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the true question is are you being played? I had a convo with a male friend about certain females he knows and whether they are playing him or not – one sends nutty text messages that are very provocative but says she just wants to be friends, another wants to be taken out to dinner but not kissed – it seems a little suspcious. I remember telling a man that I feared he was playing me, and when he said he had the same fear, I ran in the other direction. In the initial throes of a new relationship and not knowing the other person, mixed messages or confusion can cause you to think you are being played unless you progress to the next stage. But surely late in the relationship one doesn’t have to worry about these things? But maybe one does. Pishaw I say. Playing is for amateurs – I would rather use the direct approach, which has served me for half a lifetime. Plus, I am suspicious of people who are suspicious of me – make sense?

In the meantime, a non sequitor – on the topic of boredom – S and I were speaking about ways to overcome boredom and by happenstance I went online and there is actually a website that is called iambored.com – and instructions on it of how to turn a tampax into a bunny rabbit. Who said the internet hasn’t opened this vast collective intelligence for us to mine?

My contractor called me on the phone and sent me an email today – it was like the clouds parting with rays shooting out from behind. It’s distinctly possible that someone will be working on the LaLa tomorrow.

I inundated E with writings and musings this afternoon until she told me to slow down. She is thrilled with how fast I am moving through stuff – but then again she’s also unaware of my efficiency in accepting things for what they are once I realize what the hell they are. Silly me, I was waiting to be told what they are. The clear being led by the confused does not make a direct path – see above, I like the direct approach.

Tomorrow night is Nathan & the Zydeco ChaChas, then the first seder and we dance into the weekend that ends with an Armenian Christmas in Ponchatoula. No tampax bunny rabbits to be made yet.

What do you do when rhetoric from a dear friend begins to be overlayed with misogynist themes and when you ask this person to stop this kind of talk with you, he tries to insinuate you are the one pulling the themes out of context and in the same breath, professes that “all of his men friends believe” this way therefore there is truth to these themes. What if you are in your forties and your experience with men suggest otherwise – your lovers, husbands, friends, colleagues, superiors have not now or ever expressed these beliefs about women. That’s not to say it is unfamiliar, my father and brothers and uncles tilt towards misogyny with a Spanish prediliction for believing their penises grant them some sort of superiority. But the men I have freely chosen to associate with I strongly believe do not hold these beliefs or if so, only in stereotype and not in truth.

The equivalent of misogyny for a woman is misandry, a hatred of or strong prejudice of men. If any of the women I love professed what my male friend is concluding by way of blanket statements, I would find what they were saying equally disturbing. But in all the categories my women friend fall into – men hatred or misandry is not now or has it ever been a theme.

The weird thing about misogyny is it does not have to be blanket. The Don Juans of the world appear to be women lovers but while a “seducer” might appear outwardly charming and to enjoy the company of women, many do not, at root, respect women or find them interesting on any higher plane than mere sex objects. At the same time, misogyny is a negative attitude towards women as a group, and so some misogynist can hold these views yet have healthy relationships with individual woman. So that leads them to the conclusion that they are not misogynist. Phrases like – your sex wants to have it both ways, she reacted like an hysterical female, all the men I know, know this about women that they _____ [fill in the blank] – are gross generalities that serve no greater purpose in understanding the nature of people, whatever their sex.

Misogyny is ugly no matter how you package it.

So in all their infinite wisdom Bell South decided to rewire all of Midcity thereby keeping us without landlines till most likely August.

Then they took it upon themselves to take control of the end of the neutral ground on Ursulines and Hagan – Ursulines being one of the, if not the, most beautiful street in Midcity – they ripped out jasmine that had been growing there for decades and was perhaps the largest jasmine anyone has ever seen – they ripped out a Japanese plum – then they scorched the earth – then they built a 4 foot concrete platform and erected the ugliest biggest steel box ever seen – now the people who live in the beautiful houses that grace the street can sit on their front porches at night and sip mint juleps and marvel about how ugly their street has become.

But wait – the neighborhood went balistic – and we decided to have a rally to protest this invasion and we invited Channel 4 and every council person and representative we could find to show up today at 2. But last night, in anticipation of this rally, a good friend got a wee bit tight and snuck over and graffiti’d the monstrosity with the words – JASMIINE WAS HERE – and today when Channel 4 showed up I was the spokesperson to go tell the cameraman to make sure he didn’t miss the graffiti on the other side.

