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Last night, Jazz Fest ended like it always does, with a bunch of people coming over to the house to cheer it being over. Seven gals sat around the porch table with me and we laughed and cut up and had a rollicking good time. The best line from the evening came from a commercial for Oreo Fudge Cremes where the mother says after tasting one, “Shut the front door.” My new favorite expression.

This morning came sooner than it should have and it was all I could do to get it going, but going it got, and I had a productive day until around 2 in the afternoon when Tin was getting out of school. I decided on a no nap plan today and it must have worked because he is sound asleep at 8. Of course, it was downright exhausting, enough so that I was wanting a nap whether he did or not.

All the Jazz Fest guests have left – we had three groups back to back and turning the house around was like a full time job. Now the house is quiet, and Tin and I were able to go out to the front porch to watch the gloaming arrive. And that was nice. A friend wrote later that her brother had died unexpectedly. I feel like we’re entering another of those vortex where all the news is bad news and I’m trying to keep that at bay. Another friend lost her sister unexpectedly just over a week ago. I live with a certain tranquility that my siblings and their offspring and their offspring are all safe and sound and alive – I’d like that to continue.

My favorite part of today, was putting a few disciplinary actions in place and following through on them. Breaking habits, starting new ones. The stuff that makes the day to day work smoother. Not the stuff that dreams are made of.

OUT
Cigarettes – my one month smoking adventure has come to the butt end.
Jazz Fest – it has jumped the shark for me.
Facebook – taking a hiatus again – it is starting to feel like daytime television occupying too much of my time.

IN
Focus
Saying NO to just about everything and everyone
Reading

This is the last day of Jazz Fest and the last day of the internal chaos that has formed from IT not being like it used to be, ME not being like I used to be, and certainly no one would look to whether going to the Fest and having a good time as a sign of the times, but I will look through that lens if only for a moment. I think I’m done with Jazz Fest or at least done with the Brass Pass that gave me entry to all that music, food, crafts, and what used to be utter enjoyment and excitement. Now I can’t wait for it to be over.

The reason – I think I’ve come to crave intimacy from music more than I ever have in the past. I like those solitary moments when I’m enjoying music as its wafts over and through me, and the idea of sharing that experience with 100,000 people who are eating fried food in the hot sun while trying to keep vigilant watch over a 3-year-old is, uh, I don’t know, passé.

I’ve missed everyone’s Jazz Fest party this year – I even cancelled a babysitter I had miraculously lined up for last night when I had hoped to attend a friend/neighbor’s bigger than big backyard bash. Why? Because I simply don’t have the energy or the wherewithal to show up and be present.

I instead finished The Power of Habit which I had been reading and decided to skim that last two chapters because it had become boring and repetitive. There is nothing new (or at least not in that book). Yes, we are all habit and tomorrow I’m kicking one – this smoking gig that I’ve been on since my hair started falling out. Even that has grown tiresome.

Tomorrow I intend to start new habits – and begin my new life in not a wholesale shedding of my past life, but in a way that pleases me.

I thought about this long and hard on my terrace last night staring at the Super Moon. I had gone out to the bayou to watch it rise above the oak trees and in seeing it come while listening to my Puerto Rican friends strumming and drumming, I realized that my issue is one of presence absence. I find it hard to be here, because I’m always there. So as this big round honey hued orb began staking its claim in the night’s inky sky, I realized that even the moon sheds its past while renewing itself every 30 days. So much for the 10 year cycles that had been coloring my life.

A new moon carrying its own stark beauty, less dominance, more mystery, will be rising soon. This morning I flipped through the New York Times – boring, not interested, expensive and ridiculous, oh so yesterday, and I was struck by how MEH is the tone of my season. The week ahead has work to be done, a session with yet another friend turned life coach, a making of new habits, and also a chance to get it right, again.

I take back everything I said about him being cute. I just went down there and scrubbed the walls that Tatjana had so lovingly painted with a beautiful umber color. I was scrubbing the shit that he had taken out of his diaper and spread all over the wall. Yes, folks, this is real life in technicolor.

So much for Jazz Fest, so much for rest, so much for whatever. I’m done. Shit undoes me.

My captor is a 3-year-old who again won’t nap, but who needs to desperately. He was falling asleep in his tracks until he got to his room and then suddenly his evil twin Skippy came out to play. Jazz Fest sounds waft through the air and here we are, in a battle royale called nap wars.

The last threat is we won’t go to Jazz Fest unless you stay in your bed – so guess who is punished – MOI!

If he wasn’t so damn cute, why I oughta…..

This is him after a nap yesterday that I fought tooth and nail to get him to take – he’s happy – see:

This is him this morning practicing his routine with Louis Armstrong:

This is this afternoon having watermelon with his friends:

I’m an utter failure at getting him to nap – what to do? Pull out my hair – aw shucks, no can do, none left to pull. He’s literally doing my Zumba routine from this morning’s class standing on his bed.

At the beginning of this year I had a creative spurt so strong I was scaring myself. I looked around and saw so many endeavors, businesses, ideas, I was on fire – most of these ideas centered on other people’s businesses. And then I hit a lull when my hair fell out but this is only a reorganization (truly). One thing for sure is in looking around I am beginning to see creative spirits on the ascend. Take what Anne Flournoy is doing with Louise Logs – minute episodes following a character who embodies a woman’s sole desire for self actualization, a mission close to my heart. I read that YouTube is making alliances with film producers in their quest to find original content to fuel the rise of online video (outside of consumer generated content). Anne is a pioneer in the webcom genre and I expect more will follow in her footsteps very soon. If you are not already tuned to this YouTube channel, check it out.

