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
Friday, May 20, 2016
Friday, April 15, 2016
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.
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.
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
Friday, March 11, 2016
Wishing
Friday, February 19, 2016
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.
Sunday, January 10, 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!!
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