Chief White Cloud

Last night I made my last visit to the Grouchy Norwegian’s Ghetto Laundromat. The weather was insufferably hot and the GNGL has no air-conditioning, as I believe I mentioned. The GN has put out a suggestion box. That one’s obvious: AIR CONDITIONING, dumbass. Also, quit feeding those pigeons and encouraging them to come right in the laundromat and dive-bomb your customers and panic and fly into the windows.

An older gentleman with a handlebar moustache, a vagabond type, emptied the contents of his backpack into a washer, then he took of his shirt and put it in, then sat down, unlaced his boots, pulled off his socks and put them in. I was afraid he was going to take his jeans off. If I hadn’t been there, he probably would have. Two other very attractive though grungy looking guys my age came in later.

But it was just so hot, it made me grouchy. It made me feel like I didn’t want anyone to stand within five feet of me. It made physical contact seem highly undesirable. It made sex seem like a completely unappealing notion.

So I sat there and read the new issue of Harper’s and sweated and the old guy checked me out and I got further annoyed. Then the GL came out and gave us all some pens that he had made up as promotional items. It turns out that the real name of the GNGL is “Chief White Cloud Self Laundry Mat.” Who knew? There’s no signage out front, just a big four-leaf clover design tacked to the front of the building, which doesn’t really suggest the name “Chief White Cloud.”

Oh, Grouchy Norwegian Man, I know you like me and I have a certain disgruntled affection for you, but I will never, ever use your crappy laundromat again.

Everyone should read the new Harper’s. There’s an essay by a Christian who explains why American fundamentalism isn’t really Christianity and a story about Formosan termites in New Orleans, but the main attraction is an article that details the documented Republican shenanigans in Ohio in the last election that clearly violated voters’ rights and possibly really did amount to the stealing of the election. The exit polls might have been a true reflection of how voters thought they voted. And we all shrugged and rolled over.

Maine

I have only just finished backposting everything I'm going to write about my trip to Maine, so scroll down if you're interested.

Wish I was still there. Current temp 97 degrees, not counting heat index.

Big Rue

This is an interior photo of the big Rue, looking uncharacteristically unpopulated. Besides Miss S and various other neighborhood characters, the main things I’m going to miss about my old neighborhood are the big Rue and Sophie’s Ice Cream.

Packing yesterday, I found some old stories and essays. The fiction was pretty good on a sentence and paragraph level. The essays were a little more coherent as a whole. But they reeked of unhappiness. I think I’m a better writer when I’m miserable—I write compulsively in an attempt to exorcise the pain.

I’m happier now, but it’s not like life is a perfect dream of bliss. Surely I can scrape up enough disgruntlement for an essay a month, first one due the end of August?

In yesterday’s NYT, there was an article about a chick blogger who blogged her way into a big book deal. She’s a girl-about-town in NYC with thousands of readers. I don’t know if my life is glamorous enough to interest that many people. Not enough sex, as MM helpfully pointed out.

Sweating, my favorite hobby

Jeez, what a miserable weekend. Especially Sunday. It was so unbelievably hot. The relatively powerful and efficient window unit in the kitchen has crapped out, and the one in the bedroom can barely cool a cardboard box. Miss S invited me to go shopping in the suburbs with her. I turned her down because I’m broke, but I should have gone for the shopping-mall air-conditioning. Instead I stayed home and packed, and when things got too unbearable I (twice) ran a cold bath and dumped ice cubes in it and sat in the bathtub till the ice cubes melted. Yes, it was so hot that a bath with ice cubes was pleasant. In fact, it was the only good part of the day. But I did get a lot of packing done. The end is in sight. This is my last week of work and my last week in my crappy, sweaty apartment. Soon I will be in my new house with central air conditioning! And a washer and dryer and dishwasher! It’s going to change everything!

Anyway, this is a picture of Miss P aiding the packing process by holding down the stack of newspapers and helpfully shredding them.

Suckered again

Too bad, it would have been great for TLS to have an alum on the Supreme Court, plus Edith is such a retro-cool name. Plus it chafes just a little to see the first woman on the court replaced by yet another white guy.

I think I've demonstrated that my psychic powers are piss-poor, whether used to predict the future of my love life or politics.

