ON THE HOTEL ROAD OF TRAVEL

THE GYPSY CHRONICLES – Thursday, October 23, 2025

“ You have to be out today by 11 am. ” I gasped and looked at the time, 10 am.

“ Scooter told me he extended it until Sunday the 26th.”

“ He didn’t call us. He has to call us. We need the room for the monster ball. Get a hold of him.

I was shaken. I had one hour to reach Scooter. I called in a panic from the lobby and left a message. Then upstairs, I desperately looked for a hotel to take me in, in case Scooter didn’t call. They were booked tonight, but could take me tomorrow. The hotel was a two-star, no Mortons, no restaurant, no gardens, but it looked clean and was only a mile away.

At 11:00, Scooter texted, “I called, you have until Saturday. Is that okay?”

“ Yes, fantastic, thank you!” Scooter has an arrangement with the hotel that earns him points, and he has gifted me many of them!

I returned to the other conundrum of the day —my lawsuit —with very unexpected news. Tammy, the Top Drawer Housekeeping Manager, stopped me in the hallway.

“ What’s wrong, Loulou. She leaned against the cart and listened attentively.

I updated her on the event, and she tilted her head to one side.

“ Bastard! Take a break today, let the process begin, and tomorrow you’ll regain your strength.”

“ It’ll take a few tomorrows, I’m emotionally fragile.”

“ I know you are, I’m the same!”

She patted me on the shoulder, and just that little gesture, of care, was a band-aid to the wound.

Walking into the next hotel was a pinch of pathos I was not prepared for until the front-desk gent helped me with my five suitcases.

“ You’re from Santa Fe? He said, eyeing my license plate.

“ Was, for eleven years.”

“ I moved recently from Ranchos de Taos.”

“You’re kidding! That’s where I lived for several years. I had a gallery there!”

“ That’s crazy. I’ve never met anyone here who knows Ranchos or even New Mexico.” I laughed, cause a lot of people think it’s in Mexico.

He opened my door, and I feigned disappointment and thanked him.

Okay, here it is, a bland room without the flair or fancy, but the price is right. I opened the suitcases and did not unpack. The sun was out like a neon sign, beckoning me to go outdoors.

No elevator, on the first floor, I passed the laundry room—a lot of conversation and a sort of cheerful vibe. I walked outside, sat in a chair facing the sun, let my arms droop, and closed my eyes. I heard someone walking and then sitting next to me.

“ Hello, did you just check in?”

“ Yes, the sun is marvelous, isn’t it?”

“You bet it is. I’m Loulou.”

“ What! My name is Loulou, a nickname.”

She moved around, crossed her legs, lit a cigarette, and her long white hair was halfway clipped, and the rest fell on her shoulders. I could see she was once beautiful.

“ Isn’t that something else. How long are you here for?”

“ Not sure yet.”

“ I’ve been there. Not knowing.

“ People don’t understand, they feel I’m unstable or something. I can feel it, and see it in their eyes.”

“ Screw that, just ignore those people. I do.”

“ You’re right, too much to handle without that.”

“ Everything is upside down, and no accountability. “

“ So true”, and then she dropped her head, and I could see her emotions rise as if she had been led somewhere else.

“ My grandson was killed in a motorcycle accident, hit, and then died right there. I didn’t get to say goodbye. It was by an illegal immigrant.” Then she cried uncontrollably, and I just about got up and hugged her.

“ Oh, sweetie, I am so very sorry for you.” This was all genuine, and she was sober and all of that, so I listened.

“ I wrote to all of them, Bondi, Patel, Trump, Noem, nothing.” Something like this doesn’t happen in a five-star hotel, only in a two-star. We sat there awhile, and I tried to console her or offer some options, like a news alert to the stations and local media.

She was on the cliff of catastrophe, and my minutiae of disappointment disappeared.

TO BE CONTINUED.

ONCE IN TIME

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He’s digging my grave
For the dragon he pays
With our nest, now shaved
Tumbling into the shade
I visit the velvet robes of the past
The ones that didn’t last

The will to relive what was comes at night

And must be excluded by daylight.

TRUTH & TALK

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Writing feels rusty today. I plow deliberately through the blank mental soil to find a blade of substance in a week of tragedy and cultural chaos. In conversations with men and women about our fractured culture.

” It was never like this when I was growing up,” that is from a fifty-year-old,

” I won’t get on a plane, no way?” from a forty-year-old.

” I don’t talk about my views with anyone at work or out of work, except my family and friends.”

I replied, “Yes, we have to talk niceties, bland boring conversation. “

When I was growing up, there was more joking, laughter, and confessional conversation. I was thinking about my high school years; we talked a lot about emotions, our parents, our dreams, and our fears. I don’t recall restraining what was on my mind. Perhaps that is why the majority of the younger generation prefers social media friends, as they can be easily deleted or blocked. On my FB page and feed, not one follower or friend reveals their political views, including myself. Isn’t that so contrary to humanity? And political violence, I keep hearing we won’t tolerate that on the news, but we are tolerating it. Do we all need drones over our homes for security? An optimist would say, We can do better, and we will; a pessimist might say, I think it’s going to get worse, and a nihilist would say, Life isn’t worth fixing; it’s just worthless.

