This is going to sound so elitist and maybe it is but I do understand more than a high school grad and don’t care who hates me for saying that. Few people including doctors know much or anything about NLD in adults. So I say “this is my opinion,” or “I believe.”

People say I talk down to them. But how do they talk to me? Apparently all people with NLD are forever children who need to be talked to as if we are slow seven year olds. I resent that.

I don’t consider my accomplishments amazing. It makes me sad to realize how much more I could have accomplished had I known about NLD prior to age 56. That’s a fact.

Think about that. I navigated through life without being called “disabled,” which I’m glad about but that also meant I got no service. None at all. I graduated from college and grad school–and did exceptionally well. I should be very proud of that. Instead I feel that I didn’t live up to the potential I know is in me.

I’m told I lack humility. I thought about this a lot and if lacking humility means I’m not Mother Teresa well I’m not. But I care about people a great deal and take much pleasure in helping them. I think I succeed more than I fail.

Am I self-centered? I sort of had to be as navigating the world wasn’t easy for me. I see people in the NLD community who are obsessive and self-centered about their children. That’s considered a good thing but making your own way isn’t?

That’s called advocating. People advocating for themselves are considered wonderful but people like me who were raised to question everything and might see another solution to a problem or another problem completely are considered to be troublemakers.

Unfortunately my parents are no longer on this earth. They would have have loved to advocate for me. They did but it was hard when you don’t know exactly what the problems are.

I want to begin the New Year feeling good about myself, and damn it I will because I’m more, much more than a series of negative comments and words.

I am obsessive. I don’t think that’s a horrible trait. I need to make up for time lost. Contributing to the world is very important to me.

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…..

A lot of bloggers went to its launch party. Not this one. I don’t feel very blogger like. Nor do I feel very writer like.

I’m coming face to face with who I am. Smashing head first into the giant thunder cloud she was lost for two decades. Or so some think. Not really. This blog will be five years old next week which isn’t really an achievement but I gave up being a multi award nominated reporter for it.

Not really again. I couldn’t go any further at that particular paper for the most personal of reasons and being me didn’t apply anywhere else–or send in clippings. I have two books and should scan them in but first I have to set up my whole office so that my life can easily be found and one of the bad side affects of going off this med is that I’m ADD’d to the max. No frigging patience for anything boring and most of life is. Though I can clean….and water plants if it ever stops raining.

Tomorrow there is only a 20% chance of rain and I’m going to the beach–the four blocks I live from it? It’s four long blocks when you take a chair and something to drink, maybe something to eat, and a book–hard covered or trade paper, of course.

I’m not doing well if I’m trying to prepare for a lifetime of poverty, but I’m betting on me, to come through for me, as if I don’t who will?

It’s both easy to read and very informative. The introduction more than hooked me. It’s a wonderful read that stresses the parents journey as he attempts to learn about the spectrum.

Alphabet Kids are like snowflakes: It seems that no two are alike.

Thank you Robbie for acknowledging that.

The book covers “problems” in alphabetical order, and is an OCD’s delight, she says knowingly. The chapter begins with “terms used“, second is “sound familiar? or an individual story. (The one on page 299 is mandatory reading. Third is Did you know? Or great facts. Signs and Sypmptoms, cause, diagnosis,, treatment,prognosis, and finally sources and resources. Each section is informative and I believe very helpful.

Damn do I wish books like this had been around when I was younger. Or that any book on “problems” was written with the empathy and clarity Robbie Woliver does.

People are so damn quick to judge. Somebody said most parents will read this book simply because of ADD and ADHD. They are but two of many many disorders in the spectrum

I know parents–some incredible bloggers who are desperately searching for answers
href=”http://www.amazon.com/Alphabet-Kids-Developmental-Neurobiological-Psychological/dp/1843108801/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229465147&sr=1-1″>Alphabet Kidsis the first book to discuss every known, at this time, developmental, neurobiological, and psychological disorder.

It’s both easy to read and very informative. The introduction more than hooked me. It’s a wonderful read that stresses the parents journey as he attempts to learn about the spectrum.

Alphabet Kids are like snowflakes: It seems that no two are alike.

