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My junior high school was an anonymous brown brick school, built in the 1960′s just when Queens was growing as a borough. The schoolyard was enclosed by a metal fence, like a prison, and considering that that 1/4 of the students at the time were dealing in some sort of illegal drugs, the yard was symbolic of where many of these youngsters would eventually find a permanent home.

At 3PM, we would play basketball in the school yard — four Jewish kids, one Italian kid, and one black kid. We were all in the “gifted program” class, which was a desperate attempt for this particular New York City public school to plug the leaky hole caused by fearful parents and their kids pouring out of the city school and into the safer private religious schools. Without some action on the school’s part to keep the brainier kids, the neighborhood junior high would be known as a place where students were more likely to get stabbed than learn algebra.

There were three basketball courts in this schoolyard. We played on the half court the furthest away from the crowds, near the water fountain. All six of us were shitty players. I was tall, so I was good at blocking the ball. Unfortunately, I couldn’t dribble or shoot. I stood around with my hands up, trying to block the shots. Luckily, no one else could shoot the ball either.

Depending on the day of the week, between fifteen minutes to an hour into our game, it would always happen. Six tough-looking dudes would show up, the tallest doing tricks with his ball, and tell us to leave. He was not a polite guy. If I remember correctly, he tended to use the term “fucking white faggots,” at five of us, and then torment the one black guy in our group for being an “oreo.”

This might seem quite dramatic to you, even traumatic, but at the time, it didn’t seem so, even when we physically chased off the court, shown a knife, or forced to give them money. We would run away and make fun of these idiots, laughing at our crazy adventure that we would never dare tell our parents.

I’ve hardly thought about these incidents in years. It was the power politics of the schoolyard. During the day, we were safely roped off in our “gifted program.” What else was there to do?

But how has this affected me today? Or has it? I still tend to cave in during a conflict, although I have gotten much better about standing my own ground. I am the antithesis of the Israeli army and Hamas in the schoolyard of the Middle East, or the U.S. and Soviet Union of the cold war years, where neither gives an inch because that would convey weakness, and enemies always take advantages of weaknesses.   Sadly, history does not have many examples of the weak writing the history books!

We all know the movie/TV version of this schoolyard story. There would be a moment of transformation. At some point, I would have had enough with being pushed around, and I would become a leader.

“We need to stop those bullies. We need to keep our ground,” I would tell my friends.

Of course, just as the bullies arrive, telling us to leave the court, all my friends would wimp out, running off, leaving me alone, having to face the six toughs alone. I would nervously “put up my dukes,” like in some John Wayne Western, and promptly get the shit beaten out of me.

Yet, and this is a BIG yet — the bullies would have learned to respect me. I took it like a man. We would negotiate. We would compromise, taking turns using the court. We would even learn to play together, in mixed teams. The guy who did tricks with the basketball like a Harlem Globetrotter would show me how to play ball like a pro. I would teach him algebra. I would grow up and play center for the New York Knicks. He would become a Harvard Professor, a Nobel Prize winner in Mathematics.

I love Hollywood. Maybe the weak can’t write the history books, but they can rewrite history in screenplays!

OK, you’re a parent. Your son comes to you and tells you what is going on at the schoolyard. What do you tell him to do? Fight or flight?

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Two weeks ago I went with Jen Lee to this Moth Storytelling Slam downtown. It took place at a small venue downtown, so audience members and storytellers were lined up for an hour before the show, in the freezing cold, just to get a seat. As Jen and I waited, she introduced me to her friends. She is a semi-regular. During my conversations with some of these storytellers, I was amused by the sub-culture that has grown up around these “slams.” As bloggers, we’ve become so used to chatting about Wordpress and plugins, gibberish to outsiders. Well, every sub-group has their own insider lingo.

“You going into the hat tonight?” some hipster guy asked me.

“Huh?”

He explained to me that those who wanted to tell a story put their name into a hat, and ten storytellers are randomly chosen.

As he spoke, he gave me a aggressive look, ready to pounce on me if I said, “Yes,” as if this was the storyteller’s equivalent of a new blogger arrogantly thinking he was going to make as much money as Dooce in his first year of blogging. I assured him that I was just a visitor to this strange storytelling world, which eased the tension.

