Stick a fork in it, it's done

The plan was that I was going to drive to the great state of Pennsyltucky tomorrow to spend Christmas with my sister and other assorted relatives.

This afternoon I was vacuuming when Hank started barking and I realized someone was knocking at my door. It was the guy from the plumbing shop across the street. He told me that someone had just sideswiped my car and knocked off the driver's side mirror. What's more the car that did it was now parked 15 feet away in front of the corner store that ruined my life.

I should have been content to take down the license plate, but I was pissed and I hate the idea that I'm supposed to be afraid of people, and my pissed-off-ness overrides my fear. So I go to the car and tap on the driver's window. The glass is tinted dark but I can see a teenage kid sitting in there. But he won't roll down the window.

But right then another kid comes out of the store and comes over to the car. I ask him if this is his car? And did he know that he just sideswiped my car. Uh, er, I didn't do it. Well, who did it? I'm not going away, so he gets the driver to open the door. Do you know you just hit my car? I wasn't driving. (Even though it happened one and a half minutes ago and he's sitting in the driver's seat.) Who's car is this? My auntee's. Does she have insurance? Uh. The other kid gets on his phone and says he's calling his auntee. I can tell this is bullshit and turn away. The second my back is turned the car squeals away.

But I have the license plate number. I call in a complaint to the police. I give them the plate number and describe the car.

Now, I know that New Orleans police have more important things to worry about and I don't expect them to respond very quickly to an incident like this.

However, several hours later when a cop finally shows up, he tells me that the car that hit mine had been carjacked last night. The owner was returning to her car after walking her dog in Audubon park. Three teenagers on bicycles approached her, beat her with a pipe, took her car keys and drove off in her car.

So now, three hours after they drove away from the corner store, the cops are looking for the car in my neighborhood. I think they might have had better luck if they'd shown up a little sooner.

I'm afraid I've made myself (even more of) a target.

So many things about this disturb me and piss me off, but for some reason the thing that gets me the most is--how fucking stupid do you have to be to steal a car, don't bother to change the tags, and drive it around the same area you took it from? And then, when you hit another car in full view of a half a dozen people, you nevertheless park the stolen car and saunter into the corner store as if nothing happened?

Maybe they don't give a shit because the so-called criminal justice system is so useless that even if the cops actually catch them, it's extremely unlikely that they'll face any punishment worse than a night it jail.

In the meantime, it's been raining and raining all day and there is several feet of flooding in some areas. It seems the pumps have not been fixed since Katrina, so it just takes a long rainstorm to cripple the city.

It's official. I hate New Orleans. It seems to be a common feeling. This was posted on Craigslist tonight:

I'm not posting this for sympathy or anything like that. I just want my anger and frustration to be heard. I have always been a die hard N'Awlins boy. I never thought I would even think of leaving.

I had built a good life here. A home in Gentilly Terrace, a good job managing a great restaurant and two beautiful children that I maintained joint custody of after their mother and I split.

Katrina filled my Gentilly home with 7 feet of water and left me homeless for almost a year. My insurance settlement left me no chance of rebuilding. It also cost me the job I had worked so hard for for 20 years. Then it took my two kids away when their mother decided to relocate to Minnesota. I lost it all and I still stayed, hoping that I could rebuild some sort of life resembling what I had before.

Today I came home to my shitty little one bedroom apartment to find out that someone had broken in and stolen everything I owned, including all of the Xmas gifts I had saved months to buy for my kids, who are coming home for the holidays in two days.

So I'm done here. I'm giving up my new job, packing up what's left and leaving. And for all of you assholes that keep preaching about rebuilding, renewing and reviving New Orleans, give it up, IT'S ALREADY DEAD AND BEYOND OUR HELP. GOODBYE.

Unbe-fucking-lievable

Bill Jefferson. The least effective member of Congress. Caught with $90,000 in marked bills in his freezer. Under investigation by the FBI. Kicked off the ways & means committee when we needed him most.

Was just reelected by the benighted citizenry of the New Orleans area, which deserves the hell it's going to.

It's the nail in the coffin, at least of my desire to stay here.

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson

I grew up on rock n roll, country, pop, a little r&b. Opera seems at best inaccessible to me, at worst off-putting and unappealing.

I few years ago there was an Avedon photograph of opera singer Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in The New Yorker. She looked interesting; the picture compelled me to read the accompanying article. And she did seem like an interesting character, a bit of a late-bloomer who had worked as a freelance violist before she started singing. She was a mezzo soprano, not exactly a star or a diva, maybe a bit of a new age hippie, but she seemed smart and interesting and I got the impression she was someone I'd like to know. She had soulfullness.

In the lasted issue of The New Yorker, another article about her. A sad one. Her obituary. She died of breast cancer at the age of 53 on July 3.

Now I have iTunes and I can tell you that she has one of the most gorgeous voices I've ever heard. It almost doesn't matter that she's singing dreaded opera. Check out her singing "Angels bright and fair" from Handel's Theodora. Go ahead and spend the dollar to download it so you can hear the whole thing. Trust me. My heart is broken all over again.


http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/040105fa_fact

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/music/articles/060925crmu_music

Football

I grew up near Pittsburgh in the 1970s, when it seemed like the Steelers ruled the universe. I was a fan because it was part of the culture. We used to pray for the Steelers at my Catholic school. Then I figured out that God doesn't take sides in sporting events and that winning is not a sign of moral virtue, and I pretty much stopped caring about sports, especially professional team sports.

I'm offended that so much was spent to refurbish the Superdome when the rest of the city languishes.

But I've been teary-eyed all day about the Saints. Which goes to show that I will cry about anything these days. It also shows how much that game last night meant to this city.

If you're not here, you can't really understand. All year, the collective message we've gotten from the rest of America has been something like "You were stupid to build that city to begin with, you're stupid to go back, but why don't you welfare trash go home, get off your lazy asses and rebuild and stop whining and asking for a handout, and get out of our faces. And by the way, I hope another hurricane comes along soon and wipes you out for good." Or maybe that's just the message we've been getting from Texas.

This is not the p.c. way to look at it, but that game felt like a big Fuck You to everyone, and everything in us, that has made us feel like losers and fools and unwanted Americans.

The Saints could not have picked a better moment to stop sucking ass.

P.S. I'm not paranoid or making things up. This was posted on craigslist today:


People of New Orleans...........Suck!!!!!!!!!!
Reply to: pers-212636559@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-09-26, 4:40PM CDT

When in the hell will all you pathetic people stop feeling sorry for yourselves? It’s sickening! It’s your fault for living in a city below sea level, news flash hurricane happen every year in that part of the country and always have. It looks like the NFL is going to set the stage for a Super Bowl run, after that completely set up game by the NFL to let the Saints win their home opener. The rest of America hates the people of New Orleans! I hope an even bigger hurricane completely destroys your city in the next few weeks, or even better a huge meteor whips you all out!

My little survivor

I got a new pair of sneakers and Miss P got an exciting new box. Last year she was finally being rescued after I cruelly left her behind in the evacuation. This year she's a little rounder but doing just fine. In fact, she's randomly running around the house after imaginary prey at this moment.

Most famous refrigerator in NOLA

Red letter day

Mr. had his transplant today and it went great! He already feels better than he has in years and he's enjoying drinking all the water he could possibly want!

Of course, fitting with the way things have been, there had to be drama and tension up to the last second. First, due to a scheduling mistake, the transplant got pushed back a week. Then on Tuesday when he went in for tests, the doctors discovered that his potassium was dangerously high and they were afraid they'd have to cancel the whole thing.

But it all worked out in the end. I wish I could be there with him. But the important thing is that something finally went right for the guy and it was the crucial thing that had to go right.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I had time to read a book

I would read This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin.

If I had time to write a book, I would call it Tropical Depression.

I do have time to keep an eye on the lastings postings from the Hurricane Center. I enjoyed the following post:

TROPICAL DEPRESSION SIX ADVISORY NUMBER 5
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
AL062006 500 PM EDT MON SEP 04 2006

...DEPRESSION A LITTLE DISORGANIZED...

What did I tell you about my powers of prediction?

Current forecasts have Ernesto making a sharp right and hitting Florida.

The Krewe of OAK parade...

just went by my house. Last year when it went by I was frantically trying to find a way to evacuate.

This year they have hardcore police escorts, which is different.

Ernesto & my amazing powers of prediction

I think chances are good that we will celebrate Katrina's anniversary with another hurricane evacuation. I'm not saying it's necessarily going to be a bad storm or a direct hit, but I think it will be big enough and close enough for an evacuation to be called.

However, since my powers of prediction are notoriously poor, perhaps I have just protected the city by saying so.

I'm kind of hoping for a semi-false-alarm evacuation, where we stay gone for about a week until the power comes back on. I had promised to spend the Labor Day weekend with my parents for my dad's retirement party. Then I learned that I would get my first set of sub and cites for the journal on Friday, and only ten days to finish them. Which means that at best I'll be able to rush up there, give my dad a hug, and rush back down. Unless we get a little hurrication that closes the school from Wednesday till Monday...

Addendum: in the just released forecast map, it looks like a direct hit. That does NOT make me happy. I want a few days off, not disaster upon disaster. It's not a hurricane yet, maybe it won't get very strong or maybe it will shift direction.

