I had it today, unlike other days that the truth is mettled or opaque or I am distracted. It reminds me of one of the wisdoms my father passed on to me: ” You can fool the whole world little sweetheart, but you can’t fool yourself.” I was a teen, when he passed on this mantra of living, now, today on a sunny Solana Beach go to the beach or racetrack day, I sit here and contemplate who I was fooling and why.
At some point in my thirties, I decided to outperform convention: marriage, children, my career, and lead without warnings, without proven methods, I thought experimentation was my path. I changed careers, moved to multiple locations, and threw the dice on finances. I can’t truly say no regrets, adventures in livingness brings growth, but the bank account needs growth too!My gang, assures me I’ll get back on the track, thank God for friends that believe in us, right! I don’t need five million followers, just my five fly over me forever friends.
On the track, earlier this week I had a conversation about the Del Mar Horseraces. The race track at Del Mar is on and my friend goes several days a week,
” It‘s really a lot of fun. Why don’t you come sometime and get away from editing?”
” I’ve told you, haven’t I? My dad gambled on everything: horses, sports, the academy awards, and at lunch, if the fly would go out the open window. If I win, I know, I’ll get addicted.”
” Oh, yes, I forgot you mentioned that.”
So, the dice throwing is in remission, going forward: manage impulse, unconventional living, be sensible, pragmatic and use proven methods.
Solana Beach massesare at the beach or the track, and I’m editing. ( deleted 25 pages today because people don’t read 400 page books) You know why I can do it? Because I spent my glorified years going to the beach, the track, partying, parading, and popping.
If youโve read my columns about minimalistic living: adapting to Solana Beach health, wealth and wardrobe conformity (female: leggings, workout bra, or at night show it or stow it. Male, bare-chested or T-shirt with their business logo on the back.) I add this confession, if the community residents were any happier than what Iโve observed Iโd get therapy.
This week I became LEGITIMATE.
My New Mexico driver’s license expired in Sept 2024. I was living in my home in Saratoga, and attempted to gather the fourteen documents to show proof of residence, and get a NY driverโs license. I loved my turquoise NM license plates, and did not think Iโd be there longer than a year, so I didnโt renew. I drove sparingly, as the village was in walking distance and I had Amazon delivery.
In January 2026 I moved into a hotel in Del Mar, CA and my car was transported by an auto moving company. I spent about thirty hours reviewing the documents I needed to get a CA license moving from out of state. I managed to get registration through my CA insurance agent, and CA auto insurance but DMV wanted proof of residence, (hotels not accepted) so I used Uber. I finally found my studio in May, and used all my time furnishing, and avoided the DMV. Friends offered to drive me there, and they or I got sidetracked.
Finally, a friend here said,
โ Loulou youโve got to get it done. Weโll go Monday, this week.โ I bought the cheat sheet, (out of staters have to take the written test) and studied it all weekend. Andrew, my friend, we met at five years old, called and said,
โ Did you get an appointment?โ
โThereโs a line of twenty-five, and besides the dice didnโt roll to seven.โ
โLoulou, forget the dice and the line, they go fast.โ
โ Iโll be over at ten o clock.โ
I panicked and reviewed my folder of documents the online DMV said I needed: Birth certificate, certificate of sale, insurance, registration, social security card, proof of residence , passport, and DMV security code.
My phone maps app was taken over by google so I couldnโt access directions, I kept getting an error. So, I handwrote them on a page and met Andrew.
โ You have the directions on GPS, I donโt know where San Marcos is exactly, do you?โ
โNot to make this more complex, I couldnโt access the app so I wrote them down.โ
โ Thatโs good, you have all your documents?โ
โ Everything but height and weight,” He laughed and we took off on the freeway. Andrew is a conversant man and because we grew up in the same class through high school we can speak, uninhibited.Childhood friends shared innocence, and the rarity of calculated devious behavior. Our trust is dependable and accountable.
โDo you know why I wore all pink?โ
โCause you โฆ I have no idea.โ
โ Men and women love pink, so if I get a male clerk, heโll like it and so will a female.โ
โ Whereโd you get that tidbit?โ
โMe, people like pink, and a search, pink evokes love and compassion.” Our conversation leaped from old friends to our parentโs, to tech complaints, going canoeing on a lake we passed, diet, aging, politics, antisemitism (we’re both Jewish) and thenโฆ
โ Do we turn here?โ
โ Yes, we go east and then turn on San Marcos Boulevard for one mile and then Rancheros for three miles, and then..
