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A friend was railing to me about another friend who rants on a weekly radio talk show and how it has gotten to the point where the two of them cannot have a civil conversation – this observation was spurred on by the recent killings in Tucson and the desire my friend has to change the national rhetoric away from hate and towards compassion. I told her I remember when my brother had his radio program and spoke about sewing up Hilary Clinton’s vagina when Bill was president and how I met people in the streets of New Orleans who were/are ardent fans. I remain puzzled.

I was reading a couple of blogs by guys and thinking about how, back in the day, when I was steeped in the study of literature it was almost a classic delineation of gender to assume a man would write about the external world and a woman the internal world.

Then I linked into another blog and it answered the first question – why do Americans listen to this ranting on the radio? What compels us to want to poison our ears with this toxic waste. Wala – a guided blog entry on where-from comes such toxic waste and why it has gotten locked up in the most moribund and least sexiest venues in America – AM talk radio. Brilliant.

I’ve been doing this series of meditation classes on compassion since last week and today rather than giving ourselves over to helping someone else, it was about taking all that and giving it to yourself. An interesting concept, it was to start with a meditation on something lacking that we wished to have – inner peace, love, you name it there was a whole laundry list to choose from or you could make it up as you went along – because you’re meditating you are only accountable to yourself and can be as pettily selfish or abundantly altruistic as you dared.

Later, when I got home T and I were discussing a friend who spends all over her heart taking care of others – we both latched onto the same theme about her – that she needs to be her own planet, the world needs to revolve around her for a time, because all that giving is out of balance with the universe. And her world is tipping too far in one direction – away from her.

A friend from California who lives here is out west and sent me a text that it feels like home there and that although she loves it here, she misses there. Oh boy. What to do when your heart is one place and your feet another? Been there, done that.

But today I ran out to the bank real quick like and as I waited at the stoplight for the guy on the unicycle to pass by, I looked over at the electrical box on the corner of Orleans and Moss that has the mermaid and the gal sayings all over it such as “what if god sent his only daughter?” and then I drove up to the ATM thinking about this money box that spits out money and remembering the days when there was no money to spit out – dollar bills were priceless.

Later, I saw a sign that said, LOST UNICORN, last seen in Marky Park, $500 reward and I think it said call Carlos. Anyway, I was thinking about that missive from the west coast and I thought I remembered reading about the potential superstorms that would inundate California worse than an earthquake.

I wondered if the Gold Coast was underwater if the federal government would respond differently than they did when the Gulf Coast was underwater and I wondered how the images of Asian and Hispanic faces disoriented, dislocated would sit with the American people who still cannot get over seeing so many black faces disoriented and dislocated in 2005 – the American people probably saw more blacks in one place on television outside of National Geographic episodes on Africa when Katrina was the news. Who knew there were this many blacks in the U.S.? Wait till you see how many Hispanics and Asians are in California – Lord Today.

If you click your heels together and say there is no place like home – do you get to go home? What about all the people who really don’t know where home is to begin with or anymore?

“October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.” ~Mark Twain

I was pondering the course of people and their habits, their not so savory habits. If a guy you know has always been an arrogant asshole, what’s to say he can really change? If a woman you know is narcissistic and selfish, is it possible for her to become something larger than who she has been?

There are all these tenets that we hold dear and one is that people don’t change – but I wonder if that is indeed true. I’d like to think so, but I tend to be one of those people who likes to think so about a lot of things. A friend said she was listening to a radio AM talk show and a guy called in and said, “Well, a leopard can’t change its stripes.”

Whatyagonnado?

We bought as sofa in the Quarter yesterday that was being delivered today and so we moved the bed into Tin’s room along with the bookshelves. He was ecstatic about the new changes and it reminded me of when I was a kid and the room would get upgraded or changed in some way and it always felt like a brand new world.

We have been to the Quarter twice this weekend – yesterday after the St. Augustine event and today to grab breakfast and take advantage of the wonderful weather. We’ve almost decided to make a habit of this as Tin just comes alive when he hears live music – and it always starts at the French Quarter restaurant that is on the tip of Decatur and North Peter. Today that band was as enamored with him and he was with them. The bass player let Tin pluck the strings and put his hand on them while he played. The drum player threw him a little egg maraca to shake and the singer called his name. We then walked over to Jackson Square and heard a trombone and tuba player in front of the cathedral and had to go hook up with them. The trombone player said “Tin is in” and he loved Tin as much as Tin loved his trombone. We ended by watching a band playing on Royal complete with a tap dancer and it made for an awesome day.

Again with all the photographs taken of him playing with the big boys, they should give him a cut because he definitely helps with their tip jars.

It was great walking through the Quarter and dreaming about a future when we might turn our bayou house over to Tin and move into a nice condo in the Quarter. Meanwhile on the subject of found art, someone had thrown away this print and both T and I spotted it but I won out as it has elephants on it, which I collect:

Embedded in Kabbalism is the notion of the rebirth after death; certainly reincarnation is spread across most Indian religions and even in Buddhism there is the notion of the eternal – a stream of consciousness, a collective infinite thought that winds through us all. Tatjana believes my mom has returned though Tin, in the spirit of beauty. His natural beauty mirrors my mother’s, his headstrong defiance shades of her stubbornness, and his general good nature as attractive as her’s once was.

Naturally I fear associations of spirit because I fear the dark sides – the bloodline of addiction, the dangerous romantic vision, the cut off your nose to spite your face donkey-ism.

I truly believe my mom has been reincarnated into Heidi. When Heidi came to us there was something about her that reminded me of my mom. She’s blonde and gorgeous with her permanent black eyeliner applied so perfectly. She’s stubborn to the point of being ridiculous. She’s loyal beyond belief and most always good natured. She’s the strong one in her calmness much like my mother was in our family.

Tatjana is training Heidi to be a therapy dog and she keeps passing her rungs with flying colors. She’ll be visiting nursing homes cheering up those whose lives are mostly behind them where minutes count as years. Much like my mother devoted her life to service in the last two decades of her life. It is no coincidence Heidi will attend to the same patients my mother attended to at the New Orleans Home for the Incurables – if that is not reincarnation, then tell me what is?

I find that these days I either sleep the sleep of the dead where I’m really in deep sleep for nine to sometimes nine and a half hours or I’m up before the crack of dawn listening to the sounds of the house, the noise in my head, and the breathing of three mammals. This morning I couldn’t quell the voices so I got up and went to finish my Sunday paper and watch sunrise on the bayou.

We went to see The Fighter last night – lord today, what a movie – so well done that when they showed the actual real characters at the end, they almost looked to be older versions of Mark Wohlberg and Christian Bale.

The family aspects of this movie hit home – the enmeshed, interconnected, fucked up beyond recognition aspects of being part of an organism that will eat you alive if you try to pull out – it’s like the Borg on steroids – and a little too close to home for me.

When we returned home, the new babysitter was gushing over Tin – how smart he is, how he knows his letters and numbers, and how he performed for her while looking in the mirror the whole time – what a trip he is. Yeah, well, we think he’s great too – when she arrived, she had been our friend and neighbor’s babysitter for years, she had no idea who we were or who our child was – so we watched her eyes widen like a lens as she took in first us – me and Tatjana – and then Tin – and her eyes were spiraling around when we left – but by the time we returned she was so charmed by Tin, I think she noticed less we are middle-aged white lesbians raising a black boy on the bayou and was solicitous of future gigs.