AS MUCH AS I DIG INTO FORMER & FOREIGN DESIGNS, FILMS, BOOKS, AND ADVERTISEMENTS, I WAS BOUND TO FIND MY TRANSGRESSION LIFE. I LASTED FOR 9 SOLID MONTHS. ENOUGH TIME TO GIVE BIRTH TO ANOTHER REED.
Category: OBSERVATIONS
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Was I named after this? This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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Hurricane Sandy Redecoration (Photo credit: dakine kane) A Desperate Plea For Winter Clothes
The owners of New Jersey’s NJ Skateshop are desperately trying to collect winter clothes for neighbors without heat and members of their community who were left homeless by Hurricane Sandy, as a Nor’easter is forecast to hit the stricken area next week.
Co-owner Chris Nieratko reports two of the shop’s four stores have electricity and have been stocked with power strips to allow residents to charge their phones and “pretend things were normal if only for a while.” But many are ill-equipped to handle the incoming storm, he writes, and are already struggling: “Seeing your children cold and hungry is a feeling I never want any of you to experience.”
Nieratko is asking for shipments of any winter clothing to the store’s New Brunswick location, from which they will distribute to people in need:
I have no TV so I don’t know what you’re hearing on the news, but let me tell you, it’s bad. Very bad..we’ve opened to the door to anyone with children. For days we ran generators sparingly because there was no gas…
There’s another storm coming. Temperatures are dropping. Things are getting colder and even scarier. I am writing to you to ask for your help in clothing the displaced, homeless, under-dressed skaters in our community and their families…If you have anything warm (socks, sweatshirts, jackets, beanies, gloves, shoes, tees, ANYTHING) doesn’t matter if it’s 5 seasons ago…there are many in need from very young to very big XXL. Anything you can spare to help people stay warm will be appreciated.
Please send whatever you’re able to (and there’s no box too small) to our New Brunswick shop:
NJ TWO 29-B Easton Ave
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Label the box HURRICANE RELIEF
Share this:Link to this:10:45 AM – TodayPhoto of National Guard in South Beach, Staten Island, today.
10:34 AM – TodayLong Island Man Waits Hours for Gas So He Can See Affleck Movie
Deer Park-North Babylon Park Patch reports:Harold Jamison will make it to the Tanger Outlet center this afternoon to see Ben Affleck’s “Argo.””That movie is so good, I have to see it. I’m not missing it. It’s about the 1979 Iran conflict and there is old TV video clips and everything,” Jamison said.
But first, he was living his own 1970s-style flashback, a nearly three-hour wait to get gas in Deer Park in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
Jamison was in line to get gas at the Deer Park Express station on the corner of Deer Park and Long Island avenues. He was still idling around the corner on Lake Avenue and E. 4th Street. In 90 minutes, he had moved two blocks.
Read the full story, and check out Mark’s excellent “Sweet Daddy” jacket on Deer Park-North Babylon Park Patch.
10:33 AM – TodayHuffPost’s Sam Stein reports:
WASHINGTON — Before hitting the campaign trail for his final swing before the election, President Barack Obama on Saturday stopped by the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington for a briefing on Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts.
“We still have a long way to go to make sure that the people of New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and some of the surrounding areas get their basic needs taken care of and we get back to normalcy,” Obama said, adding that the situation continues to be his “number one priority.”
The president emphasized five components of recovery: getting power back on as quickly as possible, pumping water out of flooded areas, making sure people’s basic needs are taken care of, debris removal and getting transportation systems up and running again.
“Our hearts continue to go out to those families who have been affected, who have actually lost loved ones,” Obama said. “That’s obviously heartbreaking. But I’m confident that we will continue to make progress as long as state and local and federal officials stay focused.”/blockquote>
Read more here.
10:00 AM – TodayOurAmazingPlanet reports:
With coastal communities in New York and New Jersey still reeling from the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy, the last thing the area needs is another storm. But that’s exactly what it might get.
