Gold’s Gym has become synonymous with the Hollywood Dream.
Set just a few hundred yards from the ocean in sun-kissed Venice Beach, Los Angeles, Gold’s was the backdrop for Pumping Iron
This 1977 documentary followed a young, unknown Austrian bodybuilder called Arnold Schwarzenegger as he prepared for the Mr. Universe contest.
The film turned him into an overnight sensation.
He would go on to become a global superstar, marry a member of the Kennedy clan, and become Governor of California
A makeshift tent city made up of flapping tarpaulins and cardboard boxes surrounds the gym on all sides.
Junkies and the homeless, many of whom are clearly mentally ill, walk the palm-lined streets like zombies – all just three blocks from multi-million-dollar homes overlooking the Pacific.
Stolen bicycles are piled high on pavements littered with broken syringes.
TV bulletins are filled with horror stories from across the city.
Of women being attacked during their morning jog or residents returning home to find strangers defecating in their front gardens.
Los Angeles is a city on the brink. ‘For Sale’ signs are seemingly dotted on every suburban street as the middle classes, particularly those with families, flee for the safer suburbs, with many choosing to leave LA altogether.
British-born Danny O’Brien runs Watford Moving & Storage. ‘There is a mass exodus from Hollywood. And a lot of it is to do with politics.’ His business is booming. ‘August has already set records and we are only halfway through the month’
‘People are getting out in droves. from LA. Last week I moved a prominent person in the music industry from a $6.5 million [£5 million] mansion above Sunset Boulevard to Nashville.’
‘The homeless encampments are legal and there’s nothing the police can do. White, affluent middle-class folk are getting out. People don’t feel safe any more.’
O’Brien, 58, who moved to LA from London 34 years ago, is also planning to move to Tennessee.
A homeless man on Hollywood’s Walk Of Fame. Junkies and the homeless, many of whom are clearly mentally ill, walk the palm-lined streets like zombies – all just three blocks from multi-million-dollar homes overlooking the Pacific
With movie studios still shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic and businesses only just starting to remove the wooden boards put up after city-wide rioting following the death of George Floyd while being arrested by three white officers in Minneapolis, LA is now in the grip of white flight.
Lou Ferrigno became friends with Schwarzenegger when both worked out at Gold’s. While he might not be quite a household name like Arnie, Ferrigno starred in the TV series The Incredible Hulk and became one of the wealthiest bodybuilders in the world, with a fortune of $12 million.
President Donald Trump appointed him to his council on fitness, sports and nutrition in 2018.
But Ferrigno, for all his impeccable connections, has become fed up with what he describes as the ‘dramatic decline’ in LA. He and wife Carla recently sold their £3 million home in Santa Monica and moved into a 7,146 sq ft mansion two hours north of LA.
Carla says: ‘One morning around 7am I opened the curtains in our beautiful Santa Monica home and looking up at me from our driveway were three gang members with tattoos on their faces sitting on our retaining wall. They were cat-calling me and being vulgar. I motioned I was going to call the police and they just laughed, flicking their tongues at me and showing me their guns.’
Her husband added: ‘We put the house up for sale after 40 wonderful years and moved north. We feel lucky to have made it out. Now we are in a wonderful place and very happy.’
Renee Taylor, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and actress who appeared in the hit TV sitcom The Nanny, recently sold her Beverly Hills home after half a century and moved to the East Coast.
‘I feel so sad for my friends left in Beverly Hills who had to suffer through looting and rioting,’ she says. ‘I got out just in time.’
The virus only made matters worse. There are homeless encampments in some of the most instantly recognisable tourist traps.
Stretches of Hollywood Boulevard – embedded with glittering stars representing those who achieved their dream of fame and fortune – resemble a Third World shanty town rather than the heart of America’s second-largest city.
Outside the Chinese Theatre where Marilyn Monroe and other screen icons are immortalised by their handprints in concrete, the Michael Jackson and Superman look alikes who usually pose with tourists have been replaced by vagrants begging for change.Hundreds of LA’s homeless are still without protection
One of the city’s homeless – there are more than 66,000 people sleeping rough every night.
The virus Covid-19 only made matters worse. There are homeless encampments in some of the most instantly recognisable tourist traps
Meanwhile, the visitors snap photos of a large Black Lives Matter logo painted down the middle of the street.
Car parks beside the beach in Santa Monica – a popular tourist destination for Britons – are filled with bashed-up motorhomes, each housing several people.
The authorities have even put portable toilets on the streets to try to stop the homeless relieving themselves on private property.
The Westwood area of LA, home to some of the most upmarket blocks of flats in the city, has been renamed ‘West Hood’ by locals appalled by rising crime.
Veteran publicist Ed Lozzi says: ‘The city was changing before coronavirus brought us to our knees. The homeless problem has been escalating for years, exacerbated by weak politicians making bad decisions.
‘Hollywood has always been the wokest of the woke, so politicians have done nothing to stop people sleeping on the streets. It’s not illegal and the weather’s nice, so they keep coming.
‘There is insufficient housing, inadequate mental health care. Add in Covid and it’s a perfect storm.
‘When I first arrived in LA 40 years ago, the town smelled of orange blossoms. Now the streets stink of urine. There is a beautiful park in Westwood but you can’t go there because there are people slumped on the ground and you step on a carpet of needles.
‘White flight is real. The elites and middle classes are leaving. People are taking losses on the sales of their homes to get out.’
The divide between rich and poor has never been more glaring.
Just yards away from Gold’s sits the sprawling LA headquarters of internet giant Google.
The car park is housed in a building designed by architect Frank Gehry to look like a giant pair of binoculars.
Private security guards wander round as a handful of employees returning after lockdown drive into the complex in their Teslas, Porsches and Range Rovers.
Charity worker Robert (he declined to give his last name) mans two portable toilets opposite the Google HQ. Recently released from jail, this menial job is the only work he can get. He says two people have overdosed in the toilets in the past two weeks.
‘I have a Narcan pen which brings them back to life after they overdose on opioids. I’ve had to use the pen twice since the beginning of August.
‘The situation is terrible. I don’t blame those who can afford to get out of the city for doing so.’
Some 66,000 people now sleep rough every night in LA – up 12.5 per cent on last year.
‘There’s no hope any more. The rich are getting richer and there’s nothing for those on Skid Row. Trump has done nothing to help the poor. All he cares about are his rich friends making more money. If I had money I’d get out too.’
The pandemic has made many in Hollywood realise they don’t need to live in LA – or anywhere near it – to keep working.
Talent manager Craig Dorfman has moved to upstate New York. ‘A lot of people in the industry are re-evaluating their lives and saying,
‘You know, I never really loved LA. Where would I like to live? Because I can do what I want to do from anywhere,’ ‘ says Dorfman.
Fashion stylist Leah Forester and her film producer husband Bill Johnson have rented out their home and moved to the Mexican beach town of Careyes with their two children.
