The Milk Party had taken over my house. My sister was over as were my parents. My father found out that my sister thought she was eating chicken dipped in Panko and incredible spices. In reality the chicken was dipped in uncooked pork. He had to warn her.

I looked at the ottoman. If they opened it, I couldn’t imagine the consequences. There was coffee; both beans and fresh ground; French roast and pecan. Both made from the darkest best beans. This was especially unacceptable. Having coffee in the house meant an instant death sentence.
8
I woke up panicking. It was the third night in a row I have had one totally horrible dream followed by two great ones. In real life I have reached a point in my work where it’s finish the frigging thing before I kill myself by panic attack. I hope to update Courting more frequently, but first I have to figure out what I did to Iphoto or pictures probably that makes it impossible for me to put in images. I really really have to do that for Psychology Today also. It sucks having a disability that makes the little things so hard!

“Let me give you excellent service.” Him
“How do you spell that?” Him
“B.A.R.N.E.S & N.O.B.L.E” me
“How do you spell that?” Him
“M.A.I.N. S.T.R.E.E.T.” Me

This is how my day began. Without the dots though I was very tempted to say “A.M.P.E.R.S.A.N.D”

After the fifth “excellent service” I asked him to can the word “excellent” as it was making my blood pressure rise.
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This audit is taking way too much time as there’s only so much I can do and have to rely on other people. My files are in storage and I can’t control when the van will come and I can unpack.
I got the last thing I needed to get my taxes in order today. My attorney screwed up big time. She “forgot” that the buyers of my apartment had a mortgage so everything had to be redone. How can you “forget” that? I had to remind her what the mortgage broker looked like. She finally remembered her perfect manicure. I’m not finding life fun now.

This was a very strange week. I had my first hang over in three years last Sunday when I had to write the factoid for this article It was probably better as I have been doing the research for a
year really and my brain remained totally focused on what I was doing. Note to self: get drunk more so you can be hungover and more productive. Note to more rational self: bad bad plan and you never actually get drunk just hungover.

My personalized horoscope actually told me not to fly on Monday. I ignored that and suffered by listening to a very fat woman who didn’t shut up from the moment she sat down across the aisle from me until I literally ran off the plane two hours later. Somehow I don’t think that’s what the horoscope meant.

I have been published under other names a lot and this blog is almost four years old but I have never been so nervous about an article as I have never written something so personal, and so easily misunderstood.

I knew what time the article was supposed to be online but I forgot to look for an hour after it went online. I’m usually so obsessive and was being obsessive over my impending breakdown.

Then I wrote the post and had no idea what I was writing or doing.

Meanwhile all “my real life friends” were crying and sad. I had to tell them I’m the same person they have known for the past 25 years plus. This was the reaction I was scared of. They thought that I was being bitchy or JAPPY or both when I acted certain ways and I let them think that as until this past year I didn’t have the language to discuss the problems properly. And frankly it’s easier to have a reputation as a bitch than as a person with problems. Actually they thought me a great but selfish person. Now they understand why I have to be at times or seem it.

My sister sent me the most beautiful email.

So Sage I’m apologizing for the comment I left the other day. I was in the midst of losing my mind

As soon as the article was out and I actually got the courage to read it I was fine.

Tonight I went to fireworks on the beach with some neighbors. I like the people in the townhouse complex but for the first time I find myself not talking when politics is discussed.

The fireworks? Well fortunately my neighbors became scared just as I was realizing wind + whatever fireworks are made of these days + people drinking while doing the fireworks could be a lethal combination–I was trying to figure out what body part I would want to lose and couldn’t think of one when we left. The pre fireworks were lovely. It was wonderful to see the beach packed at night. Another part of me, not the expendable body part, wanted to jump up and down as I was doing something Southern though I wasn’t sure exactly what. I’m trying to avoid discussing the actual fireworks as I’m spoiled and used to New York fireworks which might not have the community feel except for fireworks after the symphony in Central Park and New Years Eve in Central Park. Not the big 42nd Street show; but one that seems made for “real” New Yorkers.

I have been feeling so unsettled for so long. I own an apartment I go to look at and feel more comfortable in a house that somebody else furnished–my taste but still. I have a small one bedroom in a prime building. Even The New York Times prime cheerleaders for real estate admits that studios and one bedrooms are staying on the market longer at lower prices. Mine’s been on the market since March. I have lowered the price. It’s more than fair. I’m not asking anywhere close to a million dollars for 600 square feet. I have always thought that absurd.

