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There’s all the news to write about – the flood gates that are shaking so bad they are not working as reported today – the young man in the Sunday obit raised in Chalmette who took his life at 34 years of age leaving behind a daughter he loved – a friend’s husband fired after 17 years – yes, there is this kind of news to write about or not…….

Late this afternoon it was decided indeed that my alternator needed to be replaced and one is being ordered and so delay delay delay. Late in the afternoon, I walked the Bean around the bayou. Two men were fishing off the Dumaine Street bridge and one pulled up a significant fish just as the Snake was rounding the bridge with Renny. We asked him what he had there, a sheepshead? I said you know, I heard recently that the biggest sheepshead ever caught was caught right in this bayou. One of the men said no way, this is not saltwater and no sheepshead gonna be in here. The Snake said well it is brackish. And the other fisherman said, well I ain’t gonna catch no redfish in here that’s fo sure. I said if you did, I’d be fishing alongside you.

The Snake had to run off and get brown sugar so I walked alone with Arlene. A woman came out to her porch and yelled “kitty kitty kitty” many times, and a dog came running to her. On the other side of the bayou, I heard a bagpipe playing from the second story porch of a big house that was having the roof redone. A woman in a glider made mechanical clicking noises as she moved slowly back and forth on her porch. Slup slup slup – mullets jumped out of the water and slapped the water noisily on the way back in. Out again. In again.

A colleague of mine called today and without hello said, “are you all right?” – yes I said, relatively speaking, why? – he said I just had to get in touch because I was recalling something you said last time I saw you, and then I was thinking about you in New Orleans, and then I felt like I needed to get in touch. I said providence had intervened on my road trip that I was starting out on today by way of a faulty alternator. And I asked him about how he is doing. It’s been five years since his wife died of cancer. She was one of the best reporters for Off the Record and he was and is a talented musician. As she underwent chemo, he stepped in to help her with her job, doing her interviews, working up her grids and writing the reports till eventually he did her job. He has been doing it ever since and is only now an occasional practicing musician – albeit among the best harmonica players in the country.

When she died, OTR created a special award in her name for outstanding reporters – I won the award early on. I’ve thought about her – how close she was to the people in this firm, at a time when people could be so close because we were small and growing our business. I asked R how he is doing and he said not good. I said how long does it take to get one’s life back together and he said I don’t know.

Today after 8 hours I was called by Veterans Ford to say my alternator was dead and I needed a new one which they would have to order for me. I could have said, DUH!” but I thought it could have easily been worse – I could be in Alabama with the Bean at some Days Inn because my alternator broke, I could be paying $1200 like my brother is doing on his Bimmer for a new one if mine weren’t under warranty, there are so many worse scenarios.

I can’t imagine if I had lost Steve to death – how would I ever have come to any closure. Or if any of my loved ones had suffered loss of life during Katrina or now or anytime before a good ripe old age. It can always be worse, so chose happiness whenever you can, since it is your focus that determines it most days. And something I have been thinking about a lot today – do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

My roadtrip is being delayed by a faulty alternator. S is on her way back to SF and I’m left to recover from a fun packed weekend – maybe the alternator saved me.

Saturday morning we did the Misery Tour – went over the Claiborne bridge, to the left the barge is now removed and the walls rebuilt. Turned in and drove the blank streets then right on Caffin all the way down to Fats Domino’s house. Then back towards town and right on Elysian Fields and left on Leon C Simon up over the London Canal bridge and took the first left at Pratt and there it is – another ghost town – meanwhile – the fifth house in has an X with 5 dead bodies found. Head to Paris Avenue and take a right, cross Robert E Lee, then right on Frankfort (3rd right), 3 blocks to Carlson and a left. 1/8th of a mile from Pratt and the contrast is unforgettable. These directions came straight from H but as we got to the end S said, I can’t believe that was only a few blocks away.

Misery tour segued into cheeseburgers at Port Of Call, then Bacchanal, but not without first getting stopped by NOPD’s finest for rolling thru a stop sign. S loved this story and retold it fifty times – one of the cops said, “Here’s how it goes, the guy in front of you stops and then turns. The guy across goes. THEN you go.” I got off with a warning. G&L showed up at Bacchanal but L was in a distraught mood over New Orleans – she’s evacuated to NY and stayed there.

