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Woke up this morning looking like a MACK truck had run me over. After spending most of the morning motivating myself to get out of the house, I went to the gym and then the grocery, and came back to spend the rest of the day hanging out. While hanging out by myself is totally fine, today hanging out with my thoughts was not.

Long conversations with S about reinvigorating our work self. She has put together some pieces that are working well for her and had some insight into what might be some steps for me in media land. We both spent the day trying to eat ourselves out of house and home – some kind of hormonal craving that has yet to meet its match.

Then several long conversations with S who was at his new apartment in San Francisco sitting on the fire escape. He comes in tomorrow night and we have the week to sort through the rest of our belongings and separate further. His moving truck arrives with my cabinets for the LaLa all way ahead of any schedule and so the Can will now be stacked further with more wrapped boxed items that have no place here. One more thing to deal with. We talked about the advent of each of our “next” relationships and I was very clear I am not ready to even contemplate a next relationship. My heart, while squeezed to the point of almost breakage, is still where it was and doesn’t seem to be moving anywhere anytime soon – after so much time it is hard to “lose interest” even though as I told N, it would probably be easy for him if I was over him so that he has one less loose end to tie up, but he has no control over how my heart feels at this point.

S admittedly realizes that his “capacity to love” needs a rest before he contemplates moving into something new. But he, as I, miss the companionship that marriage offered. This sort of Sunday is evidence of that miss – we might be seeing a movie right now – or had gone out to lunch – to pass the time – instead I paced around and did errands and laundry and gym and spent the rest of the afternoon mentally masturbating about a man who still takes up too much mental real estate for what he offers under these less than ideal times.

L said he thinks I might be being given the soft blow rather than the crushing blow. I think it all doesn’t matter what I’m being handed, it’s more important about trying to accept how I feel in light of circumstances and to wrest control over run away thoughts. I don’t need to get over N so that I can move on and think of someone new – there doesn’t have to be someone new if not him – it’s more just trying to salvage my capacity to love and to make sure that I am capable of risking my heart again after all that has led to this point.

Today was a dreary cold day – one of maybe five winter days we’ve actually had to endure here. Mom made her “kill you or cure you” soup and I stayed away from her house like the plague as I have always detested that soup, even now with mature taste buds, the smell makes me cringe. She said that S is trying to come in for a visit some time soon. I wrote a long letter to my brother D who I haven’t corresponded with since Katrina.

Then I spoke with D who is in Florida right now visiting BJ’s parents. They arrive on Thursday and she is excited to be coming in for Mardi Gras. I told her W was looking forward to seeing J. And we talked about logistics for watching the parade and etc and I said not to worry that we’d figure it all out harmoniously. Try not to step on each others toes while everyone dealt with the smallness of New Orleans when everyone is trying to be removed from everyone else. It’ll all work out I said thinly.

Tomorrow is a work holiday and N and I will meet for lunch then a tour of the lower 9. I can’t believe I haven’t driven out there myself yet, but I guess, particularly on a day like today, gearing yourself to be depressed by what you see is a lot to ask in these post Katrina times.

Then Mardi Gras begins in earnest on Thursday.

We started off good – go to the gym THEN go to the parade, but half a muffin and Milan, Party, Columns, Markey’s later you wonder what is wrong with you that you would think you are 20 years younger and can go on like that. The parade was fast, rather five of them went by like one parade – rolling by so quickly we were all surprised when it was over just as we were ramping up. And at one point sitting at Markeys, later on, L said where is that N anyway and I said he has a new job as a weatherman – he predicted no rain and he was right on the money.

On St. Charles we watched the big floats and the makeshift signs they had put on them, and all remarked how great it is to have Mardi Gras and have people on floats throwing you beads and cups and little stuffed elephants and all sorts of stuff that you would never want under any other circumstances but for some reason they are treasures while the parade is rolling. My neck weighted down to the point that I looked like a seagull with a slump. The treasured catch was the Hubig cup – a big one – that was filled at the Columns much to early in the day. And I did the Electric Slide with an entire family on the neutral ground afterwards. My other fav was the multicolored stuffed elephant to add to my herd.

