I was a tomboy, the term is not used anymore...in the old days you had to wear skirts, I remember wearing a bright red mini skirt playing football with the boys, must have been 3rd 0r 4th grade and someone had run in and told the principal. He came out and told me I could no longer play football with the boys. My face was beet red but not from embarrassment but from playing so hard. Never felt comfortable in a dress. I was a basketball star in high school and when a boy would play with me I never thought about romance but about being a better player. The last time I played full court was in a court in Central Park and the guy I was covering was so upset...he went on and on until I hugged him and than somehow everything was okay!Back to the present and me in dress. I am not social so I didn't talk and was looking at photos when a gentleman to the right started to converse like normal people do. I showed him a historic building from the Lower East Side I was concerned for and he said, "Why don't you buy it?" I told him about the "old PS 64" experience but in a shorter more colorful way. A while back I looked in to getting backers to buy the old PS 64 building, found them but the condition was it would be a charter school. I told the activist associated with the school it could be done but he must get a charismatic effective leader to set up the charter school. Needless to say it never happened. Side note: the activist lives in a spectacular building that I could only dream of living in. I asked him about buying a place in there and I was too find out not in my price range and activism can pay big time especially when it come to NYC living. Activism has never paid off for me. I told him about the neighborhood and also about why I would never vote for Mike Bloomberg again. I told him about the humorous piece I wrote about running for mayor, how much I want Bloomberg out of office that I find myself wanting to run against him and beat him and me being me, the humor too but also serious actions I would take to return the city to the people. He told me he would support my run. He wasn't joking. Wow. I get youtube-mail saying run for mayor but this was the first person who was serious when he used the word support. He saw in to my soul with regard to my ideas (he thought the community outreach resource centers in every dorm was a great idea and suggested how I might get all the DOB & ECB fines paid and his idea was so much better than throwing them in jail, terrific idea) he got my passion but he also got "the Suebism" of not going for it. Still really truly mind blowing. I can't seem to have a boring life even if I tried. Still shaking my head.
ps We also talked about The New York Times, it's immediate future and the possibility of new ownership. We talked about what we thought the paper could be "if". I brought up Ben Franklin's older brother who ran one of the first independent papers and Ben wanted to be published so badly he wrote pieces under the name of a woman and submitted the pieces by sliding them under the door. He had a very successful column with out his brother finding out his true identity but the Franklin brothers were key when it came to our Country having a voice and in fact his brother was so successful, the powers that be shut him down, but just for a short while as I recall. I am very tired but again I had to shake my head because of my bizarre life I have spoken with perhaps some of the richest, poorest and middle class and all feel the same....the news papers and media are not reporting the news and we are longing for a paper that is cutting edge and bold. For now it has inspired the birth of blogging as an alternative and now youtube so we can avoid the networks completely.
I think of Ben Franklin and his drive as a teenager, almost like an indentured servant but the official term was apprentice to his brother James but he got free from his brother...as usual using his ingenuity,
no hurdle would stop him -- his creativity and drive just to be published to reach people and he started very successfully as a woman!
