Bone supplies three words. I wasn’t planning to write this story. It just came out.



Cassandra had long ago admitted she sold her soul to the nearest bouncer in exchange for an hour or so of pleasure with whatever rock star was playing at a concert hall or club.

Like most groupies she liked sex but desired more. She wanted to be a rock star’s old lady. That had never happened. Nobody ever talked about groupies who married rock stars near her.

She lived in the same one bedroom she had always lived in near Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. Then it had been filled with roommates, talk, guys brought home, drugs and liquor. The constant smell of sex permeated, along with incense and flavored oils.

Cassandra’s been alone in the apartment for many more years than there were roommates and fun. Walking up five flights takes longer now. After a day spent taking orders, delivering drinks and food, in a coffee shop that used to smell of too many stale cigarettes, she really doesn’t care if the apartment’s filthy.

When she remembers she takes the garbage down. Sometimes the empty beer bottles and cigarette butts remain a study in still life, or so Dinah thinks.

Dinah was Cassandra’s bunkmate in camp. They had never been close. But Dinah felt a responsibility for everyone she had ever known.

When they turned seventeen, Dinah would walk into the club or concert hall with her boyfriend, a British rock star she married at nineteen and was still with 35 years later. It had always saddened her to see Cassandra waiting outside the doors or in the aisle waiting with the other groupies. They looked as if they were waiting to be fed, over eager or sullen and bored looking, it didn’t matter. They weren’t girls who counted.

She asked Brett if Cassandra could come in with them. He agreed.

Cassandra knew that she had been given an opportunity. But she was still the same Cassandra Weber who never had anything to add to the conversation. She didn’t really get conversation. It seemed a waste when there were drugs to be taken and sex to have.

When Dinah’s friends would come to a concert, they would talk to the guys as if they were friends and equals. But they couldn’t be. They weren’t famous. Rich, yes, but none of them had earned their money.

Cassandra’s family had cut her off after she refused to go college in 1968. They were done with her and she with them. They thought education was the answer to everything.

Her family lost most of its money in 1969. She would guess that her parents were dead. Cassandra was never curious enough to find out

She still knew that one hour of pretense with Mick was worth everything.

Cassandra didn’t have friends. She had some men who would huff and puff their way up the stairs, and not leave until the beer, scotch and cigarettes would run out. She was merely a small convenience to them.

And she had Dinah. They had run into each other about a decade ago at the coffee shop. Cassandra had gained much weight, had rotten teeth, and a rosacea marked face. Cassandra still had a filthy mouth. The only kind of conversation she enjoyed was much cursing with a few other words.

She recognized Dinah at once but prayed that Dinah wouldn’t guess who she was.

She felt like Dinah’s guilt trip. The girl who was never supposed to be anything special but wasn’t supposed to be a waitress at a coffee shop that had a neon sign with four letters permanently unlit.

Cassandra hated having a cleaning service come once a week. Dinah insisted on it and paid for it. She tried to get her to give up cigarettes and eat healthily. Cassandra liked donuts, and deserved them for breakfast at the coffee shop.

Cassandra supposed she was a matter of convenience to Dinah. That Dinah believed she had to try to make Cassandra take care of herself because she couldn’t live with the guilt otherwise.

Actually Dinah simply felt blessed.

So I’m planning on enjoying it.

What’s a Jew without guilt? Sounds like a riddle; maybe it is. The following post is an exercise in fiction, not on real life.

Guilt: An internal debate

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No! No! No! Really off blogging until Monday but the more I think about the attorney on Boston Legal as compared to me, and as much as I adore David E Kelley and the cast of the show, I think that they did people like me a big disservice.

I’m not looking for empathy or accolades. Need to tell this story but damned if I know how to.

I once tried to get doctors to sign off on papers that would have let me be admitted to the Rusk Institute for rehab. Was glad that I could amuse them so much.

Tried scanning in a picture of me at seven because my face still looks the same; but of course the scanner somehow became disconnected, and reconnecting it felt like work. I was the person who screwed up the Xerox machine, at work, but you never minded because I was so cute about it.

