Christmas break 1961
Daddy promises to take me to the ice skating rink in Great Neck later. My little sister is at her best friend Debby's apartment in our 40 family garden apartment court at the edge of North East Queens.
My best friend, Lori, lives two doors down, but she's away with her family, in their new Lincoln Town car with electric windows. My other friends are either away or they're not speaking to me or I’m not speaking to them. I'm in sixth grade, and I used to be the first girl anybody would call or call up the window to. Now hardly anyone does. Near the candy store the other day I heard my cousin, Ken, call me a goof to a girl he was trying to impress
Eleven is a very difficult age, I think as I look out the window at the deserted court. It's almost never empty. No matter what the weather parents sit on the park benches and kids play in the grass, but the snow's really more ice than snow, and it's freezing. Daddy's such a slow, careful driver he can drive in any weather but blizzards. It's about eleven AM. In our house that's early for a weekend or non-school day.
There's going to be a big football game. Daddy hates football, but he likes to make many charts showing possible plays. Then men bet on it. Mommy says it's okay.
Daddy's special. He likes excitement. Other men, they bet the rent or the mortgage, and food money. Daddy saves money each month and only bets extra money. Daddy will make sure we always live well.
Uh, mommy, we live in a four room apartment. I have to share a room with Elka.
We moved to the garden apartments, (up the hill as mommy and daddy call it) a huge community when I was four. We were supposed to live here for a year while my parents looked for a house in Great Neck. Elka and I love it here, but lately I really want my own room, and I let mommy know that at every opportunity.
Elka's half of the room is decorated with her own paintings. I had Fabian posters up but took them down for Warren Beatty ones. I can't keep the house argument up. I know that they are seriously looking. We'll probably buy a house when I'm away at college. Daddy likes to check everything out 200 times.
My parents take an hour to decide on what brand of toilet paper to buy. I've seen them fight over that. Then I watched them make up. I think that's one of the reasons adults fight. Elka wants to crawl under the table when they make out in a restaurant but I like it.
I wish daddy would get ready.
I'm sure he will be ready soon, sweetie, your daddy loves taking you the rink. He wishes he could skate.
I'm not a great skater but I love going round and round the rink while the loudspeakers play songs like What's your name? and The lion sleeps tonight. I'm getting bored looking out the window, so I go to the bookshelf where I take out a book I have looked at but rejected many times.
I take A Tree Grows in Brooklyn into my bedroom. Soon I'm in a world so similar and different from mine. Francie Nolan's eleven, and lives in Williamsburg Brooklyn in the early part of the century. Mommy's from Greenpoint which is walking distance from Williamsburg and was born later than Francie. Francie's Irish and our natural enemy as we're Jews, and the Irish and Poles in Greenpoint threw tomatoes and other things at mommy and her brother and sisters.
I love Francie. She's lonely and bookish, but loves her family and I have never read a book before where the heroine thinks like me. This is the best book I have read so far. Mommy calls us into lunch. I don’t want to eat because the Nolan's have just moved to Lorimar Street which is right next to Greenpoint and I want to see what happens next. I have forgotten that daddy's supposed to take me skating. Mommy asks what I'm doing.
Reading a wonderful book. A Tree grows in Brooklyn.
Mommy's all excited.
Oh don't you love it? Isn't it a wonderful book? What are you up to?
I'm confused. You don't like Irish people.
It's different. Books talk about universal experiences.
Oh like how we're all alike.
Exactly.
But Johnny, Francie's father drinks. Half the time he can't even work because he drank so much. Francie loves her father anyway. I wouldn't love daddy if he drank.
That's the Irish curse. Every group has its own problems. That's why books are so wonderful. Girls love their daddies no matter what they do. Finish the book and we'll talk.
Mommy smiles her big toothy smile. She's five feet tall, with short curly brown hair, big brown eyes, a good nose, and is cute. Everybody likes her. I’m already taller than her. My body grows each day.
But I'm awkward and weird and want to look like mommy. I made daddy promise that if I continue growing so fast he will have my legs cut smaller when I'm thirteen. Mommy thinks that I'm very pretty and smart. But we fight all the time. She says that's because we’re so much alike. I don't think that I'm pretty, smart or at all like mommy. She just says that because I was adopted and she wants to make me feel good when we're not fighting over my hair not being brushed properly and things like that.
Every summer right after my birthday Chloe and I go to Camp Spring Lake in Barryville for six weeks. It's a progressive Jewish camp where we don't really have to do anything except make pow-wow sites for camping, swim, have socials, and debates on Saturday morning at Oneg Shabbats.
We learn about civil rights and how we are responsible for helping the less fortunate. Most campers don't have a professional for a daddy, nor do most of the kids in Queens. I have to explain what an accountant does. I don't even bother trying to explain the difference between an accountant and a CPA.
Bubbe Ceila, my mom's mom just died. She taught me about The Scottsboro Boys, The Triangle Shirt Waist Fire and other important things.
When mommy found out that she had just died, she went running into my arms. I felt special and remember being surprised about how much mommy needed me. I bet I miss Bubbe almost as much as mommy does, and more than her younger sisters Faye and Elaine who are bohemian
When I'm angry at mommy and ride my bike through the huge back alleys I pretend that I live with my birth mother who is a real beatnik, lives in the Village, lets me grow my hair to my knees and walk around without shoes. Nobody told me this but I know it.
Mommy goes to get daddy. He hasn't shaved, and his clothes are old and in taters. I remember he's supposed to take me ice skating and I pout.
Just give me an hour Pia, and I will take you.
Okay.
We're eating a Saturday lunch. Mommy makes tuna fish salad with celery, carrots, a little Miracle Whip and a lot of lemon. We're only allowed to eat potato chips when we eat tuna fish. Mommy and Daddy have every issue of PM Magazine, and mommy knows all about the dangers of fat.
Max guess what book she"s reading?
He shrugs.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
For the first time since daddy came in for lunch he looks excited.
Great movie. Daddy reads accounting journals, each issue of Mad, and parts of four to seven newspapers a day, but he doesn't read books. Mommy gets The New Yorker. I read them both. After lunch he goes back to his spread sheets, and I go back to my room.
Mommy calls us into supper. Francie's father, Johnny has just died. I want to finish the book. I don't want dinner. I'm beginning to understand why girls love their fathers even if they're drunks, and what mommy means by a universal experience. I don't want to talk about it. I just want to read and think. I'm glad we didn't go to the rink, but I have to remember to pout. Daddy comes into the kitchen.
I'm sorry Pia, I’m really sorry. I just got carried away.
He's never said that he's sorry to me before. I can't let daddy know that I'm not angry. He broke a promise, and I tell him that.
I know, sweetie. How about if you watch A Tree Grows in Brooklyn the next time it's on TV even if it's on the late show on a school night?
Okay.
Christmas Week 1962
Last summer at camp my parents sent me a letter saying that we are going to move in October. Nobody has ever heard of this town on Long Island. It sounds biblical. We all think my family's moving to the Mid East. I wonder if they have Special Progress classes in the Mid East so I can do seventh and eighth grade in one year like I was supposed to do in the city. I wonder why we are moving to the Mid East. The furthest we've ever been from New York is Miami where my father's sister and family live.
This doesn't make sense. Spring Lake doesn't allow phone calls so I have to actually write them instead of sending one of the pre-addressed post cards mommy addressed and stamped. I wish I could just call and find out why we're moving some place so far away.
Our new town turns out to be fifteen minutes north east of Queens. We had moved there the year that the expressway came out to it, and now the expressway is built, out to here, and there's an exit just a few blocks from our eight room, four level house. It's cheaper than Great Neck, almost all Jewish, and the parents are building a school district from scratch.
I hate our new town. When my records finally came they asked me if I wanted to be in the honor class. I was doing so badly I said no without even thinking. We change teachers but go from class to class with the same kids. My last name starts with S and I'm with the through A--M's. My life's not fun. How could I have ever thought that eleven was a horrible age? Twelve's much worse. I haven't made one friend in school.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is going to be on the late late show tonight. Daddy said that he would wake me. Daddy stays up working until two or three most nights, but he doesn't get up until 9:30 AM. I can't wait to be an adult. I just reread A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and have decided that I will read it every Christmas for the rest of my life. Daddy wakes me before the movie begins.
Daddy and I go into his red burlap wallpapered office. He sits on his swivel chair next to his huge mahogany desk, and I lie on the red plaid wood framed couch. The carpet's red with some black. A tree Grows in Brooklyn is a hundred twenty eight minutes long. It starts at two Am and won't be over until almost five AM. Daddy's been muttering all week about how he thought it would be on the late show during a school night, and how he's only good until four AM these days.
We watch the movies in silence only getting up when absolutely necessary. It's a perfect night and as daddy and I twirl our hair almost in tandem, I think about how Francie's father always makes promises that he doesn't keep, and daddy doesn't make many but when he does he always eventually keep them.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Pia and Zachary show their true colors 03/01/06
I had my abortion nine years after they were first legalized in New York. It wasn't an easy decision but my boyfriend Zachary was on the road to self-destruction and was trying to take me down with him.
I was an adult. Zachary and I were living together. I worked; I supported us, but Zachary was the man of the house. He was emotionally abusive to me, once was physically abusive and I didn't throw him out as it was just once and I was bitchy and maybe, I deserved it. It was just a punch.
I would have needed witnesses to report it. My next door neighbor had once screamed for somebody to call the police. I did. Her lover was a scion of two household name families. The police rang my bell and lectured me about the dangers of making a false report.
I lived in zip code 10021, the richest in America, and domestic abuse just didn't happen.
I was adopted, and had always believed that I was blessed in my choice of family.
Deciding to have an abortion wasn't an easy decision. But I knew from the beginning, it was the only decision.
I had my own problems, and can't deny that they played a part. But my "verbal abuse" consisted of "Zachary, clean up," "Get a job." "How can you stay in bed all day smoking pot and drinking Dixie Beer?"
Happened to be fairly well known in the New York club scene, and was going to become fairly well known in the New York alkie bar scene, because people would call to ask me to pick Zachary up as he was so drunk. I had to get up at 5:30 to go to work so I would tell them to keep him.
Didn't happen that often. I had been married and been with other men; this had never happened once with any of them. It felt wrong.
Just as it felt wrong that Zachary wanted to be with me every minute. When weren't together he would call constantly. It felt wrong. Everybody thought that he was so in love with me. Every woman was jealous. There was nobody that I could talk about this to.
I saw a dark sick side that scared me. There's much more. This is all that's important.
There was no way in hell that I was going to have this man's baby; and adoption wasn't an answer. Love's not rational, and I loved Zachary very much.
I had a legal abortion.
Yes I was adopted, but the anti-adoption movement was in full frontal mode then.
I thought about adoption for a hot second. I didn't really know about obsession then but I knew that Zachary felt something for me that wasn't pure love; something strange. Something not good.
When I got him a job at the company I was a supervisor in, he immediately became a union organizer. Zachary could have easily become involved in the birth father. movement.
He had no desire to become a father, but had I gone through with the pregnancy, he would have quickly become a member of that movement. Only to fuel an obsession.
I couldn't verbalize this then, but I intuitively knew it. An abortion was only the sane answer. It was my choice; I did it, and have never regretted it.
Everybody who knows me well knows how guilty I can feel. Never, ever have I felt guilt over my abortion.
It's a woman's body and a woman's choice. I chose abortion because it was the right choice for me. I was 29 years old with a responsible job, and a boyfriend who spent most of his time bemoaning his fate in life. He blamed his failure to make it as a singer/songwriter on me.
A part of me bought into that; a part of me truly believed that if I could only be a better partner, if I could only keep our apartment clean, if....
I worked ten hour days to support us, but to Zachary that wasn't enough. He was the important one; he was the brilliant singer/songwriter who had two albums out by the time he was 25. I was supposed to work, keep house, cook, and nurture his genius. Damn it, I tried.
But I have a great survival instinct, and a bigger part of me knew that Zachary was living in a fantasy world that was becoming more warped every day. In order to save myself, I chose abortion.
I chose survival.
Everybody adored Zachary. He was a charmer.
I, and I alone knew that I lived with a truly deranged man who I loved.
I chose to make my future safer and more secure. It took awhile.
Sometime later when I finally threw Zachary out for good, he stalked me. Let him in one day while I was studying, and not thinking. He broke a window, with his bare hand, and a table filled with huge plants. I had to leave New York for awhile. When I came back, he continued to stalk me. Not sure why he stopped. I chopped off my hair and no longer was "Princess Perfect." My father paid him to leave, we think.
When I met my birth mother, eight years later, it was to specifically thank her for having had me.
My family's filled with eccentric people who love me. I'm a writer and the family I was adopted into gave me both the tools and the material to write with/on.
Adoption is a wonderful choice. So is survival. I chose to survive.
There's going to be a new Supreme Court. Alito is known for his stances on abortion. He's not going to soften them. It's time for every person in this country who believes in the sanctity of the already alive to stand in solidarity against people who will allow women to die in illegal abortions, and in extreme cases kill abortion workers.
Zygotes aren't fertilized; they have nothing to do with this subject. Fetuses aren't people.
The already alive come first.
If a woman doesn't want to have an abortion, she doesn't have to have one.
If her partner tries to force her to have one, and she doesn't want to she should seek help. Abortion being banned won't stop men from making their partners have abortions; it will make the abortions less safe.
Please lets not go back to the days women tried to abort with coat hangers, by falling down stairs, or any of a hundred other things. I don't believe that abortion is ethically wrong. What's ethically wrong is denying women access to safe legal abortions with counseling.
Zachary killed himself on January 4, 1989, in Nashville.
I chose survival. My life went on to be a full and rich one. In this crazy world, I must say one more thing. My life is one hundred percent Freyable. I don't tell stories like these that can't be fact checked. Trust me I didn't begin life asking "will Oprah believe me?" But I have always made sure that when I write these type of stories they could be verified. It's part of the guilt gene thing.
Crossposted at BIO where you can get out your moral outrage if you want. This isn't the place to.
I was an adult. Zachary and I were living together. I worked; I supported us, but Zachary was the man of the house. He was emotionally abusive to me, once was physically abusive and I didn't throw him out as it was just once and I was bitchy and maybe, I deserved it. It was just a punch.
I would have needed witnesses to report it. My next door neighbor had once screamed for somebody to call the police. I did. Her lover was a scion of two household name families. The police rang my bell and lectured me about the dangers of making a false report.
I lived in zip code 10021, the richest in America, and domestic abuse just didn't happen.
I was adopted, and had always believed that I was blessed in my choice of family.
Deciding to have an abortion wasn't an easy decision. But I knew from the beginning, it was the only decision.
I had my own problems, and can't deny that they played a part. But my "verbal abuse" consisted of "Zachary, clean up," "Get a job." "How can you stay in bed all day smoking pot and drinking Dixie Beer?"
Happened to be fairly well known in the New York club scene, and was going to become fairly well known in the New York alkie bar scene, because people would call to ask me to pick Zachary up as he was so drunk. I had to get up at 5:30 to go to work so I would tell them to keep him.
Didn't happen that often. I had been married and been with other men; this had never happened once with any of them. It felt wrong.
Just as it felt wrong that Zachary wanted to be with me every minute. When weren't together he would call constantly. It felt wrong. Everybody thought that he was so in love with me. Every woman was jealous. There was nobody that I could talk about this to.
I saw a dark sick side that scared me. There's much more. This is all that's important.
There was no way in hell that I was going to have this man's baby; and adoption wasn't an answer. Love's not rational, and I loved Zachary very much.
I had a legal abortion.
Yes I was adopted, but the anti-adoption movement was in full frontal mode then.
I thought about adoption for a hot second. I didn't really know about obsession then but I knew that Zachary felt something for me that wasn't pure love; something strange. Something not good.
When I got him a job at the company I was a supervisor in, he immediately became a union organizer. Zachary could have easily become involved in the birth father. movement.
He had no desire to become a father, but had I gone through with the pregnancy, he would have quickly become a member of that movement. Only to fuel an obsession.
I couldn't verbalize this then, but I intuitively knew it. An abortion was only the sane answer. It was my choice; I did it, and have never regretted it.
Everybody who knows me well knows how guilty I can feel. Never, ever have I felt guilt over my abortion.
It's a woman's body and a woman's choice. I chose abortion because it was the right choice for me. I was 29 years old with a responsible job, and a boyfriend who spent most of his time bemoaning his fate in life. He blamed his failure to make it as a singer/songwriter on me.
A part of me bought into that; a part of me truly believed that if I could only be a better partner, if I could only keep our apartment clean, if....
I worked ten hour days to support us, but to Zachary that wasn't enough. He was the important one; he was the brilliant singer/songwriter who had two albums out by the time he was 25. I was supposed to work, keep house, cook, and nurture his genius. Damn it, I tried.
But I have a great survival instinct, and a bigger part of me knew that Zachary was living in a fantasy world that was becoming more warped every day. In order to save myself, I chose abortion.
I chose survival.
Everybody adored Zachary. He was a charmer.
I, and I alone knew that I lived with a truly deranged man who I loved.
I chose to make my future safer and more secure. It took awhile.
Sometime later when I finally threw Zachary out for good, he stalked me. Let him in one day while I was studying, and not thinking. He broke a window, with his bare hand, and a table filled with huge plants. I had to leave New York for awhile. When I came back, he continued to stalk me. Not sure why he stopped. I chopped off my hair and no longer was "Princess Perfect." My father paid him to leave, we think.
