There are more reasons to quit than not to quit: rejection, isolation, uncertainty, bills! The one reason that hovers above all else, is that every thing we do in life needs revision. We are never through evolving into more thoughtful, loving, or wise human beings. Everyday, there is an opportunity to leap into a great attitude. It is the same with manuscripts; they do 
get better!
Tag: CREATIVE NONFICTION
QUE SERA SERA
ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS
is going from my 2500 square foot five-bedroom home with a garage movie theater, private garden and roomy front porch into a 265 square foot bedroom without a kitchen. It’s not permanent, but there is no end date either.
The big house we converted into a Vacation Rental as a means of income, and so I had to move out a month and two weeks ago. My room, I coined the Wild West Room, is brick red. I covered the walls with yellow and red original movie posters, and furnished it with a slot machine, two tables, two lamps, a TV with western saddle draped over it, a double bed, and a four drawer plastic dresser. The closet is tiny; so I only brought my best summer clothes; twenty hangers is all.
Waking up to have coffee on my petite patio laced with roses and a canopy of vines, settles my nerves after the mini coffee maker falls off the edge of the sink, and other accidental maneuvers. Living in a doll house requires tremendous gentleness, one swift wrong move, and things start tumbling.
My refrigerator has inspired a new diet. I call it the mini-frig diet. I can fit one bottle of wine, one 8oz bottled smoothie, one juice, my Aloe Vera, cream, three condiments: green chili, horseradish mayonnaise, Red Chili Jelly, a small tub of washed lettuce or spinach, two cheeses, tortillas, olives, tomatoes, smoked salmon or chicken strips and that’s it.
The only catch is that it is in arms length of the bed, and within four feet of anywhere in the room. Snacking is just part of the atmosphere.My own unimportant theory on eating, is I eat less poison if there is a bowl of chocolate covered nuts, gummy bears, and chips in the house.
I prefer to eat on dishes then paper, so I wash them in the bathroom sink, but I wash the delicate wine glass when I’m showering. All my meals, usually one a day, are outdoors on the patio, under the new Overstock.com umbrella that works perfectly. I’ve had a great experience with them on a return as well.
My house faces a busy street in Santa Fe, NM. The street connects upper Eastside to the downtown Plaza, and across the street is the La Posada Resort and Spa. I can walk to the gym, and pool, survey the clientèle, drink wine in the bar, and talk to the staff at the front desk. I’m there everyday; and as ying goes with a yang, I tolerate their side of the street being the loading zone. There are pick-ups, and drop-offs, and a lot of racket that I bear with my earplugs.
It’s in the high nineties, and we’re in a stable between three burning fires. The heat clings to me, like a saran-wrap; it’s also sort of Chaplinesque. I keep changing; to go on the patio. I can’t go in a slip, so I change a lot. Then there’s the marvelous terrifically considerate and talented guests in my house. They are three principal musicians’, with the Santa Fe Opera this season. When I water I hear them practicing. 
My shrunken life has forced me out more, eliminated hours of cleaning, shaved time off dressing, rearranging furniture, over-achieving unimportant tasks, watching the birds in their nest, and feeling complacent.
That is the most important of all; I realize it is time to bolster up, make sacrifices, and use this little room as the place to write my way out of here. I see myself in Portugal, or some place I still haven’t discovered. This miniature living reminds me of the first studio I rented in Los Angeles. You can’t imagine what progress came from that disappointing address, at the corner of Little Santa Monica and Westwood Boulevard. ‘ Que sera sera.’
LONERS
I’m better as a writer than I am a person. Though my syntax is follies;
with backward sentences and too many metaphors. The writing isn’t usually
selfish or timid. In a crowd I need applause before I feel accepted. One on one
my behavior swings from suspicion to doubt and it takes more than a few pages
to break the boundary. I don’t why I thought it would be different now; I’ve always been a loner.
Now I’m listening to the cry but I ain’t crying!
WHY WRITE
Dad used to say, the only thing I have to show for my life, is you.
Just cause I write doesn’t mean that I have something to say,
that isn’t already known. I write for everyone that feels something different, and no one wants to listen. 
It’s my life.
Dad in Beverly Hills Court. On a charge for not registering as a criminal. He moved to Bel Air.
DAYDREAMING
When I watch my wild birds, I daydream of their freedom, and how free I was when I was eighteen.
When I listen to Wes Montgomery I dream of Brazil, and riding on a float at Mardi Gras, just once, with a feather hat, and dressed like Rita Hayworth.