Problem is people read about prices lowering and want me to lower it even more. Had I got the apartment on the market just a month or so earlier….But I didn’t and will always have to live with the knowledge I allowed the contractor to walk all over me. Those were my stupid fears based on this disability at play and I knew it. I felt as if I couldn’t do anything right when in reality who is great at renovating?

I think with this disability unless you find a job you love that calls for your skills you always feel unsettled. I was great at the “higher functioning” parts of my jobs. It was the paperwork, even the Xeroxing that got to me. I’m much better when everything can be scanned into the computer, but then I have to develop files and the like….

Becoming a recluse is another option but I would lose my mind. I need to socialize on a regular basis. I do have many friends. Please don’t think this disability stops people from liking people or being liked. I don’t know many people with NLD but I know myself and “socialization skills” haven’t been a problem since sometime in high school.

Blogging was overwhelming for me in the beginning and middle. Email knows no nuances and I need nuances. While I have superior verbal skills I also need a face to look at.

I had myself convinced for awhile I was suffering from the first case of computer induced Asperger’s. That did spill into real life for awhile. It was horrible. Then I learned about NLD.

I don’t want it to be too late for me. If a doctor prematurely retires on me or stops accepting insurance (two real life examples) I become phobic about seeing new doctors. This new world of managed care isn’t user friendly for most people. For me it’s overwhelming.

I’m not making excuses for my behaviors or me. I take full responsibility for the anxiety and phobias that are secondary to NLD. The problem is that I know more than most therapists about these problems and don’t want to pay to educate. Think about it. Would you want to pay to be in a clinical trial? No you would want to be paid. In a sense my whole life has been a giant clinical trial and I get to pay.

I want to feel settled and good about myself. I did have more fun in my 20′s and 30′s than anybody has a right to have. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t operate a Xerox machine properly but I could always find somebody to do that for me. When I was a Claims Rep at SSI we would have to xerox hundreds of pages of individualized education plans for example ourselves. It was horrible. It was never the actual job that got to me but the paperwork or the feeling of immense responsibility. Make one little mistake and somebody could be kept out of pay for months. I didn’t have to make the mistake; somebody else did in inputting data etc. I was the one who the claimant dealt with–so any mistake from an input clerk to a service rep’s was my responsibility. I wish I could have taken a few claims per day and felt good about that. I knew people who took two claims a day and were fine with that. They retired after 30 years at 55 with a great pension. Oh to have that mentality.

I wish I had known about NLD earlier. It explains so much. I finally understand who I amm why I do the things I do and feel certain feelings. Most of the time I’m fine. Other times it feels like a traumatic brain injury I could benefit from rehab from. I understood that before I knew about NLD. But it took a long time to form the vocabulary necessary to think that.

I feel so weird about this article. It’s so revealing. While I did feel the shock of recognition when I read about it this past year the articles were so over the top I lost the recognition. Yet when I read what I wrote in this post….I apologize if this is too much. I can’t just journal my fears or put my blog in a site for baby boomers or “older people.”

I wanted to put a “real” voice to NLD.

I take the “somebody had to write it” defense.

I once wrote a post totally dissing Diana Ross and have been getting hundreds of hits from a Diana Ross fan site. It’s too weird. But I have always loved that post. Thanks Wombat for showing mehow to find it–and he has some incredible music–makes you feel all patriotic and sad at the same time. This has to be the year America becomes America again.

I need a place to live. The community should be near the ocean, warm, intellectually stimulating, and have a town center. I must have a duplex and it can’t be over a certain price. Very picky for a beggar.

Then I might stay here. Walking everywhere is good for me, but does limit where I can go. There are many cab companies and they do lower the price once they know you’re not going to puke all over the cab, and will tip-probably too much. New York mentality.

There is actually public transportation, not that I or anybody I know has actually seen any of the buses. And it only operates until 8 PM but somehow I feel that it can lead to more public transportation.

