As always Thom thanks for the words. I truly love 3WW
My father would patiently teach me to cut paper dolls. I would be so excited until, of course, I cut the head off or part of the legs and arms.  The torso, forget, it would look dismembered.  I would have made a good serial killer and I was–of paper dolls or anything that required the least bit of coordination.
I still can’t open an envelope that has a perforated edge without screwing up whatever is in it, and as it’s usually a check, uh!!!!!!!!!!
“Try harder,” my father would eventually scream.  “Just try da da darn it.”

My father was a CPA.  Accountants by profession and nature are perfectionists.  He would lose his temper.  I would scream.  A good time was had by all.  The evening would end with me dissolving into tears, and my father hugging, kissing me and apologizing.  But still I knew if I only tried harder….My father knew everything.  He must have been right.
I was a bad girl intent on making my parents life miserable.  They never told me this but I knew.  If I hadn’t thought this myself the child psychologist my parents sent me to when I was nine, beginning to bud, and throw temper tantrums.  But only at home and only to my parents.  OK my little sister too.  Never in school.  Never in public.  I was considered a model child.
My father and I would drive to the psychologist.  The car radio would be on.  One week New York had a parade for Fidel Castro.  The next week, it seemed, he was the enemy.  I asked my father why.
He turned off the radio and looked at me sort of stunned.  “You know that’s a brilliant question.  I have no idea.”
it was the first and probably only time my father didn’t have an answer to a question.  He talked whether he knew anything about the subject or not.  He could have told me that Castro had been fighting Batista who was a dictator and America was glad.  But then the American government decided to fixate on Castro being a Communist.  Or he could have said that the American government just learned that Castro was a Communist, which I believe was the official story.
But he didn’t.  He gave me a great gift that night. I think my father, then a “progressive,” later a lover of all things Nixon and then Reagan wanted me to understand that we lived in a crazy world where things didn’t always make sense.  Or maybe he just didn’t know.
The child psychologist was an ugly short man with nose hairs and tobacco stained teeth.  He was the professional and I was just a child who never yelled at adults or kids or anybody not in my immediate family.  Like my father he didn’t believe in silence.
I loved doll houses, furniture and dolls but not in his office.  Dr. Wiener would make me play with the dolls–a mother, father, sister and of course me.  The dolls didn’t look like us.  They were objects not people, and I thought it was a stupid waste of time.  I was a girl who loved dolls almost too much.  But these dolls made me sick.
It’s OK,” he would say, “this is your safe area.  You can talk to the dolls and tell them how much you don’t like being adopted.”
“But I like being adopted.  I love my family very much.”
“Pia, you have big problems and they’re caused by being adopted.  In our sessions we’re going to make you see how much being adopted hurts you.”
Even when I was nine I didn’t understand how being clumsy, not being able to learn grammar, having temper tantrums and so much more was caused by being adopted. It didn’t make any sense to me.  I didn’t remember life in a foster home.  This was my family and I loved them very much.
My father would buy us O’Henry bars, and we would eat them on the drive home.  He would play rock & roll then because I liked it.
I began to buy into the things Dr. Wiener said.  I would tell my best friend, Ava, as we lay in the grass in back of the garden apartments we lived in that being adopted was very complicated and very difficult.  I was so glad that it was me who was adopted and not my little sister because I didn’t want her life to be hard.  Then we would lie in silence looking at the blue sky until one of us had something important to say. Usually about rock & roll stars or books we were reading together or separately.
•••••••••••••
Later I would understand that many therapists and others looked at being adopted as a disease.  They were convinced that many parents only adopted to have a “complete” family, and that ADHD and other problems were considered problems of the adoptee.  All that time, money, and effort wasted on trying to solve problems that didn’t exist and not trying to solve the problems that were real!!!!!
For the record I miss my parents everyday and can’t imagine life without my sister.

I would take this down. Needed to vent. But know it will live on in readers so….. A large part of me feels like an idiot for writing this. Spoiled. Not thinking about people who really have it tough. Self-obsessed. I need somebody to yell at me and tell me how horrible I am for writing this. But therein lies the problem…
I put the rest in draft as this was horrible and self-loathing and let’s just blame it on the heat. I’m sweating; not glistening and my face was sweating as I walked into the ocean –something that’s never happened to me before
My reality is that I’m an incurable optimist who thrashes too many things out for too long. I thought I was over that but moving and everything that’s happened in the past three years has brought too much to the surface.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Then I walk four blocks to the beach, actually sit in the fierce gray/brown waves with teal teasing at the horizon and forget everything but how incredible the world is.

What happens when you can write forever?  Edit yourself pretty decently?  But the outline and what is this about?  Ha!!!!!!