The good news is that I think they are actually going to have the eyesore removed – which is unbelievable and fantastic at the same time.

I ran to the Quarter this morning to get a long run in – my IPOD went out twice – that means when I run the Crescent City Classic next Saturday I have to decide whether time or experience is more important – the last race my IPOD went out at a crucial time but I powered through – I think it could mean forget the time and go for the fun – hence a reboot stop and crappy time.

I took H&T after the rally by the LaLa and they were enchanted by the house and the experience on the porch as H called it. I had my tinge of guilt again sitting on the porch but I put that emotion in my new outbasket where I keep throwing all my vestigial emotions – the one that requires re-emptying and constant vigilance that none of those emotions try to creep back into my psyche. Remember the manifesto I admonish myself – something like Remember the Alamo – which I must say is not a too far off analogy.

My birthday plans started taking concrete shape and now people are getting involved and so now weather permitting, it will be a grand celebration – the new age and the unwinding all wrapped up into one funky occasion.

I learned again that some people have an amazing capacity to change, you know, or morph – maybe not in their current environment – sometimes it takes shattering the foundation – I spoke with S who spent the weekend with his family watching a slide show of when all of them were kids – he was overwhelmed by the thought of children and regret.

Later I watched 60 minutes where they visited an elephant orphanage in Kenya – these babies are abandoned when their parents are killed by poachers seeking ivory tusks – FOR GODSAKES DON’T EVEN THINK OF BUYING IVORY – but the baby elephants would die without their mother’s milk so they are brought to the orphanage under emergency circumstances – they thrive on love like human babies – and so when they get to the orphanage they are assigned a person who sleeps with them and spends all day with them till they reach adolescence. It is quite an amazing place – a place I hope to visit when my financial obligations to the LaLa are behind me.

I told somebody new – C – who I met the other night to check out my blog – but I warned her that without controversy there is no interest and so she might be lulled to sleep by the latest entries. Again I grab hold of Tennessee Williams, who said: The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that’s true of everyone, don’t you?

Oh Tennessee – really? Did you think that is true of everyone? Did you really believe everyone had this capacity to love as deeply or feel as profoundly as you did?

Muses come from the oddest places at the oddest times.

Windy day and shaky bike ride in the morning to start the day. I ran into M walking around the bayou – his much needed exercise to assuage the problem ticker. L and I argued over the same argument and finally he said we exorcised it once and for all. Let’s hope so. I went on errands that took me here and there – paint samples for the LaLa to show S when he comes in for Jazz Fest. A new summer bag from Filly to patronize one of my favorite shopowners who had nothing but thank yous for me for recommending L at Venus to her. A transformer and cable to feed into my doorbell so it rings “Who Shot The LaLa” at the touch of a button. Gumbo from Chez Nous to take to mom’s for dinner. The wind had calmed down and the weather was ideal – Magazine Street was bustling and it was impossible to park Blue anywhere. All of the shop owners were smiling and warm. Spring’s owner said “I’m doing great” when I asked her. I said to mom I am doing pretty damn good considering when she asked. For the moment, we have a state of grace, and it is not a moment too soon.

S always asked why my fiction didn’t speak of us and I said no conflict, no interest. N told me that T was reading for a while but not much anymore – again, no conflict, no interest. Tennessee Williams, who is haunting my thoughts these days said: Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle, you are equipped with the basic means of salvation. Again I say, the meaning of life is not to be comfortable, the meaning of life is to live it. The hard part of my struggles are behind me, the future is flooded with possibilities, but stay tuned, there are always conflicts that will lead to interest.

E was right – I do not take risks – a history of having a man to cling to as I am finishing with the man I am with. There are things about yourself you may not like to hear, but they are worth knowing. G left for Knoxville trying to run from a truth she sees in herself because she does not know how to get around it or fix it. I figure I have to fix mine so I must find fortune in having this time to do the hard work. Yesterday at Markey’s I asked N what she thinks is wrong with me and she said it centers around the “menz” issue – she asked me what about her I saw as flawed and I said her meanness – but it’s not mean, it’s the sharpness of tongue and I told her being smart, means having a cutting wit, which makes her hysterically funny, but when she is bad, she is horrid – the curse of the mind. But yesterday she said she woke up and decided to bring out the kinder and gentler N. Then L and I spoke this morning of the female cad – the girl who wants a man to fawn over her but then would rather sit around with the girls and have her fun – a sort of narcissism.