A nor’easter is predicted to potentially hit the East Coast next Wednesday (Nov. 7), and beach erosion experts are concerned about further damage to shorelines devastated by Sandy.
9:55 AM – TodayCheck out this list of places where you can volunteer today in New York.
Options include volunteering in a park, making a donation, donating blood, and going door-to-door through the hardest hit region.
9:54 AM – TodayHuffPost’s Tom Zeller reports:
There’s no question that an event like Sandy will have insurers adjusting their actuarial tables. Estimates on the amount of damages in the wake of this week’s storm vary, but all are well into the tens of millions. …
Whatever the ultimate value, climate science suggests in broad terms that a warming planet will likely produce more muscular storms, as well as increased heat waves, droughts, higher-precipitation in some areas, and other weather events that have clear implications for the long-term viability of the insurance industry.
9:04 AM – Today
@ quasimado : MTA official on the L train: The tunnel there is flooded from wall to wall, ceiling to ceiling… it’s going to take awhile. #noo 8:44 AM – TodayPer the White House Press Office:
THE PRESIDENT: Well, listen, I just completed not only a meeting with our team here at FEMA and all of our Cabinet officers who are involved in the recovery process along the East Coast, but we also had a conference call with the governors of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, as well as many of the municipalities who have been directly affected by this crisis and this tragedy.
We still have a long way to go to make sure that the people of New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, and some of the surrounding areas get their basic needs taken care of and that we start moving back to normalcy.
A couple of things that we’ve emphasized: Number one, that it is critical for us to get power back on as quickly as possible. And just to give people an example of the kind of work we’re doing — the military, DOD, thanks to the work of Leon and others, have been able to get military transport facilities to move cherry-pickers and personnel from as far away as California to get that equipment into the area so we can start getting some of the power back on as quickly as possible. It is a painstaking process, but we’re making progress.
Number two, we’re getting assets in to pump as much water out as possible. Lower Manhattan obviously is a particularly acute example, but there are problems with flooding that are affecting substations throughout the region. That’s going to continue to be a top priority.
Number three, making sure that people’s basic needs are taken care of. As we start seeing the weather get a little bit colder, people can’t be without power for long periods of time, without heat for long periods of time. And so what we’re doing is starting to shift to identify where we can have temporary housing outside of shelters so people can get some sense of normalcy. They can have a hot meal; they can have the capacity to take care of their families as their homes are being dealt with.
Number four, debris removal still important. Number five, making sure that the National Guard and other federal assets are in place to help with getting the transportation systems back up and running — that’s going to be critical.
What I told the governors and the mayors is what I’ve been saying to my team since the start of this event, and that is we don’t have any patience for bureaucracy, we don’t have any patience for red tape, and we want to make sure that we are figuring out a way to get to yes, as opposed to no, when it comes to these problems.
The other thing I emphasized, though, is that it is much easier for us to respond if we know what these problems are out in these areas, so if everybody can help publicize the number 800-621-FEMA — 800-621-FEMA — then individuals can register with FEMA and immediately get the assistance that they need.
And so the more that folks in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut understand that there are a lot of resources available for them, not just with respect to housing, but also with respect to childcare, medicine, a whole range of support, then we want to make sure that they contact us as soon as possible if they’re in distress because help is available.
Let me just close by saying this: Obviously we’ve now seen that after the initial search and rescue, the recovery process is difficult and it’s painful. But the governors at the local level — Governors Christie, Cuomo, and Malloy — they are working around the clock, their teams are working around the clock. We are incredibly grateful to the heroism and hard work of our first responders, many of whom themselves have had their homes flooded out. Our hearts continue to go out to those families who have been affected and who have actually lost loved ones — that’s obviously heartbreaking.
But I’m confident that we can continue to make progress as long as state, local and federal officials stay focused. And I can assure you everybody on this team, everybody sitting around the table has made this a number-one priority and this continues to be my number-one priority.
There’s nothing more important than us getting this right. And we’re going to spend as much time, effort and energy as necessary to make sure that all the people in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut know that the entire country is behind them in this difficult recovery effort. We are going to put not just 100 percent, but 120 percent behind making sure that they get the resources they need to rebuild and recover.