Setting a date

Mr. M's transplant has been scheduled for September 14. Finally! This should be a big relief, but he's a little worried and so am I, because he hasn't really recovered from the last surgery.

But we have to trust that his doctors and surgeons wouldn't go ahead with it if they didn't think he was ready for it. They wouldn't let a healthy young donor take on the risk if they didn't the the odds were in their favor.

From a longer perspective, it's more than time. It seems like his health is going to keep deteriorating without it; I'd hate to see it postponed again.

The semester's gotten off to a pretty good start. I like all my classes. All the journal work starts tomorrow.

The end of the blogging frenzy

Evidence that I'm still feeling a little fragile: seeing Soul Asylum, or half of Soul Asylum, on television promoting their new record made me cry.

I mean, I'm not even a fan. I suppose I'm a fan of them as human beings. Their new single is an anthemic pop-rock song called "Stand Up and Be Strong," and it's been criticized for being trite. But words of optimism and perserverance are only trite when expressed by people who haven't been through anything hard. They recorded this album while their bass player (and friend since back in the day) was dying of cancer. A couple of months after they buried him, Dave Pirner's adopted home was underwater. So if he wants to get up on national television and sing "Stand Up and Be Strong" looking like he's happy about it, I'm cheering for him. One of the things that made me cry was when he talked about how Karl Mueller's enthusiasm and perserverance balanced his own cynicism.

Another thing that touched me was the "Make Levees Not War" t-shirt he wore. During the time I've been in New Orleans, three rock stars without previous connections to the city have lived here. Trent Reznor lived in a big old house behind a big fence in the Garden District. It seemed like New Orleans was an Anne Rice vampire fantasy to him. Lenny Kravitz had a place in the French Quarter, and I think he might have owned the Wedding Cake house on St. Charles for awhile. New Orleans was a part-time gothic background to his glamourous life. But Pirner bought a regular house in the Bywater. I've seen him in bars, at second lines, at a Morning 40 show, on Frenchmen Street on Mardi Gras day, even at an ice cream shop. I think he even did some radio shows on WTUL. I've seen him twice since the storm. Sometimes I've wanted to introduce myself and talk to him about Mr. M, but I didn't want to seem like I was sucking up to him because he's a rock star. He was a regular guy here, a participant in the actual life of the city, and he clearly appreciated it for what it really was and not just what it looked like. And he didn't abandon the city after the storm.

The other thing that made me cry was knowing that these are Mr. M's peers, the same age, and they look like kids while he looks like an old man. Maybe that sounds shallow, but I don't mind Mr. M's white hair and the lines in his face. What kills me seeing him look like he was just liberated from the death camps, which is how he was in July. His donor is a mere 26 years old; I'd like to think the transplant will be an infusion of youthful vitality.

I hate that I'm not going to be there when he has the operation or while he recovers. In fact, I'm going to have to try not to think about it too much, which will be hard.

Classes start on Monday. I'm kind of looking forward to it, but I'm also nervous. This semester actually seems more make-or-break than the first year. I have to learn how to get at least one A; my grades have got to go up at least a little so I'm not teetering on the edge of losing my scholarship. And I've got to try to figure out what I'm doing next summer and what direction I want to go after I graduate. At the same time, I've got the journal and I've been informally nominated for some minor officer's position in the Environmental Law Society, which makes me nervous. I'm such an introverted non-joiner. Sometimes it seems like to succeed at law school or lawyering I would have to be a whole different kind of person, which I don't want to do. I think I do have to be willing to step outside my comfort zone, though. Anyway, how am I going to do better on my grades, work on the journal, and participate in a club, all while Mr. M is having and recovering from the transplant that we hope will give him his life back, how can I do it without having a nervous breakdown? Just by taking it as it comes, I suppose. And looking forward to December. I have this fantasy of spending Christmas in the Bahamas with Mr. M.

Tomorrow I have to go by school and see if I have any reading for my first classes. But I'm hoping to spend the day reading magazines and watching dumb movies on DVD.

I don't suppose I will be doing as much blogging in the coming months.

P.S. Hi Sharon!

Where Y'at, New Orleans?

We still have a sense of humor. This was shot in Lakeview, which still looks like this, except for maybe the ubiquity of dancing guys. Take a good look at his shorts...

Okay, it's really dumb, but I like it. Because I'd like to live in a movie musical world where people inexplicably break into song and dance while performing some mundane activity.

The non-recovery, and some thoughts on fashion

Donald Powell is the "Federal Coordinator of Gulf Coast Rebuilding." I honestly don't know what he's done other than nix other people's plans.

In the new issue of the New Yorker (Aug. 21) there's a good account of the big game of pass-the-buck that has left New Orleans without a plan or direction a year after the storm. It doesn't get into the issues about the levees, flood protection, wetlands loss, and so forth. But it does convey the continued chaos and confusion and deepening sense of hopelessness.

I didn't get to see Spike Lee's documentary at the Arena and I don't have HBO, so I don't know when I'll get to watch it. I think it should be worth seeing. I was uneasy about it because I thought he'd bought into the whitey-blew-up-the-levee theory. But he doesn't endorse the conspiracy theories, he just lets people who believe it say so. Fair enough.

Julia Reed has a pretty good piece about New Orleans a year later in the September issue of Vogue. She's a wealthy and sheltered resident of the Garden District, but she shows that there's a limit to how much protection from post-Katrina despair that money can buy.

I don't read Vogue often. It's the grande dame of high fashion magazines, and it's got the arrogance to match. The editorial tone often conveys the idea that if you don't wear a size 2 and have $20,000 to spend on the right bag, you're not worthy of gazing upon its glossy pages. And there is something obscene about dresses that cost more than a third-world factory worker makes in a lifetime.

But when the thousand-page September issue arrives on the newstand, I usually buy it. Then I go home and sink into it for an hour or two, and I enjoy it. Some of the clothes are gorgeous. Some are odd-looking, even shockingly so. They might be great as a work of popular art, but horribly unflattering to any woman who might actually wear them. But some of what looks wrong now will look normal in a few years.

I'm more of an observer of fashion than a participant. It's silly and trivial, but then again maybe not so much. It reminds you of the pleasure of clothes and looks, and makes you think about what you look like and what you've got on. This is what I meant when I wrote about watching what I eat and getting a haircut and so forth. I haven't paid attention to my looks for the last year, at least. I look in the mirror, but I don't really see what I'm looking at. Then one day I do see, and I wonder why that girl doesn't bother to wear something attractive and put on some lipstick.

I don't always put much effort into how I look, but I feel better when I do. It seems like a demonstration of my ability to take care of myself and an act of self worth. Right now it seems like an act of recovery, like I can do more than just cope. I know it affects for the better how other people treat me. And there's a basic pleasure in wearing a cute dress, getting a good haircut or a pedicure, putting on new lipstick.

Not New Orleans

I'm interning with an organization that has a chance to present to the city council a set of policy recommendations on energy, sustainable rebuilding and related issues. So I spent the day at a meeting of bright, progressive people who have lots of good ideas about how to make New Orleans better than it was before. You can get really excited about the possibilities and enthusiastic about sticking around and being a part of it. Then you can walk out the door into reality--the state of the city, the state of local politics--and plunge back into despair.

It's so hard to make the decision to leave New Orleans. That must seem crazy to outsiders. This town is a wreck, it's barely liveable, it's probably doomed. But there's no substitute for it.

I'm not the only one going around and around with this question. Everyone's talking about where else you could go. There are other cool cities, places that are better than here by any objective standard. Portland, Seattle, Austin are the ones that come up most often. Chicago or Minneapolis if you can take the landlocked cold. Somewhere in North Carolina. Somewhere out west, maybe Tucson? If you can't pry yourself out of south Louisiana, maybe Lafayette could be a viable alternative?

Yet I've heard at least a dozen people come to the conclusion that there isn't a satisfactory alternative in the United States. It's not that those other towns aren't great, but they aren't this. So maybe somewhere in Mexico, or Europe. Maybe Castro will kick and Cuba will open up and we'll all go to Havana.

Mr. M is an advocate for the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico, warm and beachy places where my American legal training would be relevant. The idea of San Juan, Puerto Rico appeals to me. Mr. M doesn't necessarily need a real city, but I do. And Puerto Rico is a mixed civil/common law jurisdiction just like Louisiana, so my preparation for the Louisiana bar would serve me well there. For that reason Tulane graduates are pretty well represented in the Puerto Rico bar. (In fact, Louisiana's law schools are the only ones in the states that teach civil law in any depth whatsoever, and knowing about civil law makes it easier to get a legal job outside of the United States. Easier, but not easy.)

But if I were really serious about Puerto Rico, I'd have to be working on reclaiming my Spanish right now. I'd be visiting to see if it's really what I want. I'd be thinking about how to get a job there without any past connections to the place. I'd be investigating whether I could do the kind of work I want there.

Instead, I found an environmental public interest firm that does exactly what I'd like to do. They focus on the Southeast, which is the region I think I'd probably choose to stay in if I don't run off to Puerto Rico or a foreign country. This firm seems to be pretty well-funded for a public interest entity--they actually pay their summer interns a reasonable salary. They have offices in some pretty nice towns. But not the towns I would choose. Not New Orleans.