Thank you Robbie for acknowledging that.

The book covers “problems” in alphabetical order, and is an OCD’s delight, she says knowingly. The chapter begins with “terms used“, second is “sound familiar? or an individual story. (The one on page 299 is mandatory reading. Third is Did you know? Or great facts. Signs and Sypmptoms, cause, diagnosis,, treatment,prognosis, and finally sources and resources. Each section is informative and I believe very helpful.
******
The story on page 299 wasn’t written by a sixteen year blogger who “got” NLD wrong. I’m not usually hurt when people get my wrong or are critical of my writing. In this case I should feel flattered as I channeled my inner sixteen year old to write that. Nowhere does it say that I’m sixteen. It says that I’m successful (yes) and a popular blogger–I would have disagreed with that but I looked at my stats for the first time since July and uh….I no longer live in New York.

Until two years ago I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Knowledge is power. It took several months to adjust and then I began trying to sell my apartment. Sometimes I think I sold the last one bedroom in Manhattan for a half decent price–maybe the last apartment. I moved to a new city by the ocean where it was in the 70′s today. I’m meeting with the contractor who is renovating my new house tomorrow and this isn’t going to be a horror story.

I try not to focus on what I could have been had I known earlier and to focus on the present. 95% of the time that works.

We told everybody. We planned the wedding. We did everything but actually have it. Recently I was watching The New Adventures of Old Christine Christine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) proposed to Barb (Wanda Sykes) to keep her from being deported to the Bahamas. They went through with it.

That’s the second thing I have seen on The New Adventures of…. I thought of first. The first being birthday month, which in recent years I have turned into birthday summer. (I have birthday month in the archives somewhere written long before this show was seen.)

Life’s unfair but I want credit so if I’m not around the blogosphere much, well I haven’t been this past year because selling my apartment was so nerve wracking. This year I won’t be because I’m actually writing a book I don’t want to share until it’s safely written and published.

Usually I tell my ideas as I used to think they were too quirky to steal. Oh have I learned and I’m not talking New Adventures….

People were screaming from their apartments. We ran downstairs with noisemakers, champagne and loud voices.

Ambulances hunked their horns. The Upper West Side was alive tonight. Truckers were screaming. Cabs hunked and the drivers screamed “Obama.” “Yes we can.”

Tonight was the night we took back America and I don’t apologize
for saying that

The USA went to war in our names. We didn’t want that war

I’m leaving New York but I will never forget tonight.

And I just never might write about politics again. I didn’t write about politics because I thought I was a better writer or had better thoughts. I wrote out of frustration

Tonight is a night to celebrate. I’m listening to Obama and know he can heal a wounded nation

I’m listening to my friends and well they’re crying when they’re not chanting

It was so liberating to run down the streets screaming. So so liberating

Trucks are blasting their horns. People are screaming on the streets. We’re screaming back when not crying

People other places don’t understand why we’re crying. Oh hell we’re crying because Karl Rove said we wanted therapy for terrorists. We’re crying for eight good years made bad.

We’re crying for a new generation who won’t know the type of prejudice we knew.

We’re crying for an America that once again will be great. We can travel proudly and not be ashamed. Not wear that tee shirt “don’t blame me I didn’t vote for him.” Not that I care what other countries think.

I care because I love this country and tonight people like me who didn’t support the Bush regime; who thought if only somebody actually read and acted on the 8/06/01 memo had been president life could have been so different. Tonight we got our voice back

I’m confused and can’t seem to get out a coherent thought.

I was making concession after concession for the buyers who have VERY IMPORTANT JOBS and are buying in VERY DIFFICULT TIMES.

Yesterday I reached my limit. The closing was changed so many times–always at their request that I had to keep changing arrangements, appointments and more.

What am I, chopped liver? This isn’t just about the buyers. I hope that when I buy I never forget that.

I had the closing changed once more and feel much better.

I apologize if this blog has become boring and has been obsessed with real estate and the economy.

On 10/16 I will be beginning a new life in another state and hope that my mind will be able to focus on other things.

