“You’re such a disappointment.”

Who the hell are you, I thought but didn’t say.  Oh I knew her well.  One of the biggest bitches in the city, and the woman people thought was one of my closest of close friends.

She was beautiful.  The woman who had borne a rock star his last and favorite child.  She didn’t have to do anything but be beautiful.  Her life work was decorating his life with color and wit.  She wasn’t brash.  No, her style was more hit them with kindness.  Everybody but me, of course.  I saw through her faux kindness.  She would bring soup to sick people.  Visit everybody’s old aunt.  Everybody’s but mine.  My relatives weren’t even supposed to be seen by me.  I was supposed to accompany her on her mercy missions.

I was supposed to be famous.  I was so bright.  Such a good writer.  Pretty too.  The brilliantly wrapped package had a carpenter’s ant or bee hole in one corner causing it to be imperfect.  The sparkle was ruined.

My motto had always been, “I live to make your life easier.”  As long as I was solving other peoples problems and had no issues of my own I was much desired as a dinner guest, movie to travel companion.  But once I brought up any problems or couldn’t fix others I was damaged goods.  It was easier to play the saint role.

“You’re such a disappointment,” rings through my head at the oddest times.  I wonder how many other people thought or think it but have a bit more class than she does.  I walked out of her life the night she said those words.

She contacted me several times.  I couldn’t help but think she was trying to lubricate her way back into my life.  Not push; not shove nor be nice about it but she acted like a snake that was pretending its venom was harmless.

A lot happened in the ten years since she berated me.  My life once again began to belong to me.  I wrote a book.

We ran into each other at a Christmas party.  The rock star looked old and tired.  She had too much work.

My fiancee began to introduce us.  I laughed: This is Shelby, my college roommate.  I guess I forgot to mention that she lives with Nick.

To Shelby I said I only tell stories about us in college.  Everything else is too boring.

If her face could have moved she would have looked at me with horror.

A friend, not at all like Shelby, who I first met at 12 began a blog this week.  ChictoChick

Lexington Avenue has always been my favorite Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan. It’s the only neighborhoody one, and still has small non-chain stores and too many coffee houses for safety.  I was killing time before going to the dentist and didn’t want to stain my teeth even more than I thought they were.

I passed a Mitzvah Mobile, or van with ultra Orthodox Jews, out to make sure Jews comply with the laws of Pesach (Passover.)  A young man asked if I was Jewish.  I smiled and continued up the street.  Then thought why not speak to them?  I walked back.  “Yes. I. Am.”

“Do you know the story of Passover.”

I was a bit insulted as my family had a real Seder every year since I was fifteen.  We were heathens before daddy got religion when we went to visit Orthodox relatives in Mobile AL.  Not really heathens but we never belonged to a temple and had elaborate family dinners for Jewish holidays–only the major ones.  Very major ones.  We ate bacon at home but never other pork dishes.  That was for Chinese restaurants.

“Of course I know about Passover.”  Everybody cheered when it was my turn to read because I speed read the sections as fast as my mouth would work.  But I do love the story.  Before the meal there is the seder.

“But do you know what it really means?”

“Tell me.”

“It means overcoming the impossible.”

I thought about that.  I knew he was speaking the language of spiritualism and trying to get people like me to really celebrate but still I liked that.

I also liked the matzahs he gave me.  Homemade from Brooklyn they easily cost $18-$21 in a store.

I continued my saunter down Lexington Avenue.  I passed a Mexican store that seemed to specialize in Oaxacan things, at least that’s how it looked in the window.

“Wow this is nice.  I spent high school summers in Oaxaca.”

The owner looked me up and down.  I almost stuck out my teeth so she could inspect them.  The stuff in the store was cheesy and not up to my former 15-16 year old standards.  As much as I love color and I learned about color from living in Oaxaca, I like my Mexican pottery and figurines to be brown or made from Oaxacan black pottery. OK I’m a snob.  A total snob.

“Did you live with the Sciaky’s?”