But back to me – my flaw – again mulling over quotes from Tennessee Williams – “It is almost as if you were frantically constructing another world while the world that you live in dissolves beneath your feet, and that your survival depends on completing this construction at least one second before the old habitation collapses.”

This morning I went downstairs to see a dark ominous cloud hanging over the Can and I walked quickly to catch up with N and just a few steps away the sky broke open in this wondrous blue with white sharp rays coming from behind fat puffy clouds – N said, “when I went to catechism as a child those were always the pictures of god – as in Tennesse Williams’ god comes quickly” – I laughed at her because just yesterday at lunch she was defending the atheist in her.

Last night sitting on Carrollton several streetcars went by and we all remarked how beautiful the sound was – to have the metal on metal shshshsh back in our world again.

The Tennessee Williams festival was last weekend and for the Stella calling contest a man yelled FEMA with such passion and verve that he won. Now is probably as good a time as any to think about Williams’ as he embodied the New Orleans imagination better than most – think of A Streetcar Named Desire where Blanche so desperately wants to be grounded in love and Mitch who professes love to her causes her to say “sometimes there’s God, so quickly” – as if she has been saved by a man. — Blanche is a little sparrow, she dwells in fantasy because she cannot endure reality. — Her sister’s husband, Stanley, repulses yet attracts her, because he is an emotional infant. Stanley knows Blanche is fragile, so his rape of her is particularly cruel and leads to her ultimate destruction. — But I think what Stella does is far worse. Stella believes her sister’s accusations against Stanley are false — once again, in order for Stella to go on loving Stanley she must deny the truth. — Reminds me of Dorothy Allison’s mother who had to deny her own daughter was being repeatedly raped in order to hold onto her man. — In Williams’ world there are many ways to hurt people and Streetcar shows man at his worst. — To think that the city of San Francisco bought our streetcar named Desire – they should give it back!

Items like these items could bring you down:
From the NYT: Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggested on Thursday for the first time that the president might have the legal authority to order wiretapping without a warrant on communications between Americans that occur exclusively within the United States. The attorney general made his comments, which critics said reflected a broadened view of the president’s authority, as President Bush offered another strong defense of his decision to authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without warrants on international calls and e-mail messages to or from the United States.

From New Orleans: our trash cans have been removed forever – can’t staff the public services, don’t offer any is the city’s new motto.

Where are all the people? department: N and I were going to do a joint birthday celebration at Antoine’s but they aren’t open for lunch – neither is Commanders open yet at all – no staff is the response.

BUT – it’s time to lighten up and look at all the reasons to tighten up and be happy:
Some pulchritude is returning: L called and she and M are moving back – she’ll be 7 months pregnant and J now almost three – they have decided to come home after all and so the city has scored another plus. And I get my movie friend back.

Friends to smile with: Walking around the bayou this morning N and I saw the little ducklings with their parents waddling across the grass and sliding into the water, we both cooed, even though neither of us are the cooing type, well N less than me. And right at the bridge a stone fox ran by that made us both smile ear to ear and turn our heads – we lapped him again on the other side and he was even cuter the second time around.

Healthy body: Nice long run even though already warm at 8AM.

Fun: M for a massage to work out the kinks of my arm injury, Bywater for catfish with N, Vaughns where we watched a promo for Vaughns, Marky’s, Parkview where I met C who told me how she went from alpha to the upturned mouse – it’s frightening to have heard her connect the dots so effortlessly – because it is so base, so cliche, and yet – mon ami – and yet – jfc – slit my wrists now.

Something is rumbling out there -perhaps a storm, perhaps not, but it has the animals disturbed.

Darlene has taken over Cliff’s mail route and I have not received a piece of mail since Cliff left. What goes on? I asked D and she said, I thought you moved. I just wanted to beat my head against the mahogany column of the LaLa house. Then yesterday Darlene was sick and another mailman was delivering and he said I had no mail because Darlene had sent it all back. Why I moan, I don’t know, since N still hasn’t received a stick of mail since returning in December.

