I thought I was having a breakdown. It turned out that problems that can be solved, or put to the side with meds aren’t called breakdowns. I was a bit disappointed as I thought maybe I could spend sometime in a treatment facility. One that offered rehab, and maybe could help with the problems I was just beginning to understand were spatial. But because I understand and because I was so darn rational I was told I didn’t belong in a facility.

Cut to last week. Once more I felt that feeling. All I could think about was my taxes. By the time I got to the preparer I forgot that I had put everything in order, did all the computations and basically was just bringing them to a storefront in Walmart (don’t judge) to confirm my work. I had to explain almost everything to the preparer. I didn’t have the computations in front of me but really––do people really need calculators to multiply, add and subtract? OK my Dad was a CPA and I guess his lessons took. I was faster than the preparer. He told me he felt wrong taking money from me when I was the one doing the work. I didn’t explain that if I hadn’t had somebody else do it I would have been convinced I did everything wrong even if it passed a computer program.

I went shopping. Just as I was about to check out I panicked. I was convinced I left all the documents in the ladies room. Can you imagine losing your identity to a Walmart customer or worker? Then I looked in my bag….

I was exhausted the next day. It used to be so exhausting being me. It still is sometimes. But the exterior of my house was being painted——nobody told me a wood house in the South has to be painted every five to seven years. I don’t know what I thought happened to wood. I didn’t even know about pressure washing. I know a lot about doormen but that really doesn’t help in a stand alone home.

That past weekend my next door neighbors were here for one of their rare visits. They made it very clear that they didn’t like turquoise. I had told them I was going to paint it turquoise months ago. They said: “that’s nice” or something equally patronizing. I guess they thought I was like them——always getting estimates and never actually doing anything. Once more they told me about the court’s “unwritten restrictive covenant.”

We’re the same religion——one that’s not common here and one that has often been on the wrong side of restrictive covenants. I told them that. Old Pia would have run and called the painters: “paint it back to gray.” New Pia didn’t buy a house in a court that doesn’t have a home owner’s association or any rules to be told what to do.

My next door neighbors are both lawyers. I suppose they thought that I would bow down to their more educated status. My neighbor on the other side is a lawyer also. I care about his feelings as he lives here all year and we take out each others garbage and do other neighborly things. He loves it. But I felt so guilty. As if I had committed a sin.

The house came out gorgeous. I was in a better mood.But much, not great, is going on in my life. I still felt out of sorts.

Then the cable guy came to fix my TV and ever since then my gmail account’s been suspended. I don’t know about you but my life is in that account. Fortunately I have back ups of most documents. Unfortunately I don’t have another account with everybody’s email address in it. Fortunately I keep in touch with most people through text or Facebook. I sort of know somebody real high up at Google. I was going to call him.

Then Boston happened. I am a  New Yorker who once had a very different life. It changed after 9/11. I lived in Cambridge and Boston for several years when I went to Boston University and worked on Boylston Street just a few blocks from today’s attack.

Once more my feelings changed. I’m sad——very sad. And I want my gmail account back!

However I made a really big deal over the premier of Myrtle Manor a reality show about a trailer park in Myrtle Park. I live north of Myrtle Beach in a tiny, tiny city that prides itself on not being Myrtle Beach.

A friend named Cone (not his real name–change a letter) asked me to live blog Myrtle Manor. Fortunately I said no. Otherwise it would have been an hour of “uh” “ugh” “puke” “stupid” “uh.” “This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen in my life and I watch Hoarders, The Real Housewives of New Jersey (only) and Joan and Melissa–an amazing look at a mother who castrates her daughter, is incredibly lonely, must have an audience and some of the worst jokes.” It is Shakespear compared to Myrtle Manor.