8:43 AM – TodayFrom the AP:
New York’s governor says the U.S. Department of Defense will set up emergency mobile fuel stations around the New York City metro area.
Free gasoline will be distributed, with a 10-gallon per-person limit.
The announcement was made Saturday at a briefing by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
8:32 AM – TodayFlightStats.com has issued a report stating that from October 27th to November 1st in North America alone, 20,254 flights were canceled due to Hurricane Sandy. Roughly 9,978 flights were canceled at New York area airports alone.
United stands as the airline with the most cancellations by Sandy (2,149), followed by JetBlue (1,469), US Airways (1,454), Southwest (1,436), Delta (1,293) and American (759). In an examination of weather events over the past seven years, Sandy comes in second in terms of total number of cancelled flights, behind the North American Blizzard of February 2010 (22,441 flights).
8:11 AM – Today @ quasimado : Cuomo: 80 percent of NYC subway system restored. 7:30 AM – TodayFrom AP:
Even with her Coney Island apartment squarely in the path of Superstorm Sandy, Loraine Gore was staying put. At age 90, she said, she had her reasons.
“I’m tired,” she told a friend who urged her to evacuate. “I don’t want to go.”
After floodwaters subsided, Gore’s body was found face-down in her home – one of nearly a dozen New Yorkers over the age of 65 who perished in the storm.
7:18 AM – TodayFire powered cell phone chargers being sold in downtown Manhattan. twitpic.com/b9tz8y
7:00 AM – Today
@ NYGovCuomo : Governor Cuomo Announces Deployment of Temporary Fuel Trucks Throughout the Region http://t.co/w9azV2wN 6:55 AM – TodayFrom The Associated Press:
Motorists in 12 northern New Jersey counties will be allowed to buy gasoline just every other day under an order by Gov. Chris Christie that takes effect at noon Saturday.
Christie says he wants to ease long lines and extended wait times at gas stations and prevent a fuel shortage in the state hard-hit by Superstorm Sandy.
Read the whole story here.
10:33 PM – 11/ 2/2012HuffPost blogger Rep. Ed Markey writes:
Information, in advance of storms and to aid relief after, plays a critical role. That is why both NOAA and FEMA must have the resources they need to protect families.
As Gov. Chris Christie mentioned in remarks this week, the loss of life could have been much worse. No one took Sandy lightly, as early warning and real time information derived from NOAA’s satellites and forecasts saved lives.
This is a perfect example of the dangers of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wisc.) budget proposal. That short-sighted scheme would cut $250 million from the NOAA’s satellite program, crippling our weather prediction capability. NOAA ran an analysis in 2011 that found without data from the satellite closest to the end of its shelf life, the accuracy of its forecasts for major storms like blizzards and hurricanes would decrease by approximately 50 percent.
That’s the difference between knowing the storm will bring heavy rain or cause a flash flood and would place lives at risk.
10:02 PM – 11/ 2/2012
@ ASPCA : NYC ALERT: 24-hour hotline for evacuees to report pets who need rescue! **347-573-1561** #sandypets Please RT 9:57 PM – 11/ 2/2012
@ NBCPhiladelphia : After the #INGNYCM was canceled, @Philly_Marathon offers marathoners a race to run if they raise money for charity. http://t.co/WKNWbpoy 9:21 PM – 11/ 2/2012
@ BreakingNews : CNN puts US death toll from Superstorm Sandy at 106 – @CNN http://t.co/00351ytV 9:07 PM – 11/ 2/2012HuffPost’s Alice Hines and Mark Gongloff report:
At 3 p.m. on the Friday after Hurricane Sandy hit New York City, the St. Jacobi church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, was overflowing with boxes of water bottles, piles of clothes and volunteers baking bread pudding. The mood was busy and hopeful as 350 people helped sort donations from across Brooklyn to be sent out to neighborhoods like Staten Island and Far Rockaway that were devastated by the storm.
