Category: BLOGGERS

FREESTYLING SINGLE

Featured ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

         THE GYPSY CHRONICLES – Day 10.

Scintillating in luxury and comfort is therapeutic if mastered with moderation. So, my second week here in the hotel, I opened the thruway to discerning tasks: a deep dive into publishing my book, rewriting the ending so art isn’t imitating life, but the other way around, searching for part-time employment, a seriously pragmatic approach to where to move, and writing my pop-up columns. 

It is tremendously easy to write from this hotel room, without those damn barking dogs next to my home, the constant vibration and noise of mowers, blowers,  and city works.

On my desk is Henry Miller’s book, On Writing, and every page moves the mental nerves in some way.  “The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become the path itself.”  From living in isolation in my home, my tenants are cordial but reserved; I am now swept like a surfboard into a wave of public swells.  It is their stories that come out of this experience.

I begin with the Casino, attached to the hotel lobby, and open at 11 am. Arrivals begin: gamblers shuffle inside, some in wheelchairs, younger men with speedy strides, couples, single women, a plethora of humanity in common, with one mission: to win. I take a seat at the bar, and eye wonder at the slot machines. I haven’t counted them, but the room for walking is limited.  There is one machine with the motif of a bull, and when someone sits, the bull grumbles loudly, so I pull out my earplugs.  I watched one man win, and after he left, other players who heard the winning clang took his seat. It is a popular machine.

The casino looks to be around eight thousand square feet, with seventeen hundred gambling options.  The path to get back to the hotel, I have to navigate around and around. The first time, of course, I went in circles as my sense of direction is like a butterfly’s. 

“ Excuse me, can you tell me the most direct way back to the hotel?”

“ Lost are you? Follow this carpet pattern, the one in the middle, and it will take you back.”

Off I trot, staring at the paisley pattern, through six different arenas to the hotel. I went outside and took a seat on the bench.  A woman passed by and stopped, “ How are you?’

“Adapting, I’ve not been here but a few days.”

“ Oh, we’re just checking out. I can’t wait to get home to my Pomeranians. I have two. I rescued them, and they are my babies,” she continued, talking about the dogs. As she spoke, I noticed how immensely liberated she was in conversation, and how her hair matched her outfit. She smiled while talking.

“ I’ve seen you before. I noticed your style; you were wearing such a pretty outfit”, she said earnestly.

“ Well, thank you, and so are you.”

“ Are you alone? I think you are, but don’t let that get you down.”

“ I wasn’t ready for a very long time. I’m crossing over that mountain, only I’m not like you. I can’t approach people the way you just did.”

“ I used to be like that! Now I don’t care, and you shouldn’t either. God loves you, we are all his children, and we need to love each other.”

I let her go on and thought any minute she might bring out a bible or a cross and start praying for me.

“ I bet my husband is looking for me; he’ll be mad, not really, he’s used to it. We’ve been together forty-five years.

“ Remarkable. What’s your secret?”  

“ Love, respect, and compromise, it’s really very simple. You’ll meet your honey, I feel it, you want that, don’t you?”

“Yes, when a man tells me everything is going to be okay, I settle down. I’m emotionally overweight.”

“You’re funny, see that is another quality that gets you through life.”

“ I see a man approaching, and she introduces her husband. He is tall, and emulates a calmness and contentment as he hedges into the conversation about going to Lake Placid.” 

“ Have you been there?” he asked.

“ Years ago. It’s beautiful.”

“  I turned towards his wife. I didn’t get your name.”

“ Donetica, Italian, my friends call me Dee.”

“I’m Loulou, and thank you for stopping by my bench.”

She giggled, blew a kiss, and said in parting, “ I love you.”

 As she left, a woman exited the hotel in a state of exhilaration.

“ It looks like you had a good day,” I said

“ Yes!  I won eight hundred dollars. She swung her purse and skipped off.  

