When I first arrived into the bitter cold and snow-covered everything, I thought I was serving a prison term for incurring too much credit card debt. The fact that my “cell” has a jacuzzi tub and a George Foreman grill made it more like a white collar prison, but being completely isolated from my friends and family was enough to make me feel imprisoned.

And then for a while I decided this stint was an “artist’s retreat.” With no distractions, perhaps I could finally focus on my artwork (the Comic Books). But the mind, in and of itself, can be a prison cell. All I could think about was what everyone else was doing…all the fun they were having while I was cold and alone. How pathetic.

Perhaps watching the kites catching the chill March wind around the Washington Monument made me realize I am Mary Poppins, flying from place-to-place, enjoying the people and the events in present-time, not becoming attached to anything or anyone. Life is just the same. We check in one day; travel around and learn as much as we can; and then check out.

So, if I am to treat this stint here in Washington, DC, as a vacation, I should do as many tourist things as possible and plan day/weekend trips to the surrounding areas.

I already did the Virginia vineyards; the Kite Festival, next weekend I’ll check out the Cherry Blossom Festival and cook Easter dinner for Lavonne and Sylvia? Or Lavonne and I will go to Silvia’s sister’s house?

This clarity is coming after a month of being here. I arrived, knowing I was supposed to come here, but not really sure why. It’s to get away from MyAmi. To fill up on a new story. A new perspective.

In my fourth week of work, I am already thinking of how I will make myself virtual. All I did today was post a Twitter and Facebook status about a conference coming up. I will be solely responsible for creating a content strategy for my client. I will not have to be in the office for this job just like our social media consultants in Colorado and our conference manager in Delaware.

There are times when my life makes sense to me but most of the time I’m all, “WTF?”

I find myself in this strange city, among strange people and a strange job…

I am bored. I suppose this is just what is happening now. But I would rather be bored on my own time, not at work.

I should be building a web site right now. Using my skills. Instead, I am sitting here writing.

And so…is this my bad attitude?

How should I be using my time right now?

I am preparing for graduate school, after all.

This job is just to pay off my karmic debt and then I can go back to Miami. Do I know this for a fact? Not really.

I am truly the virtual gypsy character now. When I look at previous posts, starting with 1985 when a hurricane uprooted me from my original home of Long Island, it’s obvious I truly have gypsy blood. My aunt confirmed that my paternal grandmother who I had all those dreams about last year indeed passed down her wanderlust. I like the literary prospects of it all, and I do know my destiny is to transform all this experience into great novels that can sit on the same bookshelf as Isabelle Allende’s “Daughter of Fortune.”

I’m just so superficial sometimes, I can’t seem to write anything of substance, it all comes out blog style, which I am starting to hate because it is so trendy…I also find that I adopt the writing and speaking styles of other people I admire…as I type this I realize I write in run-on sentences and my inner voice suddenly has a British accent as I think of one of my tribe members from London. I shouldn’t be such a biter! Ugh! This is a major symptom of the virtual gypsy, she becomes everything and everyone she is around…

I’ve become a mash-up. Yup. That’s what I am now. The other day I was in the bathtub trying to meditate it all away so that the real me would stand up. But only half of me emerged from the water after about a half hour. I was so frustrated, I just decided it was pointless to find out who I really am, I may as well just create composite personalities out of all the friends and enemies I have accumulated over the years. What else is there to do after work, besides?

One side of me feels that I am stuck in a prison sentence - I am here in DC to pay off my foolish credit card spending during the Bush years; the other side of me sees this time as another artist retreat, just like last year in San Francisco. When I lean more to that latter side, I feel much better. I think of Esmeralda Santiago, the Puerto Rican author I studied memoir writing with last year, who told me she goes to Vermont for 4 months every year just to write. That it’s just how her process works and her husband and two kids just have to deal with life without her during those 4 months. I met her husband and he was so amazing, so fully supportive of his wife and her art. I thought it was because she is so wildly successful and the main breadwinner of the family, but then I found out that they still live like artists. He is a filmmaker and they are by no means financially set even though Esmeralda’s books have become staples of the New York public school curriculum.

Hmmm. I haven’t been able to put the puzzle pieces together until now.

DC is a good city. I live with a 24-year-old hairdresser with long blond hair extensions and blue streaks. She has a dog named Roxy. She is my artistic relief after the M-F, 9-5 office atmosphere where clean-cut hippie academics write research papers about energy efficiency in order to persuade government and business to adopt more eco-friendly policy. It fulfills the activist side of me that was dying in Miami. I like it, the people are very nice, but I am definitely overqualified for the job.

My Femmebot speed doesn’t quite fit so I am glad I still have my other two clients to keep me busy. The goal is to eventually juggle the three in my virtual world while my physical body can be where I want to be…and that’s in Miami -and Orlando with my family…I am missing them more than ever.

Oh, life. It’s such a trip.

I had my first fight about money with my new husband (aka, new job) and I had to acquiesce to his (aka, co-workers’) judgment.

What a pill to swallow.

Like a yuppie wife, I spent the weekend trying to find ways to keep myself occupied during the downtime in our relationship - yoga, cooking with my new kitchenware (which includes a George Foreman grill!).

It sounds eerily like marriage. But a gypsy does not marry. She has love affairs with cities.

