Sunday night I went to bed about 12:30. I felt something that felt very much like crushed glass pounding into my leg (yes I know that feeling firsthand.) I moved my arm to my leg and felt the same sensation on my arm. I looked down and ran out of bed.

It was too late to call anybody so I emailed Bone. At the time I was in denial that it was a spider because yuck. Thought about sending him pictures of the bites but my general sense of decorum won this round. I wanted somebody to know about the bite and the date to be on record. OK bugs make me hysterical. I stayed up as long as possible but knew I would have to face a bed sooner or later. I slept in the guest room.

Obviously I was still alive in the morning but the bites looked worse. I walked into the bedroom and the spider was still on the bed. I felt sick. Not too sick to declare war. Only lady bugs are acceptable. I also have lizards and snakes–hopefully not poisonous ones in my irregular sized plot that used to be gross weeds with some grass trying and failing to grow. Now it’s three levels of wood decks. I accept bugs outside. They’re not allowed inside and should know that.

I didn’t have any bug spray as I have an exterminator and no need for spray usually so I took Lysol Clean Up and sprayed the spider for at least two minutes until it finally died. I didn’t care if I ruined the bedding and mattress. This was war. Did I tell you I love my mattress?

I took the bedding and not just washed it but put it through a bleach and then a sanitary cycle. Apparently in war cleanliness counts more than anything.

Eldon, contractor, handyman and househusband came over. Yes I knew I had three more days before the venom could spread. Or did I know this? I had taken a Benadryl so was kinda out of it. And the rain. After months of no rain it wouldn’t stop and I couldn’t stay awake from general malaise I suffer from in temperatures under 80something with high humidity. I need heat and humidity to feel human.

Eldon made a lot of fun of me. Fortunately I had both neosporin and benadryl Gel and used them both probably canceling out each other’s effectiveness.

It’s been almost a week and you can’t see the bites or the swelling anymore. But each night before I go to bed I check my bed for spiders. A girl can’t be too careful.

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I hope that The Tea Party understands no matter what happens they have lost by holding the country hostage to phony “principles.” Raise the now and worry later.
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I don’t do ads on Courting. I change the password often and need the password every day to enter my blog. Don’t get this. The ads link back to WebMD via smart link. I don’t make a cent and have no idea what to do to stop this. I use the latest versions of Askimet and Bad Behavior. It’s not that I wouldn’t make money from the blog if the right opportunity presented itself; it’s the idea that this can be done. Courting isn’t even popular anymore and hasn’t been for years! I just personally love it
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Yesterday as I looked at the assorted pick-ups parked in my court cul de sac, it finally occurred to me that I went from living a sophisticated Manhattan life to one that The Dukes of Hazzard would be proud of, not that I have ever seen the show or movie.  Nothing against pick-ups; I have become very used to riding around town in Eldon’s only cleaned on Christmas and his birthday truck that’s chock full of instruments of the contractor/handyman/bar designer/floor installer trade.  And my next door neighbor’s is downright pretty.  The Professor is a retired judge turned law school professor.  Whenever I call him The Professor he chokes with laughter as most people around here think he’s a retired handyman.  He likes people to think he’s an uneducated redneck and does a damn good impression of one.   He has long white hair that’s thicker and frizzier than mine if that’s possible, and wears shorts and sandals even in the dead of winter.  I only know his profession as my neighbors on the other side are both lawyers and they know people who know people who know him.

I’m not a New Yorker anymore!  Not only am I not a New Yorker, I moved to the wrong Carolina*, didn’t move to South Florida, California or any of the four other places Upper West Siders’ move to.  When I’m not freaking about losing my bragging rights to Manhattan I truly love it here.  But the transition’s taking a long time.  Though most of my “problems” are truly stupid.  I’m freezing because I forget that the landlord can turn up the heat!

Will I ever call myself a Southerner?

*Asheville, Chapel Hill and even Charlotte are on cool lists. Oh, I forgot about Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach– a mini Charleston that’s also a TV & film production town and one of the most beautiful beaches anywhere.

I  am so exhausted from a ten day trip to New York–which I love but god I have to get to Europe   It’s a bit tiring.  This always going to NY thing.  It really is rinse, spit, repeat–even if you love that it gets tiring.  Especially when the beginning of the trip is waiting for the hurricane that never happened and the ending, well, the ending was in a class by itself.