Hmm, I wouldn’t mind winning at all, but I’m in enough ambiguity to play against those odds.  To be continued.

https://www.instagram.com/published66/

    ← Back

    Thank you for your response. ✨

    ← Back

    Thank you for your response. ✨

    Rating

    https://www.instagram.com/published66/

    SARATOGA SPRINGS HISTORY-HEALTH AND HORSES IN COVID HISTORY

    Featured ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    APRIL 4, 2021

    THIS ERA OF ADAPTATION is how I feel, think, and react. Tumbling through all the transitory advise forces me to examine more closely who to believe.  I’ve never been a leader, nor a follower, I walk in between, trying to pave a pathway to peace of mind. Perhaps that is unattainable, as we live in a culturally, politically, medically, and socially reimagined world. It reminds me of being a teenager when life was questionable, and confusion was like a stinging bee we couldn’t swap away.

    This week, my discipline raged and said, ‘Structure your day or go in disarray. As a long-time, rebel of structure, I listened and made a daily plan. Get out of bed by eight, answer correspondence, get dressed, work out on the treadmill, take a shower, eat something, then back to the home office and that’s when the improvisation kicks in. Do I write a column, work on my next book, or look for an attorney for an unsolved tribulation? Mother Nature punctuates my attention as she blooms into spring; the neighbors begin mowing and planting, The adorable little children next door play in their front yard, joggers, walkers, and horse-carrying vans pass in front of my window. The Season in Saratoga is about to open, masked and limited attendance will be at Saratoga Race Track, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Bistros, Bars, outdoor concerts, Theater and Chamber Music, Lakeside sailing and motor boating, fairs, and wine tasting.

    A quintet of small-town celebrations that will inaugurate us to each other once again.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    THE EDGE OF MADNESS

    Featured ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    There’s nothing better than ending a day of minutia moving madness than The Razor’s Edge. It always calms me down.

    RELOCATION THERAPY

    Featured ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS this week. I mentioned in a previous column, if there was a relocation therapist?, in jest, but then I was looking at my horoscope and entered relocation, and this came up.:   It’s too late as I have my move-out date, August 31st. I have no idea how to use this; my therapy has been chocolate, movies at night, and one day of rest. 62 boxes packed Relocation Chart, Relocation Astrology Online …

    By relocating, you can move certain planets into particular house position to improve those parts of your life. Notification: Please, enter Latitude / Longitude …

    WRITER AND AGENT

    Featured ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    RELOCATION REVEALS THIS, A POETRY FOLDER FROM 2002

      

    In that first blink

    I recall the joy of breaking ink

    That first line of verse

    Applauded by the universe

    Settled in paper

    Dried thoughts

    Scrapes of the heart

    Before it tore me apart

    The time has come

    To where I want to belong

    And sing the thoughts that live in my shed

    Without the tone of agent’s breath

    Blowing chagrin on my song.

    JUNK REMOVAL JAZZED UP

    Featured ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    Junk Removal Day with the best people. First trip: 25 pieces taken. Second 25 pieces. Follies was a vacation rental, so multiply everything by 4. I am adding on, and Mr. Big says, “Okay, don’t worry. A few hundred.” SHELDRICK JUNK REMOVAL. From 10am to 3pm, Big and his wife, Fay, who is the Hulk, and one other helper removed like 50 worn, torn, outdated furnishings, and joked all the way: washing machine up ten stairs, heavy wooden furniture, three beds, I could not believe there strength and amusing jokes, going up and down 35 steps. Sometimes I choose right and this was one of them. Fay survived breast cancer, and Mr. Big several strokes and they worked like Olympians.

    Featured ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    Five mass shootings in one week, and all I hear is prayers. Please forgive me, but I am enraged with the absence of humanity, accountability, and chat all day about how to be famous and healthy. IT IS CALLED MENTAL HEALTH.

    Featured ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    THE BEST WAY TO FIND YOUR PATH.. ROAMING

    ADVENTURESS IN LIVINGNESS this week ends with new directions in living. Before that happens, you have to get lost, detached, and miserable. It messes up your social life, your routines, your comfort, and your partner.  I don’t have one, so it’s all up to me.

    Men wonder why women change so often, why we are spirited unicorns one day, and mules the next. It comes from the universal need to roam, to feel new sensations and passions, and to find more things to love. Even our closets are overflowing with love: “I love those shoes, I love that coat.” We replace our wardrobes because we need more garments to love.

    At the crossroads of some moment in time, I stopped loving material things, my reflection, and went looking for a deeper direction of sensation.

