I fear that someday, not soon I hope, I will die and not leave a legacy; no permanent marker, except for a headstone in Mount Hebron Cemetery that reminds the world I was here once.

People will argue that is selfish to want to be remembered.  That if I wanted to be remembered I should have had children for parents did something important.  But not all children are worthy of being remembered by their parents and parents, sometimes, very sadly, outlive children.

Then of course there’s the career legacy.  As somebody who has had three and a half careers, a bunch of newspaper articles published and a five and a half year old blog, I can be remembered for knowing that one career wasn’t enough for a lifetime long before that was fashionable to think.  But many other people can lay claim to that thought also.

They can’t all lay claim to saying some of the things I have said in this blog at the time I did, and I made sure to put in original thoughts. In the 70′s and 80′s before the era of instant communication and social networking,  my sister claimed a New York Times reporter was following me around recording my every thought.  For I would say something and a month or three later an article would be in The Times with the very same thought and/or lines.

I had no faith in myself then.  No belief that I could write for such a newspaper or write an entire book.

Now I’m not sure I can market myself properly.  Just writing this seems so egotistical.  Yet what are most bloggers, Facebookers, and Twitterers doing but trying to make a mark on the world so that they will leave a legacy?  A lot of money is good too.

I have friends who will be remembered for their careers.  Their writing. Their wit.  Their skill and talents in other areas.  And their spouses, kids, grandkids and I’m beginning to feel very small in statute.  I want what they have.  I can’t have the kids and grandkids, that’s impossible and probably not the adoring spouse, but the career….Of course I’m convinced I’m becoming demented so I probably have about two good writing months left…..

For awhile I think I thought I could leave a legacy as a blogger.  It was different three, four years ago.  When you were known, many bloggers knew you.  There weren’t thousands of different groups all competing for bloggers and fame.  There was competitiveness, of course, everything is.  But we knew we were in the earlier days of something bigger then ourselves something that could change communication.  Then came Twitter.   It’s all too much for me.

Friends are having grandchildren.  I’m glad for them, so excited sometimes you have no idea, but a bit sad for me as I will never know that feeling.

My book is that most egotistical of genres, a memoir, but I do think I have a more interesting than most story to tell. One I won’t go into here as everybody who reads this blog knows it.  If you know me through Facebook you don’t really know it.

You don’t know that I’m much more than a collection of symptoms.  Hey, I met John Gotti and lived to talk about it.  That will always be one of my favorite stories sick as it is and it’s very sick.  It’s me, girl who couldn’t keep her Marilyn dress from doing a Marilyn.  In my memories I have short blond hair, and big red lips.  In reality I had long red hair done 40′s style or maybe I had cut it recently to just shoulder length with volume but not big–it was the last year of the 80′s.  My lips might have been red but they were never big.

That’s not one of my best stories just one of my favorites.  I don’t know what my best stories are.  I have no way of judging my own work.  I no longer have any semblance of a site meter so I have no way of gauging what pages are peoples favorites.

I did that on purpose.  The whole get-to-love-me-through-social-media frenzy sickened me.  I had come early to the party.  Too early as I didn’t realize I was supposed to have a plan, enough energy to spend the hours I wasn’t exercising or writing on social media activities.  I had done that with blogging solely because I’m obsessive and I was burnt out as I burn out of everything.

I’m vain.  Oh so vain I think the story of not knowing I had non verbal learning disorder and living anyway is a good story.  I spent my late teen, 20′s and 30′s being adorable, looking like a generic soap star, and I worked hard.  I confused my bosses who couldn’t understand that the spacey klutzy but adorable girl did such complex excellent work.

Then I broke down.  Though I did brilliantly in social work school I don’t think my work ever equaled the work I did in my 20′s to 37.  Maybe it was the medication.  More likely it was still not knowing what was wrong with me and being more aware since I broke down, had the testing, and found out I was supposed to be incapable of just about everything.  I had always believed in myself before underneath it all.  Always believed that tomorrow I would understand more.  Tomorrow there would be magical answers.