When I quit Social Security, the District Manager couldn’t understand it because I was so “perky” and “vivacious.” She was comparing me to the living dead so it meant less than it seemed. All I could think about was the first Mary Tyler Moore show, when Lou called her “perky,” she thought that it was a compliment and he said, “I hate perky.” Something like that. At the job after Summitt, everybody called me “Mary,” and uh, Lucia was my “Rhoda.” She didn’t work there, but was invited to every party.

We were the White Girls who would go to parties in Harlem, stay after 11 and dance up a storm. We were equally at home downtown where Lucia managed an architectural sculpture plaster store and installers on Lafayette. Met John Gotti almost directly across the street.

I had pneumonia at thirteen months. As I had lived in a foster home until I was four months old, my parents didn’t want me to go to the hospital as parents couldn’t stay with children then. The doctor set up some kind of oxygen tent and I was better by the next morning. But the initial fever was high. I had many bouts of tonsillitis and strep throats.

My father had been sent to the hospital when he was very young, with his cousins, to have his tonsils taken out. I think they got a group rate. It scarred my father for life, and he was determined that neither of his daughters have our tonsils taken out. I forget the number of doctors who said my tonsils should come out. Finally a life long friend of my dad’s, a doctor in Texas, who would in his life be married six times but only to five women said that I shouldn’t have them out.

Do you remember the first time you dived off a high board? I don’t either but I remember the smell of the pool, the gym, the absurd weight loss machines; such as the belt that women would strap to their waist, or hips and they would jolt back and forth to a machine that looked like a doctors scale. As I was ten I found it very funny. Remember the smell and how the changing area looked, and the woman who asked me my age. “Ten,” I said proudly as I was sure she was going to tell me how pretty and tall I was, and how I looked old for my age. “You’re tall for your age, but you look about eight.” It was the first time an adult hadn’t gone on and on about how pretty and mature I was. I sulked.

But not as much as when my paediatrician(s) told us that I couldn’t dive anymore because I had one continual sinus infection. Yes I had paediatrician(s). The one in Great Neck was for everyday problems; and the one on Park Avenue for consults and more complicated things. Think that my Aspergers actually evolved from Central Audio Processing Disorder, which made me not hear words correctly. Therefore I misheard words nor did I understand all words. My biggest problems, and only problems with words according to my school were my horrible handwriting and my total inability to spell. Did have the highest reading scores in the grade. Still have an incredible vocabulary. If only I could sound out the words enough to make good mistakes and let the spell check find it.

When my slight lisp was cured, I no longer had to go to speech therapy. If my problems processing words had been tackled when I was in elementary school or even junior high, I think my life would have been much easier. It’s easy to say that they didn’t know; my problems were more common in boys, I was exceptionally verbal. I was and am overly concerned about other people. I never acted out in school; I was a good girl.

And I was adopted. The adoption issue clouded and masked everything. At nine I was offended when my child psychologist brought up being adopted as a problem. Why should it have been? I liked my family; and couldn’t imagine being part of another one.

So much time wasted. I do resent it.

When I began college I felt like a kid let loose in a candy store who had to choose between all the best candy. The boy who was to play important and many roles in my life did introduce himself to me many times, and gave me small presents. It took me a long to realize that he was the same boy, but for some reason that added to my appeal.

I began college during the height of the hippie era and there was much room for individuals. Didn’t feel normal; didn’t feel calm, but I didn’t need to be.

Knew many people who were to become drug war casualties. But I knew people who would calm down on coke; and I knew people who really did become more interesting on pot. In my case it calmed me down, and slowed my thinking just enough to let me interact more easily with people. I didn’t understand that then; therefore I probably should have inhaled more. I’m probably the only person who would appear spacy and stoned straight, and was your favorite person to talk to when I was stoned and you weren’t.

Not sure that it slowed my thinking as much as allowed me to think like most people. As all my basic problems manifested before I was sixteen; it’s safe to assume that recreational drugs only helped me. My stance on recreational drugs isn’t the usual one, but I can’t help believing that one day the exact interactions between the brain and THC, for one example, will be shown to help people lacking something still not known or understood.