So, about this Roberts fellow--it could have been worse, I guess. Except that the abortion thing is worrying. I know that there is a possibly insurmountable philosophical divide between my view of humanity as nature's glorious accident and the idea that each individual human life is deliberately and consciously shaped by god. But in practical terms, as long as humanity exists as we know it, you will never stop teenagers from fucking each other, you will never get everyone to be responsible about birth control, you will never limit sex within the confines of marriages, you will never get to the point where every pregnancy is planned and wanted and you will never, ever, ever prevent some women and girls from aborting or trying to abort their pregnancies. The goverment can't stop that and ought not to try. I guess you could say the same of murder or crime in general, but I simply do not accept that killing a fetus is analogous to killing a person who has an established existence in this world. In any case, illegal abortions are liable to kill more than just the fetus.

Young women are increasingly "pro-life," they are increasingly conservative and romanticize some kind of 50s ideal of love, marriage and women's role in society. But they do so from the privileged position of having choices. Their career options go beyond secretary, teacher or nurse. They can marry who they want and get a divorce if the marriage proves to be oppressive. Motherhood is a choice for them, not a default setting. They don't appreciate what they have, or how much they would regret losing it.

Although I've demonstrated that I'm bad at predicting the future, I do think that in the natural course of a secular society, the balance of power will gradually tip in favor of women. By that I DON'T mean that men will or should be oppressed in the way that, historically, women were. I mean that, speaking in averages and generalities, women are somewhat better suited to thriving in this society as it is evolving, and are coming to need men less than men need women. But the power of women, actual and potential, is completely terrifying to many (maybe most) people, including women. In fact, I think that fear is one of the main engines of fundamentalism.

Yes, I am a feminist, with no equivocation or apology. Yes, I like men and sympathize with them--academic victim feminisim has been too hostile to them, and has at least partially earned the beating it's taken. But I'm not inferior to any man. I'm smarter than most of them and probably braver and tougher than a good many, too. I'm not going to shrink myself down for the sake of getting along with them, which might be why I'm single. But so be it--that's the beauty of this society right now--I don't need a man, I can make my own living and buy my own house and get laid (in theory) without compromising my freedom. If I'd been born 50 years earlier, that wouldn't be so easy to say.

Rumor has it

that a Tulane law alum, Edith Brown Clement, will be Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court. At first glance, she seems not completely objectionable.

My summer of romantic embarrassment

What was I saying about how maybe the UD was only interested in my musical knowledge and old-school savvy? I invited him to hear the Haunted Hearts at the Circle Bar. He'd never heard of the band but liked them a lot. It was fun, but when the show was over he bolted--I mean he practically ran away. Am I really that freaking scary? Jeez.

In other news, my sinuses are staging a violent revolt against being back in New Orleans. I was sick all weekend. Managed to do a little packing between bouts of hacking up phlegm. Every practical matter regarding leaving my job, moving and starting school is proving to be a complete pain in the ass.

Send money, antihistamines and handsome brave young men.

It's time

It's been three months and ten days since last I got laid or had a date. That's not the longest break ever, but I've been feeling a little horny and skin-hungry. Also, I've been thinking that my window of opportunity for fooling around with cute 24-year-olds is probably somewhat narrow--that's not a huge tragedy, I like em old and crusty, too--but still. So...I have a date with the UD tomorrow night.

All I had to do was ask. I'm just a little annoyed that he didn't do the asking, but after all I'm twelve years older than him and probably not like the girls he's used to. It's no surprise or terrible failing if he feels a little unsure of himself around me.

Part of me feels a little sketchy for going after someone that young. But I think older women are good for younger men. The trick is to keep it light and fun, not start thinking it's going to last forever, and leave him better than I found him.

Of course it's always possible that he's not thinking of it as a date. Maybe he thinks it will be an interesting cultural experience to hang out with someone who remembers most of the 70s and all of the 80s. Maybe he just wants to talk about records.

In the meantime I will be backfilling some posts about my trip, complete with cameraphone illustrations.

Lewiston

The ride back to Boston took longer than going up. I changed buses in Bangor, and then we stopped in Lewiston, Portland, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire before making it to Boston.