The line for the show was snaking around the block. There was a hodgepodge of social activity going on — networking, flirting, competitor bantering, cold stares, and camaraderie, while the intense loners stood apart, practicing their stories on a mini-recorder, praying to God that they be picked to present their story that night, catapulting them to literary success, allowing them to quit there job selling bathroom plumbing at Home Depot, and enabling them to give a big “f**k you” to all the less-talented wannabees on line next to them.

Sound familiar? Exactly! Like an invitation-only party at BlogHer.

Finally, the doors to theater opened and we were let in out of the cold. Jen and I found good seats. As the show began, I could feel a nervous tension in the air. The MC, a storyteller himself, pulled a name out of the hat and that individual was invited to come to the front and tell his story. Since no one knew who was going to be picked next, those waiting for their name to be called were always at the edge of their seats. The female storyteller in front of me, dressed in the 1970’s Annie Hall look, was tapping her foot the entire evening, waiting for her big moment, like a teenager waiting for the phone to ring to be asked to the prom. Sadly, the boy never called. At the end of the night, she was the first one out of the bar, on her way home to sulk.

Each night of storytelling revolves around a new theme. The subject is broadly defined, so the storyteller can almost mold any story into the current theme. The night’s theme was “cars.”

Smart writers know that there are two genres that always sell — sex and coming of age stories. Or both. It didn’t surprise me that the first five stories contained these elements, whether it was a story about a woman losing her virginity in the back of a 1970 Mustang or a man’s having a remembrance of the family trip to Disneyworld in the Chevy Nova.

The sixth reader to be picked from the hat was an Asian-American man of about forty, with black cropped hair. His story was different than the others. He began his story by telling the audience that when he was in his thirties, he worked in Silicon Valley, slaving away for twelve hour days. One night, as he was driving home, he had a heart attack. He then proceeded to tell us all the specific details of what it feels like to have a heart attack. He described the tightening of the chest, the discomfort, and the fear.

I found it extremely difficult to listen to his story. I could feel my own chest tightening. Suddenly, there was a cry for help. An audience member, just five rows ahead of us, a fiftyish man with his family, had slumped over in his chair.

The MC ran to the microphone.

“Call 911! Call 911! We need a doctor,” he shouted.

Everybody fumbled with their phones, because the MC had made us shut them off when the show began. There were no doctors in the house, since the audience was mostly thirty-ish writers with soul patches, but someone ran up to the slumped man and relaxed his shirt.

I should remind you that the venue was jammed. Audience members were sitting in the center aisle. If the fire department had seen the way storytellers had to climb over people to reach the front stage, the entire venue would have been fined, or closed down.

“Everyone in the center aisle has to leave,” said the MC. “We need room for emergency.”

“I’m calling an ambulance!” cried someone in the first row, his phone dialing.

The audience in the center dispersed. Since Jen and I had our seats, we remained seated. The Asian storyteller hid in the corner, horror on his face, wondering if his Moth Slam story had just killed a man.

After ten minutes of chaos, the slumped man sat upright, like a zombie awakening from sleep. As the emergency workers entered the theater, the newly-awake man stood up and said that he was OK. The audience sighed with relief. The formerly-slumped man was now red-faced, not from illness, but from embarrassment. He walked over to the stage and asked the MC if he could say a few words to the audience, including those who were re-entering from outside. The audience was confused, wondering if this was some sort of stunt. But it wasn’t.

“I’m sorry to scare you,” said the man. “I fainted. This was not the first time this has ever happened to me. Whenever I hear stories of people in pain, I become so sensitive to their pain, that I begin to feel the sensations themselves and stop breathing. I once fainted in the middle of church. When this storyteller started telling his story about his heart attack, I had a feeling that this was going to happen, and I tried not to listen, to think about something else, but I could hear his words, and I felt compelled to listen, and as he described the pain in his heart, I felt a pain in my heart and — I’m sorry. Maybe I should go home.”

