Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody, Who are you?

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

So many ways to read this, unlike much poetry. Knowing Dickinson's history only adds layers to what appears to be a simple question.

I found the phrasing haunting, having heard the first couplet on SVU a couple of years back and finally googled  to see if Dick Wolf  had such a brilliant mind or borrowed it from somewhere.

 Dick Wolf is brilliant and to have borrowed this couplet to use in a case about pedophilia left me breathless.

Storyline: Two children, now young adults. The girl has escaped, the boy who was trained to rape her as a child, also now an adult has continued to perpetuate molestations on young children. She confronts him as he's just been arrested and interrogated by Benson/Stabler. His former companion begs him to speak about their experiences, help put away the man that kidnapped them, filmed them, abused them and wrote a book explaining how to do it. 

The young man looks up at her, finally realizing who she is...he is so lost in a cycle of abuse/abusing she is only another faceless entity for him until she triggers a memory of their protecting one another as very young children. Almost with resignation, he blankly then stares through her and quietly tells her...

....I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too?

Complicated Grief week 4

No in-person sessions until next week (first week 1.2012), so its almost 2 weeks of working alone but its grueling because its alot of dredging up the past through journaling, notes and memory work. So a couple of thoughts, if these are redundant, my apologies..seems I tend to tell the same tales over and over.

1. At the start of this project I was already anticipating being abandonded and grieving for the loss of the study people in my life. I did the same thing everytime a co-worker resigned and moved on. Being unable to process grief probably explains why I couldnt leave the college and job everyone couldnt wait to get away from.

2. It may not be possible to articulate the level of grief involved here-this kind of grief not a part of your life, it IS your life, it is 'I'. If there was a child in here somewhere she's long gone or died early on and I became The Grief itself. This is why I have no idea who I am or who I see in the mirror. A job title was very helpful for the brief time I had one.

And so when there is a question about feeling suicidal I try not to laugh because frankly when you're already 'dead' inside suicide is not an issue, there is no ideation, there is no fear of dying-there is dislike of pain and disability because of the inconvenience and dependence on others, but death? already live there.

What I would like to know or learn is whether there is anything left inside to resurrect, to grow or build to resemble a living person. Just because I write or had a job or had children, these things were done on autopilot for decades-not by choice, I dont know how to break through this pain.

The deeper the excavating of emotions and memories, more washed away in grief, it comes in magnificent waves, hearing Elgar's Enigma Variations on the radio 3 days ago really kicked it off. Release or relief hasnt kicked in yet and I need to ask next session how it is possible to create a human being in 16-20 weeks...we may be in the messianic era but I dont think humans are that evolved yet.

Hemingway

Read this fragment quote from A Farewell to Arms this afternoon-
...The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

Complicated Christmas Grief

christmas was always complicated as a child. it began with my sister and me begging my Jewish father to let us bring in a real tree, a small tree. we had no inkling or knowledge of what a tree meant or of christ, we wanted the beauty of twinkling lights, colored fragile glass bulbs swaying, the icicles trembling and the answer was always no. I cant recall what or if we received presents for chanukah so in all fairness I'll say nothing on that, but my father did make a production of setting up our small bronze menorah with candles, until I got old enough to do it and he helped me with the bracha...which later turned out to be the same one for lighting shabbos candles, so his intention for us was there even if his knowledge was slightly lacking.

ever year sister and I were dressed up as was my mother, she hailed a taxi and we were driven out to Nutley, New Jersey to spend hours at her mother's home where her sister lived. I sat in the back seat the entire ride there thinking how to negotiate the war zone we were sure to enter on returning home the NYC and a drunk and enraged father. Once in Jersey we were all picked up late later for christmas dinner at one of her brother's homes. this was the time is really got bad for the Jews From New York. I had already been through an Inquisition in very broken english by my Roman Catholic Italian grandmother about baby Jesus and having failed exam that even with whispered answers from my mother, was told to sit in the dark living room no one ever sat in with its perfectly intact furniture covered in hard dried out plastic on the couch and chairs. Do not turn on the lamp please, its a waste of money. A seven year old sent to sit in a dark room because she flunked christmas 101. If the test were given today, I'd still flunk.

We usually piled into my uncles blue sedan and went to her beloved brother N.'s house with his Irish wife that no one liked-tight ass-she was titled. She relished the times I was left alone with her as everyone went to a late morning Mass because it gave her some strange pleasure to land some zingers. Told to give me toast and milk she would toast half an english muffin, put on margarine, peacch preserves and placing it in front of me asked if my Jewish father wasn't feeding me? When everyone came back she had canadian bacon, eggs, toast etc ready for them and announced I had already eaten so I could sit in the living room and wait for the presents to be opened.

This relative always had a floor to ceiling tree that filled 1/3 of their living room, red and gold balls, twinkling lights and no icicles but something called angel hair, a thin glass fluff with sparkles that was pulled from branch to brach as if 'angels' had shit snow or angel crap over all the limbs. My uncles kids were my age, all of us around 7-8-9 and I sat as each name was called out and gifts were handed in red paper with green cowboys or green paper with red bells and gold ribbons were passed around. My mother once passed out envelopes of cash to the other kids, assuming this was my father's money since that was her fount of wealth. So it was fun to ooh and ahh over everyone's pajamas, scarves, new catcher's mitt or bat, toy drum. Dinner was always a baked ham, yes, baked ham. I see living where I do now that pork must have been a traditional meal for Jesus or eaten at the last supper with matzah because every form of ham was on sale last week, you couldnt find a piece of chicken on sale no matter how I dug around in the case.

I had this brief encounter with myself during a complicated grief session where M. asked me to suddenly think if it were possible to change my life what would I imagine for myself. My stupid remark was to eat a meal of hazerai and integrate the two sides of my family within myself. But on further ruminations, I dont know why the hell on the earth I would ever want to integrate the half that so rejected us as kids, including my mother, the aunts that told us how our mother suffered and gave so much up to have us kids (that's all the details I got, who told her to marry the old Jewish man? Her twin brother borrowed thousands to open a restaurant from my father, her other brother borrowed money for business, she spent money on her nieces and nephews-my father was unwelcome in everyone's home, he was just the investor for whatever was needed.)

There are no relatives to be found to renew or begin a relationship with and I know all my father's side are deceased. If they had children I cant find any and Ancestry is not the help it purports to be for Jews, even with the Mormon archives.

Let the dead rest, I'll see them all soon enough. Better to finish things here in a neat way with no loose ends as my parents left us.

so many things....

One might think that living in a frozen zone the brain would shut up, but thoughts continue to pile up for sorting out. A second radiant heater in the main room has helped alot, at least it can be turned on like a tiny fireplace, totally silent and so warming to be near. I've decided that to move somewhere else is not an option for now at least. Too many other practical concerns to deal with; that I have shelter that is accessible to shop and doctors and a bus line 3 steps away is not something to dismiss because of cold. I'm also not strong enough to pack up, look for another apt and move, unpack again and learn new territory again. This might be a 'starter' apartment, I'm a little tired.
Hope to buy a rug for front room before the cold becomes worse, that might ease the chill I hope.

Something is brewing with me and relationship with therapist with complicated grief study. I find myself disliking/distrusting him simply for being male. This was not my initial reaction at all, I think its rising out of the 'blue bra' incident in Egypt and the general dismissiveness of certain males in my immediate family. While its displaced emotion, its distracting. I've made notes but we're on a 2 week hiatus and he has no idea about this issue.

I had mammogram done a few weeks ago that PC declared to be 'within normal range' just as I received a letter from mammogram office requesting that I please return to have another one done, something was questionable. I have a 2nd mammogram done and get escorted directly to ultrasound for further inspection. Cysts...come back in 6 months, please check in with high risk program for counseling and to see whether a long term program is suggested in terms of treatment, diet etc. No point in draining, they only fill again, say doctors here.


How fast can body parts fall apart? What happened to all those vitamins my mother stuffed into us as kids? Those mornings of having to gag on A/D fish oil capsules.
Its not as though I wasn't expecting this considering my parents or the wrath of G-d come to roost, so a quiet chuckle at the pace of disintegration is just that, private except for here where the walls alone have ears. Bless you if you hear any of these thoughts. But these issues are playing a primary role in not moving, just doesnt make sense when I have so much going on medically.

