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I haven’t updated my will and after having seen several multi car accidents while on my road trip – I got home and called S to take care of some business. I told him I am leaving him as my beneficiary and expect he will take care of the LaLa and either sell it or live in it, and then give some of the inheritance to my mother. When the LaLa is done, I’ll refi the house and change all of the beneficiary stuff as well – but since that is not happening anytime soon, I wanted a plan for right now.

I asked N if she would take Arlene should I die and she said of course. But then S said he wanted her. So S will also take the Bean.

N said whatever you do, just don’t leave me the LaLa. She’s hilarious, don’t ya think?

T started his house renovation in February of 2005. We’re always comparing notes. He drove by this morning when I was walking the Bean – he’s been in Colorado – it was good to see him. I wanted to give him a hug but I was sweaty and he looked freshly showered having already gotten his bike ride in and gone for iced coffee to PJs in the Can. He said while he was gone his project supervisor died.

I laughed. I didn’t mean too – then he laughed.

This is truly absurd – renovating a house in New Orleans right now – what goes on?

Later I rode my bike to the Gentilly circle to look at the John Scott sculpture and I saw his car in the driveway – I was going to go in and see what progress has happened – but I was in a mood to be by myself so I kept riding.

He’s another mystery – is he a dog like J says or is he shy like he says. Who knows?

I walked Bean late in the day and arrived at the LaLa just as K was pulling out – why he is working on Sunday is beyond me. But whew, I dodged that bullet. I feel like he holds my house hostage. I went inside and he had trimmed out the two clerestory windows and framed one window in the kitchen. Seemed like a long time to just get these things done.

The window manufacturer in California sent me an email the windows are being shipped tomorrow – woo hoo! Now to get the glass man to finally call me back with a price and place the order. The roofers got derailed on a large slate tile job uptown, I’m waiting for their lull to get them here – because I don’t want to sheet rock until there is some kind of closure.

I went over to N’s afterwards – Thad was filming the Snake voicing over his poetry written during and after Katrina. L was there to do some voice overs too. I haven’t seen L in a while – I haven’t been getting up early to walk the Bean – and it impressed me again how handsome a man Gomez actually is. Anyway, we had a good exchange, having been distant with each other lately. He’s coming to the commemoration, which is a good thing, since this is all about healing.

On the way home, V was sitting outside her house having a beer and watching a tiny television. Her legs were slick with bug spray and she offered me some so I sat down with her for a bit. She said her beau of 16 years had changed – having lost his house, his job, everything cause of Katrina – he had turned to his family for comfort and shut V out – she said it was the first time in 16 years that she actually realized her place – as the mistress – and she knows all she has been losing and lost.

She also said she hopes L and I get together and I said, we’re friends is all. L lives directly across the street. She said he was going inside to call me when she saw him last and sure enough when I got home there was a message from him. I told her he wants a woman to love, and I’m not that woman, so I don’t want to lead him on. She sighed. She said, you know he is a hard one to read, always keeping to himself and I laughed and said, I know, I call him the man of mystery.

In Atlanta, I walked to my old house on Riderwood Road right off LaVista Road. AA doesn’t live far from there, so the Bean and I took a long walk. It was funny to see the house because the first memory I had was when my mother packed up the van with all her belongings and her dog Max (who had fallen out of my window and injured his leg permamently) and drove all night like a bat out of hell to New Orleans leaving my father behind, bewildered. Well he shouldn’t have been bewildered since he had been verbally abusing her most of my life.

Her destination – my sister’s wedding. My sister was marrying G, a Catholic, and my father had torn his tee shirt in the synagogue and pronounced her dead. My brothers followed suit. My mother fled to be by her side.

Her only regret was having left her jewelry behind, which my father wouldn’t give her. So one night in some flight of fancy, my sister and I hopped on a plane to Atlanta and rented a car and while my father was gone, we put a ladder up to the second story window and broke into the house. We tried to open the safe but he had changed the combination, so we tried to attack the safe with everything we could find but still couldn’t get it opened. It was a big safe and my mother had A LOT of jewelry – Spanish Jewish men really like jewelry and buy a lot of it for their wives (FYI).