First, I’m obsessive and have a tendency to imagine the worst but thought that was in the past; that I worked through the reasons I did that.   I wasn’t crazed about my house on this trip but did call Eldon twice.  As always he was watching the house.  I’ve never called him before from a trip.  I called three times including once from the airport on the way home because I just had a feeling….

When I came home we were driving down my street.  I saw a few blocks blocked off with fire trucks and police cars.   It looked like the house on fire was in my court.  I managed to get to a close street that was blocked off, and a safety agent was directing traffic away to Main Street.

I gave her my address and asked if it were my house.  She said: “I don’t know.  it might be.”

Frigging bitch.  I freaked as we drove down Main Street.  I finally was able to get out and walk to my court–thank god for suitcases with wheels.

The fire was in the court just above mine.  A very nice elderly couple was coming home from the beach to find out that their house was “gone” in the interior.

I’m exhausted,  beyond happy that it wasn’t my house, guilty that I feel that way, and a little angry that the safety officer didn’t call on her cell to find out what house it was.  I spoke to the fire and police in charge and they defended her saying that she had just been called in.  But isn’t it their responsibility to make sure that people coming home know if it’s their home that’s been lost to fire or not?

I found out why I love Facebook.  I wasn’t up to communicating directly with people.  Facebook gave me a place to vent, to be comforted, to explain why I wasn’t contacting some people directly though I had promised to call when I arrived home.

This was my worst nightmare–coming home from vacation to a burnt house.  Fortunately it was somebody else’s home, unfortunately for them.  And I will bring this up to city officials.  Damn, just saw the Mayor’s husband and didn’t even think…..

My garden.  I had cute little things written next to each photo.  They didn’t take.  But I spent my summer making this–everything from the multi decks to the plants.  Well Eldon did the carpentry.  I didn’t include the upper deck or views from.Next post.

The pink blossom tree is the Crepe Myrtle.  The Myrtles are named for it  Next year I will photograph the process–cutting it back to the bark–waiting and waiting and waiting….Then!  Same with the Elephant Ears.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, somewhere in the archives is a sorta transcript of a sorta actual conversation my mother and I had only using the word “so.” We could tell what the other was really saying from each so’s inflection. OK we were a bit extreme but we weren’t alone in using the word “so.”

I’m having a hard time focusing on my memoir and I can’t blame 92 degrees at 7PM. Actually that I can–weather like this makes me hyper. It’s good for house projects. Don’t ask. And don’t ask about my need to drink seltzer with ginger powder. That was an integral part of a post I threw out and means absolutely nothing in this one. Oh the vanity of the long time blogger.

No I have been going through a crisis of “my birthday’s in a month and a few weeks and I haven’t accomplished anything important with my life.” It’s a pivotal birthday. One that makes 50 look like a walk in the park.

I fear that I’m becoming old and my experiences aren’t relevant anymore. That the gist of the stories buried within these pages are sooo yesterday.

I understand why I’m going through this and a lot of it has to do with being burnt. I thought it was almost four years ago that I found out about non verbal learning disorder (nld) but it’s only been going on three years. The same year I decided it was time to get out of Dodge, renovated to sell, sold, bought a house, renovated, lost a lot of my resources, and well….It finally hit me this past month….

I no longer live in Manhattan. As crazy as it made me it was my identity. If I accomplished nothing with my life I was a great New Yorker. Yesterday I saw an ad for menupages and almost began to cry. I consulted it as if it were the bible. With menupages you didn’t need to have ten restaurants on speed dial though of course I did.

It’s different here. I couldn’t really serve my Anna Nicole Smith Trailer Park Dinner, that later became the Anna Nicole Smith Memorial Trailer Park Dinner. I no longer eat hamburgers, wouldn’t serve on the styrofoam containers, and people here are a bit more politically correct in someways or at least more material in very strange ways. The Anna Nicole Smith Memorial Trailer Park Dinner wouldn’t be funny.

OK honestly only Rafe found it funny. Lucia was aghast that I would serve company on styrofoam, but I would use company napkins. Made of paper yet pretty.

Now I use real plates, and cloth napkins and it’s better for the environment but I’m beginning to feel that we’re doomed anyway so why….