So don’t get too comfy, Washington. You’re just another lover to me.

I got hos…in different area codes…

When you are in your 30s, superficiality kicks in and suddenly creature comforts become MUST HAVEs.

I can’t stop thinking about that brand new studio I saw last week in Adam’s Morgan. It had my name written all over it!!

So I’ve been coming up with a scheme.

One of the many features of this posh new residence is a beautiful yoga studio.

And I am a yoga teacher.

I am wondering if they would slash the price of the apartment I liked on the 6th floor if I teach a couple of classes a week.

Would this be too overwhelming for me?

Nah. I can totally swing this. Thursday nights and Sunday mornings. If I teach one class a week, maybe I can get them down to $1,500. If I teach two classes/week, I can try to get them down to $1,200. This would be SWEET! The deposit is very low - $550, and this includes a credit check. And, since they have a move-in special where I get $750 off rent, the total move-in costs would be anywhere from $1,000-$1,300. I can shoot for $1,000 since my new employers promised to pay me that much for relocation. This means I would have to stay in DC for at least a year.

Hmmm. What would this mean regarding grad school? I suppose I could just pay the money back since I will have it by then.

Wow. This is kinda fun.

After crunching some more numbers, it wouldn’t make sense for me at this point to commit myself to a year lease. And now that I have two places to look at on Monday on S Street in Adam’s Morgan for less than $1,000 per month, my prospects seem broader now. I figure I can do a month-to-month arrangement with roommates, and then once my debt is paid, and I know whether or not I got into grad school, I can move into the fancy schmancy place.

This is so much fun! I love that I actually have income again and doors are opening like crazy. As long as I keep my attitude positive everything seems manageable and not so dramatic. Ahhh. Relief.

Two weeks later…
The day flew by and before I knew it I was taking the red metro to the green and up to S Street where I knew for sure I would find the apartment that would not only fit my budget but would shorten my commute to a short train ride and perhaps even a walk once the weather turns better.

But as I emerged from the Shaw-Howard U escalator, I knew instantly that this $925 room, in a house with two other women, would not be my new home. It was the ghetto. There’s no way I am going to leave the ghetto of my condo for another ghetto of DC after getting a good-paying job. I mean, what’s the point of working if you have to live in a crap neighborhood?

The inside of the 1898 house was cozy enough. Patti, the owner, greeted me at the door while her son, Lucas, grabbed items out of her pocketbook.

Soothing walls in mint greens and light mauves connected exposed brick in the front living room leading back to a refurbished kitchen with brand new light wood cabinets, oversized stainless steel refrigerator and gas stove. It would be a cozy place to cook and maybe serve people on the back patio, which looked bleak in the March winter cold.

We headed up the narrow stairs and the room that would be mine was at the very top. It’s small just like I prefer a bedroom that would just accommodate tiny me.

The closet is small and my few clothes would fit fine.

The bathroom I would share with a lawyer who is out of the country right now is large enough to fit an old style bathtub, perfect for an urban mermaid, AND a standing shower, good for a Femmebooty. So convenient.

It is nice, but I am not meeting the roommates, I will continue feeling like a student and this neighborhood is depressing.

But Patti is really nice and interesting and perhaps I am here to meet her and become friends with her. I will email her the photos I took of her place and my thoughts as an offering of friendship.

I call Robert, who is renting a 2-bedroom “luxury” condo in Adam’s Morgan, just one more metro stop north, off U Street.

Aha. This is where I was 2 weeks ago. The 2 studios were in this exact neighborhood. Fate/destiny keeps pulling me in this direction…or is it my ego? Well, I have been responding to Craigslist ads for a month now and none have responded until this past weekend. I tried sending from different email accounts to test which were more responsive, and apparently my music account was the winner.

Robert was more than happy to wait for me when I called him from S Street.

I got off at U and walked up 14th, past busboys and poets, the organic food market, a CVS, an Ethiopian Restaurant.

I meet eyes with a young black woman for longer than is appropriate - total stink eye attitude and I am surprised that I feel no fear. I turn the corner down Clifton Street and walk up a hill past buildings that have been gentrified.

Across the street is an urban residence a professional web manager can call home.

I call Robert and it takes a few minutes for him to come to the door. He is a light skinned black man with designer wire frame glasses and a shirt that is definitely NOT from Goodwill. He is a bachelor with Planet MyAmi style.

We walk down a hallway with art deco lighting. This must be the design du jour, I keep seeing it everywhere.

I expect to go up an elevator or stairs but instead we go down. Ugh. Basement? Hmmm.

Robert opens the door I see red. Red Chakra Safety Home Roots. The wall in the living room is red. The kitchen is fully stocked with good dishes and microwave and a red plastic voodoo man for a knife holder. Three stools afront  the kitchen counter where three lights hang. Just like the first studio I saw. Bells and whistles galore, except this place is newer, nicer and cheaper than the studio.

“What are the terms of the lease?” I ask before he has had a chance to give me a tour.

$1250 deposit + first month’s rent + $25 application fee.

“Well, I guess I should look at the place before asking these questions!”

He takes me thru the hallway where there is a stackable washer and dryer -check. The bathroom has a tub with jacuzzi jets - check.