When I met my birth mother, eight years later, it was to specifically thank her for having had me.
My family's filled with eccentric people who love me. I'm a writer and the family I was adopted into gave me both the tools and the material to write with/on.
Adoption is a wonderful choice. So is survival. I chose to survive.
There's going to be a new Supreme Court. Alito is known for his stances on abortion. He's not going to soften them. It's time for every person in this country who believes in the sanctity of the already alive to stand in solidarity against people who will allow women to die in illegal abortions, and in extreme cases kill abortion workers.
Zygotes aren't fertilized; they have nothing to do with this subject. Fetuses aren't people.
The already alive come first.
If a woman doesn't want to have an abortion, she doesn't have to have one.
If her partner tries to force her to have one, and she doesn't want to she should seek help. Abortion being banned won't stop men from making their partners have abortions; it will make the abortions less safe.
Please lets not go back to the days women tried to abort with coat hangers, by falling down stairs, or any of a hundred other things. I don't believe that abortion is ethically wrong. What's ethically wrong is denying women access to safe legal abortions with counseling.
Zachary killed himself on January 4, 1989, in Nashville.
I chose survival. My life went on to be a full and rich one. In this crazy world, I must say one more thing. My life is one hundred percent Freyable. I don't tell stories like these that can't be fact checked. Trust me I didn't begin life asking "will Oprah believe me?" But I have always made sure that when I write these type of stories they could be verified. It's part of the guilt gene thing.
Crossposted at BIO where you can get out your moral outrage if you want. This isn't the place to.
Zachary and I; for the first long while. 03/02/06
To better understand this post you should read the one below it first.
Zachary was from New Orleans and had the big easy charm. I would say that I'm a sucker for men in cowboy hats but truthfully I can't stand them. My great uncle owned a Western shop in Mobile and I had never been impressed. I look horrible in hats, and the Stetson and I just didn't agree.
I liked tall lanky Byronic men. Zachary was about 5'9" with brown hair almost the same color as mine. We looked alike. It was disconcerting. He liked to look in the mirror and point this out to me. I didn't want to picture us in 50 years looking and acting exactly the same.
I read somewhere on the Internet that Zachary was a lousy musician and a great friend. I disagree. While Zachary was in New York his friends were mainly my friends. I had many, and I was willing to share. Just not all the time. Okay, he wasn't the best musician, but his lyrics were powerful, and he had a better singing than speaking voice.
Bothered me that he didn't have real friends in New York. It felt as if all of downtown was our age, and everybody was friendly. Maybe they were to me.
My girl friends adored him. Oh he had her of the gravely voice who was to become a major star some years later, but she soon moved, and he had Alan, but I cost him that friendship for reasons I'm not ready to go into.
I'm cursed with a good memory, but I can focus the lenses to always make me look bad. It's a gift; one that continually gives and I guess will stop with death or dementia.
Usually I can turn my thinking around and be rational, but I had to research my BIO rant, and linked to an anti adoption site that can skew figures like nothing I have ever seen. Have been depressed ever since linking it; as if I'm responsible for people reading it, and maybe agreeing with it. Damn, who says you always needs cites?
Couldn't sleep much last night because I hadn't been ready to go where I went with Zachary on my blog. Obviously I gave away the ending. Obviously I took it to places where it hadn't been.
Zachary and I used to go to the 89 Saint Marks, smoke pot, and watch Preston Sturgis or Thin Man films. Then we would eat somewhere and go to the Grass Roots, an exact dup of The Maple Leaf in New Orleans. It had one of the five best jukeboxes in New York, and Zachary could pontificate for hours on why the oil shortage was manufactured.
I couldn't understand why somebody who could write such magnificent lyrics could repeat his sentences constantly. Tried to be nice about, and usually was.
I just loved the way we would could sometimes meld into one person. No man had ever wanted to protect me before, except my father. Left home as soon as I was able to; didn't want my father's protection.
Every man had assumed that I loved being self sufficient. And I had, and I still did. It was so unlike me to let a man cater to me, but I let Zachary into places in my head I had let nobody before. Damn if it didn't feel good, much of the time.
Yes I supported us. Small price to pay for the way he wanted me. We would just look at one another, and be overtaken by something more than lust, and desire. With one small flick of an eyebrow, he could put me somewhere not there, and I could do it to him.
He wanted to please me more, or knew how to express it better than any man I had been with previously. I found it enchanting.
Zachary was from New Orleans and had the big easy charm. I would say that I'm a sucker for men in cowboy hats but truthfully I can't stand them. My great uncle owned a Western shop in Mobile and I had never been impressed. I look horrible in hats, and the Stetson and I just didn't agree.
I liked tall lanky Byronic men. Zachary was about 5'9" with brown hair almost the same color as mine. We looked alike. It was disconcerting. He liked to look in the mirror and point this out to me. I didn't want to picture us in 50 years looking and acting exactly the same.
I read somewhere on the Internet that Zachary was a lousy musician and a great friend. I disagree. While Zachary was in New York his friends were mainly my friends. I had many, and I was willing to share. Just not all the time. Okay, he wasn't the best musician, but his lyrics were powerful, and he had a better singing than speaking voice.
Bothered me that he didn't have real friends in New York. It felt as if all of downtown was our age, and everybody was friendly. Maybe they were to me.
My girl friends adored him. Oh he had her of the gravely voice who was to become a major star some years later, but she soon moved, and he had Alan, but I cost him that friendship for reasons I'm not ready to go into.
I'm cursed with a good memory, but I can focus the lenses to always make me look bad. It's a gift; one that continually gives and I guess will stop with death or dementia.
Usually I can turn my thinking around and be rational, but I had to research my BIO rant, and linked to an anti adoption site that can skew figures like nothing I have ever seen. Have been depressed ever since linking it; as if I'm responsible for people reading it, and maybe agreeing with it. Damn, who says you always needs cites?
Couldn't sleep much last night because I hadn't been ready to go where I went with Zachary on my blog. Obviously I gave away the ending. Obviously I took it to places where it hadn't been.
Zachary and I used to go to the 89 Saint Marks, smoke pot, and watch Preston Sturgis or Thin Man films. Then we would eat somewhere and go to the Grass Roots, an exact dup of The Maple Leaf in New Orleans. It had one of the five best jukeboxes in New York, and Zachary could pontificate for hours on why the oil shortage was manufactured.
I couldn't understand why somebody who could write such magnificent lyrics could repeat his sentences constantly. Tried to be nice about, and usually was.
I just loved the way we would could sometimes meld into one person. No man had ever wanted to protect me before, except my father. Left home as soon as I was able to; didn't want my father's protection.
Every man had assumed that I loved being self sufficient. And I had, and I still did. It was so unlike me to let a man cater to me, but I let Zachary into places in my head I had let nobody before. Damn if it didn't feel good, much of the time.
Yes I supported us. Small price to pay for the way he wanted me. We would just look at one another, and be overtaken by something more than lust, and desire. With one small flick of an eyebrow, he could put me somewhere not there, and I could do it to him.
He wanted to please me more, or knew how to express it better than any man I had been with previously. I found it enchanting.
The third time that I said yes 1/23/06
Not that I would ever tell people how to read my posts, but if you haven't read the one below, it's good. Really trying to wean myself of the daily blogging thing. Not because I don't love it, but because I love it too much. And when I love....Will read blogs tomorrow, and try to keep some sort of blogging schedule.
Just don't want to wake up some morning and realize that I spent my life blogging, because I would be very poor and very very boring
I am not now, and never have been a Jewish whore to the best of my recollection. Just want to clarify that as it was a Google search term used to find Courting. Didn't look it up because I could have used Jewish and whore in the same post. Hate it when people don't use quotes; just a personal quirk.
Did look up "Gary Null gossip" because I know I have never talked about him. Met him at one of the few singles things I have ever attended; brunch with Gary Null. He's boring, arrogant, pompous, and I could go on but why? Had I been interested in talking to anybody I couldn't because Null never shut up.
Every time I pass his picture at GNC or one of those places, I remember going to a museum opening with my parents who were friends with the curator's parents. Talked to a really nice girl who was sick of meeting artists and asked if I wanted to go to the Null brunch with her.
As Zachary was no longer following me everywhere, I was beginning to desire something more than a one night stand. Yes I did them and liked them. Tough I had heard of AIDS and was sure that Patrick had it, people were just learning how it was transmitted. Nobody thought straight non drug users could get it, or nobody wanted to think that.
Patrick wasn't diagnosed until the summer of 1984 when I would be engaged to brilliant lawyer/PHD in AI/musician.
We had met three months before when I began working at my company's headquarters. This time I waited three weeks before I began to date him, and three more weeks before we began to live together. Three weeks after that he asked me to marry him.
It was my fifth serious proposal and I had only been legally married once. How many proposals does a woman get in her life? Why did marriage talk always have to enter into a relationship so quickly? I knew in my heart, while I wouldn't be unfaithful, I would do everything possible to sabatoge it.
He loved talking me to expensive restaurants. I wanted to go to downtown scene restaurants; he wanted Windows on the World. At the time there was only one really great table with views. The maitre de gave it to us every time we were there. We looked very much in love.
This was the sweetest relationship I had ever been in. We went out almost every night. He made his own hours and could sleep until noon; I had to be at work by 8:30. Since we usually came home after two he was amazed by this and would tell everybody. I smiled and said little. He and his friends had all gone to undergrad school at the University of Chicago. His friends bothered me as they assumed that I wasn't their intellectual equal. I had graduated from Boston University which was third rate by their standards.
I was eight year older than him, and wanted to write down answers on index cards to questions I knew his friends were going to ask me; geared I guess to my lower intellect. I wasn't about to be that overtly rude, or to possibly entertain them.
"No, I had never been to Woodstock."
Dirt, mud and no toilets. Though I turned down an offer to dress as a nurse and fly in a helicopter there, where there would be toilets. Why? I didn't want to fly in a helicopter, and I didn't want to have to pretend to be a nurse. What if something happened to somebody and I would have to take care of him? But I wasn't about to explain that.
His friends learned that I just might be brighter than most of them. I could out talk them when in the mood, and give the snidest most clever answers to their late night philosphical discussions. They were drunk and/or stoned; I was cold sober. It was the only way I could go to work in the morning, and function.
I had never been the older woman before. I came to this relationship used and wary. It only showed on the inside.
Just don't want to wake up some morning and realize that I spent my life blogging, because I would be very poor and very very boring
I am not now, and never have been a Jewish whore to the best of my recollection. Just want to clarify that as it was a Google search term used to find Courting. Didn't look it up because I could have used Jewish and whore in the same post. Hate it when people don't use quotes; just a personal quirk.
Did look up "Gary Null gossip" because I know I have never talked about him. Met him at one of the few singles things I have ever attended; brunch with Gary Null. He's boring, arrogant, pompous, and I could go on but why? Had I been interested in talking to anybody I couldn't because Null never shut up.
Every time I pass his picture at GNC or one of those places, I remember going to a museum opening with my parents who were friends with the curator's parents. Talked to a really nice girl who was sick of meeting artists and asked if I wanted to go to the Null brunch with her.
As Zachary was no longer following me everywhere, I was beginning to desire something more than a one night stand. Yes I did them and liked them. Tough I had heard of AIDS and was sure that Patrick had it, people were just learning how it was transmitted. Nobody thought straight non drug users could get it, or nobody wanted to think that.
Patrick wasn't diagnosed until the summer of 1984 when I would be engaged to brilliant lawyer/PHD in AI/musician.
We had met three months before when I began working at my company's headquarters. This time I waited three weeks before I began to date him, and three more weeks before we began to live together. Three weeks after that he asked me to marry him.
It was my fifth serious proposal and I had only been legally married once. How many proposals does a woman get in her life? Why did marriage talk always have to enter into a relationship so quickly? I knew in my heart, while I wouldn't be unfaithful, I would do everything possible to sabatoge it.
He loved talking me to expensive restaurants. I wanted to go to downtown scene restaurants; he wanted Windows on the World. At the time there was only one really great table with views. The maitre de gave it to us every time we were there. We looked very much in love.
This was the sweetest relationship I had ever been in. We went out almost every night. He made his own hours and could sleep until noon; I had to be at work by 8:30. Since we usually came home after two he was amazed by this and would tell everybody. I smiled and said little. He and his friends had all gone to undergrad school at the University of Chicago. His friends bothered me as they assumed that I wasn't their intellectual equal. I had graduated from Boston University which was third rate by their standards.
I was eight year older than him, and wanted to write down answers on index cards to questions I knew his friends were going to ask me; geared I guess to my lower intellect. I wasn't about to be that overtly rude, or to possibly entertain them.
"No, I had never been to Woodstock."
Dirt, mud and no toilets. Though I turned down an offer to dress as a nurse and fly in a helicopter there, where there would be toilets. Why? I didn't want to fly in a helicopter, and I didn't want to have to pretend to be a nurse. What if something happened to somebody and I would have to take care of him? But I wasn't about to explain that.
His friends learned that I just might be brighter than most of them. I could out talk them when in the mood, and give the snidest most clever answers to their late night philosphical discussions. They were drunk and/or stoned; I was cold sober. It was the only way I could go to work in the morning, and function.
I had never been the older woman before. I came to this relationship used and wary. It only showed on the inside.
Incident at Ramrod 12/14/05
First yes, my friend CJ figured out how to do a sticky. Next "pages" where with one click you will be able to find all my "who am I" posts among other things; too much info some think, others think not enough.
This is an absolutely true story. For years I thought it happened on December 8, the night John Lennon died. I was wrong. The Internet makes it possible to look everything up; however, when I find obviously biased sites Number One in Google searches, or me, I worry a lot, about the state of everything. Though I did love the time I came in second out of 144,000 in a "James Spader, William Shatner" Google search. Actually it was a personal triumph which is very very sad.
There is, or was a Gay bar in the Meatmarket called The Ramrod. It was there when John Lennon died, so it predates Restaurant Florent, or any parts of The Meat Market's gentrification. It's skeevy; I was taken on a tour of gay bars one very weird night, and it wasn't as skeevy as The Anvil which had toilet areas in public. Well okay, enough. The Meat Market of today is an entirely different world than it was in 1980.
On November 19, 1980, Zachary didn't come home until very late. I must have been watching the news when I heard that two men had been killed and twelve injured at The Ramrod. I was convinced that Zachary was the murderer. The real murderer I believe was captured immediately. Zachary was homophobic. That surprised me as he was a singer/songwriter very much in the Steve Earl vein. I was the one with Black friends as he was also prejudiced. Though he adored all my girlfriends and tolerated the boys who tolerated him.
Patrick, my best friend, gay category at the time, was also a bit jealous of Zachary, and didn't like me having lived with a man for a year and a half, exactly. Several months later my friend Cassandra was at a church function with Nadine, my former assistant and some of her cousins. Cassandra teased Nadine about having the same last name as the Ramrod murderer. Nadine ran out of the bathroom hysterically crying. (Her name isn't Nadine, and I'm not giving the last name here.) The murderer was her brother; their father, a rather well known pastor had a stroke and was incapacitate; Nadine's 11 year old son was being constantly teased. Nadine and I had been good friends. We saw each a couple of times between the murders and the incident in the church ladies room. I knew her last name; she had been my assistant supervisor for almost a year. Just didn't connect it.
Which is why she could still be friends with me. After I knew she felt too much shame. That was plain stupid as I thought my own boyfriend was the murderer. Knowing me I probably said something to her; knowing Nadine she laughed.
Nadine and her son changed their names and moved. I have always been known for having beautiful girlfriends and Nadine was one of the most beautiful. She had huge laughing doe eyes that even remained happy looking after the murders.
I have been told by both psychics and psychiatrists that I have a psychic side. A psychiatrist, a buttoned down analyst who I was in semi analysis with years later told me that I had the most highly developed intuitive skills he had ever seen and it could be called psychic. This man was the epitome of stuffy intellectual...I just wanted him to say "no, of course you can't be psychic...." And maybe go into the reasons why. But he went into the reasons I was.
It's scary and I have spent the ensuing years trying to be just intuitive enough.
Have a post on Bring it on! Wednesday that I like a lot. Should have cross posted it, but this is fun. My next post might be on my love for good true crime books.
This is an absolutely true story. For years I thought it happened on December 8, the night John Lennon died. I was wrong. The Internet makes it possible to look everything up; however, when I find obviously biased sites Number One in Google searches, or me, I worry a lot, about the state of everything. Though I did love the time I came in second out of 144,000 in a "James Spader, William Shatner" Google search. Actually it was a personal triumph which is very very sad.
There is, or was a Gay bar in the Meatmarket called The Ramrod. It was there when John Lennon died, so it predates Restaurant Florent, or any parts of The Meat Market's gentrification. It's skeevy; I was taken on a tour of gay bars one very weird night, and it wasn't as skeevy as The Anvil which had toilet areas in public. Well okay, enough. The Meat Market of today is an entirely different world than it was in 1980.
