Last night at Swirl just in conversation I said three cuss words – $60. Oh well, I’m trying but the jar is getting rich off my inability to turn off the cussing spout. Meanwhile, a while back I wrote that I’m trying to change my life a thought at a time. Well, during Mardi Gras I didn’t meditate once, but yesterday I finally did and it opened up my day because I was able to…
I went last night to watch the Sacred Harp at the Fairgrinds Coffee Shop, put on by the New Orleans Afrikan Film Festival and was impressed to see a packed house. Only the film itself was about an hour too long for me because I didn’t find anything sacred in scared harp singing other than from an historical point of view. Someone said there were no black people singing sacred harp and I thought well,…
I’m sitting here looking out the blue blue bayou and thinking of Japan. It’s nighttime there and people are dealing with stranded transportation systems, telephones and communication systems down. And dead loved ones. In one second your life is turned upside down. How people endure tragedy – natural to human made is still a mystery to me – a testament to the human spirit. I still haven’t gotten my own Federal Flood/Katrina tattoo – nor…
I’m sort of surprised after listening to It’s New Orleans! podcast on gay life in New Orleans that there is no history written about this subject, but stay tuned because Frank Perez’s book In Exile will be out soon. I’m also surprised that it’s 2011 and being gay still has to be defined, has to be labelled, has to be out there – different and queer.
The podcast I was interviewed for on It’s New Orleans! is live – have a listen: It’s New Orleans! Geaux Gay! – Four New Orleanians walk into a bar, how many are gay? In this case 3.5. All the variations of gay New Orleans emerge over cocktails and discover they have more in common than they thought.
I thought I was finished with cussing when last night I went to bed with a hot cup of ginger tea I had made by slicing some fresh coins of ginger into a cup of boiling water, and then I spilled the entire cup on the bed, on Loca’s bed, on my slippers and so I managed to say more cuss words in that one moment than I had in two days of my cussing…
Yesterday morning, I spoke to a friend and without too many words we were both able to place our moods and thoughts. Yesterday afternoon, I walked down from my office while Tin was still sleeping, it was about 5:30 and the bayou was so vividly blue through my window that I was struck by the beauty. Yesterday evening, when Tatjana called from New York I put her on speaker phone to say good night to…
Last night I crawled in bed with William Trevor’s short stories reading about the old drunk who was a war hero and the unmarried vacationing on the Mediterranean leading their second best lives, and was so happy to be going to sleep early as I have been exhausted over the Mardi Gras period. Then Tin started singing from the crib, “Oh When The Saints – Go Marchin In – On When The Saints Go Marching…
While Wisconsin took one step backward, Illinois took one step forward in abolishing the death penalty.