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.