We had a good time and caught a lot of beads in a short period of time and made our way home somehow – L driving Blue – only to turn around and step out again – thankfully a little more low key this time around and food had to be and was a priority. Finally my blood sugar reached some sort of equilibrium.

But my favorite song of the day:

“I want to thank you for letting me be Les White again.”

My least favorite memory of the day:

M told me this morning she broke up with her boyfriend on Valentine’s Day – she sent him a text message and said “we are done” – hmfvd.

Stayed up late last night communicating with an old friend and woke this morning feeling slightly off kilter from lack of sleep and the rehashing of bygone days. I say this and I mean it – my emotional reserves are tapped out. Right now I can only concentrate on today and possibly make small plans for tomorrow but that is the extent of my abilities at the moment.

Tried to linger in bed to catch some more sleep but the Bean would not have it and so up it was and faced with two earnings calls today from companies I cover – one positive and the other a miss but not a big miss – as S said – you call that a miss? mine was 17% stock drop, yours, what? So levity to make the day more palatable and that is why you have friends.

Then off to August to have a yummy lunch with S who helped me get S’s chair – which I told S launched a thousand arguments – but it was good to spend several hours in conversation with someone I hardly know and discuss personal history, current state of affairs in the city, and a vision for going forward. I felt tapped in – and he asked me, are you committed to being here? and I replied, more than ever. And he said so was he, damn committed. That kind of certainty is a blessing.

I came back and wanted to crash and burn and nap but no rest for the weary – more work to deal with, make up for the flame yesterday, organize other things and prepare for the three day weekend and just when I thought I could enter into the footloose and fancy free part of that dream, the reality that my cell’s chord was messed up forced me to get in Blue on Friday afternoon and drive to Metairie – the zoo to end all zoos Post Katrina – and take care of it. Luckily it was a not so expensive solution and then was able to swing by and see mom who was still miffed over her own flame out she had had with the Mercedes dealer yesterday. But we passed the time talking about this and that and then I came back to the Can where I am looking for a respite. One well deserved.

S and I spoke about our need to motivate ourselves at work given the current environment in our industry and our utter lack of reserves to do so. Then S called from Long Beach to catch up and said he’d call later, but still mulling serious things that I keep telling him to let time handle because hopefully time will handle. I feel so depleted in the rehashing of things past, of the uncertainty of what is, that I truly feel like my body is saying enough. Stop the madness.

It’s supposed to rain on our parade tomorrow – 70% chance – but L and I made a plan rain or shine – if rain, Bloody Marys at the Milan – and so we’ll see what the day brings. Hopefully the rain will come early or late and miss our parade because as we both agreed we need a little Mardi Gras right now in our lives.

I cringe at the thought that someone might think my blog is a tell all because it’s not – there is so much that goes unsaid that involves having a wider readership than I originally thought and my need to buy into my own personal life philosophy – the one that says Fake it till You Make it – that I am writing for that future and not about the past. Don’t think my being doesn’t long for a different story to tell or I don’t have more to say about what was, but rest assured the story I am telling will be about grabbing life by its horns and galloping at full speed even if it involves lessons in patience that I must study on and become better at – because in the end we want everyone to come out of this whole. I’m just glad that those I love and hold dearly have the ability to see the humor in my critiques and not feel under attack.

Kick the lapdog
Kick him in the mouth

Tail between his legs
Never beg again.

Wednesday night L came over for dinner, which was delicious by the way. We sat around and chewed the fat and of course, the conversation turned to K and his desire to be the moral arbiter in relationships gone south. I told him to back down. I watched this tendency in my father – I’m right, and let me tell you why I’m right. He was right, most of the time, but at the end of the day who the hell cared – sometimes it just doesn’t matter if you are right – some things are just better dropped and left behind.

Wait I’m looking at this drawing that W did and left on my desk and I swear it is some kind of abstract elephant. Interesting.

Okay back to L – who S said she wants to spit on since it’s raining hard on him right now – but we hashed through all that there is with the myriad almost like he has become the Pied Piper – and so it all comes down to Door Number One being possibly best of choice – who is to say really. I am not a soothsayer.