Actually, found out that since the shingles issue has been chronic for over a decade and left untreated-through no fault of mine, not until recently did I put it together and realize its a weeks long body process and pushed for medical assistance-but its actually developed into post herpetic neuralgia now and so the symptoms are more severe and different. But no vaccine is effective the literature writes for those who have already had Shingles although anti viral meds are effective to ease symptoms if taken early enough.

Had birthday dinner for oldest son. Fascinating how my adult children come, sit down to have a meal and often talk as if I'm not in the room. I realize alot of that is my fault since for decades I was NOT in the room, but I detect some intent in this now as conversations will regress to childish code language or mention of relationships I know nothing about, that havent been shared with me. While I write about it here to note it, its not my loss anymore, I hope everyone can look back and see they passed up a chance to mend fences, heal and move on. As for me, not really well enough to fight that fight anymore, it is what it will be.

"ego-driven drivel..."

...such as most blogging was defined by Hitch, but continue I must:-)
Well, I have a diagnosis for the endless internal chills that now are quieted only by sitting next to a hot space heater. I've found you can be so cold as so be unable to sleep. I didnt realize how tense my body is until lying down near the living room heater and immediately the warm relaxed me, I was asleep in minutes. 

Thinking of his death, after speaking with my oldest son, who said arrogance was the defining word for both Hitchens and Jobs. Arrogance that took the form of dismissing traditional medicine on Jobs' part and Hitchens loud fast talking over every opponent so that no one stood a chance against him. Well, no one did stand a chance but loud and fast talking can be heard from every protesting senorina in the 'hood' with in-your-face head bobbing and fake nails pointing, so being loud and fast proves nothing. Hitchens had, what Schama and most others who were genuinely close, termed a great desire to debate, understand as well as speak the truth of what he observed of Life, much like Twain, Hume and Orwell. If speaking Truth to the fatuous who prefer to mouth PC or tell us black is white when its obviously not, is arrogant- we suffer very little in our current society of such arrogance, but pompous PC bloat can be heard from  virtually every talking head and politician, incumbent and running.

I'm watching the sad developments in Egypt, notably the beating of a covered woman. Heartbreaking it is knowing how people looked to the military as their safeguard against government tyranny, and they were that in the last days of Mubarak's reign. But something else is going on now that the media is not able to define. I humbly suggest that the' military' (defined as all elements not aligned with the Brotherhood etc) is refusing a takeover by Islamists or to have Egypt become another sharia ruled country. Egypt, with all its wanting, was a country apart from anyplace else in the arab middle east. Not simply because it absorbed so much Western money but because of its people, their nature, humor and general innate intelligence. Egypt has lost tourism, a mainstay of its economy and essentially the illiterate majority who have voted conservatively, did so in fear of Western style traditions overtaking their world-there seemed to be no middle ground, no leader to galvanize the people as Nassar once did, and in this vacuum the Brotherhood in its various incarnations has always thrived, patiently waiting to step up, take over. The military knows this...which doesnt excuse their current behaviour, but I think they're as frightened as the people they once protected, they are now fighting for their own continued existence.
While my relationship with Egypt will always be bittersweet and in some ways regrettable, I am glad I was there before the current morass destroys what remains of class structure and society.  Even sadder is what they are creating for the students who had, for a moment, some hope of a country reborn where their work would bear fruit in an open and uncensored society.

I'm not out of words, but strength to write further.

Chosen

There is a great clamoring down here
Christopher
snow falling
rain flooding
Death lies taxes
continue as moths appear
suddenly everywhere signalling with
flicking wings a fleeting intimacy
a post coital word, glance, photo or less
having warmed themselves
by your constant fire

this distant heart feels
strange loss puzzlement
no, it is joy that you are
were
unencumbered
free

Prayers require no permission
I pray kaddish will be said

12.17.11
r.singer

Shingles

12.16.11

After 2 months of symptoms that had a rhuematologist and PCP ping ponging me back and forth, incorrectly prescribing antibiotics because each one thought the other should be tending to my symptomology and was dismissive of my flulike chills, intense joint pain and even worse fatigue, while knowing my medical history, finally was referred to a gastroenterologist who saw me on an emergency basis Friday morning.

Once you have chicken pox as a child, the virus is dormant and in strong immune systems, remains dormant.
Shingles occurs mainly in older adults with weak auto-immune systems (I have multiple rhuematoid issues) and can be extremely painful and exhausting. I get 2-3 attacks a year that were attributed to be rhuematic flares.

In 2011 before leaving NY I had the worst attack that paralyzed me from the waist down, total body rash for 5 days with mad itching and unable to use legs or walk. Thankfully my landlady wrote down everything as a record for my former doctor, who read it and shrugged. I kept the letter detailing what happened, the doctor this morning read it and after examing me put the pieces together.

Triggers that make Shingles reappear are certain medications (none that I use) and severe stress.

Good, intelligent doctors are rare and I see good medicine often has little to do with bedside manner. My PCP is handsome, great 'bedside' manner and an idiot who is focused on how many diagnostic codes he can slap on my insurance forms to milk as much as he can in payment. I think he needs to be replaced.  As well as my Indian rhuematologist who only speaks with patients every 3 months and lost patience when her Bactrim prescription did nothing. "Please followup with your PC"
On a whim, he prescribed CIPRO "I've prescribed antibiotics for less than whatever you have, so if it works, it'll tell us one thing and if it doesnt, that will tell us something else" 
Sounds like great doctoring doesnt it?
But the dummy here felt so sick, she took the pills until the cure was worse than the illness.
I'm still recuperating from the side effects of Cipro.

A simple thought (doubt he would appreciate a prayer) for Christopher Hitchens who passed away Thursday...that the G-d he denied and scorned, blasphemed and blamed as the cause of much human suffering, embrace him as the prodigal son come home at last.

Session 2 Complicated Grief Study

We clarified why my daughter is being asked to come in. Its not to ask her to be a caretaker, but to share what this work is, what I'm doing and why. This part of my life is not something my children ever knew about other than my father died when I was relatively young and they had a grandmother who never actually acknowledged them, she refused to be called a 'grandmother.'


I was also reminded she IS an adult aside from being my 'child' and can be expected to hear, listen and respond as an adult.
Something that came up was my need to actually define 'grief' and what I am grieving about. My assumption all these years was that it is about Father, but I wonder if the actual issue precedes his death, that the grieving is about the emotional isolation and lack of attachment by both parents to my sister and me.

My mother was a first class narcissist, Grade A+ Prime.

My father was in his 60s trying to hold onto a much younger wife and 2 young children while drinking heavily, worrying even more heavily and grieving his aging self, he was chronically depressed.
So its noted that my primary aim as a child was just to survive in this atmosphere, but I've never left 'survival mode'. Or crisis mode, or being on constant alert and overdrive, while simultaneously being terrified of people,distrustful of just about everyone and throw in social anxiety and agoraphobia now. I would say distrustful about everyone but I'm usually comfortable with doctors.

We did an exercise of imaginary thinking and what would I want if I could have anything right at that moment? And I came up with something that surprised even me. I would like to go to the Italian neighborhood in the next town that has all kinds of food shops and buy all the forbidden things I ate as a child, that I cannot eat as an adult (pork anyone?) hard salami, capacola, proscutto, sharp provolone, some peasant bread, olives, uncover my hair and get a decent hair cut, maybe color all the grey, learn how to use makeup (yes, at age 58, pathetic isnt it?-my mother was a MODEL and couldnt find the time to teach these things, like you learn it from the air) maybe get a wardrobe that is flattering. I'd ,like to add lose weight but the likely hood of that happening, its been a life long fight.

I felt like wanting to throw off the restrictions and integrate both halves of my life, both sides of my family to complete myself, stop feeling shame about so many things or what people say or who the hell cares anymore.
This week's homework is to delve into that subject, write about it and think about making it happen, what steps can be taken to start the process.

BEfore Session 2

Thank you all who read and post here, its gratifying and appreciated.