The answers weren’t magical.  There was some relief in knowing at first but then there was anger.  I’m still working it out.  And that’s the problem.  A book needs a happy or tragic ending and I don’t plan on giving it a tragic ending.  I want the happy one.

My life is good.  Very good.  But is buying, all on my own without help from one person, a house, and almost gut renovating it a good enough ending?  Even if girl has problems that should preclude her from being proud of this?

Is girl coming to a city where she knew almost anybody at a stage in life when almot nobody moves except unhappily for a job or for grandchildren, and forging a life for herself, a happy ending?

Actually now that I read the above two paragraphs I realize that it’s just as happy an ending as girl meets boy.  This hasn’t been Ozzie & Harriet’s world for sometime.

Or maybe I’m being defensive.  And what I think are accomplishments are nothing important really.

My features were unformed; most people confused them with perfect. At eighteen I knew they were childlike. Most girls longed for beauty; I longed for character.

I did and didn’t want to blend into the curtains; to be camouflaged until I understood what I was doing.

That year, 1968-69. I felt as if I were a girl in a candy store. My candy store gave out real life boys. I was in hippie princess heaven, complete with sound track by Janis, The Airplane, Moody Blues, Donavon and Melanie among others.

For the first time since early elementary school it was better than OK to be me. I could dance to my own rhythm; sing out of key, be sloppy, do whatever people with the unnamed disorder did or didn’t do. It didn’t matter what I did. People either hated me or were entranced.

Life would have been perfect had I any idea about what I was doing. I accepted my life as a gift from the gods but was never actually sure why.

That year, and the one after that, and the decade that was to come gave me much warped confidence.

I knew I was desirable but wasn’t sure why. I thought I was smart but was convinced most people thought otherwise. Even when all the evidence pointed to the contrary.

I love writing in fiction. It’s something I discovered I was good in after I began my blog. But I feel pulled toward writing a memoir about living with non verbal learning disorder. People either feel pity or don’t believe it’s a real disorder.

I’m not a person to be pitied though I often hurt from what I can’t learn. That I can’t learn too many things no matter how much I try doesn’t point to stupidity but a bona fide disorder

Crossposted at Red Room Please comment there. I realize this is territory charted too many times. It’s language I’m playing with
I just realize you have to give your life story practically to comment at Red Room–which includes such authors as Maya Angelou. It’s a very interesting site. So comment if you want

Blog let me be honest. There are a few rivals for your affection. First is Facebook. FB is usually fun. If only I could be pithy clever…sort of like Bill Maher who I spent last night watching, with a group of friends, while eating Southern food. We kept rewinding and I still couldn’t remember all his one great one liners on the subject that seems to have overtaken my thoughts–health care reform.

He did ask, and blog you and I have wondered the same, what plans the Republicans have if they hate our plans so much. The only one I can remember is McCain’s “you can take your insurance with you.” As I was paying $1300 a month because I lived on the UWS and had a faux-Rolls life style, that wouldn’t be doable on a greatly reduced income.

OK blog you’re asking as any sane blog would, what does this have to do with FB? Many people seem to plan their days around putting in pithy clever or pithy zany remarks. If I could remember all the awesome amazing incredible interesting thoughts I come up when there’s absolutely no way to write them down–in the shower, on a walk in the beach usually in the water, or when I half wake up at night, the world would know how truly clever I am. I know, I know, everybody says that, but….

Big Question blog: how are you going to help me? We, you and I, lurk in blogs where bloggers who call themselves writers use “your” when they mean “you’re” over and over again. We’re never sure if that’s done on purpose as some kind of weird affectation that seems to work. People just love these blogs that, well, aren’t very well written. Or, we think, interesting as the bloggers uh excuse me writers don’t know how to tell a story or stand away from the pack and let their quirks show. They are super-friendly, often with alcohol inspired blogging names, attend blogging fairs and often write about subjects that were tired three years ago. Yes there is no such thing as a new subject but there should always be a new way to say it.

