I just wrote a post that was so bad even copious editing couldn’t save it. There will be a new post later this week or next week. But Psychology Today comes first as people actually read that!

My sinus infection is impeding my productivity and making me hate mommy bloggers and mommy’s who love to test my knowledge of NLD on Facebook groups. As I don’t want to hate mommy’s and actually like them I think it best for me to stay away until the antibiotics kick in!

I need sun. I will be the first person (in many years) to die of “it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and her body was screaming ‘sun, sun, sun come out. I need you.”

And if you’re a mommy who likes to test me and then basically say “I was just playing,” I wish you well because you need all the good karma you can get.

I will never forget. I will never sensationalize. I will never politicize. I will never use that clear blue sky day as test of patriotism. I will never test another’s patriotism. I will never put G-d into the equation. I will not hate.

Bruce said and sang it best

You wake up in the morning after a night of incredibly horrible dreams. You brush the dreams off and answer some long over-due emails.

You do something else you don’t usually do. Put a comment in The New York Times. It gets an amazing amount of “likes” though you have told nobody about this.

It doesn’t make “highlights,” just “reader’s recommendations.”

You’re not sure if you like that better.

A person of the people.

That’s you.
Right.
Not.

A few hours later you get a response to one email you wrote.
Info that you have been searching for most of your life.
Actually you didn’t even know you were looking for the info contained in the response.
Maybe you were.

You’re the same person you were a few hours ago.

But you’re not.

You just googled and found your birth-brother.
Using the info you were just given, your absolutely amazing research skills, and $40 to Intellius, a site that finds everything quickly. Tries to rip you off but you won’t let it.

You wonder if he knows about you.
You’re not sure you want to intrude in his life.

You surmise that he’s a super at a school for kids with learning disabilities.

Ironic considering your former obsession with building employees, and your own learning disabilities.

He was born four days and thirty five years after your father; four days after your first love.
Seventeen months, almost to the day, older than you.
This must be meaningful but you can’t figure out the higher meaning.

You don’t know if he has siblings.
Your birth mother told you that there were three kids.

For every one truth your birth mother told you, she told you a few not true things. For some reason this endears her to you. She was protecting her great love and his family.

You don’t know, you just don’t know what to do.

You think about taking a walk wearing your new LED-wrap-around-your-forehead-light. One of eight flashlights, and lanterns you now own.
You would look stupid but have light–and red flashing lights in case of danger.
You could play with moving the light up and down.

Stop it Pia.
You don’t want the four people left who read this blog to think you’re totally immature.
But they know…

Your house survived the hurricane with nary a scratch–after it totally screwed up your vacation.

All those calls, messages, texts, even emails.
You couldn’t muster strength the whole time you were in Cambridge.
You needed the strength for the twelve hours it took you to get home, and the real hurricane prep.

Then the hurricane hit everywhere but here. You know the lesson in that.

You’re so tired. Just so tired.

You wish you could hire somebody to do your thinking for you. But you can’t.

You have birth-brothers address and phone number.

Searching is so easy since the Internet it almost feels like cheating.

You’re not sure that it’s moral or ethical or just wrong to intrude in his life.
Maybe it’s right.
The rulebook hasn’t been written yet.

Your whole life has been about uncharted lands, mountains, bodies of water.
All places nobody ever thought to explore until you did.

Now you have the LED-wrap-around-forehead-flashlight to expedite all the searches.
Or will it make the searches more difficult?
You’ll actually see what you pass.
Are you ready for that?

You have never believed in secrecy.

This story is one of the reasons why.
Secrets lead nowhere good.
Nowhere.

Except for comments in The Times.

See my newest post at Psychology Today! It’s the fifteenth and probably the best. Or not.
As Courting, not I, is doing the thinking it wanted truly stupid pictures of my garden! And the weird (to me) growths are rose hips. Live and always learn!

wild rose bush with weird growths

I keep thinking it’s September. Probably because we had two and a half inches of rain last night/this morning; it’s been gray and dreary all day without that oppressive humidity I think relaxes every muscle in my body and works as a massage for both body and soul. It’s supposed to be like this for the rest of the extended weather report. I’m a bit excited as I need some time to listen to Warren Zevon (makes me appreciate life so so much) and watch Hoarder: Buried Alive episodes I have been DVR’ing–I run up and clean during the truly gross parts.

I went to two birthday parties for President Obama. One here that was incredible basically because I met wonderful people and one in Wilmington NC in a funky sore/bar/live music venue across from the river.

Going to Wilmington is like going to the big city for me. If we want to go to Wrightsville Beach we end up everywhere else; if we don’t want to go to Whrightsville we end up on the bridge going to it. It’s happened every time I have gone.
This photo was taken about a month ago. I’ll be taking pictures this weekend, probably. The Tabasco peppers are growing like weeds!

It’s here

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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I’m keeping this blog though I post infrequently as I have kept up very few things for seven years and am determined…..Though I suppose Psychology Today could be a natural outgrowth.

Last week my birth cousin called to say that my birth mother had passed on. I thought it brave and wonderful of my cousin to call me. I didn’t expect to feel the emotions that have been flooding through me ever since.

Sad mostly. Vindicated as my cousins told me that what I wrote about her was true. But still I can’t help but think if I had been a warmer person, if I had been more charming, more something she would have liked me.

I have been reading more than I have in years. I thought the Internet stole my passion for books but it hasn’t. Basically I take most every selection Vanity Fair and some other magazines give and have Amazon ship them.

