to know yourself is to know your family

I can’t believe my blog, The Teri Tome, is five years old already. Wow, those years flew by way too fast.

Sitting here writing this blog post, I’m trying to remember back to 2015, and sadly, nothing earth-shattering is coming to mind.

Maybe it’s because my memory is shot, or maybe it’s because, in 2020, life interrupted my recollection of anything pre-covid.

And okay, maybe I sound like Trump when I say: Covid, covid, covid. Covid, covid, covid.

Stick me in the arm with the vaccine already!

I’m sure you would all agree that 2020 was a lot to deal with. Okay, it was a dystopic sh**storm. And I’m happy to say buh-bye to all 366 days of it. (2020 was a leap year, remember?)

But, to be fair, it hasn’t been all bad. Forty-three long weeks in quarantine has taught me a lot about myself and my definition of essential.

In the early months of 2020, I considered it my lost year.

Until I realized that 2020 was the year I found myself. I’m a changed and hopefully better person than when I naively rang in 2020.

I’ve questioned the fundamentals of “normal,” and going back to my pre-covid life as my pre-covid self isn’t an option.

Just to be clear, I haven’t locked myself down for the past ten months because I’m afraid covid’s gonna get me.

My reason for living like a hermit all these months is simple. Without my family and close friends, I have no reason to venture out.

Let me break down my pre-covid routine for you:

My standing nail salon appointment: I’ve perfected my mani-pedi skills, and my nails have never been healthier.

My monthly haircut and color: I’ve become adept at trimming my hair, and I’m okay with going grey.

Grocery shopping: I always despised shopping for groceries, so having them delivered works for me.

Clothes and shoe shopping: 2020 was the year I wore schlumpf clothes 24/7. Schlumpf is a thing. Look it up in the Urban Dictionary.

Going out to restaurants: Sitting outside in the brutal heat or the freezing cold is not my idea of fine dining. If I can’t go to Peter Lugar’s in style, I’ll wait until I can.

The last time I filled my car with gas was early February 2020, and March 7 was the last time I left my house. (Except for my flu shot and three doctor visits.)

March quickly morphed into July, then September, followed by non-Thanksgiving, non-Chanukah, non-Christmas, and non-New Year’s Eve.

And please don’t judge me, but during my endless months in quarantine, I found solace in all things 1:12 scale. Okay, I’m more like obsessed.

There were too many 2020 days when I wanted to miniature myself small enough to move into my newly renovated dollhouse.

When my head wasn’t stuck in a dollhouse, I baked some killer bread, grew potted veggies and herbs on my patio, spic-and-spanned my house, socially distanced in my frosty garage, and created some awesomely impressive meals.

And my fingers to elbows have never been cleaner! I’ve been singing the ABCs and Happy Birthday in my inside voice at least fifty times per day.

In 2020 I binged on mindless reality shows I would never have otherwise wasted my time on. Awful shows like 90-Day Fiancé (so creepy) and Married at First Sight (so desperate).

2020 was also the year I could barely string together a sentence because I developed a severe case of writer’s block!

And whenever I wrote, it was forced and mostly dark, which is why I’m only going to bore you with my Top Five blog posts instead of my Top Ten.

And okay, I’ll throw in the worst blog post of 2020 as well as the best of all time (2015-2020).

I do owe you full disclosure: Of my 32 total posts in 2020, I wrote seven of them eons ago—pulled from a novel titled My Stolen Diaries that I’ve been writing since 1992.

And shocking to me was that when I calculated the traffic numbers for my 2020 Top Five blog posts, four of them were from that ancient rough draft novel.

It turned out my most popular blog posts were less of a post-mortem on what Teri was writing in 2020 and more about what Teri was writing in the 90s.

The Teri Tome generated over 300,000 page views in 2020, a whopping 47% increase from 2019, primarily due to my novelog My Stolen Diaries, so I’m pleased.

