Cue the Busby Berkley Tribute

So I am on the treadmill this morning doing my best to maintain my post-girlish figure. I play a game with myself. There is a TV in the room and every time I change the channel or every five minute I raise the speed a notch. It keeps me motivated and kills the boredom. It also keeps me in touch with American culture. As an public radio snob I don't do the morning talk show thing unless the flu is involved. This way I feel like I find out what we are told we are supposed to care about. So I hear about best sellers, diets, mall fashion styles as I sweat and grunt. Works for me.

So this morning I did a triple wammie. First I saw McCain doing his talking head work on some MSNBC thing. That is much how I see him now, a big white head. Why do people have faith in this man? OK , that is simplistic. I get his political track record. I get the bad prisoner,locked up in a box thing. No one should be locked in a box. I even get the likability factor. He has bantered well on the Daily show and such over the years. Obama is making the repeated comments about McCain being a good man. Because he is not vacant lot of Bush brain, no the soulless Halloween creature of Cheney.

But McCain is so you best friends dad. The one that you are polite to,chat with at holiday party's and weddings, the one that asks why you are still single. But you do not bring up politics, birth control, gay marriage, the war, immigration,teen drug experience,most HBO programing, or vegetarian cooking. Because the room will get either too quiet or disturbingly loud. His mouth will form a straight line as he says things like ,"Young lady...", "Life experience", " If you read the Wall Street Journal from time to time and not just your lefty Times, you would understand that...." . I don't want this man to be president. I want him to drive me to the train station and wish me a Happy Holiday.

I watched 4 minutes of the Presidents money pitch. I have spent the last 8 years developing a trigger switch on my remote. When he comes on I can't bear it. At least on NPR I don't have to see the mans face. After all of this , why do we have to listen to Herbert Hoover Jr any more?

I ended it with a sample of a Fox morning show. Its not news, its not Good Morning America. Its not aggressively Fox .But its sort of there. When I was in middle school there were these Christian comics books donated to the reading nook. Some were sort of true life story's things. The life of Johny Cash sort of thing. The hero's would reach heights, have great falls, then find Jesus. All would be groovy. The best were the Archie series. The gang would be going to Africa to help out and teach the natives ,"Turn, Turn,Turn". What was so evil about this was as a kid who has a series Veronica/Betty obsession going on, I grabbed these. Then I would start to feel sort of icky and unclean after reading and them and not know why.This is what Fox programming does for me.

I think I deserve a present after putting myself through this.

Poster child

Will all arrogance I would like to declare that I am everything that this election is about. I am single,starting a business in a field I am well trained for and am very skilled at. With an inheritance I bought a nice apartment in a somewhat crappy part of town that will get to be fairly fancy in the next couple of years. I have no health insurance.

I am right smack in the middle. I don't earn enough for even the cheapest private plans. And I have to much to be deserving of Medicare. I even went up to the Medicare office this morning and was struck by how much the system is set on humiliating poor people asking for help.

It starts off by having to get there an hour before they even acknowledge your existence. You sit in the lobby of a fancy hospital in a clump, the people wanting free bee health insurance. The glances are killers. Doctors, patients, guys installing lights shoot this look to the masses thanking God that they are not so pathetic as to be sitting on the beggar bench. What also makes it worse almost everyone sitting with me just sat. No one reads,drinks coffee, gossips.They just sit as penance for being poor. I always carry a book with me everywhere I go. That way I could at least block off the condescending glances. Without that it would have too painful.

Then this guy hands out numbers on little pieces of well worn paper. They don't even make new numbers. Just rehash the cardboard day after day.Then they make you line up in a hall way,the way made us lineup after recess to come in side in an orderly fashion. I kept flashing on people I know in the medical profession who might see me there. Oh how I prayed that I would not be exposed.

When I finally got to the front of the line this nice woman asked how she could help me. Looked me up and down. Yes I am white,middle class, educated, Anglican speaking. I need help. Ends up with all the personal information I brought with me, I still didn't have enough. I would need to come back with bank statements and such.To prove I am broke and pathetic. When I got back home from the experience , it wasn't even 10 and I was totally drained .

Watching the news unfold today I suspect I am will much of the country. What will this mean? I read somewhere that they are estimating that 40,000 people will lose their jobs just in this state. My work website averages about 10 hits a day on line. The last 2 days it has dropped to 0. Personal self growth work gets real low on the list of necessity items. Damn my shoulders are tight.

