Dangermond.org

W asked me to define bizarre yesterday afternoon – if he had been older I would have said uh, you are tangentially connected to the bizarre right now – the bizarre context in which we are all connected. So as it stacks up right now – S and I spent yesterday with poison spears traveling cross country and by evening were able to call a truce and should the decision be that I walk from LaLa and he lives there – then I will do everything possible to help that happen. Meanwhile I am still waiting for the Shine to give me his blessing.

Instead I gave W some lame analogy about his friend B and what if three consecutive days in a row he showed up at school wearing the same recently purchased item as W and at first it would be weird but by the third day it would be bizarre. Later after picking up some videos and deciding on our afternoon I was asking him questions about school and how he liked New York and he said “what is with all the bizarre questions?” – where did he come from???? I applauded his perfect use of the new word. Reminded me of my brother D who used to come sit on my bed late at night when he had gotten home from whereever and he would say, okay, word of the day, and throw out something like resilience or pulchritude and then make me use it in a sentence – always applauding my ability to do so. I miss him so much it makes my heart ache – but that is another story – a long sad story.

I also told W that I might not live in the LaLa and explained to him what was going on and he said “if S steals LaLa from you” and I said he is not stealing it – he owns it too and it might be better for him to live there. So then W suggested maybe we should get back together so we could both live there. I said I don’t think that is going to happen honey and I will find a place to live that will have a swimming pool if that is what you are worried about. And we laughed. Again, I think there should be a service that rents sweet 6 year olds to people having a bad day – because you could watch Scooby Doo’s Aloha movie and watch them eat more than you have eaten in a week and then cuddle on the couch with that little hand of his reaching back to hold yours – where does that instinct come from with him and why does it feel so awesome? Then you think there are 6 year olds and there’s W and it’s hard to think of him in a generic sense. Links are formed with people (kids or adults), animals, places that are intrinsic – that cannot be forced – that happen without you having any control over them – it’s hard to say how they are formed but some are so strong there is no denying the power they have over us.

N and I talked about N’s porch and she and the snake did not even know they were creating this special place but there it is. And how do you create it? It just kind of happens. Maybe. But N calls it sublime beauty and I say sometimes it is neither sublime nor beauty and it still has power over you. It’s the bizarre connection in a bizarre context and it exists as its own entity and the fact that we have no power over it and it has this power over us is what makes it sublime beauty.

The note says: so I here I sit listening to Tom Petty’s The Waiting is the Hardest Part. And I have to laugh and laugh and laugh.

S, who said he was not going to read the blog anymore, reads the blog, gets mad, and in his last note says it’s obvious you are waiting for N.

“she joined a nunnery and waited for the sun to shine and he was young and confused about himself and the world …. ”
“you’re not that young.”

I am not waiting – I am here in my beloved wreck of a city living, grieving, hoping, yearning, loving, sleeping, breathing, dreaming, laughing, working, walking, talking, writing, feeling – not waiting to do these things, doing them 100%.

Working out in the gym I was inundated with images of Paris Hilton wearing a tee shirt that said “I’M HOT” on the front and “YOUR NOT” on the back. Isn’t that appropriate – Your Not – if you’re going to print it you might want to check the spelling.

S called from SF to tell me he is there with K showing her the city and having a bad day – he also said he intends to live in LaLa because he has an emotional investment in the house. Whoa! I told him that I had wished he died in a fiery car crash this morning so it was good for him to call and remind me he is a human being. Now what, get up and walk around the bayou and wave to S and K on the porch in the morning?

I have W today so at least a nice distraction – haven’t seen him since NY so jonesing for him bad.

I think I know and he’s not yet 44. I am moving towards resolution with all of this – the complete separation of property, the severance of heart and mind, the giving up of dreams stacked against too many odds. L calls this my last hurrah, the ultimate acquiescence, but I don’t think so – in war, they blow the horn to charge, and to retreat. And both have honor in them. One last pass at the balance sheet by someone older and wiser than me and we can move ahead.

It’s been almost a week since a cig has touched my lips – so far so good. Trying to keep my vices to a minimum so that I can thorougly relish every moment of despair and/or joy without leaning on my usual devices. Trying to do what I advised N – feel everything as deeply and as much as it hurts so that none of this gets buried under a smile.

N said he is suffering from post traumatic stress – no concentration and forgetfulness – the entire city is suffering PTS – it was a year of loss stacking up on loss and it will take a while to fill these coffers again. I talked to E about how it “feels” different – she said what was is over – and that is another loss besides the marriage – everything now is different and is yet to be realized.