On November 19, 1980, Zachary didn't come home until very late. I must have been watching the news when I heard that two men had been killed and twelve injured at The Ramrod. I was convinced that Zachary was the murderer. The real murderer I believe was captured immediately. Zachary was homophobic. That surprised me as he was a singer/songwriter very much in the Steve Earl vein. I was the one with Black friends as he was also prejudiced. Though he adored all my girlfriends and tolerated the boys who tolerated him.
Patrick, my best friend, gay category at the time, was also a bit jealous of Zachary, and didn't like me having lived with a man for a year and a half, exactly. Several months later my friend Cassandra was at a church function with Nadine, my former assistant and some of her cousins. Cassandra teased Nadine about having the same last name as the Ramrod murderer. Nadine ran out of the bathroom hysterically crying. (Her name isn't Nadine, and I'm not giving the last name here.) The murderer was her brother; their father, a rather well known pastor had a stroke and was incapacitate; Nadine's 11 year old son was being constantly teased. Nadine and I had been good friends. We saw each a couple of times between the murders and the incident in the church ladies room. I knew her last name; she had been my assistant supervisor for almost a year. Just didn't connect it.
Which is why she could still be friends with me. After I knew she felt too much shame. That was plain stupid as I thought my own boyfriend was the murderer. Knowing me I probably said something to her; knowing Nadine she laughed.
Nadine and her son changed their names and moved. I have always been known for having beautiful girlfriends and Nadine was one of the most beautiful. She had huge laughing doe eyes that even remained happy looking after the murders.
I have been told by both psychics and psychiatrists that I have a psychic side. A psychiatrist, a buttoned down analyst who I was in semi analysis with years later told me that I had the most highly developed intuitive skills he had ever seen and it could be called psychic. This man was the epitome of stuffy intellectual...I just wanted him to say "no, of course you can't be psychic...." And maybe go into the reasons why. But he went into the reasons I was.
It's scary and I have spent the ensuing years trying to be just intuitive enough.
Have a post on Bring it on! Wednesday that I like a lot. Should have cross posted it, but this is fun. My next post might be on my love for good true crime books.
My rape 12/04/05
I have never considered myself a rape victim though I was. It was the late 1960's; I was seventeen and had gone into the city to break up with my first boyfriend. His friend, a carpenter, asked if I wanted to get stoned, and I went with him to the store he was renovating on Sheridan Square. I did willingly.
I was seventeen with the face of a thirteen year old, the body of a grown woman, and the maturity level of a ten year old. He was big. Tall and in condition; I was 5'6" 128 pounds, and not exactly powerful. Before I knew what was happening, he ripped off my Indian print dress, unhooked my bra and tore my underpants. Yes it happened that fast. I screamed but he wouldn't stop though I kept on telling him to. I wasn't a virgin but this wasn't sex it was pure violence and I knew that then.
I was a mess afterwards and ran to Macy's to buy some new clothes because mine were torn. I passed regular people and police and felt deep shame. But I knew that the police would look at my Indian print dress, leather sandals, frizzed out hair, and call me a "dirty hippie who deserved what I got."
I felt better after I bought new clothes, and while I didn't equate being raped with sex because it had been so violent was turned off sex for awhile, and only dated boys who were closeted Gay for several months. I was young and resilient but I did carry that shame for many years. No, not the shame of the rape; the shame of not being able to tell a policeman.
Soon after beginning college I met my on again off again college boyfriend. We ran into HIM, in a coffee shop in The East Village on Second Avenue near 6th Street. My boyfriend didn't believe me because I acted too normal. I didn't know how else to act.
When I was 23, I got a job as a salesgirl in a high end store in Boston. I heard tales about the crazy in a good way carpenter. One day he walked into the store. I began screaming and ran downstairs. My best friend then, Jasmin, worked there also and knew about my rape. She told our boss who was "connected," and the carpenter never worked there again or other places.
I got my revenge in a strange way, and made a conscious decision not to let this rule my life. But we can't control our subconscious, and I probably wouldn't have ended up with Zachary who did psychologically abuse me if I had let myself feel as I had that day in the store or had worked it out in therapy
I didn't want to write about this now but I was reading my buddy Ally's blog, in England, and The Heretik's, and knew that I had to say something. It's a very different world yet it hasn't changed at all.
Rape is rape; an act of violence not sex. No woman ever asks for it; no matter how provocatively she's dressed, or if she's drunk or stoned. Sex is the most natural thing in the world but if it's not consentual, it's not sex.
While I acted as if it didn't change me much, it did. The hard earned confidence I had spent my last several years of high school pursuing fell a bit. Luckily I met nice boys in college where I did develop a reputation for turning them gay. Except for he who..., who still is one of the truly nicest people I know in a very warped way.
By beginning college several months later, I was given a second chance. Not every woman is. And I truly saw the rape as being pure violence though I had never heard the feminist theory on rape then. It wasn't sex; not even close.
Shakespeare's Sister has an amazing article where a 17 year old young woman reported a rape by three men; including her boyfriend. She was found guilty of filing a false report in part because she didn't act traumatized enough.
How is a seventeen year old supposed to act? At that point I couldn't, or thought I couldn't tell my parents. I had to go to school; I had Regents to pass before graduating high school. It did begin or intensify a pattern where I would shut feelings off during arguments with certain people, usually male.
Incidentally Ducking for Apples, Ally's blog is one of the best written on the blogosphere. It's one of my comfort blogs where I go when I want to read very English stories about home renovation, Polish lodgers, and a zillion other things
If bloggers who were raped speak out we can show the world that we come in all age groups, and every other variable. Rape is an act of extreme agression. Rape victims should never feel ashamed; rapists should always be ashamed. Rapists attempt to have their power affirmed. By speaking out we take away the power, and show how weak they really are.
I was seventeen with the face of a thirteen year old, the body of a grown woman, and the maturity level of a ten year old. He was big. Tall and in condition; I was 5'6" 128 pounds, and not exactly powerful. Before I knew what was happening, he ripped off my Indian print dress, unhooked my bra and tore my underpants. Yes it happened that fast. I screamed but he wouldn't stop though I kept on telling him to. I wasn't a virgin but this wasn't sex it was pure violence and I knew that then.
I was a mess afterwards and ran to Macy's to buy some new clothes because mine were torn. I passed regular people and police and felt deep shame. But I knew that the police would look at my Indian print dress, leather sandals, frizzed out hair, and call me a "dirty hippie who deserved what I got."
I felt better after I bought new clothes, and while I didn't equate being raped with sex because it had been so violent was turned off sex for awhile, and only dated boys who were closeted Gay for several months. I was young and resilient but I did carry that shame for many years. No, not the shame of the rape; the shame of not being able to tell a policeman.
Soon after beginning college I met my on again off again college boyfriend. We ran into HIM, in a coffee shop in The East Village on Second Avenue near 6th Street. My boyfriend didn't believe me because I acted too normal. I didn't know how else to act.
When I was 23, I got a job as a salesgirl in a high end store in Boston. I heard tales about the crazy in a good way carpenter. One day he walked into the store. I began screaming and ran downstairs. My best friend then, Jasmin, worked there also and knew about my rape. She told our boss who was "connected," and the carpenter never worked there again or other places.
I got my revenge in a strange way, and made a conscious decision not to let this rule my life. But we can't control our subconscious, and I probably wouldn't have ended up with Zachary who did psychologically abuse me if I had let myself feel as I had that day in the store or had worked it out in therapy
I didn't want to write about this now but I was reading my buddy Ally's blog, in England, and The Heretik's, and knew that I had to say something. It's a very different world yet it hasn't changed at all.
Rape is rape; an act of violence not sex. No woman ever asks for it; no matter how provocatively she's dressed, or if she's drunk or stoned. Sex is the most natural thing in the world but if it's not consentual, it's not sex.
While I acted as if it didn't change me much, it did. The hard earned confidence I had spent my last several years of high school pursuing fell a bit. Luckily I met nice boys in college where I did develop a reputation for turning them gay. Except for he who..., who still is one of the truly nicest people I know in a very warped way.
By beginning college several months later, I was given a second chance. Not every woman is. And I truly saw the rape as being pure violence though I had never heard the feminist theory on rape then. It wasn't sex; not even close.
Shakespeare's Sister has an amazing article where a 17 year old young woman reported a rape by three men; including her boyfriend. She was found guilty of filing a false report in part because she didn't act traumatized enough.
How is a seventeen year old supposed to act? At that point I couldn't, or thought I couldn't tell my parents. I had to go to school; I had Regents to pass before graduating high school. It did begin or intensify a pattern where I would shut feelings off during arguments with certain people, usually male.
Incidentally Ducking for Apples, Ally's blog is one of the best written on the blogosphere. It's one of my comfort blogs where I go when I want to read very English stories about home renovation, Polish lodgers, and a zillion other things
If bloggers who were raped speak out we can show the world that we come in all age groups, and every other variable. Rape is an act of extreme agression. Rape victims should never feel ashamed; rapists should always be ashamed. Rapists attempt to have their power affirmed. By speaking out we take away the power, and show how weak they really are.
Back to NY in 75--job etc 12/07/05
I am going to be working on my book intensively from now through the new year. Might add posts to Courting that are really blog entries and not book material. Will try to comment as often as I can.
If you're here from Michele's welcome! Thanks for stopping by and this post is a bit long even for me, but it's worth it.
Ever since my parents had discovered that I hadn't actually graduated from college as I hadn't applied, our relationship had been frostier than usual. I had an advisor, took all the classes and did an internship; I had even excelled in school for the first time since elementary school.
At first I had assumed that I wouldn't be accepted as I had done miserably at my first college, and never completed a semester during the year I went to NYU. It was easier to hide from the admissions office and myself, and go to school non-matric. In 1970's Boston people could do things like that.
I had completed all the course work, and Boston in 1975 was a city undergoing major racial problems, and really it wasn't home. Two years earlier, at 22, I had visited my sister, Elka for the weekend. at her shared-for-the-summer, Cambridge triple decker, met the people in the duplex on the other side, moved in with them, began waitressing at a diner Elka worked at, and accidentally moved there.
Cambridge no longer felt exciting to me, and I found the Boston school desegregation to be profoundly depressing.
I needed to be back in New York with my friends from my first college. I needed the New York sarcasm and sensibility, even if my parents lived on Long Island, and officially I was living in their house. Hell I even missed Waldbaums, in the strip mall near the development, where my mother had taught me to pick out fresh fruit years before, as I hadn't lived there since high school.
It hadn't been difficult for my father to find out that I hadn't graduated from school. Though I had been living a lie for two years I wasn't very good at important lies; and my parents had always been able to see through me. Sometimes it felt as if my body was transparent to them; they always say through the part of my brain that wasn't covered in moss muck.
My father, Max Savage, CPA, investor, store owner, high stakes poker player, and professional father had arranged for me to be matriculated, after the fact, and get my diploma the following spring. It helped that the professors in the department had liked me; I had even been accepted to the grad school in Urban Studies and would be given nine of my undergrad credits. Max had arranged the acceptance and begged me to go..
As all my friends had left Cambridge which had become filled with hippies who were at least six years behind the times, Boston was plain unacceptable, and most of my friends were in New York having a great time, I refused Max's offer to pay for both school and living expenses.
When I had been living in Cambridge then Boston, he had paid for school; I paid for everything else. Since I still had the money from my very short marriage which basically consisted of the wedding, worked, and paid little in rent, it had been almost affordable.
Courting Destiny Pia Savage
My best girlfriend from my first college, Shelby, had been a waitress at Max's, and was now an assistant art director at a large publishing house. She quickly found me a job at Wondrous Wearable Art where her boyfriend, David was the sales director.
Wondrous Wearable made airbrushed and sequined tee and sweat shirts of the great divas of the day including Barbara, Liza and Diana. The cotton was good but the fit was loose. I neither took nor owned one as I couldn’t understand why any straight woman would want to wear a gay icon on their chest, but as quickly as we could make them they flew out the door and into New York's better boutiques.
For somebody who had been living a lie for two years I was amazingly honest. The one and only thing I had ever stolen were books in Junior High. My mom had soon discovered that and her disappointment in me had been punishment enough.
Wondrous Wearable wasn't exactly a career move. Minimum wage was two dollars an hour; most of my friends made a dollar or two an hour over minimum wage in assistant management positions, where they were learning careers, at reputable publishing houses, department stores and movie studios. I made $250 a week; off the books which made my father even more angry.
As Assistant to the President, Neil, most of my job consisted of answering the phone and telling people that Neil was in a meeting, out to lunch or a variety of other stories. In reality he was in his office shooting heroin and having sex with a wide variety of classless girls who were my age or younger and already needed extensive dental work.
There was nothing charming about Neil. His long hair was greasy and stringy; his face was pockmarked and if I had met him on the street I would have considered him a bum who could easily try to pick pocket me. At my first college I had known people who died from heroin overdoses. I thought heroin was a stupid loser drug.
I spent most of my day with the art director, Phil, who drank brandy, smoked joints and bad mouthed Neil. The smell of the brandy would make me want to puke but I would smoke with him. Phil and David made sure that the company ran; I made sure that people thought Neil was really running it.
My job wasn't demanding but I was scared to look for a real one. I was afraid that any real interviewer would look at me and see that I was a fraud. How was I supposed to explain why I didn't yet have a college degree?
I couldn't even work a mimeograph machine, answer a switchboard, or type on an electric typewriter without making a mistake a word. I wasn't fat, but I had breasts and hips when my girlfriends were lacking in the breast/hip department, and had long legs that went on forever. I wanted their bodies. They wanted my nose
The one thing that was perfect about me was my nose. Having grown up in a Jewish/some Italian world, this failed to impress me. My face was supposed to be angelic; I wanted character. My eyes were deep set and changed color with my mood
and or clothes. My cheekbones could be Slavic or Irish. I knew that men found me to be appealing but I couldn't understand why.
Shelby was one of my ideal beauties. Shelby had perfect round check bones, huge eyes and a generous mouth. She had a Dr. Rose nose job, the previous spring; though I thought she had been even more beautiful before it.
In our Junior year of high school half the girls in my class had Dr Rose nose jobs. They had gone in with pictures of my nose and ended with slightly too short nose bones with perky tipped nostrils that flared upward. I could always tell a Dr. Rose nose as they looked nothing like a natural nose.
I almost never snorted coke as I didn't want anything ruining the one perfect thing about me. Shelby wasn't really into David; she was a girl who always needed a boyfriend, and had been slightly jealous of me since my on again off again college boyfriend had insisted that we get married shortly after I had arrived home from traveling in Europe with people I met on the plan and a six month stay in Israel, in what should have been my Junior Senior years at school.
There was one problem. We didn't marry each other; we married our idealized person. Wasn't either of our faults. It's easy to be in love with a dream but not easy to be married to it/
If you're here from Michele's welcome! Thanks for stopping by and this post is a bit long even for me, but it's worth it.
Ever since my parents had discovered that I hadn't actually graduated from college as I hadn't applied, our relationship had been frostier than usual. I had an advisor, took all the classes and did an internship; I had even excelled in school for the first time since elementary school.
At first I had assumed that I wouldn't be accepted as I had done miserably at my first college, and never completed a semester during the year I went to NYU. It was easier to hide from the admissions office and myself, and go to school non-matric. In 1970's Boston people could do things like that.
I had completed all the course work, and Boston in 1975 was a city undergoing major racial problems, and really it wasn't home. Two years earlier, at 22, I had visited my sister, Elka for the weekend. at her shared-for-the-summer, Cambridge triple decker, met the people in the duplex on the other side, moved in with them, began waitressing at a diner Elka worked at, and accidentally moved there.
Cambridge no longer felt exciting to me, and I found the Boston school desegregation to be profoundly depressing.
I needed to be back in New York with my friends from my first college. I needed the New York sarcasm and sensibility, even if my parents lived on Long Island, and officially I was living in their house. Hell I even missed Waldbaums, in the strip mall near the development, where my mother had taught me to pick out fresh fruit years before, as I hadn't lived there since high school.
It hadn't been difficult for my father to find out that I hadn't graduated from school. Though I had been living a lie for two years I wasn't very good at important lies; and my parents had always been able to see through me. Sometimes it felt as if my body was transparent to them; they always say through the part of my brain that wasn't covered in moss muck.
My father, Max Savage, CPA, investor, store owner, high stakes poker player, and professional father had arranged for me to be matriculated, after the fact, and get my diploma the following spring. It helped that the professors in the department had liked me; I had even been accepted to the grad school in Urban Studies and would be given nine of my undergrad credits. Max had arranged the acceptance and begged me to go..
As all my friends had left Cambridge which had become filled with hippies who were at least six years behind the times, Boston was plain unacceptable, and most of my friends were in New York having a great time, I refused Max's offer to pay for both school and living expenses.
When I had been living in Cambridge then Boston, he had paid for school; I paid for everything else. Since I still had the money from my very short marriage which basically consisted of the wedding, worked, and paid little in rent, it had been almost affordable.
Courting Destiny Pia Savage
My best girlfriend from my first college, Shelby, had been a waitress at Max's, and was now an assistant art director at a large publishing house. She quickly found me a job at Wondrous Wearable Art where her boyfriend, David was the sales director.
Wondrous Wearable made airbrushed and sequined tee and sweat shirts of the great divas of the day including Barbara, Liza and Diana. The cotton was good but the fit was loose. I neither took nor owned one as I couldn’t understand why any straight woman would want to wear a gay icon on their chest, but as quickly as we could make them they flew out the door and into New York's better boutiques.