“Yes I did.”  The Sciaky husband was an anthropologist who died before my time and Mrs Sciaky was a great woman who accepted “interesting girls,” who had to read many books before coming for the summer.  Once there we were immersed in the culture, and truly learned about a culture so different from our own.

It turned out that the owner hadn’t been a Sciaky girl but had a college roommate who was.  We knew absolutely nobody in common and I couldn’t find anything I wanted to buy though I felt almost compelled to.  I did ask for a card, then realized I was going to be late to the dentist if I didn’t get out of the store.

After the dentist finished I asked him a question that had been burning through my brain since I had been to the Mitzvah Mobile.

“I noticed about five Mitzvah Mobile’s.  They give that great homemade matzah.  Is it ethical if I go to more than one so I can have matzah’s for every house I go to while I’m in New York?”

My dentist was very excited at the thought of free homemade matzah.  (I can’t think of its name.)  He said: “Only if it makes you a profit?”

“Ha?”

“One year I had an Orthodox patient who had all permanent implants.  As you know implants are made from plastic.”

Passover laws are even more strict than regular Jewish laws.  Many Orthodox people have two kitchens.  One just for Passover.  Other people go away for the holidays.  Then there are the rest of us….But still this man was all ferklempt because meat and dairy dishes can never be eaten at the same meal.  For Passover, well I’m not sure, but he wanted my dentist to take out his implants.  My dentist refused.  The man went even crazier.  Finally he consulted his Rabbi.

The Rabbi’s decision was thus: Implants are Kosher for Passover if he paid the dentist twice.  Once for meat; once for dairy.  My dentist was paid twice for full mouth implants.  Normally  people have to raid the family store or borrow money for one set of implants.

I know this is a hard story to believe but years ago I was waiting to pay at the gynecologist’s office.  The billing clerk was having a very hard time with the woman in front of me, an ultra Orthodox Jew.  Finally the clerk said ” the thirteenth is free–like a baker’s dozen.”  It turned out that the woman went into labor during the High Holidays and didn’t want to go to the hospital.  Therefore the doctor wasn’t charging her for the labor he didn’t participate in or the follow up visits. And they knew she would be back the next year and for all the rest of her child-bearing years.

After I left the dentist I walked around the city looking for Mitzvah Mobiles.  Unfortunately it was after five PM and the next day was Friday when they were preparing for both Shabbos (the sabbath) and pre-Passover.  I didn’t realize that the whole day was a sort of holiday and spent it walking the windy freezing weather looking for matzah.

Passover has always been my favorite holiday, aside from Thanksgiving so this story was written with much love.

It wasn’t only windy and freezing that day but the first three days I was in New York.  Then it rained.  And rained.  And rained.

I’m so happy to be home where Eldon, the house husband, is adding to my downstairs deck.

Something happened to me when I was in NY.  Maybe it was seeing Rafe not once but three times.  Maybe it was…I have no idea what.  I realized how stupid it is to worry about what might be in the future.  I finally understood the concept of living in the moment.

I’m happy.  Truly happy.  The kind of happiness you feel when spring has sprung and the beach is calling your name and your close friends are coming down and……

Rafe was in the hospital for three months.  Only four days were denied.  Four days that came out to $459,000.  Credit cards are accepted.  He’ll win his appeal because how can you deny four days out of three months? and we will make such a stink if he loses the insurance company will want to die itself.

During the Ford/Carter energy crisis my father would keep the thermostat set to 68 and tell us it was patriotic to freeze.  Our house was a corner one and all the wind in the neighborhood seemed to settle into it.

So began my long history of living in wind chambers.  When I moved off Fifth on 63rd Street, at 25 in 76,  I didn’t need AC as my building had a lot of marble, and I lived on the first floor.  I had the first ceiling fans anybody heard of in Manhattan.  Bought on the Bowery when the Bowery was the Bowery.