I wish they had said Miss Peggy had just learned she had beat breast cancer for the second time. It would have made her skinny dipping poignant and purposeful. But no…

You already know what I am: a woman who posted 1,000 posts in three years and 200 in the next five! Blogging taught me to write as nothing or nobody else could. Blogging taught me that captured memories can be as real or as make-believe as photos. Every picture might tell a story but do they tell exactly the story in the photo? Or the ones we remember through years of looking at that photo and adding to our memory bank? Now that every phone has a decent camera and there’s instagram it’s probably different but we’re old school here. OK we’re still learning the iPhone we gave ourselves as a Thanksgiving present–it’s been a long winter and it’s not as intuitive as the iPad. We’ll leave it at that.

It was four years ago tomorrow we took a seventeen hour plane ride–the ride itself is only an hour and a half but there were delays and more delays and it was pouring and we loved rain then even less than we love it now–to start a new life. We freaked when we learned about nonverbal learning disorder (NLD) and stopped trusting our instincts which was about the dumbest thing we have ever done. Now we’re making a truly fresh start as we trusted a stock broker we had known most of our life. It was the great recession. He insisted. We kept saying “ten percent of nothing is nothing” but he kept insisting. It turned out we were right.

We bought a house and then dismantled it. This week we have to get it together to have the outside painted. We didn’t know that outdoor paint, guaranteed for ten to fifteen years in the North is only guaranteed for five years here. The sellers who were going through an acrimonious divorce, only she didn’t know it then, painted the house to sell it not to live in it. We all have done things like that so I can’t complain.

I thought I have been wasting a lot of time but last night it occurred to me that selling an apartment in Manhattan just as the market is first crashing, buying .and renovating a house while watching my whole known world turn on its face, establishing myself as a sorta expert on a disability nobody knows about and fewer people care about isn’t nothing. If you agree please tell me. I need to hear it.

As I need to write in this blog so that my stories, the stories I want in my book–I have many and need more–will begin flowing again. Please encourage me. You can also tell me the royal we is stupid in a New York Russian Jew who dreams of big cities that are never quite really New York.

Must learn to leave the Facebook tab closed. Must. I could live my life on Facebook telling myself that I’m learning about NLD. Learning about the world from a non-NLD perspective though of course I knew all that before. The truth is I love Facebook. I can show my wit. Can make friends much easier than I can here. Yes I finally said it. This isn’t NY or Cambridge or any place I have ever known.

I know Miami would have been much easier for me. Diversity–or Jews and Latins, my people. Culture. Public transport that didn’t end six months after I bought a house. Streets with sidewalks. Galleries. Incredible restaurants. It was the city I have wanted to move to ever since I can remember. So why didn’t I? Perhaps I love torturing myself. Perhaps I saw something here that truly spoke to me. Perhaps I figured I could write without interruption.

I forgot one major component. I, like most everybody, needs stimulation. The sounds of people walking. People arguing. People talking about important things. People talking about their work as if the world will rise or fall on one paragraph that will be meaningless the next day.

When I finally remembered I said that I will make my own stimulating scenarios. Not so easy. I don’t want to live my life having anxiety attacks and all I need to do is check the stock market for that. Facebook NLD? How many times can I participate in “differences between NLD and Asperger’s or High Functioning Autism as it will be called now.

That reminds me–Shana–our Shana’s younger son Carter was diagnosed with high functioning autism last week. Shana being Shana already has a facebook page and a blog.

Back to stimulation. I have made some friends and need more. Now that I have written it down it doesn’t seem so daunting. Life’s never daunting when you have a blog. Just don’t ask me to document every moment of my life. To be all perky and filled with cute anecdotes about kids and/or dogs. Don’t expect me to write about growing older–unless I feel like it. Retirement? Some of you laugh and say “she’s had it so easy. What does she know about work?” A lot actually. And anybody who thinks making back money or making new money as some say is easy has never known sleepless nights and bag lady nightmares.

I laugh when people say they devote three hours a day to blog business. When I was writing posts everyday blogging took ten to seventeen hours. Between writing posts–and practicing becoming a better writer–and commenting on other blogs I barely had time for life. I’m not complaining. It got me….OK it seemed normal as I had been a compulsive worker.

I know most people won’t comment on this blog. They only comment on “important” blogs. The blogs that will get them exposure and possibly a future. That makes me sad as it proves my point that blogging is no longer something somebody does because he loves telling stories or has a point to make or….