โOkay, two directions at a time.โ
After five miles of driving through residential neighborhoods, I knew we were lost. Andrew listened when I suggested we turn back, and we finally arrived at the DMV.
“My ex wouldnโt listen to my directions for thirty-five years. Thank you for listening! You know men are famous forrefusing driving directions.โ
FREINDS, FAMILY AND FIREWORKS, Not me. Leave out the friends and family. But not the fireworks. I havenโt been here long enough to make new friends, and the ones I would call are out of town or playing homebase to avoid the traffic. The first day free of mind bending, sneezing, coughing and body thrashing over the last two weeks with bronchitis subsided. I even mentioned to a friend. โthe best thing about suffering is when it ends.โ The last time I had the flu was 2011.
New York. I couldnโt abate watching the fleet parade along the Hudson or the fly overs above the Statue of Liberty, or pay very close attention to the historical narrative on the sacrifices our founders lived and died for, so we can celebrate today and tomorrow. What a juxtaposition between the insignificance of being sick and taking a bullet. The day of history and visuals had me looking up every founder, and significant document, dates, places and rendering the Saratoga Battlefield visit with Jx years ago.
“Site of the historic 1777 Battles of Saratoga, which represented the first significant victory for the rebels in the American Revolution. Today, the 3,200-acre park is a popular tourism and recreation site and a wildlife conservation area.”
I took myself out to dinner across the street at the Brigantine, folded into a room filled with chatting staff, guestโs conversation, and a panoramic view of the fairgrounds and Del Mar mountain tops. I sat in the center, unusual for me I usually cling to a wall, but this restaurant has become a sanctuary for socializing, or just being solo, either way Iโve never left disappointed.
โ You dropped this outside the bathroom,โ a young shaggy blonde hair boy of twelve or thirteen handed it to me.
โOh! Thank you so much, that is very thoughtful.โโ He shied, dropped his head in that way that makes adults wonder why we became so different, and left.
Then later on, as I was outside on the terrace enjoying the view of the fair, I noticed him and a woman next to me. We started to talk, I think she liked my necklace or my pants or something and I saw the little boy and I said is that your son? She said yes and I told her the story. She introduced me to her husband, the uncle, the children, the other children’s parents. And when she left, she hugged me. That kind of intervention makes the difference for a single person.
EVENING. After watching the DC extravaganza, I walked outdoors, to the corner, the street was back to back traffic, helicopters, neighborsโ standing on sidewalks and on our property, and I looked up at the start of a Del Mar Fairgrounds fireworks show that stopped me short.
My possessions in Saratoga Springs now appear as decorations ย ย from a former celebration, like side dishes of over 20 years of mixing and matching prints, drapes, sofas, chairs, tables, vases, and artwork. Now they’ve been removed from my experimental minimalistic living.ย A former lifecycle that began twenty-five years ago, and are boxed up in a big POD storage. And I refuse to meet them in the present. Friends ask me, โwhen are you bringing your furniture here?’ I canโt answer in words, it must crystallize like it has this past week, when I missed my wardrobe and art hangings. Within the admired art, clothes, and sixty-two boxes, (I looked at my inventory) are a haunting of memories tied in see thru knots of Dodger, my x. As a confirmed refuser of goodbyes, in any relationship, this one has to be nurtured with precision, and that means, no reminders.
The stark white walls and Amazon assembled furnishing are stationed without emotion, memory or love. Functional, practical and unfamiliar.ย Ive created a new palette, like my first studio in Los Angeles in 1976. Then the others, studios over the years, small, compact, easy to maneuver and clean. Internally, the walls and shelves are cluttered with decisions. The edits on my book from the publisher, when will I find employment? How to engage in new friendships, clubs, gyms, meetups. ย
Singleness in a city, that was once my home for twenty years, evolved through generations, adding new policies, laws, regulations, real estate development, customs, and an impressionable celebration of the arts and culture. It has no resemblance to the San Diego I met in 1983, except for the ocean and the bordering cliffs and seawalls. That is where a continuous rolling of memory waves sear my view, and I see my youthful delight in San Diego. Iโve always been impressed with people who truly live in the present, canโt figure that one out, maybe Iโm just a past time girl.