Today is Epiphany and also the Snake and N’s decade anniversary – it’s been a week shy of a month since the hard part began and never was there a better description of these past few weeks. I think of Chekov’s “The Lady and the Dog” – the only way the couple can resolve their fears is to acknowledge that they are poised at the beginning of a “new and splendid life,” albeit one that they will not openly enjoy for a long time to come.

He tells me she wants to reach out to me but thinks it is better not to – I feel the need for communication too, but told him it would be subversive – I do have an agenda, one I try to put aside but obviously can’t because of my own self-interest. I told him I can’t be his friend, not his objective friend, even though I want what is best for him in the best of all possible worlds. In the end, my missives are tainted with bias not just for me, but for him, and they are not part of the same agenda that G (elder), or W, or some on that side would recommend – even though I think part of my agenda, the part where he is fully realized, resonates with her.

I told Mom last night that my entire tribe is against her working the graveyard shift – N said no way, the Snake and N are against it, L and his mother J were shocked, and even S in California says this is not a good idea. She says she is going through with it and going to try it. Why? She feels as if she has something to prove. Please, oh please, let me read this entry when I’m 70 and remember to not be as stubborn and silly as my mother! Something to prove? To whom?

A day that was more reminiscent of 2005 than I cared for it to be. Spoke with N this morning about all the ins and outs of finishing LaLa and how much and how long. Then S sent email that he does want the LaLa but he also, natch, wants all these other concessions as well. Then spoke with E about how I am handling all of this and she gave good advice. S gave good advice. N gave the best advice – he said walk around the bayou and see how you feel. In the end, Max and Arlene and I walked around the bayou on this, possibly the last unseasonably warm day of January, and we sat across the bayou from the LaLa and looked at it real hard. All I saw was another dream dashed, an effigy of S I’d like to burn, and no real resolution other than again Que Sera, Sera and Doris Day eternally singing in my head.

Sitting here with the Snake right now and he tells me that T in Seoul has become addicted to the blog and possibly loathes himself because of it – but I think he only reads it as a diversion from his Rice Rocket who he has grown fond of. Too funny really if you consider that most missives I get are for people who keep reading the fn blog like watching a goddamn train wreck but then descry it and rail at me to discontinue writing it, associating them with it, or whatever. It’s unbelievable that anyone would care enough about As the Bayou Turns to bother getting bothered but then welcome to my sordid world.

N and I are going to write a book in the end. He will write the erotica and I will write the narrative and it will be filled with fact, maybe occasional fiction to temper the outrageous truth, and maybe even snapshots or videos – it will definitely have original songs. We will sell it, go on book tours, and emblazoned on the cover we’ve decided is going to be his naked junk-in-the trunk ass. Best seller. The names will be changed to protect the innocent but then no one, not even us, will go unscathed, in this tell all end all real fiction novel of novels. It will make the blog look tame.

But that is neither here nor there. Right now there is still a lot of putting down on paper how to split up the D family. There is still a lot of therapy for all parties to figure out how to proceed or how not to act the way they have been acting for the last twenty years. N called me on my proceed with love said that it was also a way to keep me from feeling the cut – well there it is. I’m exposed for being silly – yet again. So I’d ask him how do you live a life without regret I wonder? Who wants to – a comfortable life, no regrets, make sure every step is cautiously weighed against everyone’s desire – no one gets hurt, no one risks regrets – sounds like a case for the GREAT SHOCK ABSORBER to come rescue the world.

The bayou isn’t going anywhere and no one fucking owns it so if S is so mercantile that all he cares about is flipping the house and has no dream to occupy the land, the space, then LaLa might have to be thrown into the swirling pot of muck that 2005 was kind enough to throw our way – chum for the big fish in the little pond.

What will I tell W? – who named the LaLa – that is my only regret here. He will say “oh man” and I will just have to laugh.

L is still in El Dorado where now J has fallen – her worst fear – and he is seeing the end of days unfold before him – sigh.

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.

Three days into the New Year and it already smells different. I sniffed the air coming in the open window the morning of the first day of the year and it smelled different, then yesterday and today the air just seems to be improving. Could be that we are enjoying outstandingly wonderful days weatherwise, could be that I feel more in control over what is happening than I have in the past months, could be that everyone seems to be going in a better direction than they have been before.

I’m pretty amused that S’s new squeeze has Marshall as her last name – it is probably par for the course in this crazy life we live – I’m definitely thinking this is becoming more book worthy the more I stand back from it all. S and I were standing on the LaLa porch and saw J, the musician, across the bayou and a young 20-yr-old type getting out of a little yellow car. S said I thought they weren’t back. Well, I said, he’s back, but he left M in LA, and that’s her replacement. S said, “seems to be a lot of that going around since Katrina.”