S wrote later in response to an email I had sent him – Fun Forsooth, Love False – poetry running amuck these days amongst all the weary.

E, the electrician, called today and said that K said I was upset with him and he wanted to make sure I am not. Hmmm. I said of course I’m not. He said he would do his best to get the job done, putting mine before a long list he has and I said I appreciated it.

I think I am going to get a tattoo – saw a place on Magazine that looked interesting and the little redhead in my class this morning had a couple of interesting ones. Again, though, choices, what would it be?

So when L left last night we hugged tight and told each other how much we love each other and I sent him an email later that told him to tell J that not only am I there for him in sickness and health but also I would take Florence Nightengale to outer limits if needed.

Thursday morning – a kind of balmy gorgeous day again and I got through the morning’s work and ran off to Pilates that kicked my ass. When he came over to correct my shoulders as my legs were up in the air, I looked at him and said, I’m weak. He smiled and rubbed my shoulders and said, that’s why you’re here. And later in the midst of the third plank that almost made me break a sweat he said – you are so not weak honey. But I left feeling like I had climbed the mountain and back. So bizarre – I lift those heavy weights, run like the wind, rock out on the elipitical, and Pilates continues to be the biggest challenge I’ve put my body through.

Home again and issues with work – this and that – and waiting for 3 to pick up W and had a flame out from an unexpected source but in the end it will accomplish something that I have left to the cosmos and hey, it sent me into action and that action was beyond the pale needed.

Then at 3 waiting in line at Country Day and watching all the big ass SUVs in procession and the big sign in front of me that says “No Cell Phones” and every woman – yes all women – in their SUV had a cellphone in their ear. What the hell, you pay that kind of money you get to break the rules, no?

So W gets in the car and before he says hi, he says Bionicles 3 – and I’m like what no playground, no going to see N and Renny, and he said – Bionicles 3 – so back to the can, tried to have a conversation but he said movie movie movie. Okay dear – so we picked up from where it left off and it started with whatever that one’s name is saying “We all make mistakes when we are brave enough to make decisions” and I smiled to think that they were slipping some sort of life lesson into Bionicle 3 Web of Shadows – seemed like a little unfair exploitation of child brains.

Since the movie was almost over last time, we had to rewatch the entire thing from scratch again and I watched it this time – W was on one couch and I on the other, and he came over and jumped right on top of me and I was like woosh. So I got up and took him right over to the scale – 57 pounds – good god when did that happen? No wonder I can barely lift him or that he feels like he is cracking my ribs. But after he finished his jumping boyish routine, he settled into laying back on my arm and reaching for my hand to hold. The phone rang several times and finally I got up to make sure no emergencies and W said no, no, stay.

It was hard to imagine our possibly last afternoon for I don’t know how long being movie marathon so we built a fort, and I made dinner and he ate it under the fort with all sorts of barricades to make sure the Bean did not get to his food.

It is a warm sunny day here in New Orleans – N got me out of bed at 6:15 and so we scrambled to get down for playdate and she and I and Arlene and Renny had a wonderful walk around the bayou. And then I ran uptown to pick out tiles and suddenly felt totally different about being where I am in this point in time – I felt great – here I was picking out the tile myself – not paralyzed by a design decision that I normally would have left to my talented husband to do for me. I drove behind a pick up truck while on the way to the Office Depot and the guy’s license plate said IM HERS and his bumper sticker said in all caps I LOVE MY WIFE – made me smile.

Thought about getting the damn violation sticker off the back of my windshield and having something painted on the back of my truck – maybe RED or LALA or something like that or maybe NEW ORLEANS. Or maybe even KATRINA YOU BITCH!

Had a good talk with S who did a marathon Dr Phil night and came up with one gem to hold onto – “you are in love with who you wish him to be” – a keeper.

L coming over for gumbo tonight and a lesson in Itunes and the digital world.

All in all – one of those happy to be alive days and the first real day that feels like a beginning and not an end.

