First entry: Today I live anew.
Having just moved into a new place in Manhattan (got the lease for my small but nonetheless proper one bedroom apartment, effective April 6, 2009), starting over once again allows me to live anew in real time.
I had been living out of a suitcase, was albeit homeless, and not quite indigent but close enough to scare anyone half to death, for the better part of a year.
Thanks to creative living, an open mind, the generosity of folks here and halfway around the world, whom I'll never be able to repay, and with the help of a good many other persons, I finally found an affordable place to call my own.
The year before this last year, (April 2007 to April 2008) my health deteriorated to a point where all my doctors advised me to take better care of myself; as my living conditions had become extremely unhealthy for me on all too many levels.
And, for several years before that (from 2002 to 2007), while living abroad, my health also progressed on a downward slide to cause me, at times, to be almost function-less, save for the power of the resilience I learned as a child growing up in what I recall as a rather painful and chaotic environment.
When I write about my health I mean a condition that has had very serious effects on my eyes and vision, life and lifestyle since 1982.
And, those effects include other collateral health and economically productive challenges which subsequently developed. Challenges that are often associated with these type of eye diseases.
How that came to be will become evident over time.
That's all part of my story, and if you follow this blog the blanks will be filled in.
Why have I called this blog Living Anew?
Well, nearly thirty years ago I developed a plan for living and called it Living Anew.
Even published a magazine for a short while (very short) exemplifying this very notion: called Living Anew (1984), that, as in the movie "Ground Hog Day", we shared that we get a chance to start over each and every day, if not to get it right, maybe to get it different or if we gain insight and wisdom, perhaps even better.
"It", being life and living.
The business plan called for a public offering, a TV show, a book, product endorsements, possibly a movie, and other ways of effectively communicating healthy living. And now Internet communications.
How many of your feel as if you are living like drones?
Follow this blog, but please do not live vicariously through me and my experiences.
Allow yourselves to live anew also, and otherwise become 'successfully selfish'; that is, taking care of yourself one day at a time, learning about and sharing compassion and empathy, and especially, without purposefully hurting anyone in the process.
Hurting others on purpose would be selfish, not successfully selfish, as I define it.
Harlem Heights is where I sleep at night. Now named to separate the area from Harlem proper, usually thought of as 125th Street area in Manhattan.
Harlem Heights as I understand it is somewhat north of 140th Street including and west of 8th Avenue. I'll give the appropriate definition of Harlem Heights later in future blogs.
Where am I?, 144th Street.
Strangely curious for a guy who grew up in NYC, on 171st Street and Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights during the 1950s and 1960s. Can't seem to get NYC out of me.
Though I have lived in Texas, Mississippi, California, New Jersey, various areas of New York City, Gozo (Malta) and now, back in Manhattan.
So, today the NY Times still had not arrived.
Was supposed to begin delivery at my apartment door this past Monday and the delivery person can not seem to find the building even though the building is 21 stories tall and takes up nearly a city block.
Wonder why the hard copy newspapers are losing subscriptions?
Not this Manhattan Guy. It is clear as a whistle to me as to why.
I also have access to news via my Blackberry 8900 (T Mobile).
However, in addition to excellent reporting much of the time, though copy editing needs lots of improvement, I do appreciate the hard copy Times for the advertising which on good days or weeks, I can save the cost of a monthly subscription if I follow the sales.
Usually, I only buy items on sale or clearance or if on line, refurbished.
A great way to economize.
That's one way I live anew. I save by spending a fraction of retail for quality merchandise.
That's all for now, look for more on living anew in the coming days and weeks and months.
Bye for now.
Hope you will have lived anew some, by the time of my next blog entry.
See Living Anew Magazine in its entirety at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/boblafayette/LivingAnewMagazine1984?feat=directlink