Overlapping Fatherโs Day is a mirage of life experiences tucked into memory prescriptions you take on a stormy day. A relic of my history rises and reminds me of the fear I once broke through.
It was 1983, and I was poised on a terrace overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Venice Beach. It was March, the month my father died, and I stared at the horizon at dusk, imagining my freedom taking flight. Where would I go? Without his presence in Los Angeles, and my sister, who had already moved to New York, I was terribly alone. The replacement came in summer flings, with men who had crossed my path; a photographer, a New Jersey computer technician with a brassy voice and Joe Pesci humor, and every few days, Kenny, a former boyfriend, dropped by to smoke his pipe of philosophy and blow long-winded ideas on where I should move.
โI really want to move to Canada,โ I said.
โFor what? To go ice-skating?โ He said between puffs.
โI have family in Vancouver.โ
โWhat family? Youโre an orphan now.โ
โI am not. I have cousins in Vancouver. My fatherโs nephews.โ
โOh, yeah. When was the last time you saw them?โ
โWhen I was twelve.โ
โTerrific! Thatโs a solid-ass plan. So what will you do in Canada?โ
โGet a job in real estate.โ
โLue! Wake up. You canโt get work in Canada unless youโre a citizen. Forget that idea. Youโre better off staying here; look where you are: Santa Monica, the beach at your feet. Are you crazy?โ
โI donโt belong here any longer.โ
โYou donโt belong to anywhere; what you need is to stop trying to be a big shot like your father.โ
โI am not!โ
โWhen was the last time you left the country? When you were eighteen? Go to Rio, youโll have the time of your life, or Italy, or Greece–it doesnโt matter. Just take the chance and see how you land on your feet. Youโre a dreamer; itโs about time you made one of your dreams come true.โ
In the next few weeks, I met with Larry, my boss, who was liquidating his real estate portfolio to retire at 45. Larry wasnโt just an investment visionary; he was passionate about social, political, medical, scientific, and human interests. He was a genius.
โYou can stay here another year–Iโll find something for you to do, but youโll be bored,โ Larry told me.
โLarry, I donโt know where to go.โ I wiped a tear. He ignored it.
โYou have to get out of LA. Youโll never meet anyone here. You think youโll be introduced to someone riding up and down the elevator in Century City. Iโve spent a lot of time in Del Mar and Rancho Santa Fe. Theyโre nice people. You have a chance there; go down, spend a few days, and tell me what you think. Iโll help you. Now, stop crying. โ
I drove down in Dadโs black El Dorado, and parked at Del Mar Beach right next to the lifeguard station at the Poseidon Restaurant. I opened my suitcase, took out a bathing suit, and went into the beach bathroom. The tile was wet and smelled of seaweed and salt. I walked barefoot down to the beach. It was early spring, and the sand was unmarked. A few surfers jogged past me, blonde and bronzed like the Beach Boys. I followed them down to the seashore. In every direction, there was this untouched canvas of light and color; even the beach houses retained their natural sandy simplicity.
After I swam in the ocean, I went back to the bathroom, changed into dry clothes, and walked into town. A man with a beard rode past me on a horse and waved. I picked up a Reader and read the rental advertisements on the patio of Carlos and Charlieโs, the corner cafรฉ. A roommate advertisement caught my eye: โRoommate Wanted to Share large two-bedroom overlooking Torrey Pines Reserve.โ I called, and a man who went by the name of Smokey answered the phone. He invited me to come by for a look. His voice was predominantly ranch-friendly, so I took a drive over. It did occur to me on the drive that I was taking that chance Ken was blowing in my ear, and I was listening to Larry, who told me that people in San Diego were different.
โHi, Iโm Smokey. Come inโwould you like something to drink? Too early for cocktails, unless you want one.โ
โNo thanks. How long have you lived here?โ
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His eyes were animal-alert, his face tanned, and his hair cut short but made to look long. His smile was unfiltered with hidden motives, and he was bull-legged.
โI moved from Pittsburgh; Iโll never go back except to see my folks. This is paradise. Donโt you think? Iโve lived here for two years. I rent out one room, because I hate full-time work. Iโm more entrepreneurial. You donโt have to worry about my motives. I have a girlfriend, and Iโm in love with her. She doesnโt stay here. I go to her house. Youโll have your space, and if you need a friend, Iโm here. Come out on the balcony.โ
I followed Smokey, and we stood on the terrace overlooking the lagoon and marshlands of the reserve. To the west, the ocean and the stump of Torrey Pines Mountain.
