Dangermond.org

It’s been a little over a month since N and I returned from Charleston and I was at dinner tonight and the Snake said it’s been over a month and it seems like longer cause all these things have happened with you, but N has been pretty constant = he is home now and working on his marriage and having things both ways.

I was telling S about the whole dinner conversation and she said it seems like everyone is concerned about me waiting around for N and that is why they say what they do to me about him, about everything else, and so take it that people care.

I am not quite sure what all these caring people would have me do right now to satisfy whatever it is that is making them concerned – would they like to me to start seeing someone else? Would they prefer that I curse N and say he is a waffler? It’s really quite unbelievable that everyone would have me be doing something other than what I am doing so they feel as if things are right with the universe or they feel that they can say I told you so. Because believe me a lot of them are waiting to say that – it’s on the tip of their pointed tongues.

As I see it I have always been a supporter that if the situation is better where he is then he should stay there. I’ve repeated this as a mantra to him from the beginning. Staying in his marriage is not fucking me over as much as everyone would like to have me believe it is – I have no doubt that N loves me whatever choice he makes. Does his confusion make me love him less – no, not in the least. Do I still hold out hope for him to be in my life other than as a friend, yes, naturally I do. But things are going to unfold as they are going to and I’m a big girl and will act accordingly. When I think back to what was originally going to be the plan, time seems to have collapsed into a small marble.

What’s difficult is that everyone else seems to really believe they know what is going to happen with him, with us, with me. And I say to them you don’t know him so you don’t know squat. N says he is still confused and I’ve asked him point blank if he has an expiration date on that excuse and really he doesn’t. And we laughed, because he knows that my head isn’t focused on expiration dates. But he is trying to do what is right by him and those he loves and for that he must be commended even if it doesn’t necessarily cast him as a man of action – one who knows what he wants and gets on it. He doesn’t know what to do or sometimes when he does, he doesn’t know how to do it. There it is. The Good Heart will help him find that clarity.

For me, I feel like I’m going about my life and getting what needs to be done done. I don’t sit around and think about N because I don’t have to think about him – he is present in my mind without having to conjure him. He still makes me laugh. He is still loving and supportive. I still adore him even though he hates that word. And I’m not interested in what others see as his shortcomings because I have and they have enough shortcomings to keep us occupied for years to come without having to tear N’s apart on a daily basis.

At the end of the day, it’s how I feel and what makes me happy and right now I am content to have him in my life and while the uncertainty of what he is going to do does loom – it is not impossible to deal with – it just is what it is. He is wont to tell me how he still doesn’t know if he is going to deliver the crushing blow to me. I’m a big girl dude is all I tell him. If it is all a set up for heartbreak I am not scared to face it because there are a few options and they all involve choices and in the end he will make his choice and my choice is that any involvement with me involve certainty, not hesitation.

What I’ve seen is that some of my friends have pegged N for someone who he is not and I think I know a N who is not the cad that some would like to label him. W told him he doesn’t always have to be the bad boy but there is a bad boy aspect of N that is his appeal – it doesn’t necessarily have to manifest itself in infidelity or the like – but bad boy it is and that is a part of him that I don’t want to see go away. What these people don’t seem to want to realize is the good boy – the one that loves his children, loves his friends and family, and who wants to be loved in return. “Luv me?” It’s not all bad boy-itis.

P told me last night after a Manhattan or two that C left and then went back under a sea of confusion and left again – broke her heart she said – but now after more than a decade together she is able to think of that time in abstract. I’d rather no back and forth, I’d rather a certainty of what is or is not, and if that requires time spent doing homework – then so be it. Know thyself was my message to him a while ago.

And when people like to predict the outcome of my life I think back to the wanting to get pregnant and everyone saying S will come around – just do it – and then the whole two years and ten miscarriages and friendly advice that I received – oh this time it will happen was the one everyone pulled out of their back pocket most often – no one knew what was going to happen – and in the end no one knew anything at all least of all were they able to predict the future or know S or my mind in any of it.

