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Saw a billboard advertising A Little Bit Gaudy. It’s like eating at a place called Fatso or having you’re hair done at Bad Hair Day. Makes no sense.

My friend and I got in a long discussion about how opposites attract and people who are like you are better suited for friendships than for relationships. The fun part is when we were speaking about our foibles – OCD, fast moving, impatient, overscheduled – we both looked at each other and laughed and said, damn, I wouldn’t want to live with you!

More importantly, it made us both realize how lucky we are to have partners who are calm and patient, who put up with our insanity. I’ve met a lot of head scratchers in my time – people who scratch their head about my choice in a partner and me scratching my own head about other’s choices. But as I told a close friend the other day, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors, no one.

I heard on Terry Gross that there is an electronic nose being developed to smell diseases and conditions in sick people. Apparently, Hippocrates was able to smell diabetes by the juicy fruit breath of his patients and dogs have been known to smell seizures coming on. There are doctors today who use scent as diagnosis.

My mom called her doctor because she has a neurological condition that makes her feet burn and flutter and basically feel like rats are biting her toes off – the doctor’s office said he could not see her till December 24th and they wouldn’t refill her prescription till then either. She hasn’t been able to sleep for the last week.

I’m amazed that there are doctors who are so attuned to illness that they can smell disease when most doctors I have encountered that have anything to do with my mother’s care have been indifferent and downright rude. Except one, I will never forget him. In the emergency room having stabbed herself by falling off the couch and impaling the coffee table in her throat, this older gentlemen of a doctor came in and his bedside manner was so calming and so comforting that I, even as I smelled the familiar scent of alcohol of my mother’s breath, was lulled into believing everything was going to be alright too.

Confessions of a stress junkie, overachiever, perfectionist, control freak, doer:

I do not thrive on stress much to my chagrin and the disappointment of everyone around me who thoroughly believes that stress is what makes me tick. I am stressed because I believe I can accomplish the impossible in the most efficient way in a minimal amount of time and I set out to prove that every single day. My own to do list is overwhelming and yet when someone says, “You know, you don’t have to be Wonder Woman,” I cringe. Why not?

I had a long talk with a fellow “doer” and realized she is insane. Like me. And that our insanity is not necessarily working for us or for our loved ones. So it is up to us to figure out a way to undo.

And along comes T-Bone, my superhero, my mentor in the art of monotasking, relaxing, enjoying, and pleasure seeking. Hail to the horizontal way of life.

Driving back to New Orleans from Houston on the I-10, I crossed over the Henderson Swamp, which around late afternoon, was intensely beautiful. The water was so glassy it mirrored the setting sun, and the cypress trees looked like prehistoric human forms rising from the water.

I have issues with victimhood, thoroughly believing that if you think you are a victim you become one. I realize that because I proceed in life as if everyone likes me, I don’t encounter too many bad exchanges out and about. I notice with people who are paranoid, a lot of times, people are out to get them.

I was driving home from Houston yesterday, after attending the Madonna Sticky and Sweet concert with Flower and friends and listening to NPR when a story came on about a man who dresses like Superman.

A week ago, when I was getting a massage to take care of my back ache I told L that things had been so hectic lately, I was in the mood to channel Wonder Woman and imagine myself in wonderous circumstances where having a lasso and some power bracelets could magically transport me to flights of fancy rather than a shrinking financial market.

Turns out the man who dresses impeccably as Superman lost his wife two years ago. He said he had a hard time understanding how a person who was so beautiful and full of life suddenly had no tomorrows and so he decided to live fully today for her.

I kept thinking his original intent was most likely to spin around like Superman and go back to the past where he might be able to save her.

Stress takes on many forms – anxiety dreams, short temper, tight and rigid body. There is a way out. Hooping!

Let’s see start the day with a nervous breakdown, let that carry you through every detail of the day as it progresses, then finally capture two solid hours of productive work that is not fraught with trying to get online, stay online, send an email, receive an email, and take breather and run to see one of Prospect 1’s installations in City Park at Popp’s Fountain. Here is Loca enjoying it with me.

These are photos taken of City Park by Michel Varisco after Katrina hanging in big canvases around the pergola.

As soon as she got out of the cab, we whisked Flower to the Ogden to go hear the second half of Mary Gauthier. It was standing room only when we walked in the door, and Mary’s rich vocals were already in play singing Christmas in Paradise, one of my favorites. She looked so petite, smaller than I imagined but her voice carried the three story height of the Ogden, reaching up to the people sitting along the stairways and hanging over the rails on the third floor. She closed with Mercy Now, T’s favorite. When we stood in line to tell her we loved her music, I saw that she was inches taller than me even with my cowboy boots on.

We headed to Meaux Bar and Jim was welcoming – got us Debbie’s table by the window – and the bartender made us his delicious Kettle One Cosmos.

Evan and Tom were at Donna’s, so after dinner, we walked down Rampart and Evan was just picking up his clarinet since he was late to the gig. Didn’t matter. He gets better every time we see him and Tom’s always good.

It was a full moon and before we left the LaLa, we opened our purses in unison and said “Fill it Up, Fill it Up, Fill it Up.”

Flower asked “Why open your purse?,” I said it gets filled with money, and T said, “No, filled with love.” And I corrected myself and said filled with everything.

At midnight, when we returned, the moon was high and bright in the sky, and our wishes had come true.