The Flies

I've been out from work for a week with a case of severe depression. True, I have also had tremendous arthritic pain, a flu and last week just happened to be the birthday of my dead soulmate and coincidentally the re-birthday of my first godson cat who has also crossed the rainbow bridge. And we had a flood in my kitchen caused by a clog sent down the pipeline by the "plumber" the landlord hired to fix my upstair neighbors sink. Let's just say the planets were in a particularly bad orbit.

And then the flies came.

People laugh at me. "Flies in winter?" "It's because your house is such a mess."

Then the exterminator came

"This apartment is basically uninhabitable." By that he meant that my apartment, because of floods like the one I just had and the many, many cracks in my ceiling, the walls have a terminal case of moisture. Hence the flies. It has nothing to do with my bad habits. But, there was nothing he could do about it, and in fact, in good conscience, he wouldn't.

I cleaned the house anyway, hopefully.

I bought every single non-toxic to pets and children spray. I even bought a toxic spray.

They just fly higher.

We need a new place to live. This is clear.

Now let me introduce you to NY Real Estate.

My apartment is 858 per month and rent stabilized. It is in a boring, but safe part of Brooklyn, just far enough away from Manhattan to never become chic.

If we move laterally--literally down about seven avenue blocks, our rent would be about 900. But the rent won't be stabilized and, odds are, it will be in a private house. Read: we have no rights. Landlord hates me, landlord gets rid of me. Neighborhood gets trendy (it won't), but if it did, he could bump my rent up as high as he likes as it won't be rent stabilized.

The other way--above seven avenue blocks UP, rent is about 1100 -1500. Apartments will be nicer, cleaner. The area is sort-of hopping. Just a wee-bit homophobic, anti-semitic and Republican.

If we just decide to go up avenues and streets, we hit a trendy neighborhood which is very gay. For about 1500 a month, I can get a studio which might look at a tree. It's called Park Slope, but that still doesn't guarantee a tree.

Manhattan starts at about 15oo for a whole in the wall in a horrible building.

Upper Manhattan is 1100 for a one bedroom. Apartments are old, dignified and, like mine, rotting.

The Bronx and Queens are pretty much the same as the neighborhood I live in now.

My only hope is to go for the studio w/tree in Park Slope.

If flies didn't bring diseases, I'd just live with it. They're slow, small and they like to eat, so I have nothing against them, but their germs.

I'm sure that's how a lot of people feel about me.

Happy Re-Birthday Queequeg!!

We almost forgot the miracle that happened on one Thanksgiving several years ago...we didn't forget, but we forgot to NOTE it because we were so busy dealing with our sad and cranky mommy. That's Queequeg looking both angelic and fierce while sitting on the paperwork for MommySharon's gym membership.

Several years ago...about six or so (before we were born)...our big brother Queegueg was very sick and had to be rushed to the hospital on Thanksgiving. He was in something called ketoacidosis, which we hear means the body is very, very hungry. (Henry gets anxious thinking about it.) Just a day before, the foolish covering doctor at the very nice, very reputable veterinary hospital he normally visited (his regular doctor would've known better, but was already away) had said that he was probably diabetic, but WASN'T IN DANGER of going into ketoacidosis (that hungry thing happens because you can't process your food without insulin), but she was WRONG, and MommySharon came home to find Queequeg very sick and ran him to the 24 hour emergency room at the Animal Medical Center. When he arrived at the hospital, he was like a floppy cat, but brave MommySharon and his doctors got right to him. This one pretty doctor worked very closely on him and we hear she even had to help him breathe with something like a kiss (Larry is very interested in this and will ask Dr. Boyd about this on the sly when she weighs him next time he's at the hospital). That night, he sat in ICU looking like an ANGRY, but healing Queequeg and almost a week later, he BIT THE DOCTOR! which meant he was pretty much a HEALTHY Queequeg. The doctor had been playing with him and his favorite Mr. Spider. So, it made sense to bite her because it was his way of letting her know that, thanks to her, HE WAS BACK. Two days later, he came home. And he was home for years after --except for the many times he flew with MommySharon to his GrandmaMommy's in Chicago. There he visited and playfully terrorized his sister, Cassie. We lost Quiggy over a year ago to a combination of things we couldn't catch faster than they could come at us. He was 18. We thought he would live forever. Especially given his heroic return that Thanksgiving and for the long time after.