Lewiston is the second biggest town in Maine, but it isn’t all that big. Around 35,000 people, and kind of depressed with a kind of skuzzy adult bookstore kind of downtown. A bunch of Somali people were waiting at the bus stop, about six got on the bus. I guessed they were Somali—the women were wearing Muslim-style robes and veils, but in bright prints unlike those worn in the middle east. Later, I did some internet research and found that my guess had been correct. I read that about 2000 Somali immigrants had moved from Atlanta to Lewiston, and that the mayor and some other residents were not happy about it because they were a drain on city services. I found a vaguely white supremacist website that claimed that they had chosen Lewiston for the generous welfare benefits. And maybe they did. But how strange it must be to move from east Africa to Lewiston, Maine, where the sun is weak even in July. It seems like a recipe for depression and alienation to me. I guess it helps that they moved in a group.

The website reminded us that these are people who engage in female circumcision. And I have to admit that my lefty tolerance ends before you get to cutting off the wondrous and beloved clit. The practice is strong evidence of the connection between fundamentalism and the fear and hatred of women.

The women wear these costumes, which are beautiful yet also seem a kind of stigma. The men wear regular western clothes. A teenage boy sat next to me, behind his mother. He was trying for an African-American urban gangsta look, with the big baggy jeans and all, but it didn’t quite work. He was wearing a trucker hat with “Pueto Rico” (sic) spelled out across the front.

In Portland, the driver announced that we had time to go the bathroom or get something to eat, so I decided to get out. I asked the boy to excuse me. He didn’t get up out of his seat to make room for me, so I squeezed past him. Same thing when I was getting back in, except I tripped and fell into his lap.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, but with some annoyance at his apparent rudeness. Could he hear that? Probably not. Later it occurred to me that he had enjoyed having my ass in his lap. In Portsmouth, he asked me in accented English if I needed to get out. No, I told him.

Last night

My last night in Maine, N took me out for a yummy, decadent dinner of fried clams and the trimmings and a hot fudge sundae on this fried pancake kind of thing. (Miss S and I were recently discussing the yumminess and ubiquity of fried dough, how every cuisine has some version of it, from beignets to funnel cakes and beyond.)

There was only one parking space available when we got there. N did a good job of getting in with enough room on both sides for us to get out. The girl who owned the SUV in the next spot yelled down from the balcony that she wished she wouldn’t park so close because she wouldn’t be able to get in her vehicle. N yelled back that if she could get out of her car, anyone could get into the SUV. The girl and her boyfriend glared at us as the hostess led us to our table, and when they left the guy flipped the bird to N. N just laughed at them. Maybe I should mention that N is the same age as my mother.

She has no qualms about being confrontational with obnoxious strangers, but she can’t seem to ask MAD to leave. Apparently, MAD was supposed stay for a few weeks while she looked for a place, but she’s dug in. She was nice enough to me, but I can see that that she’s driving N nuts and I can see why. N runs the greenest, most chemically and ecologically sensitive household that can be managed without it turning into a huge pain in the ass. But if you leave a crumb of bread on the cutting board or use a drop of lighter fluid to start a fire, MAD passive-aggressively acts like you’re going to kill her. She’s just way to delicate to live in the world, even in N’s house.

Anyway, a few more pictures from Maine:

Bruiser the seagull wants your lunch

I'm no expert, but the seagulls of Maine seem quite a bit bigger than the seagulls of the gulf coast. I thought this one (who looked like it weighed about 40 pounds) was going to snatch the sandwich right out of my hand. They also have these little bitty red squirrels that live on the edge of the woods and beach and will boldly challenge the seagulls for their share of what you thought was your food.

Wish the pictures were better, but I understand the get-smart cameraphone technology is improving by the second.



Later that day, the sun came out and it got almost hot. I hiked around Long Pond. It was completely beautiful and peaceful. The water looked so clear and cool. I was sorry I didn't bring a bathing suit. Later, N told me she knows a place where you can skinny dip in peace. I hope to take advantage next time. That was the only flaw in my time here--no swimming.