I have always had a noir fantasy about traveling on long distance buses being a passenger in a car, train or plane person

I have been feeling sort of “what have I been doing?” “What was I thinking?” I have only talked about moving in this blog for its existence and thought about much longer. After last week and probably this coming week I really won’t be able to afford Manhattan. I hope my apartment sells. Damn I wanted it on the market by January but due to my own idiocy and need to “help” certain people that became but a dream.

I know I will get over it soon. I understand this feeling of being disconnected, of the anxiety I’m moving to get over, has more to do with external forces that combine to make me feel poor and scared of my apartment languishing And a fear that I will be back in New York bitching and complaining as I waited just a mite too long.

Pia is exhausted. She does have the whitest bathtub in town–just reglazed–and can show the prospective buyers the three year guarantee. The Bank of Pia is back in operation as her “contractor” is sick. He kept saying that he would pay out of the money she gave him She wants the supplies out by tomorrow and for the contractor to pay for a cleaning service so the cleaning woman doesn’t have to do anything “dirty.”

Pia thinks her apartment might be ready by next week but damned if she can tell. It’s been so long she can’t tell up from down. Read more…

I updated my other blog. I’m doing all apartment stories, past and present, in it.

Somebody close to me believes I have no patience and expect people to do things when I snap my fingers. Most other people, close to me, think I’m a total jerk for having so much patience.

I should be submitting. I’m not for many reasons including paralysis, and fear, not of being rejected but of life itself. It seems as if it’s an endless to do list that I never come close to completing. The new sub contractor is supposed to be here at noon. “Do you have a point list?” my best friend asked. “Uh, if a point list is what’s to be done than I have it.” Read more…

Read my new blog. It’s funny and nothing like this. Ask for the URL. I just got a dotcom. Knowing me I will figure it out by 09.
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I don’t really care about offending other people. I do care that my life has been made unnecessarily difficult as I’m held to the same or higher standards than most people. Higher as my intelligence has always shined through. Yet just changing a server from one to another is a major technical issue for me.
Life’s not fair and nothing will ever change that. The blogosphere’s a compassionate place. I have seen that often. My problems are more spatially oriented than anything else. They led to high anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias. I have never been eligible for any services or disability.
My parents would have sued even then had I told them I was kicked out of Driver’s Ed for coming to school stoned. I never did and was too ashamed to tell them for twenty years.
I shouldn’t have had to live much of life in shame for things that weren’t my fault but were my problems. Now I’m coming to that final third of life. Though I have saved more than most people I have every reason to fear old age. I refuse to be a person society forgets or casts off with a “her, she’s different. Doesn’t count.” Nobody has said that iat least so I can hear in many decades. But I heard that too often when I was young.
I don’t like to post on this subject for two reason. It makes me depressed, and I guess I get depressed as the reaction is you’re not an autistic bi-polar transsexual with amputated legs so why are you complaining? I mean nothing against anybody with any or all of those conditions. Nor should I have to say that, but the blogosphere like popular culture reacts to sexy conditions. Preparing Brittney Spear’s obit is sexy–forget what paper or magazine is doing that. We’re such a frigging sick society.
Now that I’m in recovery mode, from the flu, I guess I’m angry. There are so many books about disabilities. So many blogs about problems. But the one I have NLD–non verbal learning disorders gets no publicity. There aren’t many blogs about. My new blog has nothing to do with it.

I don’t want this blog to be about it.

Yet it would mean so much to me if people began to discuss it. Honestly it hurts to go around the blogosphere and see every problem but this one discussed.

I know that people don’t like me to write about this. But few people are. Sometimes I have to. I do get many hits on my posts about it and sometimes even get wonderful emails. Read more…

We took down the post we wrote on Barack Obama as we don’t want to add fuel to…in any way. We hope that people have the sense to realize that pride in ones racial or ethnic background is a good thing as long as it isn’t used the way Hitler or white supremacists used it. We know that any group Obama is part of would use pride for the good.

That directly leads to how we cut our blogging teeth. We were innocent in the ways of blogging back in 04 and part of 05. We didn’t realize that the radical right wanted to rule the blogosphere and found ourselves in too many fights with them

When we were asked to defend our moral relativist stance we could only say that our parents teachings, our education, our experiences, and most of all something inside ourselves knew right from wrong. Now our favorite and most hated newspaper The New York Times has a cover magazine story on moral instincts. I said “favorite” and “most hated” as it is both, and this article would agree with me.

