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Or this picture?

Where else could this picture have been taken?

Leave the cold of New York to return to the humid warmth of New Orleans, then today, presto chango, it’s heater in the morning and air conditioning in the afternoon, as my fellow walker tells me in passing this morning. The weather made Loca more jumpy than usual, or maybe it was almost a week in the kennel that had her jumping for fifteen minutes straight up and down like a pogo stick – she’d jump and tuck her legs with each leap, mimicking a carousel horse. By the time we returned, we were both warmer and ready to begin our day. 

The accounts in the news today: Peggy Seltzer’s “Love and Consequences” meets Misha Defonsec’s “Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years” following James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces” – all fraudulent accounts of one person’s struggles with life. Meanwhile, in the blogosphere us not so ordinary people ferret out meaning and truth from friendly exchanges, walks through the park, and a good meal – the drama is low key and almost comforting in its ritual of sameness – woman seeks love, city seeks recovery, children are born, work is done, friendships wax and wane, dogs play, and time passes. 

Where’s my review in the Times? No reviewer claiming my blog is “a powerful story of resilience and unconditional love” or praise that it is a “humane and deeply affecting” blog (whatever that means). At least my story is true. 

Or true enough.  

New York was jampacked and fun but oh so good to come home to the LaLa – to the animals – the bayou – to New Orleans. I arrived to a warm welcome from J, who left flowers, champagne, chocolate cupcakes and candies as well as fresh strawberries with a card saying thanks for being a friend – ditto is what I wanted to say – ditto ditto ditto. 

In NY, T and I told a cab driver we have been together for two years, it seems like it so it was only a white lie. I offered a resounding no to the young, hot Russian boy who said he’d like to hang out with us. And when my aunt said “you’ve only known her a month,” I said, but oh, what a month!”

In only a month, we’ve gone from not knowing to all knowing and in the sweet transcendence a door did not open but another universe.  

Went to see Come Back Little Sheba last night at the Biltmore – it got a tremendous write up in the New York Times – we found the play good but not moving as I had expected. But it felt good to see a live performance, to be in NY even though it is cold and was raining, out and about. We went to the Hudson for cocktails after and spent an evening catching up on the back-story ever more – our own interpretation of what happened before and why we did what we did and how we got to here – the narrative that is us. The one thing apparent is the will to be here because we’ve made all this space – we’ve organized the narrative to accommodate a great love right now in our life. How great is that?

When we walk down the street, people turn their heads, I’d like to think it is because we make such a cute couple – though true – there is also the element of different. We went to a lesbian dive bar and I looked around at young and old women in context, kissing, touching, a butchy girl dancing with a very fey boy behind us, and I mused about how difficult it would be for a young woman, coming into her own, seeking her place in the universe, to find herself a lesbian and have her self actualization so hinged to that adjective – she couldn’t exist outside of it – and yet it provides one more layer to separate her from others. T said it was non-negotiable for her. Maybe that is best, when there is no choice, because faced with a choice, how many would go the route of marginalization?