Greetings to the People at the Upper Moreland Library Panel Discussion on Bipolar and Depression

Gosh, how I wish I could've been there this afternoon. Margie Peters, director, said she expects a good crowd. They did this presentation b/c of the requests of library patrons who wanted to learn more about the treatable illnesses of bipolar and depression.

Since I'm home lying in bed with painful sciatica, I got the best possible person to take my place: Ada Moss Fleisher. This woman cannot be praised enough. If GF Handel were still alive, he should be commissioned to write An Ode to Ada.



Joe Moore, an alumni of our group, will also take the stage. Joe has a group of friends from New Directions that he stays in touch with over the years. This is what we teach at our group: call one another in good times and in bad.

Mark Amos of Bux-Mont printers in Hatboro printed up the third edition of my life story. I wanted to change the title and thought that something would come to me as I rewrote the book, but nothing did. The orig. title I cribbed from the Sammy Davis autobiography. My book is Yes I Can: Taking Charge of your Bipolar Disorder and your Depression.

Ada's husband, Dr Rich Fleisher, kindly shlepped an entire carton of these 44-page books to the library. They also contain nearly a dozen of my poems including The Lucky Seven, a particular favorite of mine. And no one else's.

I've made peace with the knowledge I can't join up with everyone today. That library is my library. I worked there when I was getting my master's degree at Hahnemann, my son worked there in high school, I'm friends with all the staff - an incredibly warm bunch of people - oh Ruth, the movie you requested has come in.

I was also great friends w/the former librarian Lillian Burnley. I used to volunteer for her every Friday. Before she'd give me my chores, we'd sit in her office and chat. This one and that one were always stopping in to talk to this great social force who either liked you or did not.

She was a marvelous raconteur and I transformed three of her tales into priceless prize-losing poems. I'll see if I can dig em up for you.

Within the pages of my blog I talk about many things: my defunct manic depression; my end-stage renal disease; my recent trip to Cleveland Ohio; my joie de vivre.

Currently I have no one mad at me, which is nice.

Scott just brought in my mail: a Smithsonian magazine with an elephant on the cover. Oh, I said to Scott, wouldn't you just love to touch his gentle ear?

No way! screamed Scott. The guy would stomp on you, he's a male. Look at you, there's a dead mouse in the trap and you won't even look at him when I throw it away.

Such is life.

I believe that the more your mind can rove, the better off you'll be, bipolar or not.

How to apologize to your boss after your angry manic outbursts

"Jim" called me. A family man who is putting his oldest son thru college, Jim hadn't realized he had a 'breakthrough' episode of hypomania. But his boss did. Jim is a valued 5-year employee at a large appliance store where he is one of the top sales people. The boss noticed Jim was exhibiting out-of-character behavior that was a huge turn-off to everyone who interacted with him.

Jim asked for a couple of days off during which time he saw his psychiatrist who upped his Risperdal (antipsychotic med). He began to slow down and was able to concentrate a bit better.

The boss wanted to see Jim before he returned to work to make sure his behavior was back to normal. Jim had never disclosed to his employer that he had bipolar disorder.

This is smart. Unless you have a compelling reason to do so, never tell an employer - or fellow employee - you have a mental illness. This includes bipolar and depression. Stigma is alive and kicking.

I told Jim he and I would brainstorm and come up with a strategy to approach his boss. I ascertained the boss did not know about his BP and that although Jim would profusely apologize for his behavior, he should not use the words BP, as this is a 'trigger word,' a frightening word to the general public.

I also ascertained that Jim had an excellent relationship with his boss and the entire management team at the store.

Jim wrote down the words we came up with:

I've had 'highs' and 'lows' since I was 19 years old and have been under the care of a physician for my condition. (Note we did not say psychiatrist.) I've been on an even keel for as long as I'm on my medication but occasionally I get 'flare-ups' like the one I just had. These flare-ups affect my personality and I get unusually energetic and bossy and angry.

This is not the real me. It's caused by a quirk in my illness that causes me to behave like this. Believe me, I dislike it as much as you do.

I can't tell you how sorry I am for this sort of behavior. I will try my best for it never to happen again. But if it does, I'll go right back to my doctor for a medication adjustment.

I love working here. I love my job and all the people I work with. As you know, I have a wife and two sons and would never do anything to jeopardize my wonderful life or wonderful job. I do hope you understand.