I know I have insulted people by using the word “retarded.” I don’t see the horror in the word.
Because I was diagnosed so late with nonverbal learning disorder I didn’t have the vocabulary to explain it properly. Actually I still don’t. So I call myself spatially retarded because truthfully I am.

And truthfully I guess I envy young people who do have the vocabulary and don’t feel shame in not knowing things or guilt about not knowing other things. It’s not an easy road I travel yet I have for many years and hope to for many more. This time with proper vocabulary and a map if that’s at all possible

It’s been hard to write and now I have an excuse–the death of Bio Mom, and I do mean that with respect. So this morning I wrote half of a first draft of my next post for PT. I have also begun outlining my book. I hope it’s a productive summer!

The Milk Party had taken over my house. My sister was over as were my parents. My father found out that my sister thought she was eating chicken dipped in Panko and incredible spices. In reality the chicken was dipped in uncooked pork. He had to warn her.

I looked at the ottoman. If they opened it, I couldn’t imagine the consequences. There was coffee; both beans and fresh ground; French roast and pecan. Both made from the darkest best beans. This was especially unacceptable. Having coffee in the house meant an instant death sentence.
8
I woke up panicking. It was the third night in a row I have had one totally horrible dream followed by two great ones. In real life I have reached a point in my work where it’s finish the frigging thing before I kill myself by panic attack. I hope to update Courting more frequently, but first I have to figure out what I did to Iphoto or pictures probably that makes it impossible for me to put in images. I really really have to do that for Psychology Today also. It sucks having a disability that makes the little things so hard!

I have been sick all week. It began innocently enough.Though I say last Friday I now realize my voice had sounded, all week, to me like the voice of a person who never speaks and I speak a lot. But nobody else caught it and people here will catch everything though in the sweeter than cotton candy sweet tea Southern manner.

On late Friday afternoons I meet with a group of women for cocktails. They find me funny. Lil Red makes me repeat stories I told her such as the time my next door neighbor, known far and wide as The Professor because he actually was one at The Citadel, had his girlfriend visit for a couple of weeks. They would never use his pick-up that was parked in the communal court lot while her MG was in front of his house.

I watched in fascination as a spider-web grew from a tree to the MG. Then I went away. Eldon, the contractor turned handyman/friend was guarding my house and I told him about the spiderweb and about how the Professor, in his 70′s, diabetic, brilliant and a functional alcoholic, and the girlfriend never left the house. The Professor never walks anywhere; he’s a one man advertisement for staying in or getting into shape. Eldon didn’t believe me.

The first thing, the very first thing Eldon said to me when I came home after ten days was “go look at the spiderweb.” It had tripled in size. For some reason Lil Red and then the rest of the girls–Lil Red’s the youngest then me–found this hilarious. I have a growing audience for my stories here.

After drinks last Friday I didn’t feel well but assumed it was a quickly formed hangover. I’m not a great drinker. But the next morning it felt like a migraine that was getting worse all day–and it was damn beautiful out. By Sunday I realized it was evolving into something bronchial and was so happy when Clo called to cancel the barbecue I was supposed to have and had done nothing for.

Monday, Memorial Day, I couldn’t get out of bed. Kept telling myself what a gorgeous day it was, there were two chaise lounges with new cushions, a swing and a glider just calling my name. But I couldn’t make it the 20 steps from the bed to the chaise though I knew the hot drenching sun would dry my sinuses, nourish my spirit and soul. Though dry sinuses sounded very enticing it wasn’t enough to get me outdoors. And I moved partially for a yard! Couldn’t care less about spirit or soul except in the “if I die and there is a sweet hereafter, I hope…” Cynic that I am I couldn’t even muster guilt about never having believed.

i had been to the doctor Friday morning and spent a lot of Monday cursing him. I thought about going to an Urgent Care, something I had never even heard of four years ago, but couldn’t muster the energy or the will and the thought of the wait to see a doctor on a holiday when everybody would be coming with heat related problems, fire cracker accidents, grilling accidents, too much time in ponds and the ocean…..The whole world was out having fun and all I could think of was what an encumbrance they would be.

Eldon called. Apparently I now had laryngitis. About every third word I said was coherent. I told Eldon to call about 9 in the morning on Tuesday and I would tell him if I needed to go to the doctor.

But it came out that I wanted to go to the doctor the next morning at 9. I didn’t realize that until Eldon showed up the next morning….I wasn’t fine then but was sure that I would live and antibiotics weren’t necessary. I believe one day something horrible will happen and only antibiotics will cure it and only if I hadn’t taken them in years.

After I bought new cushions for the pub table chairs and upstairs glider, I spent the rest of the day, lying on a chaise or the downstairs swing, reading Scott Turow’s Innocent. It’s a truly beautifully written book with characters I actually cared about. It’s mature writing and I enjoyed it. Now I have to reread PPresumed Innocent which I do remember but it’s been awhile.

I would check my computer every hour. I wish I could get away from the computer for a week. A month would be perfect. But so much of my life’s on it.

I quickly came out of the feeling of suspended animation. I’m just sick enough to be in a bad mood if that makes any sense.

I feel badly that I haven’t been to the beach but the thought of carrying my Tommy Bahama beach beach backpack on my back (it’s virtually weightless) is too much. On the other hand I have spent a lot of time watering my plants and vegetables. By next week the vegetables should be popping.

I missed the limitations as the thought of being near liquor and cigarettes doesn’t sit well with me right now. Lil Red doesn’t smoke; the rest do.

On Thursday I’m getting my first group of summer visitors. It makes me happy when my house is filled. It does.