.Sometime in the late 1980's Lucia, Noel (a male friend who no longer lives in New York, and yes he's gay) and I were walking up Lafayette Street, in Nolita, a section of Manhattan that was called Noho then. Nolita stands for north of Little Italy, and Noho for north of Houston. We were walking on the east side of the street where there's a fire station.
We had just left the architectural studio and store that Lucia managed and was the scene of many parties, and occasionally ended up sleeping there when we were too wasted to make it home. It had a shower, bath and almost all the amenities of home except for a bed, but did have a huge table that we would have to clear the dust off, in order to sleep, but, uh most times, we would forget that step.
This is mostly extraneous to the story I'm telling, but good background, for something.
We were young and hot though we were the last two to believe that part. Don't know why; enough people told us, wanted to know us, or marry us. Lucia was a four by 40 girl. This story takes place before the fourth marriage.
I was a Maid (or Matron) of Honor more than most women; and I'm only counting Lucia's weddings. She used to compare herself to Elizabeth Taylor:
"I believe in marrying them, not living with them."
I'm more the let's live together, not get married type.
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It was a hot June night. Not hot as in oppressive, I want to die weather, but hot enough. In New York, the hottest part of the day is always dusk when the heat's had time to settle on the cement, and the buildings seem to ooze both heat and drops of hot water from the air conditioners. The steam rises both from the street, and subway gratings, and it can feel as if you're trapped in a manhole cover or a pot of not quite boiling water. One thing you learn in New York early and never forget: heat rises.
I was wearing a blue with little pink and yellow flowers bustier dress; the skirt flowed like a Marilyn dress. Here comes the big confession: sometimes when I would a dress like that I wouldn't wear underwear. But, and this is a big but, I had a two piece bathing suit that almost exactly matched the dress; only the flowers were a bit larger. That morning in a burst of clothing creativity, I decided to wear the bottom as underwear. To make the dress work appropriate I had worn a blue silk fitted jacket that I had left at the studio.
Noel was walking to my right, and Lucia to my right. The subway grating was right underneath me. The fire station bells began ringing as it did whenever notable people passed it. I couldn't understand why suddenly Lucia and Noel were trying to tame my dress that was whirling with the blast of hot air from the subway. Their faces had turned bright red, and not from the heat.
Something made me turn around, and face three very well dressed men who were trying not to smile. Two of the men were young, very good looking; "bodyguards," I thought before my brain had time to register exactly who they were guarding. Or maybe I really didn't want to realize this. I thought of something clever to say, but before I could say it I began laughing.
Real laughter; not girly giggles or shameful bursts of restrained laughter that turns into coughing fits. I knew that as long as I lived I would never forget this meeting. But I just couldn't stop laughing; the six of us were standing on Lafayette Street, laughing until tears came.
And that's how I met the man for whom the bells were tolling; the boss of bosses himself, John Gotti, shortly before he went to prison.
If Lucia comments, and she will, do not believe her version. I wasn't just wearing underpants, I was wearing a shield of armor, a belly covering bathing suit bottom.
No I don't approve of him or anything he did. Just getting that out of the way. But it's a hell of a story.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Daddy's Home 4/26/06
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.
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.
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.
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