So, on Thanksgiving night, Queequeg was re-born. Which means he shares a birthday with Karen which makes all the sense in the world since they both like to fly (and they both could be feisty and cute at the same time).

I love you Queequeg. --MommyRaine.

Us, too-- Larry and Henry

We miss you every minute of every day.

Happy Birthday Karen and Happy Thanksgiving Weekend from Larry and Henry

We listened to some of Karen's favorite
songs, some political radio, ate cannolis in her honor and snuggled...
Happy Birthday Karen and Happy Thanksgiving
Weekend to everyone...

For November 23, Karen B.Hunter's Birthday

I had a simple afternoon, skipped work, went to the doctor who told me I was depressed (news!) and need to see some sort of bone specialist so I can get stronger pain meds as my arthritis is bigger than he can handle. Afterwards, as the stores were packed and EVERYONE (not just poor me) was moving like a snail, I was able to go food shopping which was always great fun with you. You were right that it was as fun as anything we did. I was searching for organic and pet friendly things and on the way, I passed a jar of organic "triple cocoa" and thought of the time we went around from Starbucks to Starbucks sampling their new hot chocolate drink.

Like this post, I am intending many things for tomorrow, but I may not get out of bed which will not be your fault. If I do get out of bed, it will be for you.

You used to pat my head, even when my hair was a mess. Such a simple thing, but I miss it so.

I failed you. When you wanted a friend, I wanted more, when you wanted more, I was angry with you. But, we never stopped talking to each other no matter what. Literally, from the moment we woke up until we went to sleep, except for the time you went to Cuba, which may have been your happiest time of all, and it was without me. I guess I've had moments in rehearsals where someone has understood me perfectly and you have not been there. But, I wish you were and being with you was almost always like those moments in rehearsal. Except when I was too stubborn just to take you in. You were only that stubborn occasionally and usually it was because I hadn't taken any care of myself at all. I wish I could have, always.

So many wishes now...

Happy Birthday. I hope it's an adventure, wherever you are.

Chilled

It's finally seasonably cold, and I have very little momentum.

My cats have colds, but are otherwise okay.

All I want to do is go home and go to bed.

Halloween II

I can't fight anymore.

What my cats saw

It was UNSEASONABLY warm yesterday...like spring in pre-winter. Even my cats were freaked out by the fact that there were still so many birds around our window...

Thank god for the election. Maybe we can stop global warming now. Henry and Larry sensed something wasn't right about the weather...

My students voted

One good thing --- nearly all of my students voted. All of them knew who was running for what. And at the end of the day, one of my students asked about the Attorney General's race in New York! And he said Rush Limbaugh was an idiot and was glad Rumsfeld resigned.

NTSB Report out for Cory Lidle's plane

They're saying it was the wind and that he made too sharp a turn and the plane might have stalled because of this.
Here's the link
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20061103&content_id=1731227&vkey=news_nyy&fext=.jsp&c_id=nyy

Halloween

I wanted to write this like a spooky fairy tale, but I lack the sense of humor.

Here goes:

For the past year, I have been working at a school under the leadership of a new principal. The hallmark of this principal's young tenure has been TIME. She declared ZERO TOLERANCE for lateness, adding up lateness by the minute. Even when a colleague was ill, she was given no leeway. Our entire staff now races to work to be early or on time. That we don't see students for one or two hours because our administrative duties come before the commencement of classes at 4pm is immaterial. This is a rule my principal has meant to enforce and we know that. Some of us have the pay deductions on our check to prove it.

Or so I thought.

Periodically, our school has fire drills and students are evacuated at 9:15. Previous principals had allowed students to return after the drill to continue to work until the close of business -- 10pm. This principal dismisses the students at 9:15 and does not allow them to return. Furthermore, she encourages the staff to leave early. She does not give OFFICIAL LICENSE to leaving, and in fact, has sometimes taken back offers to allow people to leave early. But, last night she had the Dean of Students aggressively lobby the faculty to leave early. Still, when confronted she did not give official permission for staff to leave. So, staff left at their own risk.

Even when she was an assistant principal, our current leader was very interested in cutting our school day short. She often pressured me to put my equipment away early -- even if it meant taking computers out of students' hands.

Meanwhile, when others and I have been late, we have been seriously penalized. Our current principal has openly discussed how little she likes our schedule, particularly the lateness of it.