I think if you surround yourself with creative minds, you flourish. I saw this when I lived in San Francisco and most of my friends were painters, writers, architects.

I lay in bed this morning cataloging:

Bayou St. John Conservancy – a one stop entity that pulls together all of the organizations that have an interest or authority over Bayou St. John. [reader – an amazing number of orgs claim authority but hardly any can claim responsibility).

Ford Motor Company – don’t won’t to give away my idea here, but personalizing their story through webisodes. I already have a treatment for the first one.

My friend Beth who owns a wine store, she’s a fabulous cook and I thought she should create a pop-up food kiosk in her store for prepared foods (a big trend) that could lead to food products sold online and through other groceries – Beth’s Delights.

Video phone messages – someone should create the ability to film yourself leaving a message, which takes away the angst of trying to text on those bitty screens, is still not simply a voicemail, and gives people the ability to see someone’s gestures, which highly personalizes the message.

Girlfriend’s App – know those times when you are in a drive by shopping mode and you try something on and would kill to have your best girlfriends in the dressing room with you? The Girlfriend App – you take a shot of the outfit and quickly disseminate it to your gal pals and get instant feedback (buy, no buy).

Tin for Tots – this is an ongoing dream of Tatjana and mine, to have a bus to drive around and park on Saturday mornings to read to kids whose mothers are harried and don’t have time or the wherewithal to read to them – delivered with healthy snacks.

Patsy’s Pet Heaven – a place for unwanted animals named after my mother.

and so on and so on. Once you are in an environment that supports creativity, it flourishes. I often quote Flannery O’Connor’s “habit of art” mantra, and so it was last night in reading The Power of Habit, which Tatjana got me, that had this one sentence that stopped me – “Sometimes people need a jolt … . It gave us a chance to reexamine everything.” and once a sense of crisis grips a business, everyone becomes more open to change.

Most of who we are is from habit, most of who we are can be changed, but it ain’t easy. Most of us follow change, but I’m most interested in those who are pioneering change.

Tin just turned three but naps that were so programmed have become a battleground. He came home today early from school with his sitter, catching me trying to get the groceries done before but no dice. Turns out he was sick, had had diarrhea in his pants and began taking them off and got that all over his bed etc. You know the drill – any of you mothers out there. But since he had crawled in his bed himself, I set about cleaning everything up and changing him, the bed, me and then putting him down for a nap. Deep breath.

Then it started, the usual ritual, he is pulling everything he has out of the toy box and shelves, jumping on the bed, sticking drumsticks in the a/c grate, tearing the curtain off the door.

THREATS
YELLS
MEDITATION

Nothing working. So I went online and read that most children give up their naps at 4 years of age, although some start earlier. However, the children who do nap well are taller, have no issues with weight, and all sorts of lovely things. Only they don’t talk about the parent who every *(^*^#$# afternoon enters this nap battleground knowing that the child needs a nap, but won’t take one.

The solution – nap cages. Yes, since they are no longer in a crib, and they can easily roam the room destroying everything in sight, nap cages are the only solution.

Look for my patented product to be on the market as soon as I get over my lethargy.

A friend corrected me – the Super Moon is tomorrow night. And so I went online to read about it and the first link was from Fox News and since I would never even repeat anything that Fox News said I was going to go to another link when I spotted what Fox News reported – the notion of people doing weird things just because it’s a full moon is folklore – um, earth to the Murdochs – you have strayed from the path, you must relinquish all your earthly goods and seek guidance.

There is a super moon rising tonight. My friend text from Florida saying to go out on the bayou and have a moon party. I’ve been feeling pulled in many directions and now I know why – a super moon.

Tin came home from school having had diarrhea in his pants and is now with a sore throat and under the covers in bed. Jazz Fest – don’t think so.

Deep breath.

It’s Jazz Fest time, usually my favorite time of the year, and I’m a bit crabby or disinterested or both. Hard to say. My usual friendships feel abrasive, the crowds at Jazz Fest too excessive, and yet I’m humbled by what really pleases me these days. I’m ready to set up the family pool in the backyard and have afternoons of just hanging, chilling, and being contained in our postage stamp of a yard. But right now all of Rudy’s scaffolding and pipes and whatnots are packed into the yard, stored there from not finishing the work on the columns and now waiting for the Fest to be over to begin again. They will be gone soon and with them the Jazz Fest and with that hopefully this malaise.

Music always soothes my soul.

Tatjana left for her two weeks in Croatia to see her mom. And already the house is quiet. The dogs are on alert knowing the one who really cares for them has flown the coop.

My neighbor mowed our stretch of bayou today. It just makes the rest of the bayou look like a jungle. A neighbor wrote to the Times Picayune about the fact that the City failed to cut the grass for the Fest. It really looks like hell. Shame on the City. This was a real fall through the crack moment for them because if you add up all the money that the Fest brings to this City, well it’s a shame.

I went outside on the back steps and stared at the beautiful flowers – the Vitex, the Abutilon, the kitty whiskers, the native hydrangeas all blooming so pretty. A humming bird was attacking the Vitex like it was a free buffet.

Brass pass in hand, and here I sit sort of swimming in a sea of false starts.