The kind of rainy day I don't mind

TS Cindy followed me north and made Saturday a rainy day in Maine. N’s boarder MAD (really, and more on that later) was going into Bar Harbor for an afternoon wedding and offered to let me ride in with her. So I spent a cold rainy afternoon in Bar Harbor. I ate some good cheap fish (haddock) and chips in a tiny storefront restaurant and had hot chocolate in a coffee shop and listened to the rain and spied on the other customers.

Back at the house, I got back in bed and finished my book. I didn’t mind the rain at all. It was peaceful and pleasant to be away from home, my worries back where I left them.

After the sun went down it was truly cold. N made a fire in the stove and cooked mushroom risotto.

Even more about writing

N & I had dinner with blueberry pie and ice cream for dessert, and stayed up and talked about politics, religion, families and sex.

I told her about R’s comment about me being a great fiction writer. Her response was that I am not a fiction writer, that it’s completely obvious that I’m a great nonfiction writer. One of the best at B, in fact. But that she misses the “edge” I used to have. I think she likes the drinking and screwing around Miss H more than the philosophizing and pontificating Miss H, at least in print. And I understand that the former is more fun to read. But more on my alleged “edge” in a moment.

It’s completely maddening to listen to other people’s opinions of what kind of writer I am or should be, but nonetheless I think it would be a mistake to dismiss their comments. They are both smart, discerning people, and good writers themselves, who have known me and read my work for quite awhile. They take my talents seriously, which is a compliment that I have to take seriously.

As for their conflicting opinions, it should be noted that N never read the stories that R did, and R never read the essays I was doing at B.

I don’t think that either one begrudges me the desire to find another way of making a living—if they do, they shouldn’t. They both know what it’s like to try to make a living writing and doing all the side jobs that writers typically do—teaching and selling books and writing newspaper journalism or press releases and having frustrating conversations with agents and publishers.

I think they’re disappointed, as I am, that I haven’t yet found the right outlet for my abilities. I haven’t quite found my material. We all agree that it would be shame if I stopped trying. But I’m not giving up.

In fact, I’ve done my best work when I was busiest and had the least amount of time for it, which gives me hope. Although law school will have to come first, I’m going to attempt to do one fairly polished essay or story a month, no matter if I feel inspired or not. Just like when I was at B. If I have a little time, I can send them out to magazines, and at least I can put them here where a few people might read them. I’m actually pretty interested in what I could do with this blog, or another one. I’d like to develop it beyond what it is now. I’m still experimenting.

I can’t pretend that law school isn’t going to be an obstacle to writing. And I worry that maybe it will make me a worse writer. But what if I called it off?

It’s scary to know that half the writers in the gulf south have applied for my job. It makes me uneasy to give up something that’s in such high demand. Yet, at this point, staying with it would seem like a let down.

Nor do I have some kind of big writing project in mind. Well, I have one, maybe, but the subject is such that I would feel like a sucker for devoting that much time thinking about it.

Anyway, N and I are both inspired by the example of a writer she’s been reading, Mary Wesley, who wrote the first of a series of novels when she was in her 70s.

It’s not too late, it’s never too late, until you’re dead.

N’s comments about my edginess reminded me of the film Ghost World, which I recently saw for the third time. I love it, though it’s so painful to watch. I used to be so much like Enid, so reflexively mean and contemptuous and above it all, but in a way that was almost necessary for self-protection. That was the edge that was in almost everything I wrote when I lived in Memphis. I’m sure it was fun to read, and it was probably fun for some of the people around me, at least those who weren’t the targets of my scorn. But it was miserable for me, just as Enid is quite obviously miserable. It’s funny, for part of that time I was married, and my husband was quite a lot like Seymour, only heavier and with somewhat different musical obsessions. Now, in a case of karmic revenge, I feel like I’m turning into Seymour.

The view from Flying Mountain

I borrowed N’s bicycle and rode to the head of the Flying Mountain Trail. It’s a fairly short, easy-to-moderate trail that has a big payoff when you get to the top and look down on the bay.

After the hike, I rode into Southwest Harbor and had lunch and stopped in at N’s bookstore, where she was busy and put me to work for a little bit. Then I rode around to the seawall and watched the ocean for awhile.