I want a bog for Christmas

Maybe it comes from rather Celtic vein in me but I like grey weather. I bliss waking up not knowing quite what time it is because it so dark outside. The sound of rain on the air conditioner is romantic. I largely enjoy this whole cloudy thing because it gives me the required excuse to be antisocial.

I am a social being people. I love house guests.But I adore it when they go home and I am allowed to take my pants off in the living room. There is a large part of me that had the capacity to feel deep loneliness. But I get off on solitude.

In a couple of weeks I have made a deal with my self to start actively dating again. Its time. Its fall. I have unpacked my fall/winter clothes. It is ideal first dating wardrobe time. Sweaters and tights show off curves and gams with out being aggressively fleshy as in the summer. And in winter one must get through all of those layers. I have no recent photos of my self that I like .Personal dating doesn't work with out such things.So I asked an photographer friend if she would do the honors. But she is working for Obama heavily at present( And one must encourage this!) and she wont have any free time for a few weeks. So no glorious images of me at the present. You will all have to wait with bated breath.

So instead of getting all crampy and impatient, I have chosen to embrace where I am.I am temporally broke after an investment in advertising my practice and an unexpected household bill. I can't go out and play.Big friggin deal. I have electricity,running water,high speed Internet. By next month I may beg for a day like this. Freedom from humanity. So I worked on a big clean up project on my home. I watched films,Once and American Gangster, both very good.Very prow grey. I try ed my first attempt at making Alfredo Sauce. A bit to fatty and not thick enough but acceptable.

I don't think I can do this kind of weekend often. But once in a while its very sweet. The pleasure of my own company.

I will not let Republicans ruin my weekend

Am strongly considering when things get a bit more calm, having a New Depression potluck dinner party. I have my grandmothers 1932 Joy of Cooking book. Its this amazing compact volume of cultural relationship to food. About a third of all the recipes involve big chunks of lard . In the vegetable section they try to explain why some one might consider being a vegetarian, or at least once eat a meatless meal. The best they can come up is it's cheap.

So the party would involve people either bringing cheap to prepare dishes or ,to earn extra points, research cooking in the 30s and 40s and bring a item that would have been eaten then. I suspect there will very little that involves cumin, sun dried tomatoes or goat cheese.

Conjunction junction

I was putting together a couple of recent obsessions of the moment and possibly have figured something out. When I was in high school I met someone I shall refer to as the Great One. The great one was about 4-5 years older than me when that actually mattered in how you interacted with people. He was brilliant,funny, handsome. Everyone knew this was someone with a future. The problem was he knew it too.

He had a strong capacity to be a know it all, arrogant, dismissive shit. I on the other hand had a strong leaning towards being a hyper over dramatic, needy, alternatively egotistical/desperately insincere, brat. We did not play nice together. Over the years we would run to each other at events like mutual friends party's and barely tolerate each other. The Great One took steps forward into the world with his work , when they were less than stellar, I would feel a bit of evil glee. When he finally hit his stride and lived up to his title, I received the news like there was a great unfairness in the world. How could someone create something wonderful, get praise and money for it, having been such a turd to little me?

This spring a member of our young life died in an unexpected rotten way. There was a memorial to go to. I was mixed about going. I wanted to say good bye and pay homage but I was not sure how I would feel facing some of my history, including G.1. If I did something like show emotion, would I be dismissed as being superficial and insincere ? But the priory of the event and not the size of my ego won out. I went. And not only did I go, I gave a message at the service. Afterwards The Great One was the first one who came up , hugged me and thanked me for what I had said. Who knew we could all grow up?

A group of us spent the day together and caught up, told old story's, were family reunited. What became very clear to me at the end of the day was G.1 and had finally met each other at the right time. We were balanced on the Earth. I liked my self and my life, he no longer had to sell his potential. It didn't hurt that we were both now attracted to one another .OK , I can't prove it was mutual. I was vibing on him, I caught him checking out my legs and he strongly hugged me good bye- twice. There was something going on there.

He has floated in my head since then. Not a constant but just sort of there. I will browse a spot where his work is often showcased,looking for his name to see if there is new work being displayed. I will fantasize about conversations and other interactions I might have with him.Why am I giving such a passing through person so much power in my head? I haven't given this much thought time to almost anyone else in my history recently. What is it with him and the role I give him?