The audience clapped, and the fainting man left. The Asian storyteller returned to the stage and continued with his heart attack story, but the magic was gone. None of the remaining storytellers could match the real life drama. The fainting man both proved the power of storytelling — his intense reaction to another’s intense story — and WAS the best story of the night, because it happened in front of our eyes.

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This little true life tale encapsulates — for me — blogging during 2009. We all put our blog posts into the hat, hoping that they get noticed by others. We listen to each others stories. Some tell funny stories. Some tell sad stories. Some stories are more popular than others. Some of us are not community-oriented at all. Some of us just tap our feet, waiting for OUR chance to be on stage so we can tell our story. At times, we are confronted by real drama — like having someone collapse right in front of us — right in the middle of our story. It is times like these, that we put aside our competitiveness and bickering, and offer support to those who need it. And then, there are those moments that overwhelm us, when we get so involved in the lives of others that we feel dizzy and faint.

The only solution for that is to apologize to everyone, take a breather, and come back refreshed.

Writing, Reading, Laughing, Caring, Overwhelmed. That was Blogging in 2009.

See you in 2010.

My mother doesn’t like to waste money, and similar to many other Jewish mothers of her generation, she can sense a sale at Loehmann’s from miles away.

Which brings me to Thanksgiving.

Recently, a new supermarket took over in the space across the street.  At first, everyone in my apartment building loved the shiny new store because it was clean, had a brightly-lit produce section, and the check-out people said “Thank You,” something previously unheard of in a Queens supermarket.  The local customers froze in shock upon hearing these words, as if they had just entered an alternative universe.

But these niceties came at a huge price. The supermarket was stingy on sales.  The previous supermarket had a cluttered appearance, like a desk covered in post-it notes.  Everywhere you looked, there were colorful, mismatched stickers and hanging banners screaming out a new promotion, such as “Canned Peas!  Buy One, Get One Free!”

These constant promotions served two purposes — they created excitement and they distracted the customers from focusing on the unorganized shelving and inept customer service.

There were few sales at this new, more upscale store, and never on anything that people really needed as a necessity.  Last week’s big promotion was for “Fresh Halibut at $8.99 a pound.”

The bomb dropped this week when rumors spread throughout the apartment building that the supermarket wasn’t even going to offer a free turkey for Thanksgiving (usually for spending $25 dollars in purchase, with one per customer, of course)!  This had been a Holiday tradition with the supermarkets in this spot for the last forty years.   It was a tradition held as sacred to Queens residents as nativity scenes are to those who live in the mid-West.

My mother was very upset at the supermarket.

Now I can hear some of you grumbling and snickering at home.

“How cheap are you people in Queens?  Why don’t you pay for your own freaking turkey?  That’s what is wrong with liberals — always looking for a hand-out!”

Before you pontificate, let me try to explain this in a language that you will understand.

Imagine that you wake up tomorrow morning and go on Twitter, and you are greeted by a smiling cartoon Twitter bird with  the message, “We have finally figured out how to make money with Twitter.  Please pay $10 a month if you want access to your account.  Thanks.”   Are you going to say, “What a clever business model?”    Or are you going to be pissed, used to getting the milk from the cow for free?!

Think about that as you snicker!

You should also understand that my mother is a dangerous woman.  She is strong-willed AND retired, which means she is stubborn AND has too much time on her hands.

“I heard the supermarket on 164th Street is giving you a free turkey if you spend $25 dollars,” she said.

“You want to go all the way to 164th Street just for a turkey?  Is someone driving there?”

“No, I thought we’d walk over with the shopping wagon.”

“That supermarket is over a mile away!”

“So?”

“Let’s just get it downstairs.  I’ll pay for the turkey.”

“No, it’s the principle of the thing.  Getting the free turkey is an essential part of Thanksgiving.  It’s like the Indians sharing their food with the Pilgrims.”

“And look what happened to the Indians.”

“If you don’t want to go, I’ll go myself and schlep the wagon up the hill, along with the heavy turkey, so everyone in the building will see me breathing heavy, walking two miles, and wondering if you’re sooooo “busy” at home writing one of your porno posts for your blog that you couldn’t help your mother carrying the turkey.”

“Nice,” complimenting her guilt shtick.