So, there I was last night, in my room, waiting to leave at the OFFICIAL close of business. Without official sanction, I wasn't taking any risk. My cat has an echocardiogram on Sunday and I can't afford to lose pay. Plus, I am not a big fan of hypocrisy. It seems to me that if TIME is so important, then it should not lose value as it increases; if we enforce the start of the day so strongly, why suddenly become lax about the end of the day?

As we are also ALL PAID to be at school until 10, I felt the need to email my principal and her assistant, as well as the our local and regional superintendent. It's not fair for us to cut our school day short, unless it is done so officially. I don't want to be at the mercy of inconsistent policy. I also don't want to make a practice of leaving early just because everyone else "thinks it's okay."

Of course, the administration and staff are all angry with me for "ruining it for everyone." But, what did I ruin -- those who left could have been held responsible to the superintendent without my informing her of what happened. We are all on camera so there is proof of last night's mass exodus. Moreover, I am just asking for policy to be fair.

One of my colleagues insisted to me that, as I know the principal is always going to enforce the time of the start of our day, I should just accept that she will only break the rules later in the day. I should accept the unfairness because it benefits teachers who want to go home early. That doesn't make sense to me. I should let the principal break rules when she wants to or break them over my back, as it were, when she chooses.

And when people complained that I am causing them to suffer and that I am "wrong" to tell about their breaking of the rules, I am reminded of my colleague who needed to come in late last year because of illness. What was the staff's response? Did they come to her defense and say that it wasn't fair to ask her to be on-time when she physically couldn't? To the contrary, they went running to the principal to complain. So, who's sorry now -- even if I didn't care about the rule and THE STUDENTS who are affected by it, I would still not be inclined to assist anyone in breaking a rule for convenience. If rules are to be applied indiscrimately, even to the sick, then, at least, they should be applied evenly. Or, should we tell our students that they should try to get away with cheating -- and that it's okay, so long as most people do it.

The Bread Man

Adapted from the many bed-time stories my grandmother, the late Sadie Grynberg-Fischer told me. Written in response to this week's Sunday Scribblings: www.sundayscribblings.blogspot.com

There was once a town composed entirely around a big, red-brick house. The house was round, and all of the windows were curved outwards. At the top of the house, was a balcony, on which Sophie sat in her chair holding a box of chocolates in her lap. The chocolates were filled with wine and her father only let his children have one of these at a time on Friday evenings in honor of the Sabbath. Sophie liked to hold the box after it was passed around to the other children. She took a long time before she plucked the round disk out of its appointed slot and placed it against her lips.

The town around her seemed very small from the view of the balcony. No one had ever measured the distance between the top floor and the ground, but to Sophie, it seemed above the clouds. In fact, she could see the tops of the trees and of the silo next to the house, which held her family's grain. Every week, Sophie's father took a train to Germany to sell his grain.

The town around her was full of languages -- Russian, Polish, German and Yiddish, which was what Sophie spoke at home. At school, she spoke Polish, at the bookstore, Russian and when her father's business friends came over, she spoke the few words she knew in German. The town around her house had been invaded by so many countries over the last few decades that, depending on how long your family had been living there, you might speak one or two, or like Sophie, four languages.

Every year, the town had a parade to celebrate it's history. The Russian bookseller would march next to the Polish carpenter and the town band would play songs in every language except for Yiddish. Yiddish was the language of Jewish families, a private code for them to speak in when they were not working or socializing with non-Jews. Sophie's family preferred to have visitors to their house rather than to go beyond it -- so the house resonated with Yiddish and the other languages were counterpoints to its music.

Nevertheless, Sophie envied the people who danced and cheered in the yearly town parade. Every one of them seemed, for that moment, fearless. The town band, too, was quite excellent, and it played wonderful marches which Sophie and her brothers and sisters tapped their feet to as they looked down upon it.

At the head of the parade was Sophie's favorite person -- The Bread Man. He stood about seven feet tall and was as thin as a string. He moved like a jumping bean, left and right and he could do summersaults -- or, at least, fall in such a way to make it look like he had meant to turn himself into a ball. No one knew the man's real name, but, when he wasn't at the parade, he worked in the town bakery, and he swore that he ate nothing but sweets and bread. He held a long, twisted loaf of bread in his hand almost all the time, and he ate it crudely, by chomping at it with his teeth. No one ever saw him use a knife and fork or a napkin.

