September 3, 2016- Howard Jones Concert- Part 2

   I hadn’t really wanted to talk to anybody but wound up doing so a little with the couple who was sitting next to me in the theater. They had wanted to know if I had seen Howard Jones in concert before. I told them only for the “Today” mini concert. They had seen him twice in the 1990s.

   I forget which song the guy had asked me if I liked when it was just beginning- maybe “Life in One Day”.

   I asked a guy at the station if he knew when the next train was coming. That was the start of a long conversation which is very unusual for me. We were talking so much that he nearly missed his stop.

   He likes jazz music. I mentioned how I liked listening to my Mom’s Nat King Cole albums. I said that it would be cool if our spirits could travel back in time and see him in concert. I was afraid that he would think that this was kind of crazy but he liked that notion.

   The girl who had been sitting behind me was also on the train. She is Japanese and doesn’t speak much English. She showed us pictures of the CD that Howard had signed for her that day. She mentioned some other music stars that she likes- Phil Collins/Genesis and Tears for Fears included.

   Most people wouldn’t really understand what a struggle it is for me to socialize. A big part of me would rather not say much if anything at all but there is a little of me that wishes that I could be better at this, including not feeling so uncomfortable.

   I am glad that I didn’t back out of going to this concert. I feel bad that I was thinking about Duran Duran a few times during it though, including my screw ups during this tour. I need not rehash all of that.

  Sorry, Mr. Jones- I couldn’t help that my brain was distracted by that group, my anxieties, my depression, and other things during your performance.

   I didn’t really get any sleep last night. I had tried going to bed like 5 minutes after I got home. Sometimes when I am overly tired like that, I have strange images running around in my head. This time it was unicorns, rainbows, and My Little Pony.

 

Note- The 2 My Little Pony photos are from the internet

September 19, 2015- More Friends-Part 1

I seem to think about our childhood friends, acquaintances and classmates often, even in my dreams. I’m sure that they don’t think of us. Amy would just say “How do you know that?” They have/had other friends in their lives so we weren’t a significant part of it. I’m not doing the mind reading thing; I’m simply saying that this could be true. Mike agrees with me.

   Michelle G was a nice girl whom I was friends with for a few years but we weren’t that close which I’m wishing now that we could have been. I remember how much she loved Sesame Street’s Grover. She even had a Super Grover stuffed animal. The girls were telling scary stories like about the Hookman at her birthday/slumber party.

   She was in the Girl Scouts for a couple of years or maybe a little more. She accidentally dropped a meatball with sauce on me which messed up my white blouse at a covered dish supper in the gym of our grade school. We were actually laughing about that. Now something like this would make me very anxious and upset.  I wonder if she was jealous of Jen who had a lot of badges like I was.

   There were so many slugs on the sidewalk in front of Michelle’s house one day which totally creeped us out. Her mom drove me home once and thought that we lived in the entire apartment unit of 3. I had to explain to her the 4 types of apartments that are in our town. That was one floor. We are in a 2 floor, unit of 4 one now.

   I wish that she hadn’t switched schools in the 7^th grade. We didn’t keep in touch after that. Or maybe we did via mail a couple of times. I do still have a letter of hers. I should read it and see when it’s from. I also have a picture of Hagar the Horrible that she drew for me.

   I was friends with my neighbor Trisha when I was a little girl. I don’t remember that much about her though. She has a younger brother. I have a few photos of her- at my birthday party and our town carnival. I’m pretty sure that we went to preschool together. They moved to a house in Roselle that I vaguely recall being at once or twice.

  Mike and I were friends with Christina and her sister Diane. Our moms were also good friends. We went to Christina’s birthday/pool party. Pin the Tail on the Donkey was played at it. We were kind of jealous that their parents had a station wagon with a back window that could open. We wished that Dad had gotten one like this too.

   Both of their parents died over the past 7 years. Christina was taking care of them. She has a cute beagle. It is so mean that her brother kicked her out of the house so that he can move in there. She stopped by a few years ago and told us about this. We hadn’t seen her in a long time. It was nice to hear that she has good memories of our friendship. So there is one friend that has thought of us.

   I could have been friends with Carol S but I blew that by blabbing a secret that she had told me to the popular girls on the bus ride home from our Scout trip to DC in 1981. She had stolen a t shirt from a souvenir place. Did I actually think that by doing this that they would accept me into their clique? There was no chance of that ever happening. I was still that nerdy girl to them and I lost out on having a friend. Carol was so upset with me. I felt horrible about this.

 

 

Trisha and Me

 

Note- Super Grover and the game are internet photos.

 

 

Dreamtime-

July 2011- A Beautiful Day

I was taking a walk around my town when the scenery started changing and I was now no longer alone.  Mike and our friends Cindy and Jessica were with me. We all looked as we did in our mid-teens. We were walking on Raritan Road near my town.