L called to say he hates the references to lapdog and lion that it reminds him of the Madonna/Whore complex that he said all us women bristle at and he and his male friends for years have been stewing over what women want – the sensitive man, the strong man, what?

I said both. If I was just Madonna, what healthy man would want me? If I was just the whore, ditto. But a balance of both is what both sexes need and want. It’s when one takes a dominant stance that it becomes unattractive. And what I was trying to say is the lion should coexist with the lapdog, but instead what I have been experiencing is one aspect overshadowing the other, a split personality rather than a coexistence of the two, which is heartbreaking because it’s like Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. And that is when it becomes an overarching issue.

Maybe L and I could collaborate on a book – not the kind of black and white self-help guide from the guy from Sex and the City who wrote “He’s Just Not Into You” or the retort that she’s just not into you either but rather the more complicated call and response of man to a woman and vice versa that represents a need for any of us to summon the appropriate persona in response to a call for action. And to allow both sides of us to flourish, or all sides, because women have the lion and lapdog persona too.

My greatest fear is seeing a beautiful aspect of a man being eclipsed.

Sitting here listening to a Valentine cd I put together for all my valentines – the Snake, L, H, etc – but my Itunes isn’t working right so now I am just listening to it myself right now. The Billy Bob Thornton “I used to be a lion” seems to have been the topic of all conversation today. I used to be a lion, I don’t have to cry to hold my head up high, I don’t have the strength to make the kill, these days I don’t run free, I’m just passing by, waking up at all is my only thrill……

Or in words not on the song – my foot is off the gas pedal right now……..

Reminds me of a missive I sent when I thought things were headed differently – the lion needs a wide path to roam – I learned this from working at The Nature Conservancy with the lions in Southern California, they have very large roaming range and when confined they shut down and sometimes die.

Morning started with me asserting myself (something I don’t do in personal but oh so fn well in professional) – following E’s mantra to take care of myself and put myself first – and the response was tepid. And I thought where’s the lion? All I heard was the lapdog. So I threw out all reminders.

So then I was speaking to L about his myriad of plums that hang ripe from the oak trees here – all fraught with some sort of infestation – and I heard his plea for not wanting to pick except the choicest one, but goodness how do you know unless you taste it? And I want to throw him off a cliff sometimes.

So we made a date for later and I bought him flowers from E who has positioned himself outside Terranova with some gorgeous choices and then I was called to the LaLa to meet E the electrician who B told his worker to get the f off the job and now we asked him to come back after all. He said where is S and I said, sorry to report, we’re separated and he’s back in California and then we sat around and chewed on failed marriages and regrets and what to do next. E’s anniversary is today – 15 years. We choked on the inability to see the way into the future sometimes. He’s tied by horses he has no where to house and sick that she is more concerned with the six dogs and the two sons who have returned home to mooch off the gravy train that he said “I busted my ass for”. But the story of his first wife was even more lamentable – left, went back, MS, still in a wheel chair, now in Tennessee with the oldest son – good grief – sounded like a novel that then later S and I couldn’t remember the title of – was it an Edith Wharton or a George Eliot novel?

While E and I contemplated marriage and the end of love we stared at the beautiful bayou from the porch of the LaLa and remarked how it was a beautiful day and we wished we could just relish it but there was more work to do and how difficult that is in the wake of Katrina. But the most striking thing about E was how much he resembled K, my first husband. Only taller. The tattoo on the arm was an extra kick and suddenly I felt my mojo was working in spades as we talked about things to come although those things had nothing to do with anything but our own paths. And he left saying, well nice to meet you and Happy Valentines Ms. Rachel.

So then back to the lion again – I spoke with S later about the disconcerting part of the morning and he said he didn’t see it that way and still saw hope despite the reappearance of the lapdog – and I just said pishaw – but later said, well maybe, small crack in the door kind of hope nothing big. But later when I went for my session with E we spoke at length about the lion and the lapdog and she said can you accept that both exist in the same person? And I said yes, but I was attracted to the lion. And she said could you accept if the lapdog is the larger part of the man and she told me to think about it but I answered then, no. I met S with the understanding of my nature that I wanted the Antony to my Cleopatra – as L said you are big, you don’t fade to background easily – I want my match, not something beautiful to pet. S was that in spades. Important. He maybe lacked a little of the lapdog that is the part that is tender and appreciative and that was our undoing. So yes I could accept that a part is the lapdog particularly since that side comes with unbelieveable tenderness. But not more than 50% of the man. No, that is not attractive to me.