Not New Orleans. That should be a plus, right? New Orleans is a wreck, a shithole, a disaster in progress. But it gets a hold on some of us. It's like being in love with someone impossible, no good for you, and everyone can see it will never work out, but you're in love and you think she's the only one in the world.

Old dogs

Related to the long post below about nostalgia, I was just listening to a radio piece about when you lose your taste for novelty. According to the report, most people won't listen to new music after the age of 35, try new food after the age of 39, or get a body piercing after the age of 23.

I don't have any piercings or tattoos. Katrina has been the one thing in my life that seems like it might be appropriately memorialized with a tattoo, but otherwise I don't have any interest in body art and no regrets about that.

But I hope I will otherwise remain open to new things. I'm not 39 yet, but I didn't start eating raw oysters or sushi until I was in my 30s. Or kiwis. I think I was more uptight about unfamiliar food when I was younger.

I probably have the tendency to get a bit calcified in my musical taste. I listen to a lot of things by old bands that are new to me or that I didn't appreciate before. I have picked up a few new bands in the past few years, though they generally don't sound radically different from stuff I was already listening to. Off the top of my head: Harlan T. Bobo, My Morning Jacket, The Black Keys, etc. Plus some local bands. Every once in awhile some new hip hop will catch my ear, but I won't name names so they can avoid the shame of having people know some old white lady likes them.

From an interview with Mike Tidwell on Salon.com

Q: You write that the president telling people to return to New Orleans now is an act of "mass homicide," like sending civilians into the path of a tsunami. Why is that?

A: The president and all the offices of the federal government combined have done nothing at all to treat the disease that killed New Orleans. They've haphazardly tried to treat the symptoms, to improve the hurricane levees, to create better evacuation plans, to have more supplies pre-positioned for subsequent hurricanes. These are all symptoms. The disease in south Louisiana has been catastrophic land loss, and there's been a plan that's been on the table to reverse that land loss, since the '90s. And for reasons that are truly inexplicable, this government refuses to invest any real money into that plan.

Therefore, if you tell people to go back and you tell them to repair their homes and re-enroll their children in schools in New Orleans, and you've done nothing to treat the disease, then the cancer is going to return. New Orleans is still catastrophically vulnerable to another Katrina. Nothing substantive has been done to protect the city from another record surge tide. The only thing that can protect that city from mammoth surge tides from future hurricanes is to rebuild the land that has been lost. There's a plan on the table, and it's not expensive, certainly not compared to other ways that we spend money. Fourteen billion dollars to substantively rebuild barrier islands and begin rebuilding wetlands is about the cost of six weeks of fighting in Iraq, or the cost of the Big Dig in Boston.

The nostalgia trap

Minnesota has the hippest state fair in the whole wide world. Sonic Youth is opening for The Flaming Lips on the first night.

There are some pretty good regional acts playing the fair in Baton Rouge this year, including my favorite zydeco sweetie, Geno Delafose. But if there are any national acts, they're third tier Nashville one-hit wonders or has-beens.

The other main difference is that the Minnesota fair takes place at the end of August through the beginning of September. Down here, the fair is late October into November, when the heat finally starts to fade a bit.

Mr. M wants to go see Sonic Youth because they remind him of his (um) youth. They remind me of that strange lost period of limbo when I left my husband. For a few months I worked as the night auditor at the hotel they were staying at when they first got to town to record Washing Machine in Memphis. Kim Deal was with them. I remember both Kim Gordon and Kim Deal seemed impossibly cool and also older than I expected. I know Kim Gordon is about 15 years older than me, so she would have been in her early 40s at that point. But that made her even cooler. Like someone who managed to retain her authentic rock chick coolness into her forties got a thousand extra coolness points.

I've been doing too much looking back and mooning over the old days. But back then I was always waiting for my life to start, waiting to bloom. I've been a late bloomer. But something in me seems programmed for nostalgia and regret. And here I am in the most past-obsessed city in the United States. Now the past seems like all we've got.

I think that, looks-wise, I peaked at around age 34. Now I've advanced all the way to almost 38, and I'm pining to be 34 again. It's dumb. My past wasn't all that great. I wasn't really ever happy until I got to New Orleans when I was 30. After that, my life started to get better, but it was still pretty fucked up for awhile. I was finally getting out of a long term rut when Katrina hit. I almost kind of needed that hurricane, as horrible as it has been. It created a definite before and after.

I think the second half of my life can and should be better than the first half, if I could just get myself to pay attention and stop looking back so much.

Instead, though, I've spent the last few days nursing a sudden obsession with Crispin Glover circa the mid-80s. I watched Back to the Future, which was tedious and obvious and heavy-handed in that Hollywood blockbuster way. Glover was the only thing that saved it, and he did look an awful lot like Mr. M in it. The "I am your density" momemt was really sweet. But he was more interesting in River's Edge. I've posted a video clip below in which I think he's really funny. He's a jittery teenage speed freak, but his mannerisms and inflections, especially in the first 30 seconds, remind me very much of Mr. M when he's in a certain teasing mood.

But however interesting an actor Crispin Glover may be, he can never be or give me what I really want from him, which is Mr. M when he was young and healthy, before things went wrong.

Before the hurricane, Mr. M and I hadn't had any contact for about three months or so, and longer than that since we had talked on the phone. Things had been tense between us. He got back in touch because he was worried about me after the hurricane. When he did, he had two things to tell me about. Karl Mueller, the bass player from Soul Asylum, had died of cancer a couple of months before at the age of 41. It's not like they were close friends, but Mr. M knew him and liked him from back in the day and he went to the funeral. I think it was a disconcerting thing for him. He might well have been the one from that scene who died way too early but not quite young.

Instead, Mr. M had just (finally!) found a donor who was a good match. All of a sudden it seemed like he had a future again. Without that spark of hope, I don't think he would have allowed us to get into this again.

At that time, he thought he would have the transplant in January. That's what has made this wait so hard. I have the paranoid fear that the donor is going to back out. I'm so incredibly grateful to him and yet so frustrated with him for postponing, no matter how good his reason. And if I feel this way, just think how Mr. M must feel.

He's lost some things he'll never get back. Nevertheless he finally has cause to hope that he has a future and that it will be much better than the last decade. There is reason to hope that we will have a future as a couple. There's lots of ways things could go wrong, lots of ways I could be wrong about us, but I think maybe we could be pretty happy.

In any case, unless I catch a stray bullet, I have a future and a present of my own to attend to.

Physically, aging scares me, but I could be healthy and attractive for a long time yet. But not if I don't start paying attention. I've been lucky to be relatively free of the weird body hatred-obsession that a lot of women seem to have. I've mostly stayed on the high range of a healthy weight. I wear a size 10, which is enormous by fashion standards, and maybe by some guys' standards, but for the most part guys have been happy with my figure and so have I. I get a decent amount of exercise without trying too hard. I walk the dog and bike to school and get in and out of periods of going to the gym and taking yoga classes.

But I can tell things are going to stop being so easy. I gained weight during the diaspora, and it didn't come off easily. It's not that I need to radically change everything. I just need to pay attention, make a few conscious changes. I don't want to deprive myself of anything I like, but I should start eating vegetables and cut back a little on the sugar and maybe the pepperoni pizza and the fried chicken. I just ate a whole box of Blue Bell fudge pops in in 24 hours. It's not a matter of dieting, just pacing myself better.

I've always taken good care of my skin, which is paying off, but my hair is another story. I need a real haircut. I need to start paying attention to what I wear. I need to pay attention.

It's not just my physical self. I need to pay attention to my mental and emotional habits, stop doing the things I do to sabotage myself. I started going to therapy, not with the therapist I mentioned before, but at a reduced fee clinic with a student therapist. So she's not that experienced, but I like her. Anyway I just mostly need someone outside my life to help me notice and pay attention to what goes on in my head.

The bottom line is that I need to pay attention to myself and my life right now, and I can't do that if I'm spending my energy pining to relive and re-do the entire period from about 1985 to 2000.

Like the hippies said: Be Here Now.

(This turned into an awfully long post. Never fear, my loyal and exhausted readers. In a week school will start again and I won't have time to write.)

It's warm, even

Airports and politics

Thank goodness I'm not trying to fly today.

Instead I'm at home listening to the 20-year-old deejay on WTUL play protest songs about Guantanamo and American foreign policy.

Of course there are liberals who have a deep and nuanced understanding of the situation in the Middle East. Thomas Friedman comes to mind. But for every dittohead and Coulter acolyte on the right, there's someone on the left like my former coworker who in the summer of 2001 was circulating a petition protesting the Taliban's destruction of Buddhist statutes, but after 9/11 was appalled that we went to war in Afganistan.

Why is it so hard for people to tolerate even the tiniest bit of complexity or ambiguity? They've got to have white hats and black hats. And to my co-worker, America's black hat was apparently bigger and blacker than the Taliban's.

Yes, Bush is a disaster. We probably shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq, we definitely had the wrong motives and we definitely made a mess of it. Yes, there's a lot of our foreign policy to be ashamed of that hasn't exactly helped us win the goodwill of the rest of the world.

