love & kisses

I was a big letter-writer from around age 12 until today, and of course it is email now rather than letters.  I've written plenty of business letters, too.

Here are all of the ways I can remember ever signing my correspondence, from most to least formal:

Sincerely
Very truly yours
Regards
Best Regards
Best wishes
Happy holidays
Happy new year
Hope to see you soon
Hope all is well

Love
Much love
With love
All love (& maybe more) [used for a brief time as a flirty teenager]
Love you

I purposely put a gap between the first group and the "love" ones. Is it a huge difference? how to you jump that gap?

It never occurred to me until a couple of days ago, writing an email to someone I've never met face-to-face, and who comes from a different culture to boot. We had fallen somewhat out of touch, and I do feel a lot of affection for him. After a longish email, touching on many important topics, I felt the urge to discard our customary "Regards" for "Love."  Would this send the wrong message? Often there are certain nuances missing from written correspondence: sometimes joking, teasing, or sarcasm reads as some thing hostile. So I signed "Love, (I hope it's ok to say that)". I hope it is.

---

I come from a huggy, kissy generation. I am a huggy, kissy girl. I hug and kiss hello and goodbye. And again, like when to sign "love" and when to sign "best regards," I don't generally consciously decide who gets hugged, who gets kissed, and who gets kissed on the lips. It's usually pretty clear. But the day after the "love" email, I saw a friend and did decide that it was time to make that move from kissing on the cheek to kissing on the lips. The "hello" startled him. The "goodbye" was a mite softer. Clearly it was the right thing to do.

Hard to figure out, sometimes, how to up the show of affection a little. And twice in two days!

lyrics and nail polish

And before lyrics and nail polish: due to yet another trigger finger, my blogging may be somewhat limited until I can have something done for it. I had one treated maybe eight months ago or so, and I seem to have two more, although one is much worse. I had something called a percutaneous trigger finger release and physical therapy last time, but maybe I can just get a shot of steroid for this one. It's hurting a lot, and I really don't want my hand laid up for as long as it was last time. I'm seeing my primary doctor on Monday.

V. used to say that he could never consider a song to be good if he didn't like the lyrics as well as the music. I think I've decided to disagree. The sung party of a song has its own rhythm and (often) melody line that can be quite lovely even if the lyrics are ordinary...or even, say, in a foreign language one doesn't understand (see what I'm doing, here?). So I'm breaking with V. on that one.

Even though I gave up being a big slob a couple of years ago, and pay a lot of attention to my clothes, accessories, makeup, etc., I am WAY far from being a follower of fashion. Can't wear and don't like most of it. On the other hand, I do seem to be oddly tuned-in to color and style. And somehow, even though I've had ugly, plain, picked-at nails for most of my life, now that my nails are neat and polished, I have somehow plugged into the nail color cycle. All of a sudden, I'll start thinking about a color I must wear, and then I realize that women all around are starting to wear the exact same color. This changes two or three times a month. Today I put on a slightly greyish light blue, like a stormy sky, and it is just perfect. Orange was perfect last week, and a light mint-green the week before. I still have a sort of shamrock green on my toes. So glad it's spring.

My jewelry color sense is still somewhat hooked to the seasons, but I'm going to have to wait and see when I can start making jewelry again, because my hands are not up to it now. Sigh.

I can't really get into it, but...

My family is a disaster. Have I mentioned this? Divorced parents always brings some level of dysfunction into the picture, but a couple of years ago, just when it seemed we were all older and more mature and could put the past behind us...something else happened that ripped everyone up and severed lines of communication and just made everyone a million times more troubled and miserable. And, as the only person in the family still speaking to all of the other members, I spend a lot of time saying that I don't want to be put in the middle. But I live in the middle. Everyone seems to have different kinds of misery and different levels of misery, but we're all miserable. Probably every relationship and every dynamic has been altered, so my place and function int he family is radically different, which is good in some ways and dreadful in others. I am heartbroken for everyone who is disconnected. We're not all that big a family, and we're a disaster.

Guess it's a little more on my mind because I've actually spoken to all parties over the past couple of weeks, which is a little unusual, and the last of those conversations was tonight and with the person I believe to be most damaged. It's just all so sad.

It's an understatement to say that there are not enough hours in the day. There aren't even enough hours in the workday. There were a few really dead weeks at the office, sometimes spaces where there was literally almost nothing to do - the kind of days where you send the interns home early - and all of a sudden it's overwhelming. In fact, it was so overwhelming one day last week that one person I work with said something to another, and that person called a third person, who called me (and she was the appropriate person to make the call), and said, "What's going on, are you OK, and how can I help?" I really love the people I work with and for. But things are still insanely busy and will probably stay that way until mid- or late June. Then it gets kind of dead until mid-August.