For somebody who had been living a lie for two years I was amazingly honest. The one and only thing I had ever stolen were books in Junior High. My mom had soon discovered that and her disappointment in me had been punishment enough.
Wondrous Wearable wasn't exactly a career move. Minimum wage was two dollars an hour; most of my friends made a dollar or two an hour over minimum wage in assistant management positions, where they were learning careers, at reputable publishing houses, department stores and movie studios. I made $250 a week; off the books which made my father even more angry.
As Assistant to the President, Neil, most of my job consisted of answering the phone and telling people that Neil was in a meeting, out to lunch or a variety of other stories. In reality he was in his office shooting heroin and having sex with a wide variety of classless girls who were my age or younger and already needed extensive dental work.
There was nothing charming about Neil. His long hair was greasy and stringy; his face was pockmarked and if I had met him on the street I would have considered him a bum who could easily try to pick pocket me. At my first college I had known people who died from heroin overdoses. I thought heroin was a stupid loser drug.
I spent most of my day with the art director, Phil, who drank brandy, smoked joints and bad mouthed Neil. The smell of the brandy would make me want to puke but I would smoke with him. Phil and David made sure that the company ran; I made sure that people thought Neil was really running it.
My job wasn't demanding but I was scared to look for a real one. I was afraid that any real interviewer would look at me and see that I was a fraud. How was I supposed to explain why I didn't yet have a college degree?
I couldn't even work a mimeograph machine, answer a switchboard, or type on an electric typewriter without making a mistake a word. I wasn't fat, but I had breasts and hips when my girlfriends were lacking in the breast/hip department, and had long legs that went on forever. I wanted their bodies. They wanted my nose
The one thing that was perfect about me was my nose. Having grown up in a Jewish/some Italian world, this failed to impress me. My face was supposed to be angelic; I wanted character. My eyes were deep set and changed color with my mood
and or clothes. My cheekbones could be Slavic or Irish. I knew that men found me to be appealing but I couldn't understand why.
Shelby was one of my ideal beauties. Shelby had perfect round check bones, huge eyes and a generous mouth. She had a Dr. Rose nose job, the previous spring; though I thought she had been even more beautiful before it.
In our Junior year of high school half the girls in my class had Dr Rose nose jobs. They had gone in with pictures of my nose and ended with slightly too short nose bones with perky tipped nostrils that flared upward. I could always tell a Dr. Rose nose as they looked nothing like a natural nose.
I almost never snorted coke as I didn't want anything ruining the one perfect thing about me. Shelby wasn't really into David; she was a girl who always needed a boyfriend, and had been slightly jealous of me since my on again off again college boyfriend had insisted that we get married shortly after I had arrived home from traveling in Europe with people I met on the plan and a six month stay in Israel, in what should have been my Junior Senior years at school.
There was one problem. We didn't marry each other; we married our idealized person. Wasn't either of our faults. It's easy to be in love with a dream but not easy to be married to it/
The first time I met Rafe 07/15/05
Rafe came over tonight. Some of you know that he's one of my two best friends; straight, married, owns a Madison Avenue hair salon. Something about me attracts Madison Ave hair stylists as I've been friends with many since I was eighteen. Might have something to do with my very thick almost unnameable hair.
We talked about the first time we met. Lucia was working as a temp hair salon receptionist while she waited for her job as manager of an architectural plaster company and store in Nolita to begin. She called to tell me about an incredible hair stylist who had to cut my hair.
Rafe was adorable, but his hair slid down my back and began touching me. I slapped him. He was shocked as no woman had done that before. He's Colombian, macho male personified. He's also one of the most sensitive caring people that I know; if I had only seen his macho side I would have missed out on one of the best friendships that I have ever had.
Twenty years ago, I taught Rafe that, yes, you can respect women, and yes you can be platonic friends. We almost slid once, but laughed too hard. His wife is my friend; it would have been incest. Yick.
At first my mother would ask many questions as she found it fascinating and unusual. Of course, she understood my friendships with gay males.
Did point out that both she and my father had friends of the opposite sex, and what made that any different? I did stay at Rafe's house, and he visits until very late. We spur each other on, and are always there for each other during good and bad times. Think people need more friendships like ours.
Could be wrong.
Last night I was groping for this sentence: do most people think platonic friendships can work between men and women when both are in couples?
I have just been given some very interesting gossip about my building that explains why nothing in this luxe Upper West Side coop makes sense. Now everything does. My confidential source is extremely reliable. Will not name this source though said source got it straight from Fernando the doorman--no source isn't Rafe or Lucia. This will be my weekend post. Can't wait to put it in!
Oh yes, Lucia accused me of being a platonic man stealer. Did say she met him first, as she called me to tell me about him. Am going to do a series on Lucia, Rafe and Pia sit around and shoot the bull. Actually much more exciting than it sounds. Really.
We talked about the first time we met. Lucia was working as a temp hair salon receptionist while she waited for her job as manager of an architectural plaster company and store in Nolita to begin. She called to tell me about an incredible hair stylist who had to cut my hair.
Rafe was adorable, but his hair slid down my back and began touching me. I slapped him. He was shocked as no woman had done that before. He's Colombian, macho male personified. He's also one of the most sensitive caring people that I know; if I had only seen his macho side I would have missed out on one of the best friendships that I have ever had.
Twenty years ago, I taught Rafe that, yes, you can respect women, and yes you can be platonic friends. We almost slid once, but laughed too hard. His wife is my friend; it would have been incest. Yick.
At first my mother would ask many questions as she found it fascinating and unusual. Of course, she understood my friendships with gay males.
Did point out that both she and my father had friends of the opposite sex, and what made that any different? I did stay at Rafe's house, and he visits until very late. We spur each other on, and are always there for each other during good and bad times. Think people need more friendships like ours.
Could be wrong.
Last night I was groping for this sentence: do most people think platonic friendships can work between men and women when both are in couples?
I have just been given some very interesting gossip about my building that explains why nothing in this luxe Upper West Side coop makes sense. Now everything does. My confidential source is extremely reliable. Will not name this source though said source got it straight from Fernando the doorman--no source isn't Rafe or Lucia. This will be my weekend post. Can't wait to put it in!
Oh yes, Lucia accused me of being a platonic man stealer. Did say she met him first, as she called me to tell me about him. Am going to do a series on Lucia, Rafe and Pia sit around and shoot the bull. Actually much more exciting than it sounds. Really.
Riffing on Max's letter to me on my 16th birthday 10/23/05
My sister reads me two letters that she has found among our father's papers. One was a letter to me on my 16th birthday. By the end, both my sister and I were crying. He loved me so purely.
My sister must tell me that he never wrote a letter to her like that. I respond:
"since he never gave it to me, does it count?"
Both of us know it does. The letter is very beautiful; my dad talks about the joy I have given my parents, and how wonderful I was despite our differences, because of my compassion, caring and generosity.
He talked about what a beautiful wonderful baby I had been.
As I was perfect up to the age of nine, it has always been hard for me to compete with Pia, the very early days in family lore.
My rebellion against my dad had begun in earnest two years earlier and would last nine more years. My father's temper was fierce; he was always right.
It's hard for a daughter to admit that she's the person her father most loved in the world. He loved my mother very very much. He never tried to do anything yucky to me. I don't know why I feel compelled to add the last two sentences, but if I don't...people might add that to the list of my immoral acts.
I was almost forced into rebellion by his raging love; and have never regreted a moment of the rebellious years. Despite myself at times, I was independent and strong. In order not to be swallowed by want to live my life for me and to protect me, I had to maintain my distance. My dad understood.
Even in high school I had a whole other seperate city life. My parents didn't try to keep me in the suburbs. The Village beckoned and greeted me with open arms as it did so many other teenagers. I knew my dad was secretly proud that I fit in so well there, and had stopped caring what the people in our suburb thought of me when I finished Junior High. Actually I cared too much but wouldn't let anybody know that.
We always stayed in touch, and saw each other. When I lived in Cambridge, and took statistics during the summer so that it would be shorter, I would fly to New York almost every weekend so that he could tutor me.
Somehow statistics made sense to me. We would talk about them in the larger context of life. For the first time, my dad, the CPA, investor, large stake poker player, and owner of four successful stores, saw that I had a good business head. Statistics helped our rapprochement.
My father wouldn't have been suprised that I breezed through the statistical part of my full year grad research course, and did even better in post grad statistical research. It's all done on computer and is a matter of knowing what figures to plug in and why. My dad had given much more difficult assignments years before that weren't done on computer.
My sister seems to remember his temper more and more now; I never forgot it so it was easier for me to confront my feelings about it. Uh, therapy on and off my whole life until ten years ago helped also. As does the knowledge that my dad helped make the world a more fun, nicer place.
My father was compassionate, caring and generous. When people asked him for help he almost always complied; and if he didn't, there was a damn good reason.
I realize that I'm talking in abstractions. It's so easy to record the fights; and so hard to record the good times. For several years before his death I asked if I could video him. He always said no. Now I understand that though he was in good health he wanted to stave off the kinehorah (evil eye) by not recording his memories.
I will explore our fights. There were some great ones
My sister must tell me that he never wrote a letter to her like that. I respond:
"since he never gave it to me, does it count?"
Both of us know it does. The letter is very beautiful; my dad talks about the joy I have given my parents, and how wonderful I was despite our differences, because of my compassion, caring and generosity.
He talked about what a beautiful wonderful baby I had been.
As I was perfect up to the age of nine, it has always been hard for me to compete with Pia, the very early days in family lore.
My rebellion against my dad had begun in earnest two years earlier and would last nine more years. My father's temper was fierce; he was always right.
It's hard for a daughter to admit that she's the person her father most loved in the world. He loved my mother very very much. He never tried to do anything yucky to me. I don't know why I feel compelled to add the last two sentences, but if I don't...people might add that to the list of my immoral acts.
I was almost forced into rebellion by his raging love; and have never regreted a moment of the rebellious years. Despite myself at times, I was independent and strong. In order not to be swallowed by want to live my life for me and to protect me, I had to maintain my distance. My dad understood.
Even in high school I had a whole other seperate city life. My parents didn't try to keep me in the suburbs. The Village beckoned and greeted me with open arms as it did so many other teenagers. I knew my dad was secretly proud that I fit in so well there, and had stopped caring what the people in our suburb thought of me when I finished Junior High. Actually I cared too much but wouldn't let anybody know that.
We always stayed in touch, and saw each other. When I lived in Cambridge, and took statistics during the summer so that it would be shorter, I would fly to New York almost every weekend so that he could tutor me.
Somehow statistics made sense to me. We would talk about them in the larger context of life. For the first time, my dad, the CPA, investor, large stake poker player, and owner of four successful stores, saw that I had a good business head. Statistics helped our rapprochement.
My father wouldn't have been suprised that I breezed through the statistical part of my full year grad research course, and did even better in post grad statistical research. It's all done on computer and is a matter of knowing what figures to plug in and why. My dad had given much more difficult assignments years before that weren't done on computer.
My sister seems to remember his temper more and more now; I never forgot it so it was easier for me to confront my feelings about it. Uh, therapy on and off my whole life until ten years ago helped also. As does the knowledge that my dad helped make the world a more fun, nicer place.
My father was compassionate, caring and generous. When people asked him for help he almost always complied; and if he didn't, there was a damn good reason.
I realize that I'm talking in abstractions. It's so easy to record the fights; and so hard to record the good times. For several years before his death I asked if I could video him. He always said no. Now I understand that though he was in good health he wanted to stave off the kinehorah (evil eye) by not recording his memories.
I will explore our fights. There were some great ones
Electric Haired Chick--same piece again, but first an intro that is longer than most posts, and very classic ramble around the world with Pia 10/24/05
After the longest intro in the blogging world is the post that I had written last weekend to keep in all week while I read books, watched TV and did other totally superficial and horrifying home things. But life never turns out as planned so I did none of that, and took this off the first page as soon as possible because I didn't want to see it. However, I do like it. And in writing it, I worked out what was bothering me, and got to thank a few people with shout outs and some more with just names because I'm too tired. But duh, to summarize, what was wrong, a week ago Friday was the fourth anniversary of my mom's death which was just a month after that day--and I got it through and wrote the story that follows late Saturday night and y'all know the rest.
If there is anything wrong with being vain and wanting to retain youth, as in being able to travel, exercise, go out to restaurants, museums, beaches, and walk many miles a day until I am really old, do leave a comment.
Just realized why this upset me so much. I had gone through the fourth anniversary of 9/11 which also serves to remind me each year of the day that is coming 10/14. Felt really good about myself. Had the oral surgery and came home to crash...
Who the hell thinks they have a right to come onto my blog and to ask me what my purpose in life right now is? Then he smugly retorts his purpose is to take care of his son and support his wife, and he doesn't have to look any further.
So because I'm not married nor have kids am I supposed to devote my life to higher nobler purposes? Maybe I have. Or am I still supposed to be searching for a purpose? I explore life in my posts and maybe look for some things bigger than myself in some of my posts. In others I don't. That's my right. It's also my right not to brag about things I do that directly help other people because that's personal. If I sound vague, it's on purpose.
Not every Mitzvah has to be talked about; but if you look in my categories....I left a lucrative career in private industry to become an SSI Claims Rep. Didn't think I was doing enough so I went to grad school--paid for it all by myself too--and became a geriatric social worker. Or is that devoid of purpose and meaning?
Should we just throw old people away? And what was that about me not be able to face the passing of my youth? Hey when you work in ancient non-renovated nursing home give me a holler. Because I faced aging and death every damn day. Didn't include this before because it's all over my blog. Please tell me again how superficial, self serving and devoid of meaning my life is. Maybe my blog is my release; maybe I like to be multi-faceted. Maybe it's you noble right wingers who really live the shallow lives. I sure don't. Picked the exact wrong person at the exact wrong time to insult, and you did insult me. Threatening me with "I have friends," was funny. Because so do I; but I don't go around saying that; they just show up
I feel that this person was insulting all people who don't have a spouse and children. That angers me because it doesn't mean that we're devoid of purpose or of beliefs.
I am a "popular" blogger. I didn't set out to be one. I began my blog for writing practice. My blog just grew on its own. Unlike the very popular radical right blogs--and I'm not saying that I'm in their "popularity league," nor would I want to be, a wide variety of people read me. Maybe this is a higher purpose. Yeah I would want to be as popular as my friend, Mrs. M., but I'm not willing to do all the work she does, and our blogs are very different. That doesn't mean we don't like or respect each other; quite the opposite actually. She would have kicked "G" where it hurt, and just gone on.
No, I'm not warm and fuzzy, and have a cute blog with cute sayings. Though most people find me empathatic when they know me I don't try to be on my blog. One of the things that I like about Mrs. M is that she invented a new blogging genre, warm, fuzzy and edgy
I did let this affect me more than it should have because I was in pain until Saturday, and let G's comment affect me too much as I totally forgot that I had been through much the prior week.
Writing the following story made me happy and was part of my getting over my sadness at my mom's death which as too many of you know was very sudden and very sad. This year the anniversary was the day after Yom Kippur, the most solemn day in the Jewish year, but also a time for new beginnings. I wasn't in the mood to reflect this past week. I wanted to celebrate despite of the surgery, or perhaps because I braved it.
It's difficult for me to understand how people can think I'm shallow when so much of my blog is devoted to causes--and I'm not talking politics. But aging ,well it's just not cool; neither is wanting to see people in America unite. Because my causes aren't your causes they're just not important to you. Myopia is very sad.
It's weird because I never actually thought of vanity as an issue particular to Democrats; I do remember Pat Nixon, and Nancy Reagan doesn't look bad. Betsy Bloomingdale, I can go on with a list of influential Republican women who think you can never be too rich or too thin, but that might upset "G's world view. And they're had children, and are usually the right religion, so they mean something.
No I don't have issues about not having children. I made that decision a long time ago not because I'm selfish but because I'm not. I won't try to explain that--the reasons are all over my blog. Excuse me, if analyzing decisions and coming to them after much thought seem to be self centered. And anybody can get married, and most people can have children. Said most people not all.
Seems to me that takes little thought; Ally is one of my real heros because I know how much she wants a child, and how much she is willing to sacrifice for one. Her child will be very very lucky.
You see when you read blogs that aren't just political or aren't political at all, you get to know a person, and his or her aspirations. Dan, too tired to shout you out now, will soon. You, Jane, JC have over come problems that are almost beyond my comprehension. Almost. Have to stop all the shout outs now. Okay will continue tomorrow or Wednesday as Marinade Dave, Bone, Fat Lady--can't call you that; it's like calling TB the Bastard, you have all helped so much--and many more people. Have to comprise a list and check it twice. And Cranky who I could never call anything but Cranky or the Crank for short, going to get you to debate Doug and a few other people I mentioned--because they're not all "liberal."
Actually I always thought we liberals were supposed to be frumpy, wear old odd clothes and always carry a PBS bag. Maybe it's only middle aged Democrats who aren't supposed to be vain nor have a past that they don't hide.
I also thought and will continue to think that vanity helps a person age better. This ensures taking care of yourself. Aging is an issue we don't talk about enough nor do we have enough middle aged heros on TV, in movies or even in most best selling books. When people give their age and call me narcissitic for not getting with the program and embracing being older, I have to ask them what they've done to help age being embraced? I am writing my truth; not getting older is so much fun, as it presents problems and challenges that were once unimaginable to me.