L called and we talked about the omniscience of people and how they all smugly think they have the answers. Like N said in response a month ago – if she thinks she knows what I am going to do could she tell me because I would like to know. And L sent a text to K today even though they are having a moratorium right now that he misses her and then he asked me don’t I have a right to let her know?

We all have a right to feel or behave the way we do. I am not going to hide from the fact that I am in love with N, nor should L hide from the fact that he misses K while she goes through her issues. In the words of Rodney King can’t we all just get along. Because I can tell you with certainty that N will do what is right for him in the end, and I will do what is best for me. And that’s the best of all possible worlds.

The past couple of days have been rather good despite all the uncertainty that still exists in our lives. S came by this morning and it was mutually decided that I will keep the LaLa house and that probably makes the most sense. We came to an amicable split and now we just need to implement it. All the sadness from the earlier days is still hovering around us but unfortunately we can provide each other no comfort. He said he was having dinner with K last night and friends and saw N having the family dinner across the dining room.

I’ve found a place to get online and weather the lack of services here at the Can. So I will make use of that for the time being. N will take over finishing the house, which means B will be done once he finishes the porch. B doesn’t want to work with N but truthfully I think what he can do there has come to an end anyway. I’m hoping it means more speedy progress but not going to set my sights on any hard and fast date in my mind as that would just lead to anxiety that I can’t afford to carry around right now.

It’s raining again but at least this time the outside doesn’t reflect the inside – I think I have found neutral. I go back to whatever happens is meant to be and that is all we can put our hope towards.

I picked up W this afternoon after school. He was in a wonderful chatty mood, affectionate and all smiles. He said L is a good baby, doesn’t cry. He keeps remembering pre-birth when he first found out about the pregnancy and he told me he was nervous and I tried to explain what being around a baby would be like for the first six months – a lot of crying I said – so he always tells me she doesn’t cry that much. He plans to dig a tunnel underneath his new house and only let select people in there – he will have a scanner to only let good people in. Thankfully I made the list. He stayed through dinner and it was a love fest, lots of cuddling and laughing at Jimmy Neutron. He asked me where his parents were and I said at the movies. He asked which one and I said Brokeback Mountain. “What’s it about?” – I said about two men who are very close, they’re cowboys. “What are they up against?” [don’t you love that he would ask this question?] – I said well they are two men in love and there are conventional people who frown on the aspect of two men being in love like a man and woman. “I see nothing wrong with two men loving each other.” Nor should you I said.

N and I are supposed to meet with S about the LaLa – hide the rat poison.

S admitted the chair – the damn chair – is after all, comfortable, but he wouldn’t go so far as to say he liked it.

Shine was a big help this morning in helping S and I to assess how to split our assets and what to do about LaLa. It could be that I keep LaLa and S and I are in it as partners that he will benefit from on down the road. Who knows? I found another area of the city that has charmed me – full of cute boys I might add – and musicians and just a little bit of funk the way I like it. There is a house there too. I sat outside on yet another beautiful January day and tried to work while the garbage men came by and broke glass all over the street – left more than they seemed to pick up. I watched a car go down a one-way street the wrong way and then a cute guy came and sat across from me with his laptop. He looked over and smiled a few times and I pleasantly smiled back. Then a woman went by on a bike singing at the top of her lungs – “I always lay down with dogs and wake up with their fleas” – he laughed and I said to him, “story of my life” – and we both laughed. He then came over and asked my name – said I looked so familiar to him. C was his name.

Shine said he wanted to impart something more than just financial advice and that is an old Irish man’s logic – “people come together and sometimes marry and sometimes the marriages don’t work out because all of us have shortcomings and sometimes we even fuck up but the friendship should continue – who knows what happens in the future – you might meet up again in ten years and realize there is something there so maintain your civility towards each other – keep lawyers out of this because they will turn you into annuities.”