Oh yes I’m one of those New Yorkers.  I will never be ashamed of loving the city the most in the 70′s to around 85.  It was affordable.  It was fun.  I heard it was dangerous but never felt the danger no matter where I went.  I lived in that apartment until 91 and only had AC the last year as my super gave me a unit somebody was throwing out.  It just wasn’t important to me.  Neither was TV.  A good stereo with analog speakers was of primary importance.  I began collecting CD’s years before I could afford to buy an actual player.

Though my apartment was warmer than the average apartment nobody refused an invite basically because I threw great parties, always or often had food, always had liquor as I only drank with company and found out early in life that people would bring liquor we would drink then so the good stuff, mine, would be saved for special occasions.

Oh any night on East 63rd was special.  I remember when my ex best friend Shelby came back from a cruise to the former Soviet Union.  A professor famed for his film lectures invited her.  She only had to design a brochure and didn’t have to sleep with him or in the same room.

I know because she took me to his office to do the negotiating.  What do you say to a weird man who had noticed her when she walked into the auditorium for the first film, came up to her after class, and asked her if she would like to go for a drink?  He did this in full view of the hundreds of girls who were gaga over him for reasons I never understood except that he knew many film stars.

I said something brilliant like: “So Shelby’s going to design a brochure?”

“Yes.”

“And her payment’s going to be her own room on your cruise to Finland, Leningrad etc?”  Well I didn’t say “etc.,” and was dying to say “but why can’t I be Shelby’s roommate?”  I didn’t.

I remember how uncomfortable we all were in his office.  I remember thinking that I hated playing Rhoda to Shelby’s Mary.  With most other girls I was Mary.

I remember hating Shelby because she was so beautiful and bright yet was an incredible bitch without any empathy or feelings for anybody but herself.  I had met her during Viet Nam.  She never protested.

We shouldn’t have been friends.  Yet like lovers who weren’t good for each other we circled around one another for 20 years.

She hated the cruise.  Joel Gray, Colleen Dewhurst, and many incredible stars were on it.  Shelby hung out with Cindy Williams (Laverne on Laverne & Shirley)  I remember thinking well she was the only one anywhere near our age–though older of course

The night after she came back from the cruise she came to my apartment with a lot of presents, which was totally out of character for her, and a large bottle of Stoli.  We sat and drank shots.  Neither of us realized that real Russian Stoli basically tastes like water.  Well Shelby might have but she liked seeing me get drunk since I did because it was the 70′s but didn’t really enjoy.  Oh I did but hated the next day.

No she really didn’t realize as when we stood up we fell down.  We got up laughing.  I had what looked like a large stick by my front door.  It was called a police lock and weighed at least 25 pounds.  You could kill somebody with that stick.

Shelby decided to play with it.  It fell down.  The super who hated me on general principle and was always cutting off my electricity, cut off my electricity and came up to curse me out.  I had an ability to straighten myself out really quickly and threatened him with the police if he didn’t put my electricity on.  He threatened me with bodily harm but acquiesced.

Shelby couldn’t stop laughing.  We fell onto my sofa bed, passed out and went out around noon the next day for hangover food and Bloody Mary’s.  Some guys came over and we let them pay for our brunch.

I was always amazed when guys would say “you know, your friend is beautiful but there’s something about you that’s just so….”  And two thirds of the time they did

I have no idea what this has to do with living in wind chambers except that I was living in one then and my house now has the thermostat set to 68 basically because I’m cheap)

The whole time I was in New York I was obsessed with the color blue. My sister painted my old bedroom an exquisite blue, so beautiful I can neither really remember it or describe it. Yes it was weird when they first bought the parental manse but time and many changes have taken the weirdness away.
Lucia’s (the best of best friends) kitchen is a true sea blue, if your sea is in a very hot climate.

I couldn’t stop talking or thinking about redoing my living room. It’s pink and took ten coats to come out right. The downstairs bedroom is an ice blue. The study is turquoise and the guest room is teal. Obviously I love blue.

