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Zulu was awesome – I haven’t been to the parade in years, decades – we walked up as the parade was staging and getting ready to roll from Claiborne turning down Jackson. We cut over to Willow because the girls couldn’t throw until they actually made the turn – on Willow and Jackson we were in a sea of black faces, which made Zulu feel more like a neighborhood parade – a la Endymion – than an uptown one. 





Elizabeth and Ellen – both donning black faces – dumped us with beads galore and a bunch of coveted coconuts. I caught three and saved two for B&K (since they were celebrating Mardi Gras in the shadow of Taylor passing) – the coconuts were the perfect addition to my costume – we stayed for half the parade then we loaded up and headed to the Marigny – a few feet from MiMi’s, I spotted my Mardi Gras squeeze standing by the entrance – without missing a beat, I instantly applied the acid test and MGS passed with flying colors – fortuitous! – with MGS in tow, we angels made our way into the French Quarter – laughing, kissing, drinking – celebrating, mardi gra’ing. 







As we got deeper into the Quarter, every costume told a story – even Humid Air – where Jesus Christ is his co-pilot – Captain Roy was holding court:

Fat Tuesday started off with a bang as I rushed the angels to get it together and get out the door before Zulu rolled. We had one goal for the day – to be open – for whatever Mardi Gras was to bring our way. We were loaded up with a magnum of Leroy Duvall and fresh orange juice and lots of open-ness – lots of it! 

A typical Monday in a not so typical week – up with the dogs, at my desk for 7AM for a conference call that happened two hours earlier, run out the door for one o’clock to go to a bridal luncheon serving red beans and rice at Ernie K-Doe’s Mother In Law lounge. Hop on another conference call right as the second line parade comes marching up – mute – then later Swirl to offer condolences and grieve with our friends and of course a little bit of time on the costumes and then a night of dancing at the LaLa. 

 

In a few minutes, Taylor will pass through this world into the next and all of our hearts turn to Beth who is left with just his memory. Again I say, dogs don’t live long enough and some people live too long. Goodbye Taylor, you were loved. 

I went to China in the Golden Year of the Pig – I am a Pig. I met with the I Ching master and he said “you have very good luck in love from the 8th of August till the 7th of October.” Remarkably, on Oct 7th, I saw someone in a different light. The he said “from December 6 till January 5th, you will be lucky in love.” Well that was a tumultuous time for me because love that was there was put on hold. He said “in 2008, the Year of the Rat, you will have good luck after February 4th, your true love is coming – you will meet someone who will help you take things slow and easy but you need to let things take their own course and be easy, don’t think to one extreme.”

Last night we watched that incredibly exciting Superbowl and cheered to have our native boy Manning win the game! Then we came back to my house and watched the L Word. I was speaking to someone on Saturday night about how the L Word kind of depresses me in the same way that Sex in the City used to – it’s all about girls wanting so desperately to find intimacy and yet striking out in so many ways. Sex with strangers becomes the substitute for intimacy in so many encounters. Looking good doesn’t really matter because the person you might be trying to look good for is so hung up on other things they couldn’t see you if you were wearing a paper bag with balloons attached. A longing never seems to be satisfied. 

In the world of it’s all about me:

Last night, four issues were brought up that gave me pause. Bette is being portrayed as a sexual predator in a movie that Jenny has written. The actress who plays her comes up to Bette last night and asks: I have a lot of whys I’m trying to figure out to play this character. You were in this great relationship and yet you had sex with the plumber. Why?. And you see Bette get all flustered and later she says, she doesn’t know the whys herself. AGHHHHHH. Hindsight: I can look back now and connect the dots and formulate a backstory that works and justifies the actions, but honest to God, I don’t know the whys – really. So you have to accept that you did what you did with the best you knew then, and now that you know better, you do better. It’s the only way to step forward. 

In a parallel story, we have Alice who takes a pic of a famous athlete at a private party and then outs him on her blog because he said horrible things about gays. I flinched when she took the pic – thinking it a real invasion of privacy considering she said at the beginning that this party was a place where everyone could come and feel safe to be who they are. And in the meantime, she is protecting Tasha’s gay identity because the military is trying to kick her out. And YET, she outs this guy. She feels justified. It didn’t feel right to me, it didn’t seem like Alice would do something so stupid, so unthinking. And yet the more she is pressed, the more she justifies herself. I turned inward and thought of those people who have not appreciated being on my blog – who have not wanted to have any of their life exposed here and feel my own skin crawl at my own insensitivity. I justify my blog that I am not a private person – but overlook that others are. 