Katrina weary we all are and today I felt the worst of it – tired of the funk in this city where I have no internet, the phones won’t come on for four months, and there is still garbage everywhere you go. J said come to SF for a while till it passes – might be good for your mind. I said I can’t go even though it makes sense to go. The thought of leaving New Orleans creates separation anxiety from home. I felt it in Arlington – I could barely stand another day being away from here.

The other night leaving the gym I stopped for a salad and a girl, N, in my class came in to get one also. I was asking if she knew of an apartment because I need one and she gave me some places and said that she had gone to San Francisco and all she could think about was being home. I asked her what was it about California she didn’t like and she said the people. Here are my people. And I said oh don’t I know that. The minute we arrived to do a reconnaissance during our evacuation I felt I was again among my people. The pull is so strong it makes you long to be here even when here is so utterly hard to live in.

Sometimes the universe answers your prayers. I have been thinking about the adoption issue and bringing more children into my life. My three great nieces/nephew are not in New Orleans – R is in Shreveport and R and J are in Houston – and the distance between us is palpable. Now L is pregnant! So exciting I just burst into tears when mom told me last night. 11 days pregnant. L had called the day I arrived from Bahamas and I missed the call. I hope all goes well as we all know it is sometimes a very delicate balance holding onto a baby in your belly. But L lives here and she knows I am a babysitting great aunt extraordinaire – I simply cannot wait for the baby to get here.

I’m in a mood of incredible optimism today despite the obstacles in front of me. I’m tired from little sleep. I’m weary from no tools to perform my job. I’m hungry because I still can’t seem to find an appetite that satiates me and keep relying on energy bars, which are not living up to their name but sometimes are the only things I can choke down.

I meet with S tomorrow but did not like hearing the sound of weariness in his voice this morning on the phone. When I hear his vulnerability it makes me want to throw a blanket of love around him and insulate him. I’m trying to adhere to all the rules of engagement with everyone these days and it’s tough, fn tough, is all I can say. Lots of rules and little creativity.

N’s spirits are up despite a leaky house under construction, despite the absence of his dear friend G – I told him I miss G humor when he doled one of G’s witticisms to me and N said he did too, welled up just thinking about it. N said he is suffering from Katrina PTS – no concentration and no short-term memory – I said I have permanent Katrina damage. At least he took care of the alien probe marks that showed up on his arms. Nerve damage. Whatever that is. His mother is coming to visit and to see L who she has yet to meet. It’s weird not seeing L after meeting her but I understand the boundaries. The distance some grandparents and grandchildren contend with is daunting– I think of my own grandmother, how much she meant to me, how I still think of her as being in her house right now and yet she hasn’t been around for a few years. My mother still cries when she thinks about her being gone.

J asked me in the Bahamas what went wrong with S and I and I said my ship had too many leaks and his didn’t. The boat metaphor works with J. He has similar issues to contend with but I predict he will not make any rash changes in his life at this point.

I get to pick up W tomorrow and spend the afternoon with him. I am so looking forward to giving him the big conch shell with the ocean sound that I brought back from the Bahamas. A tiny shirt with a seahorse for L.

Mardi Gras is upon us here – purple green and gold. S called to say she may not come for Mardi Gras and meanwhile P called and said he is coming for Mardi Gras. Good and bad news keeps walking in the door arm in arm. S fears she can’t be away from T that long as it encroaches on too long a time apart. Plus her dog Lois had seizures while she was away with me and she is just feeling like she needs to tether herself to home. I so empathize.

Meanwhile another conversation with L whom I have been very hard on because he wants to control the situation with K that is out of control and what he wants to happen seems unrealistic at this juncture. I spoke with K twice in the past two days and she seems resolute in what she wants but it is a hard road to get there and L, I say, needs to be more sympathetic to her pressures. But alas sometimes you know all these things but can’t emotionally get to where you need to be. I so empathize.