Things are even busy in my non-work life, with quite a few dinners, visits, and events coming up. All good things, but I still don't have any time for some of the kinds of relaxing I seem to need. I want to see an Indian movie; I want to spend a little time on Twitter; I want to while away a couple of hours on YouTube. (However, I should say that a week from Friday is planned as a movie-in-the-theater night: Rochelle, Barry and I are going to the opening night of Department, the new Amitabh movie. The last two movies I saw in the theater (I can't remember which order) were Spiderman (fell down a few steps in the auditorium and sprained my ankle) and Lord of the Rings (I fell asleep). I'm too lazy to check when they were in the theater, but it was some time ago. I mean, aren't they about to reboot Spiderman?

Last thing: I have to give a shout out to Mental Floss, which is a simply fantastic website and blog and Twitter with all kinds of fascinating and nerdy and odd facts and lists. I entered a sweepstakes there, forgot about it, then won: twelve tee shirts of my choice from their store. Please click on this link, because these tee shirts are outrageously cool and not very expensive. I've had my eye on a few of them for a while now, but could never choose which one to actually buy. I love tee shirts and could easily spend stupid money on them. I've actually earmarked half of them for Barry, because I don't really wear them as much as I used to, and he does. (I actually wore tee shirts to work at NYU for the early part of my work there, and always wore them on weekends and to the gym. Now I wear them sometimes on weekends and mostly sleep in them. But this has not diminished my tee shirt lust one whit.)

I've fallen a little out of touch with some people, which is kind of a bummer, but I never seem to have any time. Shiva and I haven't emailed for a while; it could be six or seven months since I've been in touch with Rafael; and I owe phone calls to Winnie and to Joyce. I need more hours in the day, I'm serious. And perhaps a mite less family drama.

bad mental health week...or two

So it wasn't just one of those little stressy recurrences of depression. Not only was it bad, but I had my first experience of delusions, albeit minor. A few times this weekend, waking up or falling asleep, I found myself worrying about mind control of children, accompanied by an image of upside-down red and purple tulips falling like a rainstorm - I suppose this was the delivery system for the mind control agent. Those thoughts showed up about three or four times.

That shit is fairly scary, and told me that it was high time to get my meds managed. I haven't seen a doctor in the year-plus I've been on this health plan because it's a $30 co-pay to see the primary doctor, and then a $50 co-pay to see a specialist. Plus my long-time primary doctor is not in the network. But I picked a new primary doctor today, made an appointment for Monday, and called my old doctor to arrange to get my records.

I need a psych consult, a consult for what seem to be two trigger fingers, and a new set of labs, since my body chemistry is no doubt a mess.

Luckily, work gets slightly easier after tonight. Classes are over until September, so no more late Monday nights. There'll be a lot of work through the end of June, three kinds of end-of-term evals to collect and some fundraising stuff, but July and half of August should be dead. I have ten vacation days coming to me and I'd like to take a full week in July and maybe a few other days. I do need some serious stress relief.

Part of the bad stuff was triggered by another horrible money squeeze last week. Barry was under the impression he would be paid in the middle of last week (when actually it's this Friday), and Verizon suddenly decided that no one can carry any back bill at all, did not notify us, and cut off our TV and internet (and would not reinstate it without full payment). We had zero money and no TV or internet, and really no resources to raise what we needed. So we ended up borrowing from my uncle and aunt, which I loathe doing, although they are very kind and generous and non-judgmental. We asked for $300 (Verizon needed $165), and they sent $500.

This kind of thing kicks up more shit than I can even start to get into. My issues with parental generosity/lack thereof are deep and broad and are making me cry right now.

Needless to say, I found I had no interest in reading riddles by an insecure wealthy actor.  SO not into Big B.

I also found some of my weird self-comforting behavior kicking up, the easiest one to mention being excessive playing of computer games (the really dinky puzzle ones). Another one is sleeping most of the weekend. One other I'm too flat-out embarrassed to mention, but I'll simply say it's been a few years since it kicked up.

Oh, and I pretty much ran out of lorazepam in the middle of this, which is what I take as-needed for anxiety, up to two 2-mg pills per day (this is the generic name of Atavan). Since I'm not seeing a psychiatrist now, it's a bit of a hassle to get it, though I don't do it illegally.

It sucks, it sucks, it sucks. But we had back-to-back functions at work today, and I am off to eat some leftover cheese.

Bad news and good news: Jannah's dog Sasha died last week, one of her two little Yorkies. I don't generally like small dogs, but hers are very sweet. Were. Max still is. The upside is that I'm going to visit over Memorial Day weekend.