I think they randomly assigned me to actual medicine because a number of things have changed; The uncontrolled weeping stopped, like a boulder of black clouds lifted. Before I get too excited, just being careful and watchful that its medication and not anticipation. But my sleep has changed as well, its deep and restful. Seems previous AD had lost its effectiveness-it was given to me to quit smoking but worked as an antidepressant for 6 yrs. By the time I was weaned off and put on study med,  looking back I realize how under medicated I was. Seeing the difference in my outlook, mood and ability to function, I dont ever want to hear from anyone, and I do, about the sins of dispensing mood drugs to people with emotional/mental illness. The only 'sin' is the years spent trying to find the right med to fit people who suffer needlessly and lose hope of ever feeling human.

I can't take my sleep meds now and stay up for another 3 hrs (my dirty secret) because the celexa is taken at night with them, so within an hour I'm out cold. I woke around 5am 2 days ago, a large furry Mr. B was walking on my chest sniffing my face looking for signs of breakfast. I saw the lamp was still on, my glasses had fallen down and my book was open where I left off reading. It feels like I'm sleeping for all the years I got up at 5am to leave for work at 6 to arrive by 7:30, all to get a seat on the train so I didnt have to stand for 45 min.



What I wanted to note here was something I wrote something about not being able to understand people who hoard yet have good homes, spouses, furniture, everything material to make a comfortable good life and they f8kuc it up by buying and buying and never using stuff until their residence is in shambles, unliveable, filthy, sometimes condemned & alienated family members. I'm not judging, I just dont get hoarding.

A woman following this blog once commented "a person can hoard feelings that can be just as destructive-" indeed, its time to clean The House.
I was asked to bring a family member to my 3rd session. One daughter is suitable but I dont want this to be a burden in any way on my children, so altho I invited her I dont want this to be "we have to take care of Mom because she's losin it or lost it"-this is my work to do, they've all been through alot and dont need to take this on, so while I want to cooperate, I remain concerned about family involvement.

Session 1

Since I was accepted in the study area that uses medicine, I saw the psychopharmacologist first. He asked me questions about me and my father which is the core subject of my participation in this grief study. Frankly have to say because my thoughts are all over, everything is so connected and unsorted, that it is hard to recall alot of what was asked because my answers were so drawn out... not unfocused as much as for me, one thing is related to another and another...its like a domino life. One incident triggers the world crashing down.


Triggers include a night of drunken screaming and accusations about my mother
next morning she might be beat up or they're not speaking and I have no clue what the cause is-I realized I wrote "cause is" and erased it to put "cause was" but that's indicative of how immediate 40 years ago remains for me.

And the crashing down is how the followig weeks would entail whispers in the kitchen with my mother-who suddenly found her 6 yr old useful or helpful-on how to resolve the standoff and get the family funds flowing again. Sometimes it involved me baking something my father liked or her making a dish of food he loved...there was always days, hours of thinking out to manipulate family members to get back on the dysfunction track=normal again.



So one thing I realized today is that I cant separate out one issue from another-everything is related. To make things worse, I found this was compounded by office politics were people say one thing to your face and gossip behind your back, thereby you never know who to trust, who's a friend and colleague and who's actively working to stab you. And then they say, "its not personal"

But its ALL personal...isnt it?

All politics are local, national, global...arent they?



I dont know that my domino defense is so far out in left field.



Feel free to write anything or say anything at any point, no hard feelings.



I've been asked to bring 1 family member in for one upcoming session.



This is nothing like conventional therapy-the first 3 sessions are preparatory for the 10 weeks following where intense grief work is done. Plus I was given reading material and homework to do each day. I keep a brief daily diary or worst sad/grief episode and least and then note what was going on that triggered a sense of grief, be it a thought, an actual incident, a person or whatever.



Laugh, cry, drift off in thought constantly...I had to pull myself back into the present tense over and over.



I went in at 1, left at 5:00pm. But I dont think the sessions will continue to be this long...I can take it...dont know if my doctors can LOL.

Complicated Grief

Where to begin on this subject, other than to say my life has two parts; 1953-1972 and 1973 until present day. My father died February 16, 1973, a week before my sister's birthday and no one was home except my mother. When an event is so defining, no matter the base feelings, the physical reaction to it sometimes feels like you got hit over and over, then chills, numbness, relief...and for me the most stunning thing, the same thing that happened on 9/11, was the change in the light. The natural light, the air around me suddenly became like sheer glass and clear like it had been washed in rain, crisp, clean so I suddenly saw things as if for the first time. The taxi I jumped into was such a bright mustard yellow and the driver was kind. I told him to hurry because it seemed my father had just died and when he pulled up in front of the West End Ave apartment he refused the fare and wished me good luck.
It is very hard to recall most of my childhood except in fragments and most of those images contain strange figures, catastrophic fires, pits of devastation and buildings collapsed (these are childhood dreams), the voices in German and hiding along a wall in a forest, feeling hunted, walking under water, walking on water, walking on a ladder in the sky, watching angels simultaneously ascend and descend on a revolving wheel.

My life was affected by the loss of my father and his death defined the direction my life took afterwards. So basically he lives with me in everything. However, this is not a sentimental attachment of benign love and easy emotion. While I never doubted how much love he stored for me, the dreams he wanted for me (lawyer), the money he spent to teach me music, his drinking and profound depression over took any ability to live a normal life for anyone in the family. His favorite expression was "dont do as I do, do as I say" and so he had a standard for himself and one for everyone else whom he expected to obey. He used drinking, violence and money to manipulate everyone to do what he needed and wanted. Particularly the women in his life. My sister was younger and terrified of him and avoided him at every turn. My mother used him, bled him dry instead of saving money knowing how old he was, how sick he was and she shoved me at him to be the mediator between them, his caretaker when barely out of childhood, his companion because she couldnt contain her disinterest or disgust at his age, gambling and drinking. In the end, she sat it out waiting as he took his daily sleep and pain meds, waiting and waiting as he got weaker, more feeble and then needed help even getting to the bathroom. She waited, then called me to say she couldnt wake him...yeah.

I became religious because I wanted a life that was the antithesis of everything my mother was. She broke his marriage to a Jewish woman and blasphemed the poor woman anytime she mentioned what was lost in the divorce. She accidently mentioned a daughter once and then denied she ever said anything. But she had said my father had a first daughter named Ruth. It wasn't enough to have taken everything from someone in this way, she then made herself comfortable with men her own age and ethnicity, breaking my father's heart and the cheating was at the core of every battle, screaming match, threat to her life and whatever lover of the moment she was involved with. Imagine going to bed and listening to your father threaten nightly he was going to kill your mother, "I'll kill you M." and then afraid to sleep because in the morning she might not be there. So for years, he was the Monster because he was older and hard to understand, he drank and was morose. He worried and I didnt know why because he showered us with money and we wanted for nothing, housekeepers, chauffer, I was nine years old and walked around with a $20 bill all the time for treats or books sold at school.
My mother loved to encourage hate for him, disdain is perhaps a better word while at the same time pushing me to care for him when he was drunk or wanted something special to eat she didnt want to cook. Friday night he demanded to say kiddush, asked me to say the bracha on the candles with his help, he handed me a yalmulka to put on, told me when to say 'amen' and always went to Cake Masters Friday afternoon from work to bring fresh challah, a huge box of mixed cookies, orange frosted sponge cake and a strawberry tart for my sister. His relation to Judaism is similar to mine-the thread is food. He had no family, they disowned him for marrying a shiksa. I grew up similarly without family, my mother liked me as much as she liked him, when we served a purpose she would be civil.