I didn’t use these things often in New York as I owned neither a dishwasher nor a washer/dryer. I don’t miss that part. No not at all. Though I’ve been trying to find a clothes line and can’t find one at Wal Mart. I might have to go online. It will be so nice to have clothes dried outdoors.

I like it here. I certainly like being able to walk to the beach when I want or not walk to the beach and read in one of my decks. I like the friends I have made and the friends who are coming.

But Pia doesn’t live in New York anymore, has done absolutely nothing of worth with her life, and was already an adult when her parents, who had children late for then, were her age.

For somebody who has done nothing of worth with my life I’ve done a lot in the past three years and am so mentally fatigued I can’t tell when I’m writing something good or not. This is a half pity party. Half just the truth. I don’t use “so,” on my own. I use “just.” I’m going to stop that. Just as soon as I find what’s left of my mind.

I want to write fiction as I love it but feel a memoir has a much better chance of being published. I’m just so over myself

Here’s a link to an article I wrote for The Long Island Press’s award winning series: Our Children’s Brains.  Of everything I did this past decade this article was personally the most meaningful.  If I increased awareness of non verbal learning disorder (NLD) just a bit then I did a lot.

I meant to end the year decade with a salute to bloggers because I think we’re at the forefront of a major revolution in communication.  Without blogging there really couldn’t have been Facebook.  Without Facebook there couldn’t have been Twitter.   I don’t know whether I fear or look forward to what comes next.

I began this decade, and I believe decades truly begin when something significant happens, in deep agony.  True the Trade Center had imploded and my mother died suddenly the next month but it was more than that.  I felt as if I were losing my grip on sanity.  I didn’t know about NLD then.  Had I known when I was a decade younger, ha, the worlds I might have conquered.

But I have to remember that I put this blog together and if I have been harping on its former glory lately it’s because it opened doors I never knew existed.

I became friendly with Bone over four years ago.  His writing amazed me and still does.  He keeps getting better.  But it was Bone the person who helped change me.  When we became friendly I realized that I didn’t have to fear the South.

My first three days visiting here I was more than a bit scared.  Actually it rained the first two days and I was glad I could bring my incredible rain making skills to a then drought stricken area.  (Not glad I have that talent now as this is shaping up to be the rainiest December on record.)

The third day I ventured out and nobody bit me.  North Myrtle, so familiar now, seemed like another country.  I knew the New York metro area, South Florida, parts of New England and California.

This is a new world.  My world now and I go into a new decade knowing I can face whatever comes.  I might be a decade older and one of the oldest known bloggers but that never stopped me….

I thank you all who have taken this journey or parts of it with me.

I wrote a truly long post because I began as a long winded self-absorbed blogger.  I’m going through the blog one post at a time.  Not a fun project, but I must do it.  Again I thank Cooper the magnificent.

Courting’s undergone and still undergoing major retuning.

Last week I watched Julie and Julia.  I’ve never been a Meryl person.  I have always appreciated her brilliance but many of her performances have left me feeling nothing.  I watched Mama Mia with eyes and mouth wide open amazed that she would subject herself to that role when I seriously doubt she needs money and her kids aren’t in the pivotal ten to fourteen year old range that would love the movie.  Abba is a band that has always reminded me of the worst of pop.  No it’s not even pop.

Her performance was a revelation.  She not just captured Julia Child but made me love her.  Stanley Tucci!  Wow. He made a little, ugly to be honest, man into one of the sexiest men I have ever seen.  I was captivated.

I have read a lot about how Julie’s (Amy Adams) story was horrible but I’m a blogger and in some ways it could have been my story.  These are the exceptions:  Amanda Hesser of The Times went to her house for dinner.   The book taken from the blog  turned into a best seller.  The subsequent movie was one of the top movies of the year.  And she wrote a new memoir about the affairs she was having during that time that did almost ruin the movie for me as she and her husband seemed so solidly together.

Oh yes we have so much in common.

When I began Courting I didn’t realize people read blogs.  She knew more, and knew enough to have a theme but at first didn’t know if anybody was reading. When her husband read that she was the third most read blog at Salon, they called the people “fans.”  When I became the most read blog at that place we don’t talk about it I called the people who read “readers.”

She felt obligated to post everyday.  My readers know my verbal diarrhea though it has tapered off. Somebody from The Christian Science Monitor called her.  Somebody called me.  You can see we have a tremendous amount in common. She was coming up to her 30′s.  I was in that place called “used to be 30something when it was on.”

