene would make it sexual. I couldn’t take him seriously. The man could barely walk. My day was too filled to even think about his remarks. I did finally tell my supervisor because it was inappropriate, and social work is about appropriate behavior.
Our only assignment for our social work practice class was to write a paper about a patient and her treatment. It counted for 90 percent of our grade. One paper was going to be singled out for discussion. For some insane reason known only to the irrational side of my brain I agreed to go out to lunch with Gene.
Gene told me that he was re-imagining Freud’s treatment of his patient Dora. He was sure that it was going to be the paper that was singled out as it was going to be the only truly intellectual paper. I of course was capable of nothing worth anything, except some type of seduction. I had never thought of my self as a seductress, and I have to admit, I found it funny but unsettling.
Though I would never find it funny when he told me that I was sexually aggressive and obviously desired him. He said this more than a few times. I just wasn’t into a 74 year old man with more than a few screws lose who needed a hip replacement. Once he introduced himself as Dr. Gene Kravitz, and said that I was his assistant. I corrected him.
He had almost every responsibility taken away from him.
I couldn’t understand why they kept him. They couldn’t either but they couldn’t summon the courage to get rid of him
My paper was on a resident who was resistant to living in a nursing home but had no choice. I liked the resident. She was cognitive, sharp, nasty and sarcastic. The paper took a long time and I used many references. It was of course the paper that was singled out. Gene shot me a look that could have killed, and continued to stare at me throughout the class. Everybody but the teacher noticed.
I had worked many hours the first semester and had enough to take the first week of the next semester off. I wasn’t there when Gene did something that finally drove the staff over the edge, and don’t remember what the incident was.
Though he had been kicked out of our field placement he was allowed to go to class. Before each class began he would ask who I had seduced that week. He would say other lewd and gross things. I told my adviser and my teacher both of whom asked me not to go to the school administration as they would.
Yes I should have won idiot of the year award. I finally did go to the people who were “investigating.” They told me that they needed more time as he could have a case against the school. I really didn’t care if he was kicked out of school or not, I just didn’t want him in my class.
About six weeks into the semester, a teacher and dean, a woman about my age put her arm around me and told me how I would learn so much from this experience. I finally blew up.
“Excuse me. I was stalked for over a year by a former boyfriend. What am I supposed to learn from this experience?”
She began to tell me how I would be empowered and learn to be truly free…
” Empowered? How? Free of what? Being harassed? Do you know that in New York State a woman who has been stalked perceives that she is being harassed, she has a legitimate case?” I’m still not sure if I read that or dreamed it
The Dean’s face turned red. The hearing was several days later. Though our social work practice teacher spoke for him, he was kicked out. My supervisor retired early. I really should have dropped out or transferred to an Ivy because I felt cheated.
In the preceding nine years I had learned that I had many learning disabilities and other problems, I had met my birth mother who spent the entire weekend calling me her mistake, my father had died, my mother was going totally blind, was frail, and needy. I had remained empowered through all that.
For the first time I began to feel dis-empowered.
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