According to Lisa has moved to a new URL

Due to my overwhelming writing deadlines, I won't be able to blog on a regular basis anymore. Because of this, I will no longer be posting on this URL at all. Click on the below link to be taken to my author website where the future blog posts will appear. At this time, I don't have a date when the posts will start up again. I hope by fall.

You will also be able to visit my other publications through this site.

https://lmgiannone.com/blog/  

Thank you for following me here on BlogSpot. I hope you'll follow me on my new site.

Lisa

Uninvited

** This excerpt from my book No Vacancy will only be available on this site temporarily**

The problem with living in a city like San Francisco is the amount of people who suddenly want to visit you. People you barely ever saw when you lived close to them. Relatives several steps removed start coming out of the woodwork. Friends of relatives several steps removed suddenly want to meet you. You’ve never heard of them.

What I haven’t figured out yet is why it doesn’t occur to these individuals to ask me first if I will be in town, am available or have time to host them before they book their flights? Why don’t they figure me into their plans if I am the so-called reason they are coming? Wouldn’t they be disappointed to embark on an eight hour journey only to find out I’m not there?  If they wanted to see me so badly, wouldn’t they want to confirm my availability? 

 

I frequently get very little advance notice, and often my professional, social, cultural and athletic calendar is booked at least five months in advance, causing me to have to change plans, cancel advance reservations, miss out on season ticket dates, back out of golf league commitments (which impacts entire league and partners, not just me, and incurs financial penalties), pay cancellation fees, or disappoint others who were considerate of my busy schedule.

 

You see, I plan ahead. I have to. My time is limited and demand is higher than supply. If there is an event with limited tickets I am going to get mine in advance to ensure I can be there. Sometimes my own travel plans are non-refundable and they may be in town when I’m not. I have my own priorities. So right away you know there is an ulterior motive for their visit, and you can bet it isn’t to see me.

Why do these people think I have all this vacation time and why I would want to use my precious days off to entertain them? Who gets that many days off a year leftover to entertain every visitor that comes to town? They live somewhere where no one in their right mind would visit, so they don’t understand. Would they be so generous if the tables were turned? Do they not need their few days off for sick time, vacation, or kids?  Would they jeopardize their job if I came to town? Would they forego an overdue trip to a tropical locale to host me, would they give up their long-awaited chance to get away from their very stressful job and necessary decompression time for someone they hardly know? I think not.

I only get so many days off a year. In my industry, it’s very difficult to take consecutive days. Days off are few and far between and as a consultant, I’ve often had to sacrifice a contract and a paycheck in order to take very necessary decompression time, contrary to my client’s wishes. For the last sixteen months, most of my personal time and more has been wasted accommodating the inflexible and inconvenient office hours of many doctors, reporting to operating rooms, sitting in waiting rooms, appearing for countless pre-ops and post-ops, standing in line at the pharmacy, chasing billing departments to track and correct THEIR mistakes, all in addition to my own jobs and my 22 hour day that is already too full with my own responsibilities.

 My idea of a vacation is to go somewhere quiet, tropical, and relaxing, away from the troubles of home, without cell phone, internet, wi-fi, laptop, social media, or forwarding address. I don’t want to spend my vacation in my own home, surrounded by my life which doesn’t stop revolving when these visitors are in town. I happen to not be on vacation when I get visitors that I can’t take time off for. I may be required to be in last minute meetings, on conference calls, onsite at the office, available by phone, meeting deadlines, going on appointments or keeping other commitments. But yet somehow I’m expected to be available at their beck and call the entire business day. They don’t understand I can’t be an instant GPS, MapQuest or OnStar while I’m on the clock and unreachable in some cases, causing me undue stress. I would never impose on someone else’s home, life or rare day off.

When I first moved to San Francisco in 1999, I constantly had visitors. Everyone wanted to see California for the first time, and now they had someone they could visit who could put them up for a week. Luckily it slowed down the past few years. I don’t encourage visitors now and some are aware that my time’s extremely limited.  But they still come anyway.

I’m envious of people who can take time off of work without being fired, can take an actual vacation, actually go somewhere and do what they want to do.  Any time I can manage to get off involves hosting someone or spending it in my hometown. I have so many bucket list destinations I have yet to see, all of which require three weeks and more than a nine hour flight. Instead, I have to constantly be current on events happening in town, tourist sites, new restaurants, even though I’m unable to enjoy these things myself. I have become a personal tour guide and concierge service. Except I’m not compensated for my ongoing research, time or costs.

Having a large family on both sides can be both a blessing and a curse.