I don't write about menopause; I'm not a red-hat society type lady. Also I prefer writing about my past with only glimpses into the present as I don't like writing about people who are currently in my life with a few notable exceptions.
As I'm not married nor have children, I must be looking for immortality through my writing. Truth, every writer looks for immortality through writing. It rarely happens. I understand and accept that. Most people look for immortality through something. I have written as to why to expect it from your children is silly.
We usually live in memories as long as there are people around to talk about us. Might not be your kid who can't stand you, but the kid around the corner who spends 50 years talking about how mean you were one Halloween, and the story goes from his child to her child to somebody who knows your great grandson and tells him a funny anecdote about the mean neighbor his great grandparent couldn't stand. Life's funny that way
I do feel blog shy right now, and no, am not looking for comments backing me, nor am I feeling blog shy because people picked up on my "issues." I am feeling blog shy because I have written in my blog every day for the past year, and am tired of the whole blogging thing. Need some perspective. Will really get around to comments, really!!!!!!!!!!!
Understand this: I will never be ashamed of who I am or who I was. I have banned one person from commenting for being an overt racist. I have been trying to get away from politics in Courting, sometimes I just can't help myself. Let me also say that I don't care about cursing. I't's so over used that it lost all meaning to me. I do believe in not being judgemental or nasty in comments in a personal blog. It serves no purpose but to gratify the commenter's ego. I am very tired; have eaten one yogurt today, and still have much to do so I don't know if I'm making sense.
That all said: This is one of my personal favorite stories, and I hope you like it. If you have read it please pick something from the Courting archives, though knowing me I'll be back on Tuesday . Wow, if I weren't so in need of food with some bite to it I would be feeling great. The funny thing is that I only get angry on the Internet.
In real life I'm the smiling person who tries to make people's lives easier. I have been staying away from politics on purpose. Fall used to be my favorite time of year after summer, favorite in a different way; now it's tinged with memories that I had finally come to terms with. While my blog might be public; comments shouldn't be malicious.
I just can't deal with it right now. I really wasn't expecting a personalized attack on my character. I wrote a damn story; didn't think I had to put a disclaimer on it.
All you people who still believe that I'm superficial, not working for a higher purpose, live only for myself and my own happiness--do leave a comment. Because I'm not in pain any more, and don't know why I expected myself to be productive when I wasn't supposed to be. Bad work ethic. Much as I miss my mom, that horrible pain began dissapating last year, and she now occupies the space in my heart next to my dad.
No matter how much this rambles, I like it, I really like it. Thank you all. And I promise that I won't change a thing about me.
One day it hits you; you are truly middle aged, and rapidly getting older. But you can't be you think, you're a baby boomer. You're vital, you're healthy, you're funny, you have disposal income or income you dispose of anyway.
You don't have to put a kid through college; only save enough for you. Problem is you like to spend money. You do believe that living well is the best revenge, but you are saved from being put into the museum of conspicous spending by helping people when they're having a tough time without being asked.
You realize all the absurdities and rationales in your thinking. Face it you're a middle aged single childless woman who in a Barbara Pym novel would be wearing cardigans, wool skirts, wool stockings or something that they darned themselves. You're a goddamned spinister; though you are divorced so probably technically not.
Darning socks or sewing anything is something that you have never attempted as you failed sewing in Seventh Grade even with your mother's help.
Your mother had hated to sew because her mother made all her clothes. You thought that she should have hated to cook but she loved it, and assigned you and your sister to permanent salad detail. You have to admit that you make the best salads anywhere.
It's just that ten years ago they made fun of baby boomers in a VW Bug commercial. Okay they always make fun of baby boomers; everything is blamed on baby boomers.
When you were 30 everybody was getting married or remarried; you were living with Zachary and wouldn't keep knives in the house for fear that you would use it on him.
You think about this as your friend Nick comes over. He's dressed in a fitted exaggerated pin strip suit and looks very good, with his short hair slicked back. A man's hair has always been very important to you. You freely admit to being shallow when it comes to men which is why you really don't trust yourself with one.
He manages a good restaurant in the neighborhood and is young enough to be your son. Actually he manages the restaurant for his Uncle Albert who was your friend years before you met Nick.
Albert's gene pool is half Irish half Italian; he would have been good breeding material for the baby you never had. It would probably be better if he were half Greek half Italian as you're half Irish by birth and think it's great to mix the gene pool up. You just heard today from your half Turkish, Half East Indian friend, Jasmin. She is no longer working in Katmandu; but in New Dehli, as Director of another UN agency. She and Per had the most handsome, intelligent sons.
You and Jasmin often talked about how mutts made the most intelligent people as you partied the night away. She was the biggest pary animal you ever knew and that's saying something. The Cambridge years were pure fun. When you think of them now, there were so many more hours in the day. You could work full time, go to school full time, actually study and go out at least five nights a week.
Once at Zeldas, a disco in Boston, some glitter from a hot sock became embedded in a blister that you got from your sandal becoming too tight as you danced the night away. Hot socks were great, but unlike boots you couldn't keep your money, cigarettes and keys in them. Though some hotsocks were very thick and seemingly made to be a pocket book.
You ended up in the emergency room at Mass General several days later as you only had a gyn. For some reason the other women in the room all seemed to be prostitutes so when you explained that glitter from your hot sock had ended up in your toe and it was infected, you didn't sound crazy. You had the same last name as a prominent surgeon at Mass General and for some reason all the nurses assumed that you were his daughter. You let them assume this as the prostitutes were talking your head off. Most of them knew you by sight as they and the transvestites seemed to be the only women who could afford the gowns in the store you worked on.
The store was on Boylston near Saks and on the other side The Public Gardens. It was a very easy commute from Harvard Square. You and Jasmin would laugh at the world known distinguished Harvard Professors, who were friends of her father, and would meet at the entrance to the Red Line to wait until ten AM when the subway fare went down to a dime. Was it only for senior citizens? You think not but can't remember.
Yes during your glitter rock days you had a glitter hot sock emergency. You're damn proud of it. And you won't be eligible for senior citizen discounts for a long while, and damned if you're going to look like you're ready. After you finish your very extensive dental work, you'll have your lip plumped. You don't really need botox; even doctors tell you that. You're perfect home micro dembrasion material, and you've been doing that forever. It just seemed right.
You haven't seen your natural hair color in three decades; it's something that you can't believe you used to do for fun. Every shade of red known in the universe, and many that had never seen nature until they met your hair which had always been a force of nature. Now it's brown with almost beige hilights. Suits you.
In your first college, almost everybody but you went to the same psychologist. The first time he saw you, he dubbed you "space chick with the electric hair." Even at nineteen you knew there was something sleazy and not ethical about a psycholgist who discussed you with his patients, telling one what another had said. It all came back to you through the student body president and coffee house founder, who had a bad thing for you, and originated the conversation.
When you told your off again on again boyfriend or he who played a bazillion roles in your life about this several years ago he strongly disagreed with the "space chick" part. Funny, you had always found it funny because you know you can appear spacy. You both agreed "electric hair" was too perfect.
No you're not going to go into older middle age gracefully. You're going to be damn vain; it's going to all be about you. You'll make your mother's ghost proud.
You're a baby boomer which means that you both played by the rules and rewrote them. You can take care of yourself; you only need men for fun. And with that you look at Nick, smile, and ask what he wants to drink.
Put this in because I felt like writing it and then of course need an audience. Please don't hate me if I don't read blogs for a few days; please! Was a bit tipsy when I wrote it
If there is anything wrong with being vain and wanting to retain youth, as in being able to travel, exercise, go out to restaurants, museums, beaches, and walk many miles a day until I am really old, do leave a comment.
Just realized why this upset me so much. I had gone through the fourth anniversary of 9/11 which also serves to remind me each year of the day that is coming 10/14. Felt really good about myself. Had the oral surgery and came home to crash...
Who the hell thinks they have a right to come onto my blog and to ask me what my purpose in life right now is? Then he smugly retorts his purpose is to take care of his son and support his wife, and he doesn't have to look any further.
So because I'm not married nor have kids am I supposed to devote my life to higher nobler purposes? Maybe I have. Or am I still supposed to be searching for a purpose? I explore life in my posts and maybe look for some things bigger than myself in some of my posts. In others I don't. That's my right. It's also my right not to brag about things I do that directly help other people because that's personal. If I sound vague, it's on purpose.
Not every Mitzvah has to be talked about; but if you look in my categories....I left a lucrative career in private industry to become an SSI Claims Rep. Didn't think I was doing enough so I went to grad school--paid for it all by myself too--and became a geriatric social worker. Or is that devoid of purpose and meaning?
Should we just throw old people away? And what was that about me not be able to face the passing of my youth? Hey when you work in ancient non-renovated nursing home give me a holler. Because I faced aging and death every damn day. Didn't include this before because it's all over my blog. Please tell me again how superficial, self serving and devoid of meaning my life is. Maybe my blog is my release; maybe I like to be multi-faceted. Maybe it's you noble right wingers who really live the shallow lives. I sure don't. Picked the exact wrong person at the exact wrong time to insult, and you did insult me. Threatening me with "I have friends," was funny. Because so do I; but I don't go around saying that; they just show up
I feel that this person was insulting all people who don't have a spouse and children. That angers me because it doesn't mean that we're devoid of purpose or of beliefs.
I am a "popular" blogger. I didn't set out to be one. I began my blog for writing practice. My blog just grew on its own. Unlike the very popular radical right blogs--and I'm not saying that I'm in their "popularity league," nor would I want to be, a wide variety of people read me. Maybe this is a higher purpose. Yeah I would want to be as popular as my friend, Mrs. M., but I'm not willing to do all the work she does, and our blogs are very different. That doesn't mean we don't like or respect each other; quite the opposite actually. She would have kicked "G" where it hurt, and just gone on.
No, I'm not warm and fuzzy, and have a cute blog with cute sayings. Though most people find me empathatic when they know me I don't try to be on my blog. One of the things that I like about Mrs. M is that she invented a new blogging genre, warm, fuzzy and edgy
I did let this affect me more than it should have because I was in pain until Saturday, and let G's comment affect me too much as I totally forgot that I had been through much the prior week.
Writing the following story made me happy and was part of my getting over my sadness at my mom's death which as too many of you know was very sudden and very sad. This year the anniversary was the day after Yom Kippur, the most solemn day in the Jewish year, but also a time for new beginnings. I wasn't in the mood to reflect this past week. I wanted to celebrate despite of the surgery, or perhaps because I braved it.
It's difficult for me to understand how people can think I'm shallow when so much of my blog is devoted to causes--and I'm not talking politics. But aging ,well it's just not cool; neither is wanting to see people in America unite. Because my causes aren't your causes they're just not important to you. Myopia is very sad.
It's weird because I never actually thought of vanity as an issue particular to Democrats; I do remember Pat Nixon, and Nancy Reagan doesn't look bad. Betsy Bloomingdale, I can go on with a list of influential Republican women who think you can never be too rich or too thin, but that might upset "G's world view. And they're had children, and are usually the right religion, so they mean something.
No I don't have issues about not having children. I made that decision a long time ago not because I'm selfish but because I'm not. I won't try to explain that--the reasons are all over my blog. Excuse me, if analyzing decisions and coming to them after much thought seem to be self centered. And anybody can get married, and most people can have children. Said most people not all.
Seems to me that takes little thought; Ally is one of my real heros because I know how much she wants a child, and how much she is willing to sacrifice for one. Her child will be very very lucky.
You see when you read blogs that aren't just political or aren't political at all, you get to know a person, and his or her aspirations. Dan, too tired to shout you out now, will soon. You, Jane, JC have over come problems that are almost beyond my comprehension. Almost. Have to stop all the shout outs now. Okay will continue tomorrow or Wednesday as Marinade Dave, Bone, Fat Lady--can't call you that; it's like calling TB the Bastard, you have all helped so much--and many more people. Have to comprise a list and check it twice. And Cranky who I could never call anything but Cranky or the Crank for short, going to get you to debate Doug and a few other people I mentioned--because they're not all "liberal."
Actually I always thought we liberals were supposed to be frumpy, wear old odd clothes and always carry a PBS bag. Maybe it's only middle aged Democrats who aren't supposed to be vain nor have a past that they don't hide.
I also thought and will continue to think that vanity helps a person age better. This ensures taking care of yourself. Aging is an issue we don't talk about enough nor do we have enough middle aged heros on TV, in movies or even in most best selling books. When people give their age and call me narcissitic for not getting with the program and embracing being older, I have to ask them what they've done to help age being embraced? I am writing my truth; not getting older is so much fun, as it presents problems and challenges that were once unimaginable to me.
I don't write about menopause; I'm not a red-hat society type lady. Also I prefer writing about my past with only glimpses into the present as I don't like writing about people who are currently in my life with a few notable exceptions.
As I'm not married nor have children, I must be looking for immortality through my writing. Truth, every writer looks for immortality through writing. It rarely happens. I understand and accept that. Most people look for immortality through something. I have written as to why to expect it from your children is silly.
We usually live in memories as long as there are people around to talk about us. Might not be your kid who can't stand you, but the kid around the corner who spends 50 years talking about how mean you were one Halloween, and the story goes from his child to her child to somebody who knows your great grandson and tells him a funny anecdote about the mean neighbor his great grandparent couldn't stand. Life's funny that way
I do feel blog shy right now, and no, am not looking for comments backing me, nor am I feeling blog shy because people picked up on my "issues." I am feeling blog shy because I have written in my blog every day for the past year, and am tired of the whole blogging thing. Need some perspective. Will really get around to comments, really!!!!!!!!!!!
Understand this: I will never be ashamed of who I am or who I was. I have banned one person from commenting for being an overt racist. I have been trying to get away from politics in Courting, sometimes I just can't help myself. Let me also say that I don't care about cursing. I't's so over used that it lost all meaning to me. I do believe in not being judgemental or nasty in comments in a personal blog. It serves no purpose but to gratify the commenter's ego. I am very tired; have eaten one yogurt today, and still have much to do so I don't know if I'm making sense.
That all said: This is one of my personal favorite stories, and I hope you like it. If you have read it please pick something from the Courting archives, though knowing me I'll be back on Tuesday . Wow, if I weren't so in need of food with some bite to it I would be feeling great. The funny thing is that I only get angry on the Internet.
In real life I'm the smiling person who tries to make people's lives easier. I have been staying away from politics on purpose. Fall used to be my favorite time of year after summer, favorite in a different way; now it's tinged with memories that I had finally come to terms with. While my blog might be public; comments shouldn't be malicious.
I just can't deal with it right now. I really wasn't expecting a personalized attack on my character. I wrote a damn story; didn't think I had to put a disclaimer on it.
All you people who still believe that I'm superficial, not working for a higher purpose, live only for myself and my own happiness--do leave a comment. Because I'm not in pain any more, and don't know why I expected myself to be productive when I wasn't supposed to be. Bad work ethic. Much as I miss my mom, that horrible pain began dissapating last year, and she now occupies the space in my heart next to my dad.
No matter how much this rambles, I like it, I really like it. Thank you all. And I promise that I won't change a thing about me.
One day it hits you; you are truly middle aged, and rapidly getting older. But you can't be you think, you're a baby boomer. You're vital, you're healthy, you're funny, you have disposal income or income you dispose of anyway.
You don't have to put a kid through college; only save enough for you. Problem is you like to spend money. You do believe that living well is the best revenge, but you are saved from being put into the museum of conspicous spending by helping people when they're having a tough time without being asked.
You realize all the absurdities and rationales in your thinking. Face it you're a middle aged single childless woman who in a Barbara Pym novel would be wearing cardigans, wool skirts, wool stockings or something that they darned themselves. You're a goddamned spinister; though you are divorced so probably technically not.
Darning socks or sewing anything is something that you have never attempted as you failed sewing in Seventh Grade even with your mother's help.
Your mother had hated to sew because her mother made all her clothes. You thought that she should have hated to cook but she loved it, and assigned you and your sister to permanent salad detail. You have to admit that you make the best salads anywhere.
It's just that ten years ago they made fun of baby boomers in a VW Bug commercial. Okay they always make fun of baby boomers; everything is blamed on baby boomers.
When you were 30 everybody was getting married or remarried; you were living with Zachary and wouldn't keep knives in the house for fear that you would use it on him.
You think about this as your friend Nick comes over. He's dressed in a fitted exaggerated pin strip suit and looks very good, with his short hair slicked back. A man's hair has always been very important to you. You freely admit to being shallow when it comes to men which is why you really don't trust yourself with one.
He manages a good restaurant in the neighborhood and is young enough to be your son. Actually he manages the restaurant for his Uncle Albert who was your friend years before you met Nick.
Albert's gene pool is half Irish half Italian; he would have been good breeding material for the baby you never had. It would probably be better if he were half Greek half Italian as you're half Irish by birth and think it's great to mix the gene pool up. You just heard today from your half Turkish, Half East Indian friend, Jasmin. She is no longer working in Katmandu; but in New Dehli, as Director of another UN agency. She and Per had the most handsome, intelligent sons.