The bedroom has a full sized (maybe queen) bed with nightstands and lights. The closet has shelves. I won’t get much light here but I am at work most of the week. Check.

The other bedroom has a bathroom in it, but it is too masculine for my tastes. And I’m still thinking about the urban mermaid bathtub.

There is a private outdoor patio that is much lovlier than the last house. The furniture is straight from Planet MyAmi - cheesy and yet, it seems perfect for a Femmebot. I can imagine this character developing in these surroundings, absorbing the energy of Robert, an IT guy who was living large like Stefano and his crew before he got laid off. He mentioned a previous “housemate” but I know he is talking about an ex-girlfriend by the way he stutters.

But later he tells me that he found 100 available jobs on Khaki (I guess this is a job listings web site) but all of them require “clearance.” he explains that federal jobs require this and you can only get it with a sponsor (a company), and his background is spotty because his ex-wife is Eastern European and all his Passport stamps look suspicious.

I think of all the video cameras he pointed out in the hallways and I feel a little creepy - perhaps this is a cybervideo networked apartment and he will spy on me as I take my jacuzzi baths like Sharon Stone in Sliver.

Is this a porn guy? Was his Eastern European wife a porn chic?

“I need to find someone soon so I am open to negotiating,” he tells me.

“What does that mean?”

“I could throw in gas and Cable into the rent.”

It’s a sweet deal compared to what I have seen so far. I was open to paying $1800 for a brand new studio just around the corner. With no furniture and no help paying utilities. But here is a place that is furnished and I could choose the roommate who lives with me.

But is this guy for real? Is he hiding anything?

Next Day…
I have been awake since 4:30am thinking about the Femmebot pad. I thought of the questions I should ask Robert to make it a legitimate transaction in my mind. No need to rush. No need for quick wam bam thank ya ma’am. I am sure this is how he thinks but I am a turtle and I do business slow. So I will email him my questions and let him think about them…and let him decide what kind of person I am based on these questions. I am interviewing him just like he is doing to me.

Robert emails me immediately to answer all my questions. He says the girl who came after me already gave her deposit and is moving in Thursday. He says I would like her.

After waiting for Robert, the sex web cam guy, to email or call yesterday to tell me when we would be meeting Carol the hairdressor with a boxer dog, last night, and seeing that he still hasn’t emailed, I have let the fantasy of the Femmebot pad go. Apparently I didn’t want to give up $2500 right now. Too much flow I don’t have.

So my mind shifts to Singi and her apartment in Alexandria. Kevin lives there. I could visit him and his wife while going to see her place tonight.

I feel love as I ride the train to work. I am happy about going to my corner office with a huge view to do what I know how to do. And to top it off, I am feeling excited about living in Adam’s Morgan with Carol the hairdresser who loves Miami and her dog, Roxy.

I don’t wear shoes in the house.
I try to conserve energy although I enjoy a bath every once in a while.
I wash dishes immediately after use.
I am happy to walk the dog occasionally once she has gotten used to me.
I would love your advice on creative ways to do my hair.

I just saw a room in a house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood for $925 with $500 deposit. I would be sharing with two women whose names I don’t remember but they’ve got the good cop bad cop thing down pat and once they tell me about all the TV shows they watch, it’s apparent they think they are going to psychoanalyze me and break me down. It’s really quite amusing, the whole charade. One focuses on the antics of the cat and waits to watch me interact with it while the other doesn’t even introduce herself.

“Tell us about yourself, Gypsy,” she says. I know the game she is playing and there is nothing I do better than tell my own story so I take off my jacket and ask them how long they have. It’s fun because instead of answering her question I ask her a question and follow up with two more questions and both of them give me information before I have said a word.

He he he.

Anyways, they ask me what movies I have seen in the last year and what is my favorite movie of all time and my mind goes blank but finally I tell them about my fascination with sci fi B movies. They tell me they are addicted to Real Housewives and Project Runway. Are these really important questions? Yes. People who are addicted to TV have no creativity which is why the front living room walls are completely naked… I get the feeling these girls just moved in but they have been here 2-6 years. Maybe Mary, the one who is moving, was the decorator. She painted the dining room walls a fabulous orange color.

And the room? A cool blue color and an interesting yellow chest of drawers. No bed. A huge bathroom all to myself in the ground floor.

I can just hear the elephant stomping of the two girls as they fly up and down the creeky wooden stairs. Just like the house in Columbia Heights last night.

As they say - you get what you pay for. The rents on these places are lower but there are 2 extra people to deal with, no furniture, high utilitiy bills on account of the houses’ ages.

The Femmebot pad in Adam’s Morgan is the winner.. I think…I still have to meet Carol and Roxy. That will happen mañana!

Blue Chakra Friday
She is blond with a blue streak in her hair. She drives a blue car. She has a blue tongue ring.

I saw red on Monday and I am seeing blue today. Is it like seeing 11:11 or 66? Does my brain just look for these patterns or are these all signs? Or am I just consciously writing my script now?

Yes, I am writing my script. I want to live in the Femmebot Pad. I left my paperwork at the apartment. I am trusting Carol and her boyfriend with my information. It’s a good test. I trust her. She is straightforward. She was a ballet dancer who messed up her spine. She was supposed to go to NY.

“You were meant to do something else,” I say.