‘We wanted to be in the most healthy, supportive and serene environment we could be in so that we could have some sense of control over our immediate surroundings and our destiny,’ says Forester.
Comedian Joe Rogan, who makes $30 million a year from his self-titled podcast, has quit LA for Texas and says: ‘When you look at the traffic, when you look at the economic despair, when you look at the homelessness problem that’s accelerated radically… I think there are too many people here.
‘I think it’s not tenable. I don’t think that it’s manageable.’
Ironically, the celebrity enclave of Malibu – home to such leading members of the ‘wokerati’ as Leonardo DiCaprio – has cracked down hard on the homeless, bringing in local laws to prevent people parking their motorhomes along the beach overnight.
‘They’ve kicked the homeless problem into other areas of the city like Westwood and Venice,’ says publicist Ed Lozzi. ‘It’s a classic case of ‘not in my back yard’.’
Meanwhile, some of Tinseltown’s biggest stars are developing back-up plans, should the situation worsen. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson recently took Greek citizenship and have told friends they intend to spend more time in Europe.Skid Row residents force Eyewitness News van to turn around
More tents in Melrose Place, one of the trendiest addresses in Los Angeles. Stretches of Hollywood Boulevard – embedded with glittering stars representing those who achieved their dream of fame and fortune – resemble a Third World shanty town rather than the heart of America’s second-largest city
Producer Dana Brunetti, business partner of disgraced actor Kevin Spacey and producer of the Fifty Shades Of Grey films, has acquired Italian citizenship ‘because Italy is part of the EU – it gives me a lot of options if the s*** hits the fan’.
Nicole Kidman and husband Keith Urban have homes in LA, Nashville and her native Australia.
A source says: ‘They have been spending a lot of time in Nashville. There they can give their kids a more normal upbringing. They have been talking about getting rid of the LA place.’
When the news broke last week that Prince Harry and Meghan have chosen to make their home two hours north of LA in the upmarket hamlet of Montecito, the news shocked no one.
One Oscar-nominated writer told me: ‘They saw enough of LA those times they left Tyler Perry’s house to make them not want to raise Archie in a place like this. LA has always attracted beautiful and talented people from around the world who come here looking for fame or money or both.
‘Now the streets look like Haiti after the earthquake. It’s dirty, dangerous and work has dried up. Even when studios start to open up, people will choose to work from other places.’
The most recent high-profile name to quit Hollywood is Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, a darling of the showbusiness crowd.
Actor Robert Downey Jr has said it was Musk who inspired his portrayal of Tony Stark, the eccentric billionaire inventor in the Iron Man movies.
Elon Musk has recently sold his compound of 4 homes in Bel Air for a combined total of $62 million (£47 million) and is said to be considering a move to Texas, where he is building Tesla’s $1 billion new factory.
‘When the real-life Iron Man moves out of Hollywood, you know it’s all over,’ says a source at one of the major studio
Note: San Francisco was in no better shape in 1991-92. Homeless people crowded all the main streets. It was no longer a pleasure to walk the streets toward the many parks. I had visited West Hollywood in 1976 and walked to Beverly Hills and it was clean and nice to walk to.
Among the signatories is them, Dr. Travis Porco. He’s a professor with the Francis I. Proctor Foundation for Research in Ophthalmology at UCSF.
“I believe everybody that signed that, endorses that, and sees this crisis for what it is- a crisis that’s not gotten any better,” Porco explained. “It’s only gotten worse.”
The letter came with the warning, “If you don’t take these actions, the consequences will be measured in widespread suffering and death.”
Dr. Porco adding America’s struggle to contain the virus is evident on the world stage.
“I think we’ve already failed in comparison to many countries,” he explained. “We’ve seen many countries act swiftly and efficiently to crush the pandemic. They’re reopening and they’re doing fine. We didn’t. We couldn’t do that.”
Additionally, State Senator Steve Glazer recently introduced a proposal that would require residents to once again shelter-in-place. His vision would keep residents across the state doing so until the rate of positive tests over two weeks dips below two-percent.
“If our objective is to kill this virus, a shelter-in-place, as difficult as it will be- is the medicine we need to take,” Glazer told ABC7 News.
“Unfortunately, we reopened too soon, and people didn’t respect the need to create physical distancing in their regular conduct of life,” he continued. “That has meant that infection rates continue to go higher, and higher, and higher. Hospitalizations are at record levels. People who have died, record levels.”
County Executive Dr. Jeff Smith addressing what it would take to stop the spread.
“The only treatment we have now is shelter-in-place,” he told ABC7 News.
“So, a very vigorous effort at social distancing on a statewide level would be very effective in knocking down the spread of the virus and decreasing the amount of the virus in the community.”
He continued, “It doesn’t have to mean closing down a bunch of businesses. There are lots of businesses that can operate with social distancing by using certain protocols. But it does mean getting people to wear masks, to prevent gatherings, to decrease the number of people indoors, and to make sure that there is monitoring and enforcement of the rules.”
If we don’t, health experts fear inconsistent messaging, unenforced policies and push back over mask wearing can be devastating.
“There’s nothing that’s ever been less political than the coronavirus,” Dr. Porco said. “I mean, the coronavirus doesn’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican. Or what your religion is, or what your ethnicity is. We’re just food to that thing.”
The letter also implores lawmakers to listen to the experts.
Writing:
“Public health professionals have made clear that even after we’ve contained the virus by staying at home, in order to reopen American cities and towns safely, we will need:
– Enough daily testing capacity to test everyone with flu-like symptoms plus anyone they have been in close contact with over the last 2 weeks (at least 10 additional tests per symptomatic person). We currently have only 35-percent of the testing capacity we need to meet that threshold. The more people get sick, the more testing is required.
– A workforce of contact tracers large enough to trace all current cases. That’s 210,000 more contact tracers than we had in April, but the number keeps going up as infections rise. Most states are far short of the number of contact tracers they need.
In addition, we need more personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep essential workers like health professionals, emergency responders, and grocery store clerks safe.”
Some doctors are suggesting coronavirus particles remain in the air for longer than we thought after an infectious person exhales.
Porco adding, without taking action, “We don’t want to see overwhelming healthcare institutions. We don’t want to see people running out of ventilators and the sort of death and economic disruption that that’s going to cause.”
Understanding a second shutdown would be devastating for many, he explained, “I think a lot of people would love to comply with the orders, but they need to put food on the table. A lot of small businesses need help. So I think as long as we support people that we’re asking sacrifices of, people will understand.”
“We need you to lead,” experts pleaded in the open letter. “We remind you that history has its eyes on you.”
Note 1: re-edit of my story from my autobiography: “San Francisco: Soothing recollections, May 31, 2009”
Note 2: I opened a special category on my blog “Travel/Excursion” to collect all my trips stories.
The trip to San Francisco from Oklahoma on Greyhound bus to attend the Human Factors convention in 1991 lasted almost 3 days and I spent my money on junk food.
