moment

Right now I am sitting here, holding a beer, waiting for a call from my brother to let me know if my father has killed himself.

dog teaches boy teaches dog

the other day, gilly was watching loretta eat her dog food. he immediately puts his face into his own plate and starts eating (well not really ingesting, just chewing, as he does not eat).

gilly has recently become obsessed with turning light switches on and off. last night we came home from trick-or-treating, and i was a little freaked out because backyard light was on, and i knew i had left it off. nothing missing no robbery, but scratching head.

just now, i sat at this island and watched the dog stand against the wall, use her nose to turn the light switch on so she could have light to go outside to do her bizness.

having problems with myself

I am not an idiot. But at the craziest point of my life i think i may have known myself better than i do now. I now float, and not well. I also, cannot deal with the mismatch of self vs. mirror. It's starting to have some feel to me.

where's the camera when ya need it?

En route home from work today, I see a delivery truck worker exit the passenger side of his truck. He looks ragged, like he'd had a rough, rough night. He has a shaven head with stubble and as he turns around to approach the back of the truck, I see that he has 3 pieces of chewed gum placed neatly planted around his head. Priceless.

sucker punch

I got a letter from my (very youngish) ob/gyn stating that he was retiring. (If there are any males reading, keep staid). So, I quickly make an appointment, and I go. I am not a doctor person, but as I love him, I have to go to find out why and what.

He would not share specifics for reason for retire, only that it was a tough decision. I bluntly told him that it was not good for me as he was the ONLY doctor that I felt comfortable with. He does an un-doctorly move and tears up. Gives me a huge hug and tells me that he has thought about our miracle baby often. Gives referral and bye.

I get in the car and cry my brains out. This guy, who is nobody to me really, never been to thanksgiving or has never talked to me about anything personal, was the direct reason I have my son. He had no idea how to contend with my weird blood disorder and managed to research and figger the shit out and go all experimental on it. And now, this guy, a stranger, who has seen me through many miscarriages and through a perfect child, is out of my life. I am seriously feeling a loss.

more fall........

Sometimes it's fun being an almost grown-up.

autumn

Everyone who really knows me, knows how much I love the autumnal rituals. No one on this planet right now loves a pumpkin patch or a corn maize as much as i do. Ergo, this past weekend, 3 hayrides in 24 hours. First two: with-now-single-mom. #1 clydesdale horses , #2 disney-esq farm that i worked on as a kid. next day: with-now-single-dad. totally old-school farm. the geezer who parked the three cars that were there, recommended that we look at the newborn pigs. The barn floor was 3 inches thick with muck that you absolutely had to step in to see the pigs. Once in, I glance over and happen to see a shotgun just propped against the wall within total reach of anyone willing to step in the muck. Totally fucking awesome. I will post the name as soon as i remember it.

subways when i was a renegade child

People still smoked on the platforms and on the trains. The trains were so dirty and smelly and covered in graffiti. The smell of human funk was truly so pervasive, it was not even talked about. I never wanted to sit, because every seat had something gross on it, even though i was a wild tomboy. It was wild and exciting when I was riding with an adult. When I decided to go it alone, it was oh-so-scary, but such a thrill to me.

addendum to: "that was then, this is now"

So my parents would ship me to my aunt mimis for small bouts of time, as per previous post. But then, when I got there, she would also sometimes foster me out. Sometimes she had to work (a nurse at St. Vincents) and sometimes she just had her life. If nighttime, I just went to sleep, and she went out. If daytime, she had another "best"friend who was the head librarian at the library at the W. 4th branch. I was supposed to stay there all day and read. Which I did most days. I have always had better than perfect vision, and in those days my eyes actually hurt at the end of the day for so much i read.

Then one day at school i was talking with a kid in my school who was also a quasi-newyorker. She was like, "you don't know new york, if you haven't been to coney island to ride the cyclone" (yes, i grew up in snotty loser connecticut) .

So, next time i am shipped to mimis apt, she ships me to the library. I am loosely being babysat by head librarian and i decide to duck out to coney island to ride the cyclone. I am 9 or 10. I ask directions, read maps. I get there! I ride cyclone (1$ at the time) and still in love with life and myself

. Then........I don't remember how to get back to mimi's. I go up to nearest cop and lo and behold, they drive me to my ny home. Parents never needing to know. Great aunt, worried, but no real trouble. It all worked out. That was then, this is now.

my view on the veep debates

that was then. this is now.

My parents were always at battle and searching for places to ship me to for a weekend or two. My great aunt Mimi often fit the bill. My great aunt has lived on West 12th/6th avenue since 1970. The drill was that they would put me on the train at a given time and she would meet my train at arrival. As I got slightly older, and she got less able to move around, I would then have to navigate the subway to her house. So, around 9 or 10 years old, i knew how to get to greenwich village from grand central easily. I would have my LLbean backpack and meander the trails to the right track and feel so cool. So free. So cool. So free..............

