NYT quote of the day:
\n“I thought I could weather the storm, and I did \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it’s the aftermath that’s killing me.”
\nGINA BARBE, of New Orleans.<\/p>\n
Indeed Gina, coping mechanisms kick in and help most people endure crisis. As I lay in bed on Thursday morning last week and felt the 4.7 earthquake in San Francisco, I thought eh, are natural disasters stalking me. Later when I was served up my exact words in a painful delivery, I thought manmade disasters are definitely laying in wait for me. <\/p>\n
Reading Douglas Brinkley’s The Great Deluge I howled about a man on a roof who Mitch Landrieu was trying to rescue. Mitch said, come down man, we’re here to help you. The guy said, No! I want to be rescued by a helicopter! I relayed this to N and she said, I love this place! Bunch of nutballs. <\/p>\n
I walked the Bean late last night – the weather amazingly beautiful since I’ve gotten home – and passed an impromptu party on the bayou – D with her husband the biologist for the Corps (he said the bayou and the lake are the best quality they have been in decades) – they were with friends whose son was fishing – he caught a big perch while I was there and everyone screamed, titillated by a fish. When I walked away from them and got about 100 yards, I heard them scream again. <\/p>\n
K the carpenter brought his son back from Houston – they actually live in Michigan – N is a darling boy – when I went by the LaLa after being away K took me aside to say that he doesn’t pass judgment on people and that J – the guy I called a moron – was only being held down by S and that he was behaving accordingly – I didn’t stop to tell him that was all very well if he believed that but I don’t really want a moron working on my house. <\/p>\n
I admire altruistic behavior – I just don’t possess it. It’s why I couldn’t become a teacher. In the end, I didn’t want to undo years of bigotry and sexism and racism these kids’ parents had spoonfed them. I have had to overcome my own upbringing and am still working on it – along the way I hope I have helped people understand their own motivations by sharing my experiences – but I have done that through caring not through some higher consciousness that I feel compelled to prostelytize about – thank you K for your insights – I’ll take them into consideration when J installs the next vent so high up in the ceiling that it is a good foot and a half from the lowest rafter. <\/p>\n
My job this week is to prepare for a monster marketing trip next week – mentally, physically, and otherwise. It’s also to prep Arlene for her first trip to the Pet Emporium – a kennel – the pokey – oh horrors! It comes highly recommended but I hate putting her in the pokey and thinking about how she might feel abandoned to strangers. <\/p>\n
The NYT had an article about the suicide rates in New Orleans – having never contemplated suicide until the last 7 months and then many times over – I can relate – but I thought it was my only personal hell that was making death seem more attractive than life for the first time to me – from the article: “New Orleans is experiencing what appears to be a near epidemic of depression and post-traumatic stress disorders, one that mental health experts say is of an intensity rarely seen in this country. It is contributing to a suicide rate that state and local officials describe as close to triple what it was before Hurricane Katrina struck and the levees broke 10 months ago.” <\/p>\n
And in the aftermath Gina we are left to ponder how ephemeral it all really is – and after plunging the depths of sadness we will rise up, wiser and by that, better prepared. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NYT quote of the day: “I thought I could weather the storm, and I did \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it’s the aftermath that’s killing me.” GINA BARBE, of New Orleans. Indeed Gina, coping mechanisms kick in and help most people endure crisis. As I lay in bed on Thursday morning last week and felt the 4.7 earthquake in San Francisco, I thought eh, are natural disasters stalking me. Later when I was served up my exact words in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1kHSD-4p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}