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I woke this morning entirely too early and with a conflict. I realized that the road into my brave new world was being paved by the same toxic waste that had clouded the past three plus change years of my life and so I said to myself, FUCK THAT. And so it is that from the time I woke up way too early till the time I sat here to write this I became more of me, more of who I am, and more willing to keep moving forward on my own terms.

I had phone calls with a few people that are close to me and two spontaneous visits and through all of these myriads conversations, I realized that at the end of the day, you need only be true to yourself.

Then I saw Johnny Depp on Actor’s Studio and he basically summed up my today experience – bravo Johnny, there is a reason why I’ve always loved you.

It’s what the Spaniards call the madrugada, that darkness before dawn, on the bayou and I see the lights from the street lamps and porches reflected in the inky black ripples of the bayou. I can see down Grand Route St. John and it appears that two houses have Christmas lights so bright, I’m shocked anyone can sleep there.

I was in a meeting where I saw a plan to put a three deep grove of swamp cypress right in front of the LaLa and I was like, um, I don’t think that I like that. People make plans and don’t vet them through the people who will be impacted by them. This irks me.

Last night I received a giant tin of gingerbread from a big German colleague of mine, it was signed simply, WEINER, an inside joke that has been so long running, it’s hard to remember when it started. As much as I’ve been trying to get myself back on track, those damn gingerbreads are the best I’ve eaten so I ate one too many and now that is why I can’t sleep and why I’m up typing and looking at the darkness outside.

A friend sent me a link yesterday that took me down memory lane, but the problem with looking backwards is that it always brings up bourbon and regret. And as I await the day’s dawning, the problem with looking forward is that it is always tinged with anxiousness. What woke me was Tin coughing even though I had put the humidifier in his room before he went to sleep because he’s getting a cold. But then what really woke me was my right palm was itching like mad – money it portends – someone is going to give me money.

Yesterday, I perhaps picked up my second client for my new business, so in all honestly I’m not thinking about money even though that in and of itself is a mystery. I am thinking instead of a Hanukkah party that I’d like to have on the last day – this coming Tuesday – which we do every year – only this year, we can’t afford to pay for a musician, and we can’t afford much else about it. A neighbor said make it a potluck, but I tend to dislike potlucks for some reason that I myself don’t understand.

And then it hit me, while I was getting up, and getting my tea, and sitting down to write as I look out on the dark bayou, what part can I play in stopping the violence in New Orleans so that another innocent child isn’t killed by shots fired in some atavistic turf war. Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world, I say, but make it this place, and this world.

A ring, and I don’t mean on the phone, I mean the foreskin ring – I wonder if Jews could get past this criteria and move into enlightenment, banishing circumcision from its repertoire?

It’s 74 degrees outside in the middle of December, and two people just went running by the LaLa scantily clothed. The sun isn’t shining yet, because it’s been cloudy – meaning the humidity makes you want to remove any scant clothes you do have.

A biker went by in bright orange muscle shirt and shorts. Seagulls are hovering around the bayou. A man with a white short sleeved shirt walks down the sidewalk across the bayou, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

More seagulls.

Birds are chirping up a storm in the backyard as if it were a spring day.

Across the bayou I see neighbors’ holiday lights twinkling and the Christmas trees inside lit up. It’s December and we should be erecting palm trees with lights not evergreen spruce.

Appearances aren’t always trustworthy – from inside the house, the grey skies and bare trees suggest a winter landscape, outside its humid and warm and feels more like an early summer day.

More birds come. Another biker in a tank top.

My bare feet on the cool wood floors.

If you didn’t read the papers or listen to the news you would mistake this for paradise, but my email blast yesterday from Silence is Violence said they are raising funds for nine families who have children (20 years old to 2 years old) killed or injured by a bullet recently.

The birds are circling.
The souls are hovering around.
Boys with guns are here.

A Louisiana brown pelican just threw open its wide wing span and looked down at its prey below the surface of the water. The fish eyes only see sideways, they don’t look up.

I’ve been bitching about the fact that I haven’t felt well and so I haven’t been to the gym or to yoga for going on nearly two months now. It’s sorta crazy seeing how I’ve been to the gym for years now and to go two months is really gnarly. I tried on a size 12 dress today and it was snug in the hips. Blech. Double Blech.

It ain’t good – no not good at all. So while I’m sitting here not going to the gym, and not dieting, my waistline that was already in peril is expanding. And so I am vexed. I’m vexed because nowadays to go to the gym 5 to 7 days a week plus walk the dogs ONLY helps me maintain – it doesn’t buy me a lithe muscular body, it just maintains. HOW BORING IS THAT?

But not going to the gym, well that’s a different story, now I’m just sitting here swelling up like a poison dog and then what? A size 12 dress is snug in the hips. Good grief.

I noticed that 38,000 people visited my blog this year so far and I wonder if at the end of the day, they have anything to say about someone who should take responsibility for her own body, but who doesn’t, who just sits here feeling like I’m damned if I do, and tripled damned if I don’t. Bah humbug.

The weather outside is delightful – I mean balmy sunshiny goodness and perfect for some awesome porch hanging. I spent the morning with a friend catching up and getting inspired. Then I came home and walked around the bayou with Tin and our neighbor and the dogs – it was such a fabulous day and it is the reason why we live here!

Yesterday, before the 49ers won and stole back the 2nd position, someone place a dozen black and gold flamingos in front of the entrance to City Park with signs that said SAINTS WIN.

You just gotta love the who dat spirit here in New Orleans.

The night we asked Evan and Nina over to ask them to be Tin’s godparents, Evan brought Tin a clarinet he had purchased for the mouthpiece. He had intended to make a lamp out of the body of the instrument but then when he saw it there in his house he knew that Tin would just love to have this real instrument, so he gave it to him.

Evan didn’t know that night we were going to ask him to be Tin’s godfather, so it was serendipity that he chose to bring the clarinet with him.

Now Tin dreams of Clarinet Road and tries as hard as he can to sleep as close to the clarinet as possible. Last night, someone asked Tin who his favorite musician is and he said, “Louis and Evan!” Good company, the person said.

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah and the menorahs are all out of their box and ready for action. A past love of mine hated my tradition and when we split up he told his friend, “Thankfully no more Hanukkah!” It’s really hard to find nostalgia for something you don’t know from your own childhood.

Hanukkah is my childhood and it will be Tin’s as well along with an amalgam of other traditions that are becoming ours.

Hanukkah is the story of a miracle, of how good triumphs over evil, and how sometimes when it is the darkest, the light is about to shine.

Tin is obsessed with cuddling at night and so we cuddle. We cuddle and he tells me stories like the one about how I was walking down the street and then came an alligator and he had big teeth and I started moving back and forth and I fell out the window but the elephant watched as I played the piano.

I realized as we cuddled last night (ahem, after the 15 minute tantrum meltdown from toddler hell) just how small he really is. He is so small and yet his brain is going a million miles a minute pulling from all his experiences to try to create the narrative of his life.

So far that story has a lot of alligators and instruments in it, and his best buddies Zebra, Evan the alligator and Leonardo figure prominently in most activities. Neno Medo gets kicked to the curb a lot and Nina the turtle is often left on the sidelines.

I keep thinking he is going to get it very soon here – that you can’t jump on the bed, you can’t pull the shade off the window, that you can’t dive off the table nor stand on it. I am watching and waiting.

But what I fear is that by the time he gets it, the cuddles will go too.