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A friend was telling me about an experience she had had recently, not a good one, and I thought that maybe she had to have that experience to understand why she shouldn’t have that relationship. I quoted Flannery O’Connor to her, well last night I ended up quoting O’Connor again as I discussed with a guy how television is about to morph into being more blockbuster than subtle script stories. He loved the quote and here it is:

When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock, to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures.

We get a kick out of reading this classic tale to Tin and my friend got a kick out of it because Tin has two mothers. She thought it was hysterical. But there is one thing that is tried and true – you know who your mother is no matter what the circumstances. I watched a P&G commercial from the Olympics yesterday that was called Thanks Mom and like all good television spots, I cried.

When I arrived at the conference I was handed a card with a name on it, the woman at registration said, “This is your contact should you need anything.” I laughed – it was my cousin’s daughter. And when I saw her I couldn’t believe how she had morphed from looking like her dad to looking very much like her beautiful mom:

An entire day of consuming media by media people was finished with jelly beans and Shiraz – to say that I had nightmares last night would be an understatement, particularly an angel grabbed me from behind and would not let me go and I pulled and pulled and pulled towards my escape.

Today sitting through the final session when the woman said to do some self-reflection and find out who you really are, I realized I needed to take the time to do that – to be the future. Alan Kay said, “In order to predict the future, you have to invent it.”

Is it possible to get back innocence? Only if you accept that you don’t know much still and that your whole life awaits you – it gets harder to do this at 51 plus, but it’s worth aiming for. Today I walked through the airport and had many flashbacks to people and places that have been in my life and I felt suddenly crowded by competing thoughts – wait was that with this person or that person, do I feel slighted or okay with that, am I over this and past that? I was reeling in the years and trying to push the thoughts back out again, and then for some reason all of these clamoring thoughts in my head found repose without me even trying. Then I saw my horoscope while sitting in the hotel room in Orlando listening to the incessant sound of gleeful fireworks and drums going on at Disney World (somewhere near by).

October 13, 2010

1. Taurus (4/20-5/20)

   Today turn most of your attention to people who have a link to your past — reminiscing and remembering can be a wonderful way to reaffirm the path you’ve been traveling so far. The ground you’ve already covered included some breathtaking landscape, and it may still hold ideas about where you should point yourself for an exciting future — so take a look back and enjoy the view. Think about what you miss from way back when and try to get that back into your life today.

Hair is important to me. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know how to do a damn thing with my hair but I will pay the bucks to get it blow dried and I will pay the big bucks to have the best guy I know do my hair. I’ll never forget sitting in Edith Morris’ office when we were going to adopt the first child – a girl – and the 20 year old daughter of the birth mother said, “What if it is a girl?” Which caused us all to do a double take. “And your point?” was going through each of our minds. “How would you do her hair?” I told her I would figure it out, hire someone, whatever it took but I would take care of her hair.

And then I learned about black hair and about black hair culture and black hair pride and it’s a long and convoluted tale but I can tell you that 20 year old girl was right – you better know how to deal with hair. I’ve figured out how to deal with my own wavy dry hair and so I know the importance of it all.

Tin’s hair is growing out and we are using Ms. Jessie’s Buttercream which has been great for his dry curls. We wash once a week and in the bath I comb through conditioner to get all the knots that happen during the week. But his hair is looking good these days thanks to me and Ms. Jessie and so is mine thanks to my team – Scott for cut and color, Amy and Joe for blowdrys with occasional fill ins by Andrea.

It takes an army of products and people to get our hair looking so effortless! Ha.

So most everything I am looking at these days is being churned and burned by the internet and its culture of free which basically unraveled the music industry, and is about to chew its way through the publishing industry, let’s just not even get started with the media industry or the entertainment industry. So on the flight here to Orlando I had this radical thought (for me). I was reading my Real Boys book and listening to how schools don’t have the right curriculum for boys (instead they are diagnosing them as ADD by the bucket loads and prescribing them Ritalin – a really potent drug) and that’s not to say they are serving girls either but the attention has been placed there and since mothers do more with the schools and sympathize more with girls – that’s where the attention will be for the time being and anyway I had this thought of running out to the woods and just home schooling Tin to live on on the land and off the grid. And I thought WTF, maybe it is not such a bad thing that the internet is slowly but surely destroying all of our business models. Maybe you don’t need a real estate agent if you can just post your house and do a video walk through online and negotiate the legal documents from what you download? Maybe the fact that I’m in this sterile hotel room in Orlando (read: end of the world) but can Skype for free from my computer and see my partner and son and dogs and cats roaming around my dining room this evening and tell them I love them (and there is no conference company that has been able to even come close to the ease of use of Skype and it’s FREE) and maybe this is all not so bad.