โWait till sunset; youโll never want to leave. Come look at your room. I can help you move if you want.โ
The room was downstairs, his upstairs, and a stairway of trust in between.
Every morning I rise at dawn to sit in the parlor. Here I watch the sunlight illuminate the, โCat on a Hot Tin Roofโ movie board in the hearth, and drink a cup of coffee in silence. I feel at home. These are the most precious moments of the day, the moment of peace before throwing the dice.
I can see out the window to the street, and this morning a handful of eggplant leaves on the tree next door have been autumnized to a transparent sheen of bronzed gold. The silence following summer has descended down over the rooftops of the people that live on East High Avenue. The sky is seared with streaks of white, and bubblegum pink clouds drift just above the rising of the sun. The moment is a peaceful stroke to a summer that has been indeterminate, chancy and without design. We came here with the intention to sell the house, and we leave without any such idea.
In the moments SC awakes, I hear his footsteps on the creaking wood floor. I close the journal and go in the kitchen to make buttermilk pancakes. When we are in Solana Beach, we eat bran muffins, usually in short order, between telephone calls, and conversations about things that it is too early to discuss. These mornings he lingers on the porch and reads the paper, because he has the time. If my body is willing, I will run down to the stream by Kelly Park, and look for the blue heron. Along the way, I pass by the quiet man with the three beagles, and a mother walking with her children to the bus stop. I will pass the funeral parlor and look the other way, and when I see the Federal Express Truck, he will wave because he knows I am the woman that receives mail addressed to Soaring Crow.
The front porches I pass are the opening pages to the home stories of people inside. If there are children, the remains of their toys will be scattered about. If they are elderly, they will leave their gardening shoes by the back door, and if they are a young couple, they will be in the midst of home repairs, a roof that needs fixing or a new coat of paint. I have observed just one campaign poster board in the neighborhood. It seems to have gone out of style to post your politics on your car or in front of your house. In the front yard of one home, a banner is pitched in the ground that reads, โRemember our Troops.โ I have not asked, but it is probable they have a son serving in Iraq. The hanging flower planters have been replaced with mums and corn stalks. Some scatter straw on the lawn. I used to giggle at this September tradition, now I am almost giddy about arranging my seasonal display in the yard.
The run back through town takes me by the high school, a brawny brick building that looks like the setting for a chapter from โCatcher in the Rye.โ A teacher passes by, dressed in a conservative suit and pumps, and smiles. She looks wholesome as apple pie, and I wonder if I ever looked like that. On chilly mornings, the fireplaces may be smoking, a scent as perfect as my favorite perfume. Our own fireplace is inoperable until we reline the chimney, which explains why the movie poster is in the fireplace.
By 8:00 a.m. the yellow school buses are chugging up the street and the children, gathered at our corner; bob up and down in innocent bursts of energy celebrating the beginning of a new day. I arrive home about this time, and stop to watch the quaintness of the moment. The habitat of these surroundings strips me bare of my Hollywood entertainment, Southern California roots. I am nourished by quaint tradition and scenery, and that is one answer to this mystery I call home.
I eat cider donuts when I want and instead of working out three or four times a week, I take long walks, past the Sunny Side farms to see the young foals and mothers in the corral. I dress in style-less shoes and pants, whenever I feel like it, without fashion consciousness. I do not watch the television and prefer to go to bed early and read Carson McCullers novels. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I can sit on the porch and look at the hands of a storm forming in the sky.
People come to my house without notice, and sometimes just walk in and yell my name. My favorite Broadway hangout knows who I am, what kind of wine I like and that we like to sit on the patio. Sometimes I meet strangers who have heard of the Follies House, and I feel a twinge of acknowledgment.
It does not matter what everyone else calls home, it is simply the feeling of peace, security, and acceptance. That is how you know you are home.
FEEL, THINK, AND REACT. Tumbling through all the transitory advice forces me to examine more closely whom to believe. Iโve never been a leader, nor a follower, I walk in between, trying to pave a pathway to peace of mind. Maybe that is unattainable as I am in a cultural, political, medical, financial, and socially reimagined world. It reminds me of being a teenager when life was questionable, and confusion was like a stinging bee we couldnโt swap away. So, in my senior year in high school I started writing in a notepad. Gradually, almost supernaturally I withdrew from my gang, and spent the weekends in a Cafe with adults, or in the library. The loner label pleated my pants.