“Yes,” she smiles. “I love doing hair.”

She works at Bang, “the best salon in DC,” she adds, and the owner (who I looked up and read that he is a Harvard and UNC grad) has applied to put the salon on a TV show. Of course. This girl is beautiful, complex and creative - she would be a perfect reality TV show candidate.

I tell her about my bathtub ritual and she is intrigued. I tell her I liked Busboys and poets becaus I like spoken word and I do it myself and that I’d like to take it to another level here.

“There aren’t a lot of women who do it,” I say. And I realize that I am setting my intention for this location.

She tells me her salon is just around the corner and that she can ride her bike there. A chic who will ride her bike to work is the kind of chic I could get along with.

I tell her I used to be a promotions girl and dress in costume but I realized I couldn’t do that forever and that’s why I am here in DC, pursuing the left side of my brain. I just had an amazing meeting today with one of the policy directors, who will allow me to get into congressional hearings!!! Yes! I can’t wait.

We are both independent. We both have our own lives. We will learn to tango. She will help me enjoy my singleness the way I should have when I was her age. But whatever. I am enjoying it now. Age is irrelevant. I am 11 years older but we are at the same stage in life.

Carol laid down her ground rules while I ate my chicken sandwich at Busboys & Poets.

“I have my life, you have yours. We don’t have to be best friends. Ask first to use my things. Don’t be afraid to say something.”

And I responded, “Respect is the most important thing. No drama, I keep that in my fiction.”

“No drama,” she repeats.

“I think life is meant to enjoy people’s company and since I started practicing yoga, I have a way of dealing with my own issues without projecting them on someone else.”

She seems intrigued by this statement. But by the look on her face she is not entirely sure of what I am saying. But the fact that I am saying this means she has the ability to make me speak my truth. Blue chakra.

Does this mean she is perfect? No. She has a boyfrend who will spend the night. This doesn’t bother me. And I met him. He is cute and polite.

She has a mother who she calls a “gold digger.” But the fact that she was honest about it made me understand she has nothing to hide. There is no doubt she is flawed. But she is a girl I can respect. I can continue on my path and she will enhance it rather than interrupting it.

Why?

Because physical real estate costs more, and programmers here have figured out how to dupe clueless federal and non-profit organizations that are still functioning on 20th century paradigms.

Every wish a web publisher has ever requested in the last 15 years since the Internet became a publishing platform has been granted by programmers who LOVE creating solutions. Google it, and you will find a module/component that fits into the various open-source CMS’s out there. Google has shaken up banks, newspapers, the music industry and every other facet of our culture - including virtual real estate.

I can build a dynamic web site with all the bells and whistles for about $5,000. But in Washington, DC, the same web site costs anywhere from $50,000 to $90,000.  I could buy a really nice, sporty car for $50,000. And I bought my condo for less than $90,000.

It’s really quite remarkable.

Like a good virtual gypsy, I tried to educate my new client with these facts in various ways. I sent them links to articles, a dummy site that I created in a matter of minutes, offering all the items on their wish list, and showed my ability to hard code by fixing one of their antiquated flat HTML pages.

And yet, they continued to interview web firms that were $25,000-$75,000 out of their price range because they had a consultant who recommended them.

This consultant has 25 years experience and a PHD in computer something or other.

As far as I am concerned, her experience is out of date. Most people who started in this industry that long ago have a disadvantage because their understanding of how the Internet is supposed to work is completely different from a kid who grew up with it.

“You must hate me,” she said at our post-interview debriefing.

“I don’t hate you,” I said. “I just think our experience is different.”

I probably shouldn’t have told her that her 25 years of experience and fancy degrees were her Achilles heel. This was a snot-nosed, Mike TV kind of thing to say, and NOT the way to impress my co-workers, who are now literally afraid of me because I am not trying to play nice-nice with them. It is clear that I am an alien from Planet MyAmi in this Capitol of Power.

After a good scolding from my embarrassed supervisor, I have decided to back off and save the knowledge I have about the virtual real estate industry for my own endeavors, which I will return to in August, just in time for my 35th birthday. 35! I am here to pay off my karmic debt and to learn what I can. If I can keep this attitude, the next few months should be pleasant. I’d rather not make things more difficult by trying to convince an unwilling audience.

How do I feel about Washington, DC? Today I feel excited.

I am a virtual gypsy and the thought of absorbing the energy of a new city is part of my health plan.

Planet MyAmi can be toxic if one is overexposed for an extended period of time…which is why I quarantined myself so often.

It can get tiring blocking the chaotic energy all the time.

I watched the “Yes Man” and I feel positive about my possibilities rather than sad about who I am leaving behind.

This is my chance to continue balancing out my life.

I would like to find a place to live in the city before I start work. But none of the posters on Craigslist have responded in the last few days. Maybe I am not directing my energy enough.

What do I want? My own bedroom and bathroom. Furnished. The rest of the apartment furnished stylishly as well. Washer/ Dryer in unit. Cool roommate(s). Either 1 or 3 others. No odd numbers. Location urban, close to Metro, coffee shops, yoga studio, ethnic restaurants, gym, swimming pool, live music. $1300 or under, including utilities.

I need to be more specific about the WHO. Because I don’t want to absorb stupid energy. Then I’ll become stupid.