“Besides, you did say that you wanted to exercise more.”

I lost the battle.  Off we went to get our free turkey.

When we returned home, we were exhausted, and my back hurt from pushing the shopping wagon, filled with groceries and a 14 pound frozen turkey.

“So, honestly, Mom…” I asked.  “Was schlepping all this way just to get a free turkey really worth it?”

“Absolutely,” she replied, as she placed the frozen turkey in the bottom of the refrigerator to start its long thaw.

(note to Sarah Gilbert.   Next year,  I will try a Heritage turkey, which I never even heard of before until you mentioned it on Twitter!)

“Does your wife or girlfriend think you are too “big,” too “small,” or “just right” in the bedroom?” asked the dude with the glasses, trendy t-shirt, beard, and clipboard.

I had just left the 42nd Street Library and was walking down the street, passing the headquarters of a major pay-channel cable network.

“Huh?” I asked.  I’m used to tourists asking for directions to the Empire State Building, but never this.

“I’m with the show “Honest Sex Stories” and we’re interviewing people today in the street.  You can be on TV!”

I noticed a cameraman and soundman lurking in the background, in front of the “Hearty Soup” cafe.

“You want me to talk about my penis size on TV?”

He assured me that the show gets a large audience, and has been nominated for an Emmy.

I know that it is everyone’s dream of being on TV.  We all want Oprah’s job when she leaves.  I read tweets about mommybloggers on CNN.  Redneck Mommy is now on Canadian TV every week!  I would love to feel special too, but do I really want this to be my opening act on the small screen?

Twitter January 2010

@RT Neilochka – hey, gang, watch me on Honest Sex Stories tonight where I talk about my penis size!

As a professional blogger, I decided to talk to this “street interviewer” as a peer, an equal.  After all, as the master of ceremonies of the Great Interview Experiment, I know a little bit about interviewing myself, and I didn’t want him to just think of me as some dumb schlub he just picked up off the street.

“So, how many people have you interviewed already?”

“We’re just starting the process.”

I wanted to show him how sharp I was with my knowledge.

“You realize that you’re NOT going to get too many men admitting that they are “too small.”  If anything, you are going to get guys insisting that they are “too big.”

“We know that already.  That’s why we’re interviewing women too.”

“A-ha.”

I thought about this for a second.  What would I do with this footage if I was trying to be “entertaining” on some cable sex show?

“So, basically, you’re going to intercut men saying they’re too big with the women saying they’re too small?”

“Something like that.”

“So, whatever I would say right now, doesn’t really matter.  You could edit me in with some woman saying, “He has the smallest dick in the world,” and the audience will think she is talking about me.”

“That’s unlikely, but it is up to the director and video editors.  They’ll be some paperwork that you’ll need to sign before…”

“So, tell me again.  Why would I want to do this?”

“You’ll be on TV!”

“What’s your dick size?” I asked.

“What?”

“You work for a sex show.  Surely you know your own dick size.”

“Average.  A little more.  About six inches, I guess”

“Great.  Can I take a photo of you right now with my iPhone?”

“Why would you do that?”

“I run a blog called Citizen of the Month.  I’d like to write a post about you, telling my readers about your dick size.  Would that be OK with you? I get a lot of readers!  This would be a great opportunity for you!”

“God, inspire me,” I say as I look up at the stars in the night sky through the window inside McDonald’s, where I sit on the hard, bright yellow plastic bench typical of the fast-food chain, sipping my small, tepid coffee, which cost me only a dollar during a promotion running for the month of November.

God says nothing.

Cindi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” plays on the speakers, but I doubt this is God’s specific message for me.  Nowhere in the Torah have I ever read, “When the working day is done/ Girls – they want to have fun.”

A group of raucous black teenagers eat Big Macs and cheeseburgers at the next table.   Their dialogue about school is as sprinkled with vulgar obscenities as the salt is on their greasy fries.

I gaze out the window again, hoping for a sign.

And there it is — the McDonald’s sign.   Why did I not see it earlier?   It stands tall, in front of me, blocking my view of the stars and the moon like an urban redwood, or the massive monolith in the movie “2001, A Space Odyssey.”