I borrowed the fare for that trip from a friend.
We crossed flat Kansas and had a break in Santa Fe that looked pretty much Spanish/Mexican feeling. We pushed forward to Flagstaff, a major change in scenery. I am under the impression that high in Flagstaff there was snow.
Other than that I don’t recall what I saw or observed on the route before I reached San Francisco.
This is a period I’m still not ready to face, much less to write about. But I finally came around to tell it when writing my autobiography (Of Not famous people).
Suffice to admit that I roomed with my adviser in the hotel and that he woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that my snoring was loud.
After the convention was over, I was on the verge of joining the file of the homeless.
I stayed at the studio of a referral that I got in Norman for one night in Ashbury Heights. I had later many occasions to walk this famous street during the period when the hippies selected it as headquarter for their movement.
The next morning I was feeling sick because of too much nervous tension. I called my cousin Nassif in Vancouver and all that I got was a reprimand “Adonis, you are always in trouble”.
I called Ali who was working in Canada but he had no referrals in San Francisco to stay over. I used an old number of Ali’s in Houston and it seems that this number connect him everywhere he relocates.
I know that I slept one night at an Algerian student who was the manager of the restaurant “Marrakech” that served Moroccan dishes; it was one of the longest nights and the most nerve wracking wait for this Algerian student to show up and pick me up.
It was a cold night and I waited for over three hours sitting on my suitcase wondering if he is ever going to show up. I had nowhere to go and no money for any decent lodging facility.
The next day I slept at a hostel for foreign student visitors for two nights in Downtown San Francisco.
The Algerian student referred me to two Spanish students living in a foggy neighborhood; the fog enveloped this quarter 20 hours a day. I had shelter for a week at the foreign students from Spain and they were very nice.
I managed to be hired in a full-service retirement hotel, for room and board in exchange of 4 hours work a day.
The Spanish students could not believe that I landed a job that quickly. I accepted all the overtime I could get in all the departments, until I was offered the job of assistant to the manager three weeks later.
I was fooled by the offer of $1,200 a month which turned out to be less than $900 after all kinds of deductions, but I fulfilled my “word” to stay a whole year in that position.
My cousin Patrick visited me once when he was attending a conference in San Francisco for the anesthesiologists.
I enjoyed my stay in this lovely city of San Francisco and visited frequently all its parks and waterfronts and beaches, carrying a book with me.
I had also located a nearby covered swimming pool that I patronized three times a week.
I had the opportunity to tour the neighboring towns around San Francisco with co-workers and a French older woman called Michelle that I helped secure a part-time position at the Hotel. The red headed Michelle carried all her belonging in the trunk of her small beat up car and she invited me on her many excursions out of town.
I saw many famous locations because I was responsible for arranging tours to the elder residents and I was to be part of the trip for supervision purposes. The City offered a van with a driver and we toured San Francisco once a week and I took pictures and described the tour in the monthly promotional brochure along with the monthly events in the Hotel.
I was caring for elder persons, mostly ladies, but in my state of confusion for my future and frustration in not finding within my spirit of what I loved to do for a job didn’t leave much space in my soul for sincere compassion.
Practically, I cared better than most of the managerial staff because I was new to this environment of human spiritual misery and I was highly respected by the “clients”.
The retirees knew of my higher education but never asked me “why are you working in such an institution with your degree?”. Iit is as people in the US are accustomed to see all kinds of individuals working temporary jobs that turned out to be more permanent than proclaimed.
One elder man of over 80 of age, tall and of powerful constitution, committed suicide a week after his “incarceration” by falling in a stairwell from the eighth floor. Many of the elder ladies whom I cared for passed away during my job, but the manager made it for no one of us to realize how the dead person was vacated. I was not shaken emotionally, or that what I thought at the time.
I think that I read most of the famous authors who lived in and around San Francisco. I had a Mexican girlfriend. (You may read my post in the addendum to my introspection “Chica Lupita”)
I have toured Marin County, the forest of the highest Red trees, ventured to Monterrey, Big Sur, Little Sur, Carmel, and all the environs.
There was old Jake who was a gambling addict; he used to receive invitations from the casinos for free rooms in Reno. Jake persisted in his invitations and I joined him twice because he needed company or to fulfill a condition of bringing someone along.
I played little and ate a lot in Reno; food and drinks were cheap and in abundance, and enjoyed looking at pretty servers too.
We traveled on two occasions as a group in a van belonging to an employee and spent glorious days up north and tasted wine in wine counties and farmhouses.
I recall that I had an interview for a job in statistical analysis and had to board several ferries to reach destination; luckily, I didn’t get the job but it was a good exposure for various transport facilities. All in all, my stay in San Francisco was the loveliest and most enriching experience in the US.
I recall taking the BART train to Menlo Park, an hour trip. I was to meet my ex-girlfriend Rose and we walked for a couple of hours in Downtown Menlo Park. She rejoined her ex-husband on reason of her two kids growing up. Her daughter Shannon was about to join a university.
During my stay in San Francisco I took the bus Greyhound to Boulder because my adviser sent me a letter that he was to deliver part of my dissertation to the convention of Human Factors Society and I wanted to attend it.
You can follow that trip on a separate trip story to Boulder, Colorado in my sub-category “Travel/Excursion”
The return trip from Boulder felt even longer.
A week later I was to confront a discrimination case battle.
There was this girl who claimed that I harassed her sexually and the case was dropped after weeks of hassles; she had no one to testify on her behalf. This “American” girl , of a wealthy family, was pissed off that I got the position of assistant to the manager.
I had no hints of the power struggle that went on before I arrived to this hotel. I wanted to resign but the manager convinced me that when I finish the whole year then I would be eligible for unemployment benefits of around $450 a month.
I finished the year and started to look for a steady job commensurate to my education.
I thus patronized an office on Van Ness Road that was funded by the City and aided with unemployment cases, such as writing CVs and how to tailor make your resume, and checking on the latest openings for work.
In one of my articles titled “Are you searching for a job?” I wrote:
“I recall that in 1991 the US was in serious recession during the Bush Sr. Administration and jobs were frighteningly scarce. I had graduated with a PhD degree in Industrial/Human Factors engineering and missed better periods for hiring academicians.
I was working as assistant to manager at a retirement community in Downtown San Francisco and visited an employment center on Van ness Road. It was a center meant to help you out re-write your CV for the nth time, anytime you wanted to apply for the scarce job announcements posted in the center.
People swarmed this center just to feel busy and serious about searching for a job but Not that hot for finding one. I guess the center was one of the hundreds of facilities with the sole purpose to blaming the citizens for failure to doing their due diligence and compete, since no one is about to beg you to work for them.
If you failed to re-write your CV and spent more money on useless stamps per day, then you are not making good use of this “valuable” help facility, or receiving a monthly stipend for trying to find a job.