But, The Bread Man never really seemed to mind when people laughed at him and the crumbs all over his shirt and even his shoes. Even from her balcony, Sophie could see the trail he left as he roamed up and down the street, completely out of sync with the music the band played.

The parade faded into the streets below, into the music and into the crumbs on The Bread Man's shoes, but he sat down at the street at the base of Sophie's house. Sophie waved to him and he looked up at her, but did not wave back. He looked at her enviously and reached upward all the way to her balcony, his hands growing as long as his body. Sophie shrank back, but then she realized what he wanted. She sifted through her box of chocolates and pulled out the last one. She placed it gently in his hand and, as the long, stalk-like fingers pulled back the treasure, she moved closer to the edge of the balcony. There she saw The Bread Man take a bite of the chocolate and then, of course, a bite of his loaf of bread. His next bite was smaller, and he seemed to enjoy this combination for hours--chocolate, bread, bread, chocolate, chocolate, bread, etc.

The town became a peaceful dark, lit only by starlight. Sophie and The Bread Man finished their chocolates, smiled and finally fell asleep -- she in the soft chair on the balcony and he inside of his bakery. At dawn, he would get back to work and she would go back to school. But they dreamed of nothing but their favorite things...bread, chocolate, chocolate, bread, bread, chocolate...

Boycott Jeff Suppan

As you may be aware, Jeff Suppan, of the St. Louis Cardinals, made an ad AGAINST stem cell research. Suppan's ad was meant as a direct attack on an ad by Michael J. Fox for this research. Fox has been suffering from Parkinson's Disease for ten years.

So many people of all ages could be assisted in having better lives because of this research. Those who argue that using embryonic stem cells is immoral because those cells come from aborted fetuses are using the same rationale as those who refused to fund in-vitro fertilization. The argument then was that, as the procedure often requires using more embryos than one -- the first one may not take, it inherently ends a potential life in order to create others. This argument was not only overturned by the foolishness of it, but by the vision of the children who were created in the process. It's one thing to talk about the potentially alive, another to look a live baby straight in the eye.

Similarly, I am sure that once the first person to be cured of Parkinson's Disease through this research is seen on television, opposition will largely end. The vision, of perhaps, a handsome actor in the prime of his life, transformed from pain and the ravages of disease back into his strongest self, will be one to behold. The longer this takes, however, the longer that we should remember how Fox looks, shaking directly into the camera. How much longer must he have to wait? Why should he, or the many children, young adults, etc. who are suffering from this, from diabetes and other ravaging illnesses, have to forfeit their opportunity because our vanity gives us the distance to cherish an abstraction rather than embrace and sympathize with the people in front of us.

Until then, those of us who love baseball should send a message to Jeff Suppan and others who would stand in the way of science. After all, what if Dave Duncan, his pitching coach, had said, "I can get a young, healthy arm to work with, why try to rehabilitate a struggling, aging pitcher?" But, it was precisely Duncan's love for the game and the artistry of it that caused him to invest in the experiment that Suppan was when he came to the Cardinals. How many young pitching prospects are now waiting because his career was given another chance? Of course, he should have been. Duncan knows that, pitchers, like all of us, are worth saving because their god-given talents are not to be taken for granted, but cherished. Every human being deserves that second chance.

Or maybe the Cardinals should let Suppan go and, say, spend their money on a younger arm?

Winning teams, as both the Cardinals and Tigers know, invest in the science necessary to help their players do better. Kenny Rogers, Jeff Suppan and Chris Carpenter are not young by baseball standards. All required work. All three have won in the post-season.

Why shouldn't everyone get a chance to "win in the post-season"?

Another underdog continues to make good

Kenny Rogers. "He's capable of that" said Joe Torre, when he shut down the Yankees. How much worse off would we have been to have kept him, knowing his potential. Then again, we might not have given him the help he needed to do what he was capable of -- and what does that say about us. Sounds a little like the story of another favorite underdog, Jeff Weaver. Both had good games in Game One of the World Series. I wish they hadn't had to pitch against each other.

Leave My Child Alone!

Did you know that all schools receiving federal funding are REQUIRED to give the names and addresses of their students over to THE PENTAGON who is creating a database on 16-25 year olds for WHAT REASON THEY DO NOT SAY?

To get your child OUT OF THIS DATABASE, go to this link:
http://tools.leavemychildalone.org/index.cfm?event=showContent&contentid=63

GOOD

(This was written in response to Sunday Scribblings, http://www.sundayscribblings.blogspot.com/)

When a human or cat closes his/her eyes softly, for a moment after having enjoyed something…taking it in. See Henry, settling into his blanket, above.