Then there is this fantasy that appeared to me yesterday – kissing a man in his truck goodnight and he reaches out with one arm and lifts me physically into his truck, onto his lap, and drives off. It’s a Stanley Kowalski type gesture. It presents a primal man woman connection that wears a groove into my psyche and is unshakeable in how it sings to me. Where did this fantasy come from? What about the fantasy man makes him so utterly desirable and sexy? It makes the Cs of the morning café interlude seem like boys – cubs – sexless – in contrast.

Recurrent dreams of V that are baffling. She is a young girl – maybe 18 – her hair is long and straight – have never seen it this way – and she is smiling and happy. It is a comforting dream but I always wake with the same feeling of loss – perhaps this that I have put way back in my mind is coming to the surface as I deal with the loss of this relationship – but how it manifests itself is baffling – a young smiling happy girl I have seen only glimpses of in the woman I know.

The sun is back and the weather milder – a much better New Orleans – the one that makes wintering here ideal. Yesterday was fraught with the realization that I am going to have to move from the Can and find an apartment where I can have internet and phone – the Can is saying April before we get land lines – so utterly ridiculous. Now I am casting a wide net to find a place to live. Once again I’m removing myself of memories and wiping the slate clean – more framing for my better life.

Good session with E yesterday – she admires all three of the adults handling of W in this whole mess and said that it might be possible to continue my relationship with W no matter what the future holds if everyone is able to continue as they have been. We spoke about the possibilities of adopting and right now I am putting that on the back burner as it does not involve any kind of clock and I have some things to get in order before I am prepared to bring a person into my life. We also laid out a road map for handling misinterpretations and those tools will be crucial for my peace of mind. She emphasized Katrina’s toll on all of us and to not forget it when trying to work through everything before me. And we spoke about being the energy source in my relationships – allowing my light to burn on 100 watts and men plug into me and not having reciprocation – I burn out. In taking care of myself it is important to make sure that I am getting what I put out so that there is a replenishment instead of a slow drain on the wattage. And then there is the issue of taking back my name – but my decision for now is to keep Dangermond as that is what my professional career is built around and there is a brand quality to the name on Wall Street that I don’t want to give up – so for now Dangermond it is. The Snake said I could just call myself Dangermond.org. Funny boy.

We spoke also about the symbolism of house and home to me – a product of having moved around so much as a child – lot of emotional weight gets bestowed on house/home – need to recognize that so as not to give it more weight than it is due in any given situation.

For today – time for work then time to start my search for an apartment then exercise and then see mom at some point – who btw worked the graveyard shift last night – grrr.

What’s great about my company is we are a large family – it’s always a love fest on these MLK trips. S and I went early for this one and got the festivities started with M, K and D – all wives of traders who always go early – all women I adore – and we danced the night away. The next morning, with the sound of the ocean lulling me into the sunlight I woke in a panic about LaLa and what to do about it. I wanted S to be up and ready to listen to every detail that was running through my mind but she was languishing in those last minutes of morning sleep so I went down and got her coffee to get her up.

The first thing she tells me is she had a dream about me where I had a flea and flicked it on her and she slapped the bed to kill it and then a thousand fleas came out of the bed and soon she realized she had leeches all on her legs and she yelled for me to help and I bit the leeches off of her one by one. My response? That’s gross, why the hell would I bite bugs off your legs? – Her response? You’re scrappy cuz you’re from New Orleans so it makes sense to me.

Then getting dressed I showed her my HPs that were a little holey and said Z did it and her response: “like father like son” – and we laughed deep in our belly on that one.

There was one time in the hotel room where I was putting my locket on and it fell and opened – S went to grab the contents from the bathroom floor and I screamed – don’t touch – and she said whoa, what is that? – and we laughed uproariously the rest of the evening at the contents of my locket.

When O arrived I moved to my room – Room 666 – hung up my bedside photo – and we proceeded to have the parties late night that had security coming round often. Our biggest party was Friday the 13th because no one could stay away from 666. It was this evening that H began referring to Ass Man and the name stuck. Then B&J arrived and J – who called me before we took off to tell me she was waiting to butter my biscuits and eat them up – was wanting one on one time and I tried to give it all to her in one big burst and she just said, hell she’d butter N’s biscuits too.