There are words on this sign.  Words that are familiar to me.  And as a writer, I love words.

99 Billion Served.

Once upon a time, the first McDonald’s opened in San Bernardino, California, and they sold their first juicy patty to an eager teenager looking for a quick bite.  Through the years, this young business franchise journeyed throughout the world, and dominated China, Russia, and the Louvre cafeteria.

99 Billion Served.

What all-American man isn’t inspired by the guts and glory, the charisma and cojones — the manly domination — of McDonald’s?

If life is like a McDonald’s hamburger, then my potential is limitless.  There are new markets to conquer, new adventures.   I can add bacon to my burger.   How about living it up with TWO patties?    Or experimenting with a sesame seed bun?

I hear your message, oh sign.  Thank you, God.  I hear you and I understand.

“If you are loved, like a good hamburger, there is no stopping you from achieving your dreams!  You can grow and grow and grow, like Jack’s beanstalk, reaching into the clouds.  There is no status quo.    You can be “99 billion” in the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness lottery, rising and flourishing, bursting forth into the world, constantly reaching for more.”

Yes, I hear you!

“Where is McDonald’s now on the leader board?” I ask myself, stealing a phrase from the judges on Dancing with the Stars.   Is the company close to 100 Billion Served yet?

“Go for it, my friend!” I shout at a poster of Ronald McDonald.   “Will there be a special event planned?  Will coffee be 89 cents during a promotion?”

I go onto my iphone to read about the famed McDonald’s sign on Wikipedia, and my spirit sinks like a balloon-boy-less balloon.

An early-1970s McDonald’s sign in Austin, Minnesota, showing the number of burgers sold. From 1969, the number was displayed in billions, increasing with every 5 billion. When the total reached 100 billion in 1993, the signs of this era were changed to display 99 billion permanently, as there was only room for two digits.

Huh?  Only room for two digits?

So, McDonald’s just stopped changing the sign because there wasn’t enough room for another digit?  Is a major international corporation really so lazy and bloated that they can’t add one more slat into their famous sign so they can accurately portray how many burgers have been served?  Do they care anymore?  Are they just shoving food out of the drive-thru window without tallying up the sales?

I’m no design genius, but couldn’t McDonald’s create two cards that read “10″ and “0″ so it would read 100 billion and still only use two slats?  I could create these cards at Kinko’s for them myself… overnight!   I could probably even do this on my printer at home!   I understand fear of change — I still haven’t changed my original blog template and design — but there is a big difference between a lone unpaid blogger in Flushing and one of the most famous corporations in the world?

This McDonald’s sign, lit like a neon beacon, is a false Messiah, like so many before.   She is a sparkly whore.   This is not a sign from God, sent to inspire me to greatness.  “99 Billion” was a message from 1993, a crumbling reminder of  lost focus.  This sign is a fraud, a message of “no change,” the sluggish, slurring words of an overweight billionaire who lost any sense of pride, excitement, lust, or creativity 17 years ago, and now lives life like a pet hamster on his wheel, going in circles.

This is not the life I want to lead.  I will never look for inspiration in a fast food restaurant again.

I curse you, McDonald’s sign.  I curse you, God.  There are no messages tonight.

news story about this guy across the street

There’s a terrorist on my block
Wants a bomb that goes tick tock!

Saw him eating at “Chili Thai”
Now he’s wanted by the FBI!

Says he hates the U.S.A.
Gonna destroy the NY subway!

La La La La La La La
There’s a terrorist on my block
La La La La La La La
Wants a bomb that goes tick tock!

Terror Dude, I know you’re pissed
Dating must suck for a terrorist

Your work requires “me, me, me”
And women want “stability”

But acting like a stupid prick
Will not impress an American chick.

La La La La La La La
There’s a terrorist on my block
La La La La La La La
Wants a bomb that goes tick tock!

If you learn to treat a girl well
Then your life will turn out swell

American culture can make anyone mad
But with some hottie, it ain’t half bad!

Cause wouldn’t you rather slap her sexy ass
Then play all night with poison gas?

La La La La La La La
There’s a terrorist on my block
La La La La La La La
Wants a bomb that goes tick tock!