You can see also Henry doing this in the second picture on this blog. He's the white cat leaning toward you, in the arms of his smiling and also blinking brother Larry. Look in the sidebar under "Who lives with this shoe?"

(P.S. Thanks to all who liked the film provided by the Virtual March Against Global Warming. It's great, but it plays very loudly, so I replaced it with a banner for the walk -- and I hope everyone will click on it and sign up!)

CORY LIDLE

Thurmon Munson welcomes you to the great MLB of the skies.

Teterboro is a horrible airport. When my friend Karen called in that she was having engine trouble, they did nothing to help her either. They didn't even have emergency services down at the ground to save her. Emergency vehicles saw sparks far off and decided to investigate.
Why didn't someone help Cory dump that plane in the East River and bale onto a trampoline or land that plane in Central Park....Stranger things have been done.

Besides, his plane was equipped with a feature which would turn it into a parachute? Did it malfunction?

And, what was he doing flying directly over NY space -- I thought small planes were restricted. Wasn't anybody watching?

Say hi to Karen for me. You did as good a job as most of the Yankees in the playoffs. Glad we had you around. It just wasn't our year, and I wish, especially for you, that it had been. But, you made some great early pitches. No one had their game that day, or most of the other days.

Save me some ice cream, okay?

One real underdog makes good: DreamWeaver

A few years ago I became very interested in baseball. A close friend was having a severe depressive episode and all she would respond to were discussions about the sport, so I started paying attention. It filled a major gap for me as well, as before Air America and my awareness of alternative networks like the Head On Radio Network, I would come home from my evening teaching job to the silence of an old-fashioned Brooklyn neighborhood and my cats. In came the world of AM Sports Talk Radio, with overnight debates between self-proclaimed "Die-hards" for one team or another. Just the passion in their voices was enough to get my attention. And my first cat, god rest his soul, Fred became a devotee of WFAN radio. If I switched the dial to turn on National Public Radio, he gave me a look that indicated he might become instantly ill. Sports Talk and Opera were Fred's favorite things, and it is not hard to see why as both involve arias of pain and exultation. And, I became equally fanatic, even risking ongoing arguments with Karen over the role of baseball as a kind of opiate of the masses in order to catch a glimpse of the game. No matter how much she deplored the idea, she subscribed to the Yankees' YES network so that I might indulge what she saw as my churlish passivity.


I've become particularly aware over the years of various underdog figures in baseball, as well. I do not mean teams like the Cubs or the Mets. Those are teams with seemingly historical curses, which in reality, are the results of poor planning, choices and coaching. A team that hires Dusty Baker after his mismanagement of the San Francisco Giants deserves what it gets. The same thing for a team which consistently attacks some of its steadiest players and which trades off one player for one of equal of lesser value. I love Outfielder Carlos Beltran, but look over at the Oakland Athletics and you will find ex-Met Jay Payton with similar numbers and less of the hype. I know, I know, Carlos Beltran sells a lot of T-Shirts. There is something about a Mets fan that loves some players and hates others without real regard to the overall consistency of a player. Anyway, I'm happy the Mets are in the playoffs and they deserve to be. Omar Minaya, the General Manager, made good choices and Willie Randolph is a good manager. Plus, that is probably the best hitting, and most in-sync team in baseball. I hope they win the World Series, or at least give my team, the Yankees, a good fight.

To me, an underdog is someone who consistently goes unrewarded for good work. Or someone whose potential keeps being mismanaged. Such was the case of Jeff Weaver. The Detroit Tigers loved him, but traded him to the Yankees which at the time, seemed to be the logical next step of his career. Our pitching coaches didn't know what to do with him: he was too unpolished to just need the tweaking and coaxing that the mostly veteran staff required. We traded him to the Dodgers where he had more room to develop. Finally, he was traded to St. Louis, a team with a careful--almost too careful coaching staff and patience. And alas, Jeff Weaver finally connected, pitching five shut out innings in his first playoff win. For years, I wore his shirt and people chided me for extolling the virtues of potential over product. What sport, or world can live without nurturing those with potential? Go, DreamWeaver! You proved yourself, at last.

