Dangermond.org

Last night a bunch of us from the neighborhood went to support a friend who has taken the position of marketing director for a gentlemen’s club in the Quarter. All of the hospitality directors from around the area were invited to attend. We went – us not in hospitality – to offer a show of numbers and support to our friend. A friend bought me a lapdance with a gorgeous woman – as she came close to me, she whispered in my ear that she loved my headband – it’s a great headband – I just got it in New York – it’s silver chains. Then another gorgeous woman called me to the stage to ask me about my purse – she loved it – it’s one of my favs. Then the original woman came back to show me pics of a chihuahua her friend – who happened to be on stage at that moment – had rescued – they had gone to ChiWaWaGaGa in the Quarter and outfitted the little dog with lots of costumes and taken photos with their camera phone.

I don’t know, but I came away from the evening thinking there didn’t seem to be anything sexual about this sex palace. Like the emperor has no clothes. Maybe it was because I felt like I was in the girl’s locker room and was just chit chatting about accessories and pets – the norm – but I couldn’t imagine being a guy and getting something out of the experience. I worried it was me but the more I thought about it the more I believe there is no sex at strip clubs – only a fantasy or an illusion of sex that you have to try very hard to bring to mind – perhaps with the requisite alcohol and a vivid imagination it seems like sex to some – and a couple of bare breast shots and there you go – but it was disconcerting – is that all some men want? – is simply the idea of sex not the reality enough?

A development company called Victory apparently has dibs on some property starting right by where the Can is to Carrolton – they already developed the Sav-A-Center and the Home Depot on Carrolton. They are proposing a massive retail development that includes Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Dickie’s Sporting Goods, as well as other national chain stores.

A dilemma for sure.

We all want to keep our tax dollars in Orleans Parish and right now we drive to Jefferson Parish and spend our dollars there. We all want development that offers jobs. We want the convenience and the affordable goods offered by big box stores. BUT none of us want big box stores. None of us trust developers.

So everyone chimes in and suddenly it becomes an us versus them equation – Victory is evil, we are good. They are developing an area that has been blighted by the storm – that was light industrial – but they are not putting back anything historical like the small old houses that all have signs to be demolished – they are not proposing a scale that is the equivalent of our charming neighborhood. They are not – in a nutshell – proposing anything nice by way of architecture and open space – they are offering simply convenience and low prices.

Nothing is black and white – but can we all get along? Can we walk away from this with everyone of us getting something we want and conceding on something we don’t want?

Why is development so tricky?

I met a client at this restaurant in NY and can I tell you that every single bite was so deliciious – one caveat – it’s expensive as hell – but worth it – very great.

I went by Swirl yesterday after the closing on my refi and Beth chilled a bottle of Domaine Carneros La Reve and I called G and she called K and soon we were toasting to two years of financial stress that almost did me in. Sylvia came to demo Eberle wines and then Tommy came by to see what was going on as it was such a beautiful day. It’s all good – we drank that La Reve – the most delicious champagne I have tasted – and we then tasted the Eberle cab which is just delicious. Then Richelle came in as she was out with Hal walking around the neighborhood.

Can I get an amen? Putting to rest this financial nightmare makes me go – ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Today I refinanced the LaLa – FINALLY – and with this financial burden behind me, I’ve been thinking about adopting a child – the price of a child’s head these days goes for about $35,000 to $50,000. A big financial burden after the LaLa. Is it worth it – yes, I think so. But I’ve been trying to figure it all out – will I be traveling a lot like I do for work? without a partner – how do you do that? I had dinner with a colleague who has adopted two children – he said to me “it’s better than I thought it would be” – I got an email from a friend who lives in NY now who I missed seeing while there, he wrote “I spent the day in the park with Isabel and am surprised at how much I enjoy her” and so I felt the tug – the just find a way to do it tug – and I called my friend L, pregnant, a 6 month old, a 2 1/2 year old, and I said what to do? I want a family – the idea of single motherhood is daunting – and she said DON’T DO IT – and I hung up the phone in my NY hotel room and took an Ambien and slept for 9 hours. Today I came home, thinking about children, thinking about life, and my dear friend in another country writes that there are complications with her adoption and she is having doubts – and she just doesn’t know – and I think of me, I don’t know, I never knew, I just have a longing for family, and children – $50,000? – Why? to bring one to me and let me love one? Who put the price of orphans? I told her she would know what to do in the end, but I am not sure I even know.