You and Jasmin often talked about how mutts made the most intelligent people as you partied the night away. She was the biggest pary animal you ever knew and that's saying something. The Cambridge years were pure fun. When you think of them now, there were so many more hours in the day. You could work full time, go to school full time, actually study and go out at least five nights a week.
Once at Zeldas, a disco in Boston, some glitter from a hot sock became embedded in a blister that you got from your sandal becoming too tight as you danced the night away. Hot socks were great, but unlike boots you couldn't keep your money, cigarettes and keys in them. Though some hotsocks were very thick and seemingly made to be a pocket book.
You ended up in the emergency room at Mass General several days later as you only had a gyn. For some reason the other women in the room all seemed to be prostitutes so when you explained that glitter from your hot sock had ended up in your toe and it was infected, you didn't sound crazy. You had the same last name as a prominent surgeon at Mass General and for some reason all the nurses assumed that you were his daughter. You let them assume this as the prostitutes were talking your head off. Most of them knew you by sight as they and the transvestites seemed to be the only women who could afford the gowns in the store you worked on.
The store was on Boylston near Saks and on the other side The Public Gardens. It was a very easy commute from Harvard Square. You and Jasmin would laugh at the world known distinguished Harvard Professors, who were friends of her father, and would meet at the entrance to the Red Line to wait until ten AM when the subway fare went down to a dime. Was it only for senior citizens? You think not but can't remember.
Yes during your glitter rock days you had a glitter hot sock emergency. You're damn proud of it. And you won't be eligible for senior citizen discounts for a long while, and damned if you're going to look like you're ready. After you finish your very extensive dental work, you'll have your lip plumped. You don't really need botox; even doctors tell you that. You're perfect home micro dembrasion material, and you've been doing that forever. It just seemed right.
You haven't seen your natural hair color in three decades; it's something that you can't believe you used to do for fun. Every shade of red known in the universe, and many that had never seen nature until they met your hair which had always been a force of nature. Now it's brown with almost beige hilights. Suits you.
In your first college, almost everybody but you went to the same psychologist. The first time he saw you, he dubbed you "space chick with the electric hair." Even at nineteen you knew there was something sleazy and not ethical about a psycholgist who discussed you with his patients, telling one what another had said. It all came back to you through the student body president and coffee house founder, who had a bad thing for you, and originated the conversation.
When you told your off again on again boyfriend or he who played a bazillion roles in your life about this several years ago he strongly disagreed with the "space chick" part. Funny, you had always found it funny because you know you can appear spacy. You both agreed "electric hair" was too perfect.
No you're not going to go into older middle age gracefully. You're going to be damn vain; it's going to all be about you. You'll make your mother's ghost proud.
You're a baby boomer which means that you both played by the rules and rewrote them. You can take care of yourself; you only need men for fun. And with that you look at Nick, smile, and ask what he wants to drink.
Put this in because I felt like writing it and then of course need an audience. Please don't hate me if I don't read blogs for a few days; please! Was a bit tipsy when I wrote it
The Gambler's Woman 09/06/05
When she first appeared on the recording I gasped. She was the woman I had imagined when I read Dorothy Parker's Big Blonde. When Virginia Madsen played the girlfriend then wife in Raging Bull, my mind instantly made some minor adjustments to fit the picture embedded in it.
All my life when I had seen blonde, buxomy, big framed, big teethed with even bigger smile mobster's molls, my mind would make similiar minor adjustments. Sometimes I was even aware that I was doing this, and would wonder why for a half second or so.
My great-uncle Izzy died when I was five. Apparently I was fond of him, and would run to be picked up and deposited in his lap. I have absolutely no memory of Uncle Izzy. That is strange. He's a blank canvas in my childhood diaroma which was filled with vivid brightly colored images.
My mother's mother was a Communist, feminist, designer, amazing cook, candy store owner, the marrying type, and altogether fabulous. Her three daughters all embodied her various aspects. On the surface, my mother was the most conventional; she was a cute bright suburban housewife who followed her strong husband in everything, but inside she was almost as radical as her bohemian, intellectual middle sister; their youngest sister is a Jewish, Buddhist, Beatnik-hippie, new age, artist, craftsperson, conceptual artist--if it's been in vogue over the past 50 years, my Aunt Elaine's either been a member or participant in it, or has five friends who had been.
All three sisters married strong men who thought that staying home with kids was a pleasure and privelege. (We were all great kids, ;-) My mom's middle sister, Belle's husband Harry stayed home, painted, cooked and took care of the kids while she worked. Even my dad, a CPA, worked from home one or usually two days a week while my mom would go out.
My mother's aunt managed The Marlin Hotel on West Eighth Street. When I was in high school my father took me to meet her; the meeting ended quickly as she invited me to move in. Omigod Bob Dylan had lived there; it was so tempting. As much as I delighted in finding ways to flaunt my parents's few rules, running away from home wasn't an option.
One of my mother's cousins was a gay accountant who had to flee the country. I assumed that he fled because of sodomy charges, but, my mother laughed when I said that. He had embezeled money from his employer to pay a gambling debt. I always knew that some men were gay and assumed everybody else did and accepted it. I would have been surprised if nobody was gay, in my mother's family
Gambling run in both my parents families though it seems to have bypassed almost everybody in my generation and the subsequent one. We're perfect; no we have other bad habits and problems.
Uncle Izzy was a gambler who would go away; as in gone back upstate but not to the horses. The horses seemed to be integral to my paternal grandfather's family. I never remember hearing "going to the track." It was always "going to the horses." For the four or so months a year my grandmother lived in a bungalow colony in Monticello, it was off the road and about half mile up from the horses. My paternal grandmother's weakness was penny poker. She wouldn't let me play, the summer, my punishment for being caught with pot in the house, was a long visit with her. I didn't even think about defying my parents and going to stay with my aunt in The Marlin. My dad hated the horses; he was high stake poker and the stock market; he only liked things that he felt he could absolutely control.
Some of my father's family had lived in Monticello and surrounding smaller towns forever. Though my family only went up once or twice a year for weekends, everybody knew me. If it weren't for my grandmother, I would have felt very comfortable there. But she was determined to save me from a life of sin.
I don't really remember the three summers my family stayed in a bungalow colony. I turned four the last summer. I only remember being surrounded by laughing people most older than me and feeling very loved. I have specific memories but they mainly involve laughing at my little sister for trying to put blueberries back on the bush.
We moved to a garden apartment complex in Northern Queens that was filled with baby boomers, and we never spent the summer in the mountains again.
Uncle Izzie died when I was five. My relatives think he was married to Sophie, the blonde I have always put into books, movies and TV shows as the perfect mobster's moll; my sister and I had been told that they lived together. Maybe my father thought it was more romantic that way. Though my sister refuses to believe this, he had been known to change details for the sake of a good story.
Gambling was part of the fabric of the community when my dad was growing up in East Harlem and the mountains in the summer. Nobody thought it was a sin. During prohibition my dad would ocassionally go to Montauk with the bootlegger to pick up cases off the ship. I was enamored with that; and a bit jealous as a child that I wouldn't have that opportunity. Supposedly the floor I lived in on East 63rd Street was a fancy speak easy from the time the building was first built until the end of prohibition. Don't know if that story is true or not but I like to think it is.
Last night I began to tell my sister and family, my John Gotti story. We had stopped by an amazing looking restaurant with a psychic in the window, a beautiful deco prohibition motif, an incredible area outside in back where you don't have to look at the traffic on the street. Yes I mentioned this restaurant yesterday. One of my newly discovered cousins is the chef/part owner; and he's adorable.
I don't know how the speakeasy theme was picked but I love it; it's perfect for a member of my family. We had all been brought up to have a bit of an outlaw personality in us. I think John Gotti was horrible and would never want to romanticize him. But I was in love with the images of the mob from stories my father told or books. My sister also has a romanticized notion of that era; most people I know do. It was more glamorous, more dangerous, mostly poorer yet somehow better. People enjoyed each other then. They talked, went out and weren't home glued to one monitor or another.
I never really got into the John Gotti story, because fave niece who will be eleven in a few weeks asked if he dressed poorly.
"No," I said, "actually he was called 'the dapper don,' because he dressed so well." I went on to describe his suits, and she looked confused. I finally understood.
"Most gangsters don't look like Tony Soprano."
"Oh," she said, 'I thought they did."
My niece is a milenium child. Thanks to The Sopranos which she hasn't watched yet but has heard the sountrack and read articles, my niece and her generation won't refrence Elliot Ness, The Godfather, Goodfellas. The stories won't be from our fathers and grandfathers who had actually been kids then but from us who knew them through the gauze that somehow filters our memories so that we remember the most mundane or the most spectacular events never the ordinary.
I don't ever remember meeting Sophie, but I have known her all my life. She is my idealized mobster's moll.
I needed to write something not hurricane related at all. This is very raw, and in classic pia style, all over the world, or Manhattan and the Catskills. I had a wonderful day today and hope to have another day outside tomorrow, because this weather is a gift. It's a cliche to say we have all learned so much. I really do appreciate the people in my life much more now. I hope that lasts.
All my life when I had seen blonde, buxomy, big framed, big teethed with even bigger smile mobster's molls, my mind would make similiar minor adjustments. Sometimes I was even aware that I was doing this, and would wonder why for a half second or so.
My great-uncle Izzy died when I was five. Apparently I was fond of him, and would run to be picked up and deposited in his lap. I have absolutely no memory of Uncle Izzy. That is strange. He's a blank canvas in my childhood diaroma which was filled with vivid brightly colored images.
My mother's mother was a Communist, feminist, designer, amazing cook, candy store owner, the marrying type, and altogether fabulous. Her three daughters all embodied her various aspects. On the surface, my mother was the most conventional; she was a cute bright suburban housewife who followed her strong husband in everything, but inside she was almost as radical as her bohemian, intellectual middle sister; their youngest sister is a Jewish, Buddhist, Beatnik-hippie, new age, artist, craftsperson, conceptual artist--if it's been in vogue over the past 50 years, my Aunt Elaine's either been a member or participant in it, or has five friends who had been.
All three sisters married strong men who thought that staying home with kids was a pleasure and privelege. (We were all great kids, ;-) My mom's middle sister, Belle's husband Harry stayed home, painted, cooked and took care of the kids while she worked. Even my dad, a CPA, worked from home one or usually two days a week while my mom would go out.
My mother's aunt managed The Marlin Hotel on West Eighth Street. When I was in high school my father took me to meet her; the meeting ended quickly as she invited me to move in. Omigod Bob Dylan had lived there; it was so tempting. As much as I delighted in finding ways to flaunt my parents's few rules, running away from home wasn't an option.
One of my mother's cousins was a gay accountant who had to flee the country. I assumed that he fled because of sodomy charges, but, my mother laughed when I said that. He had embezeled money from his employer to pay a gambling debt. I always knew that some men were gay and assumed everybody else did and accepted it. I would have been surprised if nobody was gay, in my mother's family
Gambling run in both my parents families though it seems to have bypassed almost everybody in my generation and the subsequent one. We're perfect; no we have other bad habits and problems.
Uncle Izzy was a gambler who would go away; as in gone back upstate but not to the horses. The horses seemed to be integral to my paternal grandfather's family. I never remember hearing "going to the track." It was always "going to the horses." For the four or so months a year my grandmother lived in a bungalow colony in Monticello, it was off the road and about half mile up from the horses. My paternal grandmother's weakness was penny poker. She wouldn't let me play, the summer, my punishment for being caught with pot in the house, was a long visit with her. I didn't even think about defying my parents and going to stay with my aunt in The Marlin. My dad hated the horses; he was high stake poker and the stock market; he only liked things that he felt he could absolutely control.
Some of my father's family had lived in Monticello and surrounding smaller towns forever. Though my family only went up once or twice a year for weekends, everybody knew me. If it weren't for my grandmother, I would have felt very comfortable there. But she was determined to save me from a life of sin.
I don't really remember the three summers my family stayed in a bungalow colony. I turned four the last summer. I only remember being surrounded by laughing people most older than me and feeling very loved. I have specific memories but they mainly involve laughing at my little sister for trying to put blueberries back on the bush.
We moved to a garden apartment complex in Northern Queens that was filled with baby boomers, and we never spent the summer in the mountains again.
Uncle Izzie died when I was five. My relatives think he was married to Sophie, the blonde I have always put into books, movies and TV shows as the perfect mobster's moll; my sister and I had been told that they lived together. Maybe my father thought it was more romantic that way. Though my sister refuses to believe this, he had been known to change details for the sake of a good story.
Gambling was part of the fabric of the community when my dad was growing up in East Harlem and the mountains in the summer. Nobody thought it was a sin. During prohibition my dad would ocassionally go to Montauk with the bootlegger to pick up cases off the ship. I was enamored with that; and a bit jealous as a child that I wouldn't have that opportunity. Supposedly the floor I lived in on East 63rd Street was a fancy speak easy from the time the building was first built until the end of prohibition. Don't know if that story is true or not but I like to think it is.
Last night I began to tell my sister and family, my John Gotti story. We had stopped by an amazing looking restaurant with a psychic in the window, a beautiful deco prohibition motif, an incredible area outside in back where you don't have to look at the traffic on the street. Yes I mentioned this restaurant yesterday. One of my newly discovered cousins is the chef/part owner; and he's adorable.
I don't know how the speakeasy theme was picked but I love it; it's perfect for a member of my family. We had all been brought up to have a bit of an outlaw personality in us. I think John Gotti was horrible and would never want to romanticize him. But I was in love with the images of the mob from stories my father told or books. My sister also has a romanticized notion of that era; most people I know do. It was more glamorous, more dangerous, mostly poorer yet somehow better. People enjoyed each other then. They talked, went out and weren't home glued to one monitor or another.
I never really got into the John Gotti story, because fave niece who will be eleven in a few weeks asked if he dressed poorly.
"No," I said, "actually he was called 'the dapper don,' because he dressed so well." I went on to describe his suits, and she looked confused. I finally understood.
"Most gangsters don't look like Tony Soprano."
"Oh," she said, 'I thought they did."
My niece is a milenium child. Thanks to The Sopranos which she hasn't watched yet but has heard the sountrack and read articles, my niece and her generation won't refrence Elliot Ness, The Godfather, Goodfellas. The stories won't be from our fathers and grandfathers who had actually been kids then but from us who knew them through the gauze that somehow filters our memories so that we remember the most mundane or the most spectacular events never the ordinary.
I don't ever remember meeting Sophie, but I have known her all my life. She is my idealized mobster's moll.
I needed to write something not hurricane related at all. This is very raw, and in classic pia style, all over the world, or Manhattan and the Catskills. I had a wonderful day today and hope to have another day outside tomorrow, because this weather is a gift. It's a cliche to say we have all learned so much. I really do appreciate the people in my life much more now. I hope that lasts.
A prequel and a sequel to Zachary--Ft Greene Park 08/08/05
We never had to punish you, you always punished yourself my mother at least 10,000 times
The only person or thing holding you back is you my mother even more often
A year or so before I met Zachary in May 1979, my company moved to downtown Brooklyn. Those were bad times for New York; the subway schedule was erratic. It often took me an hour to get to work where before it had taken 25 minutes. Since I was basically paid to socialize I couldn't complain. The job would become more serious later but then we were on a holding pattern. I was often picked to work directly with the client, but the Friday I'm talking about I just had a few documents to code.
During lunch my supervisor and close friend Elena went to Fort Green Park with another group member, Dwayne. He had a joint and offered us some. I knew that many of my coworkers got stoned at breaks and lunch, but I had never joined the morning devotional services outside of St. Paul's Church when we had worked on Broadway. I wasn't morally repelled; I just wasn't interested. That afternoon I had a few tokes.
When we went back to work I was still stoned. It didn't affect my productivity; I just didn't enjoy it, and never did it again during working hours. Long after the statute of limitations was over I was to pay and pay for my one afternoon of decadent behavior. Elena and Dwayne forgot about it, and both went on to become lawyers. I'm cursed with a memory that forgets nothing I did wrong and am my own judge, jury and executioner.
Three weeks before lie detector tests were made illegal for pre-employment hiring, in December 1987 I passed a drug test and failed a lie detector test. The job was a glamorous one at a now defunct brokerage house, but I had my first interview on October 17, 1987, Black Monday, the day the stock market went down and wasn't to go up again for four years. My would be boss went through hoops to have the position opened for me. The HR person would call me almost daily and beg me not to go on other interviews. She would beg me not to tell my head hunter certain things. It felt messy and wrong. I wanted the job less and less as time progressed.
The morning of the drug test/lie detector test I woke up to the news that the brokerage house had merged with another. Felt weird. I went downtown, peed in the cup, and then went to the lie detector office. I was a very guilt ridden person who woul apologize to another person when the person bumped into me. That usually led to the person cursing me out.
Zachary had tried to cure me of feeling guilty. As I felt guilty about everything to do with our relationship that only made it worse. I'm not going to try to explain or rationalize my extreme feelings of guilt; it just was and sometimes still is.
The lie detector test office was old and on Wall Street. The tester looked like an ex-FBI agent; he didn't try to put me at ease. I had been told to answer the pre-lie detector test questions honestly. He began with questions about pot. Yes I had smoked it; no, I had never smoked at the workplace, but I explained about the day I smoked at the park. Stupid, yes very stupid.