Later S and I went canoeing where I practiced my J-stroke to perfection. After a quick rest, we went to MiMi’s to meet G&B, H, and then P came to join us. We were upstairs waiting for our food when a striking woman came running up the stairs with her cell phone to her ear, behind her a bald man was running too – soon there was a lot of commotion and it turns out four black youths were robbing the restaurant downstairs – they had everyone down on the floor and Linda – the beautiful woman with the cell phone refused to let them take her cell or her lipstick – and her husband – the bald man – ran up behind her after he was punched in the head and had a lump the size of a baseball. We had a moment of shock where I and someone else thought it was some kind of performance art going on. Then everyone got on their cell phones and the bartender grabbed her purse and headed downstairs to confront them with her own gun. Meanwhile NOPD was there in seconds flat and after I got Linda to sit down and held the ice pack on her husband’s head – we all took a deep breath and went about our evening. The food arrived shortly thereafter. Another day in New Orleans. S and I left and went to Ralph’s afterwards for a nightcap and P met us there.

Sunday was a walk around the bayou and then we got N’s bike and headed out to the Lakefront and to see West End on bikes. From there we went to NOMA to see the Katrina exhibit. Then it was to Petunia’s for catfish and shrimp poboys and mimosas. We shopped a little then had to get home to get back to the Quarter to march in the second line commemorating the animals who died because of Katrina. I marched with a woman who held a photograph of her dog. He was 15 and at the Vet’s being boarded – the Vet did not evacuate the dogs. I started crying and found it hard to stop as I looked around the crowd at others with their photos. Memorials are necessary. Joseph Campbell said you need to make ceremony of the big things.

We met up with C, who owns Vaughn’s and told her what happened with the robbery the night before – she had heard through her bar network. Her son, J, was with her – hottie. We ended up seeing M of MiMi’s at Bacchanal and talked about the robbery. Apparently they had been casing the place for a while from their bikes.

Bacchanal was fun, we talked to some of the members of the band afterwards, two guys – Martin and Endre from Norway. Then we followed them to the Dragon’s Den while the Cougar was otherwise engaged.

I woke up at 4AM and had just a bad feeling about this single life – I look around and I’ve seen men behaving badly (cads and cowards), women behaving badly (cougars and black widows) and I don’t know what my role is anymore – really. I knew how to be a wife and I know how to be a friend, but I’m not finding a good model for a single woman. I remember I told E when I first starting seeing her that I wanted to get over N and have a life of casual sex and no more relationships. Turns out there is no such thing as casual sex. Meanwhile, the “young boy-toy” concept falls pretty flat as well – I was looking into J’s very beautiful eyes last night, but as soon as I started learning more about him, I had an overwhelming desire to take care of him. I told him he should be back in school, that his mother is just trying to do the best she can, blah blah blah. Twenty years is a great divide. One I don’t want to cross.

My brothers both called me this morning psyched about my visit – it turns out the best relationships are in the end, great friendships that keep expanding as two people grow and change.

The cab driver who brought me to the Can from Veteran Ford said that he was on Banks with his buddy when the water came up – seven feet. They stayed behind with his friend’s dog. By day four, there were eleven people and three dogs. He said one guy got so anxy he took a wood door and paddled away on it. Then about five of them left in a boat, but the boat wouldn’t take dogs, so five of them stayed behind with the three dogs. He said those people wound up at the Superdome. In a way, he said, we thought we were saving those dogs, but they saved us. The Cajun Navy ended up rescuing them on Friday. They gladly let the dogs on the boat. He said his friend was able to get his business, and duplex back and running pretty quickly. “I think New Orleans is going to come back alright. I just don’t know if I’ll be around to see it,” he said as he dropped me off.

G’s friend H said that it will take 3 to 5 years to get this city back and she’ll return at that time. I say stay where you are – if you aren’t here to rebuild – you don’t deserve all of what New Orleans has to give you.

And so it goes.