Who are some other underdogs in my book:
Endy Chavez, NY Mets: If he took Beltran's place, would you notice? Meanwhile, he makes much less money and is always coming up with amazing catches and hits in the clutch.
Steve Trachsel, NY Mets: Steady Steve. For years now, the Mets have been able to rely on him for around 15 wins. Yet, every year, they second-guess him. The rub, of course is, he does best when his routine goes uninterrupted. So, the second-guessing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy -- move his scheduled pitching day over a day or two and you throw him off. A lot of great pitchers are THIS methodical. Mike Mussina and Randy Johnson, two fantastic pitchers, come to mind. So, if he doesn't do well after 12 days rest, don't blame him. We all know that MORE THAN USUAL anything for Steve is not necessarily a good thing.
Aaron Guiel, NY Yankees-- Need a hit? Call him off the bench. Try that with Andy Phillips who is just lucky enough to be younger, and you won't be as lucky as often.
Brian Roberts, Baltimore Orioles--An all-star who no one ever brings up in conversations. It's not his fault he's on a mismanaged team. Every time he comes up to bat in a game against the Yankees he's trouble.
David Eckstein, St. Louis Cardnals--Well, he's finally getting his deserved notice, but for a long time he just happened to be key in almost every win. Another good pick-up for the Cardinals.
Frank Catalanotto, Toronto Blue Jays -- Someone get him out of Toronto, already! He's consistently excellent and he has also terrorized the Yankees for years.
Shawn Chacon--He's not a pretty pitcher, but he manages the risks he takes. He WAS stupid to try to pitch with a torn ACL in his knee and NOT TELL ANYONE. I look forward to watching him when he heals. Prediction: He'll pitch well next season and the Pirates will trade him to a better team.
Aaron Small -- We used you and then we sent you down to the minors. You deserved better. I hope you come back.
Aaron Heilman -- Nearly flawless a lot of the time, but if he makes a mistake the Mets seem to lose total faith. Can we (the Yankees) have him? He can close, he can relieve and he can probably start. I'll give you Kyle Farnsworth for him, anyday.
Esteban Loiza -- He does great for the Yankees in the playoffs and we trade him. Who's sorry now? For more on him and good writing on baseball go to www.outofthebullpen.mlblogs.com


Underdogs outside of Baseball
Sam Seder -- The gruffest voice in radio that you'll ever love.
Al Gore-- I could just use him as the definition of underdog.
Cherry Jones -- As great an actress as we see in every year in NY on or Off - Broadway. The rest of the country deserves to see her.
Christa Kirby--A fantastic actress who deserves a career beyond Off-Broadway.
Cynthia McKinney-- Proved that honesty in politics is sometimes career- ending.
The late Ed Stancyk -- One of few true fighters against corruption.
Mark Green -- A caustic, but hard-working NY politician who seems to have missed his time. In the 2001 election for Mayor, he was literally double-crossed by Fernando Ferrer. Ferrer ran as an Independent and then shortly before the election, through his support and votes to the Republican Mike Bloomberg. Then Ferrer had the nerve to run again for the Democratic nomination for Mayor. I wish NY'ers had better memories. Ferrer doesn't deserve to run for office again. I'll never forget that he ate breakfast with Bloomberg on the day of the election. His constituency of under-represented minorities and the poor and working class of the Bronx were given no promises by and Bloomberg has kept his word and delivered nothing to them.
Mike Malloy -- tons of on-air personalities copy his aggressive radio style, few posess his honesty. And he remains without a radio station after Air America foolishly let him go.
Elizabeth Holtzman -- a brilliant woman cheated by the 1981 election for Senator in NY.



Add your own underdogs, if you like. I'm always looking to support someone whose talent is unrecognized with, at least, a nod of recognition.

How to be a day-to-day person

For those of you who know baseball, a "day-to-day player" is someone who is mildly injured and therefore whose status must be re-checked day-to-day. As a person with Asperger's syndrome and severe, chronic depression, I've begun to treat myself in the same fashion. If you should ever be in the position of having barely enough energy to function, here's some help. Of course, before anything, you should find a therapist to work with. I see a terrific psychologist. There are great people out there. I am also indebted to my friend Sharon who has taught me how to try to harness my energy and to be honest about it. She's also taught me that depression is a real disease, not just a "sad feeling". People act like you can just "put on a happy face." Sometimes, you HAVE to fake it, but that doesn't make it real, my apologies to Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree who wrote a story which supposed otherwise. Sharon also taught me that no two persons' depressions are alike, so if what I say here doesn't make sense, don't do it. This is just how I manage. In a sense, these are instructions for me. I guess most instructions are really for the creator of the product and any ability of another person to follow them is purely coincidental -- unless you have a lot of users edit them.