Blog we have traveled some roads less taken together and some roads most people wouldn’t brave at all. Let’s find a straighter road, not the most traveled, but not apart from the crowd and finally achieve something that will bring in some dinero.

As my own muse I have always been conscious of the quality of my writing. Lately it doesn’t meet my own pitiful standards.

Is it because I have always refused to go to BlogHer? It’s always on the same weekend–my birthday–one of the few weekends of the year I insist on being with people who love me as I think birthdays are to be celebrated not spent trying to impress hundreds of strangers almost none of whom know or care that once this blog was well something more than most blogs. And I can’t blame them for not caring.

I do think Blog Her should have a revolving summer weekend policy as I’m sure other bloggers have birthdays, family birthdays, reunions, vacations–and yes somethings are more important than blogging. Summer fun being paramount.

This makes me sound flaky and not serious but anybody who knows me knows how important writing is too my life. Blogging’s something I became caught up in and now am addicted to and it’s a better addiction than heroin so….

This hasn’t been an easy year. I’m establishing a new life in a new city. A friend from New York called my move “drastic.” It is very different and perhaps I’m in denial when I say that it can’t be drastic as I go to New York often. I have homie or go to friends here. But really how many times a week can you see the same friends? We have our assigned dinner seats at each house; games we only play with each other–both real and head ones and….CLo’s daughter Niece Kelly and a friend of theirs–a funny Gay male (are there any others?) are coming tomorrow night. We’re all in a tither to entertain them. I have known Niece Kelly since she was a wee thing and like her mother she adds a lot to her surroundings. That’s a compliment though it sounds weird to me. See what I mean about not being able to write?

I’m making new friends. That’s both easy and difficult. Nobody can replace my best friends. They have been a part of my everyday life for longer than some of my blogging friends have been alive. I need the easy familiarity of being able to look at somebody and know what she/he is about to say. I need to be able to just look at somebody and burst out laughing….

I don’t feel sad that my blogging muse has dried up. I feel horrible that I can’t seem to write a coherent sentence unless it involves a complaint about a plumber in which case I did the lawyer’s work for her–the tech writing gene never leaves.

more than most people I know how difficult it is to make it as a writer. I need no lectures on that. I do need a cheering squad–and that’s the horrible thing about blogging and once having been rather well known. It makes you feel “you deserve,” when you deserve nothing that hard work doesn’t bring.

I’m willing to do the work but the words don’t seem to come out and I keep reading how you should never take things from your blog though I think I began a damn good memoir about me and Jeffrey or me with Jeffrey as the background

I was doing a writing exercise and that helped but about five weeks ago I read a comment complaint in a blog about people who write more than one screen and want comments. The author of the post emailed me to tell me that was about me and wow!!! I haven’t been able to write since. I know an excuse when I write one, and it might be that I have had much company, that the weather’s finally sultry and great for beach going–though I try to write every day from 9AM until 3PM.

If somebody could define a screen for me I would be ecstatic. There are screens on Blackberries. Then there’s my 24″ Imac. I know people who use 40″ or even 56″ high def flat screen TV’s as their Internet screen. So what’s a screen?

And why do writing exercises seem to favor poetry? They say prose is acceptable but when four fifths of the posts are poetry it’s a poet’s site, and anyway poets know what a screen is.

I’m being silly I know. In part because in nineteen days I enter the last year of a pivotal decade and while I don’t fear the decade coming up I do fear the next or the one after that. I’m a bit confused on that subject too.

Oh lighten up Pia!!!!!!!!!

This isn’t a complaint about blogging. It’s just become real difficult for me to write and I need to blame something as I can’t stand the thought that maybe I really am too old or something

In my blog I talk about very personal things. Problems I have. My past. But I never really talk about the men in my life except for my father and the dead boyfriend–and I searched and found out that both his parents had died also.

Am I jealous of Emily Gould for rising so far so fast? Damn straight I am. Would I have wanted to rise by exposing such personal things about people I supposedly love. Maybe when I was in my 20′s, though even my best friends who knew everything else didn’t know all the details. We had a pact. Certain things were only discussed when our lives were being screwed up by whatever.