How do I feel about working for someone else? I am a virtual gypsy and I prefer solo work that I can do wherever I go.

First of all, it’s such an autonomous position it won’t be like working for someone else.

Second, to just do what I know how to do without pitching, proposing and worrying about the next paycheck is such a relief!

Third reason? To develop my network of blogs.

Oh! John, the realtor, called me back about a studio in Adam’s Morgan. Everything lined up so my friend dropped me off at the Herndon/Monroe Park & Ride Lot located at 12530 Sunrise Valley Drive. There are 1,745 free parking spaces. Fares are $1.35. Route 980 is the weekday, rush hour, express bus from this lot to the West Falls Church Metro station.

Ride Guide for Herndon/Monroe Lot (PDF)
Bus Schedule Search

I am supposed to be at the office by 8:30am my first day (urg). It takes about 10 minutes to get to the Herndon/Monroe P&R, and from there it takes 17 minutes to get to the West Falls Church metro, which is on the Orange Line, which will take me to Metro Station in 22 minutes to get to work, but to get to Adam’s Morgan, I continued to L’Enfant Plaza, and switched to the yellow or green line, which took me straight to U Street. I walked in my new black shoes in the freezing cold and saw the apartment on Chapin and 14th Street. I immediately started to feel like an artist again and began to imagine what life would be like as a resident in this building, just down the street from Busboys & Poets Cafe, named for the poet Langston Hughes.

John showed up and I instantly connected with the oldness of the building and its Art Deco lighting along the walls of the hallway which led to a wide, 20s-style stairway up to the second floor where studio 207 was just vacated and ready for a new story. The door opened up to a wall of shelves on the left and a few steps down the narrow hallway led to the clean, simple bathroom on the right. But there was still more hallway and we hadn’t even gotten into the main studio yet! On the left was a long coat closet just before a row of three stools at a bar that looks into a HUGE kitchen. Walk a little further and you are in the main part of the studio where the futon would go for sitting and sleeping, then step up into that HUGE kitchen with as many cabinets as an average-sized single-family home in the suburbs and enough space for a breakfast table. It’s really a perfect size for a single female like me, and perfect for writing and inspiration. I imagined my Femmebot comic book prototypes covering the walls because I would make this space an artist’s studio, not just a place for sleeping.

No laundry in the unit, I would have to go down to the basement and play with quarters again even though I’m paying $1425-$1500 every month. Not cool. And I would have to go outside to dump my garbage. Blaa. Utilities would be even more on top of that exhorbitant rent and suddenly my visions of my newfound bohemian life go POOF!!

Thanks, but no thanks, John. I can see why this apartment is still not rented.

So I cross the street to a brand new apartment building with signs advertising that they are currently leasing. The lady at the front desk isn’t particularly friendly but I don’t let that discourage me from asking to see the place. She tells me to come back in an hour so I do and Jason, the realtor who has blue blue eyes, comes out to the posh, brand new lobby to greet me. He shows me apartments on an interactive big screen TV, and I decide right then and there that this is where I need to live. I want high tech, the latest and greatest - I am not an artist in DC, I am a web manager in DC. I am an artist in Miami. Aaaaaaaa! Epiphany. I want a badass loft with floor to ceiling windows with views of the city. I want an LCD screen to tell me when the next metro is coming as I step off a high speed elevator. I want a wAsher and dryer in my unit and granite kitchen countertops and a big bathroom that has a shower built for two (me and my B-O-Y). I want a full gym, yoga studio, surround sound theater, business center with computers and conference room.

Do I want to pay $1830/month, not including utilities? No.

I have debt to pay off. I wanted to save money for school. Was this place a distraction from my purpose for being here? No.

I am the architect of my own life. I looked at this place for a reason. Don’t know why yet. The answer will reveal itself eventually. It always does, thanks, God!!!

OK, so when I got HOME (foreshadowing), I did my numbers. I need to pay off the debt as quickly as possible. And if I stay with my friend rather than moving into an overpriced arty or posh studio in the city, I can have everything paid off in 3 months.

Art by Clutch. Word by Jose Javier Rodriguez.

En los báncofa. The Bank. He’s talking to you. ¿’sta que hora cierran en los Bancofamérica…sabes? Pay attention: closing time. Voy pa’l que ’sta en la Güachingtong con la cientosiete. Bank of America. The one that’s on what street and what street. You couldn’t conjure up anything at all on One-oh-seventh, much less a bank. And anyway, where the bus was right then, you couldn’t say. No sé. That wasn’t a helpful answer. But you said something, so who cared. Your eyes and his met. Mi banco… creo que cierran a las cuatro y media. He was a man, like you, mid-twenties. He had a tight fade and slight goatee and he was looking you square in the eyes with his mouth closed and all places around his eyes taut, but not frowning. He was probably a quick mind. He was paying attention and practically reading you. It made you want to answer well. Pero los hay que cierran como a las cuatro. There, you said you don’t know but you rounded it out by guessing for him. Alright, bro, thanks. He had pale skin. You couldn’t place him. Born here or maybe came real young. You both switched to English once you saw one another. You’re riskin’ it. Your editorial comment about his decision to take this trip (possibly) in vain got no reaction, that you noticed.