Although I’m a bicycle commuter, I’m no Lance Armstrong. I’m not used to hills and they really kicked my ass. Twice I had to get off the bike and walk. However, one thrill that’s not available in New Orleans is that of coasting very fast down a long steep hill.

Mount Desert Island is an almost perfect physical landscape—a large island with mountains and beautiful clear lakes in the interior, and rocky beaches and smaller islands a little way off shore.

A long strange day in New England

I changed clothes and washed up in the ladies room at Logan airport. Airport security won’t let you lounge around inside the gate area anymore, so I had to go out into the main terminal. On each block of seats that lined the corridor, at least one man was sitting and dozing. Some were lying on the floor. They all looked Indian or Pakistani. No women with them. I found a seat of my own, put on my headphones and tried to get a little bit of sleep. I failed thanks to the cleaning ladies and the guys making deliveries to the stores and newsstands, the guy cleaning the carpet, the security people checking in for the day, and the too-cold air blowing out of the vent above me. So I read a little and listened to CDs, and when the Dunkin Donuts (New England’s favorite) opened up, I got a big cup of coffee and a donut and went outside to sit at the bus stop.

It was cold out there. I was shivering in my corduroy jacket. There were a lot of good-looking guys coming and going, though. The bus finally came and we rode into the city to the bus station. I was thinking that I like the way Boston looks. I like New England and the men it breeds. It’s too bad about the 10 ½ months of winter.

The TV news was on in the bus station. That’s when I heard the news about the London bombings. Riding back out through the city, thinking about the news, I watched the morning commuters come out of the train station, looking solemn and gray-faced.

I slept a little on the ride to Portland, but not enough.

In the mirror in the ladies room at the Portland bus station, I looked pale and tired and my roots were showing and my forehead lines, bane of my vanity, looked liked they’d dug in deeper overnight. I knew RW would look at me and see the time that had passed.

The first thing I noticed when he picked me up was that his hair had turned gray. But otherwise he looked the same. He still lives in the same apartment, with its view of the harbor and the cool sea air coming through the window.

I only had four hours in Portland. He took me home and made me coffee and we smoked some weed. He’s a hardcore daily toker. For awhile I matched him hit for hit, even thought the second inhalation made me cough and cough. With that and the bombings on television and the sleep deprivation, I was bleary and felt incoherent.

We walked to a diner by the docks for a sandwich, then all over downtown Portland. It was a cool, overcast day. Portland’s a likeable little town. The downtown looks neat and well-scrubbed—my perception may be skewed by living in beautiful but filthy New Orleans—with more in the way of movies and restaurants and so forth than you would expect in a town of 60,000. Still, in Maine and especially with RW (The Big Train from Sanford Maine), you feel that blue-collar roughneck undercurrent running against the tide of well-heeled vacation playground Maine. I like it, that tension.

RW seems well. He’s struggling, but with the right things. He’s a great writer and with him there’s no question of what to write about, just whether he’s up to facing it on any given day. He’s got a band, too. The Rumbling Proletariat. He played me a demo of their hit single, “Wet Hot Librarian.” It was good. RW’s singing voice is nothing like his speaking voice. Their performances sound like a real stage show, with RW in a white pimp suit and James-Brown style cape, being carried offstage on a stretcher. I wish I could see it.

But he said he’s mad that I said I’m not a fiction writer—more on that later.

As we were walking through downtown, my mom called me on my cellphone. It was probably rude to answer, but it was my mother calling after all. She wanted to make sure that I’d made it and she also said that my great-aunt B had died and she and my dad were going to the funeral the next day. I said I was sorry to hear it. But my aunt was old and I didn’t know her well, so I wasn’t upset. I was more upset after I hung up and realized I’d casually referred to Cindy as “that fucking storm” in a conversation with my mother.

We stopped in a bar and had a beer and talked about the people we knew in Memphis and about writing and his ex-wife who he still loves—which I find quite touching, though it may be a symptom of misguided romanticism.

On the way out, my sister called and again I answered. She was stuck in traffic on the road to Providence, Rhode Island. The first thing she told me was that my aunt hadn’t just died, that she was strangled in her house, apparently by two young men who she opened the door for—someone she probably knew, in other words, because who is going to put that kind of energy into strangling an old lady with no money?