But the Islamic fundamentalist world has declared war on us. We're not innocent, but we're not the villian, either. This has more to do with their pathologies than ours. They won't go away if we ignore them and leave them alone, as much as I might prefer that option.

There was an article in Salon.com recently in which the author expessed the opinion that Lebanon was the best hope for a viable democracy in the Middle East. And I wondered since when was Israel not a democracy? Again, I'm not a big Zionist. Israel has been a bully and has blood on its hands. It's not really a good thing to tell innocent Lebanese civilians to evacuate, then target missiles at the highway they're trying to evacuate on. Nevertheless, you have to consider that Israel is surrounded by people who are committed to wiping it the face of the map. It's no surprise it's a little trigger happy. It's complicated, see? The world is like that, my little college radio pontificators.

Oh my, maybe I've become a centrist. A moderate. How boring.

Or maybe it's just that the leftist party line has gone really, really wrong on a couple of issues, and this is one of them.

The uncanny resemblance

Mr. M says the resemblance is even stronger in Back to the Future (now at the top of my Netflix queue.) I think it has to do with the haircut.

His crankiness has dissipated and he doesn't seem to remember snapping at me or realize that it bothers me as much as it does.

I can't change him, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about it. If this is really something I'd break up with him over, I should at least warn him. But it never seems to be the right time. I don't want to present him with my grievances when he has so much else to deal with. But then it's like I'm saving up a list of issues to cover when he feels better, which is not right or fair either.

Things are going to change very soon, even though it hasn't really sunk in yet. They haven't yet set a date for his transplant, but it is supposed to happen in early September. Finally. All those years of waiting and frustration and being sick and it comes to a point here. One way or another things will change.

Anyway, I'm all worked up about watching a movie with an actor who looks like him. I think it's fair to say I'm still crushed out on him in spite of it all.

Mr. M with a mullet

From time to time Mr. M or his friends have mentioned his resemblance to Crispin Glover. I could sort of see what they meant. But I don't think I've seen Crispin Glover in anything in the time I've known Mr. M, except for What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and I can barely remember his role in that. I was distracted by Johnny Depp.

Somehow I never saw River's Edge until tonight. It's a creepy but really good movie from the mid-80's about a homicidal teenager and his screwed up friends. It's got a young Keanu Reeves in it and it's also got Crispin Glover in a big role. He's not the main character but he really owns this movie.

I didn't know Mr. M twenty years ago, but I've seen pictures, and obviously I know what he looks like now. And the resemblance here is so strong it's scary. Glover's voice is even like Mr. M's. His inflections and mannerisms in this film are a teenage speed freak's version of Mr. M's. It was REALLY WEIRD to watch this. And Mr. M and Glover are exactly the same age. I've often wished I knew Mr. M back when he was a young hot thing, and it's like I was getting a glimpse of it, and I found Glover attractive in his film, except he has a mullet and he's batshit crazy, so that made me feel kinda uncomfortable about being attracted to him. Plus the real Crispin Glover seems interesting and smart but... let's say... kind of nutty.

Mr. M never had a mullet. He had short, slighty punk rock hair. But he had the skinny black jeans and leather jacket. He still does, in fact.

I can remember seeing Back to the Future when I was in high school and thinking Glover was pretty cute in it. I was more into him than Michael J. Fox. So maybe I ought to put that in my Netflix queue. Maybe that would be a less disturbing evocation of the young Mr. M.

Anyway, I've never posted a picture of Mr. M, but if you watch this movie and imagine Glover's character twenty years later with a lot less hair and looking like he's had a rough decade, you'll get the idea. The resemblance between Glover today and Mr. M today is not as strong as it was.

Generic

Remember back in the late 70s or early 80s when generic products first hit the grocery stores? The packaging was basic black and white and the labels just said "corn" or "sugar" or whatever?

The template I'm using for this blog is one part old-school generic and one part New York Times austere authority.* It's not exciting, but I like it. It's easy to read. But I'm thinking I'd like to have a side column for a blogroll and whatnot. I've been looking at websites that help clueless bloggers like me design a template just by picking colors and basic layouts. But I want this one, only with a sidebar. I noticed Blogger provides some basic html instruction, but it doesn't address this problem.


*It's also a tiny bit Drudge Report, but nevermind that.

Head-butting

I might give the impression that Mr. M's illness is the only thing that makes our relationship less than perfect. I don't want to use this space to air out our relationship too much. He doesn't read this blog regularly, because I talk to him about most of the things I write about here. So I suppose I could use it to vent a bit, but I don't want to violate the relationship's privacy.

But there's something about his personality that sometimes makes me think about breaking up with him, that's come up again and that I'm turning over in my mind.

My love for him is not in doubt, but just because you love someone doesn't mean you should be dreaming about living happily ever after with him.

He's a bit crotchety in a way that I find charming. I tease him about being crunchy on the outside and sweet on the inside, a tasty treat.

But sometimes when he's in a bad mood he's more than crotchety, he's snippy and mean. I realize that this is sort of about how you expect someone to behave and how you interpret that behavior. When he's sick and cranky, I've seen him snap at his mother when she fusses at him. When it happens, I'll think she shouldn't let him talk to her that way. But it's like they both get it out and it blows over. No one would doubt that he loves her and is a devoted son. She always talks about how sweet he treats her, and most of the time he really does.

But with me, his barbs go deep and I brood over it, long after he's forgotten about it. His anger is sharp but short-lived.

I'm not used to that kind of thing. In my family, it's rare for anyone to say anything overtly mean to anyone else--at least since my sister and I got out of our teens. We make veiled barbs, perhaps, and piss each other off. Sometimes we fight, but mostly we keep our annoyance to ourselves, or vent to our friends. Occasionally we even talk things out in a relatively mature and healthy manner. Well, not all that often...

When he gets testy, I feel like I don't want to be talked to that way, but it's not like he curses at me or calls me names. I'm not sure how to describe it without transcribing a whole conversation. Actually, he has called me a bitch before. I've known him three years and he's said it twice. So.

Other guys have called me a bitch--in the heat of a major blowout. I guess what I find disturbing is that relatively minor irritations can provoke harsh words or general testiness with him.

It might be that I read too much into it because I feel uncertain of his affection for me, so if he's irritated I think it's about me, and if he is irritated with me I think he doesn't like me anymore. That's mostly about my own baggage. There's every evidence that I am very important to him and otherwise he treats me very well, much better than any boyfriend I've had before. He puts a lot of effort into doing things to please me, and he does the same for his mom and even for his friends.

He's aware of his harsher side, at least to some extent. Once he told me that he'd been in a bad mood and been short tempered with his mom and he felt ashamed of that. On a day during my last visit when he was particularly sick, he told me and his mom that he felt like shit and he was in a bad mood and he didn't want to take it out on us, but he might not be able to help it.

An awful lot has gone seriously wrong in his life, and I can hardly blame him for being ill-tempered sometimes. In general he handles things with much more grace than I think I could muster in his place.

That doesn't mean that his snippiness is okay. It's definitely the thing I would change about him if I could--other than his health, of course. But I also have figured out that you can't change anyone, ever. You just have to decide what you can tolerate and what you can't. But I don't know what to make of it, so I can't decide whether I'm willing to live with it. If I tell him I won't tolerate it, I need to make sure I really mean it and I'm willing to walk the walk.

It would help to have some third-party perspective. Adam in particular is good at seeing what's going on with things like this. But because of the situation, Mr. M can't travel and none of my friends or family have met him. I know his family and friends, though. He has a couple of good long-term friends, and they're genuinely nice guys, which is to his credit.

In love again

I've been feeling pissy and pessimistic about the state of New Orleans, with good reason. I've been thinking I need to graduate and get the hell out of here.

I haven't gone out at night for a couple of months. But tonight I went to a houseparty in an elegantly decaying old house. On the back patio, underneath a palm tree and with a view of the elevated freeway, a cute young girl with a Patsy Cline hairdo sang honkytonk songs, then Miss A (my dogsitter) sang Jobim while accompanying herself on the ukelele, then O.L.D. played a set of their scatological country & western songs. Everyone at the party was funny and charming. We drank beer and ate hotdogs. It was a hot steamy night with a bit of a breeze that made it almost pleasant.

It was White Linen Night, and lots of people were out. This was sort of a Soiled Linen party.

On the way out I ran into Adam and a couple of his friends, and we hung out on the street for a while and caught up with each other. They invited me to a salsa party in Mid City, but instead I went to see the Morning 40 at Le Bon Temps. A free show, everyone packed in shoulder to shoulder, drinking and sweating and smelling of b.o., and jumping up and down and singing along to every song.

The Morning 40 have become a great band. They tour and are getting some national attention, but in New Orleans we've been watching them for years, from when they were sloppy but fun and wild, to now when they are tight but still fun and wild. We know them, they know us, we know all their songs.

I only stayed for the first set--they are still playing right now.

Just as I got home, a nighttime summer rain began to fall.

It was exactly the kind of New Orleans night that I missed so much when I was in exile. How can I think of leaving? I love New Orleans, New Orleans needs me.

However, my sentiments are subject to change when I read the night's body count in tomorrow's newspaper.

Fun with morbidity & existential despair

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

I hope you will indulge me in some Deep Thoughts--or skip this entry and come back later when I go back to ranting about my neighborhood.