Daily tasks – I’ve spent the last twenty four hours interviewing subcontractors to do work on LaLa. S has drawn up a settlement spreadsheet for us that is a little difficult to decipher. My work has started today in earnest – with a 7AM conference call on beer. The Bean is still recuperating and we miss our walks in the morning on the bayou. My cold is finally going away. L has left to take J back to El Dorado so I have Max till he returns on Thursday.

N told me he is reading a recommended book that says couples find in their partner attributes from their other gender parent – I said no way, S is/was nothing like my dad – for that matter you are more like my father. My dad was the life of the party – he charmed all the men and the women in the room – I remember once telling N he was the party and when he bailed (out of the limo on S’s 40th) he took the party with him. Who knows what makes someone attractive to someone else – D asked me if I would start dating now and I told her – uh, no. Did you not hear me? I’m pretty much ruined in that department.

What makes a man attractive is visceral (smell, taste); mental (makes u laugh); easy on the eye; makes you skittish while feeling like he is home all at the same time. Makes you feel like a feral cat curling up in front of a roaring fireplace. A roaring lion. Ha. Funny indeed.

The thought of dating right now is repulsive.

Anyway, I feel rather good today and think that everything is just going to fall into place and this year is already bringing sunshine and smiles and a general sense of calm that has been absent for a long long time. I am not one to take baby steps so I’ll fall back to the m.o. I’ve employed for most adult years – proceed with love, expect wonderful things to happen, and give everything you have to give.

Just walked in from a walk around the bayou – it is so fn beautiful out there I could spit – I mean it is a day to beat all days – sell the red car – never I say – that would be insane.

New Year’s Eve 2005 – An Eventful Year (ahem)

2005 is almost at a close and all I can say is THANK GOD “this has been a year of too much unraveling, restlessness, catastrophe, change, and uncertainty. The star I see every night through my window is already up in the night sky and my wish tonight is different than usual – it is a wish just for me – tonight it is all about me.

Tonight, the parties are going to be missed, the bonfires will burn without me, the fireworks are already making the Bean quiver, my cold requires nursing, my soul requires healing, and I’m snuggled into my daybed with chick flicks and hot tea and thankful to be alone tonight to nuzzle my red nose into a plethora of soft tissues.

Good session with E what are you afraid of? She introduced fears I hadn’t imagined then applauded my burst of anger, congratulated the limits I am introducing, and said “I predict rough seas ahead, but you’re making progress. I handed her the paperwork she had asked me to fill out “the question: what issues are you wishing to discuss?  CROSS COUNTRY MOVE, AFFAIR, EVACUATION, DIVORCE, HOUSE REMODEL, MIDLIFE CRISIS. I laughed when I handed it to her. Therapy right now for me is better than a night at the Four Seasons.

Today would have been S and my 14th wedding anniversary almost made it, not quite. S has moved on. I am moving on. Sadness taints the edges not the center. A good 14 years or perhaps 10, well worth the memories, and the photo albums they fill. I remembered this afternoon a moment in Cafe Puccini over a decade ago, sitting by the large window, North Beach in full bustle outside, watching S order two glasses of Chianti at the counter, and feeling utter joy in my soul. Sadness taints the edges not the center.

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. Joseph Campbell – natch.

My talk with S – living is not about being comfortable – move out of the granny unit, get the house she has been wanting give up old ideas, gain new ones. Later a missive from C  apology, acceptance, and you have always been willing to step out of your comfort zone. Must be today’s thought of the day – “I can find you no comfort” the note left by Sue last year on my desk when she was looking for the comforter I left airing on the clothesline.

So we round up the letters for auld lang syne – K is MIA. L is restless. S is looking to borrow our champagne glasses for his New Year’s party. N and the Snake have gone to Ponchatoula to recuperate. N is in New York in the cold, light snow. Here or there, everyone is awaiting the promise of the new year and a better life.

Quotes to begin the year:

“To not use your life for all it’s worth, to not risk everything, would be a waste of a life. The less you live, the more you die in the end.”
Francis Ford Coppola

One of S’s missives from July this year “ she prefaces with – this could have been quoted by Rachel Dangermond –
Early in my business career I learned the folly of worrying about anything. I have always worked as hard as a I could, but when a thing went wrong and could not be righted, I dismissed it from my mind.
Julius Rosenwald, philanthropist

And O “my copilot – sends her end of year note that ends with:
amazed at your strength and never-dying spark, oh, what the hell a bursting flame!

“Try to stay passionate, leave your cool to constellations. Passion, above all, is a remedy against boredom.”
Joseph Brodsky

Lastly, from N midyear [devoid of context]:
not really concerned about fair as you are aware. Opportunist
and his last missive:
Wide Awake in 06