When he died, my only ally in this life, left me. I not only felt the light change but as if I had no arms and legs. I began to live on auto pilot trying to think what next step was next as my mother had no interest in either myself or my sister. Her obligation to being a mother was no longer, the reason for becoming one had been served, he was dead, she was free and decided to sell everything of value off and move back to her mother, good luck girls. Without blame but simple fact, the choice to run to Israel seemed the only path after losing NY residency. I didn't have work skills other than short order grill work and being a grease monkey was okay as a necessity while he was alive, because he was sick and old, but all my life? From pillar to post, thinking religion was the answer to cleanse myself, to purge myself from inexplicable pain and what I had lived through. But you cannot become 'religious' to cure mental illness, although religion often teaches just the opposite, pray to heal thyself, all things are with G-d and from G-d. Yes, and G-d gave us hearts and brains and when either the body or soul He meted out becomes ill from another human, it takes human care to fix the vessel. Prayer can help, it does, but sitting back and waiting for G-d to fix what humans have destroyed is stupidity at its peak. So of course I spent almost 14 years trying my darndest to be a frum happy Jewish woman when there was nothing but terror inside and a wall around me. And this was after conversion, in fact, everything was worse after conversion and kept getting worse as I had no one to help choose a suitable husband or help with anything to set up a kosher home, raisse kosher children. I jumped into the deep end
and doggie paddled to save my life until I couldnt anymore. Had I married a gentle man, it might have worked but I married someone with a violent abusive nature, a depressive. Although I would like to blame the shaddchun, I wanted the marriage and thought if that man wouldn't have me, no man would.
So many times I thought, my father was right, the cure is education. If I can get to college I can support my kids and be free of the domestic violence and lack of financial support. After a father as mine was, a man who worked until he could barely walk with a 3rd grade education, who gave his word in business with handshake and was good to his word, after a life with such a man, to live on charity for over a decade and watch my children being scorned as playmates by neighbors because their mother is a convert, their father was itinerant...maybe some women have stronger stomachs or spirits.

I moved to PA and 2 months ago was in the market and picked up a local paper. I dont buy newspapers because there's so much news online. There was an article about an ongoing study of 'complicated grief.' This type of grief is different from mourning the loss of a loved one, this is grief that alters a person's life, you become frozen in time and indeed I still am.
So I applied and the intake was long and intense, approval had to be from all doctors from each site and there are four study sites. Participants are randomly selected for 1 of 4  possible studies and I lucked out with the best, receiving weekly sessions with a therapist, medication (amazing how one medicine can help when another doesnt and you had given up all hope of ever having any hope)a weekly session with the prescribing doctor about how the medicine is affecting me and weekly assignments, I have to keep a journal that is brought in each week, so I'm forced to write which is most important for me to get me going finally.

There was alot of hesitation in posting this because it has to do with mental health and I was always the one to counsel students and alumni to remain in the closet on the subject, its the last frontier of intense prejudice. But I could not pass up this opportunity, its like a gift, alot of work and I hope to come out of the tunnel at the end of this, lighter and brighter for myself and my children.

Long times...

As excuses for a long writing absence, I have several. My new laptop has a different Windows and until R.K. posted a comment I actually could not find my blog. As it's listed above, its not listed on Blogger...so it "doesnt exist" much like I do not exist on the Anash list, so I'm invisible or 'dead' for Chabad.
Second, it hasn't been a really smooth adjustment from NY to PA, I prefer PA after so many years in NY, but the move was interrupted by a sudden diagnosis for the need to have surgery. That required alot of doctor meetings, discarding doctors and finding new ones and I am picky on the subject. This is one area where if the shoe doesnt fit, move on to another pair. Especially for women, who for years had to listen, and still do it seems in PA, to doctors tell us what we feel in our bodies is actually in our minds.

As I write this, my tiny apartment is so cold, the house is an old victorian and my apt runs along the outside walls and there's no insulation whatsoever...my breath mists. The thermostat reads 59 degree inside and its 30 outside. I ran the central heating one month before I got the bill of $178 and no longer use the central heating. I bought a raddiant heater, but nothing can fight this kind of cold. Except I learned you have to dress in layers, 2 pair socks, sweaters, run the gas oven while I'm home and I have the radiant heater now set up for the cats who were so cold had stopped eating and just huddled. They're snapping at eacch other. I have to get a 2nd small heater for the other cat, these two are in such a fiddle right now they dont want to eat next to each other.

Since my daughter told me everyone is too busy with their own lives and dont expect them to come by or call too often, I've had to readjust my brain and life. It's as alone here as in NY. But people seem nicer here overall. Things are slower and often dumber. Every once in awhile I meet someone who'll excitedly ask, "You from NY???!" and then conversation always begins with How do you like PA?
'I was in NY and its nice to visit, but I couldnt live there' Yeah, at least half of NYers might say the same.
But as I wrote somewhere else recently the New York signposts of my own life and more prominently, my father's era, are completely gone now. I was on the UPWS about a decade ago, the only thing that remained were the pre-War buildings on West End Ave, Ansche Chesed etc. Walk down to Broadway and its all gone. My father used to take me erev Pesach to the fish monger whose name is lost now as well. But it was 3 steps down, like a basement store and everything was cut, filleted and ground to order. The fish monger was a huge man who loved to take a large fish and whack it on the wooden plank before him, maybe it stunned the fish so that the knife went in without resistance. But my father was always particular about this tradition, whitefish, pike, fresh ground with onions, send the heads and bones ina  separate bag. The chinese restaurants Ling Nins, Harbin Inn, Murray's Fish Shop, William's Bar B Que, small dress shops like Ardsley where every season my mother sat as dresses where brought out for her to look at...gone. L'Oreal cosmetics where my mother's custom blend of foundation and powder where made to order as we waited is now a billion dollar prepackaged business. David's Shop that was filled with revolving glass cases of things for women like needlepoint compacts, men's tortoiseshell combs in slip cases, barrettes, handbags and the Riverside, Embassy, Rialto movie theatres. Right between the theatres was inset a Barton's Candy store where our neighbor Edith Bass hand boxed chocolates into their shiny black boxes covered with doodles of pink poodles, green buds, yellow ribbons. You could buy a piece or a box, or bridge mix that was filled with such an assortment of chocolate covered brazil nuts, toffee crunch covered in white chocolate, rum balls, plump raisins, pecans and walnuts all in either milk or dark chocolate that melted slowly as only real chocolate does.Viennese Crunch...2 words that say it all. Sometimes around the holidays Edith would bring us a large box of Bartons fancy chocolates.

 I never went back to the Garment District but venturing to 34th street to Jack's .99 Store it seemed most of 34th and 7th Ave had changed with Jews departing and replaced with Indian importers, Iranian rug sellers, knitting shops, fabric emporiums and Chinese junk shops of every variety Wholesale Only Please!
Crown  Heights is much the same...in one sense good that the community expanded with new buildings, but for me it didnt feel like a cozy home anymore. A new front was slapped onto 770 which is an architects nightmare of no design, almost mimicing the ugly extruded new front placed on the Brooklyn Museum by Diller Scofidio.

Anyway this is much too long for anyone to read...but that's as always. I've been accepted into a study for complicated grief, but that'll be another post.

Checking in w Myself

After 10 days in hospital, returned home yesterday. Hip replacement and leg lengthened to match the other one.
Very tired.
After repeated requests to hospital staff to clarify whether home care was indeed covered under insurance, after all, insurance just paid for 7 days rehab, doubtful they would pay for home care. They waffled and whiffled, called daughter to leave messages when they found my cell unresponsive- needed recharge after 10 days w/out use.

9:30am doorbell rings, its Ms. Nurse, come to assess my home care needs. Without appointment, nothing.
She didnt even look around, she talked a few minutes, asked for my insurance card and then tried to call at my insistence, got a machine and decided it would be better if she directed her attention to me and my needs. But before she could get started on her physical assessment, I had to eletronically sign my name to a document which I refused to do until, I was told what was being covered by insurance.

Poor young lady...in her lovely matching scrubs. Calls her supervisor who was talking so loud I could hear her even though the cell phone was against the nurses ear.
"Tell her she has a $500 deductable she has to pay before any visits are covered an each visit is $22.50."

Maybe they thought by bullying me by showing up unannounced, leaving messages with family members to pressure me to accepting home care that I would 'find' the $500/$22.50 for a couple of months. Unfortunately I have to 'find' $251. for the increase in COBRA payments. Smart me thought paying in advance would ensure I was done with paying for COBRA through December. I'm now up to $870 a month including medications. My former employer who is mainly responsible for the incredible back injuries accrued over 2 decades of having to shlep portfolios, artwork and heavy boxes to meetings and back, wouldnt dream of offering me coverage during this year prior to Medicare...as long as there's a drop of blood, they'll suck it up. They're already pissed I walked away approved for disability.

Alot of phyiscal pain, need to sleep...cats want to play, make up for lost time. no matter how many times I tell them time lost is lost forever, they seem to think otherwise.

In Obama's Jobs Speech, How Many Times Did He Say 'Pass the Bill'? -- VIDEO - Theresa Poulson - NationalJournal.com

In Obama's Jobs Speech, How Many Times Did He Say 'Pass the Bill'? -- VIDEO - Theresa Poulson - NationalJournal.com

It's Official!