I walked outside and it was pouring cold rain.   My sneakers from the West Coast, white, clean and virginal, were no match for the harsh New York City downpour, and within minutes of my first step from the safety of my home, my shoes were stained and my mismatched socks were soaking wet.    A car honked.   An old man in a yarmulke almost fell over from the force of the wind.   A black girl screamed motherfucker.   A broken umbrella sat on the curb, discarded like a drunken one night stand.   There was a cacophony of voices and alarms and traffic, like a symphony orchestra from a mental ward.    A woman wearing a burka and a raincoat stood outside the new bank, like a statue.   Only her eyes were visible, but they told an unhappy story.   Water fell down, steam floated up, thunder cracked, the subway rumbled.    It was as God above and the Devil below were having a fist fight and New York was frightfully and violently alive from the energy, like a living breathing animal.   All I could think about was entering the Colombian Diner and ordering a strong cup of their darkest coffee, then taking the tall, skinny waitress on the table, and fucking her hard, not caring about the other customers or the cheap coffee mug crashing to the floor, breaking into fine pieces.   And she would love it.   And then I would cry — a cry of happy and sad.   But of course, this was in my mind.   This was not real.    To actualize my thoughts, I would need to follow my ancestors, so I prayed to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, asking Him for a full life.   Why couldn’t every day be as powerful, as full of mystery and passion, as today?    The rain stopped and He replied.   He said Yes.   Yes, yes, yes!   BUT — he warned, and I knew there was going to be a “but”– BUT, he said, I would be forever blind to the magic and power of the world around me unless I showed him a sign, made a covenant with Him, to appreciate all that He has given me.   And that is when I deleted Twitter and Facebook from my iPhone.   I placed my phone in my coat pocket, pulled the zipper closed, and continued on, my five senses at my side.

There is nothing as sad as seeing an old lover who has been hit by hard times.    Wasn’t it just yesterday when we first met, both of us young and naive, two individuals from different cultures, but with so much in common?

It was the summer of 1986.  You told me stories about your childhood in Tokyo.  I took you to my mother’s home for your first Passover seder.   We made love in Central Park.  You murmured like a cat as a stroked you, laughing and saying, “Hello Kitty.  Hello Kitty.”

Then, you moved back to the land of the Rising Sun, where success was waiting for you.  We knew this was your destiny.

You became a superstar, and stopped returning my calls.  I tried to forget you, but wherever I went, I saw your loving, trusting face — on lunchboxes, keychains, pencils.  Everyone loved you, but only I truly knew HOW to love you.

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A few weeks ago, a blogger went on Twitter and asked what would happen if she stopped blogging.   Most begged her not to stop.   I tried to be helpful and gave another view.  “If you quit blogging, people will be sad, but within two weeks, everyone will have moved on.  Better to focus on those who really love you — your family and friends — because they will not abandon you.  Audiences are fickle.”   Others on Twitter called me cruel and hateful towards this fellow blogger, when I was just trying to speak the truth.

The truth IS that audiences are fickle.  Every few months there is a new superstar, a new flavor of the month, and then — like Meg Ryan — you stop getting the good movie roles.  Do we all have ADHD?  Are we bored so easily with each other?   How else to explain the constant look-out for something new?  Is there any other reason for a Kim Dardashian to be talked about other than a need to have some new useless celebrity around  for a few months?

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I was in Manhattan yesterday when I saw her again.  At first, I didn’t recognize her.  Could this have been the same lover that I had once held so closely in 1986?  The same international icon, beloved by millions, but none more than me  — now wondering the streets of midtown Manhattan, alone and unrecognized?

But I recognized her.  I recognized the look in her eyes.   She asked me to join her for lunch.   She brought me to this unpretentious fast-food “soup cafe,” so completely unlike the five star restaurants that she had once visited as she traveled the world as a good-will ambassador, dining with rock stars and diplomats.

We talked about old times, the mistakes, the heartbreaks, the ups and the downs.  It was nice to catch up with my old friend, my passionate lover, but time becomes a wall, a barrier without a door, and after we finished our soup, it was time to go our separate ways again.