I have never seen life in black and white but many shades of gray. This article shows why. I say, jokingly some of the time, that I have a built in guilt meter–again just read this article.

Morality is much more complicated than biblical teachings. Our brains are hard wired, usually, to do the right thing. Now that much is being learned about how the brain operates we’re learning about how morality takes place in it, and our morality is fashioned by our brains, our experiences, the communities we’re part of.

The article is much more complicated than that and very worth reading. But yes I was right all along. Our inbred guilt meter–we’re half Russian Jewish/half Irish Catholic, and were raised in our family of choice, a wonderful, funny, smart and oh so anxious family. Our guilt stood no chance. We have been learning to feel less guilty and less anxious as we want to ive a long and healthy life. We know that anxiety played a role in both our parents deaths/ They covered in public so well, nobody but me really knew the extent of their anxiety. Our sister was too learn more about our mother in later years but we were the older daughter.

We knew the first question was a trick one as we have long not thought Mother Teresa to be the saint people thought she was. She healed people but did nothing to better their life conditions.

We here at Courting are unapologetic about the people we have angered. We do wish we had spent less time trying to be rational when we were dealing with irrational people and just said what we think.

For a whole other side of me read my new blog. If you want the url please ask. As this blog is very new and we haven’t been pimping it much, we’re amazed by the number of hits it’s been getting. It’s about a single subject and can be funny. It’s fun to write and is very cathartic. It’s not political or issued based. We might actually include a link to the URL in a few weeks.

It got an incredible comment from the matriarch of a royal blogging family. TLP or Tan Lucy Pez We’re not usually pithy or clever enough for her. It’s OK. We have dreamed of this day

Reason number nine for not voting for Hillary: She speaks out of both sides of her mouth. She claimed much experience as practically being a member of a cabinet during Bill’s presidency. Now she says the opposite.

We speak in the royal we in this post as today we feel like royalty. The things we intuitively thought about morality arre being given a true scientific basis.Sometimes we slip into the first person. What can we say? We’re human.

We probably won’t be leaving for South Carolina until 2/6 so we can vote on 2/5. We will be a legal resident of New York until the apartment sale closes and that might be sometime in 2010. We say sort of jokingly and hope we’re not jinxing ourselves.

Here’s a page to my novel being written online

When I write about this disability I represent not just me but other people who have it. We have no spokesperson. The other day The New York Times wrote about disorganized boys as most people who are, are boys. Great I would be in school and have the same problems I had 40 years ago. Mostly it’s boys who are disorganized with bad handwriting, messy notebooks etc. Therefore I’m lazy and don’t try hard enough. Or the problem would be diagnosed but there would be no real help for me. There isn’t much help available for people with non verbal learning disorder. No role models of people who have made it. I have made it–with a lot of backsliding. Read more…

The one and only Cooper added my name to a list of personal development blogs. Cooper I can’t thank you enough. Really.

This list was begun by Priscilla Palmer and is I think something worthy. I am away and won’t be really blogging until October. Sometimes other things have to take precedence over blogging. This would have been impossible for me to believe a year ago.

I want to think about who I add to the list rather than link for the sake of linking. I also have to add the complete list to my post and can’t do that right now. I did find a personal friend. Only her blog doesn’t appear to be working. CS call home

Many bloggers have inspired me in different ways but who has helped me grow? Many I believe. So I have to find some measure or scale to do this properly.

I am big on personal development, and I would love to someday not feel guilt if I don’t do blog things. Blogging has helped me grow so much that the guilt meter is working overtime with this one.

I do feel proud that Cooper included this blog as she is one blogger I have watched grow into an amazing woman.

Tune in later to find out. By later I mean anytime from tomorrow to sometime in October

I do ask that bloggers try to understand that sometimes a blogger has to disappear both to be a better blogger, and because sometimes blogging is a luxury we can’t afford at the time.

I do return comments and put work into my posts. The bloggers I admire are bloggers who comment on other blogs and don’t think that their posts are so important they don’t need to. I don’t understand why some bloggers send the comments back with one line acknowledging they received the comment–obvious, I think–yet comment on other blogs. That’s part of why I’m a bit down on blogging now.

More importantly I have other priorities at this moment in time. It’s nice to see “newer” bloggers so psyched about blogging. Please understand I love it also. Love it so much I can forget I have a whole other life.