I also had lunch last week with a friend from Penguin who doesn't want her name in this blog. Can't blame her. I'll just call her Liz, and say I haven't seen her in nearly a year. We ate Thai food at Qi, and I gave her some raspberry sours in a Hello Kitty tin that I bought at Dylan's Candy Bar.  That Dylan's sure is one dangerous spot if you don't want to be eating candy.

since I've already written the damn thing...

The "BigB" blog sometimes doesn't feel like posting what one has written. It has one of those stupid "recaptcha" things where you have to retype a series of displayed letters, but sometimes lately, it simply isn't there. So this is what I wrote tonight and could not post. I saved it, so I figured what the hell.

It was written as a comment on Big B's blog rather than as my own blog post, but it does explain what the past eight days have been like. And it probably should have been a blog post here anyway.


I feel like I'm just coming out of a terrible week - actually a few days more than a week.
Three people connected with the small school at which I work died this past week: a long-time teacher, a student my age, and the father-in-law of a board member. Our school is very small - 50 students, maybe 50 faculty rotating into 32 slots per year, 75 alumni, a dozen board members. Whatever happens to one of us, we all bleed. And as the administrator, I am literally connected to each and every person.

I suffer from terrible tree pollen allergies and we're having a particularly bad tree pollen season this year. Maybe that's good for the trees, but not for my eyes. They hurt and itched and watered as if they were infected - and this was *with* medication!

Problem with the internet at work - on the phone for two hours with various representatives of "customer mis-service" at AT&T.

Oh - and I was unable to post here for three days because there was no recaptcha. The first time I had written a post that I was eager to share, for once forgot to keep a copy - there was no recaptcha so I simply pressed Submit Comment, and the comment vanished.

And I had a bit of a financial set-back, which can be very painful when money is tight.

I was so tired I fell into bed as soon as I got home each night, and had very little appetite.

So I was very depressed for about eight days. It was pointed out to me a few months ago that I hadn't had a depressed spell since I started watching Indian movies (last October) - this was the first one (used to happen every 2-3 months).

I know that I could use some sort of discipline or practice to help me keep my moods a little more calm and even. I was lucky enough to spend some time with the film director David Lynch, who has practiced transcendental meditation for many years and promotes it very strongly. I met a lot of TM people who work with him, and they were all extremely nice. I was very interested, and talked to quite a few of them about the training and practice. What particularly attracted me was that it seemed the technique they taught was quite simple and worked immediately. As I have tried to practice meditation on my own for years, always unsuccessfully, I found this very appealing. Unfortunately, the cost for the four or five sessions of training was prohibitive, and it simply looked less good to me that it was unaffordable to a middle-class person (this was before the economy fell apart and I dropped out of the middle class). Should something that seemed so healing and freeing be only available to rich people?

(Really, this is me feeling cheerful again.)

have I mentioned laterly how much I hate this interface?

Watch out for spelling problems. I'm not doing well with those today. In fact, I've had a shitty few days, starting out with monster eye allergies Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Had this last year - thought my eyes were infected. So I stayed home, bathed them. Yesterday, when my eyes finally felt better, I crashed into a wall of depression. Let's face it: my friends are busy, nuts, or busy being nuts. Though I have to say that Barry is doing well and working becomes him.  But we're still poor, and bound to stay that way. That's one of the things that depresses me: that it's never going to get too much better. We'll never live in a place with a terrace or a yard; we'll probably never have a driver's license between the two of us and I doubt we'll ever go on a plane again. We won't live out our old age any place nicer than New York City, which is not at all a good city for poor old people.

I didn't end up getting a raise here because by some error, which no one ever caught, I was being overpaid to the tune of $3,600/year. Oopsie. So I wasn't even as poor as I thought, but I was still way poor. So there's no getting ahead, not for now. True, if the Village Scandal starts selling a couple of pieces of jewelry a month, and maybe if another store or two does as well, that could pull in a little extra loot. What I should really do if walk around and find stores where my jewelry works, and try to sell it to the manager there.Don't know if the holiday sale here in the fall will actually happen.

I did spend some of the lovely gift from COPAT ($150 gift card) on some Indian clothes: an orange skirt and sleeveless blouse, and green harem pants, all for $50. (Then $20 for two pink tees from KMart for my purple harem pants.) Spent most of the rest of the gift card on much-needed groceries (so much for "extra" money). I did get a little more makeup I need from e.l.f. (very cheap), and a few sets of glass bangles. I still feel like shit.