Judith Warner totally pinpointed the things I think about Sarah Palin. I have written something similar though not as good in my head while doing something

Then I read this comment from a male resident of Alaska and stopped feeling sorry for somebody so in over her head. When I’m antsy and it’s raining and I don’t have stairs to climb in my own abode I scroll through Google lists or NY Times comments. Things that can be a total waste of time but are better than splitting hair ends, biting nails or thinking about cigarettes.

Governor Palin, on the other hand, shows a pinched meanness of spirit that makes me wonder just what she is made of. What kind of person wants rape victims to pay for their medical examinations or believes that that some sort of triumphal Christianity has destined her for political greatness? Only a hypocrite espouses belief in democracy, while appointing childhood friends to high positions in the government. And allowing the First Dude to ignore a subpeona from the State legislature.

I don’t think Governor Palin is untalented or without potential but she is not ready for the master class in government, and the current alignment of foreign policy and economic challenges are too great to be left to somebody “just like us.” These are exceptional times and we need exceptional leadership.

•••••••••••••••••••••••
Henry, whoever you are, I appreciate the video you left in comments and am not about to analyze the half truths. The music was great.

I’m trying to stay away from all politics but Sarah Palin as its not as simplistic as the vid you left would have people believe. Sarah Palin I do understand.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The period between 9/11 and 10/14 depresses the hell out of me. In recent years it’s become an almost subliminal thing and I couldn’t understand why I was so depressed after I arranged for movers to come here on 10/10 as the closing was supposed to be on 10/14 and my building doesn’t allow move ins or outs on weekends or holidays and 10/13 is Columbus Day.

I had hoped to have closed on 10/01 as it would be eleven years to the day since I closed as a buyer.

I’m conflicted as I want to honor my mother’s memory. She was quite biased and loved my writing though she could critique it impartially. I had planned to spend the time between 10/10 (her birthday) and 10/14 (date of death) in a marathon writing session in North Myrtle Beach. I need to get back some of the confidence.

I read some blogs and am blown away by the lines. I used to be good. I hope that I can regain the zest and freshness.

That weekend happens to be the birthday weekend of two good friends who are married to each other. It will be my last weekend in New York as a resident and though I treasure the thought of becoming a recluse–a good recluse, I’m a mite too social….So the marathon writing session will have to wait.

For luck I’m not saying another thing about the closing until it’s over. I have already written the post with appropriate vid.

I have begun obsessing over the fun part. Getting there and finding a house.

It’s just kind of hit me that I’m selling my home and for the first time in my adult life will be without some kind of lease as I stay at a friend’s house

Fortunately the only place I sabotage myself in is this blog

In a quick look at non political blogs that talked about Sarah Palin people say not to judge her based on her values. One even said she has good family values implying most of the rest of us don’t. I don’t think that’s what the blogger meant to say judging by other parts of the blog

The New York Times (a paper I will read on weekends forever or until my dotage) public editor was slightly defensive in his defense of the paper’s coverage of her. He did say the FBI hadn’t vetted her before the announcement. Actually only one person asked questions about her before the announcement

By choosing a running mate unknown to most of the nation, and doing so just before the Republican National Convention, John McCain made it inevitable that there would be a frantic media vetting. It turns out that Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it, that she sent e-mail complaining about a lack of disciplinary action against a state trooper who was going through a messy custody battle with her sister, and that she never made a decision as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard, one of her qualifications cited by McCain

.

There’s enough in that paragraph alone to wonder about her qualifications. I don’t care that Todd had a DUI over 20 years ago. I might care that he was a member of a separatist party. Yet if Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin’s plan for New York City to succeed from the state had taken off I might have joined it. That I was only eighteen wouldn’t have mattered in the long run and some people (well, me) remember Mailer not only for his brilliant writing but for his championing of a killer who killed again when Mailer got him out. That’s two things people could use against me before I even hit 20–there’s more but I’m not running for office and understand that we live in Google forever now.

The point is we live in an age when every little decision we make at every stage of our lives can both boomerang and come back to hit you in the face. Only the decision Sarah Palin made not to talk about her daughter Bristol’s pregnancy is neither in the past nor irrelevant to her future. It has everything to do with her “qualification” to be VP and probably President if McCain wins because just look at him.