This was the period when ridiculous denials were the custom of the land.
For example, this custodian at NASA who claims that he is contributing to sending astronauts to the moon; or redefining their jobs as sanitation “engineering”.
I recall during my graduate study that I was forced to accept a job cleaning and vacuuming the main library while working on my dissertation. I fooled my spirit into believing that as long as I am doing my job perfectly and with excitement then I am learning the value of a job well done, sort as a training period for toughening my character.
A state of denial is Not a bad reaction; it is successive states of denials that can be deleterious to your development”.
I was very curious and enjoyed being among crowds; I attended the public events such as Shakespeare in the park, the free open concerts, joined the homosexual yearly celebrations for curiosity reason, and the Latinos Days of Independence.
Unfortunately, I was mugged on a wonderful evening, just 50 feet from my hotel and at 10 pm, and I was hospitalized.
I never believed that I might be a statistics of the frequent mugging events.
Nobody in the hotel heard anything or even noticed what happened when I returned from the hospital.
I refrained from going out for three weeks.
Walking in San Francisco, even during the day, was no pleasure anymore: there were too many beggars along the streets and they were Not a peaceful lot.
I was glad to move to Washington DC for a change, but no city compares to San Fran in variety, beauty, and recreational facilities.
I never walked as much as in my two years stay in San Fran.
This was a wonderful period when I devoured all kinds of books on a daily basis. I had the pleasure to be acquainted with most of the famous Bay Areas authors from Henry Miller, to John Steinbeck, to Jack London, and the Beatnik movement.
Note 1: Repost from my autobiography to Convention of Human Factors Society in Boulder
Note 2: I opened a special category on my blog “Travel/Excursion” to collect all my trips stories.
During my stay in San Francisco I took the bus Greyhound to Boulder because my adviser sent me a letter that he was to deliver part of my dissertation to the convention of Human Factors Society of 2002
And I wanted to attend this convention for a change in scenery.
It was a long trip of two days and we passed through Salt Lake City and I visited the temple of the Mormons. We crossed a long stretch of salty land.
There was snow and the University of Boulder was lovely.
During the second day of the convention my advisor failed to show up and I had no copy of my dissertation and I felt frustrated for not being prepared to deliver anything.
Actually, I was invited by the chairperson of the session to do the presentation and I felt totally stupid. I declined the offer.
The convention offered my side trips which I accepted. For example, a tour to Palm Spring and the US Olympic training center.
I had the opportunity to tour Denver by night and boarded the spacious and large bus that crosses Main Street.
The return trip was long.
A week later I was to battle a discrimination case.
There was this girl who claimed that I harassed her sexually and the case was dropped after weeks of hassles. She had no one to testify on her behalf.
The girl was pissed off that I got the position of assistant to the manager. I had no hints of the power struggle that went on before I arrived to this hotel.
I wanted to resign but the manager convinced me that when I finish serving the entire year then I would be eligible for unemployment benefits of around $450 a month.
I finished the year and started to look for a steady job commensurate to my education.
I thus joined an office on Van Ness Road and funded by the City of San Francisco that aided with unemployment cases, such as writing CVs and how to tailor make your resume, and checking on the latest openings for work.
This facility was useless since during Bush Senior unemployment was deep and widespread.
Old Beirut Lebanon (1955): Beautiful, polite, clean, law abiding citizens
The current Youth movement against this rotten political system wants to recapture their spirit, youth, and hope in a better future. And a Lebanon good to live in for their children.
And we had electric transportation, the Tramway, as in San Francisco
And Beirut was famous for its many green public spaces, like San Francisco.
Currently, the Beirut Forest is the only green space in Beirut, and only foreign tourists are admitted in. Why?
So that the citizens do Not transform this park into a garbage dump, so the municipality says.
Yesterday, after the mounting pressures from the youth movement, the mayor judge Shebib (Mou7afez) opened this park for the public, only on Saturdays.
#بيروت ١٩٥٥.. وبعد ستين سنة غرّقوها بنفايات الفساد.. ولكن بدأ حلم #لبنان_جديد يلّي حيصير واقع بفضل الناس يلي عم تحلم وتناضل ضد كل الفساد والفاسدين.. #مستمرون
Raja Noujaim shared this article of the daily Al Nahar related to the Beirut Forest
Thx Mr President for this logical and wise decision and thx also to Nahnoo (We) association who have put a lot of effort since many years and thx to all the other civil society associations and active persons within and without the administration who participated in this 1st full day since almost a decade
And even who began before (the guards team, the cleaning team, the gardening team, the advisory team and more and more…)
Now we all have a different kind of mission which is to protect what was achieved and make all others understand that this is a “Horsh Beirut” not a Park nor a Garden so “Respect of Nature” should be the main goal…
One year ago, I left San Francisco, sold and gave away everything I owned, and moved into a 40-liter backpack.
I traveled to 45 cities in 20 countries, three Disneylands, and one bunny island.
I also worked 50 hours a week building and launching a startup.
And my total costs were less than just the rent in San Francisco.
Traveling is not the same as vacation
There’s a growing community of “digital nomads” who live a location-independent lifestyle. We’re software developers, designers, writers, journalists, engineers and all sorts of people who share a passion for the work we do and experiencing the world.
I propose that a nomadic lifestyle is a productive way to build a real company. I’m working hard on bootstrapping an ambitious startup, Moo.do.
I’m traveling because it’s cheaper, more productive and more inspiring than sitting in one place. Traveling is the most responsible choice for the sake of my company, my finances, and my personal growth.
I became a nomad by accident
Three years ago I was preparing to leave my job at Microsoft to move to San Francisco to build a startup.
My friend asked me, “but why do you need to be in San Francisco when you can work on a computer from anywhere?” His question made a lot of sense. As I thought about it more, I began to question my assumptions about a “normal life” which don’t make sense in our modern world.
I reject the idea of a 9–5 job. I want to explore the world while the sun is out instead of wasting the daylight hours working inside and dreaming of my next vacation.
I reject the idea of settling down. I want to experience new cultures and eat new foods instead of being stuck in the neighborhood around my house.
I reject the idea of stuff. It’s not the size of my TV that matters. The world is much more interesting than what’s in my house.
I reject the idea of boredom. I’m constantly surrounded by new places, people and experiences. I haven’t felt bored since I started traveling and I don’t even have the desire to watch TV or play video games anymore.
I reject the idea of a bucket list. I have a list of things to do and I’m doing them.
So off I went, with my crazy new ideas about life in tow. I spent six months traveling around Australia, Asia and Europe. But it didn’t work out so well.
I gave up and still moved to San Francisco.
Traveling was fun, but I had a great idea and I needed to really focus and get real work done. What better place to build my startup than Silicon Valley?
But I soon found myself becoming too comfortable and slowing down, getting easily bored and distracted, and watching a lot of TV. I sat at my computer for 12 hours a day but didn’t feel like I was productive.