But one key element was missing: gasoline.
“We have a lot of everything right now,” said Diana Aguinaga, a dental hygienist who was volunteering at the donation hub, a joint effort of 350.org and Occupy Wall Street. “What we really need is a car with gas.” Outside the church, there were about 15 parked drivers loading and unloading supplies, though not all of them had enough gas in their tank to go as far as was needed.
8:45 PM – 11/ 2/2012HuffPost’s Ben Hallman reports:
On Thursday afternoon, firemen set up a few grills near an intersection here and cooked burgers for hungry residents in this beach community devastated by Hurricane Sandy.
On Friday afternoon, the grills were gone. The firemen were now training a hose on a row of businesses and homes around the corner that had burned down at the height of the storm. The only lunch option for those in need was a small pile of packaged goods dumped in a unappetizing heap on the dirty ground near a crowded mobile phone charging station set up by police. The nearest hot meal was more than a mile away, past the smoldering ruins, at an intersection where Ajay Singh and three other Sikh men from Queens had come of their own initiative to dole out steaming bowls of rice and beans and toasted bread made in their church kitchen.
8:15 PM – 11/ 2/2012HuffPost’s Jaweed Kaleem and Lucas Kavner report:
Waiting in a 45-minute line Friday morning at a Hess gas station in Center Moriches, Long Island, to fill up a portable fuel tank, Chip Daniel noticed sudden a flurry of police cars surrounding the station. He heard shouts and stomping, and the groaning of drivers in the packed crowd of cars in what is becoming an increasingly familiar scene at New York and New Jersey gas stations in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
“There was some jackass trying to cut the line and they called the cops. Four police cars came up to him and he began arguing with the police,” said Daniels, 44. “It took them some time, but finally he went back to his own spot.”
7:49 PM – 11/ 2/2012HuffPost’s Katie Bindley and Bonnie Kavoussireport:The show was supposed to go on. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a midday press conference Friday that the ING New York City Marathonwould lift New Yorkers’ spirits following the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, much like it did after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.But the anti-marathon backlash rose Friday as the death toll in New York reached 41, the city’s the transit system remained crippled and the storm’s economic damage was estimated at $50 billion. The marathon’s starting line was to have been on hard-hit Staten Island, where homes and lives were lost this week.
Read more here
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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SANTA FE, NM
It was just 3 in the afternoon, and I’d returned from a trip to San Diego, and my body craved relaxation, but not in the house, where suitcases remained unpacked, and dishes to be washed. I walked down to La Fonda Hotel and sat at a table in the woodsy and old leather bar. The smell of tequila and chips permeates the room, so I flowed with the
ambiance and ordered guacamole and a margarita. Sipping slowly, I took notice of the other people around me; old men in Spanish colonial chairs staring into the hotel activity, the reception desk staff, fudging with room reservations, and the lovely waiter, who bowed each time he came to my table. I hadn’t planned on thinking about the script I’m working on, and just as I was unwinding my limbs from the plane ride and trip from Albuquerque, ideas started boiling up like bubbles about this script. I panicked because I didn’t have my journal, or even a pen. Ah! the gift shop.. …
” Do you have a writing pad?”
“What kind?”
“With lines.”
” We have a few.”
” I’m in a hurry, anything will do.”
” What’s the rush?”
” I’m a writer,”
” Oh, I get it.” The clerk rushed through the transaction, and as I was about to leave I remembered,
” And a pen.”
She handed me the one she was writing with, and off I went.
Seated with my tools, I scribbled the thoughts as fast as they entered my still sober self, and when I finished, I took to writing about my surroundings. Yes, this is a place to bar write. I’ve observed Sam Shepard in several places writing through a meal. He has the distinction of not being bothered, but if he is, he draws a line around his space with his power pupils, one glance, and you’re blown off his planet. Sam does not always position his power pupils to defer interruption, I’ve seen him put his pen down and engage the stranger. His eyes turn to a likeness of the Mustang horse, wild and waiting for tenderness.