Although a couple of people have befriended me, Amitabh's blog has begin to seem like an icky place. Lots of internal fighting. Lots of favoritism. And really, not much contact at all to be made with him. Too much like the Rounders list, though (thank god!) I'm not running it. But best to leave now.

I have seen:

Chasing Madoff (very good doc about people who knew about Madoff 10 yeara before he was busted)
Bandhan (an old Hindi movie about the son of a criminal)
Darling (not the best Ram Gopal Varma but OK)
Satte Pe Satta (still haven't watched the end)

I am sour and pissy today, weepy, little appetite. All in all, I'd rather be asleep.

Also - when I tried to post a YouTube video here, it vanished! How bad does Blogger suck? REAL BAD.

Let's try again, just for ha-has:

yet again, Blogger has changed the interface

I am so hating Blogger just about now. But I'll type and post and hope it all works.

There are probably other things to talk about, but here's what struck me today. Nice warm today today, around 74 degrees, a little overcast, and I went out for a long walk around the neighborhood. To the north of where we live are a lot of wealthy homes, but to the south, there are some very pretty, quiet, middle-class streets. So I was walking around, and what struck me was how many houses, and a few apartment buildings, had terraces, balconies, decks, patios, porches...and no one out on them. I would kill to have a home with any one of those. I think one of our favorite things on our honeymoon (which was in Aruba) was the terrace attached to our hotel room. It was "garden view" rather than "ocean view," which didn't make a bit of difference when we sat out every evening. If I had even a little terrace in the city, I would be out there day and night.

It reminded me a little of when I lived in Binghamton, how much outdoor life there was in yards, parks, all kinds of outdoor locations. If it was warm, you were in the backyard. (I never had one of my own, but a lot of my non-college friends did, the people who were from there.)

Although - I did have a little balcony at one of my apartments. It wasn't sunny, but it was private. The house I lived in was set back off the street, behind two other houses. (The address was 31-1/2 Cedar Street.) I had the top apartment, with a front balcony. I had a little hibachi grill up there, and a chair or two. Lovely place to sit out.

It's a little depressing because I wonder - I wonder this a lot lately - if I'll ever live in a better apartment than this one. This one is too small, dark, third-floor walk-up. At one time I hoped to be out of New York at this point in my life, in a house somewhere, working from home. I may never get the chance to change the way I live and where I live.

Things may not improve much more. Barry is working, and I'm working, but we make very little money, both have debt trailing us, and may never have better work situations. That honeymoon was the last time I was on a plane, nearly 12 years ago. Last vacation we had.

This is kind of depressing, isn't it?

OK, let's see if I can get this video up:

I heard this a few weeks ago kind of randomly...must have seen a link on Twitter or Facebook. I liked it, shared it somewhere else. Just a nice, catchy tune. Then I heard it again on the radio yesterday, when I was having my first mani-pedi on the year. So I'm guessing it's popular.

Twitter has been a fun neighborhood for me. I'm connected to a few Amitabh people and a host of Brooklyn and Coney Island people and groups, but I mostly enjoy the actors, writers, comedians and smart-asses. There's a guy who has a blog and what I guess is a somewhat well-known column in a magazine (and I swear I don't know if it's print or online) but anyway, he's a very funny dude and posts things I find really funny, and I often reply some kind of a build on his idea. He retweets me once or twice a day. I didn't notice until yesterday that he was something like 48K (Indian friends: K = 1000 which I think = lakh.) followers. I have 50. I just enjoy it a lot.

There are a handful of females in the "EF" who use the blog comments and Twitter to paste up endless declarations of love and heavy flirtation and the connection they perceive themselves to have (read = wish they had) with him. It kind of makes me cringe. Sometimes it makes me sad. Sometimes it makes me wonder about the company I keep.

It's certainly a different fan culture than the Holy Modal Rounders & friends were. No real sex appeal there, except for the handful of old bats who slept with Peter in the 70s and wanted another go-round. Not what you'd call a hot bunch of musicians. We liked their music and their personalities, and that was pretty much it. I've never belonged to a fan community for a sex idol of any sort (even an old one), mostly because whenever I've had that kind of crush, I found it to be a slightly embarrassing thing and best observed solo. Maybe that's why I have a problem with those crush-y girls: I'm kind of embarrassed for them. They're doing something I would so not do because...can I saw it? it's ridiculous and pointless.

Do they ever make some contact and have some exchange? sure. Does he appreciate and like his fans? yes. Are we ever going to be part of his actual life? Uh-uh. A few superfans get a backstage visit or a photo, but it's not ever going to be more than that. Sorry crush-y girls and buddy-wantin' guys.

Good so far: Satte Pe Satta. Full - fuller, anyway - review soon.