I’ll start with the worst blog post of 2020:

#1 WORST IN 2020

I Tried to Save a Cat’s Life Yesterday: I was sorry to see that this blog post was a loser. I still haven’t gotten over that poor pregnant cat. And I’m not sure that anything can be done about it, but we have way too many feral cats in my North Woodmere, New York neighborhood.

And now for my Top Five 2020 posts:

#1 HIT IN 2020

My Stolen Diaries – Chapter Two: To Know Yourself Is to Know Your Family : I was dumbfounded to see that a chapter from my rough draft novel was numero uno. It took me a while to figure out a format for excerpting from my decades-old unfinished book. When I finally settled on calling it a Novelog (novel-in-a-blog), I put up a Disclaimer and six chapters. I was reasonably sure they would all bomb. The thousands of hits that this 28-year-old Chapter Two garnered made my heart happy.

#2 HIT IN 2020

My Stolen Diaries – Chapter Four: The Yellow Kitchen Table: Wow, so this was also a thrill for me! Another chapter of my dusty old novel? To be honest, I almost didn’t post this chapter for reasons I won’t disclose. But I have no regrets.

#3 HIT IN 2020

2020 Cedarhurst Sidewalk Sale: I Was Fired for Seeking the Truth: Getting fired from my job as Executive Director of the Cedarhurst Business Improvement District for refusing to put people’s lives at risk during a pandemic was devastating. But I’m glad my post reached thousands of visitors, and I hope it continues to attract tons of traffic. I miss my job, but I don’t miss the Village of Cedarhurst’s political posturing, the lies, the misinformation, or the bullying. And I’m still weighing whether or not to sue the Deputy Mayor of Cedarhurst for defamation.

#4 HIT IN 2020

My Stolen Diaries – Chapter Five: My First Diary: The first thing I thought when I added up the numbers and saw that the #4 spot was yet another chapter of my book—was that maybe, just maybe, my languishing novel has legs!

#5 HIT IN 2020

My Stolen Diaries – Chapter Six: Tit: Another chapter of my book! And BTW, Tit is the nickname for a bully character in my novel. And the thousands of people this chapter reached gave me new resolve to pull out that book and take a fresh look at it.

#1 HIT OF ALL TERI TOME TIME (2015-2020)

Bullies Are Cowards and Why I Refuse To Turn the Other Cheek: I have a lot to say about this one. Year after year, this post, written in 2015, continues to outperform all the others, and to date, has garnered almost 550,000 page views. And year after year, I’m thankful for the blog traffic, but the fact that “bullies” is my number one keyword says volumes about our world’s character. And as history has shown us, there are way too many psychopathic bullies out there. And from my personal experience, someone with a psychopathic personality disorder will almost always display some sort of mental illness and or narcissistic derangement. As far as I’m concerned, all three conditions are little more than a convenient label for crackpots and social deviants who over-estimate and exaggerate their abilities, status, intelligence, and looks.

In reviewing my 2020 hits and misses, as well as my top post of all Teri Tome time, I’m excited about highlighting more chapters of my novel on my blog.

And 2021 might even be the year I finish it!

I want to wish my loyal readers a Happy New Year. I hope that 2021 brings you wellness and equality, plus all the hopes and dreams you thought would happen in 2020.

And I can’t wait to see what 2021 holds for the new and improved Teri.

Stay tuned!

CHAPTER 2

TO KNOW YOURSELF IS TO KNOW YOUR FAMILY

Maternal vs. Paternal

For most of my life, I didn’t know much about my family on either side.

[Maternal: Relating to, belonging to, or like that of a mother.]

My very first memory took place on December 25, 1957, and was of my maternal grandmother.

It was late Christmas night, and Mem and I were sitting on the couch, admiring what I thought was a truly magnificent Christmas tree.

Back then, I was known as Tony Michaels and lived with my grandmother, mother, and great-grandmother on the wrong side of an already lousy town.

