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A nice relaxing Sunday morning after spending the evening with my Turkish friends at their almost opened Del Forno – we ended up eating at The Bank on its penultimate night before Alex moves to New York forever.

I wanted to read a little bit of the paper before takng Arlene out – she was sunning herself on the front porch – wanted to see who won the Preakness – and while I was in the Sports section, I read about the Saints tight end who wrote the short film on what it was like playing in New Orleans after Katrina – I got all welped up when he said “we weren’t playing for money, we were playing for the city, our home” and right then Taylor came walking in the door because Beth was stopping by to say hi.

Then I went for a nice long bike ride out to the lakefront and saw Beth again while I was on my way back, she was just headed out for her ride. Coming through City Park and up over the bridge, I saw two little boys and two grown men wrestling with a turtle. Turns out the turtle got hooked in the boy’s fishing line and the men (French) were trying to get the hook out but everybody agreed the turtle (bites – morceaux). So I got off my bike and got all up in there and ended up taking the turtle home in plastic Winn Dixie bag.

I ran up the steps to get Roy next door but as I was knocking on his door, he drove up with Andree having just picked her up from San Antonio. He got a couple of pairs of pliers and got the hook out and I brought the turtle over to the bayou and set it free.

A woman at Pilates said she had to marry her husband because they were the only people in New Orleans neither was related to. Yesterday, right after I got out of the shower, a woman knocked at the door and turns out she’s my cousin! She said my uncle had told her what my house looks like and so she came to see if she could find it and me. How cool is that?

Craig had us all read Blink and it is a pretty interesting theory – that the first impression is the correct one. So I was speaking to a colleague recently who had read it and we were talking about this guy I recently met and I said I thought he was gay the first time I saw him and G thought he was the second time we ran into him and didn’t recognize where we knew him from. My colleague said then he is gay. She referred to the Blink theory.

I was thinking about it and while I think there is veracity to the argument, I also know that a lot of people thought S was gay when we were married and afterwards – by the way, he’s not – it still makes me laugh when someone suggests it. I tend to love effeminate men – and architects tend to be somewhat effeminate – but S is the least gay man I know. So what about those people who think he is and their blink-ability? Even my gay friends don’t always have perfect gay-dar.

So does Blink work? Maybe in some situations but not in all. But it does point you in the right direction and that is trusting your gut, your inner blink.

I ran into a friend last night who is recently out of an 8-year relationship. She said she ran into her ex with her latest hot squeeze at Jazz Fest and tried to be big about the whole thing but it did unnerve her. The rub is that she was the one who wanted out of the relationship. I told her that I’ve learned that it’s almost worse when you’re the one that wanted out because when you see your ex moving passed you it’s unsettling.

Folks marvel at S and my ability to remain friends in the aftermath of the hurricane that swept our lives – but we spent a third of our lives together, how can we not still be friends. Is it easy to see him moving on passed me, not really, but I fall back to what Ellen taught me – you have to love who you are in a relationship – and recently in his company I found myself retreating to past behavior – being a shock absorber and wanting to take care of – and I kept the latter at bay very well but the former not so well.

Sometimes you can love someone to their core and that doesn’t mean you are meant to be together. I told my friend that she would reconcile all of this at some point, although I’m not sure when I will, but every day I get closer.

At Swirl last night the crowd was more local than it has been lately, which is much more to my liking. We hung out for a while then went over to La Vita but F wasn’t there and it makes such a difference when she’s not – as we were walking to the truck we ran into H&T, and T told me that L had gone to get hair cut and didn’t like it so G, T and I called L on speaker phone for a hair intervention. Then G and I headed to Tchoupotoulas to Hot Sticks (spelling?) – a new restaurant that was terrific – the guava cosmopolitans were fabulous and the spring rolls, yum! Then I wanted to come home – I was just done with the evening and wanted to be in my bed after having been gone. G went back to La Vita but I came home and somewhere in the middle of the night I woke up to Eli’s Coming – it was a cluster of items:

1. Arlene’s legs gave out a couple of times after we got back from the kennel. I don’t know if it was from exhaustion but it gave me a scare because Sam started that way around the same age.
2. M had called me in Chicago to come to Swirl because he wanted to introduce me to his college friend – but M has been very weird since he got back from DC and I got back from Tarrytown – hard to put my finger on it. And he was a no show last night, in keeping with this new behavior.
3. I’m sick of doing work on the LaLa and there remains painting the North side, the landscaping, and then can I just say I’m done!
4. My neighbor is such an asshole that it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
5. A lot of companies that I follow got acquired last week – I’m looking for new opportunities in my coverage but scrambling for the names that are being plucked off my list.
6. R had told me that he has been sticking to a writing schedule for his novel and I feel as if I can’t seem to get just work and the house done leaving me little time for any extra curricular projects. Where does time go?
7. Having trouble crafting a 5-year plan.

So this morning as I lay in bed with the same quandries circling my brain like buzzards ready to strike, I got on my bike and went by CC’s for my Mocassippi and rode out to the lakefront and once there, hands free, wind at my back, sun sparkling like diamonds in the lake, I felt it gone – I felt it all the way gone – and for now, I rest easy in knowing that I have beat Eli back one more time.

Arrived from Chicago to a notice from my neighbor’s attorney that I cannot stand in his driveway or he will file an injunction against me. It’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity – are you familiar with this saying – we have examples of the stupids all around us – but I had the good fortune to have the LaLa right up against the stupidest of all.

I’m waiting for him to pass in front of the house so I can yell like Billy Goat Gruff – who’s that walking over my bricks!

that’s how it feels to not be able to exercise for the last two months because of my foot and to be eating like I’m on a cruise – what goes on? – so today, jeans tight, one more steak dinner, and I’m done – sick of it all and can’t wait to get on my bike and off the hoof.

Walking to my hotel down Michigan Avenue in Chicago I saw our streetcar on the corner – I went over and asked what was going on and found out the Louisiana Tourism office had sent the streetcar here with staff and brochures to make people aware of New Orleans and that we are open for business. How great is that? I had the woman take a photo of me hanging off the streetcar.

I met this tall black man today on Michigan Avenue – we got to talking and he said he was from Mississippi but had been in Chicago for 35 years. He said he was looking to retire somewhere – maybe Atlanta, maybe in Texas – I said well you certainly don’t want to come to New Orleans – the opportunities for a black man are limited. Then about 20 minutes later I ran to find him and said, no, listen, you know what, for a young black man in New Orleans without a lot of resources – right now it is tough to overcome certain factors – but for a man like yourself who already has a sense of himself – we’d love you to move there – we need you there. He laughed and said he’d give it serious consideration.

There was an article recently about cable now going to get movie releases at the same time they appear in theaters. I remember the big screen – Northpoint Theater in San Francisco – huge. It was an experience to go watch a movie there. And sadly they closed when the Sony theaters opened at 5th and Mission – the more hi-tech sound, the stadium seats, and a cluster of them showing a variety of different moviees. Now movies are going to move to our home screens? What about experience? The social nature of people to want to go to a big screen and watch a movie with an audience?

Being in Chicago, reminds me of what a friend was telling us a long time ago, about how the theaters frequented by a mostly black audience here were more interactive in the day. He told us about the time he was watching The Fly with Jeff Goldblum and that during the metamorphosis Goldblum’s character asked, “What is happening to me?” “What is happening?” and a particularly rotund woman got up from the back seats, hand on hip, and shouted at the screen – “That’s cuz you a fly. You a fly!”