He then began asking questions about other drugs. I couldn't stop looking at the antiquated lie detector equipment on the desk in the middle of the room. Had I ever done heroin? He pointed to his arm. I understood that meant had I ever shot up. Memories began flooding through my brain.
When I was in high school my boyfriend was a 28 year old hippie truck driver. One day he was going to introduce me to the wonders of heroin. I stood in his kitchen with my arm tied in a rag; I looked at the needle. I didn't want to do this and untied my arm and ran out of the apartment. He followed me out.
"I can't do that."
"Why not. It will make you forget everything."
That was just it; I didn't want to forget everything. I wanted to feel alive even if it meant feeling pain. But I didn't know how to explain it to him as I went back up. I felt as if I came from the land of spoiled princesses who didn't know how to appreciate the total hippie experience. But until I had met my boyfriend I hadn't been aware that shooting up was part of that experience.
Five years later after a megasecond marriage to my off and on college boyfriend I moved in with some girls I had known in school. I was going to my second college, working full time, and doing volunteer work so I was hardly ever home. It took me months to realize that they had turned into junkies; we had known junkies at college, some even hung at our house, I guess I was in denial until one day my friend Shelby who lived down the block and I entered my house unexpectly. They were all in the living room nodding out; a Cat Stevens album was going round and round on the turntable. Though the lease was in my name I moved out that day.
I had spent a lot of time avoiding heroin, and here I was taking a lie detector test, and the tester kept on going back and back to it. I don't know how long the pretesting interviewing lasted, probably just ten minutes or less though it felt like hours.
When he actually put the cuff on my elbow I was more scared than I ever had been in my life. Though I knew that if I just answered the questions honestly....
Then he asked "if you had ever done any drugs at the workplace?" No I hadn't; though I had seen enough people get high at various jobs, but I felt so confused and guilty, of course that I said I had done drugs at the workplace. I blew the interview and lost the job. If only they had waited three more weeks, the lie detector test would have been illegal. Many people who had really done drugs at the work place would have breezed through the test. I was innocent but convicted myself.
Even my parents found it funny. The company that had sent me on the interview offered me an assistant director job. I had been offered three other jobs and the president of the company thought that somebody who failed a lie detecter test must be somebody with substance. Never really did understand that, but took the job.
Most of the stories contained in this one will be explored in greater depth.
The only person or thing holding you back is you my mother even more often
A year or so before I met Zachary in May 1979, my company moved to downtown Brooklyn. Those were bad times for New York; the subway schedule was erratic. It often took me an hour to get to work where before it had taken 25 minutes. Since I was basically paid to socialize I couldn't complain. The job would become more serious later but then we were on a holding pattern. I was often picked to work directly with the client, but the Friday I'm talking about I just had a few documents to code.
During lunch my supervisor and close friend Elena went to Fort Green Park with another group member, Dwayne. He had a joint and offered us some. I knew that many of my coworkers got stoned at breaks and lunch, but I had never joined the morning devotional services outside of St. Paul's Church when we had worked on Broadway. I wasn't morally repelled; I just wasn't interested. That afternoon I had a few tokes.
When we went back to work I was still stoned. It didn't affect my productivity; I just didn't enjoy it, and never did it again during working hours. Long after the statute of limitations was over I was to pay and pay for my one afternoon of decadent behavior. Elena and Dwayne forgot about it, and both went on to become lawyers. I'm cursed with a memory that forgets nothing I did wrong and am my own judge, jury and executioner.
Three weeks before lie detector tests were made illegal for pre-employment hiring, in December 1987 I passed a drug test and failed a lie detector test. The job was a glamorous one at a now defunct brokerage house, but I had my first interview on October 17, 1987, Black Monday, the day the stock market went down and wasn't to go up again for four years. My would be boss went through hoops to have the position opened for me. The HR person would call me almost daily and beg me not to go on other interviews. She would beg me not to tell my head hunter certain things. It felt messy and wrong. I wanted the job less and less as time progressed.
The morning of the drug test/lie detector test I woke up to the news that the brokerage house had merged with another. Felt weird. I went downtown, peed in the cup, and then went to the lie detector office. I was a very guilt ridden person who woul apologize to another person when the person bumped into me. That usually led to the person cursing me out.
Zachary had tried to cure me of feeling guilty. As I felt guilty about everything to do with our relationship that only made it worse. I'm not going to try to explain or rationalize my extreme feelings of guilt; it just was and sometimes still is.
The lie detector test office was old and on Wall Street. The tester looked like an ex-FBI agent; he didn't try to put me at ease. I had been told to answer the pre-lie detector test questions honestly. He began with questions about pot. Yes I had smoked it; no, I had never smoked at the workplace, but I explained about the day I smoked at the park. Stupid, yes very stupid.
He then began asking questions about other drugs. I couldn't stop looking at the antiquated lie detector equipment on the desk in the middle of the room. Had I ever done heroin? He pointed to his arm. I understood that meant had I ever shot up. Memories began flooding through my brain.
When I was in high school my boyfriend was a 28 year old hippie truck driver. One day he was going to introduce me to the wonders of heroin. I stood in his kitchen with my arm tied in a rag; I looked at the needle. I didn't want to do this and untied my arm and ran out of the apartment. He followed me out.
"I can't do that."
"Why not. It will make you forget everything."
That was just it; I didn't want to forget everything. I wanted to feel alive even if it meant feeling pain. But I didn't know how to explain it to him as I went back up. I felt as if I came from the land of spoiled princesses who didn't know how to appreciate the total hippie experience. But until I had met my boyfriend I hadn't been aware that shooting up was part of that experience.
Five years later after a megasecond marriage to my off and on college boyfriend I moved in with some girls I had known in school. I was going to my second college, working full time, and doing volunteer work so I was hardly ever home. It took me months to realize that they had turned into junkies; we had known junkies at college, some even hung at our house, I guess I was in denial until one day my friend Shelby who lived down the block and I entered my house unexpectly. They were all in the living room nodding out; a Cat Stevens album was going round and round on the turntable. Though the lease was in my name I moved out that day.
I had spent a lot of time avoiding heroin, and here I was taking a lie detector test, and the tester kept on going back and back to it. I don't know how long the pretesting interviewing lasted, probably just ten minutes or less though it felt like hours.
When he actually put the cuff on my elbow I was more scared than I ever had been in my life. Though I knew that if I just answered the questions honestly....
Then he asked "if you had ever done any drugs at the workplace?" No I hadn't; though I had seen enough people get high at various jobs, but I felt so confused and guilty, of course that I said I had done drugs at the workplace. I blew the interview and lost the job. If only they had waited three more weeks, the lie detector test would have been illegal. Many people who had really done drugs at the work place would have breezed through the test. I was innocent but convicted myself.
Even my parents found it funny. The company that had sent me on the interview offered me an assistant director job. I had been offered three other jobs and the president of the company thought that somebody who failed a lie detecter test must be somebody with substance. Never really did understand that, but took the job.
Most of the stories contained in this one will be explored in greater depth.
A night at the 140 Club 08/05/05
Before Lucia and I were friends we hung with the same crowd of about 60 to 120 people who did most things together. One Friday night we were at The 140 Club, a dingy gross cheap smelly bar across the street from our office.
I should explain that we worked for a company that employed 240 people then; we were all basically the same age; single and this was 1978. The company then laid off half the staff; then hired about a thousand more people.
Neil was leaving to become a mailman. Most people left our job to go to grad school, become computer consultants, a Fortune 100 company or for adventure. Neil wasn't the brightest bulb in the place; he was so dim that he barely registered on my screen. He was in his mid 20's as were most of us. For some reason Marla, a 60something still beautiful supervisor was in love with him and they had been going out or doing whatever people did in 1978. I was one of the few people Marla approved of completely.
She liked my clothes. While they were funky they were good. Laura Ashley had opened around the corner from my apartment. At first her clothes didn't all have small flowers on them but were deep shades of red, blue, greens and other vivid yet subtle colors. The tee shirts were amazing; they were an incredible very thin textured cotton with thin satin piping around the neckline and sleeves. The three tiered skirts were made of a different cotton than the tees, and today would be called twirly skirts. Madonna would have loved them a few years later.
I had heart shaped sunglasses in red and purple, and a complete other wardrobe of all black with metal jewelry. My mom had given me a heavy necklace that looked like it was made of giant paper clips, and I had a watch made of safety pins. I was the most expensively dressed punk around.
I had won $1700 in an accident settlement and spent it all on clothes; it was the most amount of money I ever had at one time, then.
Joelle was at The 140 Club. Her father was president of one of the largest corporations in the USA; as she was always reminding us. I had been to Joelle's apartment. Over her bed she kept a pair of handcuffs, a whip and yes a chain. They weren't for show. On another wall she hung a white garter belt that looked too used and dirty. I never really understood why she considered that art, but my hippie Buddhist aunt made soft sculptures from girdles, so I believed that anything could be considered art.
Joelle was another one of my projects. It was an era when everybody had one night stands and I certainly did. But Joelle never dated anybody and had no real friends. She went from one man to another and I knew because they would laughingly tell me, not in detail because I was too nice, but I sort of got the gist that Joelle, willingly and often, did threesomes and anal sex. In the long ago '70s, if you did those things you did it with people who would be discreet. Joelle didn't realize that people were laughing both behind her back and in her face. Maybe she did; and I just didn't realize it.
My friend Elana and I accepted her dinner invitation. We were going to talk to her, and make her see that she could have friends without being everybody's screw. Only then we saw the handcuffs, whips, chains, garters, a dildo next to her bed and other sex toys. I had to explain to Elana what a dildo was and I only knew because when I had lived in Israel, a group of my friends stayed in a dingy hotel in Tel Aviv and we found one under a bed. We spent the evening in silence trying to pretend to eat the rancid food that might have been exposed to we had no idea what, but...I might have had a punk warddrobe and hung out at CBGB's and other punk clubs, but my punk world consisted of basically nice kids. Joelle was a nymph. Knew a few who all came from big bucks but none had Joelle's sleaziness.
I don't remember who I had come to the 140 Club with; I was drinking too many straight vodka shots and smoking too many cigarettes when Lowell, the timekeeper called me over. Lowell was ancient, an ex-army career sargent who seemed to spend his entire life screaming about people being a minute or two late to work (at a time when the subways were very undependable) or falling off bar stools. We didn't like each other and neither of us pretended to. While I was walking from the bar stool I wasn't falling off, I saw him motion to Lucia to come over. I was tipsy enough for nothing to surprise me. Or so I thought.
Lowell put his arms around Lucia and me, and in a very slurred said:
"You girls are crazy; but you're classy. You'd neva do thiss..."(I'm bad at drunk dialogue.)
He pointed to under a table.
I think Lucia and I stood there with our mouths open. We had never seen two people doing what Neil and Joelle were doing under the table. Their tops were unbottoned; their bottom clothes were at their knees, and they were humping.
I didn't know what to do. Lowell wouldn't let go of Lucia and I as he continued telling us what wonderful girls we were. Somehow I knew come Monday morning, both Lucia and I would be late and he would scream at us again.
I got away from Lowell, said good night to a few dozen people, got my coat and wondered into the cold dark night to find a cab on Broadway. Neil walked out after me and offered me a ride home.
"Uh, no, I'll find a cab thanks."
He followed me and tried insisting but a cab stopped and I jumped into it. I thought as little as I could about that night. But three years later I worked at a new company that Marla was part owner of. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't talk to me for years as I remembered how much she had once liked me. She had people beg me to work there, and somebody snuck me a copy of a review of my manager that said the only thing saving my manager from being fired was me.
One day my boyfriend (the one who took me to the spot where his father killed himself) asked me if it were true that I had ever slept with one of Marla's boyfriends.
"What?" My face crunched up in disbelief. He began to tell me a story and I realized that it was of that night. Apparently Neil had said that he wanted to sleep with me and ran after me as I left. Marla had never seen him again.
I was very insulted. I would never ever sleep with such an ugly stupid twerp and told that to my boyfriend. Marla began speaking to me again but after so many years we could never say more than hello and good bye.
I still feel weird knowing that there are people in the world who think that I might have thought of sleeping with somebody who was not only ugly and stupid but had just finished humping somebody in a bar with at least 20 people watching and 200 more people standing around. Yick.
I should explain that we worked for a company that employed 240 people then; we were all basically the same age; single and this was 1978. The company then laid off half the staff; then hired about a thousand more people.
Neil was leaving to become a mailman. Most people left our job to go to grad school, become computer consultants, a Fortune 100 company or for adventure. Neil wasn't the brightest bulb in the place; he was so dim that he barely registered on my screen. He was in his mid 20's as were most of us. For some reason Marla, a 60something still beautiful supervisor was in love with him and they had been going out or doing whatever people did in 1978. I was one of the few people Marla approved of completely.
She liked my clothes. While they were funky they were good. Laura Ashley had opened around the corner from my apartment. At first her clothes didn't all have small flowers on them but were deep shades of red, blue, greens and other vivid yet subtle colors. The tee shirts were amazing; they were an incredible very thin textured cotton with thin satin piping around the neckline and sleeves. The three tiered skirts were made of a different cotton than the tees, and today would be called twirly skirts. Madonna would have loved them a few years later.
I had heart shaped sunglasses in red and purple, and a complete other wardrobe of all black with metal jewelry. My mom had given me a heavy necklace that looked like it was made of giant paper clips, and I had a watch made of safety pins. I was the most expensively dressed punk around.
I had won $1700 in an accident settlement and spent it all on clothes; it was the most amount of money I ever had at one time, then.
Joelle was at The 140 Club. Her father was president of one of the largest corporations in the USA; as she was always reminding us. I had been to Joelle's apartment. Over her bed she kept a pair of handcuffs, a whip and yes a chain. They weren't for show. On another wall she hung a white garter belt that looked too used and dirty. I never really understood why she considered that art, but my hippie Buddhist aunt made soft sculptures from girdles, so I believed that anything could be considered art.
Joelle was another one of my projects. It was an era when everybody had one night stands and I certainly did. But Joelle never dated anybody and had no real friends. She went from one man to another and I knew because they would laughingly tell me, not in detail because I was too nice, but I sort of got the gist that Joelle, willingly and often, did threesomes and anal sex. In the long ago '70s, if you did those things you did it with people who would be discreet. Joelle didn't realize that people were laughing both behind her back and in her face. Maybe she did; and I just didn't realize it.
My friend Elana and I accepted her dinner invitation. We were going to talk to her, and make her see that she could have friends without being everybody's screw. Only then we saw the handcuffs, whips, chains, garters, a dildo next to her bed and other sex toys. I had to explain to Elana what a dildo was and I only knew because when I had lived in Israel, a group of my friends stayed in a dingy hotel in Tel Aviv and we found one under a bed. We spent the evening in silence trying to pretend to eat the rancid food that might have been exposed to we had no idea what, but...I might have had a punk warddrobe and hung out at CBGB's and other punk clubs, but my punk world consisted of basically nice kids. Joelle was a nymph. Knew a few who all came from big bucks but none had Joelle's sleaziness.
I don't remember who I had come to the 140 Club with; I was drinking too many straight vodka shots and smoking too many cigarettes when Lowell, the timekeeper called me over. Lowell was ancient, an ex-army career sargent who seemed to spend his entire life screaming about people being a minute or two late to work (at a time when the subways were very undependable) or falling off bar stools. We didn't like each other and neither of us pretended to. While I was walking from the bar stool I wasn't falling off, I saw him motion to Lucia to come over. I was tipsy enough for nothing to surprise me. Or so I thought.
Lowell put his arms around Lucia and me, and in a very slurred said:
"You girls are crazy; but you're classy. You'd neva do thiss..."(I'm bad at drunk dialogue.)
He pointed to under a table.
I think Lucia and I stood there with our mouths open. We had never seen two people doing what Neil and Joelle were doing under the table. Their tops were unbottoned; their bottom clothes were at their knees, and they were humping.
I didn't know what to do. Lowell wouldn't let go of Lucia and I as he continued telling us what wonderful girls we were. Somehow I knew come Monday morning, both Lucia and I would be late and he would scream at us again.
I got away from Lowell, said good night to a few dozen people, got my coat and wondered into the cold dark night to find a cab on Broadway. Neil walked out after me and offered me a ride home.
"Uh, no, I'll find a cab thanks."
He followed me and tried insisting but a cab stopped and I jumped into it. I thought as little as I could about that night. But three years later I worked at a new company that Marla was part owner of. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't talk to me for years as I remembered how much she had once liked me. She had people beg me to work there, and somebody snuck me a copy of a review of my manager that said the only thing saving my manager from being fired was me.
One day my boyfriend (the one who took me to the spot where his father killed himself) asked me if it were true that I had ever slept with one of Marla's boyfriends.
"What?" My face crunched up in disbelief. He began to tell me a story and I realized that it was of that night. Apparently Neil had said that he wanted to sleep with me and ran after me as I left. Marla had never seen him again.
I was very insulted. I would never ever sleep with such an ugly stupid twerp and told that to my boyfriend. Marla began speaking to me again but after so many years we could never say more than hello and good bye.
I still feel weird knowing that there are people in the world who think that I might have thought of sleeping with somebody who was not only ugly and stupid but had just finished humping somebody in a bar with at least 20 people watching and 200 more people standing around. Yick.