So came home and called S to check in and he was just out of meetings in SF and we spoke about the current state of the union and my stomach tightened because I want him happy and we both don’t want the other to be hurt anymore. He’s vulnerable and despite the man’s levelheadedness in most all things I sensed a weakness and predisposition to seeking the light he missed in me in the last years – and you have to say what if? Here S is, one of the five heterosexual men in SF right now in one of his prime moments.

Hope dies last.

Eight years ago I had a recurring dream that Steve would remarry, have children, and I would, what?, get Christmas cards of the family – imagine.

L blew me off for a better offer and so I brought the stargazers to mom and she said they are her favorite and you (me) are my special valentine – what a sweetie – she said her first love, W, had called today – he calls so often and she said I would have been no good for him because I was going here and there at that age and I said but what about now, you are not that age and are a different woman. In the paper today was a photo of a man who begged her to marry him in 1989 and there he was with six kids and a wife and she said, as if. She said she has never loved like W and I said well you never know – who knew that I could open my heart to every inch for someone like I did. Although I told S, nobody but N could have opened it like that for me – damn that he was S’s best friend. That surely was unfortunate.

My brother R called from Atlanta and said come here now and have some cocktails girl, you need it. And then my other brother there, B, called and said let’s meet in Gulfport and raise a glass. I had the luxury of growing up around men – dad and four boys not to mention uncles that are priceless in their eccentricities and was I lucky? Yes, four brothers, all their own men. And even better I was the baby, so I sat in laps from birth till I left the house – and sometimes still sit in their laps now despite sometimes having one of theirs in my lap at the same time – DOG PILE – we love it.

And mom asked so, will the lapdog become the lion? and I said I just don’t know. But I’m cool with that. And she said, oh honey, I’m glad to hear that out of your mouth finally.

Since the bayou was so inviting I went for a run in the afternoon before my session with E – and it was a great run – the kind where your body responds on all levels – and I stopped at the LaLa mailbox to see what was poking out there and there was a Valentine! A sweet missive and little bar of sweet smelling soap and I was happy to have it and I cherished it carrying it home on the rest of my run.

So hmfvd and life is amazing sometimes thankfully. But the song is playing again after all this and it is melancholic and I think of BBT with that tattoo on his arm that is hard to remove. I ate a coconut Hubig’s pie for my dinner. And wonder if sadness can be sung then I share it with the multitudes and rest easy tonight knowing that it is the lion I dream of, and not the lapdog. I pulled one single heart on a pink piece of paper out of the garbage.

Finally on Sunday, mom was able to leave the hospital and go back to her hovel that is improving somewhat – the street cleaners did a major purge of all the apartment regurgitation along her block. Sunday was a nice linger in the bed sort of day except for a lot of phone calls that kept waking me from my resleep. Then Sunday night was a lovely dinner of green onion sausage from Terranova at L’s and the company was good. Then Monday was nonstop phone day.

There is some movement happening on the LaLa – electrician tomorrow, floor guy Wednesday, and expectations of the framers showing up in another week or so. Of course, still no idea of the scope of cost on this enterprise.

Talk this week at work is centered around hoping for the buy out – if and when it does happen. But no one knows really at this point. 55 targeted – 38 responses. We’ll see where that leads.

The parades have all been shuffled around time wise – a lot starting earlier than they should, none in midcity as they even moved Endymion uptown which of course means it will never come back here.

S called from LA and then Oakland with his game plan – sigh – and the rock rolls. Yet there is champagne to drink, and more dividing up to do, and so it goes.

The sun was out today but chilly and rain expected in spades for the parades this weekend – we’ll hope that rain passes us by, we can take a little cold, but rain on a parade is never good.