I need to get this book finished.  I have never wanted something so much.  I’m beginning to lose focus and one thing I’ve always had when it came to writing or work in general was focus.  I don’t want to be “she has NLD, so of course she can’t do it.”  No I don’t want that at all.

Shayna did the graphic years ago.  I would use it for my blog template as I love it but white writing on black–no!  I’m thinking of getting cards made with the info on the back. Whenever I can’t do,  I design cards.  Kind of like a nervous tic

And when I don’t design cards I do home improvement.  Constantly.  Eldon, the contractor turned handyman turned house husband replaced some boards on the patio deck this morning.  I looked at Darryl’s house next door and wondered why when he had his deck redone he used the same ancient boards–new ones would cost $400-$500 total; composite about a thousand.  Too pricey for me but if my boards looked so bad nobody would want to set foot on the patio I would borrow from myself for the bazillionth time.  (Our homes are called patio houses as they have large decks on the second floor; I love living in a beach cottage all year round)

I only wondered about Darryl’s boards because Darryl told me how much federal taxes he paid this year. Did I ask?  Of course not.  Were we discussing taxes or money or anything like that?  Of course not.  I like Darryl a lot. He’s my de facto attorney and has given me great legal advice.  But in NY while money is the primary subject of conversation, next to real estate and schools, nobody ever says specific numbers except for real estate sales.  Here people spout out numbers.  Find that strange.

Next week the gate to my downstairs deck will be painted.  Then I hope home improvement spring 2010 will be over.  Though I welcome the distractions.  But please, I need to work.  Really work.  I’m losing faith in myself and that’s always a bad thing.

Though I’m calm enough to lie down on a chaise and read.  I’m never this calm.  Never!!  I hope calmness doesn’t equal lack of ambition.

I didn’t mean this to sound so sad.  I’m attempting to do my taxes for the first time totally by myself.  They’re complicated.  My damn accountant was angry at me last year for sending him my audit during tax season.  Well duh that’s when I got it and it was due 30 days later.  He let it sit for months.  The tax thing is complicating everything in my life right now.  My Dad was a CPA who would have never been angry at a client for….My dad died suddenly at the end of this month 19 years ago.  These couple of weeks always make me sad and trying to do taxes, uh!!!!!

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.

In 91 my father went to the big poker game in the sky.  In 01 my mother went somewhere not here.

You hope they reunited but your mother wasn’t betting on it.  You think they had some kind of Houdini signal he was supposed to send her if there was something up there and some way of communicating.  Houdini and his wife made up a signal.  If there was an afterlife she would know because she would receive his signal.  It never happened.  You don’t know the signal but you know the story because your father was into levitating tables and Ouija boards and more.  Your mother made him stop.  Still you think she wanted the signal more than anything in later life.

You don’t want to say you have a fear of years ending in “1″ because that sounds so wimpy. And people will assume you’re scared of another 9/11.  You’re more scared of the idiots who blamed Obama for the last miss.  Big difference between 8/06/01 memo sitting on Bush’s desk and officials who did screw up but weren’t in the Oval Office.  Not that you think Obama’s perfect but Bush didn’t inherit two wars, “the worst recession since….,” and all the fallout.  He helped cause all that.

You don’t want to say you’re confused about the past decade; it had certain incredible highs and lows like you have never experienced and hope never to experience again.

You hate the way people waffle around 9/11 or make it Todd Beamer Appreciation Day.   Most of it happened in New York and that should be always acknowledged.  Not that you’re not appreciative of Todd Beamer.   But that day really did change your life because your mother became so addled, yet not addled enough to require emergency measures.  The day she fell and died not just added to your guilt meter but made it run so fast the guilt company couldn’t keep with it and therefore demanded their overdue payment much later in the decade.

How can you complain when there are so many people with less than nothing?  You don’t want to say that your addiction to HGTV has made you cynical.  Sometimes people put down substantial down payments but other times they put down five percent or work out arrangements so that the mortgage and/or second mortgage covers 100%.  How can they call themselves homeowners?  They’re renting from the bank.  You couldn’t understand this in the 90′s; you find it unbelievable today.

You’re far from perfect.  You have an unnatural fear that the above belief will cause you to lose everything you have.   Bad Karma.  And Karma is everything to you.

You did big things last year–well beginning in 07.  You sold an apartment and bought and renovated a house.  It is a big deal and yet you say “piece of cake.” “If I could do this anybody could.”

But not everybody has a disability that causes many people to give up completely, live off other people, work in sheltered workshops despite having multiple degrees.  Of course you’re on the highest end of this spectrum.  Sort of like having  a “bit of Asperger’s.”

Still you never knew.  You worked and worked your tush off in your 20′s and 30′s while living in an apartment that was totally unrenovated and required constant care. Your neighborhood was store unfriendly.  One of the happiest days of your life was the day a Duane Reade opened five blocks from your apartment.  You would get there at eight on Saturday mornings–the only time it wasn’t packed and buy cleaning supplies and much more.