I was reading a story about a woman who was with her friend when she died of cancer, who encouraged her friend to "let go," who helped her have a good death. Those last minutes were described in excruciating detail.

And I thought THERE IS NO WAY I CAN POSSIBLY DO THAT. I can't possibly face dying. Even a good death seems impossibly terrifying. But I don't have a choice, do I?

I found myself cursing at how horribly cruel this existence is. I didn't ask to be here, ask to be at all. None of us did. One day you open your eyes and here you are, you, this identity in this mysterious world, this mysterious existence. And you like it and you get attached to being, even though sometimes it is incredibly painful. And then you realize it's going to end, you're going to end, you're going to be nothing at all, and it's too terrifying to contemplate.

Hank doesn't worry about dying, and when he does die it will probably be harder for me than for him. This is the great curse of consciousness and self-awareneness. This is what it means to be human.

This is why we invent religions.

But as far as I understand it, Buddhism has a more sensible approach to the problem than those religions that cling to an idea of heaven or hell. The way to make peace with this is to learn to not be so attached to being this particular person, so when the time comes you can let go of it.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be the most important person in the world. I thought that would make me immortal. I think maturity has to do with realizing that your individual existence is short and probably not of any great importance. But it's meaningful because humanity as a whole is tremendously important, I think. I think of us as the universe's means of becoming aware of itself and knowing about itself. It's brain. Any individual neuron is not particularly important, but the system as a whole is crucial. Would anything be beautiful or terrible if we weren't here to see it? I believe in the human endeavor, in observing and learning and questioning and experiencing and making culture and evolving.

Often I think we're going to be not quite wise enough to pull it off. That our darker fears and urges will pull us down and destroy us. Thanatos will defeat eros.

Still, it means something to be here, awake and alive and observant and participating in this thing.

But I'm still afraid of the relentless process of aging and falling apart and suffering and dying and dissolving. I wish I could put time on pause until I'm ready to face it.

I think nature might have its mercies. I've read that when an animal is about to become another animal's prey, it's brain releases a chemical that causes it to be calm and not feel pain. Mr. M almost died, and he says when you get close to it, it seems very easy.

I hope nature will have mercy on Mr. M so that he has gets better and has a good chunk of time to be healthy and happy and enjoy life. I hope nature has mercy on me. I hope I will have a long and healthy life and not suffer too much and that when the end comes I will be ready and it will easy and simple and peaceful, like slipping into bathwater.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

So much for that...

It seems that T.S. Chris is not going to be much of anything, and that's good. I wouldn't mind a week or two of "hurri-cation" but I can't take another big disruption. I don't know what will be of New Orleans or whether I will be here to see it, but I need everything to remain stable enough to get me through the next two years of school.

Here comes Chris

It's coming in to the gulf, and then what? It could devolve into a big rainstorm. It could gather strength and turn a bit to the right. We watch and wait.

Yay for me!

I successfully wrote on to the environmental law journal. It means a whole buncha extra work, but it's good for my resume and it's also vengence for my poor grades in legal research and writing.

Criminal justice, New Orleans style

Six murders in 24 hours.

It seems like the thugs are running things. They don't fear the police. Even before Katrina, it was hard to successfully prosecute anyone the for murder because nobody will testify. Mostly out of fear of revenge. Also a bit of us-versus-them dislike of the cops.

Now the criminal justice system is broken down. Even the thugs have the right to an attorney. The public defenders office is broke. It's an incredibly stupid system, but the public defenders are paid for mostly by traffic tickets. Anytime anyone pays a fine or pleads guilty to anything or is convicted of a crime, they pay a certain amount to the public defenders office. Which is possibly unconstitutional, because it gives the public defenders a motive for encouraging their clients to plead guilty.

Anyway, the cops are out giving tickets for public drunkenness on Bourbon Street (!) and not using a turn signal. Because they need to get money to the public defenders office, so the system can get rolling again.

In the meantime, while you're getting a ticket for an illegal RIGHT turn, six murders in 24 hours.

Another sign of New Orleans' decline

The Roman Candy man's mule must have died, because he's pulling his cart around behind a big white pickup truck.

Once I saw him with his mule and cart leaving his house. He lives on Constance Street near Whole Foods. I wondered how it was that he could keep a mule in an city neighborhood, but it's New Orleans after all.

Touchy subjects

It's Saturday night and I'm home alone. The town feels empty and hollow.

I took Hank for his late-night walk. We walked by a bar, and a guy standing outside told me Hank was a cool-looking dog. (He is a good-looking boy. I'd post more pictures of him, but he gets all wiggly for the camera.) But a couple of hoodrats saw Hank coming and scrambled across the street.

People in the ghetto are generally afraid of dogs. Sometimes I feel bad about it, when little kids run screeching from Hank when he just wants to get petted and play with them. But when the kids turn into 17-year-old gangbangers I'm glad he keeps them away.

There are plenty of people who would call me a racist for referring to hoodrats and gangbangers. I admit that I am stereotyping black teenage boys loitering on the corner, wearing extra extra large white t-shirts and big jeans falling down off their asses (surely one of the dumbest, most non-user friendly fashions ever, yet it has lingered for years now) doing their best to intimidate everyone on the street. And yeah, I do get some satisfaction when my dog makes them back up. Unfortunately, though he's a hardy and resilient boy, he can't deflect bullets.

I'm still a good liberal, but I'm tired of the apologetic white liberal thing where if you dare to notice anything bad about the black community around you, you have to explain it away by invoking historical racism. Yes, there is a problem that has its roots in the fact that white New Orleans never gave a shit about, say, funding decent public schools where someone might learn to read or gain other marketable skills, that it turned its gaze away from the poverty and squalor festering the next block over. Etcetera, etcetera, and all true.

But when the overwhelming majority of the murders in the city are done by black teenage boys spraying bullets at other black teenage boys, and taking out a few bystanders besides, and when those boys are actually proud of New Orleans being Murder Capital USA... well, I'm not going to apologize for noticing that and getting a bad attitude about the kids hanging out on my corner.

What spurred this rant? Well, this afternoon I saw the kid who snatched my purse about a year and a half ago. I'm not sure if I ever wrote about this, but a boy about 13 years old or so grabbed my purse when I was walking down the street in my own neighborhood. I ran after him screaming, which he didn't expect. And since he was a fat little fuck and I was in good shape from being a bicycle commuter, I caught up with him and he dropped the purse. There were a bunch of people sitting out on their stoops watching this, and no one did anything to help me. Then this lady told me I better get out of this neighborhood, and I stood there in the street and screamed at them that this is my goddamn neighborhood. This was just around the corner from my old apartment, which I'd lived in for five years by that time. It was the day after Valentines Day.

And then later today I had the unpleasant experience of watching this video on YouTube, taped in the Magnolia projects. I'm sorry, you're going to have to cut and paste, and then you're going to have to turn the volume down and I'm warning you you won't be able to watch it for more than a few minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QGon3B0FJc

New Orleans was always a precarious balance of beauty and ugliness, love and hate, grace and despair. Since the storm, it seems to me that the balance has shifted in favor of the ugliness. I'm starting to think that I should move away, even if I can't generate that much enthusiasm for anyplace else.

Right after the National Guard returned, there was a dip in the murder rate, but for the last few weeks there has been at least two murders a day almost every day.

It's not just the crime. It's the fact that no one seems to be in charge. It doesn't seem like anyone has a plan, at least not anyone with the power to implement it. Actually, one of the mayor's advisors is working on getting some big box stores in Orleans Parish. Great.

One of the few good things has been the turnover on the city council. But it's not enough.

It's been almost a year, and it's actually shocking how little progress there has been in cleaning up and rebuilding. I mean, they've started to tow away the flooded cars. Supposedly the levees are being rebuilt. When you drive through Lakeview, there might be one or two houses on each block that is being renovated, where people are living a trailer out front or actually in the house.

The music still exists, but it seems subdued. Kermit Ruffins opend a new club on Frenchmen Street, which is cool. The Dragons Den reopened last week.

Magazine Street is still busy, lots of hip people spending money. Where they come from I don't know. Rents are approaching New York and San Francisco levels, but I don't know where anyone gets the money to pay it.

What's left? Pretty houses, corner bars, shrimp poboys, good radio, dramatic afternoon thunderstorms. I'm not sure if that's enough.

Psychotherapy

I mentioned the wonderfullness of Wellbutrin in an earlier post. The shrink at school who prescribed it for me suggested that I also look into doing some therapy. And I know I should. If my problems are serious enough to warrant antidepressants, they warrant examination, too, and now seems like the time. Even before the hurricane pulled the rug out from under my life, I had "issues" having to do with being in some ways a chronic underachiever, and also about relationships.

But.

The shrink gave me a list of therapists who are still in town and deemed competent. One of them was the girl that Adam dubbed the Sandspur--the one who made me feel like I was being stalked, dated at least two guys I had previously gone out with (including the Psychopath), and worst of all tried to get me to play kickball. (One of the perks of adulthood is that no one can force me to play kickball ever again.)

Adam himself dated a therapist who was a real nutcase. My old therapist had a tic.

And I wonder how these people are supposed to help me with my problems when they don't seem to be handling their own?