    It started last year, when my life was tangled up in two projects that were not progressing. As long as someone didn’t raise the curtain on my imaginary life, I stayed right there, like a gearshift left in neutral. When failure and rejection continued to knock me on the shoulder, I welcomed the familiar knock and remained stationary.

    The exact moment I decided to shift gears was a painful one. I let go of both projects that were obstructing my motion. I have extracted the nature of the projects because it really is irrelevant. After I let go, and watched those long-term efforts just dangle from boxes, notebooks, and letters of correspondence, the straight of my back curved. Where is my direction? Where are any of us going anyway, except away from that moment we have no control?

     If I asked why this happened, and that happened, I was then distracted by some woman in the car next to me who was having more fun in her convertible talking on her cell phone. Routines were becoming burdens, and my favorite places of comfort were boring. Encouragement came from writing columns, reading letters, and those long, solitary road trips in the night.  I felt like I was sleeping, but even in that state of detachment people were finding me, and shaking me up.

     I remembered one of the faintest memories of my childhood. I cannot even recall the place I was, or who was there; most certainly, it was not my father and mother. We were camping out and I was in a sleeping bag on the hard gravel ground. It was so unfamiliar to me, the simplicity of the natural surroundings, the heavy black balm of tranquility, and the brightness of each star. I lied awake most of the night talking to my fellow campers, and at some point they said to go to sleep. I could not close my eyes. The adventure had swept me into a state of alertness, the kind that makes you feel extraterrestrial. That night must have taught me to welcome new adventures. Sometimes they have ruined months of my life, but most definitely, at the end, I sprung up with a new line of faith.

     Again, I am leaving out particulars because it is not the direction I took or what I’ve chosen. After all, it could be anything. We all want to roam, and love, and find some nugget of truth at the end of the road. I think women need to roam more now than men.

    NOT A NATION OF FREE SPEECH ANYMORE. A NATION OF HATRED, INTOLERANCE AND REVENGE. THAT’S WHAT KEEPS ME UP ALL DAY LONG.

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    THUNDER THOUGHTS ON WRITING,READERS,AMTRAK,AND RELOCATION

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS began with lightning and thunder. My bed braced against the window didn’t alarm me like when I first moved here, and the storms startled me with their voluminous sound. After five years, the fears of weather, creaking noises, bats, mice, or a running deer as I drive have sifted through the thread of experience.   As the first attempt to accept relocation coming, I am unwinding with you, not at you, because you’re all closer to me than you think.

    I begin late on Friday, watching a half-lit scene with descending sunlight, the other bathed in asphalt gray,  the solid remains of this week’s punishing climate. Who cares about that after the news this week? I imagine every parent was stung in a way they may never have felt before. Everyone loves children, even those who didn’t have them, cherish their innocence and liberating emotions. I asked a friend, how it affected him, he replied, “ I didn’t know I can’t watch the news.”  

    “ You never watch the news?”

    “ Some stuff on social media.”

    “ The Mystic Camp tragedy didn’t come up?.”

    “ No.. what happened?”. So I gave him some of the details, and when his expression turned dour, I stopped. Something another friend mentioned to me was Duty to Bare Witness, as we were talking about the Ukraine War.  Some call it tragedy trolling, I suppose that’s another kind of news watching.  Between the bubble wrap and boxing of what I think I’ll take, I listen to some news. I realize I’m not such an immoral person after listening to cantankerous battles on the hill.  

    This city is drowsily awaiting the start of the Saratoga Race Track today.  It is a sacrosanct epic convergence of rich and poor, doused in jewels or leather neck chokers. I love loyalty, and this event dates back to the 1880’s. It’s the oldest race track in the country. When I had a press pass, and didn’t wait in lines to attend, interview, and observe the festivities, it just can’t be forgotten. I’m familiar with the groups that oppose horse racing, viewing it as a degenerate sport that harms both horses and gamblers.  I understand that, considering my father was a gambler and horse lover, but it goes on for thousands who feel different. Can we not allow one to enjoy the other not?.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    Sifting through collectibles, I found my letter to Amtrak. Many  years ago,  I wrote to the executives at Amtrak with this idea: Give a writer a free ride for a long journey, and allow them to write about it. Then, engage reporters at the different stops to show up and give the writer a pass to visit the city or town and meet the nuances that no one knew about. I felt pressed to seek escape, ‘I’m going to live on Amtrak!’ The idea blossomed over some cabernet, and I lingered there in the kitchen, while I cooked up this idea, of riding Amtrak across America, while writing about subjects I choose from a long list, and develop it into a documentary, and a book.    I realized how much effort it would take to launch and live this idea that was born in the kitchen over a bottle of cab. I spent the day researching and looking at the bedroom suites on Amtrak. I went to sleep imagining myself on the train, and the inherent comedy that would roll out, from living in a room the size of shoe box. I watched movies about trains, and started reading Paul Theroux’s The Old Patagonian Express. Del Mar, watching the Amtrak.