“Goodbye, Kitty,” I said.

It was a wild last few days, and by wild I mean I left the house and spoke to people.

On Wednesday, I had a long lunch with my friend Noel, who is an extremely talented and funny musical theater composer.  He told me what to see and what to avoid on Broadway this year. Here is one of his songs I found on YouTube –

“Marry Me” by Noel Katz

On Thursday, I sneaked into the end of a corporate demonstration of some new-fangled kitchen blender. The event was being held at the ritzy Mandarin Oriental.  A company had FLOWN female bloggers from around the country into NYC for the big moment!  I have a feeling you are going to be seeing a lot of “positive” reviews for this “mind-blowing” kitchen appliance this week on about fifty blogs.  I was there to say hello to some blogging friends, and procrastinate from writing.  After their catered lunch, I guided a few into Central Park for a “tour” until I realized that I had nothing of historic or city lore to convey.

“Uh, and this is a TREE in Central Park,” I told Sarcastic Mom.

On Friday, I went to a reading at a small theater downtown.  The show was titled Expressing  Motherhood.  Ten mothers of different ages and styles told stories, some funny and some sad, about motherhood.  It was terrific.   It is an on-going event, and there is a new cast each time, so you can audition yourself for the next LA production!

In this NY cast were Liz of Mom101 and Kristen of Motherhood Uncensored.  I wanted to support my fellow bloggers, even if they are evil mommybloggers, even if most of my recent interaction with them was complaining about their “Blogging With Integrity” badge.  It was certainly difficult to reconcile my previous image of them as mommyblogging dictators with the friendly mothers on stage, telling funny stories about their kids (even though Mom101 was wearing these cool leather boots, but they were way more sexy than anything Mussolini ever wore). Both bloggers were wonderful on stage.

On Saturday, I met more bloggers.  Yvonne of Joy Unexpected, a long-time online friend of mine, was in town visiting HER buddy, Isabel of Alphamom.  The night with this group of bloggers such as HeatherB and Torrie (so many freakin’ names and links to remember!)  is a bit of a blur.  I know we started out eating cheeseburgers at the Shake Shack,  which is a snootier NYC version of California’s In-N-Out, but without the New Testament quotes on the wrappers, but somewhere, somehow, there is apparently a video of me singing Prince’s Little Red Corvette at a karaoke bar.   I didn’t get home until 3AM.

I hope one day to get drunk and sing karaoke with all of you.

Tonight is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.  I don’t want to give the impression that I am religious in the traditional sense, but I do fast during the day, and I like the idea of the High Holidays.   It is also a day of remembering family members who passed away.  You light small candles, called yahrzeit candles, that stay lit all day.  It made me a little sad to see how the number of candles has increased throughout the years.

Are there winner and losers in this world?   What does the mean?   Is this good luck or bad luck fated?  Can we change our luck?

I read these inspirational posts that promote success with sayings like “Winners are those who faced losing, but pushed on, despite it all!”   Does a winner grab this opportunity while others are fearful?   Do some of us just keep on making the losing choices?

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On Tuesday, I had two offers to attend different NYC meet-ups with bloggers.   Each was a perfect opportunity for networking.  Instead, I went to a NY Mets game with a friend who I have known from kindergarten, a person I see all the time.  I had fun with my friend and wrote two poorly-received posts about the Mets, but was it the “winning” choice?   Probably not.   There were no networking possibilities and no new connections.   Wouldn’t it have been smart of me to choose the winning choice?   Do I intentionally make the wrong choices?

It is natural for me to grow up being a Mets fan, since they played in Flushing.   While the Mets had their winning seasons, they have a long history of losing.    Every few years, during my school years, another die-hard Mets fans would switch sides and root for the Yankees, the “winning” New York team.   I clearly remember when Russell T arrived in class wearing a Yankees jacket and cap!

“Hey, Russell, what the hell are you doing?!”

“I’m done with the Mets.   I’m for the Yankees now.   They’re winners!”