The Chabad Tzach list has been updated, modernized. There's an option to submit an entry, so I submitted my data. Last week. I checked to see if my name and data was included. The web page sent me the following:
Mailbox name not allowed. The server response was: sorry, your mail was administratively denied. (#5.7.1)


Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.Net.Mail.SmtpException: Mailbox name not allowed. The server response was: sorry, your mail was administratively denied. (#5.7.1)

I'm to understand that while my financial donations are acceptable and are not administratively denied, my person is non-existent and cannot be included in the list. 

Don't know why I'm surprised, but certainly glad to finally know.

Our little Goat

The young man, uh..cat at screen right, insists on pretending he is the family goat. I took him home from a shelter 5 years ago to be a companion to a very shy, timid, loving and loyal long hair black cat who is part Rag Doll.

This young man was in Ad Seg when I stopped into the vet's office and we took the elevator, vet and I, to the floor where the abandoned, strays, found ferals are all  kept in large cages. It is the Dante's Infurrno
version of cat Hades. The cages are vertical with shelves and every single cat is black. People do not want black cats, until around October 29 as Halloween approaches, then black cats become a novelty act and particularly in this period, respsonbile shelters will not adopt out black cats for nefarious purposes. Knowing this, I left my broomstick outside on the curb, because I had intended to bring home a 2nd black cat for my lonely fluffy boy.

This was a cold November day and Mr. B spent long days at home while I was out working. Since he was less than a year, I thought he might need companionship. My previous cat had died a few months earlier, I've never lived without a cat except under duress or in transit, it's almost like feeling a limb is missing. Unfortunately (for some, not for me) I speak cat and cats understand, they can build and recall a small vocabulary list of repeated words and behaviours. They only ask for small favors, a clean place to pee, a warm place in the winter and food. Love is something they tolerate and dish out when it suits them.

This little guy was born with sky blue eyes and squeaked. He was unable to meow for 2 years, but he squeaked constantly. He also had stool that smelled so bad, he reeked all over. He was bathed at least once a week just so we could tolerate him. The first cat wanted nothing to do with him. I took him back to the vet and brought a  bloody stool sample that she sent up to be tested by the techs and they said, 'no blood in here' but I saw it day in and day out- bloody mucus - as I cleaned their box. I tried changing from the food they insisted I feed them (super expensive) to something that was organic-still stunk to high heaven. Now first cat was whacking him and chasing him to get out of the room, to take himself somewhere, anywhere but near Mr. B.
But he was just a kitten and needed cuddling, actually he needed his mother and it turned out he was a litter reject, a runt. He has a limited diet of 'sensitive stomach food' and eats tiny portions more often than a larger meal 1-2x a day. That is, he was on a regime until we moved and he discovered the Great Outdoors.

The Great Outdoors is 3 steps off our porch in the back of the house where the cars park beneath huge old trees and there is all kinds of grass growing through cracks in the cement and along the side of the steps. His first foray off the porch was tentative, but the smell and taste of grass was intoxicating for him.
So now, he spends the evenings as much as possible on the window sill impatiently waiting  to be allowed outside, so he can graze. He is very particular, sniffing here and there, rejecting a stalk that looks good to me and this connoisseur brushes past it on to the next tangle of greens. It seems he likes Grass, not skunk cabbage or dandelion greens, no little cat tails or floral buds.

He finds a patch, splays flat on his belly, gets comfortable and begins to gnaw, grabbing a blade and tries to rip it out, but is content to chew as much as he can,  pulling it into his mouth. Before you call the animal protection society, this is a tension release for our little Goat. He comfort eats. Mr. B will eat a tsp of food and walk away. When our calico neighbor comes sauntering by and sits down close to the house but far enough to feel she wont be bothered, he bounds and skips over to her and stops short of 6 inches from her face-cat speak for HIYA, I MISSED YA, HOWYA DOIN and throws himself down close to her to see if she's in a good mood. Since her motivation is hunger, not friendship, she's usually tense until fed and after eating proceeds to delicately lick every toe and whisker as she washes her face. While she performs her ablutions, Goat will stay close and find anything to make himself busy, busy work he looks for in the form of grass, so that if and when she deigns to look his way, she wont think he's there waiting for her, the indignity of it all!
Since this shidduch isnt moving along too quickly I've brought out catnip, before the rains came and remain, and she loves it. She gets so loosey and distracted that she rollls around and little Goat stumbles real close to sniff at her and then he gets to sit next to her until the buzz wears off and she realizes her tummy fluff is exposed and vulnerable with two males watching (both  neutered).

Little Goat is only interested in friendship...love would be a dream come true, since only on special occasionas, like a crescent moon or full eclipse of the sun, does Mr. B wash Goat's face and neck, whomp him around, chase him and play with him. Mr. B is like an old man who wants nothing more than to warm his feet by the fire with his pipe (filled with bongo) lit and me singing his favorite cat songs. Little Goat befriended squirrels while living in NY, so when he saw them chasing each other through tree limbs and up into gutters, he thought the same crowd had followed him to his new home.

But PA squirrels are a treacherous bunch-I've seen them go into birds nests and grab eggs, they're worse than stray cats. Even with screeching blud jays or cardinals, they fly around so fast with their little furled tails rippling in the wind. Little Goat forgot himself yesterday and seeing a squirrel nearby, dropped a mouthful of grass and took off half way across the car park until he realized he was on unknown territory and scrambled back.

He's so relaxed after an hour of gazing and grazing he sleeps like the baby that he really is.

Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi Lyrics

Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi Lyrics

daily lies

It must be endemic to humanity to say the opposite of what a person means. Thank G-d, when the worst has occured-that is rationalized as  we can't know the larger scheme of things...what may seem the worst might be in our best interest.


Really what this is about...is dancing with death. Not the fear of it, but the love for it, the desire for it.
Being drawn to it and never understanding why. There were incidents when I was a young child that any parent might have brought before a professional for discussion, but mine were busy restocking the liquor cabinet or sending out to by Pall Malls by the carton.


So at age 19 I get on a small motorbike, the ground is slick from rain, its fall and leaves are all over, wet plaster on the pavement as I start at the top of a hill where the bike shop was and dont even have to press the gas the bike is flying, literally on its own so fast I waited to see what death was like.


Smoking....drinking...pills that are not mean to heal but to numb and addict, pushing needles into your veins or between your toes. Not my life, but along the spectrum of seducing death to come closer these are all tools.


I was listening to Amy Weinstein's war cry of no, no, no, her voice was so extraordinary in that she didnt have to seduce death, he had her and she staved him off only when she sang.


We are a world filled with contradictions now, we cannot say what we mean and rarely mean what we say.
I must tell you I am fillled with hope for a glorious future to walk the streets of PA alone, with my new joint replacement. If I say truthfully that I hope the anesthesia works so well I never wake up to feel the hole of loneliness throbbing in my chest, that would be against common civility.


And so, I have withdrawn in preparation for surgery. Hired a cat sitter since my adult children pick and choose what calls and messages they respond to and caring for animals requires more discipline and routine.
I will call a taxi and alone to the hosptial around 5am to sit with families or couples comforting and speaking quietly to the patients going in for surgery. I will come out of surgery and begin the  process of how do I return home and what lies will be necessary to allow doctors to discharge me since patients are required to have a relative or someone stay with them a day or so.
I will return return home and find a way to navigate up the porch steps with 2 canes so I can return inside where it is safe, where the cats will be happy I am home for them.


In my private thoughts, the truthful ones that I dont dare speak out loud, I think of those who had the courage to choose death, rather than expend unendless years in a slow death by cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, food, none of which remedy the desire for death, which is loneliness.


I've run out of people to reach out to. Spoke to a woman yesterday, who I knew and like while married to first husband we traveled and stayed overnight in their small farm house. There are women it seems who can make a nest no matter where they are. Curtains go up, there's food for unannounced guests always available. But I havent seen her in 30 years. In my feeble brain, there is no time that has passed from when I left CH until now as I try to reengage.  In the meantime the rumor mill has had plenty of grist to grind, so the burden of conversation fell on me and toward the end she said "your daughter mentioned you were moving here, some months ago..."  Well, I guess she was too busy to find out if I ever arrived.
As the poet once wrote "People live, they have lives" and assuming that anyone, a child or another adult would drop whatever to come be a friend borders on idiocy or worse. Of course she might have had to check with her husband to ask if I'm someone they're allowed to speak to at all.


