Since College….

There’s a new 3WW below this. Here’s another blog My friend lives in this building. Great Upper West Side shots–and the building has an all marble wonderful lobby.
There are bad days and there are days you spend two and half hours on the phone or waiting for people at the cable company–and they exacerbate your problem but you finally figure it out.
The most adorable little girl comes up to you in Starbucks, puts her finger in your coffee, the top on and smiles at you. You have reached the point of no return and give her the look you have never given a kid. The coffee could have been hot–she could have scalded herself–but mostly you’re thinking how truly tacky it was that the mother didn’t control her behavior or make her say “I’m sorry.” Two words that go far in your life. That was the better part of your day until you saw a friend.
Jonathan and his wife Wendy are adopting children in a few days. I can and can’t imagine what they’re feeling as I was adopted, and some people that my father’s letter upon adopting me is the best written thing in this blog. As much as I love my father that doesn’t make me feel great.

Jonathan began a meme about what you have done since finishing school. I finished grad school twelve years ago and uh college 20 years before that. I don’t usually do memes, especially since they all seem to involve knowledge of 80’s hair bands and other musical things. Have nothing against 80’s hair bands or what song fits whats mood–but that’s like wearing a mood ring. Changes too often. Or stays the same for a year.

What have you done since college?If you read Courting you have a pretty good idea. I left out the best personal stories not for a book but as they involved other people. Living people who don’t really read me but I love them and respect their privacy.

Ok what would you do if your friend is dating somebody and you have the radio on while working. You’re not really listening but hear a very unusual name, that you know well, of a very specific geographic area, wishing his girlfriend of two years a happy birthday.
Would you tell your friend?
Not tell your friend?

My life seemed to consist of many situations like that.

What would you do if the police came as a notorious robber had stolen somebody in your circle’s identity though neither the police nor you knew the stolen identity detail?

These are about the only two stories I can sort of tell. I told the friend as I knew she liked him too much and might do something foolish.

I played the ditz with the police. It’s a role I play very well and have perfected to a level I might try to patent.

I have also had three and a half careers. Numerous fiancees, and did get divorced after graduating though we hadn’t lived together in years.

Hint: Never go to your ex-husband’s next wedding no matter how close the friendship. Especially when your then current boyfriend, who many people still assume you were legally married to, is an idiot who is guaranteed to get drunk and make a spectacle of himself–and by extension you. Of course you drank too much also. It was too much to take. That’s not anything near my most embarrassing moment.

What do you look back at with a smile>
Almost everything. My family was amazing. My friends incredible. I lived in the greatest city in the world when it was affordable and despite the many problems, truly fun.

After enough time has past and you have blogged your heart out even the bad is tinged with a smile.

What do you look back with sadness?
I would have loved for my parents to have seen my byline on a cover story. I wish I had taken more pride in my accomplishments. I stopped writing because somebody told me I was a better writer than he was. Two things: I didn’t realize he loved me because I was articulate, weird and clever. And I have used that as an excuse. If I really wanted to write I would have. I was too busy experiencing, and I loved most every minute of it.

I wish that when I was in my 30’s and began to write seriously, I had the courage to submit my girl stories or stories about four best friends–one Latina, one Black, one Greek- German and me. I just wrote about our every day lives. We could never decide on what to do exactly. Yes Sex and… met Seinfeld We had the requisite number of Gay best friends

I wish that I hadn’t thought fiction so mysterious. But if I didn’t have the experiences I had I couldn’t write the fiction I do. I didn’t like working in a nursing home, but it taught me the finer points of human nature. When you condense an older person’s life, you’re truly learning what makes people act in certain ways. Learn enough life stories and you have enough for books about every part and period of a person’s life.

I think Kyra Sedgwick would really get me in the movie version of my life. She does neurotic with an edge so well.

I do hope to be out of New York within the next three weeks though I will be back at least once a month in the beginning. And a new chapter truly begins. I hope that it will be my most productive and most of all filled with laughter.