A really good article on Kathryn Bigelow, a woman worth emulating

I feel old. Not old in years though….but old as a blogger.  It amazes me how psyched so many people are about it.  I would rather train for a marathon than become active in the myriad of organizations that have sprung up.

I tell myself that I have totally shook my life up in the past two years and building a new one is exhausting.  I tell myself I have accomplished so much.  Then I tell myself that anybody with some money could buy, renovate and decorate a house.  Finding a good Eldon, the house husband, was a stroke of luck.

OK, it was and it wasn’t.  I asked everybody I met, and used the man who did exceptional work at a reasonable price.  That we became friendly and he feels responsible, for my house and I, is an added bonus.  I’m not ashamed to say that second to last phrase.

I have made more friends than I expected to here.  And have found that people genuinely care about one another.  Yes I know that whole “Southerners are nice on the outside but will talk behind your back,” bit but what do New Yorkers do?  Are we so great that we never talk about each other?  We talk about our best friend to our other best friend in the name of helping.

Here I find people more honest as I’m a curiosity and they ask questions. Not all, and not all overtly but despite my disability I can read people.  Why did I even say that last part?  Get me away from Facebook groups for my own sanity.  Please!

It’s not just them.  I do exercise boot camp.  Greg shows me something.  I think how simple it is, understand it, and then promptly forget it.  A metaphor for life.  It’s much simpler than I make it to be and probably easily remembered.  Oh God I hope this isn’t a metaphor for dementia.

It is overwhelming to learn the name of the disability I have had all my life and not be able to find professional help.  Though I’m so much better than I tell myself and the world I am and really should remember that.

I wish I could be psyched as a blogger but all I think is that I turn people off.  I no longer do politics, family stories, stories about the longest youth in America, and stories about New York.

There aren’t many fish out of water stories because I don’t feel like one which I suppose is a good thing.

I’m jaded.  Yes I look as if I’m from a different generation than many women my age but when we talk we all have the battle wounds and scars.

I’m going to New York a week from Wednesday for the holidays. While I’m excited to see people and am praying for good weather for many reasons, I’m not excited about going to the city itself.  Yet one of the reasons I’m praying for good weather is so I can walk the best museum in the world, the streets of Manhattan. Oh maybe the streets of London and Venice are better but New York’s home.

It feels very strange not to be a New Yorker anymore.  How could that be?  Though all the above is true, my identity is as a New Yorker.  It’s hard for me to immerse myself in blogging groups as I not shed an identity but add a top layer of skin.

The past month I have been decorating.  I didn’t want to buy things for the walls until I had been living here for at least ten months.  I kept only the art that’s most personally meaningful to me.  I did something really cool and unexpected with the bedroom and won’t say what until people come from Atlanta and New York.

The living room looks great.  I have been adding touches of the  paint Eldon and Jimbo call shower brush pink as I had it made from one. I should add the Lancome ice blue lip gloss to the master bedroom wall as I had the paint made from that.  The living room is a Lancome soft pink.

The one wall that had nothing now has just enough on it. I never want my walls to look cluttered. I couldn’t stay in a neighbor’s house as every space had something on it.  I lost all ability to think.

As it is I think I really need to structure my closets this week and unpack the last boxes though I have no room for five hundred CD’s unless I get plastic envelope books.  I also have to get a safety deposit box and organizing supplies for the office.  I think that will seriously help my mojo.

Give me the Internet, a category of things to buy and a budget, and I’m in heaven.  Though all those hours scrolling seem grating while doing.

I have a perfectly great couch but really wanted slipcovers for  retro and shabby chic looks.  I was going to have them made but why spend the money and the time if you can find them on the Internet?  I have never had slip covers before; I had couches reupholstered.  But machine washable slipcovers?

I guess I could have a blogging niche on houses and decorating.  I’ve never been a blogging niche person and I don’t want to feel that I must blog.   Blogging only when I want to feels like a vacation.

The weather’s becoming nice.  I’m expanding my downstairs deck.  The only way I can–sideways, to keep my chaises out of the way.  I have almost the same amount of furniture outside my house that I have in it.  I love living outside from mid spring through the end of fall.  Well I don’t know about mid-spring because this is my first complete one in the house, and I thought spring here was from the beginning of March….My bad….Or the weather’s been bad.

I guess I need a couple of weeks of late afternoon to night walks on the beach and around town. Boot camp’s at 8AM.  Not my finest hour to be out and about yet I’m very social then so I want to talk to people which isn’t quite the purpose.  Come five PM, I want solitude.

This is a period of adjustment and I shouldn’t feel melancholy or defensive about it.  I have to buy a new doorbell and I keep thinking I want one that plays, “show me the way home, I’m tired and I want to go to bed.” But it sounds so welcoming, not.

Then I begin to think about every song about home with “stairway to heaven,” the obvious stupid choice.  And then every Doors song.

My mind is still a very strange thing.  Yes to those who asked it can be donated to science.

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My niece participated in National History Day. She and her Jericho team came in second, out of 23, for “best senior presentation,” for both Nassau and Suffolk. Next is the state finals in Cooperstown. She’s a sophomore so she has two more years to compete uh learn perfect research. Go girl!!!!!!!

I will have new pictures in my house photo blog as soon as the outside is finished. My old couch is in my office. I have about four boxes left to unpack and two suitcases. Don’t know why the end is always such a tortoise game.
It is raining. I turn into a congested grouch when it rains. I need my house finished so I can not feel inhibited. I find I do better when I’m away from my computer for a couple of days or more. I’m going to try handwriting though I don’t seem to be able to put thoughts on paper with pen.

Lately I have been having dreams I don’t remember when I wake up but I wake up thinking my mother is alive. 30 seconds or so later I remember and I feel so sad.

I don’t think this has anything to do with Mother’s Day or time dead or anything like that.

My mother would be proud that I bought and renovated a house and its grounds (irregular plot of land or so the deed says.)

This weekend was the first time I could lie in my yard and read. It was so frigging cool. My yard! I’m starting a flower and vegetable garden. Flowers because they’re beautiful and vegetables because I love them, but have resorted to buying frozen here as I don’t find them very good. I am very spoiled. Having Fairway and incredible Farmer’s Markets at my fingertips. I also dialed out a lot. Something I think I have done once here. When I’m in New York though…

My house is slowly becoming a home. I want to share it with family and friends. The renovation, on a budget but using “quality” materials would be an achievement for anybody. For me it’s akin to climbing Mt Everest.

All I have left to do is get outdoor furniture, secondhand furniture for the sunroom, unpack the last few boxes and organize my office. I have an office! And a reading room across from it. In Manhattan my entire apartment was between 615-675 square feet depending on who was doing the measuring. My outdoor areas, not counting the upstairs deck is 650 square feet. Small by some standards. A great sized footprint according to mine.

I take none of this for granted. I’m busting with pride and joy. I would so love my parents to have seen this. Maybe they have…..

Next year Chicago and Earth Wind & Fire will be at the annual Mayfest on Main celebration.
My sister thinks I moved to paradise. Maybe I did.