Then I came home and loved the coziness of the pink. I also said to myself: you’re so frigging crazy. Painting the living room is an excuse not to write. You spent the last two years moving. It’s time for some peace, and even more to get serious before you’re demented or somebody beats you to the weirdest story. Anyway you don’t have the money and every time you begin a home improvement project the stock market goes wild.

Yes, I’m the reason for the recession. Me, me and only me. It’s enough to make me ignore my house but I love it and weirdly I truly enjoy the “burdens” of home ownership.

The heating and AC guy was over today for the winter checkup. He said everything was perfect, and didn’t try to sell me something to enhance the performance. The exterminator came next. He didn’t tell me I had termites (I know he checks and gets a commission if he finds any.)

In New York both people would have tried to sell me a thousand things and would have had their hands out. OMG, was I supposed to tip them? I can’t help but think about the $1200+ I would be doling out this month in tips.

I enjoyed seeing people in New York. The city itself I wasn’t so crazy about. My last night I had a dream that I owned a cottage but couldn’t remember where. Great Neck? A cottage would be way too pricey. The Hamptons? In my dreams literally. It became a nightmare. I woke up and remembered; I do own a cottage, I do. In North Myrtle Beach SC. Oh the relief.

And I have a living room that will stay pink for a while. Hopefully the country will stay out of red.

Bone began NaBloSoFroDraWe 2009 or clean out your drafts week. I wrote this two weeks ago and kinda forgot about it. I meant to fill in the character sketchs but….

New York has never been about museums, theater, even restaurants to me but family, friends, the best museum in the world–the streets of New York, and OK I love restaurants in the city and Long Island more than any other place.

I stayed with my sister on the Island for a couple of nights and then went to my spiritual home, the Upper West Side. My best friend Lucia and her daughter Lucianame live in the best of all buildings. It’s non-doorman, just seven floors, built around the turn of the last century, one of the first elevator buildings in New York and half the building has been living there for thirty years or more. They all know me and treat me as just another building resident which is way cool.

I didn’t watch Seinfeld when it was on originally but instinctively knew that only the best friend could say “it’s me when ringing the door. And after your mother your best friend gets the coveted O or 1 spot on speed dial. Yes we all check.

One night Lucia and I went to a coffee shop across the street from her building. The food’s exceptional, the staff is wonderful and you never know who you’re going to run into but chances are you’ll run into Eleanor and end up eating with her.

Eleanor’s 83 and has been living in the building longer than I’ve been alive. She moved in as a young bride. Her husband died a few years ago and her son finally found himself a few years ago.

Eleanor’s the only Upper West Side Jewish Republican I know. Now we all voted for Rudy the first time, and Bloomberg the first time as we’re pragmatic and only tough Democrats when we have to be. Eleanor’s amazing–a group of us are Eleanor groupies. She would run for office because she knew the candidate would lose and she didn’t want the nice young person to suffer politically.

Eleanor worked on Wall Street until the 87 recession when she moved over to the city where she still works full and very long days today.

The city is honoring Eleanor with a ceremony and a party today. Lucia collected money from people in the building and bought her some jewelry. I so wish I could be there. Eleanor’s like the mother I miss and thinks I’m beautiful so I would love her just for that. .

Saturday night Lucia, Lucianame and I went to the cafe at the 70th Street pier for burgers, salad and sangria. Lucianame found it too funny that I needed “roughage.” Well it had been a week of heavy eating and for some reason…why am I defending my use of the word “roughage” rather than “fiber.” OK so we got back to the building and bought ice cream from the truck at the corner. As we were eating our ice cream, Miles came in.

Miles has AIDS. He was supposed to die ten years ago. For a number of years I would see Miles with an aide. He shakes but he has cheated death so long and through so many attacks. I almost cried seeing Miles alone with a dog. Miles is an artist. He specializes in buildings and when he and his lover lived in San Diego he began a movement to preserve some buildings. Recently he went to San Diego as the city was honoring him. PBS is doing a special about him.