It’s not that I’m ashamed of my age.  I’m just so darn immature that I have a hard time believing I’m going to be 60.  Therefore all my friends have been on notice for months they better come up with one giant celebration because it is an age to celebrate.

Julie got nasty comments. Blogs were begun just to diss me.  But hey any publicity….Not frigging true.

Unlike Julie I didn’t get a book contract.   But my life changed as dramatically.  As much as I talked about moving from New York I was scared.  I know New York.  New York knows me.  We went together like seltzer and vanilla syrup in egg creams which contain no eggs, but seltzer, syrup and milk.  I have an incredible support system in New York.  Yes I had been living the life so many dream of down to the luxe doorman building in the heart of the Upper West Side.

But my dreams had changed.  I knew to continue living the life I lived I needed more space in a way less pricey place.  I didn’t count on a house.  That never entered my radar until I found North Myrtle Beach and realized I was capable of buying, renovating (not with my own hands) and maintaining a house.  My house isn’t architecturally significant.  I could get a lot more house that has higher ceilings, is fancier, and has more room for much less money just across 17 but it wouldn’t be a five minute walk to the beach or a two minute walk to the center of town.  My house has decks, lots of decks and I love decks.  It thrills me to sit outside in the middle of the night looking at stars.  It thrills me to be able to run to the beach for just a few minutes whenever.

I haven’t been a “good” blogger these past three years and I’m not just talking quality.  Too much was happening in my “real” life to seek out new blogs, to make new blogging friends.  Julie didn’t have to comment, email, chat up people.  I’m not saying that all that is bad.  It was difficult for reasons my readers are all too aware of.  The problems I had were all interrelated (something I had intuitively known) had a name, and I operated at a level where I had compensated for almost everything.

Blogging brought the problems back. I couldn’t master the computer language of blogging, HTML.  I couldn’t blog socialize as much as many people wanted yet I couldn’t set limits.  I political blogged long after I knew it wasn’t healthy for me.  When I found out about NLD I began to take charge of my life.  Yet I had never felt “disabled” before.

Damn I was smart.  I had been eligible to skip grades but my parents didn’t believe in that.  People always took me for bright.  Yes I had gone through this before but blogging once so great for me began to make me feel like a collection of symptoms.  It’s not OK to have a space to pour your heart out into, unedited.  Since I generally wouldn’t talk about my friends in the present, blogging about NLD filled up space and let me vent.  Something I probably needed to do.  But will never know if the venting led to feeling worse.  I very much believe in the power of positive thinking, and not dwelling on problems, yet….Did it have to be so public?  I love having less Google entries.

So I lost readers, didn’t court new ones, and do you know how many blogs have begun in the past three years?  Many millions.  When I was “on top,” I think there grew to be sixty million.  I alone had five.

Yet it was the greatest feeling in the world in the beginning.  People read me!  People who weren’t classmates or relatives.  An illustrator/cartoonist said to me: “you have the feedback I have always craved.”  I was shocked as I’ve known him all my life and thought he was a person who shunned the spotlight.  And he makes mucho money.  But I knew what he meant.  There’s nothing like that first feeling of wonder; of going to a from “blogger to writer” seminar knowing I had a higher Technorati rating than the speakers.  Yes of course I looked.  I was hung up on stats then.  I have always resented that title.  I was a writer a long time before I was a blogger.

I didn’t know how to handle that recognition.  It came out of nowhere and at times, many times, felt undeserved. At times it made me want to jump up and down with joy.  Other times I wanted to ask people if they knew who I was.  Like they cared. I lived in New York where everybody really does have their fifteen minutes or their best friend did.  Everybody was famous for something real. Not having a money losing blog.  Everybody was younger and better looking than me.  I take that last one back.  But I had begun to feel that I was living in a theme park and I just ain’t a Disney or Rouse production person.

My life was unsettled.  Maybe I will never have that recognition again but hey, I’m prepared for anythng.  I’m settled now.  Everything I have done in the past three years has been to improve my life.

So Julie went onto fame and fortune and I went on to home ownership.  OK she’s lived my dream.  My dream didn’t die.  It went on hiatus.  The long drawn out saga is over, and the fun’s about to begin.  Stay tuned.

My next posts will be at the max half this length.  As usual I reserve the right to change my mind.