First, relinquish all but the most important commitments. You have to go to work and, despite the fact that you have no desire to engage in fashion or its subtext, you have to wash and look, "respectable". GAP, LL Bean or some impersonation of such clothing (i.e. the K-mart version) will be fine.

Send out your laundry. You won't do it, and you certainly won't fold it. Just keep it simple. Something like: five pairs of khaki pants, two pairs of weekend jeans, seven shirts, two sweaters. Unlimited supplies of socks and all "foundation garments." I'm serious. You can't have too many pairs of white socks (or black socks) and the other stuff. If you get lazy about even sending out the laundry, having lots of those things will keep your clothes going for a few more days.

If you can, get some sort of permanent internet access. It helps to have a connection to the world.

Listen to Air America and the Head on Radio Network. If they get boring, listen to Bloomberg radio. All three stations tell the truth and the first two are pretty angry about it. The third means to make money off of your misfortune, but is honest about it.

Find a sport you can stand and watch it. If you are really lonely and standing in line at a store or on the subway, you can always find someone wearing the insignia of some team you recognize. Ask how the team is doing. You might make a friend, or, at least, you will pass the time nicely.

If you can handle it, get a pet. Preferably, get the pet from a shelter. Even goldfish, though, or hamsters, etc. are great. My cats engulf me in love and make me laugh. Any pet is a good idea, though. Having to care for someone in basic ways gives me hope and it is bound to make you feel more capable than before. There's nothing like feeding a little creature and making him/her feel safe. If you can't handle a pet of your own, I hope you have a friend with one. My godson, Queequeg, saved my life just by looking up at me. One time, he sat on my lap for 40 minutes and refused to get up (and you didn't make Queequeg do anything he didn't want to do, if you knew what was good for you.) I know he's in cat heaven chasing Karen across the clouds. He loved airplanes and took them with his mom to see his grandma in Illinois. He should have had his own frequent flyer miles. He's also protecting his mommy Sharon, as he always did. I miss you, Quiggy and I miss my first cat, Fred. I hope they are both bothering Karen and making her pet them.

Reach out when you can, but let people know that sometimes you falter.

Take a cab if you need to. It's not how you get there. It's that you GET THERE. Especially work.

Try to eat right. There are good frozen meals out there. If not, at least buy some good bread and some healthy peanut butter. Drink lots of water. If you need to, get cans of things -- soup, chili, vegetables. Try not to gorge on sugar if you can avoid it.

Make home comfortable. If you can afford it, hire someone to come in and help you clean. If you can't, try to take out little bags of garbage a day.

Do not beat yourself up about what you can't do. Level with yourself. If you can't socialize and go to work, well go to work and save up some energy for another day.

Make pals when you can -- email, phone and live. Sometimes an email is enough to get you going. Sometimes it isn't.

Don't make plans in advance. The tickets you wanted a week ago might not mean anything to you this week. Then again, it's good to get out of your head, if you can. I try to buy cheap seats if I buy any, so it's not the end of the world if I don't go.

Don't be afraid to ask for help. People like to help and you can probably think of small things they can do to make a difference. Like just coming over and helping you pick up a bit while you listen to the radio or music.

Remember that being "day-to-day" means that you might very likely be able to play as much as that you might not be able to do so.

Can We Create Oil Out of Garbage?

In many in-car conversations – those conversations partly energized by long drives and also irritated by them (as in, “When do we get out of Jersey, huh? When! Have I told you what I really feel about malls?”) – my friend Karen suggested to me that she had read of other ways to make oil than just hauling it out of the ground. Since I have always had a morbid fascination with the recycled dinosaur who fuels cars and is now fossilized in the remains of my record collection, I was loathe to believe her. Then one night, a few weeks ago, while waiting for a prescription at the 24 hour drug store (which has become my second home), I pulled out a shiny paged magazine about cars to find a one-page article about oil which can be made out of the remains of …old cars and other garbage. Inspired by this week’s Sunday Scribblings, I decided to do some casual research, though I have much more to do.