Obviously I have thought about myself and my problems a lot. There were years, decades when they didn’t apear to affect me. I knew something was wrong. Just didn’t know what. My therapists, in my adulthood tried, but we all knew that there was something more something, something at the core that had to be physically based, or misshooting neurons. That’s probably when I began thinking about truth and perceptions.

This past year I reached out to many people. It was more than insulting to get a list of occupational therapists; and a aren’t you disabled tude. I’m perfectly capable of finding the best myself, and giving myself more than enough tude for ten people.

I wasn’t disabled before; except for the tests that showed me to be extremely learning disabled. But in the almost two decades since then I have accomplished much as I had before, and I want my accomplishments to be highlighted. Also I have paid a fortune in therapy over the years.

In blogging I have found an incredibly supportive community. It both helps me and

I bought a TVO about three years ago. For six months after 9/11 I couldn’t get network TV, and I really wanted comfort TV on their original homes not Nick at Nite. Have no idea why I didn’t want to watch them on cable. I hadn’t watched TV comedies since halfway through Mad about you I’m a big Helen Hunt fan; but it became boring.

Weird side note. The first month having intermittent cable TV and more important to me computer cable service seemed patriotic. We were London during the blitz: self sacrificing, stoic, and going on and on. That got old fast. As most of you know my mom died a month after 9/11 very suddenly, and the cable being out so much cut off comfort and communication.

Email’s been important to my life for almost a decade now. When Google was introduced the Internet became a wonderful place. I loved both the simplicity of the home page, and the ease of looking things up. Not having the Internet more than I had it seemed like a cruel joke as did not being able to watch Everybody Loves Raymond on Monday nights. It was my mother’s favorite show. She also liked Who Wants to be a Millionaire but I didn’t feel obliged to watch that one.

I admit I could have used dial-up but everything seemed so complicated then. My super and a crew were constantly in my apartment because of massive leaks; I couldn’t use the Internet two thirds of the time or watch anything on TV. I actually joined the Mystery Guild to get books; I’m a compulsive book reader but B&N and Borders didn’t have all the comfort mysteries I needed. I don’t mean that in the traditional sense; I’m not big on cozies. I like psychological thrillers with an erotic edge best to be honest.

My low signal problem was finally fixed and I bought a TIVO. There was one small problem. It could guess the names of films, TV shows, and actors for you. I had finally found my version of computer games. I cheated; and would use the TV guide to every film made or IMBD. I would make TV guess the names of the most obscure Bulgarian films. It did. I ended up almost never watching TV; just The Sopranos, 6 feet under, and Everybody Loves Raymond The cable company came out with DVR’s and I got one.

It doesn’t guess for you; it does record two shows at once which TIVO didn’t. TIVO does let you come to a live show late and watch it from the beginning. Live meaning when shown on TV; with a DVR you can only watch from the moment you turn the TV on unless of course you had set it.

Setting a DVR to record, or whatever, is a joke. Just go the guide, look up the day, the station and the hour, and click. It will record only first run episodes if you want, and if you want will record on all stations played. Though unless you’re associated with the show and want to see if it looks different, I can’t imagine anybody wanting to do that.

The only shows I watch live areBoston Legal and Medium because I love them both. The husband on Medium is my idealized male; like Patricia Arquette, and the stories. Feel bad that I forgot to buy TV Guide to get the three d glasses, but it was still a good episode. Love the house that they live in, and all the colors it’s painted. It’s a real peoples house, and the daughters are adorable in a good way.

This weekend I’m having a Kill Bill festival, if two films qualify as one. DVR’d them both this week.

I delete most programs without watching them. I really don’t need to watch every CSI, the original, once a month is more than enough; really do need to watch every Without a Trace

In my post The Red Ribbon that I wrote last year, I made fun of Will & Grace. No more; if there’s one TV show in the history of TV I can truly relate to….I relate to Grace, Will, Karen & Jack. It gets the gay world I know without being over the top.