The people in Lucia’s building gave him pricey flowers and he was so touched he painted a picture of them. He took us in to see the painting and the long foyer, living room and one bedroom that were filled with his art. I was stunned both by the almost plain lined buildings that came alive, and the floral art that while still in his style was lavish and lush.

These are just two of the people who live in one smallish building on the Upper West Side. I heart the Upper West Side, this building and its residents so very much.

I also adore Cooper who went to NYU so…this is one of the many reasons why

I couldn’t stop loving Bill Clinton even when I detested his wife who I now admire. I’m glad that I have a reason to love him!!!!!!!!!!! Can I just say, he’s so darn cute?

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.

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 more…

We’re having an uncontained large fire. It’s on the other side of the intercoastal and so far on the other side of North Myrtle. It’s a little exciting and very scary.
Day 2) They’re almost downplaying the fire on the news I live north of it. I would put an article from the New York Times in but unfortunately it’s the best I could find

This is for 3WW Here are parts one and two
Is deceit a vital part of growing up? Between ages fifteen and 24 there were many times I did set out to deceive my parents. By the time I was 25, in 1975-76, I was tired of playing word games with the truth. At 25, I wanted to indulge my long suffering father.

I had been “living” at my parents house for six months by January 3, 1976. I put “living” in quotes as most nights I would stay on my friend Shelby’s couch or in some guy’s apartment. I remember the first time I saw cable TV. I can’t describe the guy but I still remember the building, and his living room where WNEW-FM (my radio station then) played in the background while Reuters News scanned the picture tube. It was, I thought, a miracle. I can’t say the same for the sex as I don’t remember it.

When I came “home,” it would usually be two or three in the morning. My parents couldn’t and wouldn’t say anything as they had raised me without a curfew, and I made it to the train to the city and work each morning. They didn’t know about the little envelope of white powder I sometimes used. I never liked coke as a party drug but as something to keep me functioning I loved it.

When I indulged, which was most nights and many mornings and afternoons for I worked at a hand painted tee shirt company where my boss was a junkie; the art director an alkie, and I the coordinator between departments and assistant to the president, I would indulge in my drug of choice–pot. I tried keeping it to a manageable level.

So yes I was deceiving my parents but they were silent partners to it. I “lived” at their house so I could save my money for an apartment. My father insisted on paying for my monthly train ticket.

Years before after I dropped out of college, lived in Stuyvesant Town, and saved my money for an open ended ticket to Europe and Israel, I went to the travel agency to pick my ticket up:
Oh you’re just a few minutes late. A very handsome older man bought it for you The woman squealed. She thought I was horrors of horrors living off an older man. And I was.
Did he have a large nose, too long hair for somebody his age and a moustache?
Yes
That’s no man, that’s my father.

Whenever we went to restaurants and they tried to seat us in the lovers banquettes I made that distinction clear. I didn’t want my father mistaken for my lover and I didn’t want him to buy me things. I wanted the privilege of paying my own way.

I took a silent oath saying I would return anything he gave me. I tried returning the ticket. He was beyond insulted and told me that I could put the money in an Israeli bank account he had set up for me.

I knew then I was bought and paid for. It wasn’t until recently that I understand the pride a parent takes in being able to give. Fortunately I always knew how much my father loved me. Even in the years between fifteen to 25 when we our language was clocked and fraught with many different meanings.
Life’s too short to spend bitching

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.

That’s it. Photos in a few days.
Two Iranian Christian bloggers are missing. As I’m four fifths on an incredible natural high, one fifth scared I left the townhouse not perfect and three fifths crazed by the money I have been spending when I should be saving, truly horrible things are happening. I know my math was off; it’s just the way I feel
This is a photo of me and the boyfriend I call well lots of things. If it doesn’t link properly I will have it later.

We’re in Folk City in the late 70′s. I met Jeffrey (his real name) when one of the soon to be new owners of Folk City, Robbie Woliver told me I had to come back the next day to see a girl who was better than incredible. My friend Helena and I had stopped by after dinner at Panchito’s a greasy horrible cheap Mexican restaurant that was very beautiful (I think) and everybody loved though if you didn’t eat your food in two minutes it congealed. Most people really went for the endless chips, dips and frozen Margaritas.

