Louise the Ill at Ease

Nurse Bettie’s, Lower East Side

Before the pandemic, I had long hair down in my tits, long curly hair, loved my hair. And I shaved my head in like, April, my brother did it. I was like, yeah, just do it. And it was weird because, you know, I felt like I was almost shaving off Louise. And so I think there was a lot of kind of like identity crisis moments throughout this pandemic of like this persona that is also me but is a persona as well you know, it's an exaggerated me, it's me burlesque. Like, I no longer have a venue for her. And she became a her instead of me. So I think, you know, part of these last few months has been kind of reconnecting with, with that part of myself, with Louise with things that are fun, things that are frivolous, even things that are very much like, in the moment, rather than thinking about the past planning for the future, or anything that's just like right there. And it only exists in the moment. It's really hard right now. So I've been trying to do that. More. I'm also going to school now, I'm a psychotherapist in training. My nights are filled with sort of reading material, which is like the opposite of being on stage and flashing. You know what I mean? Like, it's definitely very, very different. I remember sitting right there on that couch and I had just come from what I knew would be my last shift at the restaurant, I was working, I was working at Raymond’s around the corner, I was managing. And I came here where my husband was closing the bar. I remember sitting there and you know, no mask we nobody was masked at that time. I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, this is it like this is it for a long time. My life is about to be so so different. I don't know for how long and you know, it was really emotional. And you know, there were some like locals who came by and they were like, you know, crying and I remember just feeling kind of stunned.