On the way back, it had gotten hot on my walk and the Bean needed to rest. So we perched against a rock fence. My old house was three levels, a ranch style like all the other houses in the neighborhood EXCEPT for the big monstrosity where I was fence hanging on. It was a CHATEAU of some gross proportion. And apparently from the signs in everyone’s yard there was another going up on a vacant lot where lots of activity was happening. The signs said “No Inappropriate Infill in Riderwood Estates.” For their sake I hope they win – how much square footage does a person need and if they do, why don’t they take their eyesores out to the country.

L text me from Florida saying Ernesto is on his way to NO and let’s have a Hurricane Party! I said, good god, can I just get the LaLa done before it is wiped off the face of this earth? I called H, my erudite scientist in residency, and he said no worries, if it weren’t for Katrina, no one would be paying attention to Ernesto. Well, then I come home to learn that there is this cone thing that Nagin is talking about and we might be in the cone and there is this 36 hour mandatory evacuation thing and well, Ernesto, just stay where you are for godsakes.

On Tuesday, we are gathering on the footbridge to commemorate Katrina – god willing we will not be evacuating the next day.

The motto for Snellville is “Welcome to Snellville Where Everybody is Somebody.”

Last time I was seeing E, I said I still harbor a lot of anger towards N and I don’t think I could ever forgive him. She said to focus on “my journey” where everybody is not somebody if I don’t want them to be. I decide.

I was sitting in AA’s new house after having made fresh Margaritas and chips with salsa and was giving her the backstory of my current life, catching her up to how, what, why and who. She said do you regret what you did and given the opportunity would you do it again? I said I would have done it differently.

Leaving Steve and having an affair with N has changed my life forever. I don’t know if I would have left Steve if there hadn’t been N, but there was, so there is no way to go back and figure out the what ifs. But in some strange way, my altered self is a much better fit for me than who I was before even if the old me and the new me haven’t yet developed a perfect fit.

My biggest regret was having lost W in the entire equation. He is a loss I cannot replace in my life. But even losing him made me realize how important children are in my life and I know I will adopt or foster a child. There will be people who are age appropriate who will need me to take care of them. All of my brothers have taken in strays their whole married lives – B now has E living with him, since her mother died and she needs some structure in starting college. R&K started their marriage with a foster child Frankie, who they adored and then proceeded to get others through school in some form or fashion aside from having their own two daughters. My oldest brother B has taken in almost all of his siblings at one time or another.

I love being part of a big family.

AA said when she looked into the future she saw me with a child and with a significant other. I said don’t stop with one child, I’ll take as many as come my way. When I was pulling out of her driveway I said, “are you going to miss me?” and she said, “I wish you’d have never come because now I know what I am going to be missing.”

My brother Rafael loves camels – they are all over his house. There are wooden camels, short and tall, all over the floor, there are camels poking out of bookshelves, on pillows, everywhere. His wife, Kimberly, calls him Abdul because of his camel fetish.

I like those camels – not having thought about it before – camels are kind of cool looking.

I have an elephant thing. AA has a frog thing. My beautiful niece Nikki has a butterfly thing.

It’s interesting to see what animal people identify with and what their traits represent.

Camels are pretty pissy animals – they spit at you. That is so Rafael.

Elephants are the largest animal and they are known for not forgetting – that is so me.

Frogs are slimy – that is not AA.

Butterflies are beautiful fragile creatures and that is my darling Nikki – may she find her way soon.

Themes tend to swarm and perhaps they come in three as my friend and boss Jon believes but visiting AA, we went to the Hoe Down in Piedmont Park to do the 2-step. I was bait because AA had broken up with her squeeze and wanted to make her jealous. When I was leaving Atlanta, I had to drive to AA’s house and get the Bean where I had left her so she’d be safe. I was showing AA some photos of my family and told her about some who had come out recently. I said one told me she was a Lesbian and I told her, you don’t know that yet, experiment with everything and then decide who you are or what you are. AA said two things 1) I hate the word Lesbian. My mother says it with as many syllables as she possibly can. I’m gay is how I refer to it. And 2) Discourage her from being one. It’s been a tough life.