You looked away from Late To The Bank Guy. But your head turned real slow the way people do when the conversation just stops, rather than clearly ends, and hangs in the air just a bit longer. He seemed like he would have noticed that it took you a couple of seconds to come up with a response. More likely, though, it seemed longer than it really was. Not that it mattered either way. But you were curious how he saw it. What he thought about it. What it would be like to be Late to the Bank Guy in that moment. You began to feel what it might be like to sit where he was, on that side of the bus. And you began to see the bus from his side and to see, sort of, what you would have looked like to him as he was looking at and talking to you. That’s all you could manage with your imagination. But to really see and hear the world as not you. Looking out on everything through the peephole of another’s front door. You could never know.

A god-awful squealing filled your ears and you were jerked forward. The one person standing, a man in the aisle at the front of the bus who was ducking his head and eyeing the door, was jerked frontward. Those sitting mostly hung forward a bit, about to drift back into place. The brakes. That must have been what woke you up from your nap on the window. At that moment you could hear the sound that had roused you. You were either just now remembering the sound of brakes or just now imagining it to go along with your newfound story about how you woke up. It was like being confused by a memory of something that might have had happened in real life, but might just as easily have happened in a convincing dream that morning. Sleeping on the damned bus. You’d been jolted awake to a sore head and drool. Having forgotten where you were, where you were going, that you were on a home visit. It took you a couple of seconds, at least, to look around and rediscover even who you were. More than just forgetting where you were, you were waking up into yourself. You could have woken up as anyone it seemed. But you came into yourself. Back into yourself. From nothing. Or from somewhere else.

London piercing Doc Martens I want to get my hair cut at Tony & Guy and look “smart” like sophisticated European girls straddling the Prime Meridian instead of a hippie long-haired wannabe Janis Joplin in Vienna drinking hot chocolate, I just want to sit in a café and sip on it and watch people until I get to Munich where Claudia, our hostess, is so educated and rich and I want to live just like she does after Nuremburg Hitler energy seeps into my subconscious for use later so that ugly people in Berlin watch Beavis and Butthead in German running back and forth across checkpoint Charlie with no consequences I am free I am free I am free of confessions in Edinburgh beers Yo La Tengo Chapel Hill techno twist to Washington, DC intern in a patent law firm on M Street that paves the way to New Hampshire Jewish girlz wearing Donna Karen that I can’t afford when I move to Michigan for a newspaper internship that turns into a crush on Karen and HTML coding search and replace Seattle for Colorado chiles drying in the afternoon sun because he went to San Francisco and I met a pioneer who gave me a break in a South Beach Warehouse with brick walls so I could feel like Ally McBeal but I am in my 20s and everyone is riding around on segues drinking Starbucks until I ride the MUNI to North Beach I traveled from city to city by instinct and because no one tried to stop me but I always had a job and a place to live so it was easy I met other Virtual Gypsyz in San Francisco at the height of the dot.com boom and the city looked more like a college campus with 20-somethings gliding around the warehouse district on segues while sipping from cardboard Starbucks cups but on a rare hot day in April 2001, I climb onto the bus toward North Beach and sit next to a B-O-Y with big brown eyes he speaks first and smiles I am a single woman in a city full of inappropriate suitors but he pops the question: “Would you like to get coffee sometime?” and we travel to a Russian Hill Art Show but I have to move out and get my own studio in the Tendernob where Trannies across the street fraternize with firemen on 9/11 more entertaining and louder than “Blind Date” on my tiny TV that swirls to Mexico City Murals and a trek to Costa Rica Mushrooms and Lenchak Match-ups in Nicaragua Butterflies over a small plane to Corn Islands with wind mills and the island I wished for in 1993 but I had forgotten and Honduras Slums lead to Guatemala Ruins and finally I land in MyAmi Vice money sex power real estate boom bust boom.

It must be the Nuyorican coming out. In this town, I’m a light skinned sista.

Two Latinas with thick thighs walk into the shop speaking Spanish. They push along three little black boys. Blacktinos? Blaxicans?

This is Atlanta 2009. A city that has experienced massive transformation since the 1996 Olympics.

“A lot of people moved here from South America, Central America for the jobs,” says my Groome Transportation driver, who moved to Columbus three years ago for a slower pace and kinder folks.

And yet, as I wandered Peachtree Street, Peters Street, Ralph David Road, I only saw black faces. Blacklanta, I decided to call this historic city, which I first learned about through the eyes of “Gone With the Wind’s” Scarlett O’hara - A white southern belle who learned how to be a better woman through struggle.

So, it’s a huge slum, right? Isn’t that what “black neighborhood” means?

Let me enlighten your ignorant ass…

This is the capital of black academia, home of Morehouse, Spelman, Morris Brown colleges. You’ve got lawyers and judges and journalists and business people walking down the corridors of the Hyatt Regency, the Westin, City Hall, which has tackled homelessness and panhandling by installing meter type boxes for passersby to drop their extra change.

On a first glance, and perhaps a superficial level, this is a successful black city.

Dig underneath, and the problems I know and experience on a daily basis in Miami, persist here too.

Nobody trusts anybody.

“I’m stuck with a baby mama with low self esteem,” says Paul, who sells “trees” to pay the rent. We are on our way to Q-Time, a soul food restaurant around the corner from a beauty shop packed with black girls getting their nails did by Koreans.