People liked hanging with me because well I hope they enjoyed me and I had contacts at all pivotal clubs in Manhattan. It was strange. I even knew Marc the doorman at Studio.

Helena lectured me because I was working twelve to fourteen hour days six days a week. I had recently been promoted to supervisor in a computerized litigation company and loved my job. But Helena was right. I realized the next day I wanted a boyfriend and set out to get me one. I have written in depth about the walk from 63rd & Fifth to the Village. How I stopped at Macys and bought new clothes–as it turned out it wslucky for me I didn’t have to go to work in the same clothes.

Yes those were the days I would think “I want a boyfriend” and despite my extreme shyness one would appear. The same thing happened with weight. “I want to lose 20 pounds,” and I would. Now–well I really try with the weight thing and it’s more manageable but the other thing….If you don’t try….and sadly I didn’t have to learn the skills.

The girl was Lucinda Williams. She and Jeff were friends from New Orleans and he suggested she send Moses Ash of Folkways a demo tape. Jeff had a recording contract with them. She didn’t become real famous for another decade at least but Rob was right; she blew the audience away. It was a star studded audience; filled with recording artists, producers, reviewers. I was in music groupie heaven. Problem was I could never be an actual groupie type. I was more the girlfriend type. I was shy. Robbie would come over and tell me that so and so wanted to meet me–he would come over constantly. I would smile demurely. Sometimes I want to hit the girl I was and tell her–all you had to do was smile at the guy–not Robbie. I always said I had to be hit over the head.

Jeff was the only one who came over and told me a bad joke. I’m a total sucker for bad Polish jokes. It was the 70′s and Jeff and I moved in together two days later. I plead the 70′s defense.
The thing was Jeffrey was sexy. Real sexy for the time. I felt as if I had been hit over the head by–I’m not sure I can describe the feeling. All my girlfriends were impressed. Very impressed. All my male friends disliked but tolerated him.

Jeff was the only one who came over and told me a bad joke. I’m a total sucker for bad Polish jokes. It was the 70′s and Jeff and I moved in together two days later. I plead the 70′s defense.

I have written a lot about Jeffrey. I did love him. For about six months he made me happier than I could imagine being. I think I did the same to him. I really didn’t mean to write this much.

This post was written under the influence of “I bought a house, sweated the renovation, and paid for everything, and wow, my life is becoming exciting once more. Only this time I’m in charge.”

Ms. Maya Hunt was sitting at her computer watching her rapidly dwindling portfolio. She thought she had $600 every day this year in unrealized (not sold) losses. One 07 statement she had to give her accountant showed 200K in (sold, stock or money market fund never to be seen by her again) realized losses. When times get tough…She poured a triple Absolut and thought she should really invest in liquor companies.

Just as she finished pouring the phone rang. Her cousin Madison didn’t even say hello but began screaming about AIG and Warren Buffet. Madison was walking down West End Avenue and couldn’t care less who heard. She hung up and realized Maya hadn’t said a word. Not even “how are you?” Ill mannered her mother had always called that branch of her family.

Madison saw her pot dealer Frankie who kissed her and began talking about how his brother was walking away from a 300K condo loft deposit. When Frankie and Madison parted ways at 97th Street, Frankie saw his clfriend (client friend) Henry. Damn if Henry wasn’t screaming to himself. Nah, he had a bluetooth on.

Henry, an intellectual property lawyer, was on the phone with his clfriend, Neil, who had just had the last of his margin called. He didn’t know how he was going to tell his wife. Henry tried to sound encouraging as he tried even harder to get off the phone so he could buy some weed from Frankie.

Neil bought a bunch of tulips from a Korean grocery and almost fell on the slushy icing up snow, and walked up the 12 flights of stairs. By the time he arrived in the apartment he thought of something to tell his wife but Maya was sprawled on the couch face down, a drink knocked over and an unlit joint in her hand.