Mem was my grandmother — my surrogate mother. My mom got pregnant, then married, then divorced, at a very young age, so Mem was raising us both.

I knew very little about my father, but what I did know left me afraid. Fear played a significant role in my early years.

Mem had a theory that when I was a baby, I was confused and couldn’t figure out who was the mom. For a while, I called them both Mom. And then, after some time, I bestowed upon her the name of Mem.

According to Mem, at ten or so months old, I had brilliantly managed to come up with the French-Canadian name all on my genius own.

Mem was also divorced, and I never met my grandfather. Mere Germaine, my great-grandmother, was a widow and lived with us too. And like all the other men in my family, I never knew my great-grandfather either.

Mere Germaine was sleeping that Christmas night, Mom was on a date, and Mem was busily crocheting me an Afghan blanket.

I was four years old, and my head rested on Mem’s shoulder. Mem was preoccupied with her crocheting, and I was trying to be exceptionally quiet because I was hoping that if she forgot that I was there, I could stay up late and wait for Mom.

I closed my eyes and started to drift off when Mem began to poke my arm softly.

When I looked up at Mem, she had a mischievous look on her face as she put her finger up to her mouth to shush me. She then took her finger off her lips and pointed toward the tree.

I took Mem’s cue and gazed at our sparsely decorated tree, adorned with a few strands of blinking lights, some tinsel, and a few ornaments — most of them homemade.

Underneath the tree sat my treasured present from Santa Claus. She was the most beautiful doll I had ever seen. I named her China because she had a flawless porcelain face and the silkiest long, shiny black hair. China must have been an expensive doll — much more than Mem or Mom could afford.

Anyway, China was sitting under the tree, wearing a red velvet dress that Mem sewed for her, which to my delight, perfectly matched the red Christmas dress she had designed for me.

As I sat looking curiously at the doll under the tree, wondering why Mem was pointing and shushing, I noticed a tiny mouse sniffing around China.

I remember thinking that maybe it was a mouse, or maybe it was something way worse. Our crummy railroad apartment was chock full of all kinds of vermin.

I looked up at Mem, terrified, my heart pounding. But she was smiling ever so softly, still shushing me with her pursed lips. I looked back at what I hoped was a mouse from Mem’s perspective.

As a child, I was molded entirely by the three unforgettable women in my life. What they saw, I saw. What they felt, I felt. It was my alpha female trio and me.

So if Mem didn’t have a problem with the baby-whatever, I was okay with it sniffing around my doll and then snuggling in its lap.

I looked at Mem’s bright and smiling face as she lightly kissed her index finger and then playfully touched the tip of my nose with it.

Taking my cue from Mem, I laid my head back on her shoulder and fearlessly watched the baby rodent until I drifted away.

[Paternal: Of or relating to, or like that of a father.]

My second memory was of meeting my father back in 1960 when I was six.

Here’s how the meeting went down:

I was sitting on a stoop, waiting for my father, Mick Michaels, to arrive. I didn’t know him and didn’t know what to expect. As usual, I was full of angst.

A black vehicle rolled up, and a young man jumped out of the car. He had brown hair and swarthy skin — not light-skinned like Mom, Mem, or Mere Germaine.

I stared intently at him as he came around the back of the car to greet me with his dark — almost black — piercing eyes.

It was then that I noticed a young woman sitting in the front passenger seat, her scowling face pressed against the car window.

He roughly tweaked my cheek, which broke me out of my spell. He had an etch-a-sketch in his hand, and as he thrust it into mine, the woman rolled down the window.

My father turned his back to me and spoke to the woman. “Get in the back.”

“Fuck you. Put the kid in the back.”

He shrugged his shoulders and turned to face me. I was shaking and screaming inside.

He opened the back door, and I miserably got into the car behind the woman.

Click here for Chapter 3: White Street

THE TERI TOME

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The Teri Tome–My 2020 Hits and Misses

My Stolen Diaries – Chapter 2: To Know Yourself Is to Know Your Family