    There I am on Amtrak, with a laptop and a recorder,  strolling through the aisles, interviewing people, and then I’m in some unfamiliar city, hopping from one place to another, and writing in cafes and adventuring. The illusion became real, like a dream that represents reality. I do see myself on such an adventure.   I must sculpt new routines, learn how to do the things I’m not used to doing.  I wrote to Amtrak, and I did not get a response. Several years later, they invited a writer to do what I had suggested. As the day descends into afternoon, I am perched in between, clinging to the wisdom of my posse, whom I call on for solace, for answers, for encouragement, and you readers, who keep me adventuring in writing.

    RELOCATION REALITY

    ~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

    “Young woman sitting on the books and typing, toned image”

    The world we are living is not familiar; everyday it erupts with an inconceivable corruption, acts of violence, and viciousness against humanity. It’s not the Italian roast coffee that wakes me up, it’s world news.  I feel less and less a part of humanity and more like a wild creature chewing on an old bone.  My outlook on social clubs, synagogue and church congregations, membership clubs, group classes, and let’s meet up organizing makes a lot of sense now. Especially if you don’t have children or a life mate. The temptation to retreat into a decorous world of fantasy is irresistible.  Experience taught me that losing it, giving up, hugging the pillow with film noir on the screen will revive me. It may take two days or more, permitting freedom to indulge in the abstract absurdity, tragedy, and comedy of life available to me. Two days are up: six noir films: Sleeping Tiger, Dangerous Crossing, Ruthless, Finger of Guilt, Wicked, and Cast a Dark Shadow. All suspenseful meandering around themes of greed, deception, romance, uneven love, and forgiveness.

    It’s a great big wide wide world if you leave the doors open. Now that the house has sold, I am fortunate that all those years studying real estate and proving myself by placing money in the boss’s pocket, trickled into my life. The first triplex I bought was in 2002, the one that sold, The Follies House. The rent provided income and paid the mortgage.  For my Gen X and Millennial pals, I say this: buy a duplex somewhere you want to live.

    I’m feeling overwhelmed as I go through this four-story unit and decide what to keep, give away, and sell. Perplexed as I go through boxes of journals dating back to 1996. I assume I won’t live to preview them for new stories, but I sill feel a sense of belonging to them. I have learned after selling a dozen furnishings that once they are gone, it takes about a week to stop lamenting the loss.

    WRITING FROM YAHOO TO BOO HOO

    ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

    ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS FALLS ON. An unusual time to be writing at four in the afternoon. The clouds drew me up to my writing desk, where layers of clouds forms teased me into believing it wasn’t hot and humid outside.  I decided to write the column.

    I knew I shouldn’t write on my laptop because it is deconstructing. I can’t part with this laptop until I outline my next book. The sky drew me to the desk, and so I worked around internet outages.

    I only had a few paragraphs from the afternoon, and when I returned to the column after dinner, the whole piece took another course, and I was writing not what I intended, but it was like sailing on a perfect course.   It was writing without the editor, meaning the inner editor that sometimes swoops down and cuts your nails off. I was writing about many things that happened. When I finished, I went to save the document and the laptop responded negatively. It vanished.  I thought about trying to recapture the column, trying to reinvent the stream of consciousness that seemed to be marathoning through my soul.

    There were so many voices speaking all at once. I had to figure out how to connect the moment the leaves reminded me of Saratoga Springs,  and how we must place our print on the tablet, on the screen, and dismiss the reader who judges where writing takes us. Sometimes,  a reader knows me from the halcyon days, when my light was neon and my spirit a flame. They don’t want to see me now, draped in muted gray and hardship hardened. “Nobody loves you when you’re down and out.” Jimmy Cox