On a trip to New York, my friends went to work during the days, so I went out and worked in coffee shops and in Central Park.
Suddenly I was hugely productive, getting much more work done in six hours than in my normal 12-hour days. The same thing happened a few months later on a trip to London. I was even coming up with better ideas because the new experiences and surroundings were keeping my mind more active.
Having figured out the pattern, I left San Francisco a year ago, fully committing to a nomadic lifestyle. And this time it feels like I’ve figured it out. I’m happy, productive, meeting great new people, learning about real global problems to solve, and I successfully launched Moo.do.
This is what I’ve learned over the past year.
Traveling is cheaper than staying at home
These are actual numbers calculated from my personal spending habits. Your mileage may vary.
This is my average total monthly spending from one year living in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, one year living in San Francisco’s Upper Haight, one year traveling to 20 countries, and one month at a hotel in Bali.
It is much cheaper for me to travel. Since the majority of my costs are from trains and flights, it’s significantly cheaper if I stay in one place.
My friends in San Francisco and Seattle often ask me: “How can you afford to travel so much?” I can’t afford not to travel. I’m bootstrapping a company and living in San Francisco was draining my savings.
When I first started traveling, I was a great tourist, taking pictures of everything and doing all the activities listed in tour guides. After a couple of exhausting weeks it occurred to me that I’m not on vacation. This is my life now.
I slowed down and realized that if I have a month to explore a new city, I don’t need to do it all at once. I can explore the city for a few hours and still get a lot of work done.
I was surprised to find out that I’m significantly more productive while traveling. But it makes sense.
If I’m only in Rome for a week, why would I waste my time on Facebook? Being constantly surrounded by novelty reduces my boredom and increases my focus, and even makes me feel healthier and more creative.
My productivity in Seattle in June vs traveling in September, measured with RescueTime.
I went back to Seattle in June to work next to my co-founder and hash out long-term plans. My development time was surprisingly less productive than while traveling. I was sitting at the computer just as much, but was more easily distracted by Internet and TV.
And even though I was in six different cities in September, I managed to work extremely productive 48-hour weeks. Being more focused while working gives me more time to enjoy the rest of my life, so this is huge for me.
Nine to five is not optimal
Instead of working during the daylight hours and pushing all my free time to the worst part of the day, I prefer to enjoy the days and work at night. I get out of bed faster when I’m excited to go out, and when I don’t have to commute there’s just more time in the day. I like to work seven days a week with flexible hours so I can take a day off when I please or enjoy an empty movie theater at 2 p.m.
I wasted a lot of time when I worked in an office because of commuting and the massive distraction that is the Internet. Now I spread my work throughout the day and take big breaks for exploring. After working for a few hours, I reach a milestone and explore the city until I want to get back to work.
Or if I hit a problem I can’t figure out, I walk it off until I’ve solved it. Cycling between fun and work makes my days less exhausting and makes me less prone to burnout.
My stay at Livit in Bali was the most productive time of my life. It’s an integrated co-living and co-working space, with all meals provided, so I could focus on my work and not worry about anything. And it’s all inclusive for $1,500 per month, less than just the rent in most major tech cities. This is a great trend and I’m happy to see it growing as similar startup getaways are popping up in Baliandaroundtheworld.
Traveling expands my cultural bubble
I now have friends all over the world whose life experiences are very different than mine. They bring fresh perspectives to my ideas. I’m learning about the real problems that affect the world on a global scale, which will make me into a better entrepreneur in the future.
It’s easy to find great people to learn from. There are co-working spaces in many cities where digital nomads can meet peers from around the world and find collaborators. Nomads give each other travel and work advice on Reddit and Nomad Forum, there’s over a thousand of us (and growing) in a chatroom at hashtagnomads.com, and the community is organizing meetups all over the world.
Conclusion
It’s never been easier to live and work as a nomad. Traveling is cheaper, more productive, and more inspiring than staying at home. Working in an office is a relic of the past.
The digital nomad revolution is just beginning and I’m excited to help it grow. I hope you and I will meet some time, somewhere out there.
URBAN FREEWAYS: Crumbling, and crowding movement and traffic?
Mistakes are made. But what happens when the mistake is on the scale of building a highway that cuts through a city, decimating it in the process?
A lot of American cities made this mistake after World War II, when there was a suburban housing boom. The thinking was that urban freeways would get people to their suburban homes and out of the city more efficiently.
The effect of this “traffic solution” actually increased traffic due to induced demand while creating blight.
Urban freeways have made it harder for people living in the city to move around, have disconnected neighborhoods, pushed basic amenities further out and contributed to urban heat island effect and bad air quality.
TAZ LOOMANS posted on Firefly Living this Oct. 28, 2013
Urban freeway is one mistake that can be rectified, and has been in cities like San Francisco, New York, Portland, Milwaukee, and Seoul. These cities and others have torn down urban freeways with great success. Not only have they reclaimed the space that a freeway takes up, but they have reclaimed the urban life that the freeway destroyed in service of getting people back to their suburban homes.
Let’s look at what happened in 3 places that dismantled a highway.
1. Seoul Tears Down the Cheonggyecheon Freeway
When Lee Myung-bak, mayor of Seoul, made the bold move of tearing down the Cheonggyecheon Freeway, which was built over the Cheonggyecheon River that cuts through Seoul, a lot of good things happened. Kamala Rao tells us about the major benefits in her article for Grist.
Due to the removal of the highway, a central business district revitalization is now underway. Another freeway in Seoul was removed and replaced with a surface street soon after Cheonggyecheon Freeway was dismantled.
A 16-lane road in Seoul was reduced by half and a massive public plaza was built with the additional space.
A major street interchange in front of Seoul’s City Hall was replaced with a public plaza. An urban streams renaissance spread across the country, with residents everywhere wanting to restore their local rivers and streams.
Property values adjacent to the corridor shot up by 300%. Species of fish, birds and insects have increased in and around the river.
The urban heat island effect was diminished in Seoul, with temperatures in the vicinity of the river on average 5.6 degrees lower than surrounding areas.
2. San Francisco Tears Down the Embarcadero Freeway
The Embarcadero Freeway used to carry 100,000 cars a day, but was damaged due to the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989.
Instead of repairing the behemoth highway, the city decided to tear it down instead. When 1.2 miles of the highway were removed, traffic dropped by half. A new trolley line in the same area now carries about 20,000 passengers a day. Again, the property values in the area shot up by 300%.
The vicinity saw a 51% increase in housing, compared to 34% in the rest of the city.
It also experienced a whopping 23% increase in jobs, compared to 5.5% citywide. Plus, San Francisco is now considering tearing out the I-280. [Source: Chris Jagers, Medium]
3. Milwaukee Tears Down the Past East Freeway
The cost of repairing Milwaukee’s aged Past East Freeway would have been upwards of $100 million. The cost of removing a mile of it was a quarter of that.