It was Russell’s first step to a winning philosphy.   Why hang out with loser friends or follow a loser’s team?   He was choosing “winning.”   At the time, I saw him as a sell-out and an asshole.  But perhaps he was the smart one.   Don’t we all want to align ourselves with success, waiting for the day when Dooce comments on our blog and allows us to feel like we are a blogging someone?

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My father had some issues with winning and losing.   The first time we went to Las Vegas as a family, we played the slot machines together.    We lost everything we “alloted” to playing, which was $25, or less.   In the elevator going to our hotel room, we encountered a sharp-looking guy who had just finished playing black-jack.   He had slick-backed hair and looked like a gambler, circa 1985.

“How did you do?” asked my father.

“Pretty good.” he replied, flicking a chip with his finger.   “And you?”

“We were LOSERS!” said my father, proudly, as if he was smart enough to know that the casino always wins.   He had zero belief that we could hit the jackpot.  After I got married, I went with Sophia to Las Vegas a few times, but my father’s influence remained.   I watched her gamble without playing myself because, like my father, I believed gambling was a waste of money.   Why take a chance if chances are that you are going to lose?

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Yesterday, my mother was about to leave the house with her friend, Laura.  They were going to play mah jonng.  Before she left the house, my mother asked me to go over to Walgreens to pick up a few items.  She showed me the sales circular, where she circled what she wanted — laundry detergent, toothpaste and a 24-roll of toilet paper.  It was a good buy for the toilet paper because it was for one of the good brands.

“That’s a good price for the toilet paper,” said Laura.  “Would you mind getting me one, too?”

“Sure,” I said.

I walked the block or so, entered Walgreens, and bought the items.  After the salesgirl rang up the items, she slid the two 24-roll packages of toilet paper towards me.

“Sorry,” she said, “but we don’t have bags that are big enough for these.”

“So, I’m supposed to take it outside like this?”

“You still want it?”  she shrugged.

It annoyed me that Walgreens would offer a sale on 24-roll packages of toilet paper, and then not supply the store with large enough plastic bags.   This is going too far, even for the Green movement.  If I were in Los Angeles, I would just throw the packages into the trunk of my car.  Here, I had to walk home.

I took my items and went into the street, a 24-roll package of toilet paper under each arm.  It was the longest block or so in my life.  No one wants to be seen walking down the city street carrying 48 rolls of toilet paper.  It destroys all street cred.  I could see the stares, both from strangers and residents of my apartment building.

“How often does that Neil take a crap?!” I could hear them muttering.

I made it into my apartment building, and sighed with relief.  As I walked to the elevator, I faced my last obstacle.  It was the sexy single black mother with the short black hair and the beautiful eyes, who had recently moved into the apartment on third floor.  I had always wanted to say hello to her — and here I was — holding 48 rolls of toilet paper.

LOSER.

That word immediately emblazed in my head, like a neon sign.

I tried to make myself feel better by developing a blog post in my head.

“This could be a funny post,” I thought to myself.  “I could say that I have been dreaming about this women for months and now here I am, a sucker, holding the toilet paper.  Funny.”

It was at that point that I said F*ck the Blog.  My life is not here for an amusing story.  THAT is being a loser.  I was going to TRANSFORM this LOSER moment into winning.

I moved closer to the woman.  I saw her looking at my two gigantic rolls of toilet paper.

“There’s a big sale at Walgreens!” I said.  “Can you believe they didn’t have any plastic bags? for these.”

“Not good,” she said, shaking her head.

“You should go to Walgreens yourself and buy one.  This is a good brand.”

“I know.  I use that toilet paper brand too.”

“I buy a lot of off brands at the supermarket.  Like for paper towels and dishwashing liquid.  But I feel when you buy toilet paper, you should buy the best!”

“I agree.  I’ll go to Walgreens later and buy myself a package.”

“Good for you.   Although you’re going to have to take the walk of shame home, carrying the toilet paper witout a bag.”

“Well, you did it… and you survived.”

By this time, we were in the elevator, and it had just stopped on the first floor.  This was my floor.

“Have a nice night,” I said, as I stepped off.

“Thanks.  You, too,” she replied, smiling.

This was not a great story.  But as I walked into my apartment, carrying 48 rolls of toilet paper, I felt like a winner.