Here’s a P-K success story – C, a darling cutie pie who owns Filly, was sitting in her store when L walked in. He moved here from the Midwest P-K – gotta love anyone who is moving in PK – anyway first comes love, let’s skip marriage, now C&L are getting a baby carriage – I ran into her last night outside Cafe Brazil 4 months pregnant! They are adorable.

Last night, I picked up S at the airport and we came home and did a James Brown turn around dress routine and went off to Muriels to hook up with G (her birthday) and her friends from NY (originally from here) H and L. Then we headed over to the Marigny for music and dancing. Left at Marigny Brasserie, S and I hung out for a while and then went over to Marky’s for a nightcap.

This morning walking around the bayou I saw D with his dog Tipper and I went over the footbridge to meet him. He was a contractor in Russia, then a realtor here for a decade and back to being a contractor P-K. I told him that my house was going to be around $200 + a square foot and he said on the bayou that was not unusual. He said he could sell the LaLa for me if I wanted to get out from under it. I told him I’d keep that in mind but right now I was hoping to live in it. So with D’s assessment and what L, man of no mystery, told me Thursday night which was “don’t scrimp on anything you are doing there, you have a unique home and people will pay for the work you are doing to it.” He should know, he’s had a house on St Charles and Ursulline and now has an adorable house on St. Philip – I feel like I can see the vision.

S and I are off on the misery tour today after a little whirl around the LaLa.

I went to Martin’s uptown to get G some eau de vie – that’s her favorite after dinner drink – well everytime she asks for it, no one knows what she is talking about so I did some research and turns out eau de vie is simply a clear distilled liquor and here we know it by Pear Williams, Cassis or Kirsch. But the equivalent is Grappa in Italy. Anyway, I asked Martin’s when they are going to re-open their store uptown with food service (they are in a new location on Magazine). They are waiting till after this hurricane season and then will begin work and plan to reopen late 2007.

This is day 2 of K being back on the job and so far I’ve been doing the run around – Day 1 he called to say he couldn’t find the special Canadian screws I bought per Bud’s recommendation. After searching high and low here at the Can and in Big Blue, I went to the LaLa and found it sitting right on the shelf. “Oh I didn’t see it. Hey, do you like my shirt?” – his shirt says “Sure I can drop what I am doing and take care of YOUR problem” – I said ha ha, very funny (thin lips).

Day 2 “you need to come over I can’t get in touch with Steve and we have a problem” – problem is the special ordered door that swings out is about an inch and almost a half shorter than the ones that swing in – so we put the door in Blue – I went to Lowes – I got someone to help me get it out and then went in and stood in line and exchanged it – then went back to special order the right one and was told that outswinging doors are shorter than inswinging doors. “No, really?” – I verified with the manager and another contractor I stopped in the aisle and then went back and repurchased the door. Someone helped me strap it again to Blue. I drove it back to the LaLa. Inside K told me that he called his friend in Michigan who didn’t know that either. Smile, thin lips.

K came back from Michigan with N, his youngest, who has decided he doesn’t want to work for his dad, but he does want to live in New Orleans. He brought another son, S, who will be starting at Tulane in a week – my my, nice strapping boy – he calls me Ms. Rachel – isn’t that cute?

Yesterday early evening the Snake called and said do you want to see Spike Lee’s documentary and I said yes and within five minutes was in the car with K and D and him on our way to the Arena to watch the premiere of “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Parts” – a four hour documentary that Spike did immediately following the hurricane. I highly recommend and urge you to watch it – it is a comedy, a tragedy, and tapestry of loss and hope, and a testament to the love people have for this city. It was aired to a sold out crowd of which maybe half the people showed up but it was a good crowd with a nice blend of black, white and brown.

The review in the Times Picayune said that it had a black bias – okay it was Spike Lee doing the film – but I really didn’t see that – yes it did not represent the people in Broadmore and Lakeview – but in reality those people have the resources to come back – does it represent those in Gentilly – a little.

Lots of positive things happening – the Can’s security fences are all almost fully functional. The ATM is being restored in front. I drove by the LaLa on my way back from having Blue serviced for my upcoming roadtrip and saw familiar Michigan license plates in front of my house so K is there working on the house.

