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I moved back to New Orleans in 2005 because I wanted to be by my family. I wanted kids in my life. I wanted to be an aunt, a sister, a daughter. Well, who knows what went wrong with the equation but it’s been good being here with my mom, although whose to say I’m a good daughter. I told J the other day my sole purpose in my mom’s life is to entertain as far as I can tell.

Regaining closeness to my nieces – pishaw – went by the way side. One doesn’t talk to me because of the affair I had in the Pleistocene era (not only did she lambast me saying “she could have been me” but her husband accused me of coming onto him at dinner – as if), another niece is in absentia after I wanted to be involved with her baby girl when she was born – obviously I wanted to be involved more than they had space to give, my two younger nieces are MIA – I chalk them up to busy and bored, my oldest brother and his wife are a no show to every event I have invited them to here at the LaLa. So, I just decided what the hey, I’m here for my mom if she needs me and I’ve been out there aways for so long now on my own, I don’t need siblings or their children to feel whole or connected. Then yesterday I heard my youngest brother has moved back to town with his wife and kids. Who knew? My mother stumbled upon this information and felt slighted.

We were a very close family until my father died and then the enmeshed, quasi cultish group love gave way to “See Ya, Wouldn’t Want to Be Ya” amongst the tribe. Whatyagonnado? I’ve read that families that come from extremes like ours with an autocrat for a father and alcoholism and etc pull apart as everyone tries to find their own way.

I have a niece in Houston – the one who took care of me and twelve others during the evacuation who checks in now and then; I have a niece in college and we’re close in our way, and my brother and his family in Atlanta are in touch now and again and of course, I get letters from my brother in prison, who I feel guilty for not going to visit and who from his lofty cell gets to pontificate about how I have lost my way. As if.

My real family is my mom and girlfriend plus our animals, along with the assorted friends who love me despite my ways. And of course, my family enlarged to include members in Croatia recently.

I ran out for a minute to fedex Flower’s birthday gift and on the way home I clipped a car as I tried to turn left and turned into her because she was in my blindspot. Of course this happened in front of the Green Market and everyone and their mother. So a friend runs over to see if I am okay, but the woman is cursing me under her breath because the hit wasn’t so bad it was trying to disconnect and taking off her entire bumper that was the issue. So then she is blocking traffic because a cop pulls up and tells her to leave her car there and while the entire Green Market rubber necked the proceedings, the exchange of info ensued but wait there’s more – a young woman comes to move her car that is being blocked on one side by the woman I hit and so she has to back up, she asks me if I can back out her giant SUV for her because she can’t – I said you realize I just hit that car – I don’t care she said. Then it was one nutball after another – until finally I gave into the absurd.

Finally got home and there on the porch was UPS with my traveling hula hoop – recall I lost mine when British Airways lost it and all my beautiful clothes somewhere in Heathrow – so right at that moment, I was holding my new hula hoop plus five bottles to bring out to the recycle bucket, and my new neighbor (a nun) who is moving in asks me about recycling, Roy comes out on his porch and says it looks like the back of his car landed in my arms, and then the Mayor of the neighborhood (as we are want to call him) is standing on the bayou asking me where I’ve been.

I introduced the mayor to my new neighbor and he looks at me and I whisper “nun” and he looks at Roy and squints his eyes in disbelief and says, “You got a nun between the two of you! Proves God has a sense of humor.”

Moral of the story – pay attention to the road, more. Recycle. Be nice even when the person you just hit wants to bitch-slap you – it makes a bad situation okay. And always insert a nun between the party people for cushion (despite the fact that I am appalled at the pope right now with his birth control hard on, I am uber fascinated by nuns for some reason). And at the end of the day, you just got to say to yourself sometimes, whatyagonnado?

It’s 9ish and as if on cue this week, the sky is black and is pouring. Oh, but yesterday, when the temperature had finally dropped a little, I took my bike out to the lake for a sunset ride and oh my, I forgot how beautiful the lake can be at this hour. A regatta of boats with brightly colored spinnakers moved across the sparkling lake with the sun setting behind them. Sea birds flew up and down the shores. Couples, families, lone fishermen, and children dotted the landscape enjoying the breeze and the break from the summer heat.

I rode down to Leon C Simon bridge and passed a busload of Baptists who had gone down the lake to pray and one woman seemed to be baptizing everyone, and she waved as if the wave me over – thanks, but no thanks, I called to her as I rode by listening to Marvin Gaye sing, “Let’s Get It On.”