Tonight’s fashion show outing got cancelled because G sank into a lowly depression – her funk is funky. Meanwhile N said she broke down for the first time in the classroom reading Prufrock – “I don’t know why, but when I got to the part about “watching my greatness flicker” I just fell to pieces.” We all know why – starts with a P, then a T, then an S.

I bit my tongue today when someone told me, “I have nothing to say to you” because I almost blurted out, a “thank you” will do.

Later, I wrote Manifesto #1 by the bright afternoon light and I must admit it is brilliant – so brilliant S wants me to help her write hers. Even though it was inspired on the heels of a deluge of thoughts she has shared with me of late. I’d publish it here but it is clearly intended for me and me alone. But it ticks off truisms that build towards a powerful crescendo and then the end, the last line of the manifesto shines bright as Venus on the mountaintop. Or maybe Diana, the goddess of wisdom, would better represent the conclusion drawn by this manifesto. The words are built on anger in the face of not owning up to responsibility – i.e., When I was young, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

On more mundane matters, I told the contractor that nobody has worked on the LaLa all week and that ain’t right. I haven’t heard back from her. Then I called my plumber to see where he has been and he played a practical joke on the phone – I said to him, you must be really bored M to be messing with me this way – now get to work on my house. My a/c guy never called back. And so the saga continues – one step forward, two back, two forward, three back, and so on – it is called the LaLa ChaCha – and I do it every day.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T.S. Eliot

Looking around at everyone that came out for the first Wednesday concert – and George Porter in such fine form – and I know I am in heaven – a community who knows how to enjoy music and life and forget all your troubles forget all your cares and go downtown – later sushi since Slice was so busy – met my twin not in looks – turned down the date even though the last thing I want to be doing is rejecting someone right now – a 12 year old red headed boy told me I was pretty – later in the evening I was summoned by a two-year-old (as I referred to him later) although maybe he was closer to 22 – and this is flattery – agh – what goes on? I ask you. The line is weirder and wider than I thought. Here is the litmus test for too young – if he follows “you’re hot” with “do you want a shot?”

Today was outstanding – a cool morning and the Bean and I walked around the bayou solo till we caught up with K who was waiting camera in hand to take a photo of Renny’s tail since he is doing a series for the TP on things that remind him of storms. So nice outside I came back and went for an easy run and realized this might be the last of these kind of days. Then the tub was going to be delivered which required me sitting on the front porch of the LaLa from 12 to 4 – I cleaned up inside and then hung on the porch with the Bean and felt lucky, a little guilty for having such a nice house, and just placid for a change. Did all my calls from the front steps – and on the sales call saw catfish jumping in the bayou and had to tell everyone – I laid back on the porch and contemplated a day when the house might actually be livable.

A good session with E – about where guilt comes from and some revelations about things that I have considered negative about me that maybe are not after all – thought my inabliity to take Custer’s last stand on some issues was a flaw, but perhaps not, thought I didn’t know my own mind as well as others, but instead I was right in looking for compromise – which was good to hear in a different context. I like the way E is very earnest about her compassion but then throws me a zinger – just to show me she too has an edge.

Then Pal’s to meet L and the crowd was obnoxious and then taxi to the Irish Pub and A and K came by with L and then to House of Blues to see Willie Nelson – since I had my moon shoes on with the red flames I was able to see above the crowd and all in all it was quite enjoyable. He played some of my favorites and guys in the crowd had bandanas and braids in homage. Sheriff Harry Lee got on stage and sang with him for some of it. Then L left to smoke a cig towards the end of the set and when I was ready to walk out the crowd was so thick I couldn’t make my way through and this very tall guy appeared out of nowhere and took my hand and said I’ll get you out – held my hand tight – got me through the thick of it – stopped at the door and said here you go, and then kissed me very tenderly – and I thought, hmmm, okay, and went to meet L who was being entertained by some guy akin to Larry the Cable Man, who was quite hysterical, but we pulled away and came home to Pal’s for a night cap and it seemed the same crowd was there except the bartender had changed.

A willingness to entertain new ideas and be objective about oneself – lessons for the day.

Apparently I am still not angry enough – note to self: needs work.

A missive from a reporter – J – some people surprise you with what they have to say. I told E that although I felt like I don’t deserve LaLa, I always feel remarkably blessed by the friendships I have and the people I know who love me – I have karma to overcome from my recent transgressions, but I have love so vast and strong that I feel like it suspends me during my darkest moments.