This is half positive and half sigh – E said I’m done on Tuesday night. I still am not sure if I want to be done! So I made a date to see her two weeks from now, but she graduated me with honors and said we’re done. I’ve moved from Scarlet Letter A to A-student with her – sad to see it end.

The Cougar is coming in and today is Graham Cracker’s birthday – so we all go out to celebrate tomorrow night – G’s friends from NY are in – H and L – and the five of us are going to go out for an evening of fun and then the rest of the weekend I am going to drag the Cougar to all my favorite haunts. Watchout.

Exodus: H&T came over last night with G&B after we had been at Sip for Tuesday’s Sip & Spin – it was Summer of Love theme – turns out on the third floor, R down the hall with the adorable dog, Huey, has bought a house and is moving out by end of September. Directly across from me H&J are moving to their new house end of September. And now, H&T are more determined than ever to buy a house and are going to look at L’s, man of no mystery, house and hope to be out soon. That leaves me bereft of five of my wonderful neighbors and I’m looking easily at the end of the year before I can make any kind of exit myself.

Lessons Learned: Ah well, what have I learned? – patience – need it, got to have it, whatyagonnado? Taj Majal wasn’t built in a day and LaLa will take even longer. New Orleans will take a while to come back, but she WILL come back stronger and better than before and right now according to a colleague I am “contributing to the rebuilding of NO with these scores of people you keep employed” at the house and so this is all a process still – we are still as a neighbor suggested “going through something” but as S said in her last inspirational email – how you spend your day is how you spend your life – I say a day without a Great White Heron squawking at you is a day without. But today was trying – I broke down on Elysian Fields – my computer had an issue no one could fix, S’s sons lost the key to the house and so I went to Ace on Magazine Uptown and they couldn’t make the key, then I went to Lowes on Claiborne and they could – but I got back to the LaLa and turns out it was the wrong key – I made three more keys to the Can – what goes on? – so now I head towards the Lowes on Elysian Fields and it looks so blighted over there I pull into the parking lot and just started crying.

Deep breath I tell myself – the average bear could not survive a divorce, a heart break (several actually), an evacuation from a hurricane that wanted to destroy New Orleans, seeing the city I love almost destroyed, and a complete remodel of a house P-K. I am not the average bear – a key will not kill me! So I went inside and made the new keys and while standing there I overheard the conversation of a woman and a man standing behind me – it was in almost gospel like melody – “And so?” “The government ain’t gonna do it.” “FEMA ain’t gonna do it.” “Looks like it’s up to us to do it.” And so here in the big box DIY store, it is all about DIY, and let me tell you we are breeding SUPER HUMANS in this part of the country.

K, the carpenter, has been a no show – due back here on Monday, the 14th, he’s most likely sulking because I haven’t called him back but homey don’t play that game no more – if he doesn’t want to return from Michigan because he is a NEEDY FUCKING MAN then so be it. There are other carpenters and I like giving back to the people of New Orleans in the building of the LaLa and he is a carpet bagger – a type I have always despised when it comes to New Orleans. S said he is not going to call him either – either he shows or he doesn’t and we get another carpenter. But the new rules are he works only 50 hours a week – end of story.

My friend L sent me an email that was touching and warm but I haven’t responded because I am gun shy – I am still patching up holes on my Wonder Woman costume and right now he knows where the fabric is weak.

I rode my bike to Pilates this morning – the class was incredible – Catherine taught it. I rode around the corner to Twickler’s shed to see when he expects Vic is coming back to do the other roofs. On the way home I saw S’s two sons – P and T – headed to the LaLa to work on puttying the nail holes and priming. Ah, the endless project. I really don’t think it will even be end of the year. But I digress.

Here’s how I am coping – every day I am enjoying my life. So when the LaLa is done, I will not have been waiting to live. Don’t cry for me – it’s all good in the Big “Since P-K Not So” Easy.