“Our Pétrole Epoque has left us with a TREMENDOUS endowment of trash. After oil runs out, immediately we shall begin to power our civilization on this heaped up refuse, and in fact, create NEW stylish trash with our trash endowment,” notes the blog Peak Oil (http://peake.blogspot.com/2005/07/trash-returned-on-trash-invested.html) And his pronouncement is supported by a dozen articles, including one in a 2003 issue of Discover which describes how all sorts of left-overs and other denizens of the dustbin can easily be converted into oil, also noting that Howard Buffett, son of the famous millionaire, was among those interested in investing in the Changing World Technologies which already has the machinery in place in a plant in Philadelphia. (Anything Into Oil Brad Lemley / Discover v.24, n.5, 1may03)


I haven’t quite mastered the science, yet, or found time to do an aggressive research on the failings of this process – initial research didn’t turn up much. Brian Lemley, in Discover notes that this process can utilize any source of carbons and that the refuse which is produced by this process is non-toxic. Just imagine the possibilities of taking the over-abundance of garbage we have in our world and transforming it into fuel! Certainly this, combined with ethanol and all of the other alternative energies proposed out there, should be able to help us end our addiction to crude oil and the cycle of destructive power it encourages.

And maybe then, I won’t get so aggravated on long drives because instead of contemplating the long lines of endless bargain shoppers I will be facing, I will think about how, ultimately, their and my obsession with particular items can be translated, surprisingly, into a source of energy cleaner than the anxiety which fuels us.

For more Sunday Scribblings, go to www.sundayscribblings.blogspot.com

Fortunes and Other Wishes

For Karen Beth Hunter, November 23, 1951 – September 2, 2005

Fortune No. 1: “Fly over the Brooklyn Bridge.”

My friend Karen Hunter, who died one year ago, September 2, loved fortunes and psychics and all things deeply spiritual, especially music. It’s amazing how much I took for granted that her tender person would always be with me. I’d readily admit, and I still say that “she was like a little baby” – she folded, much like a fortune cookie, into a soft curve on her side when she fell asleep and her skin was cool and sensitive the way a cat’s or an infant’s is. I have never felt as comfortable using my hands to communicate calm, respect or love with anyone else. The paradox was that her tenderness was sustained in large part by surprise and by adventure, whether this meant perching 3000 feet above the city in her plane and photographing it, or just riding across the Brooklyn Bridge on her bike.

Fortune No. 2: “Never leave anything loving unsaid.”

Karen said it was a sin to deny your feelings. I regret the many times that pride stopped me from just admitting I needed her presence. To Karen, I say now things I wish I had said and will live to regret holding back:
1) I had fun with you no matter what we did, whether it was shopping, attempting to fill out those insane Medicaid billing forms or just sleeping on your shoulder.
2) I overate because I WAS afraid. You were right. I was just as afraid of any kind of commitment as you were.
3) I am sorry that I was bossy at the July 4th party. I was frenetic with jealousy.
4) I cried on your back while you were asleep because I did not want to go home to the cats, even though I said I did. Thursday morning, the day before you left me, I wanted to tell you that I desperately needed to find a way to work this out. I could not stand it. I should have brought the boys over more, like you had started to suggest, but I was afraid that you would eventually get bored with me and them. I was also afraid to be hopeful, and to some extent, to try. I had become bitter because I knew you needed more space and more chances to meet people before committing to me and, knowing that, I felt a bit hopeless. Which meant I overate more and continued to cry on your back.

Fortune No. 3: “You will fall in love with a ‘Righteous Dyke’”
Karen had an MA in Divinity and she loved to talk to people about their misconceptions of the Bible, particularly of Sodom and Gemorrah.
I defy anyone out there NOT to fall in love with someone who can STILL get all charged up while singing the gospel song, “This Little Light of Mine, I'm Gonna Let it Shine” and can out-argue a Bible-thumping phony. In fact, I think everyone should have the chance to fall in love with their very own “Righteous Dyke” metaphorical or actual. By the way, Karen had wanted to dress up as a minister (aka the “Righteous Dyke”) and march in the Dyke March in New York, handing out flyers which corrected popular misconceptions about the Bible. (For a good article on Sodom andGemorrah go to http://www.religioustolerance.org/miles01.htm )

Wish No. 1: That you were here, Karen.

Wish No. 2: That I had never, ever been dishonest with you about when I was impassioned or angry with you. You could see the slightest change in my feeling on my face, and I had no right not to articulate what I desperately needed to tell you.

Wish No. 3: That I could get Wish No. 1

(photo by Dan Heller.)