“Paul, has it ever occurred to you that your baby mama’s self esteem is directly related to the way you treat her?” I ask him.

“What?! I already tried bein’ nice to that bitch and she still act crazy,” he says shaking his square-shaped bald head. Paul is blackipino…he is the kind of guy who looks like the people I wondered about when I was a little girl watching Sesame Street.

“Mom, are there black people with chinky eyes like Chinese people?”

“Ay, Gypsy, the questions you ask,” my mom would reply, and return to whatever she was doing in the kitchen. She was a stay-at-home mom whose husband went to work everyday, a luxury many black moms don’t have these days.

Young black women, from what I can tell from four days in Atlanta, are still slaves. Their sense of selves come from young black men, who are stoned 24 hours a day and write lyrics about all the pussies they “own.” No wonder this is the stripper capital and artwork in a gallery in the former Underground Railroad consists of scantily clad females competing for the attention of rappers.

Paul shows me a text he receives from his baby mama:

“Today is National Don’t Talk to Liars Day and in observance of this day, don’t expect a call from me.”

“Fine with me,” says Paul, who is currently editing the speech that Arnold Jackson, director of Census 2010, gave at this week’s ethnic media conference.

“That dude be talkin so slow,” Paul says, and I wonder if any of the role models he shoots and edits will ever influence him into a more positive direction. He finished two years of Morehouse College, but didn’t graduate because “only gay men graduate from there.” His brother is a lawyer. And his baby mama, a light skinned sista, isn’t stupid - she often participated in my roundtable forums when I edited Youth Outlook Magazine, and contributed insightful commentary on the 9/11 politics of the day.

I’m sure at one point Paul found this sexy…a woman with opinions…a woman who might be on his level…but then sex factored into the equation, and a baby changed everything. Life ceased to be bohemian. Life became obligation and responsibility, and neither was ready. They feel cheated that their glamorous life of being single and free is now full of arguments, mistrust, jealousy and financial struggle.

Paul doesn’t see himself as the leader of his new family - he is still only living for himself.

“Ma, we put up with anything for the pussy. Once we get it, we’re like, ‘Bitch, I don’t wanna hear it.’”

“No!” I insist. “Why do you diminish yourself to a caveman? Is sex really all you want?”

All my life, the older women in my family said, “Men only want one thing.” This was their way of warning me. But it isn’t. They want loyalty. They want respect. They want to be trusted. They want to be loved. And feminism has stripped them of these human needs…to the point that if a man admits he “needs” these things, he’s just GAY.

The level of homophobia in the black community is off the richter scale.

“I heard that 80 percent of black men are on the down low,” says Corey, a black female who is writing a book about 7 ways for women to have more confidence. She arrives with Bobbie, Paul’s ex-girlfriend from college.

“What?! That means most black men are gay? That doesn’t make any sense,” I say.

“That’s why I don’t trust a dude,” Bobbie says. “He can be telling you one thing and go home and suck a dick.”

“No one trusts anyone anymore,” I say.

When I wasnt aware of myself, I looked for validation from men. I didnt feel beautiful unless a man gave me attention. I didnt feel smart unless there was a girl around that I could outsmart. I didn’t think I was worthy of special treatment from anyone because I didn’t want to owe them any favors. I didn’t know how to love because I hated myself.

I had a hole in my heart leftover from the first boy who screwed me and left me when I was only 14. He said sweet things and I believed him. He made promises and didn’t keep them.

How many girls has this happened to? How many of us had a bad first sexual experience and spend the rest of our lives angry at the entire male team?

And is it possible for us to forgive them so that we can give a man, who may actually be telling the truth, a chance?

The black community is in a shambles because its men and women are still at war.

And what about Latinos? Josue is the youngest of four boys raised by a single mother. She brought them to the US to escape the civil war that was ravaging their home country El Salvador. The guerillas were recruiting boys as young as 14 and she didn’t want to lose her entire family. Josue’s earliest memory was at 2 years old because he remembered the change between El Salvador and the US.

His experience provides the fodder for his art, but when he spent last month on his own for an artist residency, he found himself going nuts.

“I didn’t like being alone,” he said. “I’m a community artist.”

He also thinks it’s too self-centered to make art about himself, and that he should focus on liberating others.

Meanwhile, Josue is enslaved himself in a relationship as toxic as Paul’s. His girlfriend is anorexic. She hacks into his Facebook. He has cheated on her and he still thinks about the other girl even while trying to patch it up with his girlfirend, who trusts him even less, but is too insecure to know that life is too short to spend one’s time and energy on someone un-trustworthy.

All this from a boy that never had these problems years ago when he was a church-going boy. Out of all the young people at Youth Outlook Magazine, Josue was the most radical because he openly talked about his relationship with Jesus. The others thought he was a straight-up square, especially Russell, who was the baddest of the boys…and had the strongest influence on Josue. They created a legendary comic series together for the back of the magazine called “Publick” and this relationship single-handedly transformed Josue from a solid, whole individual into a follower. He saw how Russell got the ladies. He saw how Russell got what he wanted by being a bad boy. Josue wanted to be a bad boy too. But he didn’t realize that being himself would be a more successful path.