I’m not Christian. This doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in “Christian values.” It does mean that Palin presented her daughter’s pregnancy in a way that was a slap in the face to everybody who has different beliefs than her. The public doesn’t have a right to know usually. This isn’t “usually.”

As an adoptee I might have liked to have heard her mention discussing adoption with Bristol. I would have liked to have known that her daughter knew about safe se_ because if Palin and McCain do win they will do everything in their power to stop that from being taught to teenagers and any study will show that abstinence only doesn’t work.

People keep telling us to “play nice.” Ask the Democrats who saw themselves portrayed on Recount how they felt as being portrayed as decent, honorable but inept people.

This coming week will be the seventh anniversary of 9/11. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened with Gore as president. For proof of that one only has to look at the 8/6 memo that Gore wouldn’t have slept on.

Bloggers were told during Katrina we couldn’t cast blame and help at the same time. We could and we did.

The USA is one giant mess. We all felt so good and became complacent as we believed that the radical right was a dead force. To have to live with the consequences of that belief is beyond my comprehension.

I and most”liberals” don’t care what kind of mother Sarah Palin is. That’s none of our business. It is our business to care that she’s trying to foist her values on us.

I’m not going to dredge out the original draft of The First Amendment again–the one that very distinctly spelled out that church and state shouldn’t meet. When people haughtily talk about how “under God” was good enough for the founding father’s they should remember that Madison and Jefferson cared more about separating God from government than anything else.

We can’t and won’t give Palin a free pass. We did that to Bush after 9/11 and suffered. If we say anything negative about Palin, we’re talking se_ism.

I have never defined myself as a feminist but I married young and kept my last name at a time when that entailed walking around with a marriage certificate for banks, apartments, even some hotels. The only male I have ever been dependent upon for money I called “daddy” and that kind of went with the job description.

I’m buying a free standing house and one of the reasons I think I’m so into this is because i am an economically empowered woman and owning a house represents the final challenge. One day, in the townhouse, I thought “what responsibility is missing here? Roofs,” and I realized that I could dial a roofer with the best of them. Though my nail tips (long story) keep me from doing anything nail related with the ease I once knew, I can be both the girliest woman and the most strident of feminists in one breath.

Don’t call me “se_ist” when my entire adult life has been about challenges.

Don’t think that the choice of Palin is going to go over well with moderates who were sitting on the fence or leaning toward McCain as too many of them have children. And they want their children to learn about responsible se_.

And if people weren’t around when abortion was illegal, it’s up to those of us who were around to tell them that many women chose to have illegal abortions in unsafe conditions. The daughter of close friends of my parents died of sepsis when I was fifteen. It’s something that stays with you for life. So needless. The parents were affluent, but the daughter felt she couldn’t confide in them. By that I mean the daughter could have gotten a safe abortion.

We can’t go back to those days. There is a very real possibility that if McCain and Palin win we will. I understand that many girls chose to be teenage mothers but in the world I come from that was not an option–just as abortion isn’t an option to Palin.

I believe that it’s up to the individual who is pregnant.

By saying talking about Bristol’s pregnancy is off limits we’re closing ourselves to a much needed debate. No not a debate–we have to keep abortion legal as girls and women will always have them.

We’re letting them win once again by being nice and we can’t be. The future of our country in every way is at stake.
Here’s the unrequited love of my life Frank Rich.

We still don’t know a lot about Palin except that she’s better at delivering a speech than McCain and that she defends her own pregnant daughter’s right to privacy even as she would have the government intrude to police the reproductive choices of all other women. Most of the rest of the biography supplied by her and the McCain camp is fiction

Fiction–in an era where everything can be vetted–fact checking is a life style, people look something up on the Internet and call it “research” Palin thinks she’s above the rest of us and can re-invent her life.

I went, not willingly but to support a friend, to the modern version of est the other night–actually the night Palin was giving her speech-and they said you can reinvent your life. I thought how wonderful to live in a world you make that has no basis in reality–reframe yes, see through different lenses, but reinvent? Apparently est and Palin have much in common.