Okay, I know about avoidance and resistance and all that. I know I'm resisting something that would probably help me. I "interviewed" a therapist today and she seemed non-nutty and is willing to do a reduced fee if I commit to sticking with it.

But right now everything about therapy and therapists and the things therapists say and the very idea that I need therapy is INCREDIBLY FUCKING ANNOYING.

Bikini Girls with Machine Guns

I know I'm kinda late to the party, but all of a sudden I really love the Cramps.

See, Alex Chilton produced the first Cramps album around 1980 or so. Chilton was a fallen god to my ex-husband, and everything in his ouevre got a lot of play at our house. I didn't like it at the time. Partly cause my tastes were wandering elsewhere. Partly cause the childish and contentious dynamic of our relationship made it hard for me to like anything he liked. Partly out of some hipster reverse psychology, like if I rejected what the cool kids liked, that made me even more cool.

Maybe now I'm having a midlife crisis in which I reconsider and take comfort from the punk-psychobilly bands of my youth.

Whatever.

Right now they sound like everything rock 'n' roll was supposed to be. Loud. Rude. Fun. Cathartic.

Plus, you know, the guitarist is a chick, the singer is a guy.

B&N

Yesterday I was looking at the table of new paperback fiction at Barnes & Noble. I was reading the back cover of a book that looked moderately amusing and learned that the authoress was a 26-year-old student at the very writing program that I attended. Not long ago such a discovery would have caused a tortured fit of jealousy, anxiety and insecurity.

But now it didn't really bother me. I take that to mean that I'm doing the right things with myself.

Of course, if it didn't bother me at all I would have forgotten all about it by now.

A higher circle of hell

My sister broke up with her fiance. I don't know the whole story, but I'm sorry to hear it. He's a sweet guy and they seemed to suit each other. My sister is really very cool and a unique person, and it might be that he really wasn't quite good enough in some ways. He wasn't super intelligent. But at the same time, sometimes my sister seems congenitally incapable of being happy. Or, like my mother, chronically dissatisfied with perfectly nice men who try to make them happy. I hope to avoid that particular pathology.

I didn't get my cash, but I got the new credit card, which is almost as good. Got the car back. Remembered how much I love my car. Got a new bag of dog food just in the nick of time.

It's summer in New Orleans, which means a big dramatic thunderstorm every afternoon. I love that pounding tropical rain. Even if it does make big mosquito-incubating puddles everywhere.

My scholarship is safe for now. I talked to the dean of student about how I can learn to get a few A's and keep it safe.

It's too bad about the lost almost brother-in-law, but otherwise things got a little bit less hellish today.

My life is a hell

I got my champagne and fireworks--on the 4th of July in Mr. M's mother's backyard, while Mr. M was in his room, trying to sleep through wrenching pain. His mom had me pop open a bottle she was saving in the refrigerator, not because we had anything to celebrate but because she needed a drink.

It's miserable to see the suffering of someone you love and not be able to do anything about it. And he gets tired of being fussed over, of women worrying about him.

I wasn't prepared to see him in such bad shape. I knew it was major surgery, but I didn't really get how major. He's 6 feet tall and now weighs 130 pounds with his shoes on. He can't stand up straight and walks with a cane. The surgeon said to expect the recovery to take ten weeks. The good news is that even though he is miserable, he is recovering. He will get through it. And then he has to get in physical and mental shape for his transplant.

His time in the hospital was especially bad because they put him in a recovery room with brain-damaged patients who babbled nonsense. But worse than the patients were the mean nurses who made fun of them. And one of the patients died while he was in there. I can understand why he now dreads going back to the hospital.

I had parked my car at the airport while I was gone, and when I got back it wouldn't start. It turned out to be not that big of a deal--whoever put the new battery in got the wires crossed so it wasn't charging right. Still, it couldn't be jumpstarted and I had to get it towed out of the garage, which was an enormous pain in the ass.

I took a cab home the night I got in because I just couldn't deal with it right then. Then I left my cell phone in the cab.

I'm broke. I'm doing a nonpaid internship this summer (all six weeks of it). I got a thousand dollar grant which paid my rent and utility bill for July. I'm taking money out of my pathetic little retirement account to get through the rest of the summer. But they make it such a hassle to get your own money and they take forever to process a request, and I'm still waiting.

So my car is still at the garage and I haven't been able to pay the dogsitter. I forced myself to overcome my dread of credit cards and applied for one, because I can't be without some kind of cash flow if we need to evacuate. But of course the card hasn't shown up yet, either.

I got a B- in legal research and writing, which is better than I thought I would do. But I got all B's in the rest of my classes, which means I got slightly below a 3.0 GPA for the semester, which means they could take my scholarship away from me if they want to be strict about it. I think, I hope, they will have mercy since I've only a tiny bit short and my overall GPA is still above a 3.0 and they know it's been a tough year.

But I have to figure out how to get at least some A's to mix in with the B's. I can't spend the next two years in constant fear of losing my scholarship. And I'm pretty sure I had the highest LSAT score in my class. If I'm smart enough to get a 175 on the LSAT, it seems like I should be smart enough to get at least a few A's in law school.

I've been thinking of an old friend of mine who lives in New York. During the first few weeks after the hurricane, she sent me a gift certificate to L.L. Bean so I could get some warm clothes, since I left home with only a few t-shirts, jeans and sandals. But later, when I was in DC, I sent her a few emails because I was trying to get up there for a weekend and wanted to see her. But she never replied. I didn't pursue it any further because I just couldn't deal with any friendship drama. But I wondered if I'd done something that offended her, and if so what it was.

There's been a lot in the news about people spending their FEMA money on strippers and cruises, and I started to think maybe she's mad because I used some of my FEMA money to buy a BMW. On the face of it, I suppose it looks bad. But it was a ten-year-old BMW for which I paid a little less than $4,000. It might be the nicest $4,000 car that anyone ever got, but doesn't that make it a sensible buy? Did she miss the part about how I almost how panicked I was the day before the storm when I couldn't find a ride with anyone who would let me bring my dog? Or how I had to criss cross the country in the following months? I needed car just as badly as other people needed hotel rooms.

Well, who knows what's really going on with her. I suppose I could call and ask. But maybe I don't want to know.

I don't know why, after everything that's happened, that right now is the point where I just can't take one more damn thing.

If another hurricane hits, I'm not going to worry about school or work or anything. I'm just going to get out of here and go vegetate with my folks and with Mr. M. I'm almost looking forward to it.

A very nice woman I don't know has been reading my blog and leaving supportive comments. It's comforting. A little odd but not in a bad way. Ten years ago when I was trying to be some sort of confessional non-fiction writer, I wanted more than anything to interest strangers in my life. But my life wasn't all that interesting at that point, and I was not wise or talented enough to make something compelling out of nothing.

And now, well...

Be careful what you wish for.

Where's the champagne and fireworks?

I started this blog a little over a year ago by saying that my life was going to change drastically because I was quitting my job, moving across town, and starting law school.

Ha ha ha ha ha. I crack myself up.

Anyway, today I am officially finished with my first year of law school.

I would be happy, except I also got my appellate brief back today and I got a C on it. That means I am going to get at best a B- in that class. You don't know how humiliating it is for a former professional writer and editor to get a C in legal research and writing.

At least it's not a very big part of my GPA. I think I did fine on all my exams, but I might have a tendency to overestimate how well I do.

I was going to try to write onto the law journal, but now I wonder if I should bother. I don't know how much my grade can be explained away by my great personal dislike of the teacher. I don't think she had any personal dislike against me, and anyway grading is anonymous. I just couldn't stand to listen to her and tuned her out a lot. It was very juvenile of me.

I'm just having a little bit of a self-pity moment. I should get an A just for surviving this year! I should have people patting me on the back and saying "You did great!"

Oh well.

I have to clean up the house because Hank's sitter is going to be staying here and I don't want her to be grossed out. I'm going to see Mr. M for the holiday. I've only talked to him a couple of times this week. He says he's still in a lot of pain and he sounds like it. He's staying at his mom's house while he recovers, and she will make me sleep in the guest room. But he says he still wants me to come up, and I want to see him. So off I go.

What I need is about a month on a secluded tropical island with a pristine beach, and a massusse and a cabana boy to bring me drinks.

The Morning 40 saves my life

People shooting, stabbing and strangling each other. The mayor calling in the National Guard. Exams!!! Mr. M recovering from surgery and not calling me. My fucked up feet not healing properly. And a thousand petty aggravations and annoyances. I'd be having a nervous breakdown if it weren't for the new Morning 40 album, Ticonderoga, which is funny and lewd and like, rawks. I've listened to it at least ten times today. It makes it seem fun to be down and out.

This fucking town

Yesterday, Mr. M's dad was giving me a hard time for staying in New Orleans when it shouldn't even exist. I said that made me love it even more. But then...

Five kids shot shot dead in half-abandoned Central City, over the usual drugs and territory. And to prove that honkies do stupid shit too, in the suburbs a guy shot two deputies and held an 81-year-old man hostage in his home.

In the meantime, I'm driving down St. Charles and there's a bunch of people marching down the neutral ground with signs that say "Make this Neighborhood Mixed Income." I wonder what they expect--some former Rex to carve up his mansion on the Avenue into Section 8 housing? Or do they not think uptown as a whole is mixed income? I suppose the crack market on my corner and the ghetto hoodrats who are scratching up my car are being bused in?