Shall I take the coward’s way out otherwise known as the easy way and ask you what you think blogging has become? Is personal satisfaction still important or is it only satisfying if making some money’s involved?

Happy New Year. It’s a beautiful day. I hope that bodes well for the coming year. Were my mom on this earth she would tell me to get out and take a walk. But I was in Central Park until one Am last night, so she might have excused me on those grounds.

We walked passed Tavern on The Green. Last year there had been ice sculptures and everybody was allowed into the grounds. This year it was balmy and Benny E King was singing outside in the courtyard of the restaurant. Remember him from early childhood “There is a rose in Spanish Harlem.” and other great ’50′s song.

At the band-shell there was a DJ who basically played techno music when he wasn’t playing Frank’s version of “New York, New York.” There was hot chocolate, tea, coffee, a mini-marathon, and the night reminded me of everything that’s good about New York. The crowds were further downtown. We had our own fireworks in the park.

I’m the dodo who asked Lucia and Little Luce what time the fireworks would be. Glad I could be of some amusement value.

I had a bottle of Moet left over from the election. It was the bottle of champagne we were going to celebrate with. (Not the double L’s; it was a school night and Lucia usually stays home when Little Luce has to go to school the next day.)

When I was growing up my parents would go out every New Years to a fancy dress party or costume party. My parents went out every Saturday and I assumed that I would when I grew up.

Well I got married without ever having been on a real date and we had known each other for four years so I don’t know why I thought I would live a sophisticated life.

Okay, we had gone out on about five real dates, but even back in the late ’60′s early ’70′s we traveled in packs. Our idea of a big evening was sitting around looking at each other; our idea of a really big evening was sneaking into the Fillmore East before the main act. (I know that we girls passed for groupies; but I’m not sure what the boys passed for, probably roadies–I mean rock stars, of course.) Or going with a minimum of 20 people to Hong Fat in Chinatown at two AM and running into 40 more people we knew.

I’m thinking about this because the first time I remember meeting INYTBA (an affectionate acronym) was at the Band-shell though we lived on Long Island; and had met there many times. I think the Jefferson Airplane was playing.

The spring before, when I was still in high school, I had seen Country Joe & The Fish “One two three four what are we fighting for,” there. I thought about those lyrics a lot last night. All these years later and I’m wondering again, and the country is polarized once more. I thought about the Band-shell, Central Park, the Be-In’s, the many concerts I have seen there and all the other ways Central Park has been important to me.

I did end up living a somewhat sophisticated life for a number of years. When I lived across from the park in the East 60′s I would have a small New Years Eve party every year for six to ten of my best friends. Then I would have a
First Saturday After New Years Party or Lucia’s Annual Surprise Birthday Party for anywhere from 75 to 200 people. The parties would end somewhere about dawn. I don’t pine for them or the times but sometimes think that somebody else was living my life. I couldn’t have known all those people. Me? But I did.

My friend Patrick would have fancy dress dinners with five courses, and many forks. As my father had been a waiter summers during high school and college, I could set a perfect table by the age of eight.

But Patrick would get so crazed that Lucia or I would use the wrong fork, I would use a wrong fork on purpose just to see his reaction. Patrick and his lover would buy huge tins of Beluga caviar something I proudly hate, and I would feed Patrick my portion by slipping him my portion, by putting my spoon into his hand under the table, so I was never uncouth. It was fun watching Patrick being scared that we would embarrass him in front of his friends from Sutton Place.

I thought about Patrick last night and all the free operas and symphony’s we had attended in The Park.

My Central Park history goes back so long I don’t remember ever not knowing it. My dad would take fave sis and I to climb on rocks–just like the ones he had climbed on when he was growing up in East Harlem, and Central Park was his backyard. Only we wouldn’t go to the northern part of the park then because it wasn’t safe. It is now.

It felt great to be in a place that brings back pleasurable memories and to know that Little Luce was storing her memories in her memory bank to be handed down to still another generation.