But this morning the grey bayou, the grey light, the grey sky – nothing but greyness greets our day.

Sitting in an internet cafe on the island of Vis in Croatia on Thursday morning – it’s hot outside and the woman is an hour away from plunging into the cool, refreshing waters of the Adriatic. When she is swimming underwater with her goggles, her thoughts will be on the cicadas song and the fat, juicy tomato that awaits her lunch under a pine tree. She’ll come out of the water and dry herself on a large stone baked warm by the Mediterranean sun. And for one fleeting moment, while she is disoriented between land and sea, an image of me will flash in front of her.

To her, I send this poem:

La Vita Nuova

In that book which is
My memory . . .
On the first page
That is the chapter when
I first met you
Appear the words . . .
Here begins a new life

– Dante Alighieri

Everyone thinks of summer and the activities that correspond – licking ice cream cones, swimming, boats, vacations.

Well, make no mistake – summer’s biggest activity is non-activity because it is so hot – and in New Orleans every day is a dog day. This week is an inverse of last week. Last week, we got up every morning and by seven o’clock you couldn’t breathe because the humidity and heat were so high but by one or two in the afternoon a big huge thunderstorm would roll in and make the world more bearable.

This week, we are starting our mornings overcast, a touch cooler, with a thunderstorm around nine in the morning and then the heat begins to surge. And surge. And surge. But since we’ve already had our storm – there is no relief in sight.

Why do violent crimes escalate in the summer? Who has the energy to do anything like kill someone else? I can barely flick a mosquito off my skin.

I have a lot of friends who have signed up for match.com or nerve.com. The way it works is you post a bio, a pic, and select some criteria from pre conceived notions. Then you sift through the flotsam of people seeking the same things as you while you float across countless the radar of unknowns. After which the emailing begins – Hi, I saw your photo on Match/Nerve/J-date and … – ping pong – back and forth the emails go as you learn about a potential partner before you’ve ever even met them.

Pishaw – that’s for pussies.

Try this – mardigras.com – go stand on a corner on Fat Tuesday, spy someone, kiss them fully on the mouth, move in together within a week, make plans for the next 50 years together, travel to a foreign country and meet their family, then start emailing.

It’s summer time and everyone has their mind on vacation in August – alas, I’ve returned from mine so I just smile nicely when someone tells me about the lake they are headed to, the road trip they are taking, the fun they are going to have…….

I will sell my shirt
To buy you a ruin in Vis
Who else has said that?

Friends gave me a CD of Natali Dizdar – a torch singer in Croatia – one of her songs is written by a Croatian musician named Arsen Dedic (there is an accent on the c, so pronounced ch) – he has quite a legacy there for writing killer lyrics.

This is the translation of the song:

I’ll Change You For The Worse One

And although I love you
Unlimitedly
I’ll change you for the worse one
Deliberately
Because your heart is spent
Unfaithfully
I’ll change you for the worse one
Nonchalantly…nonchalantly
I would stay with you because staying with you
Giving you my time
And body that is feeling cold
Is just not worth it
And while I still need you
Somewhat
I’ll replace you with the worse one
Deliberately…deliberately
Because my youth will pass away
And my precious hours
And it would be better to give my happiness to a worse one
And I’ll replace you with the worse one
Everywhere and always
In public
Or illegally

I have had two major dreams of floods – one while I was in Lastovo and one when I got back home – in the first, all of my furniture and animals were walking through water because everything was flooded, in the second a huge wave came over and washed away everything in a flood.

This coincides with my first disaster dream upon arriving to Croatia – it was the burning tower dream and the people leaping from the flames.

Flood Dream Meaning

Psychological Meaning: Water symbolises the emotional side of the unconscious. To dream of a flood or being swept away by water, indicates that you feel emotionally overwhelmed. These dreams also hint at baptism and rebirth. The fertile, nourishing effect of floodwater may be implied. This dream could therefore represent the start of a new phase of life and renewed personal growth.

Mystical Meaning: The story of Noah, the Epic of Gilgamesh and other myths about floods represent a purging that prepares the way for something better. Everything in your life has been swept away so that you may start anew.

Tatjana gave me a poem when we first got together whose final words were “You must change your life.” And I have – I am a woman with a past, and a lesbian now, and hell bent on modifying my lifestyle into the way of the eel.