Okay, I understand the larger problem that housing prices are going up and up in every inhabitable neighborhood, which is one of the reasons it's hard for people who want to come back to do so.

Maybe we should have subsidized housing for people who aren't certifiable dumbasses, because we definitely need to raise the overall average intelligence around here.

That wasn't so bad

Miss L was sweet. We danced. We got hit on by Mexicans, which is pretty much standard in New Orleans these days. But I shouldn't be snide about it, but rather grateful that anyone wants to hit on me when I feel so decrepit.

Jay still wants to hit on me, but I guess I'm more jaded or more worldly about it--it just seems like something a woman should have, an admirer who always wants her and never gets her. Does that sound snotty? But I think he likes it that way. If I ever gave him any I think he would be disappointed. Anyway, he sounds good. He has some new songs, plus he did Cocaine Blues and "Sugar" by the Archies! He lost weight and looks better and has less of an air of stagnation about him.

What the hell am I thinking?

First of all, I should say that after I called everyone I know in the state of Minnesota (four people) for word of Mr. M, I finally talked to his dad, who said that he is really wiped out but nevetheless okay--the prognosis is good. So I can stop panicking.

In other news...

I have perhaps foolishly agreed to go with Miss L to Jay's show and record release party tonight. It'll be just like regressing to old times.

Last year when I was frantically calling people trying to find a way to evacuate with Hank, I left a message with Miss L and she never called back. She never tried to get in touch with me in the days after the hurricane. After about a week or so I emailed her and she wrote back saying that she was in Houston and how she was being taken care of wonderfully and well and she was so blessed--it was disgusting. She takes positive thinking to some kind of grotesque extreme that can't admit that anything in the world is bad or wrong--even when the town you love is 80% underwater. She wants to live in some kind of dream world, and it's fake. So I didn't write back and neither did she.

Then when I was working the polls, she came in to vote and she acted so happy to see me and we hugged and I gave her my new phone number and figured why hold a grudge?

I've seen her once since then, and she called yesterday to see if I wanted to go to the show tonight. When she called back today she was talking about a musician I didn't know who was found dead today, who she said was a sweet and loving and caring guy, and to make up for his passing she said we all had to be more loving and caring, and she said, "I love you Miss H."

And I didn't say it back. Because she just dropped it on me; and it felt manipulative. And fake. Do I love Miss L? It depends on how you define the word. I feel affection for her and I care about her. I'd be there for her if she needed me--more so than she was for me--but she's the one who wants to say I love you.

And then there's Jay, who used to semi stalk me till I shook him when I moved to my new place. I heard that after he lost track of me he took up semi-stalking a friend of Miss S. Also, he's talented but he seems kind of stuck and it's depressing.

So in a way I wonder what the hell I'm doing getting reconnected with these people.

On the other hand, I'm lonely and disconnected and the whole ordeal of the last year has driven home the importance of connection. And everyone's a pain in the ass to to one extent or another. But how much of a pain in the ass? How much should you tolerate and how much should you reject?

I'll see how things go tonight...

Worry

This morning I was pissed because someone put a deep, deliberate key scratch on my car door.

This afternoon I am crazy with worry because I haven't heard from Mr. M yet, and haven't heard from his Mom since Monday. I left a message with her around 11 a.m. and haven't heard back. Called his cell phone but of course no one answered. I could call the hospital but I'm scared.

I'm supposed to be studying for exams, which start on Thursday. It's hard to concentrate. I just need to hear that he's okay, then I'll be okay.

What I learned in school today

Prostitution is a misdemeanor in Louisiana, but oral sex is a felony crime against nature.

Mr. M is not using the phone yet, but his mother says that he's doing okay.

Update on Mr. M

I went to school to use the printer, and when I came back I had a message from Mr. M's very sweet mother. She said that his surgery had lasted seven hours (!!!!!!) but that everything was okay. It's alarming that it took so long--I can't imagine why it would--but I'll trust her when she says it went well. I don't want to call her back because I think she needs to sleep.

Mr. M

is going into surgery today at 1 p.m. Everyone cross your fingers and toes.

Vitter

New Orleans and all of South Louisiana is deeply, profoundly fucked and in a total crisis of leadership, and our own Republican senator and proud Tulane alum thinks that preventing gay marriage is an issue worth spending time on. What a fucking dipshit.



(Yes, there is a direct connection between increased frequency of posting and my inability to communicate with Mr. M during his illness and hospitalization. I'm trying to postpone pestering his mother for news.)

Bad and scary things

Mr. M has been sick and getting sicker since early April. The only days he hasn't puked are days he didn't eat. He has been in the hospital this week and surgery is planned. I don't know the details because we only talked for about 45 seconds before he had to throw up again.

He's been expecting to have a transplant in August. I've been hopeful for him. If things go right, his ordeal of more than nine years will finally be over and he will have a chance to have a normal life. And, by extension, we will have a shot at having a normal relationship, or relatively normal, considering what a couple of oddballs we are.

I'm still hopeful, but I'm scared, too. I can't stand the thought of him alone in the hospital, though I know when you're that sick sometimes you can't stand to be around anyone.

In the meantime, I'm hobbling around but I can't move my toes much and I worry I really did hurt myself. My mother said she would come down and take care of me if I had to be on crutches, but I think an extended period in this neighborhood would scare her to death.

And I have a week and a half of classes left before exams.

The psychopath sent me a couple more emails a few weeks ago. I ignored them and he went away, but I worry he'll be back. I had a nightmare about him stalking me and trying to rape me or abduct me or something. I woke up thinking I should call Bellsouth and request to be unlisted before they print new phonebooks. I don't think he can get my number from information if he doesn't know my address, but I might be wrong about that and anyway if I'm in the phonebook he can get both. Good thing phonebooks are so forgotten in the internet age.

I'm a wreck. Actually it's a wonder I'm not more of a wreck. Wellbutrin is wonderful.

There was an article in the paper today about how so many water pipes broke during and after the storm that the city water system is leaking more water than residents are using. It seems a metaphor for something I haven't got the cognitive skills to explain right now.

Accident prone

Last night I fell down my own front steps and twisted my left ankle rather badly. Today I can't walk and I'm staying home from school. I wonder if I should go to the clinic. This is the third time I've sprained an ankle since February. Also, last week I missed getting hit by a pickup truck by about six inches when I was crossing the street.

I don't feel much more distracted than usual, but I am having many more mishaps.

And I feel isolated and disconnected. I wish there was someone here to take care of me today. I realize the number of people I can call is limited, and I should save the favor-asking for tomorrow if I decide I need to go to the clinic. If I hurt it bad enough to need a cast, I won't be able to drive (my car has a standard transmission) or bike and I'll need to bum rides or take a cab to go anywhere.

I've always chosen to live alone and protect my privacy, but there's a cost to that--no one to take care of me when I need it!

A new hurricane season

I've been asked a couple of times in the last few days whether I was still writing this blog. Well, obviously, I haven't been really, and I didn't think that anyone in particular missed it. Neverfear, I'm still just as wordy as ever.

I've found it too depressing and overwhelming to be a good reporter of life in post-Katrina New Orleans. I will note that at the moment there's a man ranting outside about how saving the wetlands is a racist concern, the white man's way of getting rid of black neighborhoods.

Now that my private life has a regular someoe in it, I feel awkward about airing it out here, though there would be plenty to air out. For the record, it looks like Mr. M will have his operation in late August. If it goes well, things should be much better for him and we will have a chance at having a normal relationship. The bad news is that he's been pretty sick for the last few months.

Lastly, of course, law school has a way of taking over your life. I survived my first semester and while I'm dissappointed to report I'm not at the very top of my class, I'm safely in the top half and I hope to do better this time.

Anyway, this blog was excellent for keeping in touch with people during the evacuation last year. I will at the very least use it again for that purpose, and maybe some other ones as well.

Easters

Last Easter I was in Greenville and Memphis, and the Easter before that I cooked the psychopath's rabbit, and the year before that I was in Denver. This Easter I went to the beach on Ship Island and it was perfect except I can't believe there's such a nice beach so close to New Orleans and it took me so long to check it out.

And Gulfport is an unbelievable wreck. You get used to your local neighborhood wreckage, but it's still kind of shocking to see things fresh.

But worse than that, casting a bigger shadow on the day, was knowing that Mr. M is sick and far away and there's nothing I can do for him, and everything I say seems to be wrong. There was a couple my parent's age on the boat, holding hands and leaning into each other, and I hoped that Mr. M and I might be like that someday. But I worry about him. He's not exactly thriving at the moment.

Lots and lots has gone unwritten in the last month or so, and I won't try to catch up. I ended one semester and started another, and got a speeding ticket in Iowa in the interim. No grades yet, but I think I did okay. But in the last week I've been feeling depressed, overwhelmed, sad, stressed. Like everthing that was flying through the air finally landed hard on me.

In other news, I am now a certified election commissioner in Orleans parish, and I'll be working the polls next Saturday. I will be sure to post a report.