Cooper this post is for you. I think Cooper the secret prognosticator should be the tagline of wonderlandornot, and once a week you should tell some aspect of somebody’s future. Or not.

It’s past time for all Americans who truly understand the Constitution to take a stand. We can’t give this country over to bigots who will do our deciding for us.

I was much moderate, but too much is at stake now, and I live in South Carolina most of the time where I don’t feel free to e_press my views. I will, I need time.

I have never done an interstate move before with storage involved. I’m nervous about that. Is it a self-absorbed lu_ury to write about?.
•••••••••••

I took this post down as it was self-absorbed and whiney. Love the title however. Here’s another self-absorbed and whiney post from my little world

And, i don’t see too many people being judged for their life choices on the Internet. Why should it be different for me?

Why should I have to defend talking about my move? It would be big for anybody–for me it’s as if I’m climbing three mountain peaks.

Do you have any idea what it takes to sell at a profit in a down market? Do you have any idea what it takes to keep money coming in a stock portfolio.

I know those things aren’t important to you. They are too me as i do like to live well. Why should I be apologetic about it?

I wasn’t going to write about my move at all but quickly understand it was blog it or have a nervous breakdown. So sorry if the posts aren’t up to your standards.

Life lessons? I don’t need anymore. I’m neither shallow nor un-anaylitical. i have over analyzed my bumping into a doorknob before i knew what my problems were.

I’m moving to a place where they think you’re crazy if you don’t drive and own a car. I don’t drive and never will–not by choice but by disability. I turn it into a joke. “The world’s safer without me at the wheel.” “I’m like Stevie Wonder. If you get drunk I will drive.”

Do you understand that this really isn’t a joke? Do you understand how difficult this move is for me? I’m leaving the only city I have truly known. I’m leaving a life time of friends, family and memories.

Do you understand that the mechanics of life are much more difficult for me than for most people? Still I do what has to be done, or try.

I need peace and contentment in my life. This city is too crazy and too crazy pricey for that.

Do you understand that when you stood in judgment of me, and you did whether you can see that or not, I wanted to delete you from the everybody I know list.

This week had been about beginning to find peace and then I heard from you and wondered if I’m not understandable. I wondered if people really don’t like me or want to know me. i wondered if people find my writing boring and intolerable. Oh but unlike you I don’t peer deep into my soul. I thought you read my article on NLD. It doesn’t give me permission to abstain from life’s details, but it attempts to show who I am.

When I leave New York ne_t month I have to buy a house. I e_pect that to be easier but i’m the queen of “you never know,” as honestly I never do

I find life’s roads to be very curvy, trees over turned, shards of glass everywhere. Still I walk them.

I could spend my life self-improving or I could spend my life doing with some introspection. i chose the later. I don’t like to focus on myself as I hate becoming depressed. The pain I felt before I knew I had NLD and at various times during this year is diminishing. And like a tooth ache I can’t remember it e_actly.

Did you think you were being clever? Wise? Did you think you were going to make me look deep into myself, face me and come up with horrible truths? That I should peer into my soul and find a vapid horrible person. Honestly I like the person i see.

The one truth I know is that I’m a good person with many flaws. I have tried, more than most, to rid myself of the flaws but like the small lines on my face they aren’t going anywhere

Don’t read my blog if you no longer like my writing. I could ask you many questions about your present life but I choose not to.

You might have accomplished what many have tried. Blogging should be a pleasant e_perience. A nothing personal post should be treated as one.

I’m not sure whether i will put this blog on hiatus or not. You really did succeed in make me feel boring and that I have nothing worth saying.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Yesterday I crossed the park to the discount high fashion optician. I whispered “do you have Sarah Palin’s glasses.” They were aghast as they hate…but I ended up buying similiar but nicer ones. I had taped the prior night’s Letterman and found it hysterical when he said “wouldn’t Sarah Palin make a great commercial for LensCrafters?”

Then I went for a pedicure as I really couldn’t stand my clear tinged with pink toes. I got deep red. As I looked at the woman ne_t to me who was getting clear tinged with pink…I wanted her color. Then I realized I suffer from pedicure envy.