Dangermond.org

I was thinking today how easy it is for us down here in New Orleans to let the moment carry us away and to forget about what just happened and what could happen next. I think I was always a little busy preparing and planning for my future that I didn’t live in my present, and now having witnessed some present unlike any other I’m not sure it is worth planning for a future that I have no control over.

That whole feeling of uncertainty seems to go against the grain of who we are – we are creatures of habit, wanting things like a marriage to the same mate, a child who will progress in the normal stages, a house that is sound, and friends who are reliable. Instead, I’ve been married three times, lost friends when I needed them most, and watched water approach the house that I have made my bedrock.

What about those who lost everything? What about those who had nothing, lost nothing, and now don’t know what to be sad about?

I’m fairly certain that what makes us all cling to this place is we share a tendency towards the romantic, towards the ephemeral, and so tonight with the crescent moon hanging sideways low in the night sky, I know it will be another night of topsy turvy thoughts if I don’t find peace before I sleep.

We woke late as we didn’t really go to sleep until 6am from tossing and turning all night. But I managed to get out to spin class just in time to find out the bikes were all taken. Damn, it was so nice outside I didn’t sweat it. Came home and made pancakes for T and T2 and then we all headed to the French Quarter to enjoy the day.

We ran into the same musicians that had told Tin he could join their band and he stood there in rapt attention watching trombone, trumpet, and tuba all blow their horns. Again he helped the buskers gather more attention than before and people stopped to take his and the band’s photograph and throw tips in their jar.

The day was magnificent and the Mississippi was muddy and mighty and the French Quarter was filled with people out enjoying the day. Jackson Square was table to table with future seers and the moonwalk was packed with the jumping jamming teens working the dollar crowd.

Tin threw a lucky penny in the fountain and then begged for a lucky dog but we opted instead for Stanley’s where he had gumbo and I had an omelete sandwich – yum.

Another beautiful day.

We went out on Saturday afternoon to celebrate our anniversary by being Quarter rats and started at Pravda, a bar that T said she would own if she wanted to change careers. Then we headed over to hear music in the Marigny stopping in at Spotted Cat to see Panorama Jazz Band and then looking into DBA that was waiting for John Boutte to start, and then down to Three Muses, which was also waiting on its act to begin.

Not finding our music groove, we walked back down towards Pravda on Decatur and stopped in for some reflexology – since I had stockings on, I opted for a waist up massage while T got the foot massage. This place reminds of the ones in Shanghai where we’d go get three hour foot massages at midnight and come out transformed. The guy who worked on my back realigned me – he dug deep into areas that felt made of stone and with his elbow and hands he chiseled away until I was almost sweating and in tears, but afterwards I emerged from the bench a new woman. 20 minutes of pain for $22 and wow, I am born again.

He said to me, “Tight, tight, tight.” And I said oh yeah, not anymore.

Then we headed over to Meaux Bar for our dinner reservations and I had a delicious purple yam ravioli with oxtail gravy – yum yum yum. We brought a bottle of Croatian wine, which again was slightly disappointing given how delicious they are there. Jim and Matthew and Debbie treated us like gold, which is why we don’t hardly go anywhere else.

Not ready to head home yet, we stopped in at the Golden Lantern to catch the Ricky Red show and the crowd was definitely revved up. The MC brought us up to ask what we were doing this evening and we said celebrating our anniversary and I said “ten years” because sometimes it feels like that and the crowd applauded nicely.

Then home early – tucked away in bed for another night of no sleep for no other reason than my mind was churning away.

Three years ago, standing on the corner of Mimi’s in the Marigny on Fat Tuesday in the midst of thousands of people in costumes while I was flanked by angels, I saw someone out of the corner of my eye and from that moment on my life has not been my own:

– my journey alone was derailed and I hopped on a train to Wow land that has brought a language I never heard before, places I’ve never seen before, and a relationship I had never conceived before:

and a year ago, my mother became an angel and she scooped up a baby I never dreamed of before to join us and now here we are celebrating our Happy 3rd Anniversary.

\

Whoosh – what a blessed ride!

The other day in court out of 35 potential jurors, 5 were gay. 1 out of 7.

At the Aquarium the other day, 1 in 3 families were blended (black and white, Asian and white, etc.)

The world is turning.

I dreamed last night that Tin was kidnapped – horrific. I had a hard time shaking the dream and realized later that it came from being out earlier and asking a friend to watch Tin while I went in back to reheat his food. That need to not let him out of my sight is embedded in my DNA.

Just like the pelican outside on the bayou this morning, that keeps nosediving into the bayou and coming up with a fish (three so far) – encoded memory.

The water grows turbulent during bad weather, the fish more transparent, the pelicans more greedy, and that underwater feeling of dreams and nightmares where you clearly see the worst that can happen and you are incapable of stopping it no matter how loud I scream in my sleep.

I’ve been working on mind control lately and the reason why is I have tendencies. The one that had me in its grip middle of last year is that my economic future was solely relying on one thing and without that one thing, I would lose everything. This sort of catastrophic thinking comes naturally to me as it goes hand in glove with my type of anxiety. Ruled by the thought that builds on the thought that builds on the thought, I can make an empire out of a mudpie and tear it down just as quickly.

My therapist thought it might be a good idea to put me on drugs but I’m anti-prescription-drug even if it would keep my demons at bay. I sort of like demons that force me to take action. I don’t like sitting around worrying until I am in the fetal position, but I do like thinking or believing that I can reframe the question. What if suddenly becomes so what – which has a mighty feeling to a peon who is just trying to be.

Someone said to me the other day that I put myself in precarious positions. Another friend responded, “Tell us something we don’t know.”

In yoga, the teacher said when we are going down a negative path in our minds, cultivate the other and by example we had all come in shivering from the cold damp weather that cut through our bones and she had us do opening poses – lead with the heart, fly, open those hips in wild thing, and look up, not down.

If every day is a trial by fire to stay the course, to work towards the light, then the opposite would be to turn down the demon voices and cancel them out with a pill – “Anathema,” she says – sing me no lullabies, I want to hear the life in your lyrics, the pain in your licks, the wail in your blow and in turn I will work towards flipping the coin as much as I can.

Last night while Tin was eating his falafel and I was engrossed in a conversation with Tatjana he held up the bitten falafel and said “Crescent Moon!” and sure enough he had bitten it into the shape of a crescent moon.

Blekica (pronounced blech eetz a) and Bam Bam have not gotten along since Blekica moved into the LaLa. Blekica refuses to acknowledge Bam Bam’s tenure here and has made it almost impossible for him to feel comfortable anywhere in the house. So Bam Bam has been trying to either steal into our bedroom at night or stay out on the porch where he can sleep undisturbed because this is what cats do with their lives – they sleep. Meanwhile, the freezing temperatures have changed everyone’s game plan and so there are heaters running everywhere and Blekica has found a nice spot on the new couch on top of the pillow where she can stay warm and relatively undisturbed. Bam Bam decided that he wanted such a place himself and joined her on the other pillow.

To see the two of them in the same room together getting along is a miracle and just goes to show you that when the going gets tough, the tough find a way of getting along.

That pelican I saw in the bayou early October was the harbinger of this bad winter. Thanks fine feathered friend.