You have to practice this art, because invariably someone will ask if you are a writer, if you are published, and then they tell you they want to be a writer too. I don’t have power pupils so I put on my head-set and if necessary place my phone to the ear, if I am in the middle of a superlative sentence that I cannot stop. You also have to monitor your drinking, because I’ve learned more than one glass, is not going to read like it did while you were drinking.
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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Geronimo and fellow Apache Indian prisoners on their way to Florida by train (Photo credit: State Library and Archives of Florida) I go to the market, and buy six items.” Do you want a bag?” he asks? “No I’ll juggle them on my head.” At the bar at Geronimo, ‘ Do you live here,” from the man sitting next to me. Gibberish weather, and wine conversation, then I ask what his wife does, he turns his back and talks to the woman on the other side of him. Another night at Geronimo, a man ( high dollar Texan) buys me dinner because he thinks I’m so different.. We decide to go dancing at El Farol. I meet up with two humorous gay fellas on the porch, and while having a cigarette, the man exits and leaves without a word. At La Po, the waitress asks me, why I am staying here. I tell her because my house is rented. ” Oh, do you still own it?” she says. The front page of Pasatiempo event guide is a story, ” Are you paying too much for pot?”
A man walks up to my porch, ” Are you open?” “No, but come in” I say and he walks around and tells me he dreamth about my red room, as the office of his character in his screenplay.
Wells Fargo is my favorite. As soon as you walk in, a bank hostess, sings, “Welcome to Wells Fargo” and then I wait 20 minutes for a teller. After that, I spend another twenty minutes watching what the clerk is doing because they always put my business income in my personal account. La de da, if you want to live like it’s all a joke, move to Santa Fe. It will transform your rigidness into a loosely tied knot of learning how to adapt, as if you were in another country.
The plumber who is amiable fun-loving man, whose name is Tim gives me a ride to Wells Fargo so I can pay him cash. Tim lived here all his life, but he’s having trouble finding a pen, and a calendar to mark the next payment date, and then we pass Wells Fargo, and he says, is this it? I say Tim, it’s been here a long time, and he says, I got so many jobs I don’t know what’s newer than 1960.
The streets are narrow and filled with pot holes, so when a delivery truck can’t find a parking space, they pull up on the sidewalk, and over the years, the sidewalks have bubbles, cracks, and are worn down. It requires tightrope talent, and if you wear stacked heels, you’ll never make it to the corner. My heel got stuck between two bricks and I had a hellava time breaking free.
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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OUR INTERIOR LIVES.
We hear our voice utter in youth, in our exuberance for life without doubt. In adolescence we begin to question, every nuance, expression, thought and answer.
Then during our academic or wandering career years it is subordinated, for to-do lists, obligatory appearances, exams, false presentations, social expectations, ambition, competition, and a eagerness to achieve. A distortion of our inner voice emerges.
Until one day, a reminder drops in your lap, and you ask yourself, ‘ WHERE HAVE I STRAYED?
This is about returning to the forever young paradigm.
Thanks for all your comments and contributions!
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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Paris beauty salon (Photo credit: adrian, acediscovery) In the salon, Wendy, who sees me coming in and senses my mood, whipped out a particularly inviting greeting.
” What’s happening laaaaady?”
” Turning the page on another year. OMG- how did I get to be this age?” Screening my head for imperfections , she stroked my shoulder.
” You don’t need hi-lights, and you look terrific.
” That’s not enough, I haven’t planned well.
” You’re an artist, you create..
” You sure I don’t need hi-lights
” No, you look fab-u-lous.”
Two women in the salon, the conversation cuts through all of our individuality, and ends up in the center, of our tribal understanding, our sensitivities, and insecurities.
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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Post Office. St. Louis, Missouri, by Boehl & Koenig (Photo credit: Wikipedia) About the post office, it’s a relic, a dying old fortress of communication, where we all stood in line at one time to send our letters, the ones that took us a few more minutes than we can afford today. I wrote a lot of letters, long five page letters written on delicate stationary, and art cards I bought in museums and boutiques.