Crawfish pie last night was delicious – the food is the reason why people can’t leave this city no matter what the circumstances are that they face in staying. We took Blue down to MiMis and were surprised by how few people had assembled moments before the first parade of the season was to begin. The crowd filled out as the parade rolled in but not to any degree that I have seen that crowd before. The floats were funny with Katrina Ejaculation and Cuntraflow – I caught a surprising amount of beads, or rather was handed them. The temperature dropped about 10 degrees while we were out there and as everyone rushed on into the Marigny – we evaluated and knew that once in it would be hard to extricate ourselves so we detoured to Pal’s and spent the rest of the evening there.

P called from Texas formulating our plan for Mardi Gras – told him he was welcome here and if he wanted to go between N’s house and mine that wasn’t a problem. There is no animosity between N and I. I told him I am still practicing the Electric Slide – the girls – N, T and I – were doing it before we left for the parade last night – so that we can perfect it while he is here. P says he wants to sit on the porch of the Columns and enjoy a cocktail. I haven’t done that since preKatrina – it sounds wonderful.

L called with his ruminations this morning having missed the activity last night since he was feeling peaked. We talked about our predisposition to a certain type that may or may not be fraught with conventional backlash. We spoke about our mothers and how now is the time to take care of them. When W and I had run to my mother’s house the other day I noticed, because W wanted to investigate every room he had not seen before, her closet rod had fallen and all her clothes and stuff were heaped on the closet floor. I need to go take care of her and the closet today.

As I was leaving the hospital yesterday, the sheetrock contractor called and said they had been waiting for word to go back and finish as B had told them the electrician needed to finish the boxes before they could come back. At least I know why no one has been at the house all week. I sent a terse email to K to take care of this and had thought she was taking care of this. It’s like I am the contractor for the contractor etc etc. I don’t mind the role – anything to get this house moving along. S said to me in an email that N was his revenge on me, and I said I think the LaLa might be your revenge the way I’m feeling right now. He said one day the house will be finished and it will be great – I don’t see the light yet.

Sitting in Pal’s last night N made a comment to J about my doings and I heard her from where I was sitting and thought on the surface it sounds bad, but I wasn’t going to provide the backstory that might have changed his reception of that information. Last Wednesday, N wrote and said he had hit bottom and felt nothing. I’m hoping his mother’s visit provided a salve for his emptiness. But I woke this morning and felt his words ring in my head – I have hit bottom – I don’t see how much lower it could go. The parade and friends were my salve last night but the cold crisp morning air when I woke made me say aloud – I feel nothing.

Wouldn’t it be nice to wind back the clock and go back to more comfortable days when life had a certain structure to it and the people in my life had roles that were knowable and people’s feelings were pretty much in tune with simply enjoying the fruits of our labor? But the truth is forces were amongst us pushing and pulling us all into the eye of the storm and as the woman in the elevator said to me yesterday – we are going to come back and we are going to be stronger, you have to trust in that. It’s called hope.

It doesn’t look like mom is getting out of the hospital yet, she’s still weak and not eating. I laid at the foot of her bed while she slept and listened to the woman in the room next door howling like a wild animal – obviously dementia – mom says her rantings have a pattern that begin with talking to someone, then ranting, then wailing. I kept trying to remain calm as I watched mom sleep and listened to the heartwrenching cries of the woman, but it made me so sad that I just wept and held on tight to my mother’s legs.

L was a no show this morning – that old dog. N and the Snake are across the lake but coming in midday and everyone meeting here for food early afternoon so we can get to MiMi’s for the parade. Yesterday was a Gomez day – rainy and dreary. S called from Portland and said it was cold cold cold there and he could never live in that kind of cold. He met someone, an outdoors type, I had to chuckle because of his aversion to the great outdoors. But then by evening he was feeling the weight of it all too.

No one has been to the LaLa house all week. The surge in starting with new people was a glitch, it’s back to the same old inertia that has colored the work on that house from day one. It’s so unsettling.

But first parade tonight, a welcome diversion.