Time passes, love grows, time passes love waits, time passes, love stays. Bette and Tina again danced around the probability of them getting back together. Can Tina forgive Bette’s affair? I think she wants to. I think she is still in love with Bette. As much as Tina kind of grates on me and I used to like Bette more – I see that Tina softens Bette, while Bette strengthens Tina. Together they actually were a good couple and you can see real love between them. Not superficial but real love. They have a daughter between them now. They understand each other’s weaknesses. I’ve felt incredibly numb the past couple of weeks – numb to a vision of being with someone again – of loving, being loved, of having sex, of having intimacy, shared intelligence, laughter – my faith in this possibility has been shrinking and shrinking into a tight narrow ball of numbness that seemed daunting. But then I woke up from that little nightmare and said fuck it – I fall back on my knowledge that I am the one capable of profound love – that I have loved, and therefore will love and so I bounce up and down knowing it’s all gonna be good, if not great.  

And last, but not least, at the end of the day, when everyone starts dancing and then jumps in the pool. It really is true that girls just want to have fun. 

Go Tay, I whisper
In his soft ear; time to go
Say goodbye to Beth

Sometimes I just want to take some good old fashioned bricks and hit myself upside the head until I can think clearly. But I can’t think clearly. I thought about the picture of yesterday in its sum as I laid in bed this morning, unwilling to get up. I kept getting caught in someone else’s agenda instead of hanging back and formulating my own agenda. But I get so wishy washy because really, what would my agenda look like? You can’t make some things happen, they either will or they won’t. You can’t take care of everyone even if they are a guest in your house, because you should be able to spend time and enjoy their company. You can’t see all the people, or parts of the parade, every time you want to. You can’t sometimes recognize the supports that are holding you up when you are adrift in a thought process that is systematically zapping you of your essence. What’s a girl to do? I say try to go back to square one and find yourself again – and then begin again. In the world of LaLa – if ifs were skiffs, we’d all ride for free: 




Barco a la deriva que 
Se hunde un poco cada día 
Barco a la deriva que 
No puede ver el faro que le guía

Last night in mid-pawty, Y comes running inside and says there is a girl lying prone on the bayou and something is very very wrong. I go running out there and find this beautiful young woman in the baby pose sobbing out of her mind into her cellphone, her purple, green and gold boa wrapped all around her like a prison. 

Frank, don’t say that…what did I do?…no Frank, nooooo, don’t break up with me…..Frank, I love you…..nooooo, pleeeease, what did I do?……Frank, don’t, pleeeease…….I love you.

I picked her up and carried her as far as the steps but she wouldn’t come on the porch, she was sobbing and sobbing and snot and spit were all over her face, the phone and the boa. I got her some kleenex and came back inside. 

My neighbor was over, he had just gotten a daiquiri and was showing us his photography of nude women taken downtown, the warehouse district, and the Quarter. He looked at the sobbing young girl, still bent over in a quasi fetal position, still crying Frank, don’t leave me, and said in his thick accent, “Young love, eh?”

Meanwhile, on my screen porch, three Lesbians wrote down all the evils in their lives right now and burned the post it notes ceremoniously while one cried over seeing her ex with another woman.

And moi, you ask? I looked around and decided me, myself, and I were doing pretty damn good and we have nothing to burn, to break up, or to cry about – so I called it a night and shoo’d everyone out the door to do some R&R in prep for Mardi Gras. 

There is this thing that has everyone’s lips and hearts locked, it is called fear and it’s having a new renaissance. Ivette was saying I’m a new millennium woman – bring home the bacon, cook it up in a pan, and never ever let you forget your it. She said Nancy in Puerto Rico is a new millennium woman as well. What is a new millennium woman to do if she spreads her wings and no one wants to soar with her? Is everyone too scared? Do they know there is no talon that would hold her, that she needs an unlimited amount of square miles for her territory, that at the same time, she loves and protects with ferocity. 

Wonder woman? New millennium woman? I say whoever has a fearless heart, approach the throne.