Since most women in similar marraiges remained married to raise their children to become wives and schluchim, I am a pariah even 30 yrs later for having left my marital home and 5 young children in the care of their father and his extended family. Its not his fault he and his parents etc. did a shitfaced shameful job, its all on me, a mother who loves her kids never leaves.


I am seeing a kind of Janus where one face shows a state of emotion and the other face, something wholly different.  So now as I enter a phase in life where I physically need some help I find everyone scarce, not taking calls or responding to messages. This is why I hired a stranger, gave her my keys against every bone in my body and will allow her to come in so the cats get fed and cleaned. There is no one to count on. To say you need help, you are ignored, told you obsess too much (planning is obsessing) or appointments to come by are not kept.


In a sense I understand this is payback-this is how it felt when as toddlers their father forced them to take the phone when he called and pulled by their ears and all I could hear was screaming and crying, begging me to return home. This sense of me being deaf to their pain, although I was not, is what holds them from responding to anything I need. 


But they are young, they are filled with hope and years in front of them, its unlikely from what I hear and see between them that death is the same constant friend for them, as for me. It's a different pain for them, something that will heal with therapy or finding a decend spouse and making their own family.


I came into this world as a Girl Named It and unable to have friends at home (we had to keep everyone away from 'your father') and going out was not allowed either. I was once invited 3 blocks away to a simple party, no drugs, a young Hendrix was supposedly going to be there and she said no, you cant go. I went and she came 45 minutes later once she found out where it was and asked at the door for me. "Your mother's here to pick you up" these are the words a 14 yr old wants to hear after finally connnecting past the saddle shoes, over curled perms that were Afros....


Its not a matter of telling the truth, the truth dont mean anything, because no one wants to hear it, Truth doesnt get you on the subway, buy you a paper or pay your bills. It doesnt explain why I left, what I did what I did, there's no free pass, no return and while one may say 'oh we got over it long ago' thats the biggest lie of all.


As much as time stood still for me, it remained frozen for them as well. I was to return a young vibrant mother who could go around town, meet their friends, share their lives in some way. But none of that has happened. A sick older woman needing help showed up and is told, 'get a life'-but the thing is I've done most of my lives already-I've passed over Jordan repeatedly and been to Egypt and came out alive more than once...I've lived many lives and am at peace realizing that it is not me now, but the finger pointers, gossipers and finger waggers that haven't come close to seeing and knowing the worlds I've seen and experienced, it is truly the Other, kids included, that have to come to terms with me not living up to their expectations.


I apologized to my mother for years, as the opening line in any conversation, same thing at work, "I'm sorry but..." Excuse me for living but may I just tell you...


Truth sits on the edge of a blade.

tell me about it...!

The forty-two "journeys" from Egypt to the Promised Land are replayed in the life of every individual, as the soul journeys from its descent to earth at birth to its return to its Source

– Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov

you had to be there...

I guess its like any war story when the vets come home and can't quite describe the horrors and the scenes that never leave, the sights that return right before you wake up, the ghosts you didnt know until that day, the ghosts that follow you everywhere.

Coming on ten years in a few days. There are a few forks in the road of my life where I can say at this point, there is a clear demarcation line of before and after. 9/11 is one of those lines.

I left for work expecially early because my body was just beginning to show signs of internal breaking down, doing the subway crawl everyday, I had to have a seat and for many years you just hung on to the nearest person or steel pole if you could reach one, and went with the flow. The first year I left Crown Heights and felt the pressure of men pushing against me for 45minutes as the train jolted back and forth had me crying.

The office was dark at 7::45am, I never turned on the overhead lights because no one came in until 9 or 9:30. But that morning was especially blue and clear, cloudless...not quite fall and no longer hot. Around 8:45 my ext rang and although it was my time to get work done before the crowds came in, the questions started and the calls began, I picked it up thinking it might be a boss calling.  It was my mother frantically trying to explain what she was seeing on TV an asked if I could see a news report. I told her I'd check and call her back, she was crying and saying the buildings were burning...what buildings?

CNN was trying to decide if we had just been attacked, people were coming in and yelling the that one of the World Trade Center towers had a plane crash right into it, and what a horrible accident. Some of us ran up to the roof to watch, because we could see the towers only a few blocks south, smoke billowing from the mid section, then papers fluttering all around like lost birds and the young Bosnian woman next to me ,grabbed me crying saying that people were falling out of the windows...I looked and bodies were rolling off the sills and disappearing. I never figured that out. Does a body melt or disintegrate at a certain height before it hits the ground? We could see people who looked propelled, not jumpers, as if something behind them, exploded to thrust them out into free fall.

What struck me deepest then was how we watched all of this happening, a second plane came silently and went right into the 2nd tower and then we knew, this was no accident. Horror for those who at first had died from a terrible mistake became horror for everyone still alive watching and not knowing where the next strike was going to be...or why? As the 2nd tower began to smoke and slowly burn, the first tower began to implode, withdraw, slide and melt down, it crumbled in total silence before our eyes and all we could do was stand there clutching at one another. Bosnian girl said to me she had already lived through this, she couldnt take anymore war.I just held her close, my arm around her shoulder as she sobbed. She seemed to understand better than the group of us, what might be going on, what the start was of what we were seeing.

When the 2nd tower fell it was after 9:30 probably closer to 9:45am.

We had to go back inside, and did but unsure of what our next function was to be. What work would be done on such a day? What message would we hear from the President? Would we hear anything close to the truth? Did even they WH know what had happened?

In the next few days there seemed to be a flurry, chaotic dance of side taking once it became clear this was done by al queada, although at the time the name meant little or nothing to anyone, except the government officials who chose to ignore earlier warnings and thought the '93 attempt was a blip on the radar and nothing to be concerned about. Or that Meir Kahane was murdered and that had no connection to anything...nothing in the minds of America is connected to anything else, every freakin event is a discreet moment in time occuring with cause, and once the cause is known and rid of, the issue is resolved.

As we learned ten years out, the issue is not resolved...it festers.

It festered then as well.

I worked in a university, not NYU but in that area. And so the admins decided they would apply for the funding being offered to area businesses 'affected' by the trauma and destruction. They announced an application was being made, but what we received and what was done with the funds, who knows. We had a big staff meeting of many departments and were asked if anyone wanted to get anything off their chest. That was our big trauma counseling session...a room of silent disbelieving people who supposedly were so intelligent they would never cast aspertions on a culture or group of people. So while the 3 conference tables were encircled by numb and dumb I told everyone to get ready, this was only the beginning and get a gas mask if nothing else.

I traveled to Cairo before the end of the year, spent 5 weeks working and met someone. I need to rephrase that sentence, I met someone, therefore I traveled to Egypt and found myself very busy...because Egyptians had the impression that the appearance of an american in this period was dangerous and possible helpful for each of their personal crisis. Every Egyptian had a story of a son, father or husband in jail for unknown reasons, missing or the reasons were teaching a brand of Islam not sanctioned by the Mubarak government. Ignoring common sense, intelligence and female instinct I returned the following fall, weeks before Iraq was invaded by the US looking for WMDs.

I've never traveled where tourists go in either Israel or Cairo. Somehow I always landed in a world of alley ways, whispered conversations, lies and cash under the table. Believing in the better natures of the poor, the misunderstood (muslims) and the illiterate, my only calling was to make the life of a stranger easier-that is the mind of the simpleton writing here that somehow made it back alive after writing to Suzanne Mubarak pleading for the life of a religious man whose wife was left to sell fruit in a stall in shubra al kama with 6 toddlers milling around her feet. Or the bank trips to send money to Israel because oldest daughter was there and needed money. America at war with Iraq and money being sent to Israel....the gentleman I was with tended to wait outside or around corners or barely containing himself, would sit on his hands and left the talking to me. I should have known that was a bad sign, a man who cannot be one, is always a bad sign.

But, thought I, look at the country and its people, its men struggle to be men by creating the chaos of many wives who joust bitterly for position, a better apartment, whose son will inherit and who will be pushed away, a world of destroyed blood lines further confused by women nursing the infants of mother's who were unable to feed their own children. In Islam if you nurse by a  woman 3x, she is the same to you as your mother.