Loners were portrayed in film, books, and art as mysterious, untouchable icons. They even became romanticized as people of superior cerebral awareness. Iโve met and gained friendships with several over the last few decades. It may be that loners have thin skin, they absorb the ethereal and reality, so in many situations the absorption is too weighty and the loner cuts loose before the party is over, cancels at the last minute, and doesn’t answer the phone. Talking, engaging, evaporating into another person feelsherculean for me sometimes.
Does isolation relate to the intensification of rancorous physical assaults in streets and shops, which is my pestering pursuit today. Are all these perpetrators unloving, and live amongst the unloved? People are shot because their hamburger wasnโt properly served on time, or they have a different opinion. I was living in Los Angeles in 2018, and one day driving down Pico Blvd I noticed a sign, โWalk in Anger Management.โ Maybe we need to convert a few drive-thru food diners to Anger Management centers. It sounds amusing. If I was financially able, Iโd open one in every major city.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS CULTURE is unimaginable for a woman who grew up in the Love and Peace generation, or even into the eighties and nineties. We didnโt shoot one another, maybe a fist fight, or a shouting match, but not murder in cold blood.Could this macabre movement be abated by friends who love you more when you are gentle and kind? It cannot be that simple, or could it? When I used to rage about some occurrence that tattered me personally, Dodger would come to me and say,
โGreta put your guns down,โ that always made me laugh, and then weโd talk out what triggered my fury.
THE COMFORT OF EXHIBITINGlife on paper. It is not the act of writing with pen and paper moving along at a steady rhythm; itโs the activation of the heart and mind, collaborating to unravel the relevant from the irrelevant. To reach this state of matrimony, a writer doesn’t need a Tuscan Villa or an English Castle, but experiences that flake off the skin and shake out relevance. What Iโve rediscovered is that without a lot of stuff to organize, the mind is free to think, more time to create and effect essential decisions. Narcissism is sacrificed and replaced with more visceral makeup. Minimalist living has erased my past, and that is as transforming as day to night.
PUZZLE OF SOLITUDE will always be a puzzle because our lives, solo or mated, are puzzled by too much solitude, or not enough. There is an inner exploration happening, unfolding like spreading new sheets on my bed, that solitude has befriended me all my life, in the best of times and the tedious. I have to find the frolic and follies in the world that I created. I have to laugh alone, so I watch screwball comedies, seek humor in my irregularities; wearing a sweater inside out, pouring coffee into a wine glass for a cocktail, and chuckling when I keep forgetting where I left my phone. Laughing at myself is a funnel that leads to writing.
SPACIAL dimensions define a lifestyle. I walked into a room of four hundred and fifty square feet, and begin designing a new nest, where I could rest, write, and regain a root. I brought two suitcases, a box of paperwork, and my laptop. In a tote bag: one coffee cup, a fork, knife, spoon, one bowl one plate, a wine opener, a razor knife, and two scissors.
That was one week ago, today I have a room of Amazon: a, bistro table, two chairs, one bedside table, one dresser, and a free-standing shelf for the bathroom. I’ve never seen a bathroom without a hook, a shelf, a few rods, it’s like a prison bathroom. All of this is what I’ve named experimental living. I have a 16ft POD in a lot in Saratoga Springs, and to transport twenty years of collections and spend months separating, what goes to storage and what I can use made no sense one sleepless night. I’ll leave it there until I am positively positive I’m staying here. I know you are out there, the gypsy wanderers, the unsettled, the ones whose address changes like the seasons.
Choosing to buy furnishings online is cost-effective. If I go into a consignment shop or furniture store, I’ll pull out the credit cards that I’ve sworn off like I have going out in the sun without SPF seventy. This is all the first layer of experimenting with a lifestyle that I lived when I was hey nineteen not seventy-three. Am I proving something to myself? Probably, I deny convention, and ultra comfort because then I wouldn’t think, I’d lay around and be satisfied.
Bedroom, living room, dining room and entry
” The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds, he takes the path in order eventually to become that path itself.” Henry Miller.