You’re obsessively clean now because you couldn’t be then. You thought it was a combination of laziness and living in an old old apartment that was party central.

Your father thought you could be the neatest person in the world if you only tried.  Your father was always yelling.  Always telling you how great you could be if only….He didn’t know and by the time he realized (after the damn testing) he only had a few years left.  Your father was your greatest admirer and your greatest foe.  You should probably be in therapy for life just to understand that relationship.

A friend was just saying he found Elizabeth Gilbert’s story banal because he knows you and you went to Europe by yourself many times and have overcome much greater odds than Gilbert will ever know.  He actually called you a “hero.”  That was so sweet.  Actually he said “you’re much more of a hero than she is.”  But…

And so a new year begins.  You never make resolutions.  You have accomplishments you want to make happen.  You’ll work your tush off to make them happen.  But if they don’t…..You do have one resolution.  Stop using the word “actually” constantly.

I am in New York not South Carolina–where Hannah did touch down in the Cherry Grove section of North Myrtle Beach.

I have never done an interstate move before with storage involved. I’m nervous about that. Is it a self-absorbed lu_ury to write about?.
•••••••••••

I took this post down as it was self-absorbed and whiney. Love the title however. Here’s another self-absorbed and whiney post from my little world

And, i don’t see too many people being judged for their life choices on the Internet. Why should it be different for me?

Why should I have to defend talking about my move? It would be big for anybody–for me it’s as if I’m climbing three mountain peaks.

Do you have any idea what it takes to sell at a profit in a down market? Do you have any idea what it takes to keep money coming in a stock portfolio.

I know those things aren’t important to you. They are too me as i do like to live well. Why should I be apologetic about it?

I wasn’t going to write about my move at all but quickly understand it was blog it or have a nervous breakdown. So sorry if the posts aren’t up to your standards.

Life lessons? I don’t need anymore. I’m neither shallow nor un-anaylitical. i have over analyzed my bumping into a doorknob before i knew what my problems were.

I’m moving to a place where they think you’re crazy if you don’t drive and own a car. I don’t drive and never will–not by choice but by disability. I turn it into a joke. “The world’s safer without me at the wheel.” “I’m like Stevie Wonder. If you get drunk I will drive.”

Do you understand that this really isn’t a joke? Do you understand how difficult this move is for me? I’m leaving the only city I have truly known. I’m leaving a life time of friends, family and memories.

Do you understand that the mechanics of life are much more difficult for me than for most people? Still I do what has to be done, or try.

I need peace and contentment in my life. This city is too crazy and too crazy pricey for that.

Do you understand that when you stood in judgment of me, and you did whether you can see that or not, I wanted to delete you from the everybody I know list.

This week had been about beginning to find peace and then I heard from you and wondered if I’m not understandable. I wondered if people really don’t like me or want to know me. i wondered if people find my writing boring and intolerable. Oh but unlike you I don’t peer deep into my soul. I thought you read my article on NLD. It doesn’t give me permission to abstain from life’s details, but it attempts to show who I am.

When I leave New York ne_t month I have to buy a house. I e_pect that to be easier but i’m the queen of “you never know,” as honestly I never do

I find life’s roads to be very curvy, trees over turned, shards of glass everywhere. Still I walk them.

I could spend my life self-improving or I could spend my life doing with some introspection. i chose the later. I don’t like to focus on myself as I hate becoming depressed. The pain I felt before I knew I had NLD and at various times during this year is diminishing. And like a tooth ache I can’t remember it e_actly.

Did you think you were being clever? Wise? Did you think you were going to make me look deep into myself, face me and come up with horrible truths? That I should peer into my soul and find a vapid horrible person. Honestly I like the person i see.

The one truth I know is that I’m a good person with many flaws. I have tried, more than most, to rid myself of the flaws but like the small lines on my face they aren’t going anywhere

Don’t read my blog if you no longer like my writing. I could ask you many questions about your present life but I choose not to.

You might have accomplished what many have tried. Blogging should be a pleasant e_perience. A nothing personal post should be treated as one.

I’m not sure whether i will put this blog on hiatus or not. You really did succeed in make me feel boring and that I have nothing worth saying.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Yesterday I crossed the park to the discount high fashion optician. I whispered “do you have Sarah Palin’s glasses.” They were aghast as they hate…but I ended up buying similiar but nicer ones. I had taped the prior night’s Letterman and found it hysterical when he said “wouldn’t Sarah Palin make a great commercial for LensCrafters?”

Then I went for a pedicure as I really couldn’t stand my clear tinged with pink toes. I got deep red. As I looked at the woman ne_t to me who was getting clear tinged with pink…I wanted her color. Then I realized I suffer from pedicure envy.