Love, lust or something like that 08/06/05
When Zachary would look at me or just touch my shoulder my body would forget that it was part of a larger world. He wanted to protect me and I wanted to be protected. Most of my life people had considered me too independent; now I wasn't.
He would take his hands and push his fingers together to show how we were two people, seperate but better together. My body believed him; I had never been so willing or compliant before. Though I disliked public displays of affection, I would let him kiss me on street corners, in stores, on the entrance to our apartment. We were forever entangled together as one.
Then he would call me "pum'kin." I would shudder; the mood spoiled. Terms of endearment were just so many words to me. I tried to explain how meaningless I found the verbiage, but he would never listen. Or maybe not understand.
I had never been easy to read. I wanted to be. Most women I knew wanted to be as loved as much as he loved me. People thought that we were the perfect couple.
I couldn't explain nor did I try to tell the feelings that had flooded over me the first morning when I tried to leave to go to work:
"Stop," he said not once but at least five times as he barricaded himself at the door, "you're a prisoner of love."
Was I the first woman to feel repelled? Was it normal to feel that way? As hard as I would try I couldn't bury the feelings. But when he touched me my body responded as it never had before. I felt somewhat distant from myself; and somewhat more in tune than ever. Was it normal to be schiziod? I felt as if I had never been in love or lust before. It was amazing; it was a gift. And I wanted to run; but I needed to stay even more.
Lowell, the timekeeper, glared at me as I came to work a half hour late. My manager couldn't stop smiling:
"You're in love, finally."
"Lust, I think it's called."
That night Zachery and I spoke on the phone for four hours, and the next day somehow seamlessly we moved in together.
He would take his hands and push his fingers together to show how we were two people, seperate but better together. My body believed him; I had never been so willing or compliant before. Though I disliked public displays of affection, I would let him kiss me on street corners, in stores, on the entrance to our apartment. We were forever entangled together as one.
Then he would call me "pum'kin." I would shudder; the mood spoiled. Terms of endearment were just so many words to me. I tried to explain how meaningless I found the verbiage, but he would never listen. Or maybe not understand.
I had never been easy to read. I wanted to be. Most women I knew wanted to be as loved as much as he loved me. People thought that we were the perfect couple.
I couldn't explain nor did I try to tell the feelings that had flooded over me the first morning when I tried to leave to go to work:
"Stop," he said not once but at least five times as he barricaded himself at the door, "you're a prisoner of love."
Was I the first woman to feel repelled? Was it normal to feel that way? As hard as I would try I couldn't bury the feelings. But when he touched me my body responded as it never had before. I felt somewhat distant from myself; and somewhat more in tune than ever. Was it normal to be schiziod? I felt as if I had never been in love or lust before. It was amazing; it was a gift. And I wanted to run; but I needed to stay even more.
Lowell, the timekeeper, glared at me as I came to work a half hour late. My manager couldn't stop smiling:
"You're in love, finally."
"Lust, I think it's called."
That night Zachery and I spoke on the phone for four hours, and the next day somehow seamlessly we moved in together.
Hey Good Lookin' 08/7/05
Hey good lookin', what you got cookin,' how about cookin' somethin' up for me
While I'm walking on the Boardwalk, I hear somebody singing that and it still makes smile so many years later. Zachary would sing it to me and it would send chills up my spine. Boys and men had been looking at me forever, but nobody had ever seemed to pierce my soul before. It humbled me, and excited me, and made me forget that other people existed.
He would always sing it during one of his very infrequent public appearances; usually a pity performance somebody arranged for me. For some reason I knew many club owners, managers, bartenders and/or bouncers. Thought that every sorta pretty girl did. While I took my status for granted, I never understood it, and spent endless megayears analyzing my appeal. That couldn't have been a very attractive trait. I analyzed everything to death and beyond, and even then knew I was wasting my time.
When I was in a bad mood or had a cold, Zachary thought that I could be ugly in the way only beautiful women could be. That wasn't very helpful.
Most people I knew turned to EST or Life Spring or some other new age miracle method in a quest to understand their inner selves. I turned to my inner self, pot and sex, especially once I met Zachary. In sex we were equal or more; in sex Zachary didn't endlessly repeat sentences, in sex I didn't lecture and/or analyze.
hey good looking All it took was that one phrase, and I was his.
While I'm walking on the Boardwalk, I hear somebody singing that and it still makes smile so many years later. Zachary would sing it to me and it would send chills up my spine. Boys and men had been looking at me forever, but nobody had ever seemed to pierce my soul before. It humbled me, and excited me, and made me forget that other people existed.
He would always sing it during one of his very infrequent public appearances; usually a pity performance somebody arranged for me. For some reason I knew many club owners, managers, bartenders and/or bouncers. Thought that every sorta pretty girl did. While I took my status for granted, I never understood it, and spent endless megayears analyzing my appeal. That couldn't have been a very attractive trait. I analyzed everything to death and beyond, and even then knew I was wasting my time.
When I was in a bad mood or had a cold, Zachary thought that I could be ugly in the way only beautiful women could be. That wasn't very helpful.
Most people I knew turned to EST or Life Spring or some other new age miracle method in a quest to understand their inner selves. I turned to my inner self, pot and sex, especially once I met Zachary. In sex we were equal or more; in sex Zachary didn't endlessly repeat sentences, in sex I didn't lecture and/or analyze.
hey good looking All it took was that one phrase, and I was his.
Zachary drove a cab 08/16/05
Zach was a cab driver when we first met. He told me this almost defiantly as if he expected me to recoil in horror.
My uncle and his brother were cab drivers. I loved going to The Paradise cafeteria on Park Avenue South which was a cab driver and punk hangout. They gave you a ticket when you first entered and each item you selected was punched on the card. I liked cab drivers they were part of my world and my history and I took one almost every night from some place or another.
In the New York of the late 1970's, college graduates couldn't get jobs commensurate with their abilities and skills. I was a supervisor at Summit then but no coders were working there out of a love for coding large scale litigation documents.
Almost everybody was really something else: an actor, a writer, artist, or waiting for a professional job to come through. I had no ambitions past doing well in my job. It was stupid because I was bright and should have had a master plan, but I couldn't see past the day. If I had been capable of long range planning my life would have been completely different. But none of the very expensive psychiatrists I saw were able to diagnosis or totally understand my problems aside from acute anxiety that manifested as hyperness, an inability to organize my surroundings or my person, and a myriad of other problems that should have stopped me but spurred me on.
The flip side of my problems was an ability to see other peoples strengths and weaknesses and to organize them so that they worked both willingly and beyond expectations. The irony didn't escape me. I was always waiting for another me to come and tell me what I was great at.
While Zachary believed that his life was over because the two records he made before he was 25 hadn't been big sellers; I thought that my life was just beginning. Only I wasn't sure what was beginning aside from Zachary and me.
He told me that when he drove, he didn't stop for all passengers. I found that unbelievable; his songs were all about oppression. How could he write one thing and be an oppresor himself? Yes I knew that there were unbelievably bad neighborhoods, but didn't all people deserve to ride in cabs? When I would see Black people, especially old ones, or women of all ages and anybody with kids, I would insist that they stand on the street, while I got the cab for them. Cab drivers raced to pick me up.
I made $16,640 a year plus overtime. Since my rent was only $325 a month and my father insisted on putting money in my bank account each month I lived very well. It was difficult for me to accept my dad's help. It felt like he was trying to buy me though the only decision he directly influenced was my acceptance of the apartment on 63rd Street off Fifth.
My father didn't believe in introducing me to potential employers, backers or rock stars. He had this strange belief that as long as my sister and I were working we were entitled to be parentally subsidized. It made me uncomfortable. I wasn't so uncomfortable that I refused to spend the money or saved most of it.
Though I knew he loved me much and was proud of me because he talked about me a lot, and did introduce me to clients, including some incredibly famous ones, he never helped me get a job. That he thought was my responsibility. I thought he must have been ashamed of me on some levels. After the fact, I learned he had refused a production job a friend had offerered on a long playing Broadway rock musical. That angered me. But did I seek jobs like that out myself? No of course not. My father was forever dropping hints about reading manuscripts for films in slush piles at film studio's. I felt too old to do it.
Though I yelled at Zachary for feeling life was almost over; I couldn't conceive of starting over again at such a low rung. No way could I picture it. That's probably horrible as I have an ear or brain or sense for what's going to be trendy. My sister still tells me that I should get a job with Faith Popcorn. And I always knew if a book could make a good film and picture a film manuscript as a finished product.
But I resented my father from coming between me and so many opportunties. It wasn't as if I were working for a Fortune 100 company. My company's client was very powerful. My father urged me to apply to work for them. But I was the fraud from outer space so I didn't think that they would hire me; even after two of their top employees told me, seperately, that my application would be a formality. I had a hard enough time believing that I had actually graduated college, let alone a good university.
I had accepted the apartment on East 63rd Street because I wanted a good relationship with my father. And we had a great one. But I resented being the daughter of a man who cared too much and was still trying to determine what was good for me. I can't say how much I resented him not telling me about the job for the musical; I would have given anything for him to introduce me to somebody he knew and say:
'This is my daughter Pia. She's exceptionally bright, quick to learn, and has a great head for business."
I know he knew all that for he was forever telling me about his business problems. I could size up a situation quickly and had much common sense. He loved my answers. Then why did my dad who knew so many famous people not let me interview with them? Did he think I would screw it up? I would at times become angry at moving to a neighborhood that really belonged to the world not the residents. Most people had at least one other home. I needed a vibrant neighborhood; and I never considered the business district to be one, just crowded beyond comfort.
An apartment in the Upper West Side or The Village would have been so much more me. I couldn't conceive of living in a loft in Soho; they all needed much work, and I'm about as handy as my father who spent 40 years waiting for the super to magically appear in his suburban manse. Tribeca was just beginning its ascent and while I loved the area more than Soho, there was the raw space problem, or worse, having to convert it from a factory space. While I had spent all of high school waiting to graduate so that I could move to the West Village I have never desired living there in my adult life. It was a father approved part of town.
He had gone to NYU and took us to The Village often when we were kids. I had been encouraged to go to the city and hang in The Village unlike most of the girls in my class who went to The Miracle Mile, in Manhasset, on Satudays. Since there was no bus and we were too young to drive, they had to be driven. At thirteen I found that childlike and boring.
If I hadn't been a rebel rock chick would I have been at the club that beautiful Sunday afternoon?
I wasn't particularly idealistic; politics had stopped feeling meaningful to me, but I worked in a neighborhood that wasn't particularly great. I wondered if growing up in New Orleans had made Zachary prejudiced in a subconcious level. We didn't have our first fight over his refusal to pick certain people up. I was too in love with the way he made me feel.
Long before I met him I would get cabs for Black people and others who had trouble getting one. Cabs would almost get into accidents with each other in their haste to pick me up. I was the universal uptown/downtown girl. Though I was shorter and more curvy than most models, I was forever being mistaken for a model or soap star. While I didn't really notice everybody else seemed to. Some told me about it then; others much later. I never really understood it, though I had to believe it.
Zachary would call me between fifteen and twenty times a day to tell me about his latest plan to get rich; or to complain about how life was out to get him. He had talked Lucinda into sending a demo tape to a music publisher/producer and now she was almost hot, and he was cold as the ice in my defrost it with buckets of boiling water, refrigrator.
My company was hiring coders; I got him a job. I thought that it might help center him; he would have interesting people to talk to. And he wouldn't have to drive a cab anymore.
My uncle and his brother were cab drivers. I loved going to The Paradise cafeteria on Park Avenue South which was a cab driver and punk hangout. They gave you a ticket when you first entered and each item you selected was punched on the card. I liked cab drivers they were part of my world and my history and I took one almost every night from some place or another.
In the New York of the late 1970's, college graduates couldn't get jobs commensurate with their abilities and skills. I was a supervisor at Summit then but no coders were working there out of a love for coding large scale litigation documents.
Almost everybody was really something else: an actor, a writer, artist, or waiting for a professional job to come through. I had no ambitions past doing well in my job. It was stupid because I was bright and should have had a master plan, but I couldn't see past the day. If I had been capable of long range planning my life would have been completely different. But none of the very expensive psychiatrists I saw were able to diagnosis or totally understand my problems aside from acute anxiety that manifested as hyperness, an inability to organize my surroundings or my person, and a myriad of other problems that should have stopped me but spurred me on.
The flip side of my problems was an ability to see other peoples strengths and weaknesses and to organize them so that they worked both willingly and beyond expectations. The irony didn't escape me. I was always waiting for another me to come and tell me what I was great at.
While Zachary believed that his life was over because the two records he made before he was 25 hadn't been big sellers; I thought that my life was just beginning. Only I wasn't sure what was beginning aside from Zachary and me.
He told me that when he drove, he didn't stop for all passengers. I found that unbelievable; his songs were all about oppression. How could he write one thing and be an oppresor himself? Yes I knew that there were unbelievably bad neighborhoods, but didn't all people deserve to ride in cabs? When I would see Black people, especially old ones, or women of all ages and anybody with kids, I would insist that they stand on the street, while I got the cab for them. Cab drivers raced to pick me up.
I made $16,640 a year plus overtime. Since my rent was only $325 a month and my father insisted on putting money in my bank account each month I lived very well. It was difficult for me to accept my dad's help. It felt like he was trying to buy me though the only decision he directly influenced was my acceptance of the apartment on 63rd Street off Fifth.
My father didn't believe in introducing me to potential employers, backers or rock stars. He had this strange belief that as long as my sister and I were working we were entitled to be parentally subsidized. It made me uncomfortable. I wasn't so uncomfortable that I refused to spend the money or saved most of it.
Though I knew he loved me much and was proud of me because he talked about me a lot, and did introduce me to clients, including some incredibly famous ones, he never helped me get a job. That he thought was my responsibility. I thought he must have been ashamed of me on some levels. After the fact, I learned he had refused a production job a friend had offerered on a long playing Broadway rock musical. That angered me. But did I seek jobs like that out myself? No of course not. My father was forever dropping hints about reading manuscripts for films in slush piles at film studio's. I felt too old to do it.
Though I yelled at Zachary for feeling life was almost over; I couldn't conceive of starting over again at such a low rung. No way could I picture it. That's probably horrible as I have an ear or brain or sense for what's going to be trendy. My sister still tells me that I should get a job with Faith Popcorn. And I always knew if a book could make a good film and picture a film manuscript as a finished product.
But I resented my father from coming between me and so many opportunties. It wasn't as if I were working for a Fortune 100 company. My company's client was very powerful. My father urged me to apply to work for them. But I was the fraud from outer space so I didn't think that they would hire me; even after two of their top employees told me, seperately, that my application would be a formality. I had a hard enough time believing that I had actually graduated college, let alone a good university.
I had accepted the apartment on East 63rd Street because I wanted a good relationship with my father. And we had a great one. But I resented being the daughter of a man who cared too much and was still trying to determine what was good for me. I can't say how much I resented him not telling me about the job for the musical; I would have given anything for him to introduce me to somebody he knew and say:
'This is my daughter Pia. She's exceptionally bright, quick to learn, and has a great head for business."
I know he knew all that for he was forever telling me about his business problems. I could size up a situation quickly and had much common sense. He loved my answers. Then why did my dad who knew so many famous people not let me interview with them? Did he think I would screw it up? I would at times become angry at moving to a neighborhood that really belonged to the world not the residents. Most people had at least one other home. I needed a vibrant neighborhood; and I never considered the business district to be one, just crowded beyond comfort.
An apartment in the Upper West Side or The Village would have been so much more me. I couldn't conceive of living in a loft in Soho; they all needed much work, and I'm about as handy as my father who spent 40 years waiting for the super to magically appear in his suburban manse. Tribeca was just beginning its ascent and while I loved the area more than Soho, there was the raw space problem, or worse, having to convert it from a factory space. While I had spent all of high school waiting to graduate so that I could move to the West Village I have never desired living there in my adult life. It was a father approved part of town.
He had gone to NYU and took us to The Village often when we were kids. I had been encouraged to go to the city and hang in The Village unlike most of the girls in my class who went to The Miracle Mile, in Manhasset, on Satudays. Since there was no bus and we were too young to drive, they had to be driven. At thirteen I found that childlike and boring.
If I hadn't been a rebel rock chick would I have been at the club that beautiful Sunday afternoon?
I wasn't particularly idealistic; politics had stopped feeling meaningful to me, but I worked in a neighborhood that wasn't particularly great. I wondered if growing up in New Orleans had made Zachary prejudiced in a subconcious level. We didn't have our first fight over his refusal to pick certain people up. I was too in love with the way he made me feel.
Long before I met him I would get cabs for Black people and others who had trouble getting one. Cabs would almost get into accidents with each other in their haste to pick me up. I was the universal uptown/downtown girl. Though I was shorter and more curvy than most models, I was forever being mistaken for a model or soap star. While I didn't really notice everybody else seemed to. Some told me about it then; others much later. I never really understood it, though I had to believe it.
Zachary would call me between fifteen and twenty times a day to tell me about his latest plan to get rich; or to complain about how life was out to get him. He had talked Lucinda into sending a demo tape to a music publisher/producer and now she was almost hot, and he was cold as the ice in my defrost it with buckets of boiling water, refrigrator.
My company was hiring coders; I got him a job. I thought that it might help center him; he would have interesting people to talk to. And he wouldn't have to drive a cab anymore.
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