With the airports closed to incoming and outgoing flights, there was little to do except receive belated messages from looney colleagues offering to call the State Department to 'rescue' me from the madness of war. But the war was in Iraq and Egypt watched it all on state television. I made meatballs and spaghetti for my future father in law who also wanted pancakes he had eaten decades ago when he came to the states.

When all the people around me were speaking against Islam, running from muslims, I ran toward them like a mother hen protecting her clutch. I dont know if my early development that was a crash course in emotional trauma raising two alcoholics ruined my sense of equinimity, but when everyone was running left, I ran right and kept running until all the papers were in place and we were married in the Ministry of Justice building.

Says of obtianing stamps on documents. A game somewhat like Russians waiting for half a day on a line for leaves of cabbage or a roll of toilet papers...you miss the line or lose your place, come back another day. If the office worker needed lunch or had to go home to make her family dinner, she might be shelling peas while the files of supplicants sat waiting for her to stamp them and pass them to the next official to play with.

I hope with the Arab Spring that the reality of what work IS, is gently broken to the millions of Egyptians who, when I was there, worked an average of 2 -3 hours a day and thought those were long hours. Maybe the intense heat throughout the day is why work was divided up in morning and late afternoon sessions with mid day hours to sleep or shop...or drink tea...or smoke a bong.

Although I warned him life here is very different, it was ridiculous on my part thinking that in any way he could imagine a world he could not control or conquer, because that was how he thought an lived. That was what drew me to him, that and his sense of fascination with a Jew so interested in Islam. What drew me as well to him was his poverty. He had fathered  child with the maid from his father's house. The late nobel prize writer Naguib Mahfouz could have written the story and did, many times in different ways. The tragedy of Egyptian life where men cannot find legal work to build a future, who remain engaged for years, sometimes decades saving for an apartment, and girls who grow into women and must retain themselves intact for their husbands to be or be discarded as trash, whores.

So  my experience of 9/11 was to do what I always do, run to rescue to misunderstood and rejected waifs of the world. A young man whose mother had died only 18 months earlier, with no future position available after studying English literature for 4 years and thinking the world was his oyster...not there and not here either. He didnt have the temperment to teach, he had rage-not anger-rage issues and lack of control. But somehow he kept most all of himself in check for the months I was in Cairo until flights resumed and  I had run  out of extensions on my ticket.

I rescued him and as soon as he got here and saw how little I had, asked me to buy a house. He seemed to be speaking with people here that he knew but told me he knew no one. By Chrsitmas he had purchased a ticket to visit 'friends' in Michigan and returned only to take me to a mortgage company run by Indians in Queens who said both of us together did not make enough to warrant a mortgage. I began to lose any worth fairly quickly, as i had no car and couldnt supply a house. He wanted to bring his brother and son over, and he thought his father and his father's family. I was supposed to sponsor everyone. He couldnt do it, he didnt even have his green card yet.

For most of  my life the holes I've dug myself into, I've dug myself out of, after praying and weeping on G-ds shoulder for help. But the immensity of being responsible for someone elses life as well as my own was overwhelming and not an iota of financial or emotional support was available from him. I was told many times "It is your job to support me until I become a citizen." His out of town trips continued. I saw a lawyer, then withdrew the separation papers. I was scared, not in love. I realized when he traveled on his first holiday trip and his phone was off and he was unreachable for days, that love had nothing to do with the arramgement.

Was it politics? No, I married a narcissist, a hungry young man who thought of himself as the King of Egypt and that sooner or later no matter where he went, that fact would become clear to one and all. Politics was the furthest thing from his mind. He wasnt even up to snuff on what was going on in his country while he lived there...and found Seinfeld and WWE Smack Down the most amazing entertainment.

When he began using some of the techniques of the WWE on me I realized it was time to say goodbye, green card or not. He cried, pleaded, threatened, but between the dawning sanity and one daughter yelling at me to wake up, I woke up. By the third time separation papers were drawn up and he was told to sign them, he did so with the understanding that his card, both green and Mastercard would not be in jeopardy.

I'm writing this as an exercise to understand myself because its a painful thing to face or speak to anyone about. Not only consorting with the enemy, but questioning my own religion, then rejecting my own religion afer feeling abandoned by the religion I turned to after my father's death. But among Jews a convert is always just a tad off...always a bridesmaid, never the bride. Its the same with Islam, you remain 'the Jew'  even when its said with affection or pride, you are a Jew, an outsider.

I was a double outsider who came from a home of 2 drunks. Only these past two weeks as the dynamics between myself and my children are shifting, have I understood myself a litle better. I've gone from pillar to post looking all my life for a parent to parent me, a husband to care for me and all the while, my children are no different than all the waifs of the world...I can care for them and all the others too, someone has to...right?

My daughter, the one who yelled me out of the abusive Egyptian marriage, asked me, 'is that how you see yourself? as not good enough between Jews?' That is how I see myself because I've been treated that way. Even though it is not acceptable to remove yourself from a Jewish community, to isolate, I was

never genuinely part of  The Jewish Community.

In my intensse, blissfull isolation I wake to wash neggel vasser, care for the cats, wash again and daven shachris and tehillim. I make a simple shabbos and give what I can to chabad. I'm learning by force that you must rely on yourself and G-d, all else is empty promises to call and the calls never come or the messages go unanswered. 

I survived my parents home and returned to college after 9 years of chassidic marriage and 5 children.  Penniless except for a check that arrived unexpectedly from the Rebbe, I left one life to begin a new one without knowing what or where.  It is something like an internal line gets crossed, before and after and a traumatic event precipitates my departure. An astrologer onnce told me I am the lightening rod in any group of people-while people may look to me for answers, the truth is usually divisive and I am the one left picking up the pieces.Faith said these cycles come in 12 year periods....my 12 year sentence seems in perpetuity.

G-d bless and have mercy on those who died on 9/11. those who were truly innocent, those who believed the lies they were taught and blew themselves up thinking a better life awaited them in death.

I want to segue here into something that's connected but its 3am and I cant see straight...

Tac Ticks

Well, clearly I'm not the only one with a brain that cant wrap around important facts. Fleeing his fortress Jekyl is in Hyding, claiming his departure is a 'tactical move'

But earlier today we were treated to the sight of a young Libyan wearing the Jester's Official Military Hat with red band & gold braid, a thick gold chain and raised the royal gold scepter he was carrying in his hand. The young man had looted the royal bedroom. I cannot imagine how a leader ,as Ghaddafi was, would leave behind his royal vestments for the peasants to toy with. Sometimes there's no time to pack, you just run whereever Saif says to run.... 

This is why all animals should be 'chipped' . When they take off unexpectedly for places unknown GPS reveals their whereabouts.

Money

Do you think about it alot? Suze Orman was on TV last night telling one caller after another they MAY NOT buy some luxury item they felt they needed or wanted.

These are people with 2-3 cars, at least one home, 2-3 children, some in college, some about to go into college, mortgages, credit card debt, average savings was $250,000-$540,000, plus liquid savings of $30,000+, some with investments or pensions, some had rental property incomes, but they all had what seemed to me like loads of money. Money I couldnt wrap my brain around, because there is clearly something wrong if I cannot even understand how people who seem to be average citizens, accumulate these amounts of money.

People with monthly incomes of $7,000- $15,000. After taxes.

What kind of work do you have to do to earn $15,000 a month?

I listened as these rich people were turned down one after another by Ms. Orman who lectured them about how much they need to retire,what their future expenses would likely be if their mortages are not paid off or the college loans are not paid. And no, you can't retired at age 60, you shouldn't stop working until age 67.

I came to realize how, over many decades of intense poverty and being dependent on either religious charity while married or government charity when we took food stamps when my father retired or the 25 years I worked at  a college that fought union organization and paid criminal wages, with work hours at their discretion and demand. I kept adjusting internally to want less, next to nothing, to second hand or thrift, to never imaging what having a real home might be...and all these people who hoard. Dont get me going.

People who not only have homes, inherited homes without mortages from family where they collect, gather and cram 'stuff' into perfectly lovely living spaces meant for families, not 2 rooms meant for short term living or where people live who have no hope of ever getting out, moving up. Where do these sick individuals get money to collect things and destroy their families and homes? Thousands of dollars thrown to the wind.

