By Way of Introduction

Dear Reader,

I thought I should at least post something that let you know whose writings you might be reading, so here it is:

Who I am depends on my mood. No, I'm not bi-polar, just confused.

If I'm happy or at least not too depressed, I'm a vibrant, reasonably attractive woman living in New York City (yes, I know this is not a personals page). I sing, garden, work, love New York.

I sing with an avocational chorus (we don't get paid) and have performed in Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, and most of the other major concert halls in New York City. Much more on this in future posts, I'm sure.

I garden in Riverside Park, one of the premier parks in NYC, which runs along Manhattan's Hudson River side, from the mid-60's to the George Washington Bridge or thereabouts. I am what's known as a ParkTender, which means I have committed myself to working in my area for the foreseeable future, and I'm not planning on leaving it anytime soon. Specifically, I garden in an area called the "Firemen's Memorial Island," which contains a monument erected in 1913 to honor perished New York City firemen. This place was little noted until after 9/11/2001. It is now a central place of honor on that day, and I'm honored to be involved with it. More on 9/11, and my gardens in future posts, I'm sure.

My work takes me to different offices and organizations. I am a free-lance bookkeeper/accountant (not a CPA). I work primarily with not-for-profit and arts organizations, although I have had my share of lawyers, contractors and other for-profit entities as clients. I'll take the arts, thank you. I do all of the boring stuff, up to and including preparing clients to be audited, usually by their accounting firms, not by the IRS. Sometimes what I do is interesting, other times tedious; it depends on the time of year and the client. It does pay the bills, and it's a portable skill, if I ever leave NYC. That's another topic for discussion here.

As I said above, how I depict myself largely depends on my mood. When I'm bummed, I describe myself more like this:

I'm a middle-aged, single woman who has lived alone in her studio apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan (notorious for single, middle-aged women living alone in studio apartments) for the last 25 years. I have the requisite number of cats (3), and could stand to lose 15-20 pounds or so. I earn less than I'm capable of, and should be a CPA, or should have gone to law school. I went to a Seven Sisters college, so I am not living up to that education. My family is largely disappointed with me, but they put up with me. I don't have that many friends, and certainly no man in my life. All the stuff I do is just a substitute for a relationship, but I've been hurt too many times to even contemplate that again. I have too much stuff in my apartment, although it is not Collyer-esque, yet. In fact, I started this blog because I needed some other way to express myself, as I had no relationship that allowed me to do so. Hmmmm. what else? Have I type-cast myself enough?

To be honest, I'm not sure why I opened this blog. I had not intended to, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time, and I hate the idea of yet another unused web-page out there in the ether gathering wwweb.dust. I wonder how many of those there are?

Oh, on the upside, I love computers, including the inner workings, and mechanical stuff. I like to fix things, or at least take them apart to see what's wrong. I hope someday to have a car to work on, and an old house to renovate. I already did that with my apartment.

So, this is my introduction to you, Reader. I suppose I'm being optimistic that this will actually be read, but I hope to at least put something out there that's amusing, if not edifying.

Best,
CatBird