Today I figured it out. My father was about the same age when he broke through professionally. At about the same point in his life, he was given a small platform on the national stage of his world. He was a young man with a big future. Now he is old, physically and emotionally in an almost constant state of suffering. He is nearing the end. And I still long for something from him that I will probably never get.

Don't get me wrong, he is a terribly magnanimous person. He loves and cares more deeply than the common man on the street.But he gives it with things like checks. Which are very nice. But they are not the same as emotional availability. I have never felt I could count of him for his groundedness. After about the age of 6, I could not count of being about to feel that he was some one who would protect me or make the planet feel safe. I thought that was my job to do for him. And I never felt I was quite enough , not sharp enough, not interesting enough, to hold his interest. I thought that if I was those things, wouldn't he talk to me more? Wouldn't there be more lightness/

I now know that this is not the case. But those old lessons run deep. Knee jerk. So the Great One. Urban boy made good, self created ,unavailable parents, obsessive interests, loyal life long friends,untouchable sadness. Oh where have I seen all this before? At our reunion, all our friends where showing photos of their kids on their cell phones, talking about their spouses. Even though he is married and has a toddler at home, he said nothing about them. His silence hurt. Did my father ever do the same? Did he ever turn mute when it was his turn to brag about his home life?

I could never heal what ever causes ache if G1. But there is a nerve in me that vibrates. It says,if there was a right time and a right space. No wife. No guilt. Could I make it all better now with this one?

It's lame to be cliche. But at least I am a cliche with high standards.

Sleep is for pussys

I read recently that the AMA did a study that concluded if you share your bed at night with a cat, you are 40% less likely to have a heart attack. Which leads one to wonder if the AMA is running out of ways to spend their budget. It also makes me wonder about does the heart health issue work out if you lie in bed at night staring at the ceiling while a cat lies next to you wacking you in the face.


Last night was a beast. Turned out the light a little before 11, woke up at about 1:30 .And that was all she wrote. I wonder if this kind of sitution can be genetic. My Mom has nights like these all the time. We swap tips that tend to work once or twice (Melatonin, hot bath, visualations of the doom of those who have done us wrong.) Her Mom sleep issues were legendary. When she died we were sent to empty her apartment. On her bedside table was a pack of playing cards that she would play solitare with when she couldn't slumber. She has played with them so much, the cards were almost moist.

She also had 3 piles of books by her bed, interesting reading, responsible educated reading, and god- awful kill me now- boring reading. I tend to take that route when I give up on the sand man.The problem was I finished the "eh" book I was reading just before bed. I have recently bought a couple of volumes of reading material of books I read in middle school that I think it's time for me to pick up again now I can possibly understand them. Grapes of Wrath is one. At 13 all I could recall was the breast feeding the starving man bit at the end. The teen grossness factor overroad Steinbeck's art.I also got the new addition of Anne Frank's diary. It seems Papa Frank took out passages that Anne wrote about her budding sexual feelings and how much her mother pissed her off. God forbid a martyr sound like a human we can relate to.

But I didn't want to start traveling with the Joads last night when I was going to be able to respect their journey. Because I was going to be thinking while reading was ," God I wish I was unconcious!" Likewise I didn't think hanging in my head with doomed Jews was going to be a sleepy time tea reality. So I just lay there and thought about health insurance. I did nod off at sometime and have a hot flirtation dream with an unknown French guy. So the night was not a complete waiste.

Now I am totally drained. This is a ride on the suckmobile submarine. I didn't work out this morning because I have no power to be in motion. This makes me feel like an unwound clock. I have a full day ahead with no fuel. There is work, the hunt for an honest dishwasher repair man, returning of books to library before they are overdue,cleaning my house for a unexpected parental visit, and ending with a marketing class tonight which even on the best evenings can suck the life out of me.

As Gigi sang, say a prayer for me tonight.

Give me a reason.

About 8 years ago I had a friendly associate who was earnest about the need for me to start blogging. This was an active part of her life and she was a big believer that every one would be doing alot better if we lived our lives as she did. Granted ,she did introduce me to some very good day to day New York resources like Fresh Direct. She was the first person I knew who used Netflix. These were good additions to my complusive list making habbits.