On the balcony one bright sunny morning as we all sat around looking at the magnificent ocean in front of us, T said “I read your blog and the one thing I can say is that you have loved and lived, which is more than I can say about myself. But truthfully I don’t know if it is worth the heartache.”

That same afternoon I hung on the balcony taking in the sun and the crystal blue water – a single red balloon floated by, touching down on the water, then popping up and bouncing off the lounge chairs, the trees, the umbrellas. I couldn’t take my eyes off that red dot. Later, I lay face down on a lounge chair with a magazine with the sun hot on my back flanked by S and A and a lizard approached me and A said, that’s good luck and I said, come here little lizard, come here.

But it was Saturday, after a lot of girl time, and some boy time, and a lot of dance time, that I went to dinner and A was turning into Smurf and I worried because of present company and so tried to get her to eat and she snapped at me – “don’t take care of me”- and I said fine, but then P and I took her outside for air and then to the Prop Club for dancing. When we arrived, K was sitting there and she said “come here” and threw her arms around me and said how much she loved me – then she introduced me to L (J’s wife) and told me that they had lost everything they had in a fire. I told them imagine an entire city’s psyche bearing the load of what you went through and that is Katrina. Then K talked about how impressed she had been by mom’s dedication with her patients during the storm and evacuation. A gnawing feeling started creeping up about my mom and the graveyard shift and her overdoing.

I turned and behind me was D, who I have always adored, and I asked how the adoption process was going with the Chinese girl and he began telling me all the details up until now – he and M are awaiting a photo and are supposed to say yeah or ney – and he said, “Rachel, who says ney?” – and he asked if I am thinking of adopting still and I said yes, but right now in the process of getting divorced so navigating these waters first and not sure how to proceed so he starts telling me how to proceed and right then I started blacking out and I turned and asked K to give me her seat as I was feeling peaked and going down. Then I saw S making her way into the bar and I beckoned her over frantically and grabbed her hand and told her to help me.

She brought me to the bathroom and into the handicap stall and laid paper all over the toilet and I kneeled in front thinking I was going to get sick, thinking I had food poisoning, and then as I kneeled there with S rubbing my back and speaking soothingly to me I realized I wasn’t sick in my stomach, it was my head and I was having a full on panic attack. The first one I have had since moving back to SF ten years ago. By this time, T (who has had them) had come to check on me, S (who has had them) was kneeling on the bathroom floor soothing me, the Smurf drifts in and takes a seat in the corner of the stall, then K and J come in to see how I am doing – T goes into the next stall, peers over and begins taking pics of us while standing on the toilet, and pretty soon we are all laughing up a storm. T called them blog documentation.

We dusted ourselves off and walked out to the dance floor and Beyonce’s Crazy in Love was on full blast and I took A and lifted her into the air and twirled her. Then I did the same with D and J. All little petite girls I seem to be able to lift. Then S – not so petite – jumps into my arms and wrapped her legs around me and we twirled round and round to the music and she whispered in my ear – “nice recovery” – and I felt good and strong and safe because I had these strong women to care for me and was perfectly willing to have them do so for this evening.

One of the funniest things happened when A went for a run on the beach and two big dogs began chasing her and she freaked out and went into the ocean to get away and they kept her there barking at her. The owner ran out to get the dogs and was extremely apologetic but A, having been bitten before, was so shook up she screamed at him to get his dogs off of her and then she started crying. He took the dogs away, apologizing the whole time. She continued to run down the beach but her IPOD was ruined. When she came back, the man was waving to her and said again how sorry he was. She apologized for freaking out and he begged her to let him buy her another IPOD. She refused and realized this very handsome man with the English accent was actually Orlando Bloom, who was staying in a house with Johnny Depp because they are filming Pirates of the Caribbean 2. When A came back and told us her story – M said she was going to strap a pork chop to her ankle and run down there herself.