It’s all very odd, and I don’t know how I feel about it. I didn’t really know her, so I don’t have it in me to grieve, exactly, although of course I feel sad for her and just generally unsettled that such a thing has happened to my family back in small town, Pennsylvania—when things like that happen all the time in New Orleans.

My sister was also upset because she’d had a fight with my mother over her (my sister’s) allegedly sinful lifestyle and consequent ticket to hell. My parents don’t see that there’s any middle way for a single woman between being a 30-something virgin and being the whore of Babylon. They don’t usually say the things to me that they say to my sister, though. I think they’re a little intimidated, which is fine by me.

But I didn’t want to get into a histrionic conversation with her while I was visiting RW. I realized she hadn’t heard about London yet and I told her to turn on the news and I’d call her later.

The bus to Bar Harbor was almost full and the seats were narrow but I still managed to sleep a little. RW burned me a couple of CDs—reggae covers of Bob Dylan and of R&B songs. I listened to the latter and to the new Ryan Adams record.




Traffic was bad and the bus got in late. NF was waiting for me at the station, looking exactly the same except with shorter hair. I told her about not sleeping and my long day and she said she’d treat me to dinner and a cocktail and she did—pomegranate cosmopolitans and shrimp wrapped in proscuitto and crabcakes. Then she took me to the top of Cadillac Mountain and we watched the raspberry sherbet sunset and then we went home and I went to bed in her front-porch-turned-summertime-spare-bedroom and slept and slept and slept.

Chicago-O'Hare

Here I am again at Chicago-O’Hare. This is where I landed last September after that long slow overnight drive with MS from New Orleans to Memphis during the hurricane evacuation, making it to Memphis just in time to get on a 6 a.m. flight to Chicago so that I could join my dad on a long cramped flight to France.

This is where late last summer, coming back from my cousin’s wedding, I had a big teary frustrating fight via cellphone and in front of my family with the Insane Republican Med Student. Why didn’t I break up with him right then?

I flew through Chicago-O’Hare on my way home from visiting MM in Minneapolis and on previous trips to Maine and other places. I know this airport like a second home, but the ironic thing is that I’ve never actually been in Chicago proper. I’m reading a good book set in Chicago called Crossing California by Adam Langer—the reference is to California Avenue in Chicago.

Tonight it seems I will be sleeping in another airport, Boston-Logan, because I’ll get there at 1 a.m., after the last bus for tonight has left and six hours before the first bus of the morning.

It’s a hassle, but I like the free, disconnected feeling of being in transit.

After the storm

That was a stronger, scarier storm than any low-grade hurricane I’ve been through so far. The house shook and the power went off and we all huddled together, but no serious damage done. Today the sky is blue and it’s relatively cool and unhumid. The morning flights were cancelled but I hope to get out tonight. In the mean time, it’s actually pleasant to be here.

Last playlist

Before I get out of here, I wanted to post the playlist from what will be my last show for awhile:

Ray Charles, "Ray Charles Blues"
Nina Simone, "Turn Me On"
Tony Joe White, "I Got a Thing About You Baby"
Jerry Lee Lewis, "Breathless"
Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, "Sexy Ways"
Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash, "Jackson"
Sonny Boy Williamson, "Got to Move"
Red Stick Ramblers, "Ramblin Heart"
Ray Charles, "Hit the Road Jack"
Young John Watson, "Motorhead Baby"
Bo Diddley, "Road Runner"
Del McCoury Band, "1952 Vincent Black Lightning"
Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers, "Dodge Vegematic"
Ryan Adams, "Let it Ride"
Tom Waits, "Hang on St. Christopher"
Emmylou Harris, "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight"
Steve Earle, "Continental Trailways Blues"
Howard Tate, "8 Days on the Road"
Buddy Holly, "Down the Line"
Wynonnie Harris, "Grandma Plays the Numbers"
Wilco, "Casino Queen"
Morning 40 Federation, "Bottom Shelf Blues"
Dinah Washington, "Me and My Gin"
Johnny Cash, "I Walk the Line"
Waylon Jennings, "Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line"
Slim Harpo, "Got Love if You Want It"
Arthur Alexander, "Everyday I Have to Cry Some"
Bobby Bland, "Cry Cry Cry"
Aretha Franklin, "Don’t Play That Song for Me"
Lucinda Williams, "Essence"
Bob Dylan, "I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight"
Dolly Parton, "Silver Dagger"
Sam Cooke, "Please Don’t Drive Me Away"

Hank & Cindy

Well, I wanted to post a picture of Big Hank since I posted one of Miss P. It proved to be difficult. First, it's hard to get a good picture of him, cause he's so wiggly--particularly when attention is directed at him. This is not the greatest picture, but you get a sense of the Essence of Hank.