Lonely fireworks

It's very quiet around here post-Mardi Gras. Miss S and I went to Cafe du Monde around midnight on Friday and we were able to park a block away. Last night I went to the movies at Canal Place, and when I came out there were fireworks bursting over the river. I don't know why.

This city is so beautiful and sad. I'm too busy and distracted and worried about school to think or reflect or articulate much about what it's like to be here now, what this place is like now. But I believe in the significance of being here, that this city matters to me and that I matter to this city. And that this city matters to the world, in spite of all hate and resentment directed at it.

Sure, it's Mardi Gras

But what I really want to say is Harlan T. Bobo is a damn genius. He's so good, he almost makes moving back to Memphis look like an attractive option. For real, look him up, buy his CD, thank me later.

I am abstractly pleased that Mardi Gras is happening and so far it's going well, nothing too bad has happened (that I know of) and the city is full of people spending money. But personally I'm ready to get everyone out of my house and sleep in my own bed again.

C'est levee...

was the theme of the Krewe du Vieux parade tonight. I still love New Orleans, because it has a sense of humor in the worst of times, it knows how to have fun, it has cultcha and Hubig's pies. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the corner store that is the bane of my existence, but here are some pictures from tonight.

God bless Jerry Bruckheimer

Yes, Jerry Bruckheimer. He's producing a movie that was scheduled to be filmed in New Orleans before the hurricane. He looked at other locations after the hurricane, but decided he still wanted New Orleans. They incorporated the hurricane aftermath into the script, and begin filming today. It might be an expensive piece of Hollywood hackery, but it's a great thing for the city.

In other movie news, the Canal Place cinema is finally going to reopen this weekend.

The lower nine

Today I took a ride into the Lower Ninth Ward and Chalmette. There were other people out gawking. The big barge that crashed through the levee has become a bit of a tourist attraction. I didn't photograph the barge, and the pictures I took don't really give a sense of how bad it really is. For one thing, you want to take pictures of things that are recognizable, rather than piles of unidentifiable rubble, which is what half the area has been reduced to. And the other thing is you don't get a sense of how vast this waste is. It's like a bomb dropped. People don't want their homes bull-dozed--it's become a big issue. There are No Bulldozing signs up all over the place. I deeply sympathize with the people who have lost their home and their neighborhood, and all they have. But when your house has been lifted off its foundation and deposited on top of a car, when the walls and the roof have collapsed, I don't think you can do anything but knock it down and haul it away. I don't think you're dealing with reality if you think such a house can or should be saved. And I think I'm coming to the unpopular opinion that the neighorhood should not be rebuilt.

In Chalmette, a the parking lot of an abandoned Wal-Mart is now a FEMA trailer park and another strip-mall lot is now a new dump.

The first four steps of the Katrina 12-Step program:

1. We admitted that we were powerless over Katrina, that our lives had become unmanageable

2. Came to believe that government and insurance companies could restore us to sanity

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the Fashion God Michael Brown as we understood him

4. Made a searching and pointless inventory of our possessions.

For the rest of the steps and the "projected path" of this year's parade, I direct you to http://www.kreweduvieux.org/MdM2006.pdf


P.S. The psychopath emailed me today, as I feared and suspected he would. Of course I am not going to reply. He is free to assume that I changed my email address.

The psychopath

I've got a writing assignment due Monday for my legal research and writing class. When I got burned out on working on it tonight, I decided to take myself to the movies. I actually like to go alone, even on Saturday night. I went to see Match Point, and it was good.

But on the way out I saw the IRMS. The Psychopath. We had an extremely brief conversation confirming that we both are okay after the storm. It should have been painless.

But if I could choose one of my exes to disappear from the face of the earth, or at least to send to some corner of the earth I'd never visit, it would be him. I'm a little bit afraid of him. I honestly do think he's a psychopath, for one thing, no exaggeration. And I'm also so, so ashamed of myself for going out with him past the first date, and for really compromising my integrity for the sake of trying to work things out with him--when I had an aversion for him from the beginning. The whole thing made me doubt my own sanity and judgment and led me to think I was better off staying out of relationships altogether.

All I can say to my credit is that I came to my senses and broke up with him. And that the state of mind I was in that lead me into that mess was largely caused by the fall out of falling out with Mr. M. And now Mr. M is back in my life, and he's a better man by far. It doesn't even make sense to compare them that way, as if the IRMS is good and Mr. M is better. The IRMS is a psychopath and Mr. M is a sweetie pie with integrity. The psychopath often made me cry and rarely made me laugh. The opposite is true of Mr. M, and the tears are over the situation and not something he did to me.

But Mr. M is not actually here, is he? Part of the sting was that the IRMS was with a woman, poor thing, and to whatever extent he still has the power to draw me into his headgames, it's like he's won because he's with someone and I was out on a Saturday night alone.

And it doesn't seem right that a twisted headcase like that is walking around and screwing around and feeling just fine, when Mr. M is sick and alone tonight.

It all fits in rather well with the theme of the movie, come to think of it.

Then I was going to see the Red Stick Ramblers at One Eyed Jacks. It was further depressing to drive into town on deserted, decrepit and destroyed Claiborne Avenue. And then you can't park anywhere near the Quarter, but I guess that's a good sign in a way. But I gave up and came home and I'm going to bed alone just like my dear Mr. M.

P.S. At least I looked good when I ran into the psychopath.

P.P.S. He's a psychopath and he's only months away from graduating from medical school, god help his patients.

The triumphant return of the Morning 40 Federation

I've been sick with a bad cold and busy and tired, but nevertheless I dragged my butt out of the house last night to see and hear the Morning 40 play Le Bon Temps. It was so crowded that at first I couldn't get in the building. Girls were standing and dancing on the benches by the wall, and everyone was packed in, smoking, drinking and bopping around. I saw Chuck and Eddie from my old neighborhood. I didn't stay too long, but I was there long enough to hear the whole personal hygiene subset and "Sorry Mom." They sounded good. It was just like old times, only better because it meant more.

I needed that. Earlier in the evening I was talking to Mr. M on the phone, and I realized I sounded like I was falling apart. I'm not really in as bad shape as I sounded, but I am stressed, and I have been having a lot of bad dreams. Despite how good the show made me feel last night, I still went to bed and had a dream about catching a burglar in my house. I acted all tough and grabbed him by the hair and dragged him outside and kicked him out, but he just laughed at me and demonstrated that he could easily open the gate and get back inside anytime he wanted.

It's about feeling vulnerable. I've been feeling more aware of mortality and the speed of time passing and the cruel capriciousness of life. You can't be safe and you can't be sure of anything. But you can appreciate and cherish the people and things you love, and wholeheartedly enjoy the good things while they last. I want to appreciate what I have when I have it, not wait till I've lost it.

Chocolate city

I've been pretty sympathetic to Mayor Nagin through this whole mess, and I'm even sympathetic to what I think he was trying to say in his MLK Day speech. But at best he showed clumsy political skills in pissing off both blacks and whites in New Orleans.

In the meantime, Wynton Marsalis, of all people, made the speech that needed to be made:



Um, the link-making function doesn't seem to be funtioning, but it's at http://www2.tulane.edu/marsalis011606.cfm

Friday the 13th, and the end of my first week back at school

Yesterday I unintentionally found myself driving through Lakeview. I don't know what to say--it's bad. Blocks and blocks of newish upper-middle-class suburban-style homes, every one of them gutted and abandoned. You can see the water-line marks at around the second story.

All over town, people have spray-painted messages on moldy refrigerators and abandoned buildings, from "NOPD Beat Me Down" to "Rest in Peace, Sweet Kitty." An entire block of apartments across the street from the seminary on Carrolton is burnt to the ground.

Last night there was a big house fire about two blocks from my house, with three or four fire trucks on the scene and big billows of smoke floating over the neighborhood. It seemed like it took a long time to put it out.

Today I drove by to see what was left--the back of a camelback was burnt to a crisp, but people were sitting on the stoop in front of the house.

And among this, I'm studying and going to class. But I like it. I really like law school. I love my professors. It's the being a lawyer and paying off my student loan that concerns me.

Most of my fellow students are much younger than me, and most are brand new to New Orleans. There's a group who seem to be having a great time discovering the music and club scene. They've been to see the Rebirth and the Maple Leaf and the Soul Rebels at Le Bon Temps. Part of me feels crotchety and snotty and possibly kind of bitter listening to them--oh, you think you know about New Orleans music and clubs, clueless young whippersnappers? But I'm also so happy to know all that still exists to be discovered.

I myself went out to hear the Plowboys last night. They were in fine form, and it was good to see Dave Clements smiling face and that blonde girl who goes to all their shows and dances by herself. I was going to see Ryan Scully tonight, but I got there at about a quarter to eleven and there was no sign of him, and I'm too wiped out to sit around and drink for an hour and wait for him to start. So for now it's enough to know that he's alive and well and present in New Orleans. And the full Morning 40 Federation are playing a week from tonight.

For awhile I was in a deep lonely funk (actually that's been one of the main features of my post-Katrina experience) missing my friends and Mr. M. But Mr. & Mrs K are coming over for dinner tomorrow and Mr. A has emerged from isolation, and I'm starting to make friends with a couple of my fellow students. And there's always Hank and Miss P and work, work, work.

My relationship with my parents is going through a rocky phase, but that's a story for another day...