Then later on the beach talking to L and A – who met on jdate/Russian – were asking me about everything going on in my life and I tried to synopsize it all into bullet points and both were adamant in offering advice on what I should be doing but A said it is hard for you Rachel because you are a strong woman and men don’t like that. Yikes.

Saturday night some guys in the bar were staring at C’s wife’s ass, which caused a bar fight to erupt where S threw the first punch – B who threw a punch or two said he wasn’t in the best form – and all the girls wanted to see C’s wife’s ass the next morning on the beach because we wanted to see the ass that launched a thousand punches – H said later S must have attacked the guy with his sweater vest – and all laughed till we were sick again.

L said Sunday night at the party that she is leaving the company and I said, why? And she said because I’m moving to Africa and I couldn’t stop laughing – only because it was the answer I expected least from this little tiny speck of a girl but I got so tickled she just stared at me wondering why I thought it was so funny.

K – our fearless leader – was giving out his usual funny awards and awarded me the “true grit” award at our big party – for having braved Katrina while still managing to do my senior editor job – resounding applause from the 200+ people who have become a second family to me. If only he knew all that was braved. But I welped up so bad I was shaking when he handed me my cup.

Coming home Monday, S and I spotted a swing at the bar in the Freeport airport and went to have one last Mai Tai. H came over and the bartender was ribbing him for having all these pretty girls around him. H said, “Well, who you want to be is Ass Man because that one over there is going home to him and he is the lucky man tonight.” A thin smile crossed my lips and I said matter of factly: “he won’t be waiting for me when I get home.”

A tender warm welcome home missive was waiting on my first stop but H’s comment had taken me down a dark path where even now I can’t seem to see light. Arriving home with no Bean to greet me coupled with this morning’s dark rainy skies has made inside and outside one. S came later in the morning to bring the Bean and asked what was going on with N and me, and I told him, and he said, sounds like N has issues. Yeah.

Here I was thinking I was making progress – will be good to see E this afternoon to try to pry this elephant weight off my heart.

A very good session with E this evening – a “to do” list – big smile – this is close to my heart – I love to do lists! Meanwhile, left there and ran home to change for a community meeting for Mid City at the Parkway – the place was packed – the bartender was the same human phobe who bartended for N and the Snake’s non wedding (hate that guy) – the whole neighborhood turned out to see what they can do to help this neighborhood get back on its feet – N, Snake and I signed up and are going to pick committees but after leaving we decided on forming our own – bayou clean up committee – all we need are poles with nets and something to put the trash in.

Now home packing and got a missive from my dear, dear cousin S – she writes that my beloved Tia L was diagnosed with cancer late last year – thyroid – caught early so hopefully nipped in the bud, but oh my does it sadden me. My uncle H died so suddenly after retiring a few years ago – a tall strapping Polish Jew who slipped on ice and never recovered – similar to my dad who dropped dead of a massive heart attack in the midst of retirement twenty-one years ago. I have been remiss in communicating with Tia L with all the crap swirling around my life and this is just another casualty of my own myopia. S also writes that her husband E’s mother was diagnosed with renal cancer and her health is declining every day. And the last paragraph is about her daughter L, who was accepted to Oxford. Why is it that life’s joy is always delivered with a dose of sadness?

Thinking about getting ready to leave tomorrow morning – N said you need this trip and I think he’s right (in absence of the obvious we have become even better communicators) – sunshine and my colleagues, who have become a second family to me, will be a haven. I take with me new music, a printout of the desktop pic I thought I put away, and now I bring with me my heavy heart for my Tia L.