Yet it’s over the top dramatic in performances occasionally. Each one of them can be so Broadway or Gay piano bar. One episode mentioned The Ramrod; a gay bar in the Meatmarket that I thought had closed years ago. I have two great Ramrod stories that I just might tell. Ones spooky weird; and ones fun weird.

For the past week or so I have been into getting into bed and spacing out to to TV. It’s fun, and it’s so much better than the old VCR days. I had an obsession with General Hospital which I really couldn’t even stand after awhile. Since the VCR could only record from one channel I could only watch TV on ABC. And there was nothing to watch on ABC.

For small holiday gifts I suggest you buy DVD rewinders; I hear they’re all the rage.

I don’t know know what this says about me, but I can pick Emmy winners. Patricia Aruqette, so much bigger boned but facially so similiar to Rosanna, won for Medium, along with the new Closer, two of my three fave girl shows the other being, of course, The Gilmore Girls. And I will take Candice Bergen anywhere. Think Boston Legal’s incredible. Not just for James Spader, my absolutely favorite actor alive, but for how it uses older actors. Older than me is a good thing; it keeps me helpful, and they’re all wonderfrul actors playing great characters in a David E Kelley show that has dared to question the federal government albeit in funny ways since the show has been on.

I couldn’t have written the above until I hit 40 as I was the one person I knew, outside of my immediate family, not to own a VCR. Finally realized that while certain members of my family might have had an intellectual snob thing going I didn’t have to. Now fave sis, who has every new product for her eleven year old daughter, introduces me as:

“This is my sister, Pia. She could have been an intellectual but chose pop culture instead.”

No comment. Yes comment: my love of pop culture became acceptable when I began reviewing film; but I would have rather reviewed DVD’s; much more intellectually stimulating, the extras; the assumption that you will review the DVD in bed, and can replay at will.

The weather, last night, might have been sultry but there was an Autumnal chill in the air, and I could seep without air conditioning. Rafe couldn’t find parking which made it the true beginning of the Fall season. And he looks; never have met a person with more patience, and ability to find a parking space where other people only see a small spot and a do not park sign; somehow he knows how to circumvent them.

I had already seen Rafe at his hair salon, two blocks from my old apartment which I didn’t take pictures of as I never made it there. My friend Angie Ralph, is a hair stylist at the salon, so we talked for an hour outside it. It felt good to be with a friend who has known me since we were young and hot. Angie’s Lucia’s childhood best friend, and I was friendly with both Angie’s husband and brother before I became friends with Lucia. We all knew each other before adult life and death came hitting us in the face. We can all look at each other and see our 20′s reflected in our faces and bodies while everybody else sees middle age.

Note to the Ralph girls: I used to think your mom was too cool for me. She was a partee animal; and your dad was always your dad, willing to converse with anybody; he could and did become friends with bag people. The radio is playing Boz Scaggs and bringing me back to those days even more.

So in splendid isolation, last night, I reveled in the radio, and listened to some amazing rhetoric. It left me absolutely postively convinced that New Orleans must be rebuilt; it left me further convinced of the failure of the federal government to help people that they had never helped before.

I am blogged out right now. I like writing posts because I like writing; I enjoy reading other blogs and commenting because I like bouncing off other people’s idea and the mutual back and forthness of blogging.

But I need a very long weekend to chill. Even on vacation I was doing blog related things from two to seven hours a day, usually three to four. I want blogging to be fun again; so I need some time away. To finish organizing my apartment which scares me as I’m the least naturally organized person on the earth. So when I say that I’m scared; I mean it literally.

I need time to revel in having a first draft almost ready; it doesn’t seem real. I need to go to the beach; maybe for a day; maybe for several; maybe not if the weather turns in which case I need to begin doing the tourist in my own city things that I had been planning on doing.

It’s been a hard month and I haven’t cut myself any breaks, and thanks you who commented to that effect. You are right. I might comment in two or three blogs a day but if I don’t get to yours until the end of next week please like me anyway.

The only other blog related things I will do besides my Bring it on! post on the 27, and introducing Bonnie of Frogma as our Friday guest author this week; I’m going to take a blogger’s break. Though I always reserve the right to change my mind, and to post.

