Robert StGenis Voice empowered

Since the first time I had ever rented anywhere to live, I seldom lived in an actual "apartment." and only once in one owned by a large company and it isn't even in the "big 10" in LA (companies like Avalon, Palmer, Equity, etc). My first 2 years of college in Vermont I lived in a dormitory in a school of 500 students. I guess that was a quasi-management situation. There was no other option. I also lived in a dorm in my second year, when I transferred to university at Concordia in Montreal and was among the few as almost all lived off campus. They converted 2 apartment houses into dorms. We only had dorms for a few hundred students in those buildings out of 25,000 students so it was more like an unlikely co-ed fraternity than a managed setting. I left and lived in an apartment briefly with a boyfriend which might have been a "managed building", but it was his lease and I was only there a couple of months. We then rented a 2nd story of a 2 unit building...

Like many a household, family dinner on Sunday evenings was a ritual for at least the entire time we lived in Michigan and somewhat so as I ended my teenage years and my parents' marriage came to its overdue inevitable end in New Jersey. It was one family activity my Father felt was important, albeit not all ended well. He traveled constantly, over 180 days a year he boasted at times. He wasn't into his marriage to my Mom, clearly evident from the 3 abortions he paid for with affairs he was having (which I learned just in recent years) and verbal and physical fights I witnessed over the years. He loved Christopher and me growing up as well as he knew how to but he has been quick to admit later in our lives he was never good with young children. That's an understatement as you'll learn reading this blog. Sunday dinners varied over time and, to a large extent, how my Father was doing financially. They were spaghetti and meatballs, pasta with calamari (where my Mother...

Please also read: Summer 1986. Piers & The Cure. Being a Junior Along with any and all other the rest of my posts. I greatly welcome your feedback. Post anonymously, that is more than fine. I would love to hear from you!  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Statue of Liberty was given to the United States as a gift from France in 1886.  Liberty Weekend , the 100th anniversary, was to be a spectacular weekend and I must say, while I was incredibly fortunate in my circumstances throughout that weekend, I have never had any other experience yet that left quite such an indelible impression. New York and New Jersey were in a turf war starting before I moved to the East Coast in 1985 with New Jersey claiming that Liberty Island was actually in New Jersey waters. They ultimately lost this war and as huge an advocate as I am for New Jersey, this one was bullshit. New York made ...

I have spent almost a year growing the top of my hair longer. Perhaps part of a mid life crisis. Perhaps, just something I wanted to do. It was something I literally did half a lifetime ago, admittedly it is taking a lot longer now. Somewhere during my visit, my friend Lizzie brings up that she notices a bunch of guys my age doing the same and the one thing in common they have is really thinning hair. In my case, ultimately, my hair actually isn't really thinning. It isn't nearly as crazy thick as it was at 25, but I am far from balding or combing over. I show Lizzie and another friend the sport coat I bought for my 50th birthday which they had come to LA to attend. Lizzie is like "I don't know about you and the outlandish colors and patterns you pick." I am a bit astonished and reply "This is a Ralph Lauren linen sport coat from Lord & Taylor I had sent from New York because I couldn't find anything that conservative here." (By the way, reall...

"We are the gift" she repeated throughout the visit smiling along with another close friend circling her face with her hand and producing a big smile, letting me know how grateful I was to be that she has attended an event I large in no small part for her. I literally only moved forward with planning this party, something I was initially against doing, in part because she agreed to be here in Los Angeles. She was a champion of my holding it from the beginning. I was holding this party so she, others close to me, could come together with me. When she later backpedaled and I was in for the biggest party expense since my husband and my wedding I said "I will never talk to you again if you do not come."  I was sincere. I have been to everything she has asked from early visits after the birth of the children, the baptism of the children (I am their Godfather) her daughter's confirmation, time for "Uncle Robert" to just be supportive, son's graduation ...