I told Jim to keep his answers as brief as possible and not to go into details.

Joe drove off to work. I asked him to call me with the results.

He saved his job. His boss was very impressed with what he said - two other bosses were present for the interview - and they were all tremendously sympathetic. One of them said he knew some other people with the condition, which he never named. He also said that his boss got tears in his eyes while Jim was telling his story.

You're a good man, Jim Brown, I said.

Thoughts about Facebook

If you are a FB user, I heartily applaud your decision to use this free, democratic service that is open to everyone in the entire world. I esp. applaud people like my daughter-in-law Nicole Deming who lovingly shares her adventures - and photos - of being a young mother.

Despite all the privacy slips, I think FB's management is 100 percent devoted to tight privacy standards and not sharing email lists with advertisers.

As a nearly 65-year-old woman, who lists her age on FB, I give FB and my readers a few vital bits of info about myself. Also, if I read a terrific article, say, in the NY Times, I will 'like it' on FB. I am, unwittingly, sending out certain bytes of info about myself.

Why do I do this? So my 99 'friends' can share my joy. And of course so FB can continue creating a click-by-click profile on me.

Look, they're a business, and this is what they do. A small price to pay for being able to see what my daughter Sarah is doing at her Writers Retreat in France in the middle of the night.

Why then haven't I gone whole hog to create a thorough FB page about myself? Easy. I've got my blog. How many self-promotional places does one girl need who is not a movie star or running for office?

When I click onto FB I immediately go into I'm-being-watched mode. Could this be a holdover from my manic-psychotic days? Or, as I suspect, is it simply an adult reaction to knowing 'they' are monitoring my every move.

Well, know this, FB: I go straight to the 'space' - what's the correct word for this? - of my daughter/law so I can see pix of my granddaughter Grace Catherine. Nicole should only know the immense pleasure she's given me by publishing these photos, esp. during my sciatica agony.

Now here's where FB makes their money. As we know, targeted ads are directed to us in the extreme right-hand panel of the FB screen.

An insulting barrage of stay-youthful products greets me every time I click onto FB. Try as I might, I can't train my eyes to not-see these disgusting ads. AARP is there too along w/other insurers who want my M'care business.

It's all done electronically of course. Some brilliant Silicon Valley youngster comes up with an advertising formula. And it better not be static! FB users are active people. Our lives change in tiny ways every single day...and FB may benefit from that!

Needless to say I have never clicked on any of the advertisers, tho once I made the mistake of deleting one of the ads.

FB, always concerned with my feelings, actually asked me something like, Have we offended you?

I was so shocked by this human response I could think of nothing to do and wanted to immediately exit this needless emotional probing by the HAL of social networking. I hit "X" for "get me the hell out of here."

Remember the story of Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who wanted to be a real boy? Is that what we're coming to, Mr Kupferberg?

Sciatica progress, like two percent

Scott, ready for a nap. He reports a possible frost tonite, so he picked the last of our tomatoes and left them to ripen on the counter.


These are the legs of yours truly. For eight days I've been lying on Scott's bed


in such pain that I couldn't move off my tummy. Today for the first time I slid off the bed, on my belly, and walked around the second floor. Ouch! But that's the first step toward recovery.

Here are some things I was able to do on my belly:

talk to mom
call Aunt Selma on my cell phone
talk to Ada and Freda
talk to the office of my family doctor
call Larry Paster my physical therapist and have him assign me knee-to-chests
send out emails
call Joe Moore to remind him about our panel discussion tomro at the Upper Moreland Public Library

Ya know what? I may not practice religion but I do have faith. I just knew my sciatica would be better enuf for the panel discussion tomro.



Drugs are the main reason I'll be there tomro: dilaudid and Neurontin.

The pain continues to be severe.

Cleveland - Dinner at the Fogels

Cousin Linda and Jack Fogel invited Donna and me over for dinner on Saturday nite. Sally and Howard and Mimi were there.

Sally is a childhood friend and a painter of huge murals in different locales both in Cleveland and around the country. I couldn't find her on the Internet. DARN!

Recently Sally and her husband Howard Ross (you can try goggling sally ross murals but i didn't find anything) built an addition onto their house - a mother/law suite for Mimi, who is Sally's mom. Howard's folks have already popped off.