I cannot believe that i was actually allowed to do this with permission, as it was so friggin dangerous. But, that was then and this is now.

still got nothing to say

Trying to cling to the warmth and yellow of summer, but loving the cool and orange of my favorite visual season waxing. As soon as I am really cold, i will write again about personal things (sorry, but you are warned). In the meantime, I will try my best to gather all friends, for as many autumnal festivities that I can find in the tri-state region. Cannot wait to roll with Gilly and smell the rolling in the leaves, and the rotting apples and the carving of pumpkins and all the stuff and smells that remind me that i am still really alive. Nothing smells better than fall.

in a new place

my work course has added yet another twist or two to my inner spring. my previous responsibilities (i may have, er mentioned them once or twice), include supervising staff who teach the emotionally and behaviorally disturbed, gangster-esqe-types.

in addition to what i have been doing, i will now also supervise a site of 4 classes of autistic high school students.

i was so pumped at first, great location, just off of court street in cobble hill. finally. normal things, places, people to look at on my way in and out. an unusual diversion from my ghetto trails.

first day with students. me. humbled.

you start to look at things differently when you assist in changing a 16 year old girls diaper, and know that she will be forever cognitively lower than your own two year old son. and, on the way home, i could not see anything for the tears.

me. humbled. humbled.

summertime

It's summer. I have wet/sun-brain. Post some day soon. Hope you're having fun.

random moments

I love when I make eye contact with someone I love, and it makes me love them ten times harder. For real.

dodge

As much as the dream of leaving here tempts me, there are days when there is no place more perfect in which to live. Slept in. Picked up, kate, went to riis. Funny, this IS an actual picture of the beach, but it looks way cleaner than in person, riiiiight?

Then, after, calm black ocean went to my FAVORITE bar in NY and played scrabble for a few hours. A perfect day.

waste

I am so-o-o not into keeping up with...um, anything. But, I am a bit ashamed of my lack of movie viewing. When Oscars roll around....um yeah, I WANTED to see it. Yeah, it looked ok. Movies in NY are like an impromptu camping trip. Too much fucking planning. (Albeit I am an incredible planner)

So, my mom was here last night. I act like I go to bed at 9 , like I do every night, riiight? Pumped to play like 3 hours of scrabulous uninterrupted, as I had like 15 active games. Godamnt lawsuit!!!!! Keep getting bumped outta my awesomely, challenging mostfun games. Quinces for 9 million points? Bumped. At for 2? Bumped. This morning , find out that there is a lawsuit and my scrabbled mind will get a bit of a stay. Fuck.

What does a sober person do in bed alone at 9:30 pm? Turn on tv. Click-clickety-click. "Knocked up". Heard it was funny. Waiting for funny, wanting a laugh. Watching stupid. Segue in my head, "you like stupid".

I do like stupid. Most, (almost every single thing) of my favorite things are in the stupid zone. But I gotta say, maybe new stupid is stupider than old stupid? If so, it might be that maybe that new rock-n-roll stuff is a bit too loud.

snitches get stitches

Another one of my former students was shot in the head and killed last week. He was 17, smart-ish and from a nice Haitian family. His family could not control him, as they only spoke Creole and worked 24-7. He was a tad too smart, and a tad too stupid to get too far away from trouble. But B had just managed to complete his GED and was about to start community college in the fall. Not an easy feat for someone who has been a banger since age 10.

The funeral was held yesterday, with more cops on detail than after 9-11. During the service, one of my staff members started talking to a few of B's "friends" aka gang members. All 30 of whom rolled out of two hum-v limos wearing t-shirts with B's picture on them. Two of them, also former "alumni", told this man, (who was always a major confidante to our kids) that they knew exactly who had murdered J but that they weren't bothering to tell the cops, because they were going "to take care of it".

'Man' tells me today, shaking in his boots. Gives me names of the supposed doers (one of them another alum). I implore him to share info with cops. He is too afraid, fucked up from whole scene.

I call cops, give my name, names of perps. Detectives had already had two of the 3 names. Thanked me for info, and said they were on their way to find #3. Asked me to call back when I got more info.

Shake head.

Doing my duty?

Dream #3

Tosssing and turning but on the brink. Begin to release. Blue haze. Small fish and aquatic life in my close range of vision, but blurry. Sounds of something metal touching the back of my head and voices and laughter above. I am scared but am comforted by the small darting animals, too close to focus upon. Then I am in horror to realize that someone was repeatedly dropping a fishing line into the transformed fishbowl of my open skull.

rainmen

I work in a school with classes of children on the autistic spectrum. I have never directly supervised this population, but will be doing so next autumn. New learning for me.

After my nightmare in ct on saturday, my brother called me on sunday and invited me up. Again to hang by the pool. I go, with Gilly.

To make a long story short.....i truly believe that my brother may have undiagnosed aspergers syndrome. And then it makes me think my dad might also have a touch.

They act as if they are listening, but never recall a thing i say, even two minutes later. Their reason for speaking (which is minimal-they do not talk much, aka, at all) is only to be heard.
Attention span: only on the one thing they are doing, for one minute increments. Also, way too easily overly-irritated by their environment.