I am filled with love for the people of this country who have pulled together in a massive effort to help. Yes we in New York have a special obligation. The first car parked on my street after 9/11 was a cop car from Michigan. It made me tear up with the knowledge that people cared.

We care about Katrina; we care about our country. I hope more than anything that Rita doesn’t do much harm; and that we can reclaim our government so that it works for all people.

I found a city college with a great adult ed program and registered for classes–none are academic; one is Buddhist inspired meditation, my hippie Buddhist aunt would be so proud as my sister said when I told her. My aunt’s alive; we just don’t speak much. Us Savage women, we’re the dark side of a Woody Allen film.

Actually the courses are so cheap I’m taking a bunch; even a film course on Robert Mitchum and noir. Though that one might require deep thinking and I’m all for escapist classes. I spend way too much time writing.

I’m truly and deeply excited that The Gimore Girls is returning with fresh episodes. Real excited about Rory dropping out of Yale. Lucia and Little Luce have become a lot like them. Same witty banter; I’m thinking of recording them. It’s not really as witty but it’s more real. They’re taking the meditation classes with me. It’s going to be fun, and Lucia is very impressed that I actually read the catalogue.

I told Lucia that when Little Luce becomes college age, she might drop out and Lucia, rebel of our times, will freak out while I will be all excited and take Little Luce in until she has enough money to travel to distant shores; or she decides that her career choices are very limited without a college education.
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Am very excited that the new TV season is starting. I DVR everything I watch. It is total control over TV; at least I can control one thing in my life.

Am very psyched about the return of Boston Legal James Spader is my fave actor, and I love the way the show tackles issues. David E Kelley, Spader, William Shatner, Candice Bergen, they’re all amazing and uh, not young.

Also love Medium Patricia Arquette rocks. Incredible how much she and Rosanna resemble each other but Rosanna is so small framed and Patricia is large farmed. Love that; love the man who plays the husband. He looks like a composite portrait of men I have dated. Love their house, their kids and everything about the show. Lost is great, and I’m having major league Soprano cravings.

True confession: I get the eight by eleven issue of TV Guide and actually read the whole thing. I was obsessed with General Hospital for many years, and then it became a really really bad imitation of The Sopranos. Can’t watch it anymore; even though I so much prefer Luke without Laura.

While I had always been known to go for men with long hair, it had to be natural and styled. Luke’s hair was gross; when he cut it I realized how handsome he really is and what a mesmorizing actor. But I can’t; I just can’t watch General Hospital anymore.

I have a post in Bring it on so I can get out my political side. Read it; it’s hot.

I was punch drunk when I wrote it. Punch drunk as in not having slept much the past several weeks. I made some spelling mistakes, and the final draft didn’t take. Wrote some things about blogging being a seven day a week job and how I’m my own researcher, fact checker, proof reader–sad as that it is, every type of editor and publisher. But that’s not really what the post is about; it’s about the radical right’s spin on Katerina.

THANKS ALL OF YOU FOR HELPING MAKE MY BIRTHDAY GREAT!

Thank you all; never had an Internet birthday before, and I recommend it. Wasn’t going to do, but it’s a great experience, and one that I hope to repeat many times.

Last night was so great! Yes, it really was. But before I get to that, I think being born in the midpoint plus a few days of July is incredible. When I was a kid, I had to have my school party in June because, yes, we didn’t have school in July. I would also have my personal birthday party for my ten or so best friends in June. Fave-sis and I went to sleep away camp for six weeks each summer. It always seemed to begin on July 21 or 22nd.

While I logically knew that my parents didn’t arrange this, it felt like they did. Or, more probably, my dad told me that they did, and I believed him. We would have our extended family party on my birthday with whatever friends happened to be home. Then in September we would have a private just the four of us adoption day dinner at my favorite restaurant, Patricia Murphy’s, in September. Patricia Murphy’s had a giant aquarium, and beautiful gardens. They also had women dressed in colonial costume who walked around giving popovers and sticky buns. I only cared about the popovers which I thought were magic.

Though I had been adopted in November, it was too close to my sister’s birthday, and my parents wanted her to have the full birthday experience without my big sisterly interference.