I am digging into something unknown, it’s as if someone has taken charge over my decisions and I just met her. Fragments of who I was in Santa Fe, or Saratoga, pop up in the annoying half wall mirror that invades my privacy. I intend to buy a lovely Asian or Moroccan divider to hide myself. I wish there was a mirror to my emotions, so I know what I am hiding, and refusing to face off with. I made a note yesterday in my journal,
‘ I’ve always been a misfit.’ Where I am now, is a succession of experimenting with the unknown, at an age when my peers are in the known.
Just took another walk outdoors, one of ten to twelve every day, to remove the scenery of too heavy unopened boxes, that Simon, my assembler will turn into furniture Friday. He is Russian, and was one of the lucky ones to leave, two weeks before the war began. He can assemble twenty-five pieces in a NY minute.
The outdoors, familiar from twenty years ago, with a whipping gentle wind, sun, joggers, walkers, skateboarders, and surfers pass along, and I feel a newly planted root.
There are reasons to quit and more reasons not to. The one reason that hovers above all is that everything we do in life needs revision. We are never through evolving into more thoughtful, loving, or wise human beings. Every day, there is an opportunity torevise your valor and conviction.
Revising the position you walk, talk, judge, form opinions, contribute to your home, friends, and partners. Discovering what you’ve learned, dreamed, and mastered is your novel. Just as writing a new chapter when the knot tightens, and you are trapped by decisions that are outdated. Antiquities of a former persona.
Changes in life are like undeveloped photographic images, blurred. Mentally, the angles donโt fit, like schedules, routines, and commitments. Returning to former lifestyles and looking at old photographs, what I see is someone else.
This week, I walked into Scripps Clinic for laboratory testing. The last time was 2012, when I was with a former boyfriend. J was all encompassing, all consuming, generous, intelligent, outgoing, and he had to be near me like a new pet. ย I lasted a year, the obsession of closeness suffocated my spirit and my writing.
After the appointment, I looked across the street at Torrey Pines Science & Research Park, where I was appointed Marketing and Leasing Director in 1986 over 150,000 square feet of vacant space. I visualized myself taking clients, Qualcomm, and the Jonas Salk Institute through the newly built office buildings. My confidence was slightly off when scientists asked questions about the mechanics and cable routes, but I loved that job. My boss was the most intelligent developer Iโd met; he carved me into a broad thinker, allowed my off-the-chart ideas and proposals to progress. ย Tears welled because the memory was enflamed by my long-distance running days up Torrey Pines hillside. I doubt Iโd be running today, maybe scuffling. ย Life is a runway that we have to steer for ourselves. If we allow others to take the wheel, we are not authentic. No one is steering my wheel, and I have hit a lot of potholes and assholes along the way.
The puzzle is how to live, where to live, and for whom. ย It is the same with manuscripts; they improve with each revision.
WHAT ARE THESE LISTS...ย the long list is the list you started as a youth, without even knowing you were making plans for your future. This is the list that does not have to be in writing, keyed in on a phone, Outlook, or posted on the calendar.
The long list is about cutting out, shocking the system, and coming back unharmed. It is an exceptional sensation of adventure we visualize while waiting for a flight at the airport, for the neighbor to turn off the leaf blower, for the light to turn green.
All of the things we monitor in our lives, like the need to have a cavity filled or checking the coolant level, are multiplying, and that short list is so long we rarely have time to consider the long list.ย None of those items will make any difference in ten years, not one.
The short list is a big obstacle in the way of the long list. By the time we get to the long list, we may be crippled by fear, turned into a sofa shouting grumpy cynic or, worse than all the above, we may have forgotten what we wanted.
Waiting too long to start an adventure on the long list is staring me in the face. Then I realize, I’m in it!ย ย
SELF DISCIPLINE โ Either you have it, or you donโt. There is no gray, no aperture, no gaps, and I am learning this as I sit here writing instead of what I need to do, is walk.
Iโm in the arena of a relentless athletic tribe. Yesterday I walked for an hour and noticed the runners, bikers, and power walkers along the path, muscles skin-tight, tanned, and seemingly detached from the backed-up traffic along the boulevard. The breeze felt like cotton balls, the sky a perennial perfect blue, and seventy-eight degrees.
Today, the same summer-like atmosphere, and with my windows open, and the crowds missing from the pool, I am wandering in between, like a bird that is unsure if the branch is better than taking flight.