I do believe in paying dues. A friend’s daughter just finished her freshman year at an almost Ivy. She’s an artist and got a four inch conspicuous tattoo because she’s an artist and will never have to work in an office. Ha. She has to cover the tattoo for the summer.

On the other hand when I went to college many of my friends walked into positions of literary power in the early 70′s. While that was great I knew a few people who never learned the basics of working in an office, of saving money, of doing the things most of us take for granted. As they approach older age, really, though they don’t look or act it, they don’t have the security they need or want.

Life really is about building blocks. Going from one block to the next, and maybe throwing a few over. In my case I want the blocks to go straight up from now on–but I do have a strong foundation and have attempted to assure my financial future as much as possible. I do have to give myself credit and do have to say, I want more. Much more. And I have worked long and hard to achieve what I want.

I hope 2008 is the year of Pia. And Pia will always consider herself to be a blogger and glad for all it gave me. But it’s writing I love and writing for publications that aren’t blogs that I’m focusing on.

My friends will be in this coming week and then more friends are coming. It’s finally really summer and I’m just feeling good about everything.

My neck? It will do.

I wasn’t supposed to think she stole from me but was “inspired by.” If being “inspired by” paid bills or garnered something I wouldn’t care. Maybe she did think of it on her own. But I would never hand in something almost identical to another person’s two weeks later. Now the story doesn’t belong to me but to her. I have no idea if it’s in the book or not. It was in the very first draft.

I stopped taking classes as I grew tired of teachers telling me after class how they would save my stuff for last as it was always interesting, and they loved reading my work so so much, etc. I was always the one who almost made it. Somebody else would.

I grew tired of that world. The world of New York where people all think a certain way. Problem is I don’t know how else to think. Or how to think as I don’t just look at the bottom line.

I have wants and needs also. But I’m supposed to smile and applaud when somebody else makes it and I can’t anymore.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Wouldn’t it be nice if I figured out what the hell I’m doing? I saw a free Beach Boys concert without Brian but with Dean of Jan & so I’m kind of feeling like the Little Old Lady of Pasadena except I’m not really old, not little and not from Pasadena. I have only been there once actually.

I don’t usually feel lonely or alone. Ironically this struck after firming up plans that begin next week. Now I’m doubting myself. Wondering what I’m doing. Why am I here when the weather hasn’t exactly been anything to boast about except for Friday and Saturday and I had bronchitis and am scared that the extremely windy conditions are going to lead pollen straight to my nose and bronchial trachea.

It’s hard to admit loneliness when I have always been so independent but I have always had friends to run to. I’m writing about parts of my life that weren’t the best and do make me depressed but I’m getting paid to do this so…It’s as if non verbal learning disorder is a verboten subject.

It’s not Asperger’s and it’s not bi-polar so who cares? I do. I just didn’t want to be the face of it or the voice or whatever. It makes me problematic. I’m the person people love but just can’t hire. Except for this article and I do feel grateful about that.

Yes people contact me and ask if they can use a post for this and pay me, and they would love to use more. But uh my archives….I’m a compulsive cleaner–the disorder that NLVD or NLD brings had to go somewhere. It went into my archives. I had to teach myself everything. I was my own life coach and it’s not easy. I don’t dissolve into pity parties often. This isn’t one. This is what life’s like with a disorder few people know about, and nobody is going to give me points or a break for having overcome much as the disorder is so invisible. It only hurts me.

Do you have any idea what it’s like to be the one who almost makes it? What about my feelings? I don’t exist just to cheer others on though I love it when people I know make it. I want to be cheered on. I’m overly honest, I know and am breaking many rules by writing this post

What can anybody do? Banish me from New York to South Carolina?

This isn’t bitterness talking nor is it envy. It’s facts. I’m just a bit too much work and there is always somebody who might not be as talented or might be more, but can put together a perfect package.

