Lugubrious Thoughts
Another beautiful January day here in the rotten crescent city. H, one of my neighbors, got fired today from his job of 23 years – his breath smelled like alcohol at 9:30AM. He was an expert swimmer who swam through the muddy Katrina waters to get people food and water. He helped a lot of people during the evacuation. His unsung hero medal is a pink slip. Lovely huh?
S is stuck on the LaLa house and what he thinks it may be worth in the future. He doesn’t see it for the liability it is today – the note, the cash it will need to finish – nor does he have the dream for it as I have had from the beginning when I called Kathleen Kenny and said I want that house sight unseen and asked N to drive by and look at it and he walked me through it on his cell phone – then I asked S to fly out and buy it last April – but this morning I told him he could have it – if his having LaLa would remove his threat to me and assuage the slighted feeling he expresses through his indifference to our economic wellbeing. I could walk away from the LaLa if I have to – rather than endure more toxins invading my system.
L was killing me today with his text msgs from El Dorado – so funny – a friend of his is a little mixed up – uh, to say the least – talk about confused – but his spin on the issue is deliciously biting. J is sick and so he is thinking he might have to stay longer to care for her – meanwhile I have Max here, the russet cur, and he is comfortable with me so we’re goody.
N remains in Ponchatoula – she’s also sick, trying to recover from demo, insulation, and a general cold.
My work girls are in full swing giddiness about the Bahamas – salt scrubs, deep tissue massages, which bikini, etc. And all are in work avoidance mode as the this year unfurls.
Spoke to N about escape fantasies to Mexico or a nunnery that might accept Jews (we know of none) – in reality everything has been so chaotic and a large part of me looks forward to being bored in a home where phones, cable and internet work and boxes are only used to bring things in and out, not to stack in rooms – and yet a wee part of me says hey dumbass, no house, no one to cuddle with – run like the wind – I can just take this show on the road with the Bean as my traveling companion. Or not. Good grief, listen to me, ambivalence is rubbing off with the hallucinogens.
Meanwhile – the similarities are meaningful – me – he – the great ameliorators – although he says he absorbs whereas even though I don’t run from conflict if I see it coming I will throw my body on the flames. The indifference to these not so small feats endured over years is monumental. But what goes on with us?
Threw a hissy fit with mom today when she said she accepted the graveyard shift at the nursing home – she’s 70 for godsakes – she says they are desperate and no one will take that shift and so, I ask her, why did she? Very upsetting. I left the house and took Max, the russet cur, for a long long run, and now he is panting and wishing L would come home and rescue him from the crazy lady.
But L’s not coming back till Friday it seems. He called from Arkansas and said J is now on antibiotics and still sluggish and that he just read in a men’s journal the following New Year’s resolution: “Resolution #14 – stop staring at your hairline like an infant perplexed by a mobile.†And, more psycho messages to report, which are keeping him entertained and me for the time being in El Dorado.
N met with the Good Heart today for the first time – shields in abeyance. And again sorry seems to be the ONLY word.
When I tell you how lovely the bayou looked in the gloaming – today January 4, 2006, the orange-tinged sky unwinding, the residents coming out to their stoops to catch the dying light, if I tell you that you would ask me how, how in the hell could I tell S this morning he could keep the LaLa house for himself?
Because when you have nothing, you have nothing left to lose.
A lugubrious thought – no doubt.