   The landscape was different though. There were lots of trees where the Parkway should be. I could see a road beyond this but it was just a regular one. The bridge that used to go over the Parkway was no longer there.

    I saw a pond instead of the intersection which had formerly been the circle kind was.  I was glad that they had eliminated before I started driving. I noticed some ducks near the edge of this pond- a mommie with her 4 babies; they were so darn cute.

   The surrounding area had much less development and was semi- rural. We walked past a general store/gas station. There weren’t that many cars on the roads.

   We were heading towards Clark. It was a beautiful day – sunshine and temps in the mid-70s. The scent of the flowers and trees was lovely I saw a pathway next to the church that led to the forest. We decided to go into it for a little while.

    We saw deer and just stood there watching it for about a minute watching them.  I saw a female deer on another pathway and decided to follow her. She headed another direction after a couple of minutes but we stayed on that path.

    After walking another 10 minutes, we saw an area that had some picnic benches. A family of 4 was sitting at one of them having their lunch. We started talking to them about the deer and other things. They were nice enough to ask us if we wanted to join them for this meal; they had plenty of extra food. We gladly accepted this generous offer.

   I saw a couple of people riding bikes. They waved to us and we waved back. So far, everyone seemed so friendly and relaxed. I was feeling so happy and peaceful. I wasn’t even feeling a bit of tension or fear.

   The food was delicious. I had a turkey wrap sandwich- real turkey, not the lunchmeat kind. I did wonder why they had extra food; maybe their friends were supposed to meet them here but they were unable to show up. I should have asked but didn’t feel right about doing so. Even in the holodeck I still have some social anxiety.

   I was so glad that we had taken this path. We stayed with that family for a little over an hour. We needed to get back to the main road to go to where we had originally been heading- the bakery. Our parents wanted us to get the rolls for the party that we’d be having at Mr. and Mrs. K’s house that night from there.

   The houses were spread out far apart in this reality as were the businesses. I was happy to see that one of our favourite ice cream places, Carvel, still existed here. It closed down about 10 years ago and now a Portuguese Barbeque place (I think).

   The bakery was in a row of shops located where the Krauser’s is on my Earth. All of the stuff in there looked so good. Mike wanted to get a cupcake but Jessica said that her Mom had made some for the party so he didn’t.

   I was hoping that my alien friend would let me stay in this program for at least a few days. I wondered what else about this version of my town/surrounding area would be different. And what about our family situation- did my parents get along well here? Did we have our doggies? Maybe we had all 3 at the same time- Buffy, Ginger and Mookie; that would be so nice.

    We were back in our small town about 30 minutes later. Everything was looking basically the same here so far- circa the mid- 1980s, that is. Sometimes even though we look younger, it might be another time period that we are in during these storylines.

    I was very pleased and overjoyed when I saw my Ginger pup in our yard. I gave her a big hug and told her how much I loved her. Just as I was about to go down the walkway with my friends and brother, the scenery around me started to fade. I was now in the present time right near the township office, where I had been before being transported to the holodeck.

   It would have been great if I had been in fantasy land for longer, even if it had just been for that party. It sounded like it was going to be fun. I wondered why Sam sent me home before then. There are often abrupt endings to the storylines. I never complain though, I’m just happy that I’m able to be a part of some wonderful experiences there.

Ginger 1983

Osceola Church

 

August 20, 2015- Friends

 We didn’t get to see Cindy and Jessica that much because they lived in PA so it was more of a pen-pal and holiday/summer vacation friendship. We did have a lot of fun though. Our dads took us to Sandy Hook once. My brother sometimes jokes around with me that their Dad looks a little like James Garner.

   Maybe some people would think that we were weird for enjoying playing school. I was Jessica’s teacher and Cindy was Mike's.

   Cindy had a Rick Springfield album, Working Class Dog. We were listening to it in her grandparent’s basement one day.

   We would sometimes play a game that she called Crack the 8 ball on her grandfather’s pool table down there. I don’t really remember the rules that we made up for this. We also played croquet in their grandparent’s yard.

   I have this vague memory of us doing something called Slam Books. I forget exactly what this was so I looked it up on the computer. One site said that it was questions written like what’s your favorite color and you passed them around but another said that mean things about people were written in it; I know darn well it was not the latter.

   I still have my 2 friendship pins and the pair of 1928 earrings from Cindy; she started my love of that jewelry brand. We loved watching the” Pink Panther” cartoon with them. Jessica started calling him the Pink Piddler which we all thought was so funny back then.

   We only visited them in PA twice, or maybe it was 3 times. I wish that it had been more; we always had such good times together. Dad didn’t really like doing much of anything outside of his own family though and he seemed to want us to be the same way. We didn’t get to see mom’s side of the family much either.