I dont think since my father was dying in those last 5 years that he stopped working and we knew things are slipping away financially, I dont think I've ever stopped worrying where the next penny would come from, whether there would be a roof, a meal, someplace safe.

The terror of poverty kept me working  in a bad employment situation, not only because child support was my responsiblity to pay, but I could never seem to make enough to get out of a hole filled with bills. And yet, like so many things that have only become clear in the last year or so, I realize I am poor.

I thought having almost $90K in a pension would carry me through.  But $10,000 lost in '08 and its bleeding out now as well, plus monies to move and get settled in a new state. I don't have $30,000 liquid assests Ms. Orman insists everyone must have incase of emergency.

I was on Drudge and noticed a foreboding ad about the future, I go to read that we need to prepare ourselves, not only physically, spiritually but financially. The writer who went on and on said be prepared because the government will be of no use to anyone, they will save only themselves, its up to everyone to be ready for survival themselves. Have food, water, medicines- and although he didnt say it- ammunition, for 6 months. There may not be electricity, gas. There may be roaming gangs, thieves breaking and taking what they want.  And your stock portfolio will be worth nothing because in 2013 the coming crash will rival the Great Depresion and we're so in debt there's no one to go anymore. So the only safe investments are certain 'always' stocks or gold, silver. Always stocks are GE, Proctor & Gamble and others.

If the dollar is worthless at that point because we've printed so much it means so little, I dont get what having gold bars or coins will get you. Do you trade gold for food and water?

Aside from my small brain not being able to deal with money matters, I've begun looking at my expenditures each month because I can't dip into my shrinking pension anymore.

Maybe this, in part, explains the romance of retro style and the 1950s. Life still held possibilities, room to grow, you could still wrap your brain around purchasing a home and not be so afraid. It was a pack of lies in the '50s and it's all lies today. Poverty is the worst disease, without money medical care remains out of reach, hunger becomes your companion, friends and colleagues shun you because you cant participate in hanging out or lunching out or bar hopping...and all the bills that come with being alive, rent, utilities, taxes continue to mount and unless they're paid, you're on the street.

I have no debts, no mortgages, no credit card bills, no home, no car, no liquidity.

It's like being invisible. 

What Happened? Absolutely nothing!

another round of meds for pnuemonia, I'm letting a far more talented writer do my work today

Enjoy this brilliant article in today's 8.14.11 Wall Street Journal written by

Norman Podhoretz

(link takes a second or 2 to load, be patient, its worth reading)

What Happened to Obama?

 

Dispossessed Cat?

Our visitor, Ms Puss, has become a full time porch resident. I found this out last night when the neighbors who share the porch, had visitors leaving at 2-3am and the cat was out there meowing. They were all talking (like no one might be asleep at that hour) how cute she is and how she hangs around here all the time. I thought she was just around for a meal, now I understand why she didnt follow me down the driveway last week, she doesnt want to go home again.

She's afraid to come into the apartment because Mr. Boo is still too intimidating. Even Bootie with his bounding about, trying to control his excitement at seeing her, is too much. There were thunder storms after the guests left. I have no idea where she hid, she must spend alot of time under the house. There is a foot high space from the foundation where anything could go hide. And it stay dry despite the moist earth.

Bootie sits on the window sill, he can hear her, he meowed frantically last night. I honestly dont know what he wants, if he is just happy to see her or wants her to come inside. She had a flea collar on that was removed and her neck line had a matt of fur that appeared to be pulled. A week ago there was a horrid screech from a cat, even my cats sat up frightened unsure of what was next. Then she disappeared for 2 days. Now she doesnt leave the porch, sleeping on a step, waiting for the door to open.

I can't take her in until both cats are comfortable with her and she needs to be taken to the vet.

Always something...

The Caterpillar knoooows

What a week, what a week. Where do we start?
Is there no one to give Sarah Palin a talk show, it seems all she wants is a platform for attention. Riding around the country on a bus, popping up in Iowa to take the temperature of the crowds. She missed her moment and can't get over it.
Where are the serious, intelligent women capable of running for office. I don't believe a woman should be President now. America is philosophically and physically at war with countries that do not take women as anything but property to be bought,  traded or disposed of when of no further use.
If American women continue to sell themselves privately, in the street and on TV, continue to undermine other women by committing adultery without conscience, continue to make excuses for immoral behavior then we cannot produce someone for this position. Segue to Michelle Bachmann.....
I want to hear substantive comments on foreign policy, not that she started a business and knows tax law.

They all blather the same thing, run the same tapes as if someone told every candidate, just say the word jobs and you'll have their attention.
Fact is, manufacturing and blue collar work as we once knew it to be the backbone of America, the jobs that lower class, and lower middle class could aim for are gone forever. Candidates speak about jobs as if they wave a wand it will all come back to us again. NAFTA finished us.

Obama came into office talking about how we need to jump over the hurdle of blue collar mentality and get everyone into college so everyone can learn high tech math, engineering and then we can reinvent America, because America was always the capital of invention, we will 'Green' the country into prosperity once more
 and entrepreneurship has always been our hallmark and then he phuks us with more BS by taking the first point in the Socialist-Black Liberation handbook and holds the country hostage by decreeing everyone must have health care. The fact that million of  illegals accumulated over here and have sucked dry every ER, school room and made salmonella a given for every fruit and vegetable they pick, stopping the flow at the border, was not a priority. Getting them health care was a priority.
That big green lady sent to us from France sitting in our harbor, more than anyone, she's seen immigrants come here penniless, with cardboard suitcases, refugees from wars, downtrodden, lonely but filled with hope-not with the current attitude of migrants world wide-'you owe me' or 'I want it Now' and bilking every semi-democratic society for social welfare programs funds indefinately.
I listened last week as David Gergen and others discussed the WPA projects of the 1930s that took the unemployed and created jobs fixing infrastructure, roads, bridges etc. Serious work that is not glamorous, but needs doing and has been ignored for decades. No one will use the dirty word DEPRESSION, but the media here and there run opinion polls asking whether we are in a second recession and no one questions why, with the lack of jobs, there is simultaneously a drop in unemployment benefits being filed.
Are people just giving up? It would seem so. The icing on the cake is last week's announcement that General Electric is building a huge manufacturing plant in China.
Tim Pawlenty is as depressing as his name.

Paul Rand hangs around with much the same addiction for attention as Palin, he knows he's unelectable.

Mitt Romney...This man has more flip flops than the pancakes at IHOP. He talks and says nothing that will indict him for having an opinion that may jeopardize some constituency or state that he'll need later. He cannot win against Obama, simply for being so innocuous he makes Obama appear intelligent.
From the get go I wrote Obama is nothing more than a Hollywood set, there's nothing back there except some unknown props holding him up. Its taken 3 years for the lemmings to realize he's in over his head and no matter what the teleprompter scrolls for him, he's not making contact. He did as he was told and bailed out the banks and some corps, loading more debt and paying off the very oinks that should have been allowed to drown in their own swill.

Imagine Mitt Romney as the follow up act after Obama.  Although no political leader takes him seriously, however polite they may be face to face, he's a laughing stock and the debt ceiling wrangling proved his incompetence yet again-no script, no brain. Imagine mundane Romney having to follow that and face down any Arab/Muslim government, the Gaza thugs, Russia and our Lord and Master, China and expecting any of them to be a good faith partner with America. 

I think that pretty much clears the table so we can now serve tea....enter candidate Rick Perry

How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail. And pour the waters of the Nile, on every golden scale. How cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws. And welcomes little fishes in, with gently smiling jaws (Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland)

Although Carroll's caterpillar spoke while toking on a hookah atop a mushroom, his words are no less surreal than current affairs in the US. So the cavalry seems to have arrived dressed up as Rick Perry, larger than life from Texas. Big man, big mouth, big hair and expressing a big belief that America can be Big again.

And even if its not 100% possible to be Big again, we need a man who believes that, because every immigrant and refugee, every stock market, every foreign government is convinced that despite whatever Obama was sent to say or do,  America remains 100% better than where they are and a country of boundless hope. We can't do anything until hope is restored, maybe Perry is the man to do that...