The freeway used to carry 54,000 cars a day, now the boulevard that’s replaced it carries 18,600 cars a day. The area has added 3,400 residents in 5 years, thanks to the removal of the freeway.
The city-owned land around the torn-down freeway has benefited from $700 million of investment to date. [Source: Chris Jagers, Medium]
Where does all the traffic go?
The first thing that pops into people’s mind when considering tearing down a freeway is – where does all the traffic go?
It turns out urban freeways aren’t that great when it comes to moving cars after all. Chris Jagers tells us in his article for Medium that traffic from torn down highways is taken care of in 3 ways.
1. One is through regional dispersion. Much of the traffic that clogs urban freeways disappears immediately when people take loop freeways that go around a city instead of going through a city. “When the West Side Highway in New York City came down, 53% of traffic just disappeared because it was cars in New Jersey enjoying a short-cut but destroying New York City in the meantime,” Jagers explains.
2. Local dispersion is another way traffic from a torn-down highway gets absorbed. When a highway is torn down, it makes room for more human-scaled and therefore more frequent intersections. “When a smaller grid of boulevards are intact and fully utilized, they can carry much more capacity than a highways…the grid can handle twice the capacity of any highway,” says Jagers.
3. And the third way to dissipate traffic from a torn-down highway is through new proximities.
Instead of a huge highway cutting through your neighborhood, you could have shops, restaurants, clinics, and other amenities within walking or biking distance instead, not having to use a highway. According to Jagers, “a developed street and block structure can meet most needs and result in a variety of other benefits like saved car expenses, increased safety, a better tax-base and more jobs.”
Why Investing in Urban Highways Makes No Sen$e
So if urban highways don’t really move traffic more efficiently and just create problems for residents, why are some cities still building more of them or investing in repairing their aged freeways instead of tearing them down?
Peter Simek summarizes the problem in his compelling argument for tearing down the IH-435 in Dallas:
“THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM WITH DALLAS’ APPROACH TO ROAD BUILDING OVER THE COURSE OF THE PAST 70 YEARS (AND REALLY, AMERICAN CITIES IN GENERAL), IS THAT ROAD CONSTRUCTION INCREASES CAPACITY IN ORDER TO MAKE MOVING THROUGH AND OUT OF A CITY MORE EFFICIENT, THUS ENABLING THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUBURBS AND DILUTING THE CONNECTIVITY (AND THEREFORE VIBRANCY) OF THE CENTER CORE.
CITY OFFICIALS STILL BELIEVE THAT ENABLING TRAFFIC TO MOVE THROUGH AND OUT OF DALLAS IS GOOD FOR DALLAS’ GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT. DO PROJECTS LIKE PARKING LOTS AND HIGHWAYS CREATE SOME ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN DALLAS? YES, BUT THEY SPUR ON RELATIVELY SMALL AND ISOLATED INVESTMENTS, WHILE DISCOURAGING DENSITY AND ENABLING AN OVERALL TRANSPORTATION ECOLOGY THAT MAKES IT MORE ECONOMICALLY EFFICIENT TO LIVE OUTSIDE OF AN URBAN AREA AND YET UTILIZE THAT AREA’S CULTURAL AND RECREATIONAL AMENITIES.”
Elly Blue, author of Bikenomics, reminds us that the money saved from not building more freeways could be used instead for building bicycle infrastructure. Bicycle infrastructure, unlike freeways, has proven to be an economic, social, and public health boon for cities. Blue breaks it down for us:
“Bike lanes cost anywhere from $5,000 to $60,000 per mile to add to an existing road. That includes everything from engineering and design to paint and concrete to traffic signals. Does that seem like a lot? Well, let’s compare. Freeway construction in Michigan’s countryside clocks in at $8 million per mile. In the state’s cities, with their need for overpasses, underpasses, exits and entrances, and mitigation of construction impacts on health and commerce, the cost jumps to an average of $39 million per mile.”
A city could either invest $39 million per mile into infrastructure that does more harm than good OR put that money towards adding 650 miles of bicycle infrastructure instead, which has been shown to do nothing but add value to a city.
Besides replacing highway dollars with bicycle dollars, replacing highways with linear parks, public plazas and human-scaled boulevards has had so many benefits that tearing down urban highways is clearly an option worth considering.
The crumbling highways of the post-WWII era are not only crumbling physically, but also symbolically. They just don’t make sense anymore.
The cities that are trying hard to hold on to these relics or even thinking about building new ones are simply in denial about the new tide of reclaiming cities for the people who live in them.
Taz Loomans is the Managing Editor of the Firefly Living Blog. She also publishes a blog about sustainability, urbanism and architecture at BloomingRock.com.
San Francisco: Soothing recollections May 31, 2009
The trip to San Francisco from Oklahoma to attend the Human Factors convention lasted almost 3 days and I spent my money on junk food. This is a period I’m still not ready to face much less to write about but I finally came around to tell it. Suffice to admit that I roomed with my adviser in the hotel and that he woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that my snoring was loud.
After the convention was over, I was on the verge of joining the file of the homeless. I stayed at the studio of a referral that I got in Norman for one night in Ashbury Heights. I had later many occasions to walk this famous street during the period when the hippies selected it as headquarter for their movement.
The next morning I was feeling sick because of too much nervous tension. I called my cousin Nassif in Vancouver and all that I got was a reprimand “Adonis, you are always in trouble”. I called Ali who was working in Canada but he had no referrals in San Francisco to stay over. I used an old number of Ali’s in Houston and it seems that this number connect him everywhere he relocates.
I know that I slept one night at an Algerian student who was the manager of the restaurant “Marrakech” that served Moroccan dishes; it was one of the longest nights and the most nerve wracking wait for this Algerian student to show up and pick me up.
It was a cold night and I waited for over three hours sitting on my suitcase wondering if he is ever going to show up. I had nowhere to go and no money for any decent lodging facility. The next day I slept at a hostel for foreign student visitors for two nights in Downtown San Francisco.
The Algerian student referred me to two Spanish students living in a foggy neighborhood; the fog enveloped this quarter 20 hours a day. I had shelter for a week at the foreign students from Spain and they were very nice.
I managed to be hired in a full-service retirement hotel, for room and board in exchange of 4 hours work a day. The Spanish students could not believe that I landed a job that quickly. I accepted all the overtime I could get in all the departments, until I was offered the job of assistant to the manager three weeks later. I was fooled by the offer of $1,200 a month which turned out to be less than $900 after all kinds of deductions but I fulfilled my “word” to stay a whole year in that position.
My cousin Patrick visited me once when he was attending a conference in San Francisco for the anesthesiologists. I enjoyed my stay in this lovely city of San Francisco and visited frequently all its parks and waterfronts and beaches, carrying a book with me.
I had also located a nearby covered swimming pool that I patronized three times a week. I had the opportunity to tour the neighboring towns around San Francisco with co-workers and a French older woman called Michelle that I helped secure a part-time position at the Hotel. The red headed Michelle carried all her belonging in the trunk of her small beat up car and she invited me on her many excursions out of town.