It felt great to get away from the real world and its problems for a few hours.
Even the anti-war memories were filtered through a hazed over moon.

It’s so weird not to be in New York now.

It rained most of last week. I felt horrible and was in a worse mood. The rolling city-owned garbage and recycle bins are collected early Wednesday morning. For the first time I forgot to take them from house to the edge of the court Tuesday night–and this is one of my more exciting moments of the week. I feel so testosterone driven home owner.

By Thursday night the rolling garbage bin was filled and I couldn’t take it. On Friday morning they pick up trash filled plastic bags. Every time there was a lull in the very heavy thunderstorm I would begin taking the garbage to the edge and it would begin pouring so heavily I couldn’t see in front of me.

I set my alarm for two AM. Pouring. Set it for four AM. Still pouring. I woke up at nine AM knowing that the bags, not mine, had been picked up.

Now I tied my kitchen bags into heavier huge garbage bags. One kitchen bag per garbage bag. I’m generous that way.

My side of the street isn’t paved but is contrasting rows of dirt (now mud,) sand, and sad grass. Have I told you that there are holes everywhere? It isn’t fun to walk down. I’m in the midst of long one-sided conversations with city officials about this. They claim it’s supposed to be paved. “Someday.”

My city is one of the cities in the country operating with a budget surplus. They’re building a huge athletic complex in the middle of nowhere. It will be complete with walking tracks. You can’t walk there. Really.

But more than the lack of a street I really really hate overflowing garbage. So I get the brilliant idea of bringing the rolling cart a few blocks down to a dumpster. Now I have seen people in cars pull up to “private” dumpsters, open their and throw the contents into dumpsters. One very long block down are the public dumpsters.

However the very muddy pot holed “street” didn’t like my rolling bin. The wheels kept sinking into the mud. I began wondering if the streets were made out of quicksand. Never was one person so happy to see a dumpster. I threw two bags in. Three more to go.

A very white-faced 60something man came half-running from the bushes separating the townhouses with extraordinarily weird individual tiny pools from the dumpster.

“It’s private.”

“Sorry.”

He walked up to the dumpster and stared in. For a second I thought he was going to dumpster-dive.

“You have to go in and take them out. It’s very messy garbage.”

“I won’t. And I believe the definition of things you put in a dumpster is ‘messy garbage.’”

OK he wanted to kill me.

“This is extreme garbage.”

I became very defensive of my garbage. “I put in two large Hefty garbage bags with one kitchen bag each. It’s as neat as garbage can be.”

He was getting angrier and angrier. The white face had turned pink. His yellow hair looked whiter. “I’m going to have you arrested.”

I began thinking….I know all the cops. They have either been to my house because of doggy noise complaints next door (long story) or we’ve met on walks, or somebody has introduced us in restaurants or stores. I couldn’t really see any of them willingly arrest me.

But if they did, I could explain that I was doing this for a greater good. To get a sidewalk on my side of the street. There aren’t stop signs, white lines or traffic lines yet my street has become a major traffic player in the past couple of years since a bridge cleverly called the “connector” as it connects us with the rest of the world was built several years ago. Nobody expected this. Somebody’s going to be killed and I don’t plan on being the one.

“Have me arrested,” I said languidly.

“I’m going to,” he said as he began to take out his smartphone.

I was very proud to be standing my ground when I remembered that I didn’t have a phone, ID or money with me, and South Carolina is a stand your ground state. I wasn’t sure if guarding your dumpster counted as a stand your ground defense but I wasn’t going to take any chances. How did I know he wasn’t taking out a gun?

I smiled and told him that I was leaving. Some of the mud had begun to dry up. I walked back to my house. So far Tuesday night has a 0% chance of rain…..

The link was working. I think it went through something called Network Blogs that’s down now. There’s a working link in comments!

Yes I know you suffered and I know some of you knew people and even had relatives who died. I lived in a city that never was going to be quite the same.

My life was taken from me that day only I wasn’t to know that for awhile, maybe years. I got it back, hopefully a stronger better life. But the life I had then was filled with hope and a certain naive belief in people.