 

Next post: 5/13

 

Wishing

** Due to exclusivity agreement, this post had to be taken down. It can be read by subscribing to my series on Channillo and the direct link to this chapter is:

http://www.channillo.com/series/no-vacancy/1053-7417/

Cinema Diavolo

Appetizers are delicious. Cocktails are overflowing. Conversation and laughter fill the room. Martinis are spilling. The party’s a great success. Everyone’s having a good time. Then you think what else could take this party to the next level?

Why, home movies, of course!!!

In my generation, I’m not talking about YouTube or Periscope. I’m not talking about DVDs. I’m not even talking about VCRs. I’m talking about those little reel films that you fed into a small movie projector that sat on a table top and projected onto a white screen or a wall. The kind of projector you ran the film through very carefully. The kind of projector that needed constant supervision when the film got caught and ripped as it went through the machine.

Before the fun could even begin, it meant finding the emptiest wall in the house on which to project the movies, since we didn’t own a projection screen. In our house, all walls were covered floor to ceiling with framed, family photographs. Some were professionally taken in studios, including high school, graduation pictures, athletics, and weddings.

Painstaking preparation was required to take the frames off the wall first, and then find some room in the house to store them safely during the screenings of these cinematic masterpieces. When the house was brimming with guests, it was quite a challenging task to find a room or a surface safe from the madding crowd and especially the boisterous, undisciplined and unsupervised children.

If you came over to the house, were a family member, significant other, friend or neighbor, you were about to be subjected to something you would never forget. And possibly have recurring nightmares about for the rest of your life. Impending marriages hung in the balance. Fiancees and in-laws still had a chance to run for their lives.

To make matters worse, I was frequently the headlining star in these movies or co-starring along with my brother. I was an unpaid and uncredited actor. I had no agent and no representation. I appeared as an infant, a toddler or a teenager. No one made sure that child labor laws weren’t being violated.

Various steps and life stages were captured: first bite, first words, first steps, first haircut, first bicycle ride without training wheels, playing piano, singing solos, school assemblies, athletics, graduation ceremonies, summer vacations in Rhode Island, Cape Cod,  Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket surfing ten foot waves, doing cartwheels and handstands on the beach.

Like a version of the modern selfie, no event went uncaptured. All was documented for posterity. These movies were a chronicle of times past, like watching a documentary. Seeing Manhattan and Yankee Stadium from the early 1970’s, Yankee icons like Reggie Jackson, Bucky Dent, Willie Randolph, Ron Guidry, Catfish Hunter, and Thurmon Munson, just to name a few, all captured on black and white film.

Culture and fashion were also chronicled. Seeing younger versions of family members sporting side burns, mullets, bufonts, beehives, thin ties, wide ties, loud ties, plaids, stripes, velour, polyester, bell bottoms, permanent waves, mustaches and beards, homemade clothes made of oranges, browns and yellows. Seeing the spitting image of my cousins in versions of their parents from twenty years earlier. Seeing furniture and décor long ago replaced to keep up with interior decorating trends, ghastly orange-colored carpets and big print wallpaper popular in the 1960’s, walls that existed before they were knocked down during later house expansions.

Technology was much simpler in the 1960’s and 1970’s. What you saw when you looked through the camera viewfinder wasn’t exactly the same as what the camera captured. Akin to a horror movie, the actors frequently had decapitated heads; partial bodies from the neck down. There was also no audio in order to identify the owners of the partial bodies. When there were talking heads, all you could see were fast moving lips and gesticulating hands, and no context for what was being said. Sometimes the lighting made it impossible to see anything or the fast motion action made it difficult to see and produced motion sickness on the part of the viewer.

Worst of all, there was no money back or refund after being forced to sit through these torture-inducing movies. 

Luckily, the movies existed if only to keep moments frozen in time, especially to capture those who are no longer with us.

Next According to Lisa post is scheduled 3/11/2016.

Rack Em' Up

I like men.  Lots of them. I always have. I’m always surrounded by men and that’s the way I prefer it. This by no means suggests I’m a slut.  Quite the contrary. I have just always been more comfortable in the company of men. I prefer men as companions over dinner, conversation, sporting events, concerts, on the golf course, and in any location our lust should take us.

I am certainly comfortable as a female and enjoying all that being a woman entails.  I am constantly surrounded by great women and have female friendships that have spanned more than 20 years. I enjoy many things that females enjoy, but I also have a certain amount of need to be surrounded by testosterone. I can only take so much estrogen at a time.  I also have male friendships that lasted for just as long.

I have a lot in common with men and frequently am treated as if I’m “one of the guys”.  I prefer to be the only girl in the room. I can tie one on with the best of them.  I also happen to be able to smoke, drink, burp, throw darts, shoot pool, play poker, talk and play baseball, and talk and play golf just as well as they can.  I swear like a sailor, talk shit and will even watch porn if forced to.  I also happen not to take any shit from anyone, especially men, and have on occasions used judo to toss a man over my shoulder or regain control from an overly aggressive male by flipping him from on top of me to underneath me (which may then lead to further undesired advances for those highly turned on by this move).