The Post Office loses 96 million dollars a day according to a reporter on television. We have stopped buying stamps, because we don’t mail letters. We don’t even need to send packages, because we buy it online and let them ship it directly. The cards are printed by the shipper, and impersonally attached to the gift. The type is formal, and even though you know that person, had his mind on you for the minute they typed out that note, well, it’s not the same really. Progress is raping us of the personal touch. People like Zuckerberg are reinventing the way we share our thoughts, our photos, our everything.
Letters, of people that acquired prominence in the world of literature, art, and science were adapted into books. I wonder if their emails will be considered for a book.
The postman still comes to the house, he’s usually talking on his cell phone, or listening to his iPod, when he drops the mail off. There is no need to rush to see what he’s brought, it’s always the same, a stack of bills, a few discount fliers, and a real estate brokerage announcement that they can sell our house in thirty days. The postman has changed too. They used to say hello, and have a nice day. I suppose if I wanted to have a conversation with the Postman I could go to their Facebook page.
I’m going to check, and see if they have a Facebook page…. The first three Facebook post offices: one in the UK, one in St Louis, and one in Pakistan. Clicked more, and there they are. You can Facebook the Post office.
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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East Palace Avenue Santa Fe (Photo credit: paigeh) SMILEY’S DICE-ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS
By:Luellen Smiley
SANTA FE,NM.
I’m sitting outside in a flowerless garden because no matter how many flowers I plant, they only last one season, if that long. The garden is erupting out of its winter coat, and lime green leaves, plants, and stalks will have to do for now. The sky that seals me in is licked with revisionary hope. The kind that comes back laundered and fresh after a chosen recess from believing in the possibility of a preferred life correction.
Behind the garden, a neighbor is drumming a soft tribal beat, and on Palace Avenue the choir is singing inside the Episcopal Church on Palace Avenue. Between these distinctive tastes, there are sparrows fluttering from fan to nest to fountain. The chattering sounds like; ‘here she comes, don’t come over here, get out of my nest, watch out for that fat crow.’
It’s a mind drift, to be caught in such UN-structured beauty, away from the manuscripts, remotes, doors, and phones. It’s like being on an island out here. Everything we bring into our experience can be revised; a work of art, a way of speaking, thinking, portraying yourself, your way of loving, or lusting, and we all know about appearance, because our society shoves it down our throat.
Look at the possibilities in revising our patterns of behavior. What we accepted twenty years ago doesn’t mean it’s carved in our organs. We can transmute. The interior life needs lifting and tightening, just as our mind and muscles do. You won’t find any immediate remedy, or advertisements, or books on the subject because we’re consumers of products that change and revise only the visible tangibles. I wonder if I traded in my eleven year old Land Rover for a new one if I’d be really happy, and for how long? Or if I flew to Los Angeles and bought cartons of antiques, hats, and perfume if I would be grinning from ear to ear.
I begin with revising the way I experience Santa Fe. I’ve lived on the outskirts, like a storm that blew in and is waiting to blow out. It seems my storm is here for now, and so I let go of the criticism and intolerances. Beginning with my favorite activity, dancing, I returned to El Farol, my chosen dance hall hullabaloo, then to La Posada across the street and mingled with an assorted group of locals, guests, and actors, (who were real as pippin apples)spent a day cruzing the ghostly town of Madrid to experience the cinematic sparseness, and walked up and down Canyon Road one morning before the shops opened, and was greeted half a dozen times by strangers out walking, uniquely different in attire, disposition and stride. I love that about Santa Fe. You don’t conform, it’s a religion here!
My homework for the next few weeks is revising the interior doors of emotion, and the exterior doors of expression. I’ve set aside the memoir, (did I mention I started that again) after a publisher suggested major rewrites and editing. I mean you have to know when to give up because you’re not going to make the team. I’m a six page essayist. If you get me into one hundred and fifty pages, I march all over the globe and lose the reader.