   I loved trading stickers with them; I still have my sticker books. I did this with Carolyn, another friend that I had for only a couple of years in the late 90s and now do so with my friend/little sister Sharon. This may seem a bit childish but we don’t care

   Once Cindy went to college our friendship was coming towards the end. The same thing happened with Kathy who always seemed very disappointed that Mike and I did not go to college. Well, we’ve done classes at the community college but never finished this. He had more credits than I do.

   Our parents were good friends with Kathy’s parents; our Dads even went to the Indy 500 race in the 1960s- mid? We had fun going down the shore with them, esp. Wildwood. One time we played miniature golf on the roof top of a hotel on the boardwalk and Mike hit the ball off of it.

   We went to a jewelry store where you could pick oysters out of a tank. I got double pearls twice there and also once in AC. I had two rings and a pair of earring made out of them. Unfortunately, I lost the earrings in the early 90s.

   We always stayed at the Pulaski Motel which was a couple of blocks away from the boardwalk. Sometimes they’d come we us on day trips to other Jersey shore destinations- Seaside, Keansburg and Long Branch.

   4^th of Julys were always celebrated at their house- pool/barbeque party and fireworks in a nearby park. Sometimes we would celebrate New Year’s Eve at either their house or ours. Of course,” Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve” would be on but I’d only watch the countdown part.

   Sometimes we’d hang out with her friends Dana and Ginny- they all went to Elizabeth High School. They came over to our house a few times; once we watched a movie that we had rented- Evil Dead. We played card games often, like a very long one called Shanghai that another family friend taught us. The rules are long so we have them written on index cards.

  She was good at that game and others like she was at everything else – video games, cake decorating, cooking, piano, drawing and sports like tennis and bowling. She tried teaching me how to do the latter 2 but I suck at everything.

   These happy memories are making me sad which is ridiculous. I have many more but I better come back to the present and face the fact that over the past 20 years I’ve done a shitty job in the relationships department.

   Boyfriends were mainly my friends except for Lynn. Am I even capable of overcoming the social anxiety and somehow finding friends and activities that will bring joy to my life? Yes, I have my Sharon but I do need to interact with people outside of the computer world too.

   I feel like I belong on the Island of Misfit Toys like in” Rudolph”; where could a freak like me ever possibly fit in?

 

1928 earrings

 

Friendship pins

                                                

Book used when playing school

 

The Pink Panther keychain

 
                                       
 

 

 

Croquet set

                                          
                                          
 

 

 

 

Indianapolis 500- 1960s

 

 

                                        
 

 

 

Shanghai card game

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rudolph stickers

 

 

July 22, 2015- My Brother- Part 1

Mike and I had such fun times when we were kids, like playing with his Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars. We would put the bench up against the picnic table and push them down that.

   We liked playing on the swing set that Ed, who was like an uncle to us, helped Dad to put up. He got us walkie- talkies from Radio Shack too. 

   Mike liked playing the games on the Atari more than I did. Our favorites were the Acti-Vision ones- Pitfall, Barnstorming, Stampede, Dolphin, Kaboom and Freeway. Donkey Kong, Frogger, Ms. Pac Man, Pac Man and Atlantis (Missy’s) were enjoyable too. He had 2 of those hand held electronic games – Space Invaders and a Football one.

   I do remember him losing his temper sometimes when he did poorly at these and also board games. We loved Mom’s Monopoly, Parcheesi, Scrabble and Clue, which our cousins borrowed and never returned. I’m still pissed off about that. We had both Trouble and Double Trouble and lots of others, some of which we still have in totes in the cellar.

   It was upsetting when he said that we should get rid of most of these games. He wants us to be just like him and have a minimal amount of possessions. He is very annoyed that we have too many, saying that he will have a lot of stuff to go through when we die. Gee, thanks so much for that.

   I’m picturing us watching “The Muppet Show” back then. We were really into this program. We saw the 3 Muppet movies for free at Aunt Joan’s theater. Oh, “The Rainbow Connection” from this is another song that I know some of the words to.

    Mom got me the Miss Piggy and Kermit dolls. Aunt Ann gave me the 3 Muppet Babies- those 2 and Fozzie Bear- from McDonalds one Christmas. I still have these, Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life and Muppet magazines too.

    My favorite stationary was Miss Piggy and Kermit. I only kept a few letters from Cindy and 1 is on Kermit stationary. I do regret throwing out all the rest of hers and Jessica’s too.

   We actually went to see that new Muppet movie in 2011. He seemed so happy which was nice to see. I wish that this would happen more often.

1972

1981

picnic table-1970s

1982

1982

 

1981

1982

The Muppet Movie album

 

Note- photos from the internet- Atari ad and the video game cartridges, except for family photo; matchbox cars with case, walkie-talkies, Space Invaders and Bambino hand held game (bigger photo), and Trouble