Mimi's the same age as my mom. I sat next to this soft-spoken woman on the couch. Occasionally I would say to the group, "I think Mimi was trying to say something." You've gotta be quick on your feet to get a word in edgewise. I enjoyed just listening.

Across from me was Aunt Ethel's old breakfront:



This post would not be complete w/o a shoutout to Cousin Linda's husband Jack Fogel. He made the entire dinner. He bought the ingredients at a farmer's market illustrating the importance of Buying Local. Oh, there are so many political lessons I learned in Cleveland. BTW, Jack and Linda's son, Adam, 26, got bit early by the political bug. He was recently hired as campaign manager for a Maryland state senator.

Us old people think, Why Adam is so young, but this is when these great indiwiduals make their mark, unless of course they're late bloomers like The Greenwolds.



Adam got a partial basketball scholarship to Allegheny U in PA. He was the only white guy on his basketball team at Cleveland Heights High. His dad was - and is - an assistant coach.

Jack is a locomotive of energy. He ignites the whole room w/his energy.

Fruit salad for dessert. Strawberries, watermelon and holiday grapes. We've never heard of holiday grapes in Philly. They are positively huge, dark, and sweet. I had three helpings.

Every day Jack cooks for "Selma dear" as he calls his mother/law.

This is one tight family who don't throw their oldsters into the dumpster.

Cleveland - Aunt Ethel - Terminal Tower - Cleveland Clinic - John Carroll U

Here's my Aunt Ethel's apartment, Essex House, on Van Aken Blvd in Shaker Heights. I got outa the car and peeked in the lobby which once housed two birds in a fancy cage. My mom still has 75 percent of Aunt Ethel's furniture in her family room. It ain't going anywhere.

Brick buildings like this one were prevalent when I grew up.


Back in the old neighborhood. For me, a feeling of estrangement...is that the right word? I sure didn't belong there. I could've been a trick or treater pretending I was a 64-yr-old wanderer.


Even the curbs had a singular beauty in the way they curved round.



I'm waiting to show you John Carroll University, a Jesuit coed college, founded in 1886, in University Heights, Ohio. All these little cities are contiguous w/one another, like the former city-states that finally became Italy.


Let's cruise around.

Religion has always fascinated me. Once when I was about 12, I was listening to a Billy Graham sermon on TV. When he asked followers to come f/w to accept Jesus, I was ever so tempted , I was next door in the Turnocks' family room, but something stopped me. "C'mon," they said. "We dare you."

I settled for buying Handel's Messiah and listening to it obsessively at home.

One of my favorite tracts on religion is Edmund Wilson's introduction to his book on the then newly-discovered Dead Sea Scrolls. He writes w/incredulity about the Mormon religion.


Cleveland's theater district. Selma has had season tix for 50 years. She's trying to get used to being blind but it's not easy.


Our old movie theater is still standing. We'd go to the movies nearly every weekend for a double feature. My favorites were the Universal International swashbuckler films w/the likes of Stewart Granger and Rhonda Fleming. We'd buy all the great candies: good n plenty, mounds bar, baby ruth, licorice nibs, payday, forever yours.




Cleveland Museum of Art. Their head honcho was recently hired by the Philadelpia Museum of Art in a nationwide search. All I can remember about the museum is that it's located in beautiful Wade Park.

Let's do Wade Park! (oh, don't you hate people that say that?)

Wade Park was clean. No one was about.



Hello little mermaid, are ou the same one as in the Hans Christian Anderson story?



Will you accept this woman as your lawful wife?



Architect Philip Johnson designed this sculpture that Donna hurrying thru.

I was in no rush at all. What a great feeling. Nowhere to be.

The ornate Terminal Tower building. The Cleveland skyline features only five prominent buildings. This is b/c businesses and colleges are located in all the little 'city-states' that are spread around.

Places are close enuf together so you needn't spend a long time traveling. Lemme try to find some pix of the amazing Cleveland Clinic.

This lovely bldg could be the Clinic but it's not. I think it's a library.



Found this on the Internet. The clinic helped revitalize the city. Block after block is filled w/b'ful Clinic buildings adorned w/little ponds and sculptures. Let the infrastructure grow and bring work to the people, my struggling Mr Obama. Nancy Pelosi brilliantly touted his accomplishments on Charlie Rose last nite, dodging Rose's trademark interruptions and finishing her own senences.

