Expiration Date
Shine was a big help this morning in helping S and I to assess how to split our assets and what to do about LaLa. It could be that I keep LaLa and S and I are in it as partners that he will benefit from on down the road. Who knows? I found another area of the city that has charmed me – full of cute boys I might add – and musicians and just a little bit of funk the way I like it. There is a house there too. I sat outside on yet another beautiful January day and tried to work while the garbage men came by and broke glass all over the street – left more than they seemed to pick up. I watched a car go down a one-way street the wrong way and then a cute guy came and sat across from me with his laptop. He looked over and smiled a few times and I pleasantly smiled back. Then a woman went by on a bike singing at the top of her lungs – “I always lay down with dogs and wake up with their fleas†– he laughed and I said to him, “story of my life†– and we both laughed. He then came over and asked my name – said I looked so familiar to him. C was his name.
Shine said he wanted to impart something more than just financial advice and that is an old Irish man’s logic – “people come together and sometimes marry and sometimes the marriages don’t work out because all of us have shortcomings and sometimes we even fuck up but the friendship should continue – who knows what happens in the future – you might meet up again in ten years and realize there is something there so maintain your civility towards each other – keep lawyers out of this because they will turn you into annuities.â€
Katrina weary we all are and today I felt the worst of it – tired of the funk in this city where I have no internet, the phones won’t come on for four months, and there is still garbage everywhere you go. J said come to SF for a while till it passes – might be good for your mind. I said I can’t go even though it makes sense to go. The thought of leaving New Orleans creates separation anxiety from home. I felt it in Arlington – I could barely stand another day being away from here.
The other night leaving the gym I stopped for a salad and a girl, N, in my class came in to get one also. I was asking if she knew of an apartment because I need one and she gave me some places and said that she had gone to San Francisco and all she could think about was being home. I asked her what was it about California she didn’t like and she said the people. Here are my people. And I said oh don’t I know that. The minute we arrived to do a reconnaissance during our evacuation I felt I was again among my people. The pull is so strong it makes you long to be here even when here is so utterly hard to live in.
Sometimes the universe answers your prayers. I have been thinking about the adoption issue and bringing more children into my life. My three great nieces/nephew are not in New Orleans – R is in Shreveport and R and J are in Houston – and the distance between us is palpable. Now L is pregnant! So exciting I just burst into tears when mom told me last night. 11 days pregnant. L had called the day I arrived from Bahamas and I missed the call. I hope all goes well as we all know it is sometimes a very delicate balance holding onto a baby in your belly. But L lives here and she knows I am a babysitting great aunt extraordinaire – I simply cannot wait for the baby to get here.
I’m in a mood of incredible optimism today despite the obstacles in front of me. I’m tired from little sleep. I’m weary from no tools to perform my job. I’m hungry because I still can’t seem to find an appetite that satiates me and keep relying on energy bars, which are not living up to their name but sometimes are the only things I can choke down.
I meet with S tomorrow but did not like hearing the sound of weariness in his voice this morning on the phone. When I hear his vulnerability it makes me want to throw a blanket of love around him and insulate him. I’m trying to adhere to all the rules of engagement with everyone these days and it’s tough, fn tough, is all I can say. Lots of rules and little creativity.
N’s spirits are up despite a leaky house under construction, despite the absence of his dear friend G – I told him I miss G humor when he doled one of G’s witticisms to me and N said he did too, welled up just thinking about it. N said he is suffering from Katrina PTS – no concentration and no short-term memory – I said I have permanent Katrina damage. At least he took care of the alien probe marks that showed up on his arms. Nerve damage. Whatever that is. His mother is coming to visit and to see L who she has yet to meet. It’s weird not seeing L after meeting her but I understand the boundaries. The distance some grandparents and grandchildren contend with is daunting– I think of my own grandmother, how much she meant to me, how I still think of her as being in her house right now and yet she hasn’t been around for a few years. My mother still cries when she thinks about her being gone.
J asked me in the Bahamas what went wrong with S and I and I said my ship had too many leaks and his didn’t. The boat metaphor works with J. He has similar issues to contend with but I predict he will not make any rash changes in his life at this point.
I get to pick up W tomorrow and spend the afternoon with him. I am so looking forward to giving him the big conch shell with the ocean sound that I brought back from the Bahamas. A tiny shirt with a seahorse for L.
Mardi Gras is upon us here – purple green and gold. S called to say she may not come for Mardi Gras and meanwhile P called and said he is coming for Mardi Gras. Good and bad news keeps walking in the door arm in arm. S fears she can’t be away from T that long as it encroaches on too long a time apart. Plus her dog Lois had seizures while she was away with me and she is just feeling like she needs to tether herself to home. I so empathize.
Meanwhile another conversation with L whom I have been very hard on because he wants to control the situation with K that is out of control and what he wants to happen seems unrealistic at this juncture. I spoke with K twice in the past two days and she seems resolute in what she wants but it is a hard road to get there and L, I say, needs to be more sympathetic to her pressures. But alas sometimes you know all these things but can’t emotionally get to where you need to be. I so empathize.
Then there is this fantasy that appeared to me yesterday – kissing a man in his truck goodnight and he reaches out with one arm and lifts me physically into his truck, onto his lap, and drives off. It’s a Stanley Kowalski type gesture. It presents a primal man woman connection that wears a groove into my psyche and is unshakeable in how it sings to me. Where did this fantasy come from? What about the fantasy man makes him so utterly desirable and sexy? It makes the Cs of the morning café interlude seem like boys – cubs – sexless – in contrast.