I grew up in many countries and cities and often for the summers my sister and I, being the youngest, were left at my grandmother’s here in Franklinton or my aunt’s in New York while my parents traveled. On the dairy farm, S and I washed horses with Prell shampoo, picked blackberries and snapped peas, ran around with watermelons on our head, dug tunnels in the hay, played with mutt puppies and went fishing. In Brooklyn, we played Russian Ten with pink Spalding balls against the sides of apartment buildings, ate Italian ices from the corner, tip toed carefully on the plastic runners Tia laid out on the carpet so nothing got dirty, ate the kibbe, tabouleh, barecas, chick pea salad (our Sepharadic delicacies) – she always took us even though she had her own kids and other responsibilities – always had tons of family she cared for – my grandfather (after he was let out of Cuba), my grandmother, Tio S as he suffered with stomach cancer, Tio V with his illness – a woman who cared for everyone without flinching – oh me. I sent her a thank you letter ten years ago for the care she gave me – the love she always provided – we speak often but not in the last seven months – I remember once we spoke of how all the men in our family died while the next generation boys were barely ready to take their place. So sad.

Ducks are getting in a row – clothes laid out for Bahamas – wish fulfillment took 11 hours but was worth it – everything that wasn’t said finally got said through electronic missives yet again – modern world – and so here we are. It’s a rainy day in New Orleans but not the good old soaking rain we are wont to get but rather the Seattle drizzle that makes everyone seem urban and introspective because of the Gomez like gloom.

L is a funk to end all funks – he tried to mess with my good mood last night but seeing how it took me all day to get there I was having none of it. He called today from Metairie needing the truck as he had made an impulsive buy and was suffering with buyers remorse outside the Whole Foods Store in a Store (the fact that this store which opened last year was grossly oversized, grossly overstocked and overstaffed brings some comfort in seeing it reduced to a store in a store post Katrina) – anyway I had an agenda but he was so gloomy I thought I could shift my sked and get over there and pick up his leather smoking chairs and help him out. It seemed to help.

Mom was called into graveyard shift last night because the night nurse didn’t show up – I worry about this nursing shortage we are having and how nurses at my mom’s age are being pushed to their limits.

Mardi Gras is already upon us – kingcakes lined the bakery at Dorignac’s – flags and door thingys in purple green and gold are appearing – N said the shop’s hood is already in Mardi Gras mode – I could use a little carnival right now. Everyone is walking around with I Heart New Orleans tee shirts on. God you have to love this city – possibly the best place on earth.

Sitting out in the courtyard by a tree that says Branche Du Bois – people are dining outside – the weather is perfect – jazz playing on speakers somewhere up in the eaves – laughter – clinks of silverware and glasses – good work out under my belt – sometimes the day can come around like G said – the day is an organism – alive and unruly – and it does come around – outsiders like to moan about our hot summers but I would trade all of their temperate climates for a night like tonight in January.

That’s not to say this evening could not be improved upon but right now it is close to perfect.

And the more my constructed dreams get torn asunder – the more new and more interesting ones open up before me. Now is the time of transition – it is the trapeze artist swinging from one bar to the next and in midair – where I now am – is when all the imagination occurs. Embrace it my dear girl. These are rare and opportunistic times.

Had I known which way this day was going I would have stayed in bed this morning – but no, in the spirit of every day is a fresh new day, I hopped out, took Arlene to walk around the bayou with L and his dogs. Came home, spoke to my group about the new year and rah rah rah – let’s get fired up – etc. – and then it started: went by to see H about getting mom in the Can and she said mom’s application was denied because post-Katrina she made too much money to get in. First strike.

Then went to N’s to get online and thought I was talking to her but she was in the back and didn’t hear me and then came out and said “you could have said hello” and a look – strike 2.

Shine’s office called and said first he can talk to me is the 19th – so all this hanging over me with LaLa and asset division goes with me to the Bahamas. Strike 3.

Next was being informed of the vitriolic missive that suggested I should not be allowed to have any contact with W anymore –reaction: explosive – saw red – shut down puter – walked out door – slam away in Blue.

Then to mom’s to tell her about the Can – she’s sick with the same cold everyone else has had and I felt horrible telling her. I tried to spin it in the best light I could – that if S moves into LaLa, I might not stay in midcity, so this might all be for the best because then we can figure out a new plan.

But the overriding question today has been – why can’t anything deliver on the promise?