Weekends, I take a recess from the tedium of seeking employment with AI leading the way. Am I just entering the 21st Century? It feels so inhuman, so robotic, that I counterattack, enter the sensibility of irritation, shout at no one, grind my jaw, and resort to a stroll around the lobby to converse with humans.
Without music, writing, and conversation, my world would crumble like sand. Iโd spend hours staring at the sky, imagining figures in the cloud formations, and listening to the birds.
As the war in the Middle East casts a shadow over contentment, security, and joy, I realize the subject is too hyperbolic to even mention. I havenโt hidden my Star of David necklace, and one person noticed. When my Uber driver pulled up, I struggled to open the door of a Tesla. She immediately stepped out of the car.
โNo problem, here, see the button, just press downโ.
โI havenโt been in a new Tesla, itโs a beautiful car.โ
The dashboard supported a Ipad, with a map, and she navigated with her index finger to my destination.โ Her accent was unfamiliar.
โ May I ask where you are from?โ
โ Yes, why not? I am from Uruguay. Iโve been here for eleven years, in San Diego, the most beautiful, donโt you think?โ I noticed she was viewing me in her mirror. She was in her forties, I think, with short brown hair and an air of total confidence as she maneuvered onto the freeway.
โYes, it is, a lot more crowded than my last time here, in 2012.โ
โEveryone want to be here, so where are we headed?โ
โTo look at an apartment.โ
โItโs difficult, isnโt it? The cost, so expensive. I have a big house in Chula Vista, a very nice neighborhood.โ
The conversation soared from why Iโm here, to her family, her struggles, her children, my shock at the office developments we passed, and where I once hiked.
โI see you are wearing a Star of David, are you Jewish?โ
โYes, I am.โ She turned her head around and gleefully declared, โSo am I!โ
After a failed attempt to open the lock box at the unit, Judith and I returned.
โ Here is my cell phone number, you call me, Iโll take you, maybe you find more places, we go to each one, okay?โ
The Earth spins at 1, 040 miles per hour from the equator according to Co-Pilot. Humans spin: ‘The average walking speed for humans is about 3 to 4 miles per hour’ in different directions. Our rotator, the interior speed dial in our futuristic culture, reminds me of chasing a speeding car. We accelerate one day, and a day later, we are behind. Why catch up with a runaway virtual speedometer? Because if we don’t, we lose something: opportunity if you are unemployed, confusion in conversation with digitally conscious youth, and skills to navigate your finances, health, and services. I’m about to searchthe speed at which an average person speaks, but I can’t believe I am doing this.I’ve observed a lot of conversations in this hotel, no pausing to think before speaking, the words leap like the answers and questions were premeditated, a script?
While I am sitting with a banker at Wells Fargo, thirty years younger, offering basic finance choices, projections, and a few new rules in banking. I offered my phone to demonstrate, some quirk,
” I can’t touch your phone,” he said.
” What? Why is that?”
“A customer handed one of our bankers their phone to check their account, and the banker swindled the customer out of thousands.” I gaped at him, and then he pulled up my account on his computer.
” Can I see what you’re doing?”
” I can’t show you my screen.”
” Would it be okay if I uncrossed my legs?” He leaned back in his executive chair and laughed out loud. Joseph was one in a million. I told him so, and he bowed his head. He understood.
The next adventure in livingness is looking for a new home, an apartment. Like seeking employment, managers and agents do not answer the phone. I have to fill out a questionnaire before even viewing the apartment. Once those algorithms observe my search, a dozen more websites hit my email with availability. In one day, I may receive two dozen invitations to view their listings. Half are not updated or deceptive, so it is like combing through a library for the one book you want to read. One building that I liked and requested a tour answered this way. ” Hi, I’m Ella, your AI leasing agent. How can I help?” I didn’t hang up. I love first-time experiences.
” I’m looking for a studio in the building.”
We have a one-bedroom, let me send you the link.”
” I don’t want a link. I want a studio.”
” I understand.”
” No, you don’t.” I hung up.”
On to the next, a beautiful one-bedroom, at the price of a studio. I emailed for a tour, a self-guided tour. Six emails later, after I filled out the pre-qualification document, uploaded a current government ID, and set the appointment. The next step was creating an account, a password, an identity verification text, and another confirmation. I cancelled the appointment because the closing of the Olympics was gazing at me from the corner of my eye, and I succumbed to the majesty of organic humanity.
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 