You guys are smart. You know all of this; I’m just learning. I am a case of insufferable arrested development. If I felt my age, which most of you know, I’d be looking at retirement brochures. Instead I’m planning on breaking into new territory. Its a joke between my dreamer self and my inner critic, but I’m not listening to the critic.
Today I swiveled in my desk chair trying to write the column I thought I was going to write. In between gazing out the window at sky scenery, I made oatmeal cookies, watched the birds, took care of business, had a hair cut, plucked at paragraphs from Anais Nin, and danced on the treadmill. The column didn’t come out of a conscious thought wave; it just rose up, after I typed the words, the throw of the dice. The odds were I’d find my way from there.
My dad the gambler, who laid a bet on everything from sports, horses, gaming, to the Academy Awards and elections, taught me many valuable lessons. He actually told me once, ‘Take a chance for heavens sake! Go out and get arrested.’ He knew the odds of that, which is why he dared me. Life corrections begin with edits, then revisions, and then you have a new story!
Any dice to throw email:folliesls@aol.com
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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The Movie Star (Photo credit: Cowgirl111) Our nest, is something we build on our own to give us permission to explore, and then question, and we go back to our little nest, and add a bit more certainty because the dinner was great, and the party lasted longer than we thought, and someone smiled at you in a special way, and then you saw a rainbow.
Some things happened last week; that liquefied into a mirage, of an opinion I inhabited. I directed this opinion with outdated information, and second hand narratives by writers in print. I believed what I’d always believed; that actors aren’t like you and me. I was wrong! Some actors are like you and me. They have open hearts, and inquisitive minds, they drink beer, and dress without designer labels, they like to hang out, and not talk about the movie business, they have interests beyond their Imdb star rating, and they answer questions, if you ask them. Unless we infiltrate what we criticize, we’re adding to the hypocrisy of the human condition.
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
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Joe Bataan – Ordinary Guy (1975) (Photo credit: Soul Portrait) I WISH I’D TAKEN A PHOTO THAT DAY, on a gravely, twisted uphill hike to Mt Atalaya a hike that I’ve hungered for because it looms in the rear view, jettisoned above the city, swooping hills, three of them, you have to criss-cross before you reach the 8,800 foot marker in the sky. The temperature was 70 degrees, the wind was napping. Easter Sunday, sprinkles of holiness on Santa Fe, church bells ringing all day long, restaurants hosts pushing metal carts of glossy preparations down the aisles, and the little children, in Easter bonnets, and patent leather shoes, if they still make them, are squirming at the table.
I had a hunger for universal meaninglessness and to end the chatter in my head. Hikes do that. They just erase all the sirens and alarms, the what if’s and what knots in my head.
Afterward, we sat on the porch listening to Joe Bataan. You probably haven’t heard of him unless you dig into Salsa, as Rudy does. Joe is half Filipino and half African. His music touches cords you cannot even imagine, like Afro-Cuban-Filipino fusion rap. Everyone is hopeful on Easter; motor bikers, wanderers, the wait staff and valet that trot down the street, talking into their ear phones at one another, and guests, pushing baby strollers, swinging shopping bags, taking photographs of our house, and gazing at the sky. When they hear the music from our porch, they wave at us, and might think, we have the life, sitting on the porch, sipping a glass of wine. What they cannot even imagine is that the entire scene is Roman a clef, a fictional imitation! What we are actually doing is avoiding the avalanche. We were already defaulted on the mortgage, and then we repositioned into a vacation rental. And guests sat on our porch while we took the maid’s entrance. Hah
This is not a “How to Recognize Gaslighting” or a “Step-by-Step Guide to Gaslighting.” This is a true story, drawn from my experience.
I’ve written in the genre of Creative Nonfiction, integrating the events through dialogue, journal entries, and a third-person narrative. Within three locations, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Saratoga Springs, NY. Greta (me) exposes the mutilation gaslighting abuse inflicts on her emotions, psychology, mental and physical health, and her finances.
Andrew Kaczynski @BuzzFeedAndrew 