Called N and apologized for miscommunication – called other N and apologized for hanging up – and then had long talk with S telling him where I am about LaLa etc. The best I could offer is we will figure it out. Everything is going to work out.

I just wished I could really embrace that feeling.

Meanwhile I removed the pic from my desktop; it is causing me nothing but agitation – and did not respond to a flight fantasy that features me in a familiar outlaw position – got a deep massage that helped calm the race car in the red provoked by someone who can’t separate a man from a boy – wanted to send a note to V since there has been no communication but know it would be like trying to speak to S – where anything I say incites more anger/hurt – best to let bdays slip by as well as more formal apologies – received a loving note from D and told her to keep them coming.

Now end the day with exercise – focus on small things I have control over and let the universe handle the larger details that I seem to have no control over and dole out the path as the fates see fit. Everything happens for a reason, right?

Mom and I were talking about the state of things and she kept asking “how are you?” and I snapped and said “I’m trying to tell you!” – the question grates like chewing glass no matter who asks it. Anyway she seemed not to notice even though I apologized for being testy and said, “Honey, I can remember coming to your school when you were in the 7th grade and watching you in the hall walking towards me … I remarked even then how you have a great walk, full of confidence, and I don’t know where you got it but that’s how I always think of you, confident.” Who was that girl? – I’m confident about these things only: I don’t know what the future holds and not sure I want to know either.

L and I talked about our past lives this morning as he exchanged poison arrows with P – in one he told her she’s a different woman than the one he married … and so is he … and so am I and so is S and so is N and perhaps so is V – it’s almost like everyone needs a reintroduction – uh, I’m not that same old silly person still in love with you.

Listening to Old 97’s as I put together a playlist for our Bahamas trip – Girls Trip is the title as the girls are not bringing spouses this year for the first time – A said no video cameras because she predicts girls gone wild – makes me laugh – reminds me of us in Key West a few years ago – just girls: “Who Let The Moms Out, Woof, Woof” – now playing: Rhett Miller singing “I’m wishing you were here/wishing I was too” – music up loud – the new neighbor J who lost his house and everything in it knocks – kind man – could you turn it down? – sorry.

The buck moth invasion seems to have abated to only dead ones on the sidewalk now. How long has it been since caterpillars hung from the trees and wasn’t there a big old hurricane or two in between and yet these buck moths found a way to swarm again. An again another fantastic day in the Crescent City in the dead of winter – need to get out there and take it in and shake off a night of wish fulfillment gone awry. A night of dreamless sleep — I think of Dr. Seuss: “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

The statement probably needs a little tweaking to really fit but it certainly alludes to fit and fit is what it was all about 4 me – r.specs – plan A – menu – more, more, more – Toady – grd – laughter while walking off the planet – the unnatural coincident with the who’d have known – the bizarre context.

Then the horns blow – the new id – and I hear confusion wafting in with the breeze and the question falls back to Rule #1 and responsibility and I want to say yours is to teach about life not to shield from it – proceed with unequivocal clarity that there is no blame and resilience will follow naturally, someone already said that – want to direct him back to that missive – but when it first arrives I feel an aching overwhelming need to protect, to insulate both of them from hurt –then the next: don’t want my ambivalence to keep hurting – let it coexist with your certainty, honey –liberate yourself from the burdens of the world, you are not the Great Shock Absorber – stop. None of us are super heros, we are people, feet of clay. But I say hardly any of this and fall back on my oath – that I cannot be objective so cannot respond.

We don’t have the right wardrobe to be super heroes – no matter how hard we are pressed into action. Need Edna Mode.

S said he is glad to not be living in my “need for perfection” world anymore. Another S told me in California that this super human tendency was going to kill me. 20 plus years ago K told me he often dreamt he was Superman because he thought that’s what I needed. He spent his REM time scooping me out of flaming cars and falling bridges. Note to self: talk to E.

Switch from Girls Trip playlist to one from N – Wolf Parade – “I am my father’s son” – is this what haunts u? – my first response – then next song: “I am not in love with the modern world” – this is what haunts me.