I canceled my utubetv cable account, because on most days anxiety is at full tank without the news. In this new state of freedom from home; maintenance, repairs, showings and tenants, time is on another clock.The one that ticks as a writer in progress who is dusting off the least truest of thoughts.

FREESTYLING SINGLE

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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.

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FROM ORDINARY TO EXTRAORDINARY

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With every turn, right, left, or center, I observe novelty, unfamiliar faces, facades, and finery. The conversations that linger over the opulent surround sound lobby release a fusion of shouting and laughter. New Yorkers are not whisperers, and my annoying sensitivity to sound, forces me to go in and outside a dozen times a day. That is when I meet the guests, perched on benches and rocking chairs. In the six days I’ve been, here I’ve accumulated dozens of conversations, not just niceties but life stories expressed in thirty-minutes.

The first day of arrival began with a dining hallabaloo organized by the best broker, Scott Varley, who sold my home. At the table, Scott and his friends, who knew the bartender’s, waitress, restaurant manager, and a few guests at the bar, so our table became a Musso Frank sort of mise en scene. I, as usual, was punctuated with awe, as this is a new kind of adventure in livingness after Ballston Spa. Drinks arrived with the speed of a remote, and as we all filed in for the liberated moment, when we exhumed our true selves. Lynn, the woman next to me, was a beautiful, statuesque, stylish woman whose poised and confident aura emanated from her.

“ I hear Scott sold your home. Is that a good thing for you? It’s not always.”

“ Yes, a few days ago. Well, a paradox, I loved the home, a Victorian, but it was also most of my income.

“ What will you do now?”

“ About what?” She laughed and tilted her head back.

“ Where are you moving?”

“ I don’t know yet.” Her eyes widened, and she responded flatly.

“ You don’t know? You have to have some idea.”

“ It depends on the proceeds, an ex is involved, it’s too complicated over a martini, and all this talk. I can barely hear you. “

“ An ex is always involved. How long are you staying at the hotel?”

“ You’ll love this..

“ Don’t tell me, you don’t know. You’re adorable.”

“ Thank you, and I sense you are very strong.”

“ You bet I am.! She punctuated that with a fist to the table. “

The night zigzagged, with Lynn and Scott scurrying into the casino, while I remained, as casinos mean, the genes of my father may flare up. The bar was baritone loud and after what seemed four hours, I returned to my room, quite comfort, marvelous pillows unlike I’ve ever felt, “ I can’t fucking believe this.” To be continued

JUNK REMOVAL JAZZED UP

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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.

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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.

THUNDER THOUGHTS ON WRITING,READERS,AMTRAK,AND RELOCATION

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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?.

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.

CHAOS IN NOISE CLUTTER & RELOCATION

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I RECUSE MYSELF FROM NOISE, LOUD TALKERS, LOUD LAUGHTER, LOUD MACHINERY. I RECUSE MYSELF FROM CLUTTER, AS I DISASSEMBLE MY HOME, AND PLACE BOXES AND BUBBLE WRAP IN EVERY ROOM, SO I AM PREPARED TO PACK. I’M DOING BETTER THAN 2018 AND 2019, WHEN I DISASSEMBLED AND REASSEMBLED HOMES 5 TIMES. NOW I FEEL LIKE GIVING IT ALL AWAY, AND LEAVING WITH TWO SUITCASES. THE INCREDIBLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, A FILM, BUT IT APPLIES TO MY STATE OF MIND. I LOVED COLLECTING EVERY ITEM, BOOK, RECORD, PRINT, BRIC-A-BRAC, AND FURNITURE I CHOSE. AT THAT MOMENT, I LOVED IT. BUT BREAKING UP WITH POSSESSIONS IS LIKE BREAKING A RELATIONSHIP. IT’S TIME, WHEN IT COMES, UNPREPARED, ANXIETY AND APPREHENSION TAKE AWAY SLEEPING SWEETLY AND WAKING UP SMILING. THE PASSAGE FROM ONE ERA TO THE NEXT TAKES WHAT I’M NOT SURE I HAVE, BUT MUST.

DODGER’S BASEMENT STORAGE.

THE THINKING SOLDIER Perhaps the architecture of intention was always more delicate than either of us admitted.. a scaffolding of hopes not yet tempered by time or circumstance. I won’t dispute the imagery you’ve painted.. it’s poignant, even beautiful in its grief.. As for the vision, I never dismissed the idea. But reality tends to interrupt our grandest scripts with a more cryptic hand. And no, camouflage isn’t my language, even if silence sometimes serves as armor.. If what you received sowed doubt, I understand. But not all absences are betrayals. Some are simply the byproduct of lives caught in divergent orbits, trying and failing to converge..

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FROM MY UNNAMED SOLDIER

WRITING FROM YAHOO TO BOO HOO

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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

GERMANY READERSHIP RISING THANK YOU GERMANY

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I posted a column on Sunday, The Mind Hike. When I checked my stats, it was rising like a new sun, and hit a record-breaking 127 views! That has not happened since I published my book in 2017. I did not optimize the column or take any steps to increase readership. Today it is up to 126. Whomever you are, thank you so very much for reading my columns.