I saw many famous locations because I was responsible for arranging tours to the elder residents and I was to be part of the trip for supervision purposes. The City offered a van with a driver and we toured San Francisco once a week and I took pictures and described the tour in the monthly promotional brochure along with the monthly events in the Hotel.
I was caring for elder persons, mostly ladies, but in my state of confusion for my future and frustration in not finding within my spirit of what I loved to do for a job didn’t leave much space in my soul for sincere compassion. Practically, I cared better than most of the managerial staff because I was new to this environment of human spiritual misery and I was highly respected by the “clients”.
The retirees knew of my higher education but never asked me “why are you working in such an institution with your degree?”; it is as people in the US are accustomed to seeing all kinds of individuals working temporary jobs that turned out to be more permanent than proclaimed.
One elder man of over 80 of age, tall and of powerful constitution, committed suicide a week after his “incarceration” by falling in a stairwell from the eighth floor. Many of the elder ladies whom I cared for passed away during my job but I was not shaken emotionally, or that what I thought at the time.
I think that I read most of the famous authors who lived in and around San Francisco. I had a Mexican girlfriend. (You may read my post in the addendum to my introspection “Chica Lupita”)
I have toured Marin County, the forest of the highest Red trees, ventured to Monterrey, Big Sur, Little Sur, Carmel, and all the environs. There was old Jake who was a gambling addict; he used to receive invitations from the casinos for free rooms in Reno. I joined him twice because he needed company.
I played little and ate a lot; food and drinks were cheap and in abundance, and enjoyed looking at pretty servers too. We traveled on two occasions as a group in a van belonging to an employee and spent glorious days up north and tasted wine in wine counties and farmhouses.
I recall that I had an interview for a job in statistical analysis and had to board several ferries to reach destination; luckily, I didn’t get the job but it was a good exposure for various transport facilities. All in all, my stay in San Francisco was the loveliest and most enriching experience in the US.
During my stay in San Francisco I took the bus Greyhound to Boulder because my adviser sent me a letter that he was to deliver part of my dissertation to the convention of Human Factors Society and I wanted to attend it. It was a long trip of two days and we passed through Salt Lake City and I visited the temple of the Mormons.
There was snow and the University of Boulder was lovely. During the second day of the convention my advisor failed to show up and I had no copy of my dissertation and I felt frustrated for not being prepared to deliver anything even though I was invited by the chairperson of the session to do it. I had the opportunity to tour Denver by night and boarded the spacious and large bus that crosses Main Street.
The return trip was long. A week later I was to battle a discrimination case. There was this girl who claimed that I harassed her sexually and the case was dropped after weeks of hassles; she had no one to testify on her behalf. The girl was pissed off that I got the position of assistant to the manager. I had no hints of the power struggle that went on before I arrived to this hotel. I wanted to resign but the manager convinced me that when I finish the whole year then I would be eligible for unemployment benefits of around $450 a month.
I finished the year and started to look for a steady job commensurate to my education. I thus patronized an office on Van Ness Road that was funded by the City and aided with unemployment cases, such as writing CVs and how to tailor make your resume, and checking on the latest openings for work. In one of my posts titled “Are you searching for a job?” I wrote:
“I recall that in 1991 the US was in serious recession during the Bush Sr. Administration and jobs were frighteningly scarce. I had graduated with a PhD degree in Industrial/Human Factors engineering and missed better periods for hiring academicians.
I was working as assistant to manager at a retirement community in Downtown San Francisco and visited an employment center on Van ness Road. It was a center meant to help you out rewrite your CV for the nth time anytime you wanted to apply for the scarce job announcements posted in the center.
People swarmed this center just to feel busy and serious about searching for a job but not that hot for finding one. I guess the center was one of the hundreds of facilities with the sole purpose to blaming the citizens for failure to doing their due diligence and compete since no one is about to beg you to work for them. If you failed to re-write your CV and spent more money on useless stamps per day then you are not making good use of this “valuable” help facility.
This was the period when ridiculous denials were the custom of the land. For example, this custodian at NASA who claims that he is contributing to sending astronauts to the moon; or redefining their jobs as sanitation “engineering”. I recall that I was forced to accept a job cleaning and vacuuming the main library while working on my dissertation.
I fooled my spirit into believing that as long as I am doing my job perfectly and with excitement then I am learning the value of a job well done, sort as a training period for toughening my character. A state of denial is not a bad reaction; it is successive states of denials that can be deleterious to your development”.
I was very curious and enjoyed being among crowds; I attended the public events such as Shakespeare in the park, the free open concerts, joined the homosexual yearly celebrations, and the Latinos Days of Independence. Unfortunately, I was mugged on a wonderful evening 50 feet from my hotel and I was hospitalized. I never believed that I might be a statistics. Nobody in the hotel heard anything or even noticed what happened when I returned from the hospital.
I refrained from going out for three weeks. Walking in San Francisco even during the day was no pleasure anymore: there were too many beggars along the streets and they were not a peaceful lot. I was glad to move to Washington DC for a change but no city compares to San Fran in variety, beauty, and recreational facilities.
I never walked as much as my two years stay in San Fran. This was a wonderful period when I devoured all kinds of books on a daily basis; I had the pleasure to be acquainted with most of the famous Bay Areas authors from Henry Miller, to John Steinbeck, to Jack London, and the Beatnik movement.
I recall that in 1991 the US was in serious recession during the Bush Sr. Administration and jobs were frighteningly scarce. I had graduated with a PhD degree in Industrial/Human Factors engineering and missed better periods for hiring academicians. I was working as assistant to manager at a retirement community in Downtown San Francisco and visited an employment center on Van ness Street. It was a center meant to help you out re-write your CV for the nth time anytime you wanted to apply for the scarce job announcements posted in the center. People swarmed this center just to feel busy and serious about searching for a job but not that hot for finding one. I guess the center was one of the hundreds of facilities with the sole purpose to blaming the citizens for failure to doing their due diligence and compete since no one is about to beg you to work for them. If you failed to re-write your CV and spent more money on useless stamps then you are not making good use of this “valuable” help facility.
This was the period when ridiculous denials were the custom of the land. For example, this custodian at NASA who claims that he is contributing to sending astronauts to the moon; or redefining their jobs as sanitation “engineering”. I recall that I was forced to accept a job cleaning and vacuuming the main library while working on my dissertation. I fooled my spirit into believing that as long as I am doing my job perfectly and with excitement then I am learning the value of a job well done, sort as a training period for toughening my character. A state of denial is not a bad reaction; it is the string of successive states of denials that can be deleterious to your development.
This is no time for denial; get on it and find your own line of business.