I can’t even do a proper outline so I have to write a damn book before shopping it and I don’t want to spend my days and nights immersed in the worst times of my life when I could be listening to beach music in clubs.

I’m older than the person who wrote the book that’s coming out soon and have been telling that story for many many years. I want credit. Or I want to understand why I’m supposed to feel good about inspiring?

What’s in that for me? I’m sorry if this isn’t sportsman like but I have worked damn hard. I’m talented. I want also….And most of all I think a person should have the decency not to hand in a story two weeks after somebody else handed an almost identical one.

That made me feel as if I’m worthless. It was a slap in the face as if I was invisible and hadn’t read two weeks earlier. Only she counts. Push me to the side and pretend I don’t exist.

No this isn’t how Columbines begin. It’s how self-doubt festers and dreams die.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrtYnTFoHMI&hl=en]

If you don’t know Jan’s story, it’s one of the most tragic in all rock history. “Dead man’s curve” is scarily prescient. Dean is 65 if a day and drop dead gorgeous. At least from a distance.

‘A Roar for Powerful Words’ award was started by Seamus.

The three reasons c.s. listed for awarding this are:

1. the ability to hook – there are writers who are capable of using the right words and arranging them in the right order in the right structure to generate in readers an addiction. has bestowed upon me this award

2. imagery skill – there are those who are so good at creating images with words that it makes you wonder if they already knew how to write when they were still in their mothers’ wombs.
3. the ‘wow’ factor – then there are people who, through their words and stories, just simply ‘wow’ you. it’s like the moment you start reading, you ‘wow’. halfway through your reading, you ‘wow’. at the end of the reading, you ‘wow’. as you think about what you have read, you just ‘wow’, ‘wow’ and ‘wow’.
Guatami added:
1) Impact: Some people have that ability to get across what they want to say in a a forceful manner. Thet can do it with flourish and unintentionally.

2) Beauty: A few have the ability to create beauty in our minds with their sheer use of language. Their words have eloquence.

3) Hooking factor: Then there are those who keep you hooked for more. You want to go on reading their posts.

This is the first blogging award I have taken truly seriously. The above speaks for itself–especially love “flourish and unintentionally. I’m having a hard time adding to this list.

1) Thoughts: Some people express their thoughts with such eloquence and power they shake my thinking up. Or reinforce it.

2) Humor: Without humor we merely exist. I’m in awe of people who can continually make me laugh in blog posts as I find it difficult to impart my humor to paper

3) Passion: true passion incorporates elements of all the above. Passion can be for words, thoughts, causes and much more. Passion makes me want to keep reading. Passion keeps me awake all night. Passion leaves me wanting more. Passion is an essential element. Passion is beauty.

The easiest example is Robert Caro’s The Power Broker It’s easiest for me as it’s a long book that can’t be skimmed or read in a night I canceled all plans and spent the weekend reading it. That was 20something years ago and I still reread it and talk about it.

Strunk & White Elements of Style is a simple book on using words yet is one of the most passionate powerful books I have ever read, reread and still not completely absorbed.

Passion is power. Words are powerful. To use words and be able to make people react is what writing is all about. We forget that in blogging. We want people to react in comments. We go for the easy, the cute, the overtly funny. I can be Al Franken in drag like nobody else. But I don’t really want to be him, and frankly have come to disdain my earnest self. So I’m a renegade blogger who no longer cares about “blogging success” but improving my writing. Writing is the most important thing to me after family, friends and my new obsession with selling my apartment.

The seven bloggers I’m going to give this to will all want to kill me–however all have influenced me in ways big and small. I have watched them grow as writers, bloggers and people. Each uses words uniquely and often brilliantly. Each defines blogging to suit them, not to suit what people say blogging should be.
Cooper
MizBohemia
Bone
Doug
Esoteric Wombat
Jason
Jonathan

Yes I know I was going to give out The Courting’s in January. These are the people who were going to get them, and I might tell the exact reasons in a future post.

I need joy and good things in my life and if I have learned anything these past six years, it’s up to me to make my own destiny.