The last few days have been wasted in being sick--something flu-like though it's obviously not flu season. It's quite odd (and extra sweaty) to have a fever when it's 97 degrees out.

I recovered enough to go to AD's last night to watch fireworks. But I left early after getting annoyed with some hipster attendees and their sardonic appreciation of the band Kansas. Don't these people understand how predictable they are, or how they limit themselves when they insist on filtering every thought and emotion through a screen of sarcastic irony?

But I am and was overreacting and knew it and that's why I left instead of getting bitchy. I'm extra irritable because lately every simple thing I try to do seems to turn into a huge hassle. Example: tomorrow I'm supposed to leave for Maine, just as TS Cindy should be hitting. Every single flipping time I try to fly out of this town, there's some kind of big storm and the airport shuts down.

But I'm determined to get to Maine. I need my vacation very badly. I'll take a bus the whole way if I have to.

However: Cindy, Impending Storm of Death, has caused my evening class to be cancelled, which is good. Now I can hit on a few topics I didn't think I had time for. (Work? What work?)

Topic A: In a feverish wooze, but in need of kitty litter, I biked to the Ghetto Wal-Mart over the weekend. On the way back, on St. Thomas Street where the projects were demolished and there's now just empty lots on both sides of the road, there was a badly decayed dog carcass in the gutter. Decayed enough so that you could see its ribs, but there was still flesh and hair attached. His face still there in a death grimace. Looked like a pit mix. I wonder if it was dumped there after a dog fight or whether it was hit by a car. Either way, the point is that I live in a city where animal carcasses are left to rot in the street.

Topic B: Sandra Day O'Connor. Oh screw it, it's too demoralizing to talk about, other than to note that when I was living through the Reagan and Bush Senior administrations they both seemed like a couple of right-wing nutbars. I had no idea how right-wing nutbar you could get. Now Reagan, who appointed the thoughtful and moderate SDO'C, seems nearly moderate himself in retrospect.

Topic C: The UD. I was going to leave him alone, but the other night he jokingly accused me of being antisocial, and it made me want to show him how very social I can be in the right circumstance. Or spank him. Or something.

Topic D: Being sick. I was sick and hot and every aspect of physical being was a source of low-grade suffering. I was trying to reread All the King's Men but I couldn't focus my attention on it. Ended up somehow reading an essay by Geoffrey Wolf about his heart valve surgery. Not a good thing, since I have a somewhat defective valve that may someday be more-than-somewhat defective and occasion the same type of surgery. I hope not for a long, long time. Because I am phobic about many aspects of being sick, hospitalization, surgery, or just generally not being physically free and mobile.

I'm very, very claustrophobic (the main reason I hate to fly). I'm phobic about being tied down or restrained in any way (no bondage for me, thanks). I'm terrified of being intubated. I'll do almost anything to avoid puking. I have a great terror of choking or not being able to breathe-this is why I've never gotten braces even though my mouth is a mess--I went to the orthodontist to get braces put on, they strapped my arms down, tilted the chair way back and started putting tubes and things in my mouth and I completely freaked out. I was convinced I was not going to be able to breathe and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. The doctor suggested valium. I'm afraid of being sedated. So I still have crooked teeth and an overbite.

When it's time for me to go, I hope I have a Tootie Montana kind of death, with minimal time spent in hospitals until then.

Anyway, if you're reading this on the day of posting, wish me luck or light a candle or say a prayer to the gods of tropical storms and of airline travel that I get the hell out of this third-world tropical shithole tomorrow, so that I can gain the space and perspective necessary to keep loving it.