Detail Girl
L said it is a Southern thing that I cannot tell a story without digressing but Eudora Welty said Southerners live their narratives and that’s what I am trying to tell him – it’s all about the details. So when he said have you heard from? and I said well and then digressed.
The Falling Dangermonds were on display again yesterday – S said he fell several times on the float and I fell yesterday pre-cocktails while running – my knee is skinned close to where last Mardi Gras’ scar is – and so some things never change.
Yesterday the plan was to wait for the night parades, but L was starting to hedge and N and S both called to say the crowds were nuts already for the day parades so I got itchy and when mom and S cancelled lunch I went on to the parades. Met all the peeps at the corner of Perrrier and Napoleon and P came over to meet us and the parades were fun fun fun. Jello shots from the Milan, lots of beads, and everyone in costume. At one point S turned to me and said I should kill you – I laughed. We were at the Milan during one of the breaks and we met a 6’10” basketball player and his friends who decided to join us at the table – one of them asked S if I was his girlfriend and S said no, my ex-wife, and he said how could you leave her and S looked at me and said I am going to choke you. And so it is.
Bacchus was awesome – the Baccagator as big as ever – but I could not accomodate one more bead around my neck – and finally backed away from the front lines to observe the spectacle from afar. N’s daughter-in-law B is cute as a bug with her big lip earrings. D&B kept texting but we never saw them as the crowds grew denser. At one point S and I walked towards N’s corner to give him jello shots but he wasn’t there and so we distributed them to the gratefully unknown.
Meanwhile, S came home and ended up spending the night here after he fell asleep on the couch – and I dreamt of marathons and angels and woke with a longing to get back to the ease of making plans for marathons and for the casualness of dropping by. Yesterday, S walked over to N’s to use the bathroom and I said snatch W up for me and give him a kiss but S said W was busy having fun and barely noticed him – he said he kissed N bye. And all of these absences make my entire body and mind ache like something has been ripped from within leaving gashing wounds behind.
PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES LYRICS
“A Certain Cemetery”
What do you do when your angels
Have all flown away?
There’s an ache through my body
That just won’t go away
Here’s a picture that we took last fall
See there you haven’t aged at all
But you, have a smile I haven’t seen around
Lately you’re as dark as this town
And I know it seems like nothing changes
Days go by and we just age
Well, killing time can feel so right
In your bedroom without the lights
Let’s get old together
Make promises and lie but never
Let this city get the best of us
Grow apart from the things we love
Make a wish with a coin in a fountain
They pound the floor when they say we’re
Making too much noise in the apartment below
We’ve got no morning jobs to go to
Late night dreams and a whole lot of wishing
All the secrets that we’re not telling
Cities sometimes just blend together and it feels we’ve
Been away forever
We should really only have one care
To get back to the room that we both share
So whisper and tell me where I went wrong
Tell me why everything around you lost its shine
Why nothing glows
Tell me why you’re waiting, or what you’re waiting for
Never seen when opportunity is at your door
Let’s get out of this mess
No one will even know we left
No use on dwelling on the thing you’ll soon forget
When this is over, it’s alright