If you loved your fields of “expertise” before you were fired then it is a matter of dignity to continue your education, update your knowledge, and “re-cycle” your skills in what you do best. Otherwise, consider this liberty from an unsatisfactory job to revisit what you love to do next that would transform your wretched life into something of value to your pocket, nerves, and your soul. Mindlessly resuming wasting your time and energy on “procedures” that millions are following without true hunger for what you like to work in and the conditions that suit your character is the road to hell.
Unemployment is increasing at a faster pace and the out of jobs in developed nations are anxious, except in the USA. Not that the US has the potential to creating new jobs quickly but because the US citizens learned that unemployment is a period for working harder to locating a new job; they were indoctrinated that unemployed should invest 14 hours searching simply because the misery unemployment benefit is targeted for searching full time for a non-existing job. For example, people still listen to the “guru” Harvey Mackay who said “Once you are fired then you have a new job; a harder job than your previous remunerating one because you should realize that you are required to invest 16 hours searching for a job” It is way of enslaving the mind of citizens and diverting them from getting on the march requesting answers to the state of affairs they are paying so dearly for.
Sir, there are no jobs for hire. People who managed to retain their jobs are frantic about ways and for how long they could keep it. Owners of enterprises are re-organizing and “re-structuring” their line of business until they figure out and absorb the new legal loopholes to cheat out the government for fresh money.
Sir, it is time you figure out your special skills that you have forgotten or never believed that people appreciated. The time for mass consumerism for redundant and similar items is coming to an end. People are searching for value added products that express individuality, personal skills, and talent.
Sir, this is the time to militate for State health coverage, to joining organization helping the unemployed to re-cycling their skills, re-connecting to your professional associations and working for bureaucratic changes, newer opening, training, and facilities. This is an excellent time to joining the activists who are re-thinking alternative economic and financial systems. The last think you need to believe and erase it from your mind with utmost prejudice is that searching for a job is indeed a full time job! Re-cycling skills that you hate and abhor is not a panacea either.
One thing is true: you are free at last to think straight, reflect about your life, your strengths and weaknesses, your set of values and what a world you want to live in. You have vast potentials if you focus on your capabilities and concentrate on your forgotten skills.
Note: The theme was partly inspired from a short article by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Ariadna is from Atlixco in Mexico. Her English is poor. My Spanish is no better.
Our conversations were plagued with divergent misunderstandings. One time, after we made love she asked me how serious is our relationship.
I told her that we barely can communicate and that I can’t see much future with us together.
She jumped out of bed and cried, sleeping on the floor.Minutes later, seeing that I did not come down to console hershe joined me in bed.We used to sleep on opposite side of the bedwhen not making love.I guess she could not stand my smoky breath.
Chica, or Lupita, or Chica Lupita, as she liked me to call her, rubbed her right leg on my dick several times. We made love again on the opposite side of bed this time: my head looking at her feet.
Lupita has very white skin and a rather aquiline nose, like mine. She liked to wear dresses that show a major part of her bosom. She was rather short and had her reddish hair cropped short. The tops of her feet were large and her heels very thin: She walked on tip toe and her heels barely touched ground. She never walked bare footed: the ground is the domain of the Devil.
Lupita held her head up, always looked straight ahead, back straight, and confidently conscious of people sizing her up. Chica was married to a young American. Her man committed suicide two years after their wedding.
I met her at a full-service retirement community. She worked as a cleaning lady. I worked odd jobs there for two weeks before I was later promoted as assistant to the manager. Chica was jealous of her superior at the cleaning and washing department; a lady from Guatemala who had an eye for me.
I asked Lupita out one day and we went walking Downtown. During our bilingual and confusing conversation I said: “The only real thing is the moment. Let us enjoy the moment.” She retained that sentence and reminded me of it during our many painful separations.
We went out again and then we started meeting in my private room at 2 p.m.
I asked permission from the manager to rest for an hour around that time. Chica used to join me surreptitiously for an hour before ending her daily work. We used to undress completely, kiss, make up, and cuddle.
Two weeks later, she allowed me to investigate her rosy pussy. I licked, kissed and rubbed her pussy; I thought that I was very gentle but her pussy must have been virgin for these caresses. The next day at lunch Chica said: “Me duele. I am in pain.”
Chica pointed toward her vagina. She would not let me lick her lower lips again.
A month later, Lupita let me in her. The moment I entered her she whispered: “You are for me.” I told myself that I am in trouble and cut my activity short for the moment.
We used to go to a semi private beach, at the foot of a villa perched on a high rock.
The villa belonged to a famous brain surgeon or a brain researcher; I could not get further intelligence of Lupita but that it was related to brain. Chica used to clean the villa on weekends. The small beach was hidden from the crowd by a large rock and we were tender behind that rock.
Chica used to hold and rub my dick and when I felt too excited she would laugh with pleasure.
We never had an apartment for ourselves. Lupita used to rent a room in apartments of some Latino families. Our privacies were restricted to a room with no private bath. Once, we had a great time when the apartment happened to be vacant. We took a long hot bath together and made love all morning.
I was introduced to her two brothers who were working and living in San Francisco.
At one stage of our relationship we stopped talking for two weeks. When we made up, her brother Juan said during lunch: “Finally, my sister is smiling, talking and happy.”
Chica loved me to give her massages. She would lay on her stomach completely naked. I would smear her entire body with cream and diligently rub her neck, back, arms and legs. When I get tired of massaging I would lie on her back lightly and ask her to insert my prick. We would lie still for a long time. Lupita’s moments of laziness could be highly luxurious.
Lupita used to spend her summers in Mexico. She used to have her physical check-ups and everything relating to her health and teeth. She invited me several time, with insistence, to visit Mexico with her. I was ready to spend all my savings to be with her in Mexico, but I could not leave the USA because of problems with my stupid visa. She brought me gifts on her returns to San Francisco.
One gift was a crucifix on a necklace that I still wear all the time. Some people were amazed at my guts for wearing religious icons in Lebanon. I could only reply: “This is a gift from a dear friend.” On one of our walks in downtown San Francisco, Chica liked a pullover and bought it for me. I bought her a red skirt, I guess, and she was all love.
The night before leaving to Washington, D.C. for good, I saw her in her apartment that she rented with her brother Juan. I saw Chica crying for the first time. She said: “You are going to leave me all alone?”
I never went back to San Francisco: I could never afford it, but she kept calling me and sending letters. The first couple of sentences in the letters were attempts of sort of English and the rest in plain Spanish. Once, Chica asked me to write her a very intimate letter showing affections in order to chase away a guy who was crazy of her, as she said.
I satisfied her with a letter filled with lies, like that I enjoyed visiting her last week and that I’ll be calling her every day and on and on …Two weeks later, I received from her a letter in Spanish. I could feel anger in the words and something of an order to return all her photos. I showed the letter to our secretary from Salvador. After she read it she simply said: “She is very upset.”
Chica might have called one Saturday evening, the first week of my return to Lebanon.
My mother answered and hung up because she could not understand a word. End of a relationship.