I was in never never land myself, last nite, falling asleep to the effex of legal heroin and my newly added Neurontin, having transient psychotic thots as I fell asleep.

Hey! Are you up for some great food at a Jewish deli? Make mine a tongue sandwich at Corky and Lenny's.



For dessert I went up to the case...



and ordered one apricot rugelach for myself. I also got a boxfull of pastries for Mom and Ellen who will freeze em and dole em out: coconut squares, Russian tea biscuits, coconut macaroons and more.

Had enuf? Let's see what's on PBS or the retro channel.

Cleveland - Dead relatives - more Alan Schonberg

Cousin Linda is the designated driver to Zion Cemetery. No one's there except some poor stiff who's being buried w/a backhoe and jackhammer. Linda, the miracle-worker at the JCC, hones right in at the burial grounds, and immediately finds her dad in the Jewish War Veterans section.


Linda says hello to her dad and our Gramma Green, short for Gramma Minnie Greenwold. When Minnie came to America at age 13, "they" changed her name from the beautiful Meryl to silly Minnie. I think she spoke Hungarian back then, is that correct?





My brother David was mildly mentally retarded and autistic. We showered him with love but as an adult he was quite unhappy and took his own life at age 27. He was the family photographer and played a mean piano. I still have his labeled fotos in a green album in my living room. We love you, Davey my boy!



Here's Dad who'd be 89 today if a brain tumor hadn't killed him. Dad began smoking at age 8 or 9 and continued until he was 42. On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, dad locked himself in the room we called "the library" and emerged smoke-free for good.

After some business disappointments at age 58, his immune system apparently couldn't fight off the cancers which are always there. The cancer grew and it grew, and it knocked the man down. Six to nine months said Dr Day, the oncologist.

Sure enuf, despite experimental treatment at Sloan-Kettering, his eyes closed for the final time on July 13, 1980. We were all gathered round him in the family room in the Huntingdon Valley house where Mom still lives.

The source of all my learning and of my very essence comes from my dad. I think of him practically never.

One of my goals in going to Cleveland was to meet up with Alan Schonberg who used to work w/dad at Majestic. Linda drove. Donna did not go. She wanted to but the timing wasn't right.

Here's Alan.



What an amazing man. I gave him a copy of my manic-depression book which he said on the phone stunned him - he even read the poetry! - and I said, Alan, you and I don't know each other. We were not the same people back then as we are today.

He and his wife Carol were most gracious hosts to Linda and me. Their house in Beechwood is in a woodsy setting and windows everywhere offer spectacular views of the changing seasons.

Altho he retired from his once billion-dollar business 7 yrs ago, I believe, he remains a viable presence in the Cleveland Jewish community - and community at large. At 82, he goes out and listens to seminars and serves as board member of various places including the Maltz Museum.

He showed us photos of his four kids. I used to babysit for them. They're extremely successful. My mom showed me an article in the Cleveland Jewish News about his son David, who, at 51, lives in an assisted living facility.

Diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 18 (this was all in the CJN)he went to the famous Menninger Clinic, then in Topeka. He did well enuf so he could always work for his dad, who took great c/o him.

Then something odd happened with his behavior. Bottom line: he was diagnosed with late onset Tay-Sachs disorder, an extremely rare condition.

Time to pull out Rabbi Harold Kushner's book When Bad Things Happen to Good People.

Alan brought up the 'work ethic' of my dad. Long long hours at work but also dedicated time for the family.

When you have a revelatory experience like I did in Cleveland, it takes time to settle into your psyche and become part of who you are.

Especially since I'm juggling my sciatica agony which certain email pals like poetry teacher Bill Kulik of Temple have been very sympathetic about. And Alan as well, who has his own back tseuris.

My family doctor Jim Foxhall put me on Neurontin (gabapentin) last nite. I'm now able to stand up and hobble along the bed, stretching my neck and waist, before sliding back on into lizard position.

Okay, time for my dilaudid nap. Heroin makes me sleepy. I think I'll dream about Baby Grace.



One of the reasons she makes me smile is her petiteness as compared with her 'giant' parents. Oh, to kiss those soft cheeks again.