“You need to break up with this girl,” I tell Josue as we drink beers at Hooters. I’m like a guy pal right now, telling him the truth he doesn’t want to hear. “Both of you needs to become whole before it will work.”

I explain to him how I have segmented my brain into the relationships I have chosen for my life. He asks why I have alloted 60% to a MAN and I tell him it’s because I am a woman, and I have learned from my bad experiences with relationships and studying yoga, the Bible, Buddhism and the art of matchmaking with angel investors, that my role in life is to put a trustworthy man before myself, and I will live a happier, balanced, sweet life. I tell him that when I was going the feminist route, I was too egotistical, and I was all about proving this or that and forgetting about L-O-V-E.

“Do you have a remote control?” he asks me.

“Yes,” I say. “And I have chosen to hand it over to him because he knows how to work it. We have a lot of fun with it.”

Josue is much more open to what I have to say than Paul is. I wonder if it is because Josue is Latin like me. We all have been taught to identify with “our people” and sometimes this prevents us from truly listening to each other. At the ethnic media awards banquet, I walked around all the tables before choosing the one where I had a chance to do the deepest, most high touch networking. The Asians stuck with the Asians. The elders stuck with the elders. There were a few mixed tables, but ultimately I chose to sit with a table of Latinos because I had randomly connected with Leslie Froelich during the cocktail networking before dinner. Leslie is not even Latin by heritage. Spanish is not her first language, but here she was tonight, accepting an award for an article she wrote in a Spanish-language newspaper about “Spanglish.”

I decided that I would sit at her table because in a sea of people, I wandered toward her direction, saw her and introduced myself. I didn’t know anything about her. I wasn’t introduced by anyone. I didn’t even know she was associated with the Latin community. My only mission was to mingle and practice law of attraction.

And isn’t it an interesting science experiment that Latin attracted Latin at the end of the day?

Her colleagues were from Mexico City, Venezuela, a few Puerto Ricans….it was the perfect setting to promote my blog.

The next day, I attend a talk by a phd about the state of the black community, and is it any coincidence that the only chair available is right next to Leslie?

As the black female PHD compares pink roses to red roses growing in a garden at her new home in the suburbs of Washington, DC, Leslie and I both shake our heads.

“Is this woman annoying you, or is it just me?” she whispers in my ear.

“Ummm. I’m still deciding,” I say. “There is a fundamental flaw in her argument. I’ll tell you in a minute.”

Leslie smiles and we continue listening to this academian’s theories that the pink flowers never had a chance to grow because they were planted in bad soil, whereas the red flowers have flourished and have become the favored color for a beautiful garden.

“Who is the gardener?” I wonder to myself. Finally, the phd mentions this, but she says it’s the government and the media. Wrong.

“If you notice,” I tell Leslie after the talk, “she mentioned that she just bought a house and was engaging in the very yuppie pasttime of growing a garden. She herself is a success, but she is stuck on the past, things will never be good enough, she NEEDs this cause to stay the same…it’s her MO.”

Leslie agrees and adds that our generation’s nonchalant attitude toward race is the result of the previous generation’s struggles. Didn’t MLK say that his dream is that his kids would be able to play on the same swingset as white children? Then what is this here? It seems to me another case of people setting goals and not even realizing they have achieved them because they’re already chasing something else.

“How many people in here do you think feel the same way we do?” I ask Leslie.

She looks around at the multicultural faces.

“About half,” she says.

“You know, as soon as I realized this skin I am wearing is my costume, I wasn’t afraid anymore to play on the same swingset as the boys. It’s kind of the same thing as race. If you keep seeing yourself as black, woman, Asian, you won’t ever realize we are all from the same place. That’s why I started an online TV show to help women and people of color become more financially savvy. They just need someone to explain things in a language they understand. The Latina Suzie Ormon. Have you ever thought of doing broadcast?” I ask her.

She blushes and smiles. She says she hasn’t but she knows it’s a necessary part of a journalist’s tool box.

I think about shooting at the range. The Ruger was easiest for me to handle and focus. I think about the breathing as I got ready to fire. Once again, I got the exact training I needed before entering the battlefield. This is why I give my MAN my remote control…he innately knows how to L-O-V-E me because he L-O-V-Es and honors himself. I can follow his lead because I love and honor myself. We create a balance to and from each other. We create kindness to others. We create a calmer world.

Like Richard Rodriguez, the famous gay Mexican author, said during the conference keynote speech, “Love is the story we forget to tell in the media…and this is the root of the ones that DO make it to print.”

The male-female, yin-yang, light-dark relationships of our lives create this “reality” we’re living in. I think of the Indian filmmaker, M. Night Shyamalan, who always touches on this theme in all his movies, especially “The Happening.”

We need to start trusting each other again. We need to gamble away all our fears and understand that trust begins within oneself. When you are always being true to yourself, you inspire others to be true to themselves. For 8 years we had a poser leading the most important office in government. Our lack of trust has worsened because of this guy.

Is it possible that Obama can lift up the black community during his term in office? Michelle Obama is not a baby mama. She is a full-grown woman. She exudes confidence. Can she be a good role model for black women? It’s a heavy task being a role model. Maybe people just need to look inside themselves and forget about looking to others for guidance.

Amen. Namaste. Ciao.