Maybe we have all gotten so caught up with the idea of getting and spending that a life where things are free like communication and technology and words and history and medical information is not a bad thing.

Instead of resisting let’s all join the movement to free – we’re doing our part by giving away what we don’t use or need to charity, not selling it in a garage sale or on Craig’s list. Now we just have to figure out how to live for free – anyone know of a way to magically rid yourself of a mortgage?

I arrived in Orlando to the Shingle Creek Resort – lovely place – ahem. On my way to the airport, I stopped at the store on Metairie Road where friends had bought a bowl for Tin – it is a bowl that sticks to the table and it is invaluable for a little boy who likes to upend his bowls that don’t stick to the table. When I got back in my car I noticed a smell and thought some piece of rotten fruit was lodged under the seat. I had found a peach after a week from going to the farmer’s market so suspected that was the case again. But alas, no fruit. Then I boarded the plane and sat smooshed between lady to the left and boy to the right. After we were flying for a bit, I took out the sandwich that T had prepared me – WHOA – hard boiled eggs and Scharfe Maxx cheese on ciabatta – delicious but odoriferous. I worried about my row mates but lady on the left proceeded to cough, sneeze and wheeze her way through entire flight and the boy had such large head phones on that his entire left side of his face was covered. So I just enjoyed my way through the delicacy.

Then I arrived in Orlando where I’ve been bombarded by Mickey since arriving. I got to my “resort” hotel and one of the best perks of covering media is that the conferences at least have celebrity status – Leanne Rimes was entertaining the troops as I got here. But sadly, I got to the room at the end of a long journey through Wing 1, Wing 2, Wing 3, Wing 4 and finally arrived at lonely Wing 5 to find myself in a room that looks like it could be anywhere in the world and yet nowhere.

On the morning I am getting ready to leave for a business trip, the house seems large and cozy at the same time, there is always a special light in the front room and my bed looks luxurious and inviting, and Tin is a perfect angel who I made breakfast for this morning – three eggs, two pieces of toast, apple and milk and he ate like a champion. My partner is running around on tippy toes in a pair of tropical capris I bought her on another trip as if she is the air itself. The bayou is pristine with the sunlight dancing off the small ripples the light breeze is causing. Yes, and I’m headed to Orlando – blech.

I am a lousy photographer, don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t stop me from taking photographs all the time. Similarly, I’m a lousy singer, but it doesn’t stop me from singing at the top of my lungs. A friend of mine took calligraphy for many years and sucked at it, but I still enjoyed getting her wobbly handwritten notes, and she loved doing it and admitted she was bad at it. See it doesn’t really matter how good you are at something like people who don’t dance because they say they don’t dance well – you dance because you have to. I want photographs of my life (which in and of itself is a good thing since at one point when I thought I’d never have children I asked why bother taking photos when no one will care about them in the long run and a friend so poignantly told me, you care about them now, that’s enough), but the point is we all have many talents and that doesn’t mean we should only play in that sphere, we are free to do anything.

I love that we named Tin, Tin. And I love that it comes from Constantin, which represents the birthplace of my grandparents as well as Tatjana’s great grandfather’s name. I love the name Dangermond, it wasn’t mine, it was Steve’s, but I kept it and now it’s mine and it’s my son’s. I love that people are giving their kids such interesting names – around the hood I’ve met Atticus, Angus, Briggers, and our friend’s son is Golden, after him. He was at Gal Holiday on Sunday and took these wonderful photos of Tin – Tin and I were dancing and I even tried to shoot of a movie of him dancing alone but he quit dancing when I took out my camera (typical) and his teeth were bothering him so much he had his hand halfway down his mouth, so we gave him a binky, and Golden was taking photographs of his son with this big honking camera lens and caught these of Tin – who looks like a Binky Action Figure. Thank goodness someone is a good photographer.

It has been so dry here in New Orleans that the worms curled up and died right beside the garden. Even the rosemary was looking peaked. So out of the blue it started raining tonight and there was a welcome relief felt palpably in the air. Hopefully it will dust off the trees and fences and give us a little bit of clean fresh air for tomorrow.