I thought most people were inherently good. I don’t anymore. I see evil where before I would have seen sickness. Maybe that’s better for me. Maybe I’m now a realist.

I had a mother that day and I loved her much very much. A month later she was gone.

But I’m still here. And my mother’s only granddaughter has taken my place in Manhattan. She’s thrilled by the possibilities; she’s taking Manhattan and making it her own as I once did and the generations keep rolling….

I miss my Manhattan. The Manhattan of flower stores brimming out to the street with colorful flavorful bouquets and bushes. Card shops where the owners flirt with me but don’t want me (wrong sex) so I easily flirt back. The Manhattan of so many clubs; some with incredible bathrooms, others with stinky toilets.

I loved that Manhattan. It was my city, mine and to prove that I would run into friends at almost every avenue and many streets. I walked those streets like a hooker on a binge, and maybe I was. Only my binge lasted thirty years! Thirty incredible years where fireworks would be lit in Central Park just for me as it was my birthday! And the whole city would celebrate along with me.

You can’t buy great memories. You can only remember them and I do–from a distance. But not so secretly I scream “New York you still own me. You always will. Always.”

I understand people plugging themselves and their products. That is products & causes as in their books, blogs, music, rescue dogs, horses, holocausts–past and present,  love of The Civil War. Basically anything that’s not politics or pyramid schemes. Though if you want to write about the pyramids I will read it.

The war on women, religion and climate change–they’re my causes but I have a once a day at the most posting limit. If I don’t adhere to that shoot me, virtually. I try not to post often here or in Psychology Today so people won’t feel obligated to read me often. So many blogs….

I don’t understand what posting multiple times a day about the same cause does. It seems to encourage people to not vote. We don’t need constant reminders of how idiotic the Republican party can be. That’s what the news is for! Even Fox can’t help but show Republican blunders.

I would love President Obama to say: “This is my platform___and if I don’t do everything on it, impeach me!

.Personally I love him. As a president–I don’t know if he was stymied at ever corner or capitulated too easily.

Before you get crazed on me-it felt like he didn’t notice how horrible the economy and unemployment was the first two years, and he compromised too much on health care. I still live in fear of getting sick and I have health insurance. I have had it all my life. I shouldn’t have to be in the position of saving most of my money “in case.”

Yes I understand the Democratic Congress was in fear for their jobs. Had they done more “radical” things they might never have lost power. I know exactly why President Obama can’t be a President Roosevelt–did grad work in social welfare. But my idol is Paul Krugman and I so wish that Obama had listened to him

I have come very close to deleting my Facebook account multiple times in the past several weeks. I don’t want to block or defriend people. The filters don’t seem to work as well as gmail filters–most of my mail goes straight into trash.

Facebook is becoming like my phones. I avoid them as much as possible in a campaign season. Most of the time my cell is turned off so I can control it. Unfortunately I bought the world’s worst and cheapest land line phones at Costco and can’t do that to them. I can pick up the phone and hang up.

I don’t like to use the “don’t accept any groups from XY” option Facebook has so thoughtfully provided. That and the filters might be from Social Fixer which makes Facebook a better more user friendly experience.

Some people use it strictly to see who defriends them. I got rid of that feature as the same people delete and reinstate their accounts numerous times and it feels like a nervous tic which then makes me crazy so.

And I wonder why agents and publishing people (whatever that means) aren’t clamoring at my doorstep? Which they wouldn’t as I live in a small tea party coastal city in South Carolina.

I feel like the foreign exchange student who people think has gold attached to my clothes—and they ripped apart the outer coat, took the gold and all that’s left is a bit of silver.

My street was supposed to have been paved last year. It’s become a major street with traffic zooming at all hours. I live in the center of a court so I’m protected from some of the noise but I walk a lot. Meanwhile the city’s building a walking field across the highway where people will have to drive to walk. And nobody sees anything wrong with that. Enough complaining.

The line? Oh yes the line I forgot: My father said: what happened to the concerned, caring compassionate girl you used to be? Now, now—you’re boy crazy. Just crazy about boys.

And I was.