But she was also embraced a certain kind of 1930s Warner Brothers cartoon insanity to her life .Not the softer elegance that a Chuck Jones 1950s world , were evil is humilated when they strike at the innocent.Rather the ones were people were brought down in ugly violent ways just because they weren't as " wacky" as the other characters. she was very into the whole open relationship/marriage thing. Now I am willing to be proven wrong but in my experince in hetrosexual relationships these setups seem to be a draw for those who love drama ,competion and mind games. She would tell me about her weekends , tales of visiting other open minded couples. There didn't seem so much sexy stuff going on .Mostly I got discriptions of kitchen doors slamming, people breaking down sobbing, and my pal wondering why everyone had to be so boring.

I thought of blogging as another avenue of her well meaning ego taking a very pubic jog in public. Fine for her. Just not for me. I was not feeling like I wanted to put my self out in a big public way at the time. Things were a little shakey, I was in a transition of life that I didn't want to others to be in on. Frankly, I didn't want to be hanging out in my thoughts very much at the time but I had no other options. Why would anyone else willingly want in on that stuff? So I said thank you very much to her and her offer to expose me to the masses.


Flash forward almost a decade. Things are much better , thank you very much. New career, new health emotionaly and physically. New home, neighborhood ,pals, file cabinets.What could be better? I also discover that quite a few people I respect do the blog thing on a regular basis. I find ones by people I don't know through random internet roaming that are wonderful writers. They share thoughts and storys that I feel lucky that they want to share with me , the humble reader. My arrogance gets bitch slapped.

In the last 6 months or so there has been alot of life that has been sort of dropping down from the sky. Sort of like the Universe saying, " You think you are so damn healthy? Dig this!!!!" And I do do do deal. All I willingly take on. I think discomfort is often the sign of life well lived. I am trying my best day by day to take on bigger goals, be more responsible. Dare I say , more adult?And this is a good thing. But the problem is I don't think I have had a full nights sleep in about 2 months.

I fall asleep alright. The problem is that I also wake up at 3 in the morning alright as well. And I think .And I think. And my cat demands I pay attention to him since I am up. Then I think some more.

I have been wondering if it might be time for me to have some sort of outlet. Don't get me wrong, I am a social being who has any number of people who are willing to hear me rattle on. But most of them have very busy schedules that involves having to call them days ahead of time to see if there is mutual time free for rattling. I don't have any 3 in the morning , can I tell you my obsession of the moment, people at present.

Throughout my teens and 20s I was an obessive journal writer. I have boxes of them that I never look at but could never throw away. They were my safety net for my sanity. My family are very private but very kind people. They are embarried by large showings of emotions but want very much to be understanding to those who do. For example, if one winter night you and your mother visited one of their homes for dinner, and you mother dropped dead, my relatives would most likely not say any thing .They would not wish you to feel ill at ease by mentioning the whole dead parent situation. However if you discovered that your car battery was dead on the way to the mourge, my family members who go out into the cold and recharge it for you.


Coming from that enviroment, I thought my expression of my thoughts and emotions was very dangerous. I had a habit of keeping things in for a very long time and then explode at ill timed moments. Come to think of it, I still do that sometimes. But now it's less like an explotion, more like one of those cap things that kids stomp on in the summer. Its a surpise but not distructive. But back in the day I wrote and wrote for the freedom of saying to forbidon.That I was hurt, angry, lustful. That I was human, not the mess that I feared the world would see me as if I spoke my mind.

Then I didn't need to do that anymore. I did a great deal of work on my self with therapy, workshops, just listening to others. At some point there was the discovery that my view points were not the source of distruction that I had thought they were. I could actualy say things like ,
" Hey Bob, I disagree with your feeling about that Tapas joint. "

The world wouldn't come to an end. My head would not curve in on it self as it created a killer migrane to punish me so the lapse in self expression. The notebooks with ironic pictures on the covers no longer needed to be purchased.

But I still have things I think I need to say and get out of my system. These are things I think I want to share. I am a little scared. I had a recent run in with internet message board crazyiness that has left me watchful of others . We all have different values about these things,but my feeling is if you have to rage out at someone you have never met in an online fashion, I think it's time to play more board games. Or cards. Hearts can be a terrific place to put ransom hostility without insulting someone elses mother.

But here we go. Let's give this a try. What button do I push to start this thing?