Can I tell you how that breaks my heart? The shit AA has had to go through in her life. You’d think it would be over since on college campuses being a Lesbian is “all the rage” but the stigma is still there.

Driving home S called in the middle of a panic attack and I had to talk her off the ledge. She had been in Tahoe visiting her friends, who are Lesbians. She said they, who both have daughters, worry one of them is a Lesbian. Her friend J said, “I hope she isn’t for her sake because it is a hard life.”

Last night I arrived at the Maple Leaf ahead of H&T because they were marching in the parade and I had been at a party. I was walking towards Carrollton when I was swept up with four women, one naked and in chains [it was Mardi Gras in August after all] one of them, a young hottie, came over and walked with me, flirting and asking my name and where I was going etc. She later found me on the dance floor and danced with me. Turns out she works for my vet.

I was wondering if she would have said her life is hard because she is a Lesbian, or if she is too young, or if she doesn’t think about it.

Lez Bee Uhn – love is hard enough – living with prejudice is the ugliest thing about people I know.

At R&A’s party last night – again, so odd being in a house that is finished, with art on the walls and candles lit, sigh, one day – A’s an artist and a framer. He had a few John Scott pieces that were fabulous but more important was his own work. He’s been working on a theme for a while now where he takes the Pawn because while most think it is dispensable, the truth is the pawn is one of the more powerful pieces on the chessboard – and the pawn is the only one that can become a Queen – the most powerful player. So his Pawn becomes a Queen but the Queen gets pregnant and spawns something more powerful. It was blowing my mind. When a man truly understands the power of birth – that itself is powerful.

R came out from LA to start a museum studies program at Southern – she was only going to stay a few years – get it up and running and go home. After Katrina, she has decided to stay. And oh what a difference to all of us to have these two are part of our fair city.

Arriving in Atlanta at midnight on Tuesday, my niece Michelle’s chihuahua (Chico) attacked Arlene. Segue to my other brother’s house a couple of nights later and lo and behold there are two Chihuahuas (Lady and Josie) and both attacked Arlene. So I had to bring the Bean to my friend Alice Ann’s house to be safe. Last night at the Maple Leaf’s First Anniversary of Mardi Gras in August, I was attacked by a Chihuahua. What goes on?

I was at the back bar waiting for Jamie to get a break – it was packed – and this guy walks up and shoves me to the side after I had been waiting there and I said, “Dude, what’s your problem?” He said “I work here” and I said “Like I give a fuck” – and he said “What did you say?” and I said “Fuck you” and he said “I work here” and I said “Fuck you” and so it began the slow removal of Rachel from the bar. He called security – lots of people got involved – when I was paying Jamie, a tall guy came up and said “Don’t take it personally, he’s a Chihuahua” and I said “That explains everything.”

The best part is that H&T backed me up and by the time the guy followed me to my truck, all three of us were shouting “Fuck you, you Chihuahua.”

Don’t try this at home. You can only do this if you are wearing a costume.

just make sure you don’t have to hear me sing.

I’m off on my road trip and last of my summer vacation. The alternator is going in the truck as I write. Woo hoo.

Meanwhile, I was telling a new friend why I started this blog – I wrote fiction for fifteen years, which puzzled most of my friends. They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t writing nonfiction since I come from a family that epitomizes Southern Gothic with a Sepharadic twist. Well I thought okay, my work is taking up most of my time, and I don’t have time to center my mind which fiction requires of you, and so I started the blog in anticipation of moving back to New Orleans and chronicling my family in all their absurd technicolor. I got derailed by my own drama and that of Katrina and so the blog took over as a means of documenting the now.

One thing I can tell you is this is all a process – I’m processing the world through this lens right now – yesterday I wrote about do unto others and this morning I sent L a courtesy missive squaring away recent communiques – I felt that no matter what, he is a human being, who deserves respect – I paid a heavy price for disrespecting my marriage and friends during my brief walk off the planet – at all costs I want to make sure that does not happen again.

Katrina taught us there are few things that are tangible in this life – what we are made of on the inside is all we can carry around and know for sure.

Off to less complicated matters……