Last night I dreamed I was having lunch with an old friend and her mother and new daughter and she told me that she “cries every day” and I said “so do I” and then she lost it and said angrily “if he winds up with you I will never speak to you again” and I calmly looked her in the eye and said “you never have to worry about that happening.” Today sitting at the redlight and watching the man in question walk across the street I marvelled over how flesh and bone could cause me to lose all sense of myself and reason, I watched his every familiar motion, and thought is that all there is to a lover?

L, man of no more mystery, called last night and whatever bubble of chemistry there was with him is popped for me – I realized I was summoning the passion from a former time to bear on those moments of intimacy with him and suddenly that wasn’t working for me. That and the fact that he may have shown too much of his cards – some of which was a degree of racism. I warned him before he took his comments further that I may look white on the outside but I’m all dark meat on the inside – Spanish Jew cloaked in a Catholic Irish demeanor – I told him he had an exotic sitting on his lap so watch out.

This morning in an effort to reassert myself to an early schedule I pushed on out to the bayou with the Bean and there was the Bayou Stone Fox – all smiles and dimples – running towards me, I stopped him and invited him to join us on August 29th for our commemoration on the footbridge. Cutie pie but he was standing so close and for a moment I thought I smelled alcohol on his breath – whatyagonnado? – it is New Orleans after all.

This morning my horoscope – Taurus – said: Your common sense can help prevent you from accumulating unnecessary possessions – no action plan needed, I burned that man in effigy already and don’t have time for cads either.

Going to try to get the canoe out this week weather permitting. Quote for the day: Don’t let anyone rent free space in your head.

LaLa technicality – the debate ensued over shower pans. The tilesetter – C – told me to get the plumber to put in the shower pans – he highly recommended copper and said to make sure the plumber put in a weeping drain and make sure the flange was glued onto the PVC or soldered to the copper pan. I called the plumber – L – and he said I haven’t used a copper pan in ten years, the rubber works fine. Then I called S – the contractor – who said they use fiberglass pans – the tilesetter said he can’t put tile on the fiberglass because it has a pitch – so he said I recommend the copper, it will last forever – do I need forever? – the plumber said it would be $2000 – good grief – so now it’s back to the rubber pan which is “passable” my elite tilesetter said. I have picked a 30+ year roof, and am aiming at a 100 year everything else but after a while you have to pick your battles – $2000 for two shower pans? – is that necessary, inquiring minds want to know. S called later in the day on his way to Portland for his second interview with BOORA and he said go with the rubber but S – the contractor – called back and said let’s see what his tilesetter said.

“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly one you can never have.”

Of course, this quote comes to me out of the blue while I accidentally run across some old missives from a loved one. The discovery of the missives felt like someone was throwing acid on me, the quote only served to make the pain more of a cliche. But Kierkegaard was really such a boor and so why should we even consider his philosophical cynical view of things.

On happier thoughts, the whole third floor of Building One at the American Can just congregated at the new neighbors’ apartment for happy hour. H was on a roll telling us about the people who couldn’t swim during Katrina, then he started on me about posting an enlarged photograph of my thigh bite from the evicted dogs – well T (German Shephard owner) who had left moments before, walked right back in when H was telling the story, and agh – I hope he didn’t hear because H was on a roll about it.

So M&K, the new neighbors, both from the Midwest, moved here post-Katrina and so there – see it’s not just us New Orleanians that are crazy enough to be here – people actually are moving here now, to live and work. M is in Media and K is in Film – so we’re happy to have them here with us at the Can.

H came back to my apartment for twist and cocktails – we learned tonight that H&J (across the hall from me) are moving into a house they are closing on in September – so sad. She is the exnun, with the three adopted children and her new old husband H – I love her to death. Anyway the other H had me going with tales of this woman he has been seeing – telling me how she has no life of her own and she has a son who is nuts – we were both doubled over in laughter.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
–Annie Dillard,
American author and Nobel Prize recipient 
 
My dance card is filled to the brim these days – I’ve got something every night this week and have had something every night for a while now – so I guess I’ll sleep when I’m dead. My friend S writes to me that after her daughter left to go spend a week with her father, she felt alone and lonely and realized she needs to open herself up more because it really is all about connecting with people.

I can’t remember if it was Plato, Aristotle, or Socrates who described humans as a semicircle and all of the yearning is to find the other piece, the other semicircle to complete us.

When I was at the camp with N and the Snake I was taken by the Snake’s insistence that we are all living lives of quiet desperation. It grew out of a conversation we were having about the demise of his 20+ year marriage. He said he knew he couldn’t stay and does not regret leaving but he thinks life still remains a muddle for him of who he is and what he wants. Plato’s dialogues speak to our tragic existence – first, we are radically insecure because our end is uncertain, next, we are blind to our own identity and to those we love most – we fail to comprehend those who are closest to us, because we are too involved with them emotionally. Lastly, there is inevitability of tragedy in our lives because we cannot satisfy all the claims that we should meet and tragedy forces us to reexamine who we are.

I’d agree whole heartedly that tragedy forces you to reevaluate who you are – I don’t think there is a person alive in New Orleans right now who isn’t turning over all of the bricks that paved their way here and wondering how to place the bricks going forward – if there is, they are among the living dead.

BTW: The other day AOL accidentally released the search findings of hundreds of its users – they weren’t identified except by number, but the results are pretty frightening – most all of them begin with casual searches – christian terms, church info in the neighborhood, and rapidly segue into every form of deviant behavior from how to kill someone to beastiality – the community is up in arms about privacy – I am up in arms because I’m horrorfied!

Yesterday, G called distressed over how things were turning out with B – I told her I saw warning signs written all over him – he has a rigid personality – now he has a lot of other things – he’s good looking, smart, informed, etc. – but the rigidity is what got me. Both G and I are opinionated but that opinion can be amorphous and slippery sometimes, not to say we won’t argue it at the moment to our deathbed, but I don’t adhere strictly to any cause or thought and neither does she. She quoted from NPR’s This I Believe where one woman wrote in and said “I believe I do not have strong beliefs.” Ha! Anyway this was the crux of my issue with S – he had strong beliefs, and I didn’t, so his won out too many times.

Meanwhile, L, man of mystery, called to see if I wanted to ride bikes to a party uptown with him, so I said yes. There was silence at the other end of the phone. And we went and it was fun, as all New Orleans gatherings are fun – a woman there named Santa, who kind of looked like Santa, the hostess, T, is a C-something something pilot, B is good friends with George Porter who lives down the street, H and her girlfriend A were the chefs making jambalaya, jerk chicken, marinated flank steak, and more. L was getty anxy after a while so then we decided to head to Bacchanal but first had to run home and take care of his dogs. I had already taken care of the Bean.

We’re at the house and talking about this and that when he started talking about where he is in life on the relationship chart. Seems like L, since he is a hottie, spent most of his adult years trading up on women, always thinking if he had one that was hot, he might snag another that was hotter, and so it went for years this way. Then he woke up one morning and wanted a relationship and lo and behold, he did everything he thought he was supposed to do and one, two, three, he got dumped and had his heart broken. So now L, man of no more mystery, is vulnerable and perhaps had therapy and realizes that for years since he was not happy with himself, not satisfied with his job, he sought an external badge to wear, a girl adornment, to give him value. But he might have bankrupted the kitty so to speak, used up all the girls and now what?

I changed my mind and said it was a school night and Bacchanal was not in my cards – I begged off and came home. After 40, you come to the table with so much history tucked under your belt (literally) that it is no wonder some people decide to go it alone.

A woman who I see in the neighborhood was at the Ogden the other night – she said she had been on Match.com for ten months and came to the conclusion that men are emotionally bankrupt and so has given up. I think it is more likely that we are all in the same boat and each of our canoes are laden with baggage that threatens to sink us and so we are caught in the navel gazing nit picking of what pieces of ourselves are worth keeping in the boat, which can be thrown overboard and not be construed as litter, which could or should be shredded, burned or floated out to sea, it’s just a mind fuck really – what is the sum of any of us, and what can change and should?

There was a great article in Fortune magazine about New Orleans and its future – it quotes a study from RAND that New Orleans will have a population of 272K by 2008 – if you have a chance to read it:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/08/21/8383661/