Dangermond.org

What happens when Batman throws his trumpet?

Wonder Woman takes it away.

Batman doesn’t like that.

Watch out Batman, Wonder Woman is documenting your life.

I read a while back that Greg Allman had a new album out called Low Country Blues. Seeing how this is my year of austerity and I made a deal with the devil to buy no book and no music, I was in a trick bag. So I found a way out of it. I asked T to buy it for me for my birthday! Genius. I have an affinity for the Allman Brothers music, and my first husband was in prison with Allman, but I’ll say no more about that.

Today I was driving back from the gym and WWOZ played one of the songs off Allman’s new album, I Believe I’ll Go Back Home – listen to John Lee Hooker playing it here. Allman speeds it up just a touch, less bluesy and more R&B – but I liked it – driving home, down Orleans Avenue, which is all tore up, feeling the moist air blowing my hair through the open window of my pick up truck.

These are the moments I live for and I came back home to have them.

Our gym teacher at NOAC has been sick. Real sick. He got the flu last week and went down like a House of Cards, but in his case more like a House of Bricks, because he had been trying to overcome for a week but finally the Flu reared its ugly head and beat him. Meanwhile, us, his tribe of middle aged women sprinkled with a young way too energetic girl and a few boy men who appear now and then, walk into the gym, stare at the sign that says he is still sick and move through the gym as if we had just come out of electric shock.

Wendell does more than move us through exercise class, he inspires us with his smile and jokes, and keeps us moving through the day. My favorite message of his is to turn our minds off and turn our bodies on. I like that since I live in my head way too much to do me any good (or anyone else for that matter).

The first parade of Mardi Gras in our book starts this Saturday night with Krewe du Vieux and the theme this year is 25 Years Wasted. For Tin, who saw Mardi Gras last year for the first time, this will be his real first because it will have his favorite theme: MARCHING BANDS! For adults, it is simply the best parade to kick off Mardi Gras with, hands down. Don Marshall is the king this year and hence the theme, and along with him there will be seventeen subkrewes who will each present their own interpretations of the theme.

Subkrewes include the Krewe of C.R.U.D.E., Krewe of Space Age Love, Krewe of Underwear, Seeds of Decline, Krewe of Mama Roux, Krewe of L.E.W.D., Krewe of Drips and Dis- charges, Krewe of K.A.O.S., Knights of Mondu, T.O.K.I.N., Krewe Rue Bourbon, Krewe de C.R.A.P.S.,Krewe of PAN, Mystic Krewe of Spermes, Mystic Krewe of Comatose, Mystic Krewe of Inane, and Krewe du Mishigas.

And if all this wasn’t enough to tickle your fancy, how about this is the latest Mardi Gras has been in the year in a long time and so we are expecting that the half naked marching people will not be shaking like a leaf but rather shaking their bootys for all the world to see.

Oh joy, Mardi Gras has come at last.

I watched at first with fascination as Dan Happel, Chairman, Madison County GOP, talked to Anderson Cooper (the king of Endymion this year btw) about his bill he wants adopted to protect our country from non-birthers getting elected president. My mouth was agape as the interview proceeded because this guy was truly believing what he was saying – at first I thought it was Alan Abel wantabe proposing this but no, turns out there are members of the Republican party and the whole state of Montana (as evidenced by the fact that Happel was elected by them) who believe that Obama is not a U.S. Citizen and they are trying to make it a LAW in Montana that you are registered as a birther to be truly eligible to serve as a US President.

Makes me wonder who they think populated the U.S. – Indians?

Under Happel’s law, I would not be a U.S. Citizen as my father was born in Havana, Cuba. But never you mind about that because it’s highly unlikely I would get elected as a woman or a Jew to begin with, much less that I don’t meet the criteria of Happel’s birther.

I woke this morning puzzled at how to deal with idiots in general who talk and say nothing. Nothing at all. They exist in a parallel universe where they truly believe they are right and everyone else is wrong (and possibly out to get them). And the only strategy I could come up with to cope with idiots today is the Tao te Ching:

#12

Colors blind the eye.
Sounds deafen the ear.
Flavors numb the taste.
Thoughts weaken the mind.
Desires wither the heart.

The Master observes the world
but trusts her inner vision.
She allows things to come and go.
Her heart is open as the sky.

The plein air painters are back in City Park again and it always makes me happy to see them. I fell in love with this style of painting when my upstairs neighbors in San Francisco were Randall Sexton and Kim Frohsin, two seriously talented painters. Steve and I were lucky enough to get on the ground floor so to speak and buy some of their paintings when they and we were young. When T and I first got together I had Kim draw some nudes of Tatjana that were fabulous and now she is offering this in her studio. Great idea – here’s what her notice said:

PRIVATE SESSIONS!

Beginning this year 2011,

I will draw you, for $350,

in my studio for a 3-hour session
( a short break every 20 min.): you must KNOW
how I draw, already: my gestures and also head studies.

We use a timer, and I begin by drawing gestures (2 minutes), then to 5’s and then 7-10 min. drawings of you , however you want to pose: with or without clothing, or in part, in my private studio in central SF.

Then, at the end of this intensive 3-hour collaboration, you will get all of the work, curated, cleaned and each drawing, signed, as a “portfolio” of yourself, of your Life & Being in that point in time!

I hope you will contact me by email or if you have questions, please just ask!

I have already had many successful sessions. Some folks choose to experience this session as a self-gift, self-challenge, for a lover or loved one, or even for commemorating a pregnancy; it’s a great intimate, creative “portrait”, BEYOND a photograph, to capture the essence of Oneself, so, let’s set a date!

I prefer drawing in the eves, 5-8PM, for this, under direct, dramatic lighting.

I found a Batman shirt with a cape on sale and so today Tin was a super hero.

So I really did naively believe when I was working on the LaLa that I was putting in all the effort (read: money) to not have to have much upkeep throughout the rest of my life here. Well that didn’t work. It has been maintenance maintenance maintenance galore. Today I think the last coat went on the columns and truly, they have never looked more stunning than they do now. Next project Rudy is working on is the dry rot in the same wood that was replaced and repainted last year but we’re doing it via injection and patching instead of wholesale replacement.

The porch steps await and so do the mahogany window frames in front of the house. Oh joy.

Tin’s birthday is around the corner and we’ve decided to keep it rather simple since it happens to fall on Endymion Saturday – the only krewe that marches in our neighborhood. So I picked up the party favors and plates and napkins and it’s all Elmo this year. That is his favorite right now – the magic tricks that Elmo and characters do – the abracadabra and poof!

Last year it was Evan, this year it’s Elmo. You gotta roll with it.

Meditation and yoga have all been about boundaries and of course, that is a pertinent message at this time of year in New Orleans considering it is the time for excess – we refer to king cake weight, to having to take a night off from drinking, to endless contemplation of costumes – sometimes we need to say no right in the thick of things.

Knowing my boundaries has been a challenge because I didn’t think I had any until my body started shouting back and events and people started shifting in ways that felt like armageddon. Boundaries, I’ve had a few, now I need more.

The ability to say no to people, places and things is not one of my strong suits. I’m a yes person. We all know what happens to Ms. Yes – she gets overwhelmed, anxious and then crawls up in a tight little ball and needs a lot of work to get unstrung.

As Carnival approaches, or rather is here, it is best to start thinking in terms of boundaries and limits and how this is an ever changing equation that always needs to be rethought and recalibrated.