I have a diversified set of interests, and am a compliment to the male group rather than an unwelcome guest. In my poker group with ex male co-workers, I am the only female invited to the table, and often the guys speak candidly about women in general or a particular woman; forgetting that I happen to be one, but I take no offense. Sometimes I agree with their complaints and frustrations. Anything said in front of me is never repeated. I’m flattered to be invited into the male world. Getting a front row seat to the world of males can be an educational and unforgettable experience. It’s like getting a backstage pass and special access to a strange and different world.

I enjoy purely platonic relationships with a variety of men. I’m a great friend, a good ear, a strong shoulder, and there for them no matter what. They know they can trust me. I’m reliable. And I’m cool to just hang out with. On some occasions, however, depending on alignment of stars and planets, I will agree to an unconditional relationship (i.e., “drive-by’s” and “booty calls” with no questions asked by either party). It depends on the depth of the friendship to begin with.

Any man involved with me has to accept the fact that I need men in my life in various capacities, otherwise he won’t be around very long. If I’m in a committed relationship, then I’m 100% committed to that man. I love deeply and whole-heartedly to a fault.

A close friend of mine taught me how to play pool (billiards) in college.  He spent countless hours teaching me the basics and then the tricks; such as putting English on the ball, masse shots, combo shots, bank shots, sending the cue ball to the opposite side of the table lengthwise and banking the ball to the opposite corner pocket on my side of the table (the most impressive bank shot there is!), running the table, strategy and setting up next shots, and where to strike the cue ball to get different results. I’m also not ashamed to use the bridge. It takes a bit of skill and flair to stabilize the cue and the bridge in order to control the cue ball.

What an ego boost it is to succeed at a trick shot, see the ball go in the pocket, and then see the impressed looks on the face of guys. It’s the same thing in golf. When I out-drive, out-putt or out-match my male opponent, it’s an awesome feeling and when a man congratulates me at the expense of their own loss, it’s the highest compliment. Both golf and pool are predominantly considered “male sports” and it’s hard to prove yourself in this arena as a female. It requires extra effort to succeed and be taken seriously. Luckily I have earned respect by my male peers in both sports.

I received a custom pool cue for a birthday present when I was in my early twenties and the addiction began.  Hanging out in pool halls with male companions, taking advantage of unsuspecting victims as I ran the table and took their money. I earned the nickname “Shark”.  I enjoyed a group of male friends who invited me along on Friday nights, and I became one half of a successful partnership in billiard halls.

There were occasions when carrying my own cue stick created undue pressure on me and sometimes the person I was playing with (for example, a new boyfriend), and so I started to leave it home. I figure I evened the playing field by forcing myself to use warped cue sticks, provided courtesy of the billiard hall. But I might spend an inordinate amount of time observing and rolling each cue stick on the table before selecting one, in order to find the least warped. I didn’t want to disadvantage myself too much!

It’s an honor to be the one who racks up the billiard balls. It takes a certain level of skill to create a tight rack and your opponent appreciates it on his break. The games we played were 8-ball, 9-ball and cut-throat.

I also happen to have another weapon in my arsenal that guys don’t.  I am endowed with an ample bosom. When I’m doing trick shots behind my back, or bending over across the table to do a corner shot, I (or rather my “Girls”) can provide quite a distraction to my competitor. It isn’t intentional. I don’t use this as a weapon. It just comes with the territory of being female. I want to win by skill, not by psychological warfare. I keep them as contained as possible, while maintaining optimal comfort.

Playing pool began as a great winter activity, an accompaniment to drinking and socializing, and also a great date activity. Pool challenges the mind. Even if you have no shot to make, what you do with that shot can certainly impact your opponent’s next shot.

There’s also a threshold to how much alcohol you can drink before it becomes disruptive to your own game. Shots become wilder. The cue stick becomes unwieldy. It’s a delicate balance to know how much to drink to loosen yourself up and when to cut yourself off.  I don’t want to give my competitor the upper hand!

*Due to holiday travel, the next blogspot post is delayed until 2/21. The upcoming post will revert back to a "light" post more typical of this blog, and then the tone of this blog will change significantly moving forward; to align more with the content of my forthcoming book. I will be opening up about a lot of things and facing down many ghosts and demons publicly. I'm hoping that readers who relate to the book chapters and upcoming posts will reach out to me, and if the posts help anyone in their own personal struggles, then I have succeeded in my mission as a writer.

**To see me sooner, my next SFBayGirl posts will appear on http://sfbaygirl.co on 1/24 and 2/6. I will also post 5 new poems at https://scriggler.com/Profile/giannone on 2/1. Follow me on Twitter at @LISAGNO for publish announcements!!