When I sit at my desk and look at my mother’s photograph, I dream of those few luncheons in the formal Garden Room on the top floor of Bullocks Westwood, watching the fashion show with her, proud of my model mother, and imitating how she ate the tuna salad.
When I lay in bed at night, I dream of him, and his strong shoulder cupping my head, watching an old Cagney movie.
When I shovel snow I dream of Southern California, of old Del Mar and sitting on the bench under the crooked tree, in a triangular postcard of the crashing surf, prancing dogs, and the meter maid marking the curb. When I walk along Palace Avenue in Santa Fe, New Mexico I dream of walking 5th Avenue at about 6 pm, when everyone pours on to the Avenues, a fountain of limbs and accessories crisscrossing patterns of human tolerance.
Day dreaming unlike night dreaming that takes us on the back of fairy tales and science fiction battling some inner masked trauma, illuminates where we want to be, what we need to do, and intercepts the embroidery of our life. The medicine of daydreaming surpasses self-help books, health food, vitamins, yoga, religion, or mind altering experiences. It is the essence of our rising emancipation from complacency.
“THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE MAFIA”
Growing up the daughter of a gangster meant that I would remain a little girl forever. My father died when I was 29, but emotionally I was still a teenager.
Had I had known that I was seated next to one of the most powerful and influential men in the Mafia, Johnny Roselli, then I would have listened with sharpened ears, and repeated bits of explosive headline blood curdling stories to my girlfriends. That would have placed myself, my father, Johnny and my friends in jeopardy. An informant from the government may tag me on the way home from school, or tag one of my friends, or an enemy of the Boss, may pick me up from school and not bring me back. Everyone is suspect: an informant, or weak enough to become an informant, a loose lipped wise guy, a bragging connected businessman, a friend of a friend, a cousin of a brother, and a daughter of a gangster. We are all potential targets of this organization known as the Mafia, Mob, syndicate, Costa Nostra, or our thing. Growing up in this circle of gamblers, killers, fixers, enforcers, bookies was like growing up in a novel, it was a fictional tale all the way, until the end of my father’s life. There is a drop down board that appears every time I write about our family business that reads,
“ How dare you open my life to the world, what do you know? You know nothing little sweetheart, and that’s the way I planned it. “
“There’s no such thing as the Mafia! If you ever mention that word again, you’re leaving this house!” I melted down to the floor, and he was ominous as God standing over me. I would never mention the word again, I promised, and I would never believe in the Mafia.
MY MOTHER-A RACKETEER’S WIFE
How could I have known 15 years ago? Back then I had but a fingerbowl of resources, a blue chair, a desk, and a typewriter. Everyday I wrote into the flame of discovery looking for my mother. My notebooks were sketches of a woman I never knew. The absence of the most ordinary information, like where she grew up in Newark, what sort of neighborhood, what her father did for a living, what schools, she attended, and later on, what experiences she had modeling in New York.
The closest I got was by reading John Robert Powers, The Powers Girls, about the modeling agency he started in 1923. He assigned unemployed Broadway talent to his advertising agency to promote American products. According to John he was the innovator of the modeling agency concept- beautiful women and men will sell products, the public never would have thought of buying.
I found her name in the index, Lucille Casey, and she joined the agency when she was 16 years old. John groomed the models; they were assigned disciplinary perfection in dialect, manners, appearance, character, and intellect. Powers Girls married anyone they wanted. They were invited to all the important society events, they were given card blanche at the Stork Club, and the Morocco and they were transported to celebratory city functions. They met men of all means, character, and class.
After I read the book, I thought about what my father used to say, ‘Your mother could have had any man in the world, but she picked me. Don’t you make the same mistake. “ That is a complex summons for a teenager to understand.
I sat in the blue chair and waited for flares of information to come down to earth. After two years, I had very little to fill one page. My mother’s history was lost, her friends had vanished, or would not talk to me. She did not leave a diary. Her photo album as a model was all I had. What could I see in those eyes, and smile? I gave up the search, and switched over to my father. The government documented his daily activities, and what they didn’t hear or see, was exploited in newspapers, documentaries, and books.
There was one woman who was alive, that knew intimate details of my mother, because I had met her, and she made it known to me she knew. That was Meyer Lansky’s wife, who went by the name Teddy. Women have a distinctive look when they are withholding secrets. Teddy always had that look when she brought up my mother. I told her I was writing about my father and mother and she said, “Let them rest in peace.” I didn’t take her advice.
ADVENTURERS IN SINGLE LIVINGNESS 