I have to admit that I still believe the entire summer is my birthday, and nobody can ever dissuade me of that feeling. Summer’s always been magical; it’s the time of the year that anything can happen as long as it’s fun and preferably near or on a beach. I will never outgrow the feeling that summer brings great adventures and promises of future happiness. I love seeing summer through the eyes of kids–real and grown up ones.

Yesterday was the first time I didn’t buy every paper or look up my horoscope everywhere I could on the Internet. Think that means I will have an uncharted year. Know it doesn’t work that way but leave me to my delusions please; or maybe my illusions; or my truth. Fave niece made me a card that she was so nervous would be late, it arrived three days early and asked three times if it had arrived on time. That alone would have made my birthday.

Yesterday was the most oppressive day of the year. It was so oppressive that the heat went straight into my nose, but last night, the humidity broke just a bit to make it tolerable. Had been thinking of going to Cafe Luxembourg, Compass or another very trendy neighborhood restaurant. But I was in a weird mood, probably brought about by going out too many times during the day. Didn’t even try to make reservations.

We were going to go to the symphony in the park, but at the last minute, I decided I really wanted to go to a restaurant. The thing is eating at a restaurant just really isn’t special anymore. Find that sad. Me cooking a meal would be very special, and something I will attempt to do sometime in the not too distant future. Used to be a very good cook. Too darn hot to leave the neighborhood! Which left any restaurant not in the Upper West Side out

But ended up at the all occasion, great for regular times, great for parties restaurant Nicko’s, which is about two or three blocks from my house–yes born in the boroughs people call apartments, houses. Very occasionally I slip into borough talk. Boiling hot is another. That doesn’t mean that the water is boiling; in New York, it means that the weather is. My third and final one is rich as a Rockefeller which is always used as a slightly sarcastic question when people (close to you) are spending money that you know they can’t afford:
“So, you think that you’re rich as a Rockefeller?”

Lucia and I are the charter members of the Society to Preserve the Expression Rich as a Rockefeller. Okay as far as we know we’re the only members but we do have an entire generation of teenagers saying it. Rich as a Gates doesn’t sound as good.

Nicko’s has an outdoor cafe. The side walk slightly slops, and there is a huge canopy over it. It wasn’t hot! It was just Lucia, Rafe, and two friends who will not be referred to, as they don’t want to be characters! I don’t find that offensive, however…Same people also say that my stories should be in a book, because they’re soooooooo funny.

Did I say that it was cool? We only ordered starters–ten of them–which turned out to be enough food for twice as many people who were there. Lucia and I each ordered the crab cake appetizer, thinking that they would be the usual tiny crab cakes. They weren’t. They were crab and shrimp with no filler and Divine as was the polenta with mushroom, artichoke hearts with peas, carrots and a heavenly lemon sauce. Everything was incredible, and I have enough left overs to invite people over for a left over party, though I think that would be tacky.

We finished dinner just as the fireworks began in the park. Couldn’t see them. Had we have been in my apartment there would have been a great view of a tiny stream of fireworks from the exact center of my couch, but we weren’t.

As we were standing in the center isle of Broadway; I bit my lips in a certain way, did some movement with my elbows and hands, and had a revelation. I am Elaine; more honestly I’m a combination of every character on Seinfeld.

Suddenly life became clear to me; I epitomize the Upper West Side YUPPIE (haven’t heard that one in awhile, have you?) to many people on the Internet. When I said this to my friends, they all nodded in unison.

Sheet. Love me, hate me, but never think of me as a stock character. Please?

Today is Carlos Santana’s birthday. I have always loved his music, and can’t think of a better person to almost share my birthday. More than most people he shows that second acts are very doable, in this amazing country. Yeah, Cancer’s do have a great love for home and country.

Oh my birthday, part two will be celebrated this weekend with fave sis and fave bro in law, in a very beautiful town on Long Island, Bellport, where Isabella Rosellini lives. Do stretch out my birthday as much as possible. Think everybody should. Birthday’s are special, and a hell of a lot better than the alternative.