I landed in NY and on the taxi ride into the city passed a billboard for Volkswagon that had a canary yellow bug and read “Misery has enough company, Dare to be happy.” Wow – I text G and said now that is a great ad. Because it made me smile. The yellow bug, the dare, all of it. And so I approached the next days with that attitude – there is a lot of reason to be miserable – a lot of reason to be hesitant – but there are so MANY reasons to be happy – why not?

I’m always amazed at how noisy New York is – literally I wake up to birds chirping every morning – and at the Muse I would lay there with the windows open (because I need the windows open) and hear the sounds of garbage trucks, tourists yelling in the street, humming of white noise and whir, and just think MAKE IT STOP – you live in a still place – a place like New Orleans where voices carry across the humid air so that when I am putting on my makeup, I can hear the intimate details of the couple next door talk in hushed tones – and then you find yourself in a loud world where all the noise creates cacophony but not real sound – and you think to yourself – if I could click my heels right now – I would be back there – on the bayou, listening to the birds, my neighbors, my world.

Possibly my favorite line in the world – because I use it so often – but I was reading Carolyn Hax in the Sunday paper and she finished one of her advice columns with What are you going to do? Ha! A woman had written in that she is with someone who lacks initiative so she does all the initiating – she said her friends tell her she’s supposed to lay low and make him work for it. Carolyn said you be yourself and see how that works, it doesn’t work, modify, but then you see observe how he is when he is himself. Love her.

At 4 this morning I got a text from TL that there was a big fire on Gentilly and Ponce de Leon – first thing I wondered if it was the crack house – next I worried about Daphne (not sure where her house is) and then I worried about Pauly the cat who might be out there in the mayhem. Since worry is what I do best I lay there wondering if G had gotten home safe.

A couple of text messages later TL called and said it was an abandoned laundromat and it seemed contained under a deluge of fire fighting hose apparatuses that were doing the job.

Sigh – I got up and started preparing for my trip – worried about leaving the LaLa, Arlene, my friends, my city – and trying to take a deep breath.

“Crying doesn’t make me any less of a man. To not show emotion, you’re an idiot, or you’re living a pipe dream. If someone were to tell me not to show emotion, I’d hit them in the lip.”
LT. COL. MORRIS GOINS, reflecting on soldiers’ reactions to losing comrades in Iraq.

I was speaking to a friend yesterday about the ability to pull the trigger. I said I know I couldn’t kill someone. He was telling me about a dinner he went to with a bunch of his men friends – one was talking about shooting a mama duck who was walking in front of her little ducklings and THANKFULLY the other men responded with some degree of horror. Then he said one of the guys who always goes on with bravado about how if anyone were to ever break in his house, he’d kill them dead – well, turns out someone did break in and he held him at gunpoint for 20 minutes up against the back fence but NOPD took so long to arrive on the scene, he ended up letting the guy go. My friend’s point was that you never know what you’ll do when you’re up against reality – and while I agree – all I thought next was about our poor service men having to make these decisions every day – my heart goes out to our men and women in Iraq – fighting a dumbass stupid war that no one wants to fight.

My take away later when I reflected back on our conversation though was a heartening feeling that these men, my friend’s friends, were men I would want to know (except for mama duck shooter) – I like a man who talks big, who will protect, but